The U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual 2nd Edition

by Sarah Sewall (Introduction), John A. Nagl (Foreword), David H. Petraeus (Foreword),

71 ratings

ISBN-13: 978-0226841519

ISBN-10: 0226841510

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When the U.S. military invaded Iraq, it lacked a common understanding of the problems inherent in counterinsurgency campaigns. It had neither studied them, nor developed doctrine and tactics to deal with them. It is fair to say that in 2003, most Army officers knew more about the U.S. Civil War than they did about counterinsurgency.

The U.S. Army / Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual was written to fill that void. The result of unprecedented collaboration among top U.S. military experts, scholars, and practitioners in the field, the manual espouses an approach to combat that emphasizes constant adaptation and learning, the importance of decentralized decision-making, the need to understand local politics and customs, and the key role of intelligence in winning the support of the population. The manual also emphasizes the paradoxical and often counterintuitive nature of counterinsurgency operations: sometimes the more you protect your forces, the less secure you are; sometimes the more force you use, the less effective it is; sometimes doing nothing is the best reaction.

An new introduction by Sarah Sewall, director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, places the manual in critical and historical perspective, explaining the significance and potential impact of this revolutionary challenge to conventional U.S. military doctrine.

An attempt by our military to redefine itself in the aftermath of 9/11 and the new world of international terrorism, The U.S. Army / Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual will play a vital role in American military campaigns for years to come.

The University of Chicago Press will donate a portion of the proceeds from this book to the Fisher House Foundation, a private-public partnership that supports the families of America’s injured servicemen. To learn more about the Fisher House Foundation, visit www.fisherhouse.org.

Editorial Reviews

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“The book to begin with in looking for a revised 21st-century strategy [in our war on terror] is, unexpectedly, the landmark U.S. Army / Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual. It was released as a government document in December 2006, but owing to its enormous popularity . . . it has now been published by a university press, with a provocative, highly readable new foreword and introduction that testify to the manual’s ‘paradigm-shattering’ content. . . . Sarah Sewall, a former Pentagon official who teaches at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard . . . has contributed an introduction that should be required reading for anybody who wants to understand the huge demands effective counterinsurgency will place on the military and the voting public."—Samantha Power, New York Times

(Samantha Power New York Times 2007-07-29)

“Just in time for the renewal of the war debate in Congress, the University of Chicago Press has released The U.S. Army / Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual. . . . It’s a nifty volume, not only because it gives you a sense of what our most highly regarded military theorists are thinking but because sometimes what they’re thinking is the last thing you’d expect. Especially interesting is a section called 'Paradoxes of Counterinsurgency Operations,' which tells us: 'Sometimes doing nothing is the best reaction' and 'Sometimes, the more force is used, the less effective it is.'”—David L. Ulin, Los Angeles Times

(David L. Ulin Los Angeles Times 2007-07-13)

"The military doctrine set forth in our field manual matters, but because it is usually only available to those in the military, it is not widely known or available outside that small audience. . . . By publishing the new Army/Marine Corps counterinsurgency field manual, the U. of C. is correcting that situation with this, probably the most important piece of doctrine written in the past 20 years. . . . It is also, probably, the single most important document one can read to make sense out of what is happening in Iraq and Afghanistan."

(Robert Bateman Chicago Tribune)

"An attempt by our military to redefine itself in the aftermath of 9/11 and the new world of international terrorism, [the Manual] will play a vital role in American military campaigns for years to come."

(Freshfiction.com)

"[This] book has helped make counterinsurgency part of the zeitgeist. It has become a coffee-table staple in Washington. . . . In short, this is not your parents' military field manual."

(Colin H. Kahl Foreign Affairs)

Paperback: 472 pages
Publisher: University of Chicago Press; 2 edition (July 4, 2007)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0226841510
ISBN-13: 978-0226841519
Product Dimensions: 6 x 1.2 x 9 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Customer Reviews: 69 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #624,157 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #278 in Military Sciences
- #94 in Military Encyclopedias
- #328 in Encyclopedias (Books)

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Timely Doctrine...

November 29, 2010

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

The United States military has periodically dealt with insurgencies and the need to conduct countersurgencies throughout its history. Unfortunately, it often immediately forgets the lessons learned at great cost on the battlefield. The circumstances of the global war on terrorism, in which the US military became involved in multiple more or less simultaneous counterinsurgency campaigns, has led to a superb capture of doctrine in time for it to be used on the battlefield. If the predictions of some commentators are correct that asymmetric warfare is the way of the future, then counterinsurgency doctrine is likely to continue to be useful.

"The U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual" is a University of Chicago reprint of the military issue version, with the addition of an excellent foreward by John Nagl and a provocative introductory essay by Sarah Sewall. For a military manual, it is surprisingly readable, and it is a superb exploration of just what an insurgency is and how it might be suppressed.

The Manual explores the proper characterization of insurgencies, the challenges of unity of effort, timely intelligence, and the design and execution of counterinsurgency campaigns. It deals with the tricky topics of host nation training, logistics, battlefield ethics, and airpower support. Of note, the authors pulled no punches in emphasizing the importance of the political dimension of a conflict as the key to success, and the further crucial point that counterinsurgency is a military/civilian effort.

"The U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual" is very highly recommended to practicioners in the field and to students of warfare wherever they may be.

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David K.

Excellent Survey and Overview

May 30, 2010

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Firstly, this is a seminal text in the art of counterinsurgency; it stands as the first revision to american military doctrine in the area since the Vietnam war, and should be applauded as a revolutionary document. As such, I will try to articulate where I felt the text falls short compared to other available texts on counterinsurgency.

First "Grievance": This manual does not formalize its' discussion of identity; sensitivity to local culture is emphasized, as it should be emphasized, but no model is extended to illustrate how political identity in counterinsurgency works. Despite the complexities of such a topic, it is actually not difficult to graph how an group's identity is "shaped". For example, one might list major sources of identity in order of how exclusive they are, then rank them by drawing a curve with the "most important" contents of identity holding the highest points on the curve. This would have been a helpful visual tool for COIN forces on the ground to quickly diagnose where the power is in the AO and how to engage the target population through the avenues of the pre-established political culture (all of which the text emphasizes in spades).

Second "Grievance": This manual was written amidst the chaos of the surge, and as such does not include the details of its' particular successes and failures (moving out of forward operating bases long-term, bandwagoning Shieks, etc.) Despite being state of the art, this manual stands to gain a great deal when the next edition is printed.

Third and last "Grievance": This manual contains some great vignettes from American COIN efforts over the last century. Including more of these (including explicit bad examples that show errors in preexisting COIN logic) would have been extremely helpful.

As such, I highly recommend this book. To fill in the above three gaps, I would recommend David Kilcullen's The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One, as well as T.X. Hammes' The Sling and the Stone: On War in the 21st Century.

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Walter E. Kurtz

Thoughtful and wise, but too demanding to be of practical value

March 18, 2014

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

This is a manual written by and for the United States armed forces on how to fight and (hopefully) win counterinsurgency (COIN) war. It was prepared while the war in Iraq was raging at its bloodiest, but it is not limited to that particular conflict. Although written with the assumption that it will be used by the American army invited by some foreign government into their country to help them fight some local insurgency, this manual can be used by any COIN force.

The manual is written in clear, plain, straight to the point language, but is not dry or boring either. If you are looking with some academic essay packed with fancy intellectual words on how to wage COIN war written by some retired general, go look elsewhere.

The manual argues that successful COIN is not a war, but half police investigation and half humanitarian relief. Fighting and killing insurgents is counterproductive. It might be necessary, but dead insurgents become heroes and martyrs for their cause. In any case, insurgents can recruit new members faster than you can kill them, so other approaches are needed.

The problem with COIN as it was waged in the past was that insurgents were portrayed as barbarians, terrorists or common criminals. Consequently, governments fought them with barbarism of their own. This usually failed. One man’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter. Government’s heavy handed methods alienated the general population and brought them more and more into the insurgent camp. The result was that insurgents would eventually win, or the insurgency was crushed but rebellion and resentment would simmer under the surface, thus requiring the government to permanently maintain the terror machine in place.

Violence is no longer a viable strategy for moral and practical reasons. The manual instead recommends a two-pronged strategy of COIN forces peacefully integrating with the local communities and aiding them by listening to their grievances, maintaining law and order, fixing basic civic services (running water, garbage collection, etc.) and helping in economic development. This alone should remove a lot of grievances and anger that fuel the insurgency. At the same time, the COIN forces, through their presence on the ground and extensive dealings with the locals, acquire valuable intelligence. This intelligence is in turn used to combat the insurgents.

Insurgents, and this is of capital importance, must be fought with honor (hard as it might be to swallow), with all that it entails. They should not be treated as barbarians or unlawful combatants (whatever that means). They should be located and identified using police investigation methods, arrested, interrogated without the use of torture and then given a fair trial. This is of course not always possible, but when combating insurgents, the army should show as much restraint and respect as possible. Calling in artillery strikes, bombers, or spraying the whole city block with machine gun fire (all of which often happened in Iraq) solves the problem in the short run, but makes things much worse in the long run. A lot of infrastructure gets destroyed, a lot of innocent bystanders get hurt and a lot of sympathy goes to insurgents and their cause, even though technically speaking it was them who provoked the reprisal.

The authors do admit that COIN is hard to win. Even if you follow everything that the book says, you still might lose. Even if you win, insurgents are unlikely to just go away. Their dieharders will keep on fighting, but without public support they will come to be regarded as criminals and terrorists. They might remain as a thorn in the government’s side, but they will no longer pose a threat.

So what do I think of this manual? I agree with it in the sense that I fully believe that these methods and techniques are the best way to wage COIN. However, they are too demanding and unrealistic.

The first problem is that soldiers engaged in COIN have to be master investigators, negotiators, social workers, politicians, policemen, civic service bureaucrats and business promoters all rolled into one. On top of that, they must be gifted with Zen-like patience and calmness. When their friends and allies get murdered by insurgents, as it is bound to happen, they must resist the temptation to give in to the (very natural) feelings of vengeance and continue to treat insurgents with certain basic level of respect and honor.

How many people do you know who possess all these qualities? I never met such a person, not even when I look in the mirror. I am willing to imagine that such individuals do exist somewhere, but how many? COIN requires tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of personnel. With so many people involved, it is only a matter of time before someone somewhere loses his patience and responds to barbarism with barbarism of his own. Soon others will follow suite and it won’t take long before the war spirals into the moral black hole that COIN warfare usually becomes.

But there is also a second problem. For insurgency to become popular, it must paint itself as a champion of the common people. To do that, insurgents must convince the populace that they will address their grievances. And for that to work, there have to be grievances to begin with. But where do these grievances come from? Almost always they are caused by the local government’s ineptitude, corruption and policies. For COIN to work, the COIN forces have to, according to the manual, address and resolve these grievances as much as possible. The problem here is that this is likely to bring them into conflict with the ruling government.

Take the case of El Salvador as example. (El Salvador is mentioned few times in the manual.) The insurgency in El Salvador in the 1980s was Marxist in its ideology, but the vast majority of common Salvadorans didn’t care in the least about Karl Marx or Communism. They followed the insurgents because they could no longer stand the crushing poverty and tyrannical rule of the Salvadoran government. Their country was at that time ruled (and still is) by a small, greedy, power hungry, racist, ultra right wing group of elites who lorded over the masses like some Medieval aristocrats lording over peasants. The abysmal conditions in El Salvador were created partially through government’s corruption and incompetence, but also in large part because of its deliberate policies.

To properly fight the Salvadoran insurgency, American forces sent there would have had to reform the Salvadoran government and political system, making it more democratic, egalitarian and (gasp) socialist. Needless to say, the elites lording over Salvador would have never allowed that to pass. Not that the Americans even tried. To them Salvadoran insurgents were not freedom fighters but “Commie terrorists.” So, COIN in Salvador took the form of violence, terror and repression on massive scale, plus death squads.

What I just said about Salvador applies to almost all COIN operations everywhere, and not just those waged by Americans. If a government sends its men and women to a foreign country to help the local authorities to quell an insurgency, it is because they have a stake in the conflict and want to preserve the status quo. And if they want to preserve the status quo, they will not attempt any meaningful reforms.

So just what is my suggestion? I do realize that I might sound confusing. On one hand I am saying that the manual is correct in its assumptions and teachings, but at the same time I am saying that it is impractical. Am I saying that COIN should be waged in the good old fashioned way—violence and terror on massive scale without restraint?

God forbids. No.

I would say first and foremost that COIN wars (and all wars in general) should never be waged to begin with. Wars damage everyone they touch, even the winner. Their economic, social, political and military costs outweigh the cost of maintaining peace. But if you do find yourself waging a COIN war, the manual should be followed as much as possible. Its high and demanding standards might be impossible to be followed one hundred percent, but maybe they can be followed twenty-five percent? It is better to follow good teachings only in part rather than not at all.

And if you are not of the sentimental type (“sentimental” is usually a synonym for loving and respecting other human beings and not wishing them harm), then look at it from practical point of view. In the past, insurgents were fought with violence and terror. It almost never worked. Quite often the insurgents won anyway and the losers walked away morally tainted. When the insurgents lost, the local population often felt angry, bitter and cynical towards their government, and the fighting would resume a generation later or so. If you wage COIN war according to this manual and still lose, at least there will be less hate left behind. At the very least, maybe that will stop a new war from starting somewhere down the road.

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The U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual 2nd Edition