(Preface) In early 2006, the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) asked RAND’s National Defense Research Institute to conduct a comprehensive study of insurgency and counterinsurgency (COIN), with a view toward how the United States should improve its capabilities for such conflicts in the 21st century.

This is the capstone report of that study, drawing from a dozen RAND research papers on specific cases, issues, and aspects of insurgency and COIN. The study included an examination of 89 insurgencies since World War II to learn why and how insurgencies begin, grow, and are resolved. It also analyzed the current challenge of what is becoming known as global insurgency, exemplified by the global jihadist movement, as well as lessons about both insurgency and COIN from a number of cases, including Iraq and Afghanistan.

The conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan provide the current policy context for this study. To be clear, however, the study is concerned with deficiencies in U.S. capabilities revealed in those conflicts, not with how to end them satisfactorily. Most new investments to improve U.S. COIN capabilities would not yield capabilities of immediate use. That said, to the extent that the findings can help the United States tackle the problems it faces in Iraq and Afghanistan, this would be a bonus. Regardless of how Iraq and Afghanistan turn out in the short term, the United States and its international partners will not have seen the last of this sort of challenge, and they must become better prepared than they have been for today’s insurgencies.

Accordingly, this report addresses not only military capabilities but all important security capabilities and civil instruments that must be strengthened for effective COIN. Thus, with the encouragement of its sponsor, the study’s findings are not confined to the domain of the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD).

Success of COIN depends on the quality and performance of the government that is directly threatened by insurgency—a lesson relearned the hard way in Iraq and Afghanistan. If a government is seen by its people as illegitimate, sectarian, inept, or otherwise unresponsive to their needs, it is unlikely that the United States can save it from insurgency, perhaps not even from its own people. At the same time, the United States may be able to buy time, create “political space,” and offer assistance for the threatened government to make the reforms that are required to overcome the appeal or fear of the insurgents and thus to win the competition for the population’s confidence and allegiance.

Indeed, U.S backing must be contingent on such reforms or it will not work. Of course, the United States is not alone in its ability to help: U.S. global and regional allies, ad hoc collaborators, and international organizations have considerable capacity to do so. Therefore, this report will address security and civil COIN capabilities of three actors: local states, the United States, and U.S. partners.

The history of insurgencies and the particular challenges of COIN in this era of globalization and Islamic militancy demand humility and realism regarding COIN. Theory is easier than practice; plans more impressive than execution. As enemies go, insurgents tend to be highly dedicated, resourceful, and aware of the terrain, especially the “humanterrain,” in which they challenge the state’s control. COIN is messier, riskier, less predictable, and often nastier than intended. Mistakes are inevitable and, given the political essence of the conflict, often consequential.

For these reasons, while it is obviously important to have the best possible U.S. capabilities for COIN, there is no assurance that these will produce the outcomes we seek at the costs and losses we might expect.

Again, defective local government and deficient local security services can cancel out the advantages of even superior U.S. forces and massive assistance. This reality argues for hedging against disappointment both in the capabilities that the United States builds and in the COIN campaigns that it enters. Thus, capabilities should be adequate both to carry out plans and to recover from plans gone awry, as they often do. ...

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RAND Counterinsurgency Study -- Final Report

By: David C. Gompert, John Gordon, IV, Adam Grissom, David R. Frelinger, Seth G. Jones, Martin C. Libicki, Edward O'Connell, Brooke K. Stearns, Robert E. Hunter

The study was funded by the U.S. Department of Defense.

The report was prepared by the RAND National Defense Research Institute, a federally funded research and development center that does research for the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Staff, the unified commands and other defense agencies.

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