Headed the Wrong Way

<p>The purpose of this research was to obtain a historically rooted understanding of the development application and adaptation of the British COIN approach--one from which the US has borrowed heavily. It focuses upon those factors which interfere with timely adaptive application of current COIN doctrine as soon as the warning signs of insurgency present themselves. The price of failing to do so in terms of blood and treasure has been widely proclaimed daily in the news media during the past decade of American and British involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. Authors on both sides of the Atlantic have already made much of the US Army's failure to capture COIN lessons from Vietnam and its abandonment of COIN education in its schools after the 1970s. For this reason most American commanders went into Iraq with no doctrinal guide for COIN a deficiency corrected only after painful reflection on the characteristics of the environment and the inefficacy of the conventional methods they initially employed. The British Army on the other hand went into Iraq with a COIN doctrine revised five times since the completion of its successful operations in Malaya 1948-1960 including a version published only two years prior to entry into Iraq. Why did the British Army struggle with identifying insurgency and application of its own corresponding doctrine?</p><p>This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore you will see the original copyright references library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world) and other notations in the work.</p><p>This work is in the public domain in the United States of America and possibly other nations. Within the United States you may freely copy and distribute this work as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.</p><p>As a reproduction of a historical artifact this work may contain missing or blurred pages poor pictures errant marks etc. Scholars believe and we concur that this work is important enough to be preserved reproduced and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.</p><br>