A new field manual for implementation will provide Army leaders fundamental information related to tactical counterinsurgency operations, said MAJ Michael Mulherin, a doctrine writer in the Doctrine and Collective Training Division with Fort Benning's Combined Arms and Tactics Directorate.
FM 3-24 deals with counterinsurgency operations at the division level and higher.
The Infantry School saw a need for more guidance, Mulherin said, so FMI 3-24.2, which focuses on brigade level and below - where the rubber meets the road - was created.
The manual is in its final review before publication in May but was released to the Army March 3.
"It's important information we want to get out now," Mulherin said. "Based on our lessons learned from our past counterinsurgency experiences - especially in the last eight years of the Global War on Terrorism - it gives a comprehensive approach to operations that will help, especially at the battalion and company level, in their planning and approach."
In creating the manual, writers looked at both successful and unsuccessful operations in recent and historic conflicts, said Arthur Durante, acting chief of Doctrine and Collective Training Division.
"Counterinsurgency is a complex issue. There are a lot of different points of view," Durante said. "We brought all of them together, analyzed them and took the best of them to make this field manual.
"Our evaluation of many, many different counterinsurgency efforts by many, many armies is that the successful ones
integrate the whole of government. It requires a comprehensive approach."
This approach is detailed in the "seven lines of effort," which include establishing civil security and civil control, supplying the host nation a security force, government and economic and infrastructure development, restoring essential services and conducting information engagement.
These lines of effort are only the main ones that usually pop up, Durante said. Leaders may need
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