Counterinsurgency Field Manual (241 pages) PDF

It has been 20 years since the U.S. Army published a manual devoted to counterinsurgency operations, and 25 since the Marine Corps published its last such manual. With our Soldiers and Marines fighting insurgents in both Afghanistan and Iraq, it is thus essential that we give them a manual that provides principles and guidelines for counterinsurgency operations (COIN).

(ed. I would have scrapped that “thus.”)

[UPDATE]

Counterinsurgency, by the book, by Richard H. Shultz Jr. and Andrea J. Dew

The Pentagon manual rightly insists that “intelligence drives operations” and that “without good intelligence, a counterinsurgent is like a blind boxer.” Yet the document provides no organizational blueprint for collecting such intelligence.

The British and the Israelis have the blueprints for successful intelligence architecture. This is a key counterinsurgency tool that must be included in the final version of the Pentagon’s counterinsurgency manual.