A Question of Command: Counterinsurgency from the Civil War to Iraq

An argument for a dramatically different approach to counterinsurgency, based on a reinterpretation of the nature of counterinsurgency warfare.

According to the prevailing view of counterinsurgency, the key to defeating insurgents is selecting methods that will win the people’s hearts and minds. The hearts-and-minds theory permeates not only most counterinsurgency books of the twenty-first century but the U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual, the U.S. military’s foremost te...