Counterinsurgency on the Ground in Afghanistan. How Different Units Adapted to Local Conditions
Abstract
It was not until the fall of 2009 that counterinsurgency became the centerpiece of US strategy in Afghanistan. Yet coalition troops have been fighting an insurgency there since at least 2003, before the outbreak of violence in Iraq and the development of the new Counterinsurgency Field Manual. Soldiers and Marines in Afghanistan made many mistakes. But they also employed many sound practices learned through hard experience. This book captures some of those practices and the unique conditions under which they were developed. Military units that deployed to remote areas of Afghanistan learned to operate in an unfamiliar environment-a desperately poor, war-torn agricultural society with no functioning government or modern economy, its population dispersed across thousands of tiny villages cut off from one another by unforgiving terrain with virtually no infrastructure. Coalition troops in Afghanistan found themselves fighting a politically astute, rural insurgency tied closely to the population. The political problems driving the violence were exceedingly opaque, complex, and localized.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Nov 01, 2010
- Accession Number
- ADA533649
Entities
People
- Jerry Meyerle
- Jim Gavrilis
- Megan Katt
Organizations
- Center for Naval Analyses