The Canadian Army Journal

MANOEUVRE WARFARE THEORY AND
COUNTER-INSURGENCY DOCTRINE
Major Alex D. Haynes, CD
With much of the Western world embroiled in counter-insurgency (COIN)
campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan as part of the US-led Global War on Terror (GWOT),
a considerable debate on how to wage these wars is taking place within Western
militaries, academia and governments. The intensity and urgency of this discussion are
reflective of the general lack of preparedness within those militaries for this type of war,
despite the prevalence of insurgencies during the Cold War. 1 Much of the intellectual and
material preparation since the late 1980s had focussed on fighting high-tech, midintensity
wars against opposing conventional armies and almost no attention was paid
to preparing for what are often referred to as low-intensity conflicts. Operations Desert
Storm in Iraq and Allied Force in Serbia only served to reinforce the belief among
Western military professionals that future wars would be characterized by all-seeing
sensors cueing precision weapons with almost no need for “boots on the ground” except
as a constabulary force after the enemy had capitulated.
However, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have turned these predictions on their
heads, with Western armies discovering that high-tech sensors and munitions are of
much less use in COIN campaigns. This has resulted in a rushed effort to develop
principles, techniques and theories for the conduct of COIN campaigns. Often,
comparisons are made to past COIN efforts in Vietnam, Malaya, Algeria or Kenya in an
attempt to glean long-forgotten, or even ignored, lessons from those wars. 2 On the other
hand, lower-level commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan have written about techniques
and principles that were developed and refined in theatre, usually by trial and error. Both
the US and Canada have recently produced draft COIN manuals based on the
requirement to educate and train their armies in this rediscovered form of warfare that
are based in large part on historical comparisons and experience from the field. This
considerable effort, while necessary, may risk throwing the baby out with the bath water.
Put another way: is it really necessary to start from scratch when developing COIN
doctrine? Are insurgencies so vastly different from conventional wars that none of the
principles or techniques from the latter could be applied to the former?
Since the 1980s, many Western armies have chosen to adopt ‘manoeuvre warfare’
as the basis for their doctrine. Although hardly a new concept, manoeuvre warfare was
seen as an antidote to theories that emphasized attrition, and presented a more
economical, dynamic approach to warfare akin to the German blitzkrieg of the Second
World War. The key to manoeuvre warfare, as expressed by proponents like William
Lind and Robert Leonhard, was the defeat of the enemy by attacking his critical
vulnerability rather than going toe-to-toe with his strength. By the mid 1990s, most
Western armies had converted to this school of thought, at least in their doctrine
manuals, and were teaching their young officers the principles and techniques of this
‘new’ form of warfare. However, since only recently adopting this new theory, Western
armies are faced with insurgencies rather than mid to high-intensity wars. Does this
mean that manoeuvre warfare theory is no longer valid or applicable? This essay will
attempt to answer this question by first defining manoeuvre warfare theory and COIN
theory as they exist today, and then determining if the former is in any way applicable to
the latter. The intent is to examine whether the campaigns of the Global War on Terror
(GWOT) do necessitate starting from scratch with regards to doctrine.
Major Alex D. Haynes, ‘Manoeuvre Warfare Theory and Counter-insurgency Doctrine’
Canadian Army Journal Vol. 11.1 (Spring 2008), 25-34 25