Forgetting Counterinsurgency, Again: Lessons from Reconstruction and Operation Iraqi Freedom
Alexandre Caillot | July 2, 2020
The Pentagon is engaged in a strategic transformation that may imperil the future of American national security. According to a 2018 independent bipartisan commission appointed by Congress, the United States’ preoccupation with counterinsurgency (COIN) and counterterrorism has enabled near peers and rogue states to shrink the capability gap between their militaries and that of the world’s only superpower. Policymakers and the defense community must recognize that great-power competition is not only a test of conventional military strength; it also demands mastery of actions below the major-war threshold that include counterinsurgency, irregular warfare, hybrid threats, stability operations, and the “gray zone.†A COIN capability is critical to American competition and conflict with other states, and war with nonstate actors. The US Army should be careful lest it commit too many resources to high-intensity war. This article surveys the service’s changed approach to readiness and the threat landscape. It then compares the transition from official hostilities to stability operations early in post–Civil War Reconstruction (1865–1866) and Operation Iraqi Freedom (2003–2004) to demonstrate that counterinsurgency requires a heavy commitment to manpower and training.
https://mwi.usma.edu/forgetting-counterinsurgency-lessons-reconstruction-operation-iraqi-freedom/
