Publisher's Synopsis
The doctrine for strategy and campaign planning has been well established in the military literature, but the focus has been on conventional war fighting-decisive combat with large formations to seize terrain and destroy enemy units. Since the Soviets have faded from the scene and Desert Storm is now a distant memory, the area of operations has become the "human terrain" of insurgency, guerrilla war, and terrorism.In this paper, Colonel Joseph D. Celeski, U.S. Army, Retired, provides his thoughts on how we might think about, plan and conduct operations in the new threat environment of "Terro-Insurgency." In this environment insurgents are joined by various terrorists, drug traffickers and other criminals to create what he calls the "Gray Stew" mix that confronts us today in Afghanistan and elsewhere. Based on his understanding of the new environment, Colonel Celeski posits a theory of counterinsurgency (COIN) and suggests techniques for developing the COIN plan and executing it employing special operations forces. He reinforces his concepts concerning COIN with a review of the war in Afghanistan.
