Badger 6 discusses counterinsurgency ops.
The Reality of Counterinsurgency OPS
AS things progress here in Iraq and as the situation changes there become new things to criticize and critique. Some of that of course is perfectly appropriate, however some of the criticism also demonstrates the fundamental lack of understanding of the nature of counterinsurgency operations.
In war, generally the goal is not to kill everybody on the opposing side. Rather the goal is to make the losses too painful for the other side to continue to absorb and otherwise make them feel that resistance is a futile effort.
This next entry is from Small Wars Journal. Educational.
We introduce two articles by Don Vandergriff (Raising the Bar: Creating and Nurturing Adaptability to Deal with the Changing Face of War) on the importance of adaptability in our military leaders with an excerpt from Chapter 5 (page 5-31) of the Army and Marine Corps Counterinsurgency (COIN) Manual.
Learning and Adapting
When an operation is executed, commanders may develop the situation to gain a more thorough situational understanding. This increased environmental understanding represents a form of operational learning and applies across all Logical Lines of Operations. Commanders and staffs adjust the operation’s design and plan based on what they learn. The result is an ongoing design-learn-redesign cycle.
