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Too busy to read a whole Field Manual?

By David Betz

If the 470 pages of FM 3-24 Counterinsurgency Field Manual are too much for you then perhaps you should consider Army Magazine Hooah Guide to COIN. Actually, it’s pretty good.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, 20, February, 2008 at 11:31 am and is filed under COIN, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

3 Responses to “Too busy to read a whole Field Manual?”

  1. Sergio Catignani Says:
    Wednesday, 20, February, 2008 at 8:46 pm | Reply

    Hi David,

    I was just reading through media snippets of interviews with Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli. At the time Chiarelli, who was the commander of the MNF-Iraq, stated:
    “…it’s important that soldiers, particularly sergeants, understand that their behavior toward Iraqis affects the way Iraqis view their newly elected government”. So far so good…seems like he read the COIN FM…

    He continued, “That government’s legitimacy will be based in part on how we act,” he said, “because we are invited guests in that country.”

    I fell off my chair when I read “invited guests”. I wonder if the Soviets were as good at defining their status in Afghanistan as Chiarelli was in describing the US armed forces presence in Iraq??

    Anyway, thought I would share a slightly humorous quote.

    Take care,
    Sergio

  2. The Faceless Bureaucrat Says:
    Thursday, 21, February, 2008 at 11:00 am | Reply

    Sergio,

    Yes, the Soviets took great pains to ensure that their forces were invited to Afghanistan in 1979 (and had deployed enough ‘advisers’ to ensure that this took place, including the KGB Lt Col who served as the presidential cook!). Just as Soviet forces had been ‘invited’ to Budapest in 1945 and 1956 and Prague in 1968.

    However, the idea is not without controversy and several ‘revisionist’ histories exist. After the end of the Soviet Union, many attempts were made by the newly free countries in Eastern Europe to discover the truth and origin of these invitations.

    On the subject of the Afghan invitation (or lack thereof) one could do worse than to read this fascinating account:

    http://content.cdlib.org/xtf/view?docId=ft7b69p12h&chunk.id=s1.2.6&toc.depth=1&toc.id=ch02&brand=eschol

  3. » Même pas mal! - En vérité Says:
    Wednesday, 5, March, 2008 at 6:21 pm | Reply

    [...] à Joseph HENROTIN et au blog kings of war (j’aime particulièrement les post, mais aussi les vrais travaux, de Théo FERRELL, dont je  [...]

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