If you've followed the rise of the neo-counterinsurgency era, you'll have noticed their little play on the revolutionary moniker made famous by the Nicaraguan Sandinistas, and the Mexican Zapatistas (so named, respectively, in honor of one-time 'insurgents' Augusto César Sandino, and Emiliano Zapata) - COINdinistas. In reality, counterinsurgency propagandists are arguably counter-revolutionary, and so the more appropriate moniker might be COINtras (a play on the U.S.-funded terrorist CONTRAs that attempted to subvert the Sandinista revolution). In any case, author/corporate journalist Tom Ricks - a Senior Fellow at the primary non-governmental hub of COIN punditry (and the key source of Obama's national security-oriented Cabinet), the Center for a New American Security - posted a 'Top Ten' list of most prominent COINtras, who, collectively "had the big ideas that shaped our world in 2009." (To be fair, Ricks includes a token COIN critic, Gian Gentile, who cannot properly be termed a COINtra (or a 'COINdinista,' for that matter)). As Obama gets set to announce the master plan for the 'surge,' this list is a useful starting point for understanding the kinds of ideas that have been most heavily influencing the surge since it began in Bush's second term, and its continuation under Obama.
While on the topic, for some raw insight into the neo-colonial mentality of 'operationalized' COINtra theory in Afghanistan, see yesterday's Associated Press report, which includes such doozies as:
"When you have a society that can't read for itself and religious
leaders are trusted, they can say whatever they like and people will
believe them. It's hard for the U.S. to penetrate and influence this....[And] "Iraq already had the foundation. They just needed the governance piece
that would support not just the elite few. In Afghanistan, you are
starting at the very beginning. It's like trying to take the American
Indians in their purest form and put them into today's New York City.
It's not going to happen.."