10 questions about COIN (II): Some issues to address before trying to do it

By Major Tom Mcilwaine,
Queen's Royal Hussars

Best Defense guest columnist

Question Group Two -- Can you fight an
expeditionary counterinsurgency campaign? Isn't it really something you only do
on home turf? Like the Turks, or the Sri Lankans, or even the British? It
strikes me as a strange type of war to fight on someone else's home turf. Isn't
that more -- well -- imperial? Is it really classic pacification? And if so,
what does that mean? Does it mean that we might need to acknowledge that this
changes the context of the war? Does it mean that we might have to accept at
the start that we can only achieve very limited objectives?

(To
be continued)