by Lieutenant Colonel Steven Alexander, Small Wars Journal
Transitions While Conducting Counterinsurgency Operations (Full PDF Article)
Transitioning is critical to the success of any operation. However within a counterinsurgency (COIN) operation where the interaction between military and inter-agency efforts intertwine with Host Nation dynamics managing transition takes on a degree of complexity that far out paces the conduct of conventional operations on a linear battlefield. Counterinsurgents do not manage transition in a linear fashion like their conventional partners during the conduct of offensive and defensive operations; there is a great deal of doctrine available describing phasing for these actions. Unfortunately we have very few resources or studies that go into any detail on the methodology a COIN force (the military and civil elements deployed to the HN) uses for determining what comprises the conditions that determine a transition under non-linear conditions. Those in the field are left to determine where they are conceptually and what conditions, if adequately accomplished, would allow them to transition responsibility and authority to the Host Nation (HN)-the endstate of most contemporary counterinsurgent efforts. Based on his experiences in Algeria and the Far East David Galula also indentified the challenge of transition in a COIN environment:
The army officer has learned in military academies that combat is divided into distinct phases...For each phase he is taught that there is a standard deployment and maneuver in accordance with the current doctrine. Therefore the intellectual problem of the field officer in conventional combat consists in identifying which phase in which he finds himself and then applying the standard answer to his situation. Such a process does not exist in counterinsurgency warfare. How much time and means to devote to tracking guerillas or, instead, to working the population, by what specific actions and in what order the population could be controlled and led to co-operate, these were questions that the sous-quatier commander had to answer by himself. One can imagine the variety of answers arrived at and the effects on the pacification effort as a whole. (Galula, Pacification in Algeria, 1956-1958, 1963).
There are several external factors that impact on transition such as political will, coalition partner's agenda, and world opinion. This article will not focus on those issues but rather on the COIN force's action internal to the HN. There are three areas in which transitions must occur with a degree of predictability and control for counterinsurgents to be successful: security (to include Host Nation forces), legitimacy of the provincial/regional government (with respect to providing essential services), and the strength of the local economy. This article explores the inter-dynamics of non-linear transition within these three areas and their importance in successfully establishing the legitimacy of the HN government.
Transitions While Conducting Counterinsurgency Operations (Full PDF Article)
