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TACTICAL THOUGHT
2014 September 29 th
In the left part of the space, we find six battalion commanders, and only three to the
right. Of four Ranger unit officers, three are to be found in the left part. Mechanized or
Mechanized Infantry unit commanders are spread over all tactical types, as are the
remaining part of the company commanders. This shows a result characterized by a
diversified and dual view of tactics. A potentiality of a field-like character is thus
argued to exist, particularly within the mechanized community and in general, regarding
the whole collective of field commanders. This character is argued to have a potentiality
not only internally in the space of tactical thought, but also within a larger possible field
of Swedish military thought. By this, the descriptive results from the interview
questions have been presented. The next part presents a comparison of the space of
standpoints with a collection of current normative doctrinal texts on Counterinsurgency
Operations.
4.6 The space of statements compared to normative standards for
COIN operations.
Introduction
This section presents American, British, French, Canadian and Swedish normative
views of context and concepts for tactics in Counterinsurgency operations 181 Compared
to the initial literature study on Irregular Warfare in general, this analysis has the aim
of focusing only on normative articulations, as in doctrines for tactics in
Counterinsurgency 182 , because this area is argued to be the currently most commonly
articulated within Irregular Warfare. The descriptive result from the Multiple
Correspondence Analyses (MCA), regarding structure of the space of statements, is
compared with the normative findings. The section closes with a discussion on
similarities and differences leading to a generalized answer to the question; “How does
the descriptive result of tactical thought compare with current normative standards for
Counterinsurgency operations The method used is a qualitative textual analysis.
Normative views on tactics in Irregular Warfare
Military normative articulations can be found in doctrines and field manuals, of which
several new or re-written texts on Irregular Warfare and Counterinsurgency have been
published since 2007 in the western world 183 .
181 Appendix 8. Results from a Tactical COIN doctrine study, pp. 1-16 (16). The analysis of normative
text origins from a study by the author during 2011 at SNDC, aiming to provide knowledge to the
Swedish Ground Forces Combat School (MSS) for their work with new field manuals.
182 Militärstrategisk doktrin 2011 med doktrinära grunder (MSD 12) (2011), p. 16. :” the political,
economic, civil, psychological, social, legal, and military operations by an overall strategy taken to
combat the Insurgency. Noted here is that the military component is only one of the total spectrums of the
exercise of power resources and the political / civil sector has the crucial role influencing the conflict.”
183 Some influence examples are; U.S. Department of the Army, Headquarters, Counterinsurgency, Field
Manual FM 3-24 (2006), U.S. Department of the Army, Headquarters, Tactics in Counterinsurgency,
Field Manual 3-24.2 (2009), U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Counterinsurgency Operations,
Joint Publication JP 3-24 (2009) and UK Ministry of Defence, Development, Concepts and Doctrine
Centre, Security and Stabilisation: The Military Contribution, Joint Doctrine Publication 3-40 (2009).
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