Soviet COIN in Afghanistan: The Manwaring Pardigm

An interesting article has been posted on Small Wars Journal about the Soviet Union counterinsurgency effort in Afghanistan. The author details the many failures of the Soviet counterinsurgency campaign through the framework of the Manwaring Paradigm. Max Manwaring, a research professor of military strategy with the Strategic Studies Institute, developed a method to analyze internal conflicts that consists of six dimensions that can explain success or failure in internal wars and conflicts. The six key factors included legitimacy of the government, organization for the unity of effort, type and consistency of support for the targeted government, ability to reduce outside aid to insurgents, intelligence support for COIN, and discipline and capabilities of the government's armed forces. While this article pertains to the Soviet COIN effort the six factors are equally applied to the U.S. (ISAF) COIN effort. Read "An Uncomfortable War in the Graveyard of Empires", by Michael McBride, February 22, 2014.