Portal:Counterinsurgency Operations
From Complex Operations Wiki
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. Read more...
Political power is the central issue in insurgencies and counterinsurgency operations; each side aims to get the people to accept its governance or authority as legitimate. Insurgents use all available tools—political (including diplomatic), informational (including appeals to religious, ethnic, or ideological beliefs), military, and economic—to overthrow the existing authority. This authority may be an established government or an interim governing body. Counterinsurgents, in turn, use all instruments of national power to sustain the established or emerging government and reduce the likelihood of another crisis emerging. Establishing the legitimacy of the host government is a requirement for successful counterinsurgency operations
David Kilcullen (born 1967) is an author and a consultant on counterinsurgency and counterterrorism. A former Australian Army officer, he left that army as a lieutenant colonel in 2005 and now works for the United States State Department. During 2007 he served in Iraq as Senior Counterinsurgency Adviser, Multi-National Force - Iraq, a civilian position on the personal staff of U.S. Army General David Petraeus, responsible for planning and executing the 2007-8 Joint Campaign Plan, which drove the Iraq War troop surge of 2007.
Kilcullen is also an advisor to the United States, British and Australian governments, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and several private sector institutions, on counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency issues.
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