Headed The Wrong Way: The British Army’s Painful Re-Acquaintance With Its Own COIN Doctrine In Southern Iraq

The purpose of this research was to obtain a historically rooted understanding of the development, application, and adaptation of the British COIN approach—one from which the US has borrowed heavily. It focuses upon those factors which interfere with timely, adaptive application of current COIN doctrine as soon as the warning signs of insurgency present themselves. The price of failing to do so in terms of blood and treasure has been widely proclaimed daily in the news media during the past deca