The Political Impossibility of Modern Counterinsurgency: Strategic Problems, Puzzles, and Paradoxes

by David Martin Jones and M.L.R. Smith

The counterinsurgency (COIN) paradigm dominates military and political conduct in contemporary Western strategic thought. It assumes future wars will unfold as "low intensity" conflicts within rather than between states, requiring specialized military training and techniques. COIN is understood as a logical, effective, and democratically palatable method for confronting insurgency--a discrete set of practices that, through the actions of knowledgeable...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0231170009
• ISBN13: 9780231170000
• Release Date: May 2015
• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 1.24 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.1" x 9.2"