Making Revolutionary Change: Airpower in COIN Today

Abstract

What a difference a year makes. The idea that airpower would be playing a critical role in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars would hardly have been predicted in December 2006, when the Army and Marine Corps issued a completely revised - but airpower "lite" - counterinsurgency (COIN) manual commonly known as Field Manual (FM) 3-24.2 Complimentary reviews appeared in unlikely venues such as The New York Times Book Review.3 What seems to have captured the imagination of many who might otherwise be hostile to any military doctrine were the manual's much-discussed "Zen-like" characteristics, particularly its popular "Paradoxes" section.4 This part of the manual contained such trendy (if ultimately opaque) dictums as "sometimes, the more force is used, the less effective it is" and "some of the best weapons for counterinsurgents do not shoot."5

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jun 01, 2008
Accession Number
ADA490505

Entities

People

  • Charles J. Dunlap Jr.

Organizations

  • United States Army War College

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Air Platforms
  • C4I
  • Human Systems
  • Materials and Manufacturing Processes
  • Sensors
  • Space
  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Afghanistan Conflict
  • Air Force
  • Air Power
  • Aircrafts
  • Asymmetric Warfare
  • Doctrine
  • Fixed Wing Aircraft
  • Military Organizations
  • Military Science
  • Munitions
  • Satellite Guided Weapons
  • Security
  • Synthetic Aperture Radar
  • Terrorists
  • Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
  • War Colleges
  • Warfare

Readers

  • Educational Psychology
  • Military History of the United States in the 20th Century.
  • Military and Counterinsurgency Studies.