User:T30mAnderson/sandbox

Vietnam to 9/11
After the United States’ poor experience with combating insurgents in Vietnam, the country was hesitant to enter other conflicts that may result in insurgent style resistance. Scholars and military leaders such as Steven Metz and General Petraus admitted that the United States had lost much of it's counterinsurgency capabilities after the Vietnam war. In the 1980s the U.S. partly rebuilt their counterinsurgency abilities when the Soviet Union again began to sponsor insurgencies in third world countries such as El Salvador. With the end of the cold war in the 1990s, the U.S. again purged its counterinsurgency knowledge and capabilities, “assuming it was a legacy of the Cold War that would fade to irrelevance with the demise of the Soviet Union."

In the post Cold War era, Operation Desert Storm was the only conflict in which the U.S. military played a major active role. In this conflict U.S. commanders demonstrated their mastery of conventional warfare through the use of superior technology, firepower, and tactical skill. The swift and devastating use of technology in this conflict led many to believe that information warfare was the future face of combat.

Counterinsurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan
The United States' avoidance of conflicts that could turn into insurgencies began to be noticed by terrorist leaders. In a 1997 interview with CNN, Osama bin Laden, then leader of Al Quaeda, said in reference to the US withdrawal in Somalia, "After a little resistance, the American troops left after achieving nothing... They left after some resistance from powerless, poor, unarmed people whose only weapon is the belief in Allah the Almighty,". On September 11, 2001 bin Laden orchestrated the deadliest terrorist attack ever carried out on United States soil. This attack shocked the United States out of its insurgency avoidance policy.

Shortly after the September 11th attacks, the United States deployed forces to Afghanistan to overthrow the Taliban government which was harboring bin Laden. United States forces once again deployed superior technology, firepower, and tactics to defeat Taliban forces in a relatively short period. However, Afghanistan's history of a weak centralized government coupled with neighboring countries providing safe haven for Taliban leaders made the construction of a stable new government difficult. In 2006, there was a resurgence in Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan.

The invasion of Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom saw many parallels to the invasion of Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom. United States ground troops entered Iraq in March of 2001. The initial invasion of Iraq was characterized by “shock and awe”. Shock and awe was a tactic designed to demonstrate the overwhelming power of the United States to the Iraqi people through a display of unmatched artillery and air power. This tactic resulted in US forces occupying the capital of Iraq, Baghdad, within two weeks of the invasion.

However, U.S forces encountered pockets of Sunni resistance in Baghdad and surrounding cities. This resistance marked the beginnings of the insurgency that has plagued US forces during its occupation of Iraq. Several factors including a failure to restore public utilities, the disbanding of the Iraqi military, and violence between US troops and Iraqi civilians led to increased resistance and the formation of insurgent groups. The United States' postwar plan did not adequately prepare the U.S. for a insurgency scenario.

The doctrine of shock and awe proved ineffective against eliminating small pockets of insurgent fighters. U.S. forces began to shift away from the shock and awe strategy to “hearts and minds”. Hearts and minds shifted away from displays of massive firepower and attempted to persuade to local population to support the new government through more peaceful means The United States has sent millions of dollars of humanitarian aid to the people of Iraq and Afghanistan and U.S. forces have worked closely with other humanitarian groups such as the red cross to ensure that humanitarian aid is distributed throughout these areas.

In addition to winning the "hearts and minds" of the people, the United States vastly improved its intelligence gathering techniques in an effort to dismantle insurgency networks. In 2005, the NSA worked closely with the CIA to deploy airborne cameras and intercept cell phone signals around Iraq. This gave United States forces the ability to watch the country with what General McChrystal termed an "unblinking eye". This level of surveillance created a flow of intelligence that gave Special Forces teams the ability to conduct almost nightly raids against key targets in order to dismantle insurgency networks more effectively.

Another tactic used by the United States in both Iraq and Afghanistan is and effort to shift the responsibility of providing security for specific areas to the local populations by setting up local police forces. The Afghan Local Police (ALP) program has assisted the US in raiding insurgent compounds and providing security for areas that US forces have cleared out of active insurgent groups. The ALP have encountered difficulties recruiting individuals willing to defy the Taliban for fear of retaliation, a lack of funding from the local government, and some members of the ALP feeling they are little more than a “wall of meat” for US forces.

US forces also focused on stemming the flow of heroin out of Afghanistan. It is estimated that 90% of the worlds heroin supply was being exported out of Afghanistan. The sale of heroin was in part being used to fund insurgent activities in the country and cutting of the flow of cash became a top priority for the United States.

Counterinsurgency in Columbia
The United States committed a large number of resources to the Colombian government to combat the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias Colombianas (FARC) insurgency in Colombia. Instead of deploying forces to Colombia to conduct counterinsurgency operations, the United States maintained a minimal presence. Instead, the United States focused on providing resources and training to the Colombian military and police force to conduct their own Counterinsurgency operations. By 2011, the FARC had been marginalized and Columbia had established a strong central government.

Preemptive Counterinsurgency in Africa
The United States has maintained a presence in Africa in order to decrease the risk of an insurgency. In 2013, the U.S. had 5000 troops in Africa that “carried out 55 operations, 10 exercises and 481 security cooperation activities.”  The U.S. strategy in Africa is a three pronged approach that includes military support and training, highly advertised humanitarian projects, and intelligence gathering. When gathering intelligence, the United States has focused its efforts on cultural intelligence to support “Africom strategic movements on the continent.” The end goal of the U.S. is to gather “...socio-cultural and political knowledge of the potential enemy before s/he becomes an enemy.”