Counterinsurgency

The American military's failure to plan for an insurgency following their quick victory over the Iraqi army was a major strategic error. For over three years after the rout of Iraq's regular forces, American troops had to fight a tenacious insurgency despite the fact that their tactical approach was ill-suited for such warfare. Beginning in 2005, a group of military intellectuals began to develop a new approach to counterinsurgency, one that was population-centered. Launched in 2007 by General Petraeus, it proved remarkably successful, and the situation in Iraq has improved significantly. Aspects of the approach are now being applied in Afghanistan, and will undoubtedly guide American military practice for the foreseeable future. One of the key intellectual figures behind the transformation of American military strategy was the Australian theorist David Kilcullen, whose articles and papers quickly achieved legendary status among military strategists. In Counterinsurgency, Kilcullen will gather together his seminal articles in one concise volume. The book will act as a 'rough guide' to counterinsurgency for practitioners, and serve as tight theoretical volume for students and academics of current military strategy. It will feature four updated and annotated versions of his key essays: ",Twenty-Eight Articles: Fundamentals of Counterinsurgency Warfare,", ",Multi-National Force Iraq Counterinsurgency Guidance", (the document that laid out the counterinsurgency techniques associated with the Surge in Iraq), ",Afghanistan: Fundamentals of Best-Practice Counterinsurgency,", and ",Measuring Progress in Counterinsurgency.",