Other Political Science Commons^™

Counterinsurgency (COIN) operations are the most common type of military operation conducted by the United States and other Western powers.  In most cases, conventional forces intervening in an insurgency are limited in personnel and turn to local community-based security forces to mitigate this shortcoming after initial attempts fail to defeat an insurgency with the conventional forces available.  While the use of community-based security forces is a common element of COIN operations, little research has been conducted to determine the factors that contribute to their successful employment.  A synthesis of existing COIN and community-based policing theory provides a model to evaluate …