Our definitions of insurgency and the related operations of COIN and UW trap us in ways that are very confining. These definitions create small boxes with high walls that prevent our minds from seeing answers that otherwise are near at hand.

I personally believe that the only healthy way to think about COIN is as a domestic operation, one that is in truth the vast majority of the time the day to day business of any system of governance to operate in a manner consistent with the will and expectations of the entire populace affected by their actions. That is always a difficult balancing act, and when governments begin to get that wrong - by intent or accident - the difficulties begin to build. Such a society then becomes vulnerable to both internal and external forces seeking to leverage the energy contained in such a populace toward their own goals and interests of the organizer. Often these are self-serving. They are not the insurgency, they are merely the exploiters of conditions of insurgency.

Our definitions tell us foreigners do COIN to, and that all insurgency is "violent." Little wonder we show up in foreign countries where we believe we have interests and begin to act in ways that are so destructive of the sovereignty and legitimacy of the governance in those places in the name of "COIN." Equally that we think we have "won" when we make the violence go away for some short period of time or in some small place. After all, with no violence, it is no longer an insurgency, right?

No, insurgency and COIN are two sides of the same domestic...coin. UW and FID are foreign injects into that internal system, depending on which side the foreign intruder thinks their interests are best represented by. Certainly we employ both as it suits us. Historically we have picked one. I believe in the future we will increasingly see where we are better served by some combination of both or neither. That is something we should think on.

But first we need to scrub large sections of our doctrine. It is dangerously biased and short-sighted. It focuses on tactical criteria we think are important, rather than upon the fundamental nature of such things that truly are. Important, that is.