Doctrine of Eternal Recurrence--The U.S. Military and Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1960-1970 and 2003-2006

Doctrine of Eternal Recurrence--The U.S. Military and Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1960-1970 and 2003-2006: RAND Counterinsurgency Study--Paper 6

Austin Long
Copyright Date: 2008
Edition: 1
Published by: RAND Corporation
Pages: 46
https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7249/op200osd
Search for reviews of this book
  • Cite this Item
  • Book Info
    Doctrine of Eternal Recurrence--The U.S. Military and Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1960-1970 and 2003-2006
    Book Description:

    By comparing modern counterinsurgency doctrine and operations to those of 1960s, this paper tests and ultimately disproves the assumption that doctrine as written and operations as conducted are tightly linked. Ingrained organizational concepts and beliefs have a much greater influence on operations than written doctrine, and altering these beliefs will require the U.S. military to reorient itself mentally as well as physically.

    eISBN: 978-0-8330-4535-5
    Subjects: Political Science, Management & Organizational Behavior

Table of Contents

  1. Front Matter
    (pp. i-ii)
  2. Preface
    (pp. iii-iv)
  3. Table of Contents
    (pp. v-vi)
  4. Summary
    (pp. vii-viii)
  5. Acknowledgments
    (pp. ix-x)
  6. Abbreviations
    (pp. xi-xii)
  7. Doctrine of Eternal Recurrence—The U.S. Military and Counterinsurgency Doctrine
    (pp. 1-30)

    Many authors have noted the United States’ massive and pervasive difficulty in conducting effective large-scale counterinsurgency (COIN) operations. The country’s tendency to repeat the same mistakes during COIN has similarly generated a number of pithy analogies, with Bruce Hoffman’s comparison of the United States to the protagonist of the movieGroundhog Daybeing the most common and most apt.² This paper seeks to address this repetition from a different angle by comparing the development of the U.S. military’s doctrine for COIN in the 1960s with its development of a new COIN doctrine in the years after Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF)....

  8. References
    (pp. 31-34)