Insurgency and Counterinsurgency in the 21st Century

Insurgency has existed throughout history but ebbed and flowed in strategic significance. Today the world has entered another period when insurgency is common and strategically significant. This is likely to continue for at least a decade, perhaps longer. As the United States confronts this threat, extrapolating old ideas, strategies, doctrine, and operational concepts is a recipe for ineffectiveness. Reconceptualization is needed. The strategic salience of insurgency for the United...
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Insurgency has existed throughout history but ebbed and flowed in strategic significance. Today the world has entered another period when insurgency is common and strategically significant. This is likely to continue for at least a decade, perhaps longer. As the United States confronts this threat, extrapolating old ideas, strategies, doctrine, and operational concepts is a recipe for ineffectiveness. Reconceptualization is needed. The strategic salience of insurgency for the United States is higher than it has been since the height of the Cold War. But insurgency remains challenging for the United States because two of its dominant characteristics--protractedness and ambiguity-- mitigate the effectiveness of the American military. Furthermore, the broader U.S. national security organization is not optimized for counterinsurgency support. Ultimately, a nation is only as good at counterinsurgency support as its weakest link, not its strongest. Existing American strategy and doctrine focus on national insurgencies rather than liberation ones. As a result, the strategy stresses selective engagement; formation of a support coalition if possible; keeping the American presence to a minimum level to attain strategic objectives; augmenting the regime's military, intelligence, political, informational, and economic capabilities; and, encouraging and shaping reform by the regime designed to address shortcomings and the root causes of the insurgency. The key to success is not for the U.S. military to become better at counterinsurgency, but for the U.S. military (and other elements of the government) to be skilled at helping local security and intelligence forces become effective at it. A strategy for countering a liberation insurgency must be different in some important ways. Specifically, it should include the rapid stabilization of the state or area using the appropriately sized force (but larger is usually better); a shift to minimum U.S. military presence as rapidly as possible; rapid creation of effective local security and intelligence forces; shifting the perception of the insurgency from a liberation one to a national one; encouraging sustained reform by the partner regime; and cauterization--the strengthening of states surrounding the state facing an insurgency. Sustained capability enhancement is crucial, even when the United States is not actively engaged in counterinsurgency. This includes leader development, wargaming, concept development, research and analysis, professional education, and focused training. Capability enhancement should include increasing the ability and willingness of regional states and other regional security organizations to provide counterinsurgency support, improved homeland security, and methods for early warning of insurgency, preventative actions, and the creation of early-stage support packages. The United States must make clear whether its approach to counterinsurgency is a strategy of victory or a strategy of containment, tailoring the response and method to the threat. A strategy of victory which seeks a definitive end makes sense when facing a national insurgency in which the partner government has some basis of legitimacy and popular support. In liberation insurgencies, though, a strategy of victory is a very long shot; hence a strategy of containment is the more logical one.