I finished reading the U.S. Government COunter INsurgency Guide. (Thanks to Entropic Memes for the find.) It is a very worthwhile read. The document is a lot like the department that drafted it: excellent analysis fettered by bureaucracy. Having read the COIN guide, I now feel like I could lead an insurgency. The manual covers insurgent methods, networking, and goals, and generally does so clearly and thoroughly. The manual lays out eight factors to consider when deciding if US engagement is prudent:
- Character of the affected government
- Government bias
- Rule of law
- Level of corruption
- Civil-military relations
- Economic viability
- Presence of terrorist or transnational criminal groups
- Border security/ungoverned spaces
As you would presume from a manual coming from State, the document generally focuses on the primacy of political solutions, treating security, intelligence, and economy as means rather than as ends unto themselves. That reminds me alot more of Pakistan than Colombia or Sri Lanka
There are some downsides to the COIN Guide. Like the Department that created it, the guide can be a bit heavy in bureaucracy. It has a doses of CYA and turfing. Also like State, the value of the COIN guide far outweighs any negatives. In half an hour, you too can understand the principles of creating your very own insurgency, and have a decent grasp on how to fight one.
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I enjoy the fact that this Counter Insurgency guide is signed by Eliot Cohen, a man that actively campaigned for the invasion of Iraq and thought that it would be a cake walk. It makes you question how useful a guide to counter insurgency is when the man signing off on it greatly underestimated the chance of a counterinsurgency forming in the country he wanted to invade.