The Army's new manual on counterinsurgency operations (COIN), in many respects, is a superb piece of doctrinal writing. The manual, FM 3-24 "Counterinsurgency," is comparable in breadth, clarity and importance to the 1986 FM 100-5 version of "Operations" which came to be known as "AirLand Battle.
The new manual's middle chapters that pertain to the conduct of counterinsurgency operations are especially helpful and relevant to senior commanders in Iraq. But a set of nine paradoxes in the first chapter of the manual removes a piece of reality of counterinsurgency warfare that is crucial for those trying to understand how to operate within it...
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