Latin American Counterinsurgency

<p>The Sandino rebellion in Nicaragua and the Punitive Expedition into Mexico confirm counterinsurgency best practices and provide insight into and lessons for the current conflict in Afghanistan. This paper's framework is a quick look exploratory case study of Afghanistan the Sandino Rebellion and the Punitive Expedition with a comparative analysis of the cases' lessons learned to each other through the prism of current thought on counterinsurgency best practices. The Sandino Rebellion and the Punitive Expedition were chosen for their parallels to the current counterinsurgency in Afghanistan and the hunt for Osama bin Laden. The cases' comparisons to current counterinsurgency best practices show cross-cultural and cross time applicability of the Latin American counterinsurgency's lessons to Afghanistan. They show the US is now on the right path in Afghanistan but still needs to educate the military government and civilian populace better in counterinsurgency. Still lacking is a long-term strategic guidance and cross governmental focus for counterinsurgency in Afghanistan and proper application of some counterinsurgency best practices such as properly securing the border with Pakistan the importance of properly trained and organized police forces and applying amnesty rehabilitation and employment programs for former or future insurgents. The primacy the host nation government and US civilian institutions should have in all aspects of the counterinsurgency is also being neglected or ignored. The Latin American examples provide a warning about mission creep if tempted to perform large force raids into Pakistan in the hunt for bin Laden or others and show how US forces' mere presence and failure to follow counterinsurgency best practices undermined the US' strategic goals in Latin America having a lasting impact still felt today.</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>