The U.S. military's new counterinsurgency doctrine takes issue with some key strategies that American commanders in Iraq continue to use, most notably the practice of concentrating combat forces in massive bases rather than dispersing them among the population...
The authors of the manual say the new doctrine is not meant as a critique of the Iraq strategy... [They] rather were saying they simply did not want people to hole up and become "fobbits."
"You put a protect force in that lives in the neighborhood. They stay 24/7 to protect the people," Keane said at a briefing this week. "That piece is what we have never been able to execute in Baghdad..."
The new doctrine, which was begun in January and released in draft form in June, cautions that campaigns against insurgents are "often long and difficult" and that progress is hard to measure. Conventional militaries often stumble in the beginning of an insurgency but can succeed if they learn, adapt and push ahead against it, according to the manual.
"The military forces that successfully defeat insurgencies are usually those able to overcome their institutional inclination to wage conventional war against insurgents," the doctrine says...
Overall, the doctrine says, a counterinsurgency operation is "a struggle for the population's support." To win that confidence, militaries must learn about the culture and people they are trying to protect as well as fight the insurgents who are attempting to destabilize the country, it says...
"I do not know how they will translate this to the field," [one author] said. "But I do think this will be No. 1 on the reading list."
By the way, I'm in the middle of going through the new field manual. It's fascinating -- and an easy read, not at all jargon-filled. I'd encourage everyone to check it out for themselves.
The 
Check out an article in the Dec. 18 issue of "the New Yorker"; it discusses an interesting new approach to counter-insurgency ops that's bubbling around in DoD and State, based on a more anthropoligical (i.e. cultural-based, grounded in local knowledge and engagement) approach to the problem, as well as the problem of counter-insurgency in a modern globalized media environment. It also discusses its proponents' critique of current ops in Iraq and Afghanistan. All-in-all, a very interesting read!!
Posted by: JimmyS at December 19, 2006 09:56 AM