CIAO DATE: 01/2013
November 2012
Norwegian Institute of International Affairs
With the apparent lack of progress and success in Afghanistan, counter- insurgency (COIN), both as a theory and practice, is falling out of favor within the political and military establishment in the US. This comes at a time when the US is redirecting its geopolitical focus away from global instability towards the Asia-Pacific and the ‘New Great Power Game’. The 2012 US Defense Strategic Guidance clearly states that the US forces ‘no longer will be sized to conduct large-scale, prolonged stability operations’ like the ones in Iraq and Afghanistan. Instead, they will ‘emphasize non-military means and military-to-military cooperation to address instability and reduce the demand for significant U.S. force commitments to stability operations.’ It goes on to explain that they will be ready to conduct limited COIN operations if required, but emphasize that this will mostly be done by operating alongside coalition forces, meaning that ‘helping others defend themselves’ will be the new mantra for reducing instability around the world.1 In essence, the 2012 Strategic Guidance calls for an end to COIN operations. In addition to this, the operations in Afghanistan have taken on a new phase that focus primarily on capture/kill operations and Foreign Internal Defense (FID), so-called ‘COIN-lite’, rather than population security, good governance and nation-building.
Resource link: Revising COIN: The Stakeholder Centric Approach [PDF] - 1.5M