The insurgents of the world are sleeping. Few new old- style insurgencies have emerged since the end of the Cold War and many old ones, from the Philippines to Peru, from Mozambique to El Salvador, from Northern Ireland to the West Bank and Gaza are lurching or inching toward settlement. But sleep is not death-it is a time for rejuvenation. Since the means and the motives for protracted political violence persist, it will prove as attractive to the discontented of the world in the post-Cold War global security environment as it did before. Eventually insurgency will awaken. When it does, the United States will be required to respond. Since the late 1940s, the importance American policymakers attached to supporting friendly states facing guerrilla threats has ebbed and flowed. Often counterinsurgency was not considered strategically significant and the defense community paid it little attention. When the president did decide that insurgency posed a threat, the military and the defense community had to craft or update an appropriate conceptual framework, organization and doctrine. Like a phoenix, American counterinsurgency capability periodically died, only to be reborn f rom the ashes. And always, how the period of remission was spent shaped the process of rebirth. When the military and defense community maintained a cadre of counterinsurgency experts to ponder past efforts and analyze the changing nature of insurgency, the reconstitution of understanding and capability was relatively easy. Today there is no pressing strategic rationale for U.S. engagement in counter! nsu rgency, but history suggests one may emerge if the United States remains involved in the Global South. This is the time, then, for introspection, assessment, and reflection-for keeping the intellectual flame burning, even if at a very low level. Just as conventional combat units train after an operation in order to prepare for future ones (while hoping they never occur), the U.S. military and other elements of the defense community must mentally train for future counterinsurgency. This entails both looking backward at previous attempts to reconstitute counterinsurgency capabilities and looking forward to speculate on future forms of insurgency and the strategic environment in which counter! nsu rgency might occur. To do this now will shorten the period of learning and adaptation should counterinsurgency support again become an important part of American national security strategy. Back to Table of Contents Counterinsurgency Strategy Back to SSI List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 1995 by US Army War College. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com