Counterinsurgency

At its heart, a counterinsurgency is an armed struggle for the support of the population. This support can be achieved or lost through information engagement, strong representative government, access to goods and services, fear, or violence. This armed struggle also involves eliminating insurgents who threaten the safety and security of the population. However, military units alone cannot defeat an insurgency. Most of the work involves discovering and solving the population’s underlying issues, that is, the root causes of their dissatisfaction with the current arrangement of political power. Dealing with diverse issues such as land reform, unemployment, oppressive leadership, or ethical tensions places a premium on tactical leaders who can not only close with the enemy, but also negotiate agreements, operate with nonmilitary agencies and other nations, restore basic services, speak the native (a foreign) language, orchestrate political deals, and get "the word" on the street.

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Counterinsurgency is an iterative process. Tactical units can conduct a wide variety of operations. These can include anything from a combined cordon and search operation with Host Nation security forces, to a medical operation to inoculate a hamlet’s children against disease, to a road project to connect a village to the highway, to a loudspeaker broadcast to inform a village about a recent council meeting. Regardless of the mission, successful tactical units learn and adapt as they discover more about their own strengths and limitations—and the strengths and limitations of the Host Nation government, the populace, and the insurgents. This manual furthers FM 3-24’s theory that “in COIN, the side that learns faster and adapts more rapidly—the better learning organization—usually wins.”