Quote Originally Posted by Mark O'Neill View Post
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Doug,

you have intimated here (and previously) that you might not be facing an insurgency. Have you had derived any other opinion (that you can share) on a 'label' for what you are grappling with?

Cheers

Mark
Mark,

I'm on record as saying we have two missions--COIN and nascent peace enforcement. I think the latter is more ascendant, complicated by terrorism (which I find distinct from insurgency), crime, international actors, internecine squabbles, and etc. Some of these tasks can be wrapped up under COIN, but there are also tensions between them, and I'm coming to believe that calling this whole thing "COIN" (at least in Baghdad) has some significant limitations. I wish I had a better grand theory, but I don't think there's much precedent for what we're doing, and theory tends to lag practice.

This is not to say that some basic principle of COIN do not apply to virtually all small wars or "wars among the people." Securing the population, the importance of HUMINT, and transitioning with capable, credible indigenous security forces seem to span everything we're doing. So viewing this as COIN is a step (a huge step) in the right direction. I'm just not certain it is the endstate, or best descriptor, and don't want us to rest on our theoretical laurels.

Back to work,

Doug