Quote:
Originally Posted by Bilge_Rat
okeydokey. 
Back on topic, I am not sure the article has the right focus. The COIN doctrine used by the U.S. in Afghanistan and Iraq, i.e.: provide security, hunt for insurgents, push for reforms is tried and true and based on historical precedents.
For a long time, during Vietnam and especially afterwards, there was a strong resistance in the U.S. Army to being dragged into COIN warfare. Many thought the primary job of the Army was to fight conventional military forces, such as Iraq 1991.
Petraeus did not revolutionise COIN, he merely codified it and legitimised it to the point where it is now accepted as in the U.S. Army playbook. Iraq and Afghanistan do not show that the COIN playbook does not work
The article seems to focus more on whether the Iraq and Afghanistan wars were worth it, which is a different topic altogether. |
Did you read the same article?
"Colonel Meese***8217;s opposing argument is that warfare cannot be divorced from its political, economic and psychological dimensions ***8212;
the view advanced in the bible of counterinsurgents, the U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual that was revised under General Petraeus in 2006. Hailed as a new way of warfare (although drawing on counterinsurgencies fought by the United States in Vietnam in the 1960s and the Philippines from 1899 to 1902, among others), the manual promoted the protection of civilian populations, reconstruction and development aid."
In other words they are using the same playbook and why bother discussing it when we already know that we are leaving just lie we did in Vietnam we already set the date all the insurgents must do is wait until that date they can more or less do nothing but harass us until then and say bye bye when we leave and then take over the country.That is a failure of COIN.
If you can not or are unwilling to commit to a CION effort which may take decades then do not get involved in the first place when by dong so you let the insurgency win because you set a date for when you will be leaving.