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The Cost Of Counterinsurgency, Is It Worth It?

Better Essays

Tricia Wildman
Professor P. Fitz
Psc 113
April 2nd 2017
The cost of counterinsurgency, is it worth it?

War is a tool to enforce core values such as ideologies and policies, therefore it is the continuation of politics through other means (Clausewitz and Maude, 1962). Throughout history the art of war has been extremely political, nation’s rage wars to further their political interest. In the past until world war II, most wars were for conquest in order to create empires. The country or empire that attacked first would be the victor because defense was more expensive than offense. This changed after the second world war and dawn the cold war. The two superpowers of the world the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics …show more content…

On September 11th 2001 the terrorist group Al Qaeda hijacked four passenger aircraft, they flew two of the airplanes into the north and South towers of the World Trade Centre complex. These attacks killed almost 3000 people and injured over 6000 more. This was the first major successful attack on the US soil, President Bush in retaliation gave the orders to invade Afghanistan on October 7th 2001.
This was the first war that the department of defense (DOD) has no real plan on how the invasion would take place. The central intelligence agency (CIA) was the mastermind behind the use of network centric warfare (NCW) which was transformation of the army in action. This plan seemed to work as they had the taliban’s on the run through the use of airpower and the Northern Alliance infantry. The problem for the military was that the taliban learnt and adapted to their new environment and concealed themselves underground. The military had to adjust to an enemy that lurked in the dark, NCW was no longer an effective strategy.
Two short years after that invasion, President George W. Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq. This time not to retaliate but rather as a mission to relieve the country of its alleged weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and to liberate the people of Iraq from their terrible dictator Saddam Hussain. The United States army dominated the ill equipped and unprepared Iraqi army in under two months. The

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