Our allies need to build capabilities for counter-insurgency

Counter-insurgency warfare is meant to be different from traditional war-fighting in one particular way: it recognises the military’s limitations. It accepts that soldiers may be able to fight off insurgents, but only reconstruction in, and outreach to, local communities can stave off renewed conflict. In that way, counter-insurgency is based on getting civilians to play an active role.

But despite this new military orthodoxy, and some four years after the Taliban began its fight-back against NATO’s Afghan mission, the number of civilians deployed into theatre has been disappointingly low. Neither the US nor Europe have dispatched the hundreds of development specialists seen as crucial for success. In Europe, the problem is not only a question of political will and, lately, a worry that the Obama administration has no stomach for a drawn-out fight. It is also down to a severe lack of civilian capacity.