The Counterinsurgency Cliff Notes

[Cpt C]

Mark,
No, I was not aware that ther was a handbook. As far as specific COIN training, most units are left to do it on their own (army units are currently spending about a year at home between deployments). The only place that I am aware of that is consistently teaching COIN to the conventional army is the COIN academy in Iraq. Most company commanders go to this course when they first arrive in theater. COIN is also breifly touched on in other army schools, but not so much as to have a definitive impact on the conventional army as a whole. We are working to change that here at Fort Benning and are making some headway.
However, as you mentioned, there are many handbooks and tools out there for units to refer to. The problem is working that training into a conventional unit's training cycle between deployments. There is so much to do in so little time that it is difficult to implement it at the large level (and, unfortunately, many units do not do it out of laziness). So when this training does occur, it is often at the battalion or company level, and some companies are better than others.
You mention that some of what I refer to is just regular infantry tactics. Yes, I did get a little off track into counter-guerilla tactics and I plan to re-write and clarify that distinction. However, I mostly just identified and described the regular infantry tactics necessary to implement a greater COIN strategy. I know that a lot of this knowledge is already out there, but the point of my paper is more to give focus and guidance to small-unit leaders in iraq, not completely re-train them. Someone else had similar comments that "you shouldn't have to train that stuff." Well, we do. I just returned from a 15-month deployment where I served as a rifle platoon leader and recon PL and bounced all around the map and worked with just about every different type of organization in theater. I can tell you first hand that MOST CONVENTIONAL UNITS ARE NOT EVEN TRYING TO FIGHT COIN. The U.S. Army is an extremely massive organization and not everyone is a John Rambo. Not everyone is on forums in their spare time trying to learn more about COIN. Most people in the CONVENTIONAL army are just there for a pay check, have a wife and kids at home, and will do as little as possible in a combat zone. COIN is difficult. COIN puts soldiers out in the open, exposed to the enemy. So many units aren't doing it. In fact, many are doing what I call "patrolling to survive," which i can get into with you off line. Additionally, it is not what young bubbas signed up to do. They signed up to kick in doors and shoot people (which, admittedly, I totally identify with). That is what the U.S. army is trained to do (and is very very good at). It is in our blood, so that is what we do in theater.
I don't mean to be bashing my organization, but we have to be honest with ourselves. This is reality. Our army is doing great things to change our mindset and embrace the COIN fight. All units do cultural awareness training, which is a great start. COIN is slowly trickling through our ranks, but it will take time to change as a whole.
I know what an infantry platoon trains on. I what how what life is like in Iraq right now. I know how short their attention span is. I know how many other things they have on their mind besides learning COIN. So I wrote this paper for them. It's my way of saying "hey, you don't need to completely retrain to win this fight. Let's just refocus a little bit. These techniques will support your unit's COIN strategy and will get us out of the desert faster." It's not a complete lesson on COIN- smarter men than me have already done that. But this is something that you might actually get everyone in an infantry platoon to read, without all the fluff that they really don't need to know anyway (or care to know, honestly). Just what they need to know to roll out the wire and complete the mission (which is why I call it the "cliff notes"). The higher-level commanders will work the larger strategy piece. Again, this is not the ideal solution, but this is reality.
I hope that helps. If I am not conveying that in my paper, please let me know. I really appreciate your comments. They are making me think deeper about where this paper should go. Please keep the comments coming.
Craig