Learning to Forget : US Army Counterinsurgency Doctrine and Practice From Vietnam to Iraq

Learning to Forget analyzes the evolution of US counterinsurgency (COIN) doctrine over the last five decades. Beginning with an extensive section on the lessons of Vietnam, it traces the decline of COIN in the 1970s, then the rebirth of low intensity conflict through the Reagan years, in the conflict in Bosnia, and finally in the campaigns of Iraq and Afghanistan. Ultimately it closes the loop by explaining how, by confronting the lessons of Vietnam, the US Army found a way out of those most recent wars. In the process it provides an illustration of how military leaders make use of history and demonstrates the difficulties of drawing lessons from the past that can usefully be applied to contemporary circumstances. The book outlines how the construction of lessons is tied to the construction of historical memory and demonstrates how histories are constructed to serve the needs of the present. In so doing, it creates a new theory of doctrinal development. This book details the relationship between the US Army’s counterinsurgency doctrine and its changing lessons of Vietnam. The US Army, battered by its experience in Vietnam, radically reshaped its institutional identity after the war. To do so, they had to contend with the lessons of Vietnam. Not only that, but they needed to address what these lessons said about the utility of counterinsurgency doctrine, which many within the Army blamed for the US defeat. This book is a study of how the lessons of the Vietnam War influenced Army attitudes towards counterinsurgency in the post-Vietnam era, with a particular focus on the interplay between military doctrine and history. It demonstrates that Vietnam had a profound effect on Army attitudes towards counterinsurgency. These lessons, and the fortunes of counterinsurgency, were inextricably tied to the contemporary challenges the Army saw itself facing. The trauma of defeat in Vietnam meant that the Army was unwilling to openly talk about the lessons of that war. Instead, there was a silence, and whatever understanding the army had of how to conduct counterinsurgency faded over time, disappearing from doctrine and the military education system. In time, Army leaders constructed a set of ‘lessons of Vietnam’ that eschewed military interventions unless specific favorable circumstances held. However, try as it might, the Army could escape neither Vietnam nor counterinsurgency and subsequent experiences modified its understanding of both. This book attempts to understand the contradictions within the Army’s lessons that led them back to counterinsurgency once again Learning to Forget analyzes the evolution of US counterinsurgency (COIN) doctrine over the last five decades. Beginning with an extensive section on the lessons of Vietnam, it traces the decline of COIN in the 1970s, then the rebirth of low intensity conflict through the Reagan years and the conflict in Bosnia, culminating in the campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. It explains how the lessons of Vietnam led the Army to Iraq and the way in which their confronting and reimagining of these lessons offered them a way out of that war. In the process it provides an illustration of how military leaders make use of history and demonstrates the difficulties of drawing lessons from the past that can usefully be applied to contemporary circumstances. The book outlines how the construction of lessons is tied to the construction of historical memory and describes the interplay between the two processes, demonstrating how histories are constructed to serve the needs of the present. In so doing, it creates a new theory of doctrinal development This book studies the impact of the lessons and legacies of the Vietnam War on the formulation of US counterinsurgency doctrine in the postVietnam years, with particular reference to the interplay of the 'lessons of history' with doctrine.