Several COIN Links

SWJED · #1 12-30-2006

Learning from Iraq: Counterinsurgency in American Strategy - Steven Metz. US Army Strategic Studies Institute monograph, December 2006. While the involvement of the United States in counterinsurgency has a long history, it had faded in importance in the years following the end of the Cold War. When American forces first confronted it in Iraq, they were not fully prepared. Since then, the U.S. military and other government agencies have expended much effort to refine their counterinsurgency capabilities. But have they done enough?

Counterinsurgency - U.S. Army Counterinsurgency Field Manual, FM 3-24 and Marine Corps Warfighting Publication 3-33.5.

Counterinsurgency Reader - Military Review, October 2006. This volume compliments the new Army / Marine Corps field manual on counterinsurgency operations. As the new doctrine explains, the conduct of counterinsurgency operations is a "graduate level" endeavor, full of paradoxes and challenges and different in many ways from conventional military combat. The editors have designed the this collection of selected articles from Military Review to help leaders develop the understanding needed to prepare for the responsibilities they will shoulder leading America's sons and daughters in counterinsurgency operations.

Twenty-Eight Articles: Fundamentals of Company-level Counterinsurgency - David Kilcullen. Your company has just been warned for deployment on counterinsurgency operations in Iraq or Afghanistan. You have read David Galula, T.E. Lawrence and Robert Thompson. You have studied FM 3-24 and now understand the history, philosophy and theory of counterinsurgency. You watched Black Hawk Down and The Battle of Algiers, and you know this will be the most difficult challenge of your life. But what does all the theory mean, at the company level?

Counterinsurgcy Redux - David Kilcullen. Counterinsurgency is fashionable again: more has been written on it in the last four years than in the last four decades. This is heartening for those who were in the wilderness during the years when Western governments regarded counterinsurgency as a distraction, of interest only to historians. So it is no surprise that some have triumphantly urged the re-discovery of classical, “proven” counterinsurgency methods. But, this paper suggests, some of this enthusiasm may be misplaced.

SWJED · #2 12-30-2006

The Small Wars Journal Counterinsurgency / Insurgency page in our SWJ Library.

We try to keep this fairly current and have links to MCG articles that are available on the web and under an agreement with the Gazette we have posted anew.

Moreover, we have researched and begun to identify articles that may be of relevance in the Gazette's extensive article archive. Articles addressing COIN in Vietnam are of particular interest, especially those that address theory, doctrine, TTP, CAP and CORDS. Here are a few examples of what Gazette authors from the past have to offer up:

Counterinsurgency: "A Realistic Appreciation" - Captain Robert Aspry, USMC. Marine Corps Gazette article, April 1963.

An Interview with Bernard Fall - Sergeant Roy Johnson. Marine Corps Gazette article, April 1967. Text of a taped interview with Dr. Fall shortly before his death 12 February 1967.

An Afternoon with Bernard Fall - LtCol W. G. Leftwich reprinted from Marine Corps Gazette, February, 1969.

The link to the SWJ library also contains papers and thesis from the "Iron Majors" at CSC...