Columnist-Europe's Identity Crisis Fuels Rising Anti-Muslim Sentiment

[Bob's World]

COIN is not about the prevention of an insurgency, but about countering it.


FM you-know-which-one

Politicians at home must not think in COIN terms. That would equal thinking about suppressing citizen's discontent. It's about suppression.
NOT ACCEPTABLE!

I'll face anyone who uses the term "COIN" inflationary and thus helps to make it appear acceptable in a domestic environment, too.


COIN is too dangerous for domestic freedom and democracy.
It MUST NOT PASS THE RUBICON.

I admit a very heavy bit of baggage has been hung around the neck of COIN. Many think, as Fuchs appears to here, that it is about controlling a populace in order to preserve a government. This comes from the old school, virtually entirely obsolete perspective of COIN practiced by the British Colonial Empire, learned and employed by the US during it's own Colonial forays in the first half of the last century, and then codified in the Small Wars Manual by the Marines before WWII; and largely echoed in the current COIN manual

Back then, the mission was for a foreign power to suppress the will of the populace in order to sustain in power their puppet governments. Those governments sole function was to serve the interests of the foreign power and to suppress/control their populaces. For whatever reason, we have come to call that "COIN" and have rolled it into current doctrine and make it the name of the mission we are conducting places like Iraq and Afghanistan.

The problems are several:

1. The intervening/Colonial/external power is not doing COIN. Period. Only the host nation can do COIN. Call what those other guys are doing whatever you want, but don't call it COIN as it just confuses the matter and leads to wholly inappropriate roles and engagement.

2. The mission is now reversed. Pre-globalization the mission was in fact to keep a friendly government (one willing to support your interests over the interests of their own populaces) in power and to suppress any popular challenge to that relationship. Now with empowered populaces being far more dangerous than any tin-horn government is, the mission is to support the will of the people and to protect them from; help them drive the reform of, or help them remove such illegitimate despots. Friendly dictators can no longer control their populaces so whether we recognize it or not, the mission has flipped 180 degrees for the external powers who have interests to maintain in some foreign land. They can no longer simply ignore or help suppress the populace and rely on their relationship with these illegitimate leaders.

3. This means the COIN mission has changed for the Host nation well. To date it has been to simply suppress the illegal challenges to one's reign, and to rely on big, foreign, brother to help one do so. Control was a Verb rather than a noun. Now these government actually have to perform, they actually have to listen to their people, they actually have to provide good governance. COIN is no longer a campaign of oppression waged only once the populace goes violent to suppress that violence, COIN is now the day in, day out provision of good governance that prevents such organized, illegal challenges to governance from emerging in the first place.

So, in summary:
Only HN govt does COIN.
"Small Wars" mission is now 180-out from when the manual was written. Now it is to truly "liberate the oppressed" and to work to ensure that legitimate governance is in place; rather than the old model to work to keep illegitimate government in place.

It's a bold new world. Once we recognize that we'll like it better.

COIN is the mission for every government, everywhere, everyday. It is only when they forget that and act with impunity toward their own people, or allow some foreign power to co-opt their legitimacy that one has problems.

Or in old school terms for when insurgency exists:

Government = COIN; Populace = Insurgency

In new school terms when insurgency exists:

Government = Poor Governance; Populace = Counter-Poor Governance


The focus for that intervening external power who has interests to service must be on understanding the concerns of the populace, then focusing on working with the government to develop and adopt appropriate reforms to address the issues among the people that are being exploited by the insurgent organizations. Reconcile the issues, not the insurgent/insurgent organization. They can get on board or face the consequences of their actions.