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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. In fact, today’s insurgencies differ significantly — at the level of policy, strategy, operational art and tactical technique — from those of earlier eras. An enormous amount of classical counterinsurgency remains relevant. Indeed, counterinsurgency provides the “best fit” framework for strategic problems in the War on Terrorism. But much is new in counterinsurgency redux, possibly requiring fundamental re-appraisals of conventional wisdom.
Politically, in many cases today, the counterinsurgent represents revolutionary change, while the insurgent fights to preserve the status quo of ungoverned spaces, or to repel an occupier ¬— a political relationship opposite to that envisaged in classical counterinsurgency.
Thus classical theory typically regards insurgency as something that occurs within one country or district, between an internal non-state actor and a single government. This is reflected in official definitions of insurgency. By contrast, in the field today we see real-time cooperation and cross-pollination between insurgents in many countries. Ayman al-Zawahiri has referred to a four-stage strategy in Iraq, involving expulsion of U.S. forces, creation of an Islamic Emirate in Sunni areas, its extension to neighboring countries and then attacks on Israel. This goes far beyond classical single-state insurgent goals.
The above are selected excerpts from Dave Kilcullen's excellent paper on modern insurgencies. In short it challenges many of our doctrinal assumptions based on legacy COIN operations. While he does not advocate throwing the baby out with the bath water, I think he does open the door to a worthwhile debate for this council. 