After a Decade of Counter-insurgency, Eliminate Nation-Building from US Military Manuals

Abstract

The US Army and Marine Corps risk degrading their national security worth if they do not reassess the principles of counter-insurgency (COIN) and reject the strategy of nation-building as a core US military mission. Based on a decade of war, the doctrine for COIN has failed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Understanding the core errors that caused those failures should be the starting point for revising COIN doctrine. If this is not done, the conventional infantry forces will lose utility for the next decade.