Post-Invasion Iraq Policy Twitter Chat
TCF Fellow Thanassis Cambanis and The Insurgents author Fred Kaplan discuss Counter-insurgency (COIN)
Line up your questions now about COIN, destructive dogmas, the GWOT, etc. .@fmkaplan and I will start Twalking at 1 #theinsurgents
Post-Invasion Iraq Policy Twitter Chat starts in just a few moments. bit.ly/11fvLHZ Follow #TheInsurgents to join the convo.- OK, let's get started with our TweetChat with .@fmkaplan about his new book #theinsurgents
- First things first: did we actually apply COIN in any of US wars, or was it always a dollar short? #theinsurgents
Very briefly CORDS campaign in Vietnam. Abandoned. Really did it in '07 in Iraq. Worked, on tactical level. Strategic-less so #TheInsurgents- The angry skeptics say COIN is snake oil, bad soldiering. Is that just old-fashioned defensiveness? #theinsurgents
- 2007 in Iraq, arguably, was more common-sense than COIN, including lots of targeted strikes vs insurgents. #theinsurgents
Follow @TCambanis, @fmkaplan and #theinsurgents for a discussion of Kaplan's new book on COIN doctrine at the wars in Iraq & Afghanistan- It can work where the setting is right. Iraq was matter of timing, but Petraeus exploited it; others would not have. #TheInsurgents
- A certain kind of common sense. Basing soldiers in the neighborhoods, understanding tribes, not just search&destroy #TheInsurgents
- PS: If a non-COIN-trained commander had been in Anbar, he might not have exploited the Awakening, would have killed Sunnis. #TheInsurgents
RT @NeilBhatiya: Follow @TCambanis, @fmkaplan and #theinsurgents for a discussion of Kaplan's new book on COIN doctrine at the wars in Iraq & Afghanistan- That was always my confusion in Iraq: never cd fully distinguish smart, creative troopers from COINdinistas. Not the same #theinsurgents
- PPS: That is, would have killed Sunnis indiscriminately, wouldn't have sought or seen distinctions, reached out to militias #TheInsurgents
- Smart creative troopers tended to be those who applied COIN. Right: not all were COINdinistas, ie, Petraeus inner circle. #TheInsurgents
- Seems to me like some smart officers "did COIN" without knowing COIN, like Marines in Anbar in 2003-4. #theinsurgents
- @tcambanis Sean MacFarland, cmndr in Anbar, studied it at WPt, replaced HR McMaster in Tal Afar; did know if not by that name #TheInsurgents
- So insurgency is a case where an abstract theory really determines how one shapes a war. Is that rare? #theinsurgents
- @fmkaplan That is, McMaster studied COIN, MacFarland studied McMaster - and had studied COIN earlier. #TheInsurgents
- @tcambanis Doctrine shapes training, deployments, promotion policy. This was a revolution in doctrine, well-plotted. #TheInsurgents
- Most serious critique of COIN is that it's mostly linked to failed wars or to colonial conflicts we d/want to emulate. #theinsurgents
- #COIN is Vietnam, Malaya, Kenya, Iraq, Afghanistan... wars that aren't winnable, or shdn't be attempted today. #theinsurgents
- @tcambanis True. Brits in Malaya owned Malaya. US had to deal with Iraqi and Af leaders who didn't share US interests. #TheInsurgents
