Great book on intelligence in COIN operations

[Menning]

Maybe Small Wars Journal readers are familiar with it, but I finished reading Orrin DeForest's Slow Burn and it is excellent. The book was recommended to me by a Lt. Col. serving with the COIN center in Tel Afar. I highly endorse it to anyone who is interested in how to build operational intelligence in a COIN environment.

[Mike in Hilo]

Impressive array of accomplishments. Of course, in the VN context, this CIA operation would not have been successful if it were not a unilateral one....Which is why the CORDS-advised Gov't of VN Phoenix/Phuong-Huang program was not successful despite best efforts of the advisers, as DeForest honestly and correctly points out. CIA, by the way, was a critical COIN player that was, because of operational necessity, not included under CORDS.

Cheers,
Mike.