ABSTRACT
This chapter evaluates the evolution of American COIN for a period of 150 years starting from the genesis of the United States during the War of Independence, continuing with the Civil War and much later till the onset of the Second World War. George Washington wanted a regular army designed in the style of eighteenth-century European armies which was capable of conducting conventional campaigns involving decisive battles and sieges. The independence of America from Britain made the dispossession of American Indians inevitable. In Latin America, the United States conducted a high technology-oriented COIN. The United States first used airpower against the insurgents during the Mexican Campaign in 1916 when President Woodrow Wilson ordered Brigadier-General John J. Pershing to disperse the rebel force of Francisco Pancho Villa. The Spanish regime in the Philippines collapsed not due to the guerrilla warfare conducted by the Filipinos but due to the American invasion.
