Tuesday, June 29, 2010

COIN: Another View

Michael Cohen has written a long, thorough article discussing what has worked and not worked in counterintelligence (COIN). It appears here on the World Policy Institute website.

In many ways the article is a critique of the current U.S. military's counterintelligence doctrine. My favorite line from the article is two thousand years old, a quote from Tacitus describing the Roman approach to COIN:
They make a wasteland and call it peace.
Briefly, the Roman approach is this: destroy the enemy's cities and enslave what remains of their populace. The approach is not exactly politically correct by today's standards.