COIN Center Virtual Brown Bag - 25 November

[SWJED]

Just in from the US Army / US Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Center concerning a "virtual COIN brown bag" tomorrow:

Friends of the COIN Center,

The US Army/USMC Counterinsurgency Center is pleased to host Dr. Geoff Demarest at the COIN Center Brownbag from 1200 to 1300 CST (1300 - 1400 EST) on Tuesday, November 25, 2008. Dr. Demarest will present on US Counterinsurgency Doctrine and Latin America. Those interested in attending may either come to the COIN Center at 630 McClellan Avenue, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, or view the meeting on-line. Those wishing to attend virtually should head to https://connect.dco.dod.mil/coinbrownbag and participate via Adobe Connect as a guest. Remote attendees will be able to ask questions and view the slides through the software.

Dr. Demarest’s presentation proposes a list of eight common themes, or clichés, of US COIN doctrine and offers part of the reason for their presence. He suggests that the eight are overstated, that they can misdirect, should perhaps be down-toned, and other concepts raised in relative weight. His presentation will offer as evidence current experiences from northern South America.

Geoff Demarest is the author of Property & Peace: Insurgency, Strategy and the Stature of Frauds; Geoproperty: Foreign Affairs, National Security and Property Rights; and the monograph Mapping Colombia: The Correlation Between Land Data and Strategy. He earned his PhD. from the Denver U. Graduate School of International Studies in 1989, submitting a dissertation on professionalism in the Colombian army. He earned a law degree from the Denver School of Law in 1981, and practiced law in Loveland, Colorado. He is a graduate of the Defense Language Institute, the Spanish Language Institute, the JFK Special Warfare Center, the School of the Americas and the US Army War College. While still on active duty in the Army, he served in Central America for five years, and over the past 25 years has traveled to Colombia dozens of times, as well as to other countries in the region. He is currently a Senior Analyst at the Foreign Military Studies Office here at Ft. Leavenworth.

Linked here is a read ahead for the event. Please head to http://coin.army.mil and use the “contact us” link with any questions.

v/r,

Major Niel A. Smith
Operations Officer
USA/USMC Counterinsurgency Center
Fort Leavenworth, Kansas
http://coin.army.mil

[120mm]

that might be a tad controversial. Color me there, if I can swing it.

[Cavguy]

All,

Link change (I goofed): This one works, disregard earlier.

https://connect.dco.dod.mil/coinbrownbag

Niel

[120mm]

Just got back from the Brown Bag; Dr. Demerest succintly covered many items which I either privately believe or have posted here, only he is much more entertaining and to the point..

[reed11b]

My only caveat is that what he proposes is personel heavy in application, which is ok were a pre-existing goverment structure exists such as Columbia or where it could have existed such as Iraq. When you transplant the concept to Afghanistan it gets a little trickier. I believe his ideas have merit in helping to create useful concentration of existing forces, and that building up Afghanistans Social and Community services is nearly as important as training security forces, but how do you get over the intial disparity in personel needs and personel available?
Reed

[John T. Fishel]

Thanks for posting the brownbag. Geoff is, as I said, totally insane but brilliant. His insights always come at the problem from a different angle and always provide real food for thought. We really need to take him seriously and I'm glad to see the COIN Center do so. Kudos to all (except the soundman)

Cheers

JohnT