John Nagl's "Eating Soup with a Knife," revived the Western concept of COIN, a concept based on myths perpetuated by John's inaccurate portrayal of the Vietnam War embraced by so many in liberal academia and now the military. Fortunately, it is being called into question. While anti-COINdista, who I describe as those who argue COIN is the only form of war in the future, and all we have to do is win the people's hearts and minds to achieve our goals, I do think there are gems within our COIN doctrine worth preserving. However, lets not forget it is an armed conflict, and each situation is different, but the skillful use of force will generally prove to be the most effective means to defeat an insurgency. Winning hearts and minds is essential for consolidating those wins unless you envision a nation that lives under perpetual martial law. We have never found the balance, and tend to give insurgents too freedom of action with our current approach.

The North Vietnamese under Ho were not seen as legitimate by many, in fact Ho ruthlessly killed those in North Vietnam opposed to him. The outcome of the war was not predetermined, North Vietnam simply employed the coercive use of conventional power more effectively. His insurgency in the south was largely suppressed. The fact that the South Vietnamese fought so bravery when the North conducted their final conventional invasion would indicated that despite their internal troubles they didn't want to fall under communist rule. Nor did countries in the region, there was no one with greater knowledge of the region that the former PM of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew. He stated the war in Vietnam gave other countries time to build their defenses against communist aggression, so in his view from that aspect it was a win. It was not a war between simply North and South Vietnam, the communists succeeded in taking Laos and Cambodia, and sponsored an insurgency in Thailand. The domino theory actually had merit. Since we can't discuss the Vietnam War honestly, we need to focus on other examples in my view, and there plenty to study.

I look forward to reading Prof Evan's paper, but based on short excerpt above it does seem we spend too much staring in a mirror when studying COIN. There are numerous non-Western COIN doctrines that do not conform to our current version of COIN. Communists countries around the world, supported by the USSR had their own doctrine for COIN. Iran clearly has its own doctrine. Of course, so did the Nazis (in many respects they paralleled modern day western COIN in words, but not in practice). They may all have parallels with the West, but they were unique to their form of governance.