So I Hear You Want to Be a Counterinsurgent?: It\u27s about the Population, Stupid!

This thesis will examine the best practices used by counterinsurgents to defeat insurgencies in the past. In order to gain victory against insurgents, the winning counterinsurgents made the population the schwerpunkt of operations. The operations of successful counterinsurgents were not only of a military nature, but also of a political and economic nature. If a counterinsurgent treated an insurgency as a problem only requiring a military solution, then he lost. Insurgents focused their efforts on winning the population, because the population enabled the insurgent\u27s operations. Successful counterinsurgents won over the population to defeat an insurgency. This thesis will assert that a clear, hold, and build” strategy is the supreme manner to fight an insurgency