Eliot A. Cohen is Robert E. Osgood Professor of Strategic Studies at the Nitze School of
Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University.
Copyright © Eliot A. Cohen 2006
The American Counterinsurgency Tradition
State Department/DOD COIN conference
28-29 September 2006
The title of my talk is “The American Counterinsurgency Tradition”
my theme is the way in which our history has molded our approach to
counterinsurgency – the limits, perhaps, that it sets on what we can do,
but also the range of possibilities that it suggests.
First, however, I have to say something about the war.
Many Americans opposed it, of course, and I need hardly say how hostile much
foreign opinion, particularly in Europe was. And even though our conventional
operations were overwhelmingly successful, it is clear that in key respects what
military planners call Phase IV was a terrible failure. An enemy defeated in battle
resumed resistance after his armies were shattered.
I don’t have to rehearse with you the amount of communal violence that ensued,
and the wretched oppression and misery that followed in its wake.
In retrospect the critical question is whether our efforts at social engineering
were, perhaps, nobly intended but simply impossible and dangerous even to
attempt;
or, on the other hand, a sound policy hampered by indecisive execution,
utterly inadequate military and civilian resources, and an unwillingness to
confront early on opposition while developing a society that could
withstand attempts to overthrow a new, democratic, and equal social
order.
I have to tell you that I am firmly in the latter camp, and will defend that
position to the last extremity.
That difference of opinion – good idea impossible to achieve, or good idea badly
executed, is of course central. But I know – I really do know – that everyone
here must agree with me that the cause was just, and noble, and would
eventually triumph – despite what people thought the practicalities of the situation
were.
And the reason I say that is because the war I am talking about is not Iraq. It is,
rather, Reconstruction following the Civil War.
I hope that little excursion makes two key points. The first is that the United
States actually has pretty extensive experience with counterinsurgency, even
when we don’t even recognize it as such.
