Two Sides of the Same Coin

The recent counterinsurgency efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan revitalized interest in counterinsurgency doctrine and practice. After multiple iterations changing approaches from a lethal enemy-centric approach to a whole-of-government population-centric approach, the U.S. Army continues to revise its doctrine Field Manual 3-24, Counterinsurgency to address the needs of the current and anticipated environments. This monograph analyzed two successful counterinsurgencies using a methodology similar to the RAND study Victory Has a Thousand Fathers to test the validity of the most common methods employed in best practice counterinsurgency. This monograph suggests that the probability of success in a counterinsurgency campaign increases through using an adaptive approach comprised of mixed-methods.