ABSTRACT
Not long ago, “counterinsurgency” was an odd and obscure word. In March and April 2003, the United States armed forces pushed into Baghdad with breathtaking speed. Saddam Hussein’s conventional military formations were defeated in a tough but swift battle and his dictatorship was ended. Senior US decision makers, both civilian and military, expected to leave Iraq soon and victorious, but an unexpected enemy crossed their plans. Iraqis and a small number of foreign fighters, not wearing uniforms, began to harass coalition forces with AK-47s, so-called improvised explosive devices-today the well-known IEDs-and suicide attacks. Small-scale, unconventional attacks kept rising. The Pentagon was reluctant to acknowledge that the war was not over, but was instead entering a more vicious and entirely unexpected phase. In mid-June 2003, General John Abizaid, who came in as the new head of US Central Command, took a hard look at the emerging type of war: “guerrilla tactics,” he proclaimed “is a proper way to describe it in strictly military terms.” This acknowledgment of reality spiraled the general’s first briefing into the big news. In subsequent months, the US and its allies would find themselves more and more engaged, not only in combating these “tactics” but also having embarked in counterinsurgency warfare and all that accompanied it: new doctrine, new enemies, an alien population, a different way to use military power on land, in the air, and at sea, unfamiliar intelligence gathering, training of local forces, trials of local governance, unexpected cultural hurdles, ethical dilemmas, propaganda challenges-all while time was running out. Basically, the US military attempted to understand counterinsurgency while fighting a counterinsurgency: an undertaking akin to redesigning and refitting a race car, and teaching the driver new routines, all while speeding along the course.
