Wrong turn

by Gian P. Gentile

"Colonel Gian Gentile's 2008 article "Misreading the Surge" in World Politics Review first exposed a growing rift among military intellectuals that has since been playing out in strategy sessions at the Pentagon, in classrooms at military academies, and on the pages of the New York Times. While the past years of U.S. strategy in Afghanistan have been dominated by the doctrine of counterinsurgency (COIN), Gentile and a small group of dissident officers and defense analysts have questioned the necessity and efficacy of COIN--essentially armed nation-building--in achieving the United States'...