Afghanistan and the future of COIN By Brian M Downing

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Afghanistan and the future of COIN
By Brian M Downing

If we were overthrown, there would be major chaos and confusion in the country and everyone including every single oppressed individual would blame you for it.-Mullah Omar to President Bill Clinton, Sept 1999

A government that is losing to an insurgency is not being outfought, it is being outgoverned.- Bernard Fall

The United States-led effort in Afghanistan placed a great deal of weight on counterinsurgency (COIN) to defeat or at least stymie the insurgency there. There are few signs of success and the US is seeking negotiations with Mullah Omar's Taliban in a less than attractive bargaining position. Many feel that defeat or at least

 

unceremonious withdrawal looms.

COIN has a long and intriguing history going back mainly to colonial administration and insurgencies in the post-World War II era. It enjoyed growth after Fidel Castro's band seized power in Cuba and the US looked for ways to counter Soviet-backed insurgencies elsewhere in the Third World. COIN was romanticized once it became attached to the US Green Berets - a force with considerable cachet in the sixties. The war in Vietnam saw limited but incoherent use of COIN and after Saigon fell (1975), the doctrine was put away lest some future president be tempted to get involved in another insurgency - a prospect that seemed dim if not absurd back then.

With the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, however, COIN gained new attention and renewed romanticization. It contributed to easing the Iraqi insurgency, or seemed to, and it was confidently put into practice in Afghanistan. Despite great hopes and the leadership of General Petraeus, COIN has failed to do more than carve out a few enclaves in the south and east where security remains frail and popular support is chiefly formal.

Even if Afghanistan ends badly, COIN doctrine will not be put away as it was after the last Huey hurriedly took off from Saigon in 1975. It is a central part of American strategic thinking and is being taught or put into practice in Yemen, Uganda, Somalia, Mali, Thailand, the Philippines, Colombia, and elsewhere. Learning what went wrong in Afghanistan will be important in shaping future foreign policy and military budgets. Some problems inhere to Afghanistan, others to American institutions and society.
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