Page 197 - Conflitti Militari e Popolazioni Civili - Tomo II

699
aCta
The Echo of Coin :
1
The Problem with history and the Population Centric
Theory in American Counterinsurgency Doctrine

GIAN P. GENTILE

The Air Arm makes it possible to reach the civilian population behind the line of battle, and thus to attack
their morale resistance directly.”\
Guilio Douhet, 1921

Thus the battle for the population is a major characteristic of revolutionary war.
David Galula, 1964

The people are the prize in a counterinsurgency operation, they are the key terrain…on which victory or
defeat rests.
Peter Mansoor, 2008

the problem with history in the American Army’s new, vaunted and widely read coun-
terinsurgency (Coin) doctrine, Field Manual (FM) 3-24 is simple: it draws narrowly on a
2
body of writing on counterinsurgency warfare best symbolized by the French Revolutionary
War School of counterinsurgency theory and practice of the early 1960s. as a result the
3
Army’s new Coin doctrine is singularly premised on what has become known as the “popula-
tion centric” theory of counterinsurgency warfare. This theory, derived from aspects of the
4
French Revolutionary Warfare School among other western writers on Coin, posits that a na-
tion’s people (or population) are the key to defeating an insurgency. If the people are properly
handled and controlled the insurgency which uses the people for cover and concealment can
be, over time, defeated. The problem, though, is that by its narrow selection of history and
theory, the American Army’s new Coin doctrine actually pushes it toward dogmatism in how
it approaches problems of insurgency throughout the world today and in the future. 5

1 With apologies to Professor Brian McAllister Linn and the title to his superb book The Echo of Battle: The
Army’s Way of War. I discuss his book at the end of this essay.
2 FieldManual 3-24 /Marine Corps Warfighting Publication 3-33.5, Counterinsurgency (Washington DC: HQ,
Dept. of the Army; HQ, Marine Corps Combat Development Command, Dept. of the Navy, Dec. 2006)
(hereafter referred to as FM 3-24).
3 Also known as Guerre Revolutionnaire (Revolutionary War). Throughout this paper I will use the term “French
Revolutionary War School” to refer to the body of knowledge produced by French Army officers and others
from different western nations that conceived of communist and nationalist wars of liberation and revolution
in the same was as well as generally agreeing on the tactics and operational methods to confront them.
4 For a detailed explanation of the term “population centric” and “enemy-centric” see interview with David
Kilkullen by Charlie Rose on 5 October 2008; transcript for this interview is in “Transcript: Charlie Rose
Interview with David Kilkullen, International Herald Tribune, 8 October 2008.
5 Gian P. Gentile, “The Dogmas of War: A Rigid Counterinsurgency Doctrine Obscures Iraq’s Realities, Ar-
med Forces Journal (December 2007), 38-40.