The Counterinsurgency Cliff Notes

[Jason Pape]

CPT C -

I've experienced the same frustration talking to some of my peers about how to approach COIN / Phase IV at the battalion and brigade level. Either because they haven't seen it done, or because the approach they observed didn't work in their AO when they were there, they are convinced this stuff "just doesn't work." So I started brainstorming on different approaches units can take...not as a list of "best practices" but more of a menu for "how we might conduct business in our AO, given the current conditions, taking into account a multitude of considerations."

This is a working draft...I need to make it more objective. I do not intend for it to lean in one direction or the other, but I obviously show my bias as it is now. There are reasons to go either way, given one's context.

All feedback is welcome. Please let me know if this is a useful tool for discussion.