The Canadian Army Journal

to safe havens with the Morice Line in Algeria, there are also more recent examples
including NATO’s attempts to target the Taliban leadership in Afghanistan. 36 In each
case, the COIN force was attempting to destroy the enemy’s cohesion and will to fight
rather than engage in a costly effort to destroy the insurgents themselves.
Taken together, the paragraphs above show that manoeuvre warfare theory is
applicable to COIN campaigns and that the fundamental principals and methods that
make up that theory are not only limited to high-intensity, mechanized warfare.
Examples of the application of these principals and methods in the fight against
insurgencies abound throughout history, even if the practitioners themselves would not
have described their tactics as ‘manoeuvrist’. Nonetheless, instances of pre-emption,
dislocation, and disruption can be found and are often associated with the more
successful COIN campaigns.
Therefore, to answer the question posed at the introduction to this essay:
manoeuvre warfare is applicable to COIN. Much of what was developed by Western
armies in the 1980s and 1990s in terms of manoeuvre warfare doctrine can be of use in
the insurgencies now faced by the West in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is not necessary to
return to the drawing board to develop a COIN doctrine from scratch with no links to past
doctrine; rather, it is only necessary to view the current wars through our pre-existing
doctrinal lens. Of course there are clear differences between conventional and lowintensity
wars such as the increased emphasis on political considerations; and the
complexities of a battlefield where the contested feature is the will of the population
rather than a piece of terrain. These differences may necessitate special training and
knowledge in military forces but they are not so fundamental as to render the principles
and methods of manoeuvre warfare irrelevant. Ultimately, a western army that starts
from scratch in writing its COIN doctrine, ignoring manoeuvrist principles developed and
taught to its officers, is indeed throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
About the Author …
Maj Alex D. Haynes joined the CF in 1994 and graduated from Simon Fraser University in 1998
with a BA in History. An officer of The Royal Canadian Regiment, he served with the 1 st Battalion
from 1998 to 2002 and is currently serving with the 3 rd Battalion as Officer Commanding Quebec
Company. He deployed in 1998 on Op KINETIC in Kosovo as a Platoon Commander and more
recently, in 2005, on Op ARGUS in Afghanistan as a Strategic Advisor. Maj Haynes is currently
working on his MA in War Studies from the Royal Military College of Canada.
Endnotes
1. Thomas X. Hammes, The Sling and the Stone: On War in the 21st Century (St. Paul, MN: Zenith Press, 2006), 44.
2. Contemporary military journals abound with examples of articles written post-9/11 that examine past COIN campaigns
with the stated or implied aim of providing lessons for current COIN campaigns. See Timothy K. Deady “Lessons From a
Successful Counter-insurgency: The Philippines, 1899-1902,” Parameters 35, 1 (Spring 2005); Robert M. Cassidy, “Back to
the Street without Joy: Counter-insurgency Lessons from Vietnam and Other Small Wars,” Parameters 32, 4 (Summer
2004); and, Kalev I. Sepp, “Best Practices in Counter-insurgency,” Military Review 85, 3 (May-June 2005) as some
examples.
3. For the Canadian definition see Canada, Department of National Defence, B-GL-300-001/FP-000 Conduct of Land
Operations—Operational-Level Doctrine for the Canadian Army (n.p.: 1998), 15-16; for the USMC version see United
States, Department of the Navy, MCDP 1 Warfighting (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1997), 36-39; and,
for the British interpretation see United Kingdom, Ministry of Defence, Design for Military Operations—The British Military
Doctrine (London: The Stationary Office, 1996), 55-61.
4. William S. Lind, Maneuver Warfare Handbook (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1985), 6.
5. Ibid., 9-24.
6. Robert Leonhard, The Art of Maneuver: Maneuver Warfare Theory and Air Land Battle (New York: Ballantine Books,
1991), 19.
7. Ibid.
Canadian Army Journal Vol. 11.1 Spring 2008
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