Counterinsurgency

From Complex Operations Wiki

Definition

Those military, paramilitary, political, economic, psychological, and civic actions taken by a government to defeat insurgency.

Source

JP 1-02 Counterinsurgency operations are a component of Complex Operations, at the nexus of Irregular Warfare and Stability, Security, Transition, and Reconstruction Operations. Counterinsurgency operations are military, paramilitary, political, economic, psychological, and civic actions taken by a government to defeat insurgency (JP 1-02). Counterinsurgency operations involve a variety of actors including civilian branches of government, NGOs and IOs, Host Nation (HN) security forces, and warfighters.

Doctrine

The following documents relate to COIN doctrine:

Counterinsurgency Field Manual No. 3-24, Headquarters, Department of the Army, Washington, DC, 2007. Also published as Marine Corps Warfighting Publication No. 3-33.5 Headquarters, Marine Corps Combat Development Command, Department of the Navy, Headquarters, United States Marine Corps, Washington, DC, 2007.
U.S. Government Counterinsurgency Guide, State Department Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, January 2009. Available on line at: WWW.STATE.GOV/T/PM/PPA/PMPPT
Joint Publication 3-0, Joint Operations, 17 September 2006, Incorporating Change 1, 13 February 2008.

Reference

The COIN Field Manual highlights the concept of Logical Lines of Operations (LLOs), which represent a conceptual category along which the Host Nation government and COIN force commander intend to attack the insurgent strategy and establish Host Nation government legitimacy. FM 3-24 identifies five examples of LLOs:

Combat Operations/Civil Security Operations
Host Nation Security Forces
Essential Services
Governance
Economic Development

Several of the concepts referenced in FM 3-24, such as legitimacy and governance, are well defined concepts studied in social science as described in the Reference Knowledge Base in the wiki.

Datasets

Several indicators and variables relating to insurgency and political violence have been defined by social science researchers. For instance, START Terrorism Dataset tracks terrorism incidents. Minorities at Risk dataset highlights attributes and characteristics of sub-country level ethnic groups. There are also several datasets that track governance legitimacy variables. Dataset Knowledge Base lists the datasets available in the Complex Operations wiki.