2013 we completed “Paths to Victory: Lessons from Modern Insurgencies,” a study of 71 counterinsurgencies since the end of World War II that quantitatively tested the performance of 24 concepts, or building blocks, for specific counterinsurgency (COIN) approaches, against the historical record. Some of the concepts were drawn from classical perspectives on COIN from the previous century, such as pacification and resettlement; others were contemporary concepts suggested for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, such as “boots on the ground” and the concept implicit in U.S. Army Field Manual (FM) 3-24, Counterinsurgency.
The selected cases are the 71 most recent resolved insurgencies, spanning the period from World War II through 2010. In addition to being perfectly representative of the modern history of insurgency, these cases represent geographic variation (mountains, jungles, deserts, cities), regional and cultural variation (Africa, Latin America, Central Asia, the Balkans, the Far East), and variation in the military capabilities