But there’s some overlap, no?
As someone with no background of military service my intuition regarding the three would be something along the lines of the following. During my Reagan Era childhood, Delta/1st SFOD-D/CAG was described as a/the counter-terrorism unit, so in my head I associate hostage rescue, snatch and grab, and assassination with CT. Having first learned of the concept of counterinsurgency as a 20–year–old living in Guatemala in the early ‘90s my reflexive thought when I read or hear discussion of COIN is in line with W. George Lovell’s statement that “[k]illing Maya Indians and laying their communities to waste does not solve the problem of reluctant native labor. But it has served effectively to traumatize survivors into submission.” I sort of take the adoption of the abbreviation to be a rebranding while having a vague notion that what used to be a bludgeon is now more like a stick and that some substantial carrots have been added into the mix. As for FID, I happen to have known a fellow who was with the Special Forces in Vietnam (he walked away from a football scholarship at Marshall en route—some guys have all the luck!Originally Posted by Bill Moore
) so when I see reference to that term I think of some version of my friend out in the bush/hills/jungle running drills with some version of the Montagnards. So I did a quick search for the doctrinal definitions to see if I was anywhere in the neighborhood and I turned up the following:
- CT Operations that include the offensive measures taken to prevent, deter, preempt, and respond to terrorism. (JP 1–02)
- COIN Counterinsurgency is military, paramilitary, political, economic, psychological, and civic actions taken by a government to defeat insurgency. (JP 1–02)
- FID FID programs encompass the total political, economic, informational, and military support provided to another nation to assist its fight against subversion and insurgency. (JP 3–07)
Am I accurate here? I kind of hope I am not, because given the amount of overlap amongst them it is almost as if the definitions were created to engender confusion…
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