Deciphering Shades of Gray: Understanding Counterinsurgency
Abstract
There is a current trend in the United States Army, advocated by some officers, that population-centric counterinsurgency (COIN) theory should be the sole focus of their intellectual pursuits. Nicknamed COINistas by friend and foe alike, COINistas concern themselves with how and why insurgencies emerge. While this trend is understandable considering their numerous deployments in counterinsurgency environments, from an academic perspective they are narrowly focused and tend toward formulaic solutions. This means that they use their battlefield experience combined with recent and shallow knowledge gleamed from several popular counterinsurgency studies to produce a simplified "strategy" for the current fight.1 The problem with this "solution" is that it overlooks the true complexity of the counterinsurgency fight by fixating on finding a simple solution. Our proposal is that there is a better way to understand counterinsurgency that will benefit the United States Army and the nation. The Army as an institution and these experienced and valiant, noble officers must incorporate more history into their critical thinking and study of insurgencies.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- May 09, 2011
- Accession Number
- ADA546436
Entities
People
- Jon Mikolashek
- Sean N. Kalic
Organizations
- United States Army Command and General Staff College