SHADES OF CORDS IN THE KUSH: THE FALSE HOPE OF “UNITY OF EFFORT” IN AMERICAN COUNTERINSURGENCY

Counterinsurgency (COIN) requires an integrated
military, political, and economic program best developed
by teams that field both civilians and soldiers.
These units should operate with some independence
but under a coherent command. In Vietnam, after
several false starts, the United States developed an
effective unified organization, Civil Operations and
Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS), to
guide the counterinsurgency. CORDS had three
components absent from our efforts in Afghanistan
today: (1) sufficient personnel (particularly civilian),
(2) numerous teams, and (3) a single chain of command
that united the separate COIN programs of the disparate
American departments at the district, provincial,
regional, and national levels. This monograph focuses
on the third component, describing the benefits that
unity of command at every level would bring to the
American war in Afghanistan.