Emerging Requirements for U.S. Counterinsurgency

Since early 2002, the U.S. military has relearned COIN at the tactical, operational and strategic levels of war for both special operations and conventional forces in order to meet the security and stability requirements of both Afghanistan and Iraq post major combat operations. While the U.S. military is now developing a comprehensive COIN strategy and practice suitable to the specific requirements of those theaters, variations of insurgency are growing, or are already established, in areas of the world critical to U.S. national security interests and which are wholly dissimilar from these campaigns. The evolving insurgency in the Niger River Delta region of Nigeria is and will continue to threaten U.S. national security interests in terms of regional political stability and access to strategic resources. This thesis proposes that the U.S. military's experiences from Afghanistan and Iraq, both at the tactical and operational levels, have not established an adequate skill set to overcome the challenges of COIN presented in the Niger River Delta and will require changes in service doctrine, organization, training, material, and leader development to prevail in this unique COIN environment.