January 24, 2012
Amid COIN Debate, U.S. Army Struggles to Find Its Way
Defense policy analysts and pundits are wasting ink
arguing back and forth about whether or not counterinsurgency is dead or alive.
The real debate -- the one that risks getting lost in the noise about
counterinsurgency’s vital signs -- concerns the future of the U.S. Army. As the
U.S. military ends its role in Iraq and winds down in Afghanistan, the U.S.
Army, alone among the armed services, has no compelling narrative for how it
fits into the nation’s defense.
The questions today surrounding the future of
counterinsurgency are no less intense than the debates over whether or not
counterinsurgency was the appropriate operational response to the violence in
Iraq in 2006 and 2007 or in Afghanistan in 2009. The arguments against
counterinsurgency have not changed: It does not work; it is too expensive; it
should not be executed by conventional forces; the historical data suggesting
its success is flawed; it prioritizes tactics at the expense of strategy; and
the resources devoted to training military organizations to fight
counterinsurgency campaigns erode the skills required to fight other campaigns.