Counterinsurgency in Afghanistan #999562

In 2011, a statistical survey conducted in Afghanistan measured the effectiveness of the counterinsurgency (COIN) courses delivered by NATO. The results were largely positive. A decade later, international forces withdrew and the Afghan institutions collapsed within days. Between those two facts lies the question at the heart of this book: why did the dissemination of COIN's core principles fail to help the new Afghan government win the consensus everyone hoped for? This is not an apologia. It is an attempt to show that the COIN campaign began with every condition in place to support the country's reconstruction and democratization, and to recall the scale of a twenty-year international effort measured in lives and resources alike. If these pages contribute, even in a small way, to understanding what went wrong, they will have served their purpose.