Table of Contents
What are the principles of counterinsurgency?
Counterinsurgency focuses on the population, rather than the enemy, because while the enemy is fluid, the population is fixed. Both the insurgents and counterinsurgents need the population to do certain things (support, acquiesce, etc.) in order to be successful.
What is the difference between counterterrorism and counterinsurgency?
A key difference between counter insurgency (COIN) and counterterrorism operations is that insurgents rely on support of the populations whilst terrorists are individuals or isolated groups or cells without broad public support.
What do you need to know about counterinsurgency?
Counterinsurgency is the use of all elements of a nation’s power—including not only combined-arms operations but also psychological, political, economic, intelligence, and diplomatic operations—to defeat an insurgency.
How does the US military support an insurgency?
At the direction of the NCA, US military forces may assist either insurgent movements or host nation governments opposing insurgency. In order to conduct these operations successfully, commanders must understand the nature of insurgency and counterinsurgency and apply the LIC imperatives discussed in Chapter 1 of this manual.
What was the worst case of counterinsurgency in history?
The classic case of poor U.S. performance in counterinsurgency operations was in the Vietnam War. By almost any account, the United States and its allies lost this war, and fought it fairly badly—with untold human costs incurred along the way.
Why was counter-insurgency important to the Vietnam War?
During the Vietnam War, counter-insurgency initially formed part of the earlier war as Diem had implemented the poorly conceived Strategic Hamlet Program, a similar model to the Malayan Emergency whom had opposite effects.