British COIN (merged thread)

[Bob's World]

I wouldn't be too hard on the Brits. The fact is, I can't really think of any example of effective military COIN.

The problem with applying the military to COIN is that they tend to think of it as warfare; when in fact, COIN is just internal politics gone very bad.

When the military is applied simply as additional resources and capacity to assist the civil government in regaining a handle on the situation and that same civil government takes to heart that the populace is in an uproar for a reason and seeks to address those failures, you have good COIN.

If you are a foreign army in a foreign land, you are not doing COIN.

If you are an army foreign or domestic, and you believe you have the lead for resolving an insurgency, you are not conducting smart COIN.

British "COIN", like American "COIN" are and were far more about maintaining national interests in foreign lands which creates a natural bias of perspective going in that is virually an "intellectual force field" to getting to "Good COIN."

So whether one is "threat centric" and out to kill all the insurgents to neutralize the threats to ones national interests abroad, of if one is "Populationc-centric" and out to put so much sugar on the government that you have carefully crafted to protect your interests so that the populace does not compain too much or too violently; you are still not conducting COIN in either case.

No, I just can't think of any examples of good military COIN. I can find plenty of examples of military forces being employed against foreign populaces either in support of, or opposition to, their sitting governments in order to either preserve or create opportnities for the national interests of the nations that provided that force. But that is not COIN.

At least not in Bob's World.

[William F. Owen]

I wouldn't be too hard on the Brits. The fact is, I can't really think of any example of effective military COIN.

So why say COIN? Thanks to incredibly sloppy thinking the word has lost any merit it may have ever once had.
Irregular Warfare works in exactly the same way as regular does. Defeating the enemy's armed wing denies him the ability to set forth policy using violence and returns to issue to politics and diplomacy. That is what force does. You use it against their force.

The problem with applying the military to COIN is that they tend to think of it as warfare; when in fact, COIN is just internal politics gone very bad.

If it's not Warfare then why is the US Army involved?

But that is not COIN.
At least not in Bob's World.

OK, so how in "Bob's World" are people using violence to set forth "political ideas" countered?

[Bob's World]

So why say COIN? Thanks to incredibly sloppy thinking the word has lost any merit it may have ever once had.
Irregular Warfare works in exactly the same way as regular does. Defeating the enemy's armed wing denies him the ability to set forth policy using violence and returns to issue to politics and diplomacy. That is what force does. You use it against their force.

If it's not Warfare then why is the US Army involved?

OK, so how in "Bob's World" are people using violence to set forth "political ideas" countered?

...but I was just doing a quick scan of SWJ as I got back into uniform after a little PT. I currently am extremely fortunate to be supporting US SOF in a British led NATO HQ that is armpit deep at the moment in these very matters, so while I am learning a great deal from my front row seat, it is a seat I need to get back to! As my current boss is apt to say ""in a dull moment" I will get back to you!