A Strategy of Tactics: Population-centric COIN and the Army

Population-centric counterinsurgency COIN has become the American Armys new way of war. The principles and ideas that emerged out of the Armys counterinsurgency field manual FM, FM 3-24, published in late 2006, have become transcendent. The field manual has moved beyond simple Army doctrine for countering insurgencies to become the defining characteristic of the Armys new way of war. In the American Army today, everyone is a counterinsurgent. It is easy to find examples of FM 3-24s permeating effect in other Army doctrinal manuals such as FM 3-0, Operations, and FM 3-07, Stability Operations.