A Literature Review Wrong Turn America's Counterinsurgency

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A key term to discuss is counterinsurgency. I found it interesting that prior to the 1950s; COIN theorists from France and Britain used the term counter-revolutionary warfare, whereas due to the context of America’s revolutionary history the U.S. wanted to change the name to counterinsurgency. With the advent of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a unified doctrine needed to be drafted. John Nagl, was one of the authors and stated in an officially this was not an interagency publication but it did bring, “together a mix of serving and retired military officers and a handful of civilian military scholars.” Today the definition has created a strong doctrine as such, “American counterinsurgency, as codified in Marine/Army Field Manual 3-24, is armed nation building by a foreign occupying power. The primary objective is to provide the host population an infrastructure, governance, security, local security forces, and economic improvement.”
This brings me to the discussion of Gentiles critique of Malaya, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. I argue the fact that Colonel Gian Gentile is correct with his assumptions regarding aspects of counterinsurgency aiming to win the hearts and minds of people from Iraq and Afghanistan is futile. Furthermore, Vietnam was a Maoists “Peoples War” and had the backing of the North Vietnamese, the NLF, or the PLAF. The corrupt puppet government and military of South Vietnam aided the enemy by not wanting to become part of a capitalist system, they wanted to reap the benefits of foreign aid, but not build a strong resilient Nation. Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan wars were and are unwinnable. However, with the Malayan Emergency I believe some key themes from Sir Robert Thompson’s principles were effective. Simi...

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...ideration would be population control and providing protected villages for the various ethnic tribespeople of the region. The problem with the region around Afghanistan is that there is a terrible refugee problem with displaced people because of war torn area, land mines, and other associated problems with ethnic tensions.
In conclusion, overall I agree with Gentile that nation building at the barrel of a gun is, “hypothetical, pure fantasy and the political will of the American people will not stand for this multi-generational nation building effort.” Counterinsurgency cannot be devoid of politics, people, policymakers, or military conventional and unconventional forces. The world is complicated with a delicate balance of power that can be shifted by war, natural disasters, such as drought, famine, floods, disease. It seems, however, man is his own worst enemy.

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