JSOU Report 09-2 Policing and Law Enforcement in COIN Joseph D. Celeski
Joint Special Operations University

and the Strategic Studies Department

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to contribute toward expanding the body of knowledge about joint special 

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Mission. Provide fully capable special operations forces to defend the 

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Joint Special Operations University

Brian A. Maher, Ed.D., SES, President

Lieutenant Colonel Michael C. McMahon, U.S. Air Force, Strategic Studies Department Director

William W. Mendel, Colonel, U.S. Army, Ret.; Jeffrey W. Nelson, Colonel, U.S. Army, Ret.; 

and William S. Wildrick, Captain, U.S. Navy, Ret—Resident Senior Fellows

Editorial Advisory Board

John B. Alexander

Ph.D., Education, The Apollinaire Group 

and JSOU Senior Fellow

Joseph D. Celeski

Colonel, U.S. Army, Ret.

JSOU Senior Fellow

Chuck Cunningham

Lieutenant General, U.S. Air Force, Ret. 

Professor of Strategy, Joint Advanced 

Warfighting School and JSOU Associate Fellow

Gilbert E. Doan

Major, U.S. Army, Ret., JSOU 

Institutional Integration Division Chief

Brian H. Greenshields 

Colonel, U.S. Air Force 

SOF Chair, Naval Postgraduate School

Thomas H. Henriksen

Ph.D., History, Hoover Institution 

Stanford University and JSOU Senior Fellow

Russell D. Howard

Brigadier General, U.S. Army, Ret.

Faculty Associate, Defense Critical Language/

Culture Program, Mansfield Center, University 

of Montana and JSOU Senior Fellow

John D. Jogerst

Colonel, U.S. Air Force, Ret. 

18th USAF Special Operations School 

Commandant

Alvaro de Souza Pinheiro

Major General, Brazilian Army, Ret.

JSOU Associate Fellow 

James F. Powers, Jr.

Colonel, U.S. Army, Ret.

Director of Homeland Security, 

Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and 

JSOU Associate Fellow

Richard H. Shultz, Jr.

Ph.D., Political Science

Director, International Security 

Studies Program, The Fletcher School, Tufts 

University and JSOU Senior Fellow

Stephen Sloan

Ph.D., Comparative Politics

University of Central Florida

Robert G. Spulak, Jr.

Ph.D., Physics/Nuclear Engineering

Sandia National Laboratories 

and JSOU Associate Fellow

Joseph S. Stringham

Brigadier General, U.S. Army, Ret.

Alutiiq, LLC and JSOU Associate Fellow

Graham H. Turbiville, Jr.

Ph.D., History, Courage Services, Inc. 

and JSOU Senior Fellow

Jessica Glicken Turnley

Ph.D., Cultural Anthropology/

Southeast Asian Studies

Galisteo Consulting Group 

and JSOU Senior Fellow 

Rich Yarger

Ph.D., History, Professor of National 

Security Policy, U.S. Army War College 

and JSOU Associate Fellow
On the cover. India’s state paramilitary police support and reinforce police 

superintendents and local and regional civil police as the armed response to 

insurgent activities in central India under their policing and law enforcement 

COIN model. Shown here is one of the company-sized unit outposts. 

JSOU Report 09-2

The JSOU Press

Hurlburt Field, Florida

2009

Policing and 

Law Enforcement 

in COIN—

the Thick Blue Line

Joseph D. Celeski
Comments about this publication are invited and should be forwarded to Director, 

Strategic Studies Department, Joint Special Operations University, 357 Tully Street, 

Alison Building, Hurlburt Field, Florida 32544. Copies of this publication may be 

obtained by calling JSOU at 850-884-1569; FAX 850-884-3917. 

*******

The JSOU Strategic Studies Department is currently accepting written works relevant 

to special operations for potential publication. For more information please contact 

Mr. Jim Anderson, JSOU Director of Research, at 850-884-1569, DSN 579-1569, 

james.d.anderson@hurlburt.af.mil. Thank you for your interest in the JSOU Press. 

*******

This work was cleared for public release; distribution is unlimited.

ISBN 1-933749-30-X
The views expressed in this publication are entirely those of 

the author and do not necessarily reflect the views, policy or 

position of the United States Government, Department of 

Defense, United States Special Operations Command, or the 

Joint Special Operations University. 
Recent Publications of the JSOU Press

Blogs and Military Information Strategy, June 2006, James Kinniburgh and 

Dorothy Denning

2006 JSOU/NDIA SO/LIC Chapter Essays, June 2006

One Valley at a Time, August 2006, Adrian T. Bogart III 

Special Operations Aviation in NATO, September 2006, Richard D. Newton

Beyond Draining the Swamp: Urban Development and 

Counterterrorism in Morocco, October 2006, Stephen R. Dalzell

Filling Special Operations Gaps with Civilian Expertise, December 2006, 

James F. Powers, Jr. 

Educating for Strategic Thinking in the SOF Community, January 2007, 

Harry R. Yarger

The Israeli Approach to Irregular Warfare and Implications for the U.S.,

February 2007, Thomas H. Henriksen

Psychological Operations: Learning Is Not a Defense Science Project,

March 2007, Curtis D. Boyd

2007 JSOU and NDIA SO/LIC Division Essays, April 2007

Hunting Leadership Targets in Counterinsurgency and Counterterrorist

Operations, June 2007, Graham H. Turbiville, Jr. 

Executive Report, JSOU Second Annual Symposium (30 April–3 May 2007)

A Theory of Special Operations, October 2007, Robert G. Spulak, Jr.

Block by Block: Civic Action in the Battle of Baghdad, November 2007, 

Adrian T. Bogart III

Private Security Infrastructure Abroad, November 2007, 

Graham H. Turbiville, Jr. 

Intelligence in Denied Areas, December 2007, Russell D. Howard

Is Leaving the Middle East a Viable Option, January 2008,

Thomas H. Henriksen

Retaining a Precarious Value as Special Operations Go Mainstream, 

February 2008, Jessica Glicken Turnley

Disrupting Threat Finances, April 2008, Wesley J.L. Anderson

USSOCOM Research Topics 2009

India’s Northeast: The Frontier in Ferment, September 2008, Prakash Singh

What Really Happened in Nortern Ireland’s Counterinsurgency, 

October 2008, Thomas H. Henriksen

Guerrilla Counterintelligence: Insurgent Approaches to Neutralizing 

Adversary Intelligence Operations, January 2009, Graham H. Turbiville, Jr. 
vii

Contents

1. Introduction........................................................................ 1

2. Law Enforcement in COIN: Offensive Policing .................... 7

3. Law Enforcement: Indirect Approach for COIN ................. 21

4. Operational Design Considerations for Policing 

 and Law Enforcement Campaigns ...........................................35

5. Insight into Policing Roles in COIN Operations................. 49

6. Examples of Policing Within COIN Operations ................. 61

7. Conclusions...................................................................... 83

Endnotes............................................................................... 87

Bibliography ......................................................................... 93

ix

Foreword

Terrorism in the post-Cold War world rose in its level of sophistication and magnitude of threat. Terrorists shifted essentially from 

small-scale attacks on individuals for purpose of political protest 

to a more dangerous model of mass casualty attacks. It is significant the 

first use of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) by a terrorist group was 

by the Aum Shin Rikyo in the Tokyo subway gas attacks of 1995. This was 

followed by the innovative Al Qaeda attacks on the U.S. in 2001; while not 

using WMD, they did inflict large numbers of casualties. Since terrorist 

groups have expressed a desire to obtain WMD, terrorism has shifted from 

essentially a tactical to a potentially strategic threat. Consequently, governments will need to use a broad spectrum of government capabilities to 

combat terrorist networks. 

Joe Celeski’s current work on the role of policing in confronting security 

threats highlights the need to shift resources and emphasis towards policing, law enforcement, and internal security. Law enforcement and internal 

security are key pillars in a comprehensive national security strategy and 

are often underemphasized. As the campaign against terrorist networks 

shifts out of a combat phase, the competition between governments and 

terrorist groups for the public’s support, a key element in irregular warfare, 

will occur in noncombat zones. It is in these noncombat zones that the 

police and other internal security elements of governmental power will be 

critical in negating terrorist network access to populations. The military’s 

role in these operational environments will be significantly reduced, but 

select support will be required and this effort will fall heavily on the Special 

Operations Forces. 

This monograph explores the complexity and challenges a government faces in organizing and training multiple levels of a nation’s various 

police institutions. Through a thorough and excellent analysis, the author 

highlights the differences of policing in a counterinsurgency environment 

versus traditional, peaceful societies. He further amplifies his discussion of 

counterinsurgency policing through a series of vignettes. The true danger 

of failure in the current campaign is that a successful irregular warfare 

campaign in one region may spur additional challenges across the globe, 
x

and Joe Celeski argues persuasively that the police are the “thick blue line” 

in this type of campaign. 

Michael C. McMahon, Lt Col, USAF

Director, JSOU Strategic Studies Department
xi

About the Author 

Joseph D. Celeski is a senior fellow 

and adjunct instructor with the 

JSOU Strategic Studies Department. His current research focuses on 

matters relating to unconventional warfare 

and counterinsurgency, terrorism, urban 

warfare, joint SOF warfighting, and senior 

leader competencies. 

Retired from active duty with the U.S.

Army as a Special Forces colonel, he served 

in a variety of special operations command 

and staff positions for over 20 years of his 

30-year Army career. Prior to retirement, 

he commanded the 3rd Special Forces Group (Airborne) at Fort Bragg, 

North Carolina (May 2002 to June 2004) and commanded coalition and 

joint SOF for two tours in Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring 

Freedom. He is a fully qualified joint specialty officer. Additionally, he is 

a Middle East area expert, trained in the Arabic language, and has served 

throughout the Middle East and the Horn of Africa regions. 

In his capacity as the chief of staff and deputy commander for the United 

States Special Forces Command at Fort Bragg, Colonel Celeski was the project 

officer for force modernization initiatives, development of the command’s 

Program Operating Memorandum input, and the unconventional warfare 

transformation initiatives. He was awarded the St. Philip Neri Bronze Award 

from the Special Forces community in 2002 for his career work.

Mr. Celeski is a graduate of the U.S. Army Command and Staff College, 

the U.S. Air Force Command and Staff College, the Marine Amphibious 

Warfare Course, the Army Force Management School, and the U.S. Army 

War College. He has a B.S. in Political Science from Columbus College in 

Georgia and a Master’s of Public Administration (MPA) degree from Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania. He will begin work toward his Ph.D. 

in History from the University of Georgia in the fall of 2009. 

Mr. Celeski has published works on the Somalia conflict and on the use 

of Special Forces in Joint Urban Operations and in unconventional warfare 
xii

in the U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School journal, the Special Warfare Magazine. His September 2005 JSOU publication 

was Operationalizing COIN in the 21st Century, and he has submitted his 

first draft of “Special Forces History in the Somalia Conflict, 1992-1995” 

for inclusion into Army SOF in Somalia 1992-1995, a fiscal year 2010 proposed publication sponsored by the U.S. Army Special Operations Command historian. Mr. Celeski has also been a keynote speaker at a variety of 

forums, including the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations 

and Low Intensity Conflict (ASD SO/LIC) symposium, the Association of 

United States Army (AUSA), Royal Canadian War College, the Naval War 

College, and the Joint Forces Staff College on matters of leadership, urban 

operations, and unconventional warfare. 

The views expressed in this publication are entirely those of 

the author and do not necessarily reflect the views, policy or 

position of the United States Government, Department of 

Defense, United States Special Operations Command, or the 

Joint Special Operations University. 
1

Celeski: Policing and Law Enforcement in COIN—the Thick Blue Line

1. Introduction

Experience shows a clear link between effective police operations 

and successful counterinsurgencies.1

Rarely a week passes without news of terrorists or insurgents around 

the world targeting police and law enforcement personnel or a 

bombing attack on their facilities. More recently (25 January 2009), 

The New York Times reported the increasing threat of local Taliban in the 

tribal region of Swat, along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. Richard A. 

Oppel, Jr. and Pir Zubair Shah, the authors of the front-page article, reported 

“Last year 70 police officers were beheaded, shot, or otherwise slain in Swat 

and 150 wounded.” As relayed by Malik Naveed Khan, the police inspector general for the North-West Frontier Province, the authors went on to 

say “The police have become so afraid that many officers have put advertisements in newspapers renouncing their jobs so the Taliban will not kill 

them.” Insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan routinely target police patrols, 

stations, and police leadership. 

News media reporting on the November 2008 attacks in Mumbai, India, 

noted that one of the first targets struck was a police headquarters among 

the various objectives. Insurgents killed most if not all of the police present 

and stole uniforms. Accurate or not, such reports intensified the impact of 

the attacks by increasing doubts about the effectiveness of the police and 

stoking public doubts about safety for themselves and their families.

Insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan routinely target police patrols, stations, and law enforcement leadership. One of the reasons for this targeted 

violence is insurgents clearly understand police and other internal security 

personnel act as the first responders in counterinsurgency (COIN) environments and frequently provide the most immediate check on insurgent 

activities. Police and law enforcement personnel—the so-called Thick Blue 

Line—normally comprise the bulk of tactical manpower on the street as 

the primary government response to internal security threats. Three brief 

examples illustrate the scale of police and other law enforcement involvement during COIN campaigns: 

a. Force ratios of police and law enforcement personnel deployed during 

the Malayan Campaign, conducted between 1948 through July 1960, 
2

JSOU Report 09-2

exceeded the size of the military effort by almost 3 to 1. (By 1953, police 

and paramilitary police units exceeded 290,000; military forces during 

the conflict were under 100,000.)2

b. Throughout 2007 in Iraq, local, national and border police units comprised approximately two thirds of the manpower employed as security 

forces and continued to increase in numbers throughout 2008.3

c. The reform of the Afghanistan security sector initially anticipated 

some 62,000 police. Early in the process a new requirement for 20,000 

more was added. (The Afghan National Army in 2008 exceeded 70,000 

trained with new requirements to raise the force to over 100,000).4

These numbers become significant for leaders of COIN campaigns in 

appreciating the law enforcement contribution to their effort when incorporated into Security Force Assistance (SFA) measures to Build Partner 

Capacity (BPC). Law enforcement’s local knowledge of the populace, cultural mind-set, innate appreciation for the environment, and operational 

procedures associated with fighting crime can be crucial enablers to the 

interdiction and capture of insurgents and terrorists. 

A recent RAND Corporation report analyzed how terrorist groups come 

to their ends. In those cases in which terrorists specifically participate as 

part of the insurgency, the research indicated a high percentage of these 

groups are eliminated through policing or through combined military and 

policing operations. Of course, such outcomes occur only when insurgent 

activities are not ended by the terrorists themselves adopting nonviolent 

tactics and joining the political process.5

Given the efforts to achieve progress in the COIN security line of operation, one formula for success is the conduct of combined military operations in concert with offensive-policing actions (police and law enforcement 

reoriented and retailored to aggressively tackle insurgents and their infrastructure). The credulity of police involvement rests with the success of 

community policing activities, which contribute to perceptions of the government legitimacy. 

In recognition of the crucial role the police and law enforcement sectors 

play in COIN and in other irregular warfare environments, Secretary of 

Defense Robert Gates recently testified on that subject in a House Armed 

Services Committee hearing. He requested more funding authority to 

enhance and enable Department of Defense (DoD) assistance to police 
3

Celeski: Policing and Law Enforcement in COIN—the Thick Blue Line

and paramilitary forces under the Global Train and Equip Program. He 

stated:

We must also expand Section 1206’s coverage beyond ‘military forces’ 

to include ‘security forces.’ As currently written, 1206 can only be 

used for the military, even though constabulary, coast guard, border 

guards, and similar units often perform the functions essential to 

fighting terrorism and maintaining stability. While security forces 

abroad come under many different names and categories, they often 

look like our own military forces.6

During the U.S. Air Force Counterinsurgency Symposium, held as a 

nonattribution forum in the late spring of 2007 at Maxwell Air Force Base, a 

speaker commented on the role of police and law enforcement in successful 

COIN, but conceded the dearth of military literature on the topic for COIN

practitioners. However, one can find extensive literature on police roles in 

international peacekeeping, insurgencies, and persistent conflict in a variety 

of law enforcement journals and in peacekeeping operation reports. (The 

U.S. Army and Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual 3-24 had 

just been fielded in December of 2006 and provided a consolidation of the 

assessment and use of police forces in Chapter 6, Developing Host-Nation 

Security Forces.) 

Colonel Lewis G. Irwin (U.S. Army) returned from Afghanistan in 

February 2008 where he participated in work to reform the Afghan National 

Police. In a recent article, he commented on the lack of doctrine, standards, 

and evaluation techniques for police training when the Security Forces 

operation requires law enforcement training: 

As members of an action-oriented organization, another of our 

tendencies as military officers is to want simply to get something 

done. Partly as a result of this tendency, the police force’s basic doctrine lagged well behind the actual fielding of personnel, equipment, 

and facilities with many adverse consequences. The Army uses the 

DOTMLPF (doctrine, organization, training, materiel, leadership and 

education, personnel, and facilities) model of force development.... 

There is good reason that the D—doctrine—comes first in that acronym. However, in Afghanistan it has been necessary to get as much 

force structure into the field as fast as possible due to the ongoing 
4

JSOU Report 09-2

insurgency. As a result, there are major gaps in the base doctrine, 

covering police force structures, roles, and missions.7

This monograph explores the concepts and utility of police and law 

enforcement actions across the insurgent-like spectrum of irregular warfare 

threats. The thoughts here are intended for the consideration and use by 

various civilian and military personnel who will have to operate in an era 

of irregular and persistent conflict. It provides an overview of law enforcement and civil internal security forces’ capabilities—especially offensive 

policing—and their contributions to success in governance and security in 

COIN lines of operation and in global persistent conflict against irregular 

warfare adversaries. 

The monograph contributes to the expansion and widening of our 

knowledge of policing operations during COIN now established in the U.S. 

Army Field Manual (FM) 3-24/U.S. Marine Corps Warfighting Publication 

(MCWP) 3-33.5, Counterinsurgency (December 2006) and seeks to fill in 

any gaps in awareness and understanding. Currently, U.S. military forces 

and the U.S. Coast Guard are involved in counterdrug, maritime security 

operations, paramilitary policing training programs (Building Capacity of 

the Pakistani Frontier Corps program budgeted at $75 million annually), 

and the training of national police, police commandos, and border police 

in both Iraq and Afghanistan. 

Portions of this writing contribute to providing information and expanding awareness for commanders, planners, and strategists on the appropriate 

employment of police and law enforcement personnel in COIN-like campaigns. The monograph explores the theoretical aspect of law enforcement 

operational and strategic utility, primarily in COIN. However, it is also a 

focus on longer periods of irregular warfare anticipated in an era of persistent conflict against guerrilla-like terrorist and criminal organizations. 

This paper provides salient points for future joint doctrine, in light of 

the recent action to make the United States Special Operations Command 

(USSOCOM) the Security Force Assistance (SFA) joint proponent along with 

the Joint Center for International Security Force Assistance. USSOCOM will 

lead in the identification of required joint SFA capabilities, which may also 

include regional security forces such as police and law enforcement.

As noted throughout this monograph, Special Operations Forces (SOF) 

play a major role in the training, mentoring, and conduct of combined 
5

Celeski: Policing and Law Enforcement in COIN—the Thick Blue Line

operations to build law enforcement capacity and effectiveness. SOF exhibits 

great strategic utility in implementing foreign policy when it acts in consort 

with credible law enforcement efforts on the ground. SOF’s unique capability 

to operate “through, with, and by” indigenous forces is easily extended to 

include local and regional police and law enforcement agencies. 

For COIN practitioners at the tactical level, the issues, insights, and lessons learned from discussion of the capabilities and employment of indigenous police and law enforcement can point the way for the most efficient 

use of U.S. military and SOF in police and law enforcement tasks. 

Several questions drive any discussion of the role of the Thick Blue Line 

within COIN operations: Why do insurgents view police and law enforcement as such a high threat? What makes law enforcement personnel and 

nonmilitary internal security forces important to the outcome of a successful COIN campaign? Conversely, why do ineffective and corrupt police and 

law enforcement activities deter and detract from achieving successful end 

states in COIN? Is a policing and law enforcement strategy the best model to 

tackle the global insurgency-like actions of Al Qaeda and its associates?

Until guerrillas and insurgents move to organize as main force maneuver 

units, their small, disaggregated organizations can best be fought by policing efforts. By their presence, police and law enforcement agencies represent 

prominent symbols of governance and security. Because of the nature of 

their responsibilities and their skill sets, police and law enforcement agencies 

play central roles in any government’s COIN response to counter insurgents 

who target government sector personnel for assassination or plan other 

disruptions to public order. Thus the police sector is crucial to meet the 

community security needs within a social framework, predominantly for 

enforcing rule of law and governance amongst the populace.

FM 3-24 states the paramount principles of successful COIN operations 

are protection of the civilian populace and legitimacy in governance. FM

3-24 (page 37) states “legitimacy is the main objective,” which requires the 

government to meet the needs of the public (security being an essential 

need). These principles are central to any strategy to defeat insurgents. 

Police and internal security forces are the primary enforcement arm of 

the government in reaching these two objectives. Although law enforcement 

organizations are not designed to maneuver in strength comparable to the 

military (the exceptions are in constabulary and police paramilitary units), 
6

JSOU Report 09-2

they do provide a crucial service in hunting down and arresting individuals 

who make up the irregular warfare groups. 

If successful, police and law enforcement expose the criminal nature of 

the insurgent’s activities, thus destroying public perception of them as “freedom fighters” and refuting the myth of the insurgent as a legitimate actor. 

This action is important to winning the “hearts and minds” of the populace 

and proving daily the government’s ability to govern. Left unchallenged, 

insurgencies easily move to a takeover and mobilization of the populace, 

with space afforded to begin the creation of their main force army. The 

government’s police and law enforcement agencies must compete against 

insurgents in areas where the irregular warfare adversaries destroy government functions or fill the void left by lack of governance. Working alongside 

the military response, the Thick Blue Line at such times is well positioned 

to provide the capabilities that are crucial to COIN success.
7

Celeski: Policing and Law Enforcement in COIN—the Thick Blue Line

2. Law Enforcement in COIN: 

 Offensive Policing 

Military forces might have to perform police duties at the start 

of an insurgency; however, it is best to establish police forces to 

assume these duties as soon as possible. U.S., multinational, and 

host-nation partners should institute a comprehensive program of 

police training. Moreover, plans for police training need to envision a several-year program to systematically build institutions 

and leadership.

— FM 3-24 Counterinsurgency, paragraph 6.94

Police and law enforcement employed in classic COIN or Foreign 

Internal Defense (FID) operations in support of a country’s Internal 

Defense and Development Plan (IDAD) play multiple roles (if not 

the main effort) in defeating internal insurgencies and the global insurgency 

espoused by Al Qaeda and its affiliates. Police and law enforcement comprise 

the main response in the insurgency-like threat posed by the growing nexus 

of terrorists and criminal enterprises. 

Tactical police actions must be linked 

to wider operational and strategic objectives to effectively deal with an insurgent 

threat—the conduct of offensive-policing 

measures. If employed effectively, police 

and law enforcement resources can be the 

best means to halt an insurgency while 

in its initial phases. 

Internationally, police and law enforcement activities will become the 

preferred option when dealing with the global and transnational aspects of 

irregular warfare enemies and when major military intervention is not feasible 

or desired. Increasingly, police and law enforcement activities are the optimal 

tool to take on the nexus of terrorists and criminal enterprises. Insurgents 

resort to criminal activities to support their activities when either external or 

populace support dries up, or when they eschew the political end state because 

the profits of crime become more lucrative for the insurgent organization. 

Police and law enforcement 

comprise the main response 

in the insurgency-like threat of 

the growing nexus of terrorists 

and criminal enterprises.
8

JSOU Report 09-2

This phenomenon was captured as an observation and insight, titled 

“Beware the Insurgent to Criminal Evolution,” by RAND Corporation 

researchers studying joint urban operations:

Given some evidence that Iraqi urban residents are tiring of insurgent violence, it is necessary to consider how the insurgent forces are 

likely to adapt to a possibly reduced level of support (or tolerance) 

in the nation’s cities. Among the possible responses is a movement 

toward criminal enterprise as a means of supporting continued 

violence. Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) 

and elements once professing dedication to revolution in Northern 

Ireland have both transitioned. Despite propaganda efforts that 

state otherwise, the groups have left the vestiges of insurgent fervor 

far behind to become full-fledged players among world organized 

crime syndicates.8

Many countries experiencing insurgency have failed to recognize the 

importance insurgents place on eliminating law enforcement as a precursor 

to their seizing space to establish bases and alternate governance. Countries 

that have a weak policing effort initially, or have given in and pulled back 

on their police and local law enforcement resources, soon experience failure 

in dealing with insurgency as it emerges. In such cases, the government 

response is often to order mobilization and deployment of the military 

instead of funneling more resources to the policing effort. Two historical 

insurgencies provide stark case studies. 

Algeria. The Algerian War of Independence was a nationalist, anti-colonialist insurgency that lasted from 1954 until the gaining of Algerian independence from France in 1962. The Algerian revolution was rooted in national 

and religious identity—a direct conflict with French national identity. The 

Algerian Muslim society contributed to the nationalist movement ranging 

from acceptance of the status quo to active/passive resistance.

Between the world wars, this latent but growing sense of nationalism led 

to the formation of a separatist movement in the 1930s, named the Algerian 

People’s Party. Native Algerian frustration grew from the lack of political progress, and the movement became militant. This movement would 

ultimately manifest itself in the formation of the National Liberation Front 

(FLN) and its military arm, the Algerian National Army (ALN) by 1954. As 
9

Celeski: Policing and Law Enforcement in COIN—the Thick Blue Line

resentment for the French authority grew, native Algerian militant nationalists chose a new path for change: armed aggression, beginning their campaign with propaganda of the deed—terrorist acts. 

On 1 November 1954 the ALN struck in over 50 places throughout Algeria 

in a series of coordinated attacks against police, military barracks, and 

symbols of government in the cities designed to keep the French authorities off balance. These attacks ranged from bombings, killings of settlers to 

burning farm fields and attacking the Oran city power plant. Terrorism was 

the prevalent tactic. The major outbreaks occurred in the Aurès and Kabylia 

mountains with about 350 armed fighters. 

The ALN correctly understood they could not concentrate and make a 

major stand in one region or city because the French response would quickly 

overwhelm and eliminate them. The French were highly populated along 

the Mediterranean coast and in the major cities with very strong military 

and police forces. The FLN adopted a rural guerrilla warfare strategy in 

the mountainous regions of Algeria, where French law enforcement was 

weak. As a show of their political might and organization, Ahmed Ben 

Bella—one of the most influential political and intellectual leaders of the 

FLN—simultaneously issued a communiqué from Cairo calling on independence for Algerian Moslems. 

The initial French reaction was to treat the “emergency” as a tribal uprising. Lacking any precise intelligence to indicate a growing insurgency, it 

appeared to authorities to be a law enforcement problem. Thus, the initial 

response was not in the form of any organized COIN effort, but rather a 

policing action based on their colonial experiences. The response came from 

their constabulary police—the Gendarmerie and riot-action police. Failing 

to appreciate the scope of the problem doomed the policing effort to failure 

as the Gendarmerie were soon overwhelmed, thus requiring intervention by 

the army to overcome the consequences of the official failure to understand 

the threat. 

Later in the war, as the battle shifted to urban terrorism in Algiers, 

the civil police were again overwhelmed while attempting to conduct a 

counterterrorism campaign in an urban environment. In response, French 

paratroopers were given extraordinary legal powers to conduct repressive 

population and resource control measures in the Moslem Casbah sector of 

the city of Algiers. The French military virtually ran the city during this 

period. After months of police-like tactics consisting of curfews, census, 
10

JSOU Report 09-2

arrests, and interrogations, the 10th Parachute Division destroyed the FLN

and ALN organizations in Algiers by the fall of 1957. 

Nepal. Although some form of insurgency in Nepal had existed for decades 

during the latter half of the 20th century, it was not until February of 1996 

that the Communist Party of Nepal declared open war. Ultimately (and 

after significant losses of friendly forces and civilian lives throughout the 

country) the Maoist-based insurgents achieved political victory in 2006. In 

their attempt to intimidate the government, drive it out of the rural areas of 

Nepal, and establish their alternate state, the insurgents targeted Nepalese 

police for removal or assassination because police bore the brunt of the 

initial response and fighting on behalf of the government. 

Dr. Thomas Marks, noted expert and historian on Maoist People’s War, 

writes of the Communist Party of Nepal’s intimidation tactic in his recent 

publication of Maoist People’s War in Post-Vietnam Asia: 

Even as terror forced society in on itself, the main target of guerrilla action was the 46,500-man police force, the first line of armed 

defense—for Nepal possessed no local forces of any kind. An essentially unarmed “watcher” force, two thirds of whom carried nothing heavier than a patrol stick, the police were unprepared for the 

demands of counterinsurgency.... Efforts to stand up a more properly 

armed and equipped police force, the Armed Police Force (15,000 

men), made slow progress under the pressure of operational demands. 

By January 2003, the Civil Police had suffered 985 dead, while the APF 

experienced 108 dead. Predictably, the only possible police response 

was to abandon outlying stations and consolidate in a defensible 

mass.... When the post at Ghartigaun in western Rolpa was attacked 

in 1999, for example, it had a complement of 19 personnel. Fifteen 

were killed, the others wounded. The station was totally destroyed 

and not re-garrisoned. In 1998, two such stations were abandoned; 

in 1999, a further 16; in 2000, six more; in 2001, another four; and in 

2002, three—leaving a total of just two for the entire population of 

nearly 211,000. Such was the lack of national integration that, once the 

police presence was eliminated, the insurgents became the state.9

In these two examples, both countries lacked sufficient offensive-policing 

capability. 
11

Celeski: Policing and Law Enforcement in COIN—the Thick Blue Line

Ultimately, police and law enforcement offensive-policing actions can 

be an indirect approach to support U.S. national security objectives when 

America finds itself confronting irregular warfare enemies. U.S. military 

actions for COIN and FID (along with Security Force Assistance) are demonstrably enhanced by the addition of these capabilities when integrated into 

overall country Internal Defense and 

Development Plans (IDAD). Offensive 

policing consists of a conscious shift in 

employment of police and law enforcement assets in the COIN fight: from 

defensive reactions to common criminal acts over to the police actively 

attacking and deterring insurgents. This offensive shift begins to diminish 

the insurgent capability to employ their strategic and operational art tools—

time, space, and will. 

The use of sound policing and law enforcement measures employed by 

the civil internal security forces are relevant means and ways in support of 

U.S. policy and are consistent with the Irregular Warfare Joint Operational 

Concept, the National Military Strategy, and the National Strategy for combating terrorism. They are relevant in regional efforts to build partner capacity (BPC) and capability. Information sharing concerning the analysis of 

arrests of terrorists and the data gleaned on their organizations indicates 

police are the critical tool in defeating “armed action” of the insurgents 

(their “propaganda of the deed” often involving terrorist acts, sabotage, 

and subversion). 

The natural state for democratic nations is one in which a representative 

government provides the venue for peace and prosperity on behalf of its citizenry, addresses major issues and societal grievances, and ensures a secure 

environment based on the rule of law and monopoly on the use of force 

within the state structure. Key within this hierarchy of needs is security. 

For the purpose of this monograph, rule of law consists of both the derivation of laws from constitutional documents along with the enforcement 

procedures to ensure the laws of the land are obeyed within the internal 

security structure: law enforcement agencies, the judicial system (courts 

and judges), and a penal system. The internal security system also includes 

law enforcement measures taken to protect against external and transnational threats to the nation’s sovereignty. This framework for the rule of 

Offensive policing consists of a 

conscious shift...from defensive 

reactions to acts of criminality 

over to the police attacking 

and deterring insurgents...
12

JSOU Report 09-2

law is acceptable only when it is within a legitimate level of governance 

that is viewed as fair and just by its citizenry within the context of cultural 

norms.

Most insurgent and terrorist strategies attack some or all of the components of this framework in order to delegitimize the existing level of 

governance or to go even further by providing an alternate version of the 

power structure of the state. What becomes most common within COIN

environments is the insurgents’ intent to conduct “armed propaganda.” 

They use subversion and acts of terrorism against the symbols of authority 

to slowly erode the public confidence in the ability of the affected government to provide security. 

If insurgents succeed in this form of attritional warfare, or war of exhaustion against the government forces, they often move to bolder phases of 

armed action that may include increased military actions on the part of 

the guerrillas. Or, as in classic Maoist strategy, they may move to a final 

conventional military phase with the insurgent army arrayed against the 

government’s military forces.

A nation-state’s first experience with insurgency will usually surface in 

the form of increased banditry, criminality, and other illicit activities that 

on the surface are not apparently linked to the insurgency, but could, in fact, 

represent aspects of insurgent financing, logistics, recruiting, and buildup of sanctuary measures. The failure to recognize these activities, often 

obscured within the cloud of armed propaganda, as elements of an internal 

security threat to the state, plagues counterinsurgents seeking the correct 

response to important phases of enemy strategy, intent, and movement. 

Historically, most nation states miss this opportunity to employ police 

and law enforcement measures to quell an insurgency at its very beginning. 

Rather, governments often find themselves moving directly to a military 

solution. The intensity of insurgent threats now exceeds the capacity of 

policing and rule of law, thus forcing a military response to the insurgent 

action arm—the guerrillas. This decision on behalf of the government is 

precisely what the insurgent leadership desires and is a key part of insurgent 

strategy to force the state’s strategic failure. 

A key lesson in COIN for the state is the mobilization of the military 

drains state resources and increases the risk of repressive acts and undesirable population control on its citizens. Thus, the ultimate goal for any 

strategy chosen by the counterinsurgent is to keep terrorist and budding 
13

Celeski: Policing and Law Enforcement in COIN—the Thick Blue Line

insurgent activity to a manageable level or to return it to a level that local 

and international law enforcement can effectively control. 

Police and law enforcement agencies are positioned precisely where the 

insurgents operate—in the “sea” of the population—and in this manner 

alone, provide the most valuable service to the COIN campaign. Nothing 

replaces a local or regional law enforcement officer, recruited from the village or region of birth, often of the same cultural and demographic makeup 

of the citizenry over which the rule of law is enforced. No military unit 

or formation, with its depersonalized demeanor or temporary occupation 

status within the populace could replace the familiar and personal face of 

home-grown law enforcement officers and agents. 

Kurt Campbell (senior vice president and director of the International 

Security Program, Center for Strategic and International Studies, 

Washington, D.C.) and Richard Weitz (associate director, Center for Future 

Security Strategies, Hudson Institute, Washington, D.C.) put it succinctly 

in their treatise on nonmilitary strategies effective in COIN and counterterrorism campaigns:

In both counterinsurgencies and counterterrorist campaigns, the 

police often provide the main link between central government security institutions and local communities. Unlike soldiers or special 

antiterrorist units, police units typically establish a long-term presence in a locality and can cultivate relations with community leaders. 

Police officers often can enforce security-motivated restrictions on 

civil liberties (such as curfews and checkpoints) that would arouse 

greater resistance if conducted by soldiers, especially foreigners. 

Placing police outside a mosque, religious school, or other sacred 

institution usually provokes less outrage than deploying soldiers 

there. Established police tactics—regular patrols, patient observation, establishing a rapport with community leaders—tend to yield 

substantially more information about potential terrorist or guerrilla 

operations than quick “search and destroy” or mass detention operations—especially in urban areas, where the terrorist and insurgent 

civilian infrastructure often locate to facilitate intelligence collection 

and command and control. Similarly, law enforcement personnel 

usually can more effectively capture and detain suspected terrorists 

than regular soldiers.10
14

JSOU Report 09-2

Another consideration for the counterinsurgent is the manpower needed 

during expanded security operations. Police and law enforcement agencies 

often provide the overwhelming bulk of forces during the government’s 

response, but the military often ignores this force-multiplier function. 

Cultural bias or organizational dysfunction residing within the type of 

command structure chosen to prosecute a COIN campaign often hinders the 

achievement of unity of effort. The opportunity missed is this: the complementary nature of military operational art and maneuver and the strategic 

and operational nature of rule-of-law campaigns. 

Regardless of the cultural dislikes of mixing military and police under 

one security line of operation, the fact remains that police and law enforcement agencies bring more capacity (in terms of manpower) than what the 

host government can normally raise and sustain in their professional military formations. In Afghanistan and Iraq, programs to enhance the internal 

security forces of both nations call for the numbers of police, internal security 

forces, and border control forces to almost equal or outnumber the military 

end strength. Additionally, Neighborhood Watch organizations, with a loose 

“deputation,” can also expand the capability of local police to enforce security 

and lend assistance in fighting criminals and maintaining law and order, 

even as the wider insurgency efforts continue.

Although police and law enforcement organizations are key to population resource and control and for augmenting the government’s military 

response (with traditionally the military setting the security environment in 

which police can operate), aggressive COIN campaigns can change the mission of law enforcement from one of supporting to a decisive force-multiplier 

Figure 1. An Afghanistan 

National Police sergeant 

informs a U.S. Army 

captain that he has two 

special agents who have 

gathered a lot of information about the Taliban 

in the Ghazni province, 

7 June 2007. U.S. Army 

photo by SSgt Justin 

Holey.
15

Celeski: Policing and Law Enforcement in COIN—the Thick Blue Line

role through offensive policing measures. However, as word of caution, the 

government will still require maintaining a community-policing function to 

continue the fight against criminals, secure the populace locally, and provide 

the means for population resource and control. Thus, an aggressive security 

line of operation technique is to use the law enforcement in both roles.

The wise counterinsurgent and irregular warfare strategist recognizes 

that this vast pool of manpower—employing the principles of offensive 

policing—should be incorporated into the overall security line of operation 

within the COIN campaign plan as a major, operational maneuver element. 

Once provided an enhanced capability to deal with insurgents, police and 

law enforcement agencies can take the lead, augment, support, or replace 

military forces during all phases of a COIN campaign. 

SOF involvement in the useful training and mentoring roles identified 

earlier requires a shift in judgment about the role of military forces in police 

missions. Institutional and cultural bias within the DoD and the rest of the 

interagency with regards to police and military coordination often hamper 

efforts to conduct U.S. security assistance and regional engagement in critical areas around the globe when the courses of action chosen rely more on 

police and law enforcement activities than on military conflict. 

There are good reasons for this cultural reluctance. The American constitutional background has historically ensured civilian rule of law as paramount over the actions and purpose of military organizations (standing, 

formal, or militia); a variety of commensurate political safeguards ensures 

that the military does not trammel on civil liberties. 

Joel Casmann studied the effects of police-military relations in Latin 

America and their consequences for establishing the rule of law. In his work, 

he discovered the unique aspects of the military’s reluctance to partner in 

security assistance programs involving law enforcement. He also characterized the military’s psychological barrier against incorporating the law 

enforcement element of national power into their campaign and regional 

engagement plans as a logical extension of U.S. legal and judicial cultural 

heritage:

The U.S. Constitution also establishes a strong, independent judiciary autonomous from political control, with specific protections 

for individual rights. These institutional controls over the military 

were reinforced by the Bill of Rights (the first ten amendments to the 
16

JSOU Report 09-2

Constitution), which delineate safeguards against military intervention in government.... Moreover, these constitutional protections 

have been buttressed over the years by legislation, particularly the 

“Posse Comitatus Act” of 1878 (Title 18 USC section 1385), which 

prohibits direct military involvement in domestic law enforcement 

activities.11

Casmann illustrates other legal barriers that delineate and define the 

roles of police and military services of the U.S. when operating in consort 

with one another: 

Additionally, Title 10, USC Chapter 18, “Military Support for Civilian 

Law Enforcement Guidelines” provides basic guidance to military 

personnel supporting police operations and restrictions from directly 

participating in arrests, searches, seizures, or other similar domestic 

law enforcement activity unless specifically authorized by law. The 

“Mansfield Amendment” to the Foreign Assistance Act (22 USC 2291 

c1) prohibits U.S. government personnel from performing certain 

law enforcement activities overseas.12

This cultural, legal, and organizational bias on the part of the military to 

tread lightly when it involves matters of police and law enforcement clouds 

the insight needed to incorporate and embrace the Thick Blue Line into 

COIN campaign planning and execution. At best, the training and advising 

of police and law enforcement units are traditionally seen as an adjunct and 

a supporting activity to major military COIN operations as opposed to a 

core component of the overall strategy—the now-named offensive-policing 

component when police also perform in the role of force multiplier (as in 

the Malaya model). 

In a telephone interview conducted by Inside the Army on 23 August 

2007, Colonel Sean Ryan, acting deputy director of the Joint Center for 

International Security Force Assistance, touched on the role of the military 

vis-à-vis policing. He said that expertise for developing nonmilitary security 

forces, such as police and border control personnel, lies outside the realm 

of the Defense Department, but conceded that the DoD is one of the few 

agencies capable in hostile environments of handling that type of mission. 

(Current operations in Iraq and Afghanistan with U.S. military trainers 

embedded with police are changing this view.) 
17

Celeski: Policing and Law Enforcement in COIN—the Thick Blue Line

This expertise requires recasting COIN through a lens of policing while 

preserving major military forces to tackle main-force guerrilla armies or to 

intercede when police assets become overwhelmed. Secretary Gates’ desire 

to move in this direction during his testimony to the House Armed Services 

Committee is evidence of a policy shift to involve the DoD in more of these 

activities.

In a high level war game held during the summer of 2007 in the 

Washington, D.C. area, planners struggled with an irregular warfare scenario to craft an indirect strategy for assisting a friendly government. In 

the process, the notional actors of the National Security Council restricted 

the planners from involving the direct intervention of a large U.S. military 

contingent. The total host-nation military forces of 70,000 personnel from 

all branches of service were assessed as insufficient to address the irregular 

warfare challenges facing the country. The planners struggled with a course 

of action to effectively provide enough security forces and address the severe 

irregular warfare challenges existing in the friendly nation. 

Before it became “A Bridge Too Far” scenario, further analysis of the 

country area study illuminated the fact the host nation had police and other 

various internal security forces (nonmilitary) of over 300,000 personnel. 

Matching this additional manpower (capacity) to a security assistance program for providing offensive-policing capability to the host nation, while 

conducting the necessary supporting function in consort with host-nation 

military to combat the irregular warfare threat, ultimately supported the 

indirect strategy that the game players and strategists desired. 

It was simply a matter of shedding organizational blinders to view the 

other half of the police and law enforcement security line of operation 

during COIN—the law enforcement 

sector beefed up with offensive capabilities to tackle the insurgents—then 

fusing their efforts with the military 

campaign plan (or vice versa if civilian agencies lead). Once again, and this 

is an important realization: few COIN

efforts are successful without the effective employment of indigenous law 

enforcement resources and capabilities.

Of most importance and what may constitute the highest threat to insurgent forces and their network (e.g., their political organization, underground, 

It was simply a matter of shedding organizational blinders to 

view the other half of the police 

and law enforcement security 

line of operation...
18

JSOU Report 09-2

auxiliary, guerrillas, and supporters) is the level of information and intelligence about the threat police and law enforcement units can generate. Law 

enforcement agencies have the inherent capability to conduct detective and 

investigative activities, along with the tedious but necessary collection of 

forensic evidence, used to bring individual or criminal organizations to 

justice. 

Commensurate with these duties are the historical background files collected by law enforcement personnel over time, which can serve in COIN as 

an immediate information and intelligence database to identify the nexus 

of criminal and insurgent activities. Where police are good at manhunting, 

most militaries are not. Police or law enforcement organizations should be 

used as the lead agents to penetrate and operate against insurgent organizations from snitches and informants all the way up to the employment of 

pseudo organizations. 

Sir Robert Thompson was emphatic on the use of police for strategic and 

operational intelligence gathering against insurgents based on his experiences in the Malaya Emergency:

The best organization to be responsible for all internal security intelligence is the special branch of the police force rather than a completely 

separate organization. It is a great advantage if intelligence officers 

have police powers and are able to call when necessary on the other 

branches of the police force for support and assistance in developing 

their intelligence networks. The police force is a static organization 

reaching out into every corner of the country and will have had long 

experience of close contact with the population.13

Sir Thompson was aware of the need for tactical intelligence on behalf 

of military units, but had seen the corrosive effects of several intelligence 

organizations, working in their stovepipes, with all the professional and 

cultural jealousies extant amongst any government bureaucracy. He worked 

to openly advocate for a singular intelligence-gathering function for high 

level intelligence fusion. Sir Thompson felt militaries, by their nature, are 

not traditionally embedded and close to the societies they protect, particularly rural populations, and will often have to be transient during a 

COIN campaign, thus obviating any continuity they may be able to achieve 

from long service in one security sector. Police forces, however, are just the 

opposite.14
19

Celeski: Policing and Law Enforcement in COIN—the Thick Blue Line

Police and law enforcement agencies serve on the front lines of enforcing the daily sovereignty of their respective nation states. Much of modern 

insurgency can have transnational attributes such as the movement of illicit 

arms, the transfer of terrorists and insurgents across borders, acts of international criminality imposed on a nation in order to finance the insurgency, 

and outside support and assistance from unfriendly states that may be providing sanctuary and political support to the insurgent. 

Many of these assaults on the sovereignty of a nation cannot be countered 

by and through military forces alone. Customs, border agencies, immigration services, and a variety of other internal security forces serve as the line 

of defense against the insurgent threat at the national-international level. 

This international contribution of policing and law enforcement as it 

relates to insurgency (e.g., disruption of recruiting and financing) manifests 

itself occasionally in the media: 

A Syrian arms dealer previously accused of arming militants from 

Iraq to Somalia was arrested in Spain in a U.S. Drug Enforcement 

Administration sting in which he allegedly plotted to send millions 

of dollars in weapons to rebels in Colombia to attack American 

forces there.... (“Arms dealer seized in U.S. terror sting,” The Atlanta 

Journal Constitution, 9 June 2007)

Regardless of the type of irregular warfare or regional security threat, 

conventional forces and SOF will continue to train and advise foreign and 

indigenous forces. Internal security forces (nonmilitary) that comprise the 

police and law enforcement capability of a nation may be the premier tool 

used to prevent or combat internal security threats from irregular warfare 

adversaries. These nonmilitary forces provide a clear and relatively good 

indirect strategy niche, especially for SOF; they may well be the 21st century 

partners used in unconventional warfare plans. 

The study and analysis on the use of offensive policing as an element 

of campaign design by interagency, conventional military, and SOF planners and strategists will contribute to the adaptive nature of the force and 

ensure the United States is postured to defeat the enemy in the era of persistent conflict. Armed with the initial knowledge of the role police and 

law enforcement have in addressing irregular warfare scenarios, the goal 

is for strategists and planners of all types to incorporate offensive-policing 

capabilities of allies within their regional and theater engagement plans. 
20

JSOU Report 09-2

Certainly, offensive policing should be a key element of any COIN campaign 

plan and also serve as a key buttress to the various synchronization plans 

to combat terrorism. 
21

Celeski: Policing and Law Enforcement in COIN—the Thick Blue Line

3. Law Enforcement: Indirect Approach 

 for COIN

To maintain security in peaceful countries, the proper ratio of 

policemen to population is somewhere between 1 and 4 officers per 1,000 citizens, with cities needing higher levels than 

other areas....By contrast, analysis of successful 20th century 

nation-building and stability operations suggests that a much 

higher ratio—between 13.26 and 20 troops/policemen per 1,000 

civilians—is necessary to establish security in strife-torn countries. 

The figure climbs above 20 when the situation involved outside 

intervention.15

Strategic Dilemmas, Global Insurgency

Why examine law enforcement approaches in irregular warfare? 

The most pernicious enemy we face in insurgency and persistent conflict operates at the strategic level through an association of networks and franchises with a global strategy having protractedness 

as one of its hallmarks. The unassuming name for this protractedness is 

the Death of a Thousand Cuts (based on War of Exhaustion principles). 

The enemy’s operations are bolstered by a global, external support system 

that has migrated to the ethnic Diasporas inside of democratically aligned 

states as well as to the Internet. 

What is needed is a strong threat analysis and appreciation on this new 

form of enemy similar to the databases generated during the Cold War 

against communist adversaries. The irregular warfare adversaries range 

from the highest threat—the so-called global Jihad—to the nexus of criminal and terrorist organizations, operating at the substate and nonstate actor 

level and directing massive enterprises. Although this is not state-on-state 

conflict, and is now popularly named 4th Generation Warfare or hybrid war 

by some, the enemy could still enjoy support from a select few nation states 

and find sanctuary in under-governed or ungoverned space. To achieve any 

level of victory in this type of struggle, it will be necessary to adopt a grand 

strategy of alliances with countries who share the same fundamental value 

of the rule of law. 
22

JSOU Report 09-2

Changing Security Environment

The strategist can extrapolate from intelligence trends analysis, the Joint 

Operating Environment publication, and various emerging future operating 

concepts some key predictions that make law enforcement responses (i.e., 

COIN-like campaigns with offensive-policing options) attractive: 

a. The propensity for major, preemptive war and regime change operations might be low.

b. A shift back to regional vice global strategies (disaggregated) as a 

result of allies and partners realistic approach to fighting the threat 

(local vs. global).

c. The Criminal Justice Model (CJM) will become preeminent again, but 

with an offensive-policing component (over 75 to 85 percent of terrorists captured or eliminated are as a result of law enforcement, policing, 

and internal security organizations; statistics are generalized from a 

survey of 180 days of international law enforcement, police, internal 

security, and military actions during fiscal years 2007 and 2008).

d. Building partner capacity and capability will shift from military-tomilitary programs to include support of civil law enforcement and 

internal security organizations.

New forms of insurgency are seen in Osama bin Laden’s call to his followers to conduct a world-wide guerrilla campaign. (Bin Laden’s calls for 

action throughout his 1996 Declaration of War and in his fatwas are similar 

to measures taken to conduct insurgency.) As state sponsors and external 

supporters for insurgents and irregular warfare enemies (who become more 

substate and nonstate as actors) diminishes, the irregular warfare adversary 

looks at new ways to finance operations, often seeking a terrorist, insurgent, 

and criminal nexus for synergy (called Grey Stew herein to describe the 

phenomenon). This newer form of insurgency-like activity will pose complex 

problems when developing a COIN-like response. 

The U.S. Joint Forces Command publication, Joint Operating Environment: 

Trends & Challenges for the Future Joint Force, states:

Any future operational environment will include the presence of 

criminal elements. International organized crime, motivated by 

greed and self-interest, will increase as potential security threats to 
23

Celeski: Policing and Law Enforcement in COIN—the Thick Blue Line

the developed world. Along with a rise in the number and presence 

of criminal organizations, there will also be an increased blurring 

of criminal activities, civil conflict, and potential terrorist activities. 

These elements will blend with the population and become ever more 

difficult to penetrate. Drug and human trafficking are expected to 

continue. Such organizations and activities will threaten national or 

regional stability, structure, and legitimate political authority. This in 

turn, can affect U.S. interests. Criminal organizations and elements 

will take advantage of information and communication technologies and the proliferation of weapons to develop very sophisticated 

capabilities. The destructive social, economic, and political impact 

of crime will increase in both its severity and sophistication. 

Transnational criminal activity, fueled by global connections 

to money and arms, will blur the lines between traditional military 

action and criminal activities. Criminal organizations will continue 

to form strategic alliances with states and nonstate actors, including 

terrorists. Terrorists and criminals will also be active in such an environment, ready to exploit the situation for their respective gains. 

United States joint forces, combined with law enforcement and 

intelligence activities in a collaborative information environment, 

will have to deal both with enemy military forces and other nontraditional forces, such as criminal organizations, terrorists, or religious 

fanatics, who will seek to profit from instability.16

The model for effectively operating in the era of persistent conflict illustrates that an adopted grand strategy must take into account the correct use 

of the elements of national power, DIMEFILE, combined with a counterstrategy to defeat the Death of a Thousand Cuts. These strategies will have 

deterrence and prevention as core concepts. Strategies to tackle persistent 

conflict will enable campaigns of preventative security assistance, and active 

security measures of containment or management, similar to our Cold War 

model of containment against communism. The author proposes the focus 

of operations in these strategies as follows:

a. Extended cooperation and security assistance with aligned nations 

to include police and law enforcement mechanisms

b. Assistance to building of capacity and capability for those allies in 

need (like proxy war at the grand strategy level)
24

JSOU Report 09-2

c. Maneuver within the ungoverned spaces to deter and prevent their 

use as sanctuaries by the enemy. 

Clearly, this focus will not be a military victory in the classic sense, and 

over time the emphasis will shift to law enforcement and policing operations. The chosen path should be predicated on an effort that will last at 

least three to four decades to match this recent, longer episodic wave of 

terrorism. A measure of effectiveness for operations of long duration will 

be in ascertaining when a generational shift occurs, enemy leadership dies 

off, and the enemy’s ideology and will sustaining the movement have lost 

their spark. Law enforcement models are particularly successful in this 

arena of analysis. 

Figure 2. A conceptual model based on a 6-month analysis of world-wide 

activities against irregular warfare enemies indicates a large percentage of 

adversaries removed or neutralized are a result of policing and law enforcement activities. In massive COIN operations, the percentage of forces applied 

will be military; the graph, therefore, also illustrates what an effective end 

state could be: the return to policing and law enforcement as the insurgency 

subsides.

Direct action and 

offensive/preemptive 

activities (specialized 

units)

As a result of military

combat activities

diMefile*

Direct strategy (current)

DImEFILE*

Indirect strategy (2015?)

The need shifts to 

a strategic approach

Policing, law enforcement, 

and governance and internal 

security organizations

* Diplomatic, Informational, Military, Economic, Financial, Intelligence, 

 Law Enforcement

Capital letters indicate our current response in the military realm; the correct 

response for generational conflict should emphasize the other elements of national 

power over the military response. 

(Regional alliances, security assistance, 

bilateral agreements, regional and local 

organizations)

1-3% 8-10% 75-85%
25

Celeski: Policing and Law Enforcement in COIN—the Thick Blue Line

Framing the Requirement

Persistent conflict with irregular warfare adversaries is characterized by elements that are insurgency-like. The premise here is that a component of this 

conflict is a global insurgency, even though most of our allies view it from 

a regional, local level with only some elements of transnational terror and 

insurgency contributing to the regional, local crisis (thus the term glocal). 

Much of the response will resemble COIN measures based on our collective 

experiences from this decade.

The nontraditional (or irregular) nature of this conflict is well documented in various irregular warfare publications, but essentially has the 

following characteristics: 

a. Action arms consisting of networked enterprises and franchises of 

terrorists, insurgents, and criminals—the strategy somewhat Maoist 

in application and an insurgent application of protracted war

b. Adversary support systems from unfriendly states, cultural and ethnic 

pockets existing throughout the world, financing (both legal and 

illegal) terrorist activities and providing sanctuary in ungoverned 

spaces

c. Irregular warfare adversaries also attempting to build an alternate 

state with competing power and political agendas. 

Recognizing the nature of the threat will prevent ad-hoc responses or 

the standing up of new “counter” systems each time we are exposed to the 

threat in nontraditional war. Reacting in this manner generally defaults to 

the military element of national power based on its organizational capacity and responsiveness (a direct approach). However, the response should 

be one of an enduring nature, synthesizing the assets we have at hand in a 

more creative manner (the indirect approach).

The Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) framed the requirement to 

shape our responses and choices at critical crossroads across the globe. The 

quad-matrix form of the QDR conceptual overview for our strategic posture 

indicates the acceptance of long war attributes; three of the quadrants are 

Irregular, Catastrophic, and Disruptive (the remaining quadrant is reserved 

for Traditional War). 

The implications of the QDR are in a strategic commitment for prolonged 

activities that contribute to stability in the international security arena. 
26

JSOU Report 09-2

Deterrence, influence, shaping operations, multipurpose forces, security 

assistance, and FID will be some of the array of “prolonged” tools in the 

tool kit to implement national responses. Other mechanisms to outlast the 

enemy and defeat his strategy must also be formulated. It is in the arena of 

offensive policing and law enforcement that such a solution resides.

Unity of effort cannot be achieved, over time, with all the elements of 

national power if organized in the Cold War model at the national level and 

within the military (diMefile vs. DImEFILE—changing from an overwhelming use of the military instrument of national power to greater responses 

in the other arenas). Persistent conflict requires a national mobilization 

of resources to solve the strategic dilemmas before us: How will the U.S.

prevent future growth of the nontraditional enemy? How will the U.S. counter ungoverned space? How will the U.S. insert ourselves deep within the 

enemy’s structures in order to defeat him? How will the U.S. marshal all the 

capabilities required to fight generational war? 

The superpower rivalry is over, yet over the horizon loom disaffected 

and extremist populations, combined with a lack of legitimacy on the part 

of predominantly secular and democratic governments in the region (or a 

lack of capacity to deal with the problem by these governments) creating 

an environment for illicit activities and transit and sanctuary for radical 

extremists. This situation is the motivator to once again become strategically 

engaged at the regional level throughout the world. 

A strategic haven for violent extremists with mechanisms to connect 

to other extremist organizations must be countered with strategies that 

gain advantage over the enemy. The National Security Strategy maintains a 

preemptive component (thus it has a deterrence factor). As a reaction to the 

threat, a policy with attributes of containment, isolation, and management 

could be adopted. However, there is strategic time to get ahead of the enemy, 

proactively, and shape the region to our advantage. This venture will not 

be predominantly military, nor will military tactical acumen and military 

operational art skills work alone. 

These actions must truly be conducted within the realm of “grand” strategy and with a regional-based approach. It cannot be interventionist, smack 

of colonialism, or imperialistic in nature. The U.S. has learned in earlier 

responses to global terrorism that although some states may not look like 

we want them to, and could be weak and failing, sovereignty still matters 

when considering deterrence options (to include preemption). 
27

Celeski: Policing and Law Enforcement in COIN—the Thick Blue Line

Massive deployments of U.S. forces can often achieve a negative effect of 

alienating whole populations. The dilemma for the strategist contemplating 

this changing world is to ask, what is the alternative? America’s enemies 

do not fight or operate in the Westphalian model of states and often create 

states within failing or weak states. Again, classic operational art is weak 

in this area. Robert Leonhard hit the nail on the head: 

A form of conflict that concentrates on detecting an illusive enemy, 

as well as ameliorating the political, economic, social, and cultural 

conditions that produce and support enemies, will find little that 

pertains in classic operational art.17

One must not discard strategic art merely because the threat and the 

enemy are more complex than Clausewitz imagined. Unconventional problems need unconventional solutions, and strategists are at least still informed 

of the asymmetric form of warfare in Sun Tzu and B. H. Liddel Hart’s works 

on indirect approaches in warfare. Indirect strategies mitigate risk and often 

provide low cost (e.g., in money, resources, and elements of national power) 

options for consideration. 

Preventative strategies make up one of those options—they help the U.S. 

and its allies prioritize regional initiatives in the campaign. Adopting any 

indirect war strategy will be a change in the approaches to classic warfare; 

it will look like a continuum across a protracted effort vice a clear and 

measurable phase in a campaign plan—another strategic dilemma. Law 

enforcement and policing campaigns will provide an effective approach as 

an indirect strategy to regional and global-like insurgency movements. 

The theoretical nature of ideological warfare illustrates the importance 

of containing terrorists and insurgents below a threshold where they can be 

managed by internal security forces and police. Figure 3 shows what occurs 

when extremism challenges weak or failing states. Generally with ineffective 

militaries or small militaries, the state opts to utilize police and internal 

security forces to handle extremists. If successful, the state satisfies the condition of security and stability at some modicum of tolerance acceptable by 

the populace and can even prevent an insurgency outbreak. 

When extremism, in any form, overwhelms the capability of these internal security measures, the first intervention point (A) must be activated 

by either becoming more aggressive or changing the modus operandi to 

meet the changing condition. This action could include intervention by 
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JSOU Report 09-2

outside assistance, but sovereignty becomes a sensitive issue and outside 

forces could actually tip a populace to be more in favor of the extremists 

than the government. 

In a failing or weak state, the intervention point (providing additional 

resources to the law enforcement sector) is often missed due to lack of capability and capacity to handle the growing problem. Over time, the form of 

extremism has free reign until a crisis is reached, challenging the government and reducing the rule of law in areas where the insurgent intends to 

form alternate governance.

With this second intervention point (B), the reaction is often dominated 

by a military response, based on the size of the challenge (police do not go 

away; they traditionally assume their supporting role to military operations). 

A country then has one chance to get it right, for in failing, the extremists 

win and achieve their aims. If the application of the chosen strategy works, 

the extremism is damped back down under the threshold level, where policing and law enforcement can once again apply. 

This phase concludes quicker if an offensive-policing component is 

added to a provide force multiplier to the military effort as the government’s 

A

B

Probability of 

insurgency, 

terrorism, and 

instability in a 

failing state

Threshold of 

tolerance in 

society

Insurgency-like condition

Extremism

Intervention 

point

Intervention 

point

Policing and 

law enforcement

Effect extremists have on legitimacy, over time

Policing and 

law enforcement

Crisis

Figure 3. Depiction of Extremism Challenging Governments of Weak or Failing 

States
29

Celeski: Policing and Law Enforcement in COIN—the Thick Blue Line

response to insurgency. Note the criticality of policing and law enforcement 

in this theoretical model—it is essential to consider their contributions in 

this form of warfare and focus on strengthening partners for the duration 

of this type of struggle. For the success of the state, it is critical to act early, 

with police and internal security forces. The preventative mode avoids a full 

outbreak of insurgency (or civil war). The end state of a successful COIN

campaign is a return to rule-of-law scenario where policing and law enforcement can handle the problem. 

Implications

Preconflict nation-building—vice postconflict Stability, Security, Transition, 

and Reconstruction (SSTR) measures—helps to create secure environments, 

establishes the rule of law, enhances legitimacy of governance, denies strategic space to extremists, and might even create the conditions for assimilation 

of violent extremists and insurgents back into society commensurate with 

the standards of civilization (an end state). 

The grand strategy (indirect) objective is to get nations capable of their 

roles in tackling the dilemma of the security problems in the 21st century, 

particularly when they may be threatened by home-grown or regionally 

based insurgencies. Fighting will occur on local turf, where ethnic and religious belief systems continue to foment grievances. If not countered, it only 

remains for the disaffected to gain an operational capability and provide an 

alternative to ongoing governance. 

The strategic objective of U.S. policy and strategy—the process of 

directing every action towards a clear, defined, decisive, and attainable 

goal—must be in the denial of radical extremists reaching this point. 

The deter, defend, deny, and defeat mechanisms of current strategy must 

add prevent. The aim of U.S. strategy must be in the defeat of the violent 

extremist strategy (the rejection and denial of secular government, 

westernism, and globalization). 

One of the ways to defeat irregular warfare adversary threats is through 

offensive policing. Policing and law enforcement venues will also serve as the 

entry point for future Operational Preparation of the Environment (OPE) 

activities in pre- or ongoing insurgency responses. The ongoing alliance 

with Pakistan illustrates the intrinsic importance of our law enforcement 
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JSOU Report 09-2

element of national power, applied indirectly, as a means to achieve success 

against irregular warfare adversaries confronting our military forces in 

Operation Enduring Freedom. While U.S. military forces implement the 

Building Capacity of the Pakistani Frontier Forces program—a paramilitary 

police training project to enhance the Frontier Forces’ capability to conduct 

COIN operations—the U.S. government interagency effort also contributes 

to enhance the effectiveness of law enforcement and internal security for 

Pakistan in an indirect approach.

U.S. Interagency Indirect Policing Strategy, Enhancing 

Pakistani Internal Security

The U.S. government assistance to Pakistan enhanced the country’s internal security sector. It was established in 2003 in support of grand-strategy 

objectives (i.e., support partner nations in the ongoing efforts against terrorists and irregular warfare adversaries). The program illustrates an indirect 

strategy, focused on law enforcement, to solve a COIN-like situation in the 

country. Pakistan was chosen to be the recipient of a comprehensive law 

enforcement and policing assistance package based on two factors:

a. An analysis of threats to the region

b. Objectives to overcome operational and strategic dilemmas of U.S. 

forces in Afghanistan as a result of Taliban and Al Qaeda using the 

Afghanistan-Pakistan border for transit, sanctuary, and the conduct 

of illicit activities to support the ongoing insurgency.18

The threats to Pakistan are daunting and consist of jihadist extremism, 

local Taliban insurgents, sectarian violence, illegal commodity smuggling 

(drug trafficking paramount), endemic police corruption, and problems with 

the provision of justice and law enforcement. Pakistan also has an ongoing 

insurgency within its own Balochistan Province. Since it was apparent that 

the U.S. military would not be deployed to assist Pakistan with its insurgentlike problems, the interagency indirect approach to help strengthen the 

Government of Pakistan’s law enforcement capacity and capability became 

the adopted preventative FID and COIN strategy. 

The United States and the Government of Pakistan established a 

joint working group in Washington, D.C. for counterterrorism and law 
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Celeski: Policing and Law Enforcement in COIN—the Thick Blue Line

enforcement in May of 2003. The coordination mechanism represented 

an interagency effort with the Department of State and the Department 

of Justice serving as leads. The goals and objectives of the program were 

basically as follows:

a. Enhance the government of Pakistan’s control over their border areas 

(thus assisting counterinsurgents in Operation Enduring Freedom to 

deny sanctuary and conduct border interdiction against Taliban and 

Al Qaeda forces).

b. Counter illicit movement of goods (most often those financing the 

insurgency in Afghanistan and Balochistan).

c. Enhance Pakistani police and law enforcement counterterrorism 

capabilities (counterorganization against the Al Qaeda and Taliban 

leadership).

d. Professionalize Pakistani investigative capabilities along with a commensurate police reform program. 

Thus far the program has cost $30–70 million a year. A number of diverse 

U.S. agencies have conducted and completed various activities and actions 

since 2003. The following agencies participated in the policing indirect strategy to enable one of our allies: Bureau of International Narcotics and Law 

Enforcement; the Office of Counter Terrorism; the Bureau of Diplomatic 

Security, Office of Antiterrorism Assistance; the United States Agency for 

International Development (USAID); and the Drug Enforcement Agency 

(DEA). What follows are some of the Pakistani internal security enhancements that the program has achieved thus far:

a. The Department of Justice/DEA established the International Criminal 

Investigative Training and Assistance Program—trained Frontier 

Corps as well as Anti-Narcotics Force (trained by the DEA) and 

assisted in border security augmentation.

b. Established an air wing in the Ministry of Interior for counterterrorism and counternarcotics.

c. Enhanced border posts, entry/exit routes, and border security 

roads.

d. USAID contributed to solving root causes—money and assistance for 

schools in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, national education, health care, employment, governance.
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JSOU Report 09-2

e. Established several police reform land senior executive leadership 

programs.

Lacking, and still needed, is the creation of a financial intelligence unit, 

a DNA training program, and a countering-organized-crime training 

program. 

Some caveats exist to indirect approaches of this nature, and COIN strategists and planners should take note.19 It will be important to find the correct 

balance for all agencies of the U.S. government, including the DoD, when 

developing 21st century indirect strategies that enhance partner capacity in 

the realm of policing, law enforcement, and COIN internal security. Here 

are three key factors:

a. The U.S. military must play in this arena, and certainly SOF using 

FID missions and Combating Terrorism (CbT) skills would be highly 

appropriate to work in consort with interagency partners. 

b. High threat and high risk areas in any host country threaten the 

capability of the U.S. interagency to deploy and monitor personally 

the programs they are trying to implement. Lack of first-hand access 

and knowledge of an area also contributes to lack of accountability 

on how a program is being administered. 

c. Tackling organized crime and its effects on insurgency outcomes 

must be based on how local cultures assess criminality in their part 

of the world, especially in areas where corruption is high and rule of 

law is low (under-governed space). This dilemma is precisely where 

local and regional police and law enforcement officers have leverage. 

The detective and forensic skills to tackle organized crime are similar 

to counterorganization techniques that military organizations use to 

neutralize insurgent leadership. This is one potential area where military law enforcement cooperation, along with intelligence, should be 

strengthened. Local police are also closest to the populace when they 

help to establish and maintain Neighborhood Watch organizations—

another valuable source of information.

The U.S. assistance program continues, and valuable lessons and 

approaches are adding to our knowledge of how to use offensive policing, 

with regional partners, as a component of a potential, indirect strategy to 

defeat irregular adversaries. This chapter posited a model for application 
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Celeski: Policing and Law Enforcement in COIN—the Thick Blue Line

of the elements of national power to reinforce successful application of law 

enforcement and policing in regional COIN-like campaigns, often when 

military force application is not desired, and a need to consider a major shift 

to that modality. Certainly the case is clear that any successful COIN effort 

will end when a normal state of policing and law enforcement (to secure the 

populace and resume governance) returns.

The new security environment, and its irregular warfare threats—dubbed 

the era of persistent conflict—will be a generational fight. This period will 

be a protracted geopolitical struggle to marginalize extremists and put into 

place enduring mechanisms that allow for continuous pressure to defeat the 

adaptations of the enemy. It will require constant, COIN-like activities to 

defeat global insurgency by Al Qaeda and its affiliates, and new ground will 

be explored to apply COIN-like actions against criminal enterprises. 

All of these efforts will require the patience and perseverance to outlast 

the enemy and to maintain the continuity of rule of law for the affected 

societies. Strategists will ponder second- and third-order effects that do not 

have clear and definable end states and in some cases, no exit strategy. End 

states will form vaguely around a condition where legitimacy by nations is 

predicated in a moral value system, within the international norms of rule 

of law, and acceptable to their populations. Such conditions will feature the 

capability and capacity to prevent further destruction or regional collateral 

damage amongst their neighbors. No concept of a concluding mechanism 

may exist; persistent conflict may require management of the regional security environment in a local law enforcement context to continually enhance 

our nation’s interests. 

A preventative (either indirectly or as a main effort) campaign of offensive policing and law enforcement, based on the regional security model, and 

in consort with international norms for rule of law within the nation-state 

security construct, is attractive as a strategic concept designed for this type 

of war. This new era resembling a form of ideological warfare nullifies our 

past notions of strategic relevance for functional uses of military power (e.g., 

sea, air, and space power). By its nature, this type of war is being fought on 

the ground where people live and breathe; it is also being fought on “human 

terrain” and in cognitive realms. The best counterinsurgent warriors operating within this landscape wear the police and internal security uniforms 

of the Thick Blue Line.

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Celeski: Policing and Law Enforcement in COIN—the Thick Blue Line

4. Operational Design Considerations for 

 Policing and Law Enforcement Campaigns

Early in the struggle it is also important to ascertain the strategy of the insurgents and the prominent forms of violence they 

employ.... Once analysts understand the insurgent strategy, they 

can focus on the most important requirements for insurgent success associated with that strategy and look at ways to frustrate 

insurgent efforts to fulfill those requirements.... Experience and 

the experts suggest that the most effective way to deal with internal terrorism or small-scale urban guerrilla attacks against soldiers 

and policemen is to emphasize police work, good intelligence, 

and judicial sanctions.20

Policing and law enforcement actions adopted at governmental level, 

particularly those actions anticipating roles for the military, can 

essentially be divided into two strategic approaches:

a. Military-led with a supporting offensive-policing component, which 

includes employing the military as police, or constabulary-like

b. Police-led, with the military supporting—so named due to the characteristic relationship of design between the ways, ends, and means 

of the approach chosen.

Strategists will have to ensure the three variables (ways, ends, and means) 

are in balance to ensure the success of the approach taken and to prevent 

a strategic mismatch. 

Measures to calculate risk are also important as are the answers to the 

following questions: Is the approach taken feasible given existing government resources? Is the approach acceptable to the polity and populace (and 

perhaps the wider international community)? Is it a suitable approach given 

the context of the problem? 

For any of these strategies, the political ends generally are similar: 

achievement of a level of law and order acceptable to the general populace 

and within an environment of security that their government can maintain. 

At the operational level, the objective for policing is to provide a security 

framework of enforced law and order in areas where the insurgents are 
36

JSOU Report 09-2

attempting to control the populace or trying to establish an alternate state. 

Both approaches reinforce the legitimacy of the state and the government’s 

plan to resolve the problem. 

Either approach chosen is dependent on the scope of the problem and 

how organizing a campaign with this strategic approach supports the government’s attempts to delegitimize the insurgent threat while promoting its 

own legitimacy in the eyes of the populace. For example, if the government 

views the insurgent movement as a law-and- order problem, then a police-led 

COIN campaign emphasizes the rule of law as the defeat mechanism. 

If the government feels overwhelmingly threatened by the military nature 

of the insurgency, then the host-nation military will often be employed 

to conduct a campaign to reach the desired political end state: the enemy 

defeated sufficiently to revert back to the rule of law. Resources can also drive 

the choices of governments fighting insurgents; militaries are often expensive for small or impoverished countries to maintain, so reliance on police 

or paramilitary police organizations may be the only useful solution.

The first of these strategic approaches, and the most recognized, is the 

use and deployment of the military in support of civil authority to protect 

the national or international security interests of the state—in other words, 

the military operating as police to support civil authority. Major General 

Sir Charles Gwynn described this expeditionary form of maintaining law 

and order, which he named imperial policing, in his written works published 

in 1934.21

The decision for deploying military as police (or as constabulary) hinged 

on correct timing of the intervention in order to preclude the need for larger 

military actions in case civil authorities hesitated and the civil disorder 

problem grew out of control. General Gwynn characterized the military’s 

police duties as falling into three categories: 

a. Deliberate campaigns (punitive expeditions) with military predominant until objectives were met and the situation could be returned 

to civil control

b. Military actually taking over as civil control due to its breakdown or 

abdication (often involves marital law)

c. Military deployed to bolster the existing police and law enforcement 

agencies extant, but which need reinforcement during the crisis at 

hand.22
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Celeski: Policing and Law Enforcement in COIN—the Thick Blue Line

The key aspects of this strategic approach are its expeditionary nature 

and the selection of the military as an instrument of national policy specifically to bolster civil authority or secure a national security interest outside 

the boundaries of the state (and of course its primary role as a policing 

force). A good example of an imperial-policing strategic approach is the 

deployment of U.K. military forces to Northern Ireland in support of the 

civil authority—that is, to restore law and order and return the situation to 

one where the police could effectively handle the problem. 

The strength of this strategic approach lies in the speed, flexibility, and 

amount of resources the military can bring to the conflict as an agent of 

the state. Often government agencies take time to marshal their assets for 

the problem, and the military can fill the immediate void. Its weakness lies 

in one’s military adopting a policing mind-set over its traditional function 

of fighting other militaries, thus diffusing its capability. Militaries used 

in this role most often require a retraining period to get them back into a 

mind-set of warfighting.

The military-led approach to policing works best with the incorporation 

of the existing internal security forces sector. The police and law enforcement 

capabilities are used as a supporting/economy of force effort. This course of 

action may be reinforced by the United States with an indirect component, 

such as an interagency approach, to assist a partner nation in enhancing 

the effectiveness of existing police and law enforcement capability (e.g., 

through reform measures, training, education, and advanced technology). 

This supporting, indirect component may resemble a logical line of operation within a COIN campaign plan. 

The second strategic approach to policing and law enforcement is typified 

by the choice of the government affected to handle the situation internally 

with its own security sector assets rearranged to adapt to the situation. This 

police-led type of approach is often characterized by martial law and hyperlaw—that is, the declaration of special legal emergency powers during the 

crisis. This is often called the emergency powers approach. 

The government response is to criminalize the threat and turn it into 

a special, legal problem. The security force sector assets of the state often 

hinge on an expansion of police and law enforcement agencies with extra 

legal and paramilitary powers, along with a commensurate retooling of 

the military forces to become more police-like. All activities are based on 

special legal authorities above and beyond the standing legal norms of the 
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JSOU Report 09-2

land to give the security forces enhanced capabilities to bring the “criminals” to justice. 

This type of campaign was used as the government response in the 

Kenyan troubles beginning in 1952 (Mau Mau uprising) and during the 

Malaya Emergency (1948–1957). Authors Kurt Campbell and Richard Weitz 

wrote about Malaya and the importance of police and law enforcement in 

counterinsurgencies in their paper prepared for the Princeton Project on 

National Security: 

In Malaya, the British undertook a sustained effort to strengthen the 

local police forces. The British upgraded their equipment, recruited 

thousands of additional members, and seconded British Army officers 

to police units, including several hundred sergeants demobilized from 

Palestine, to help improve tactics and training. They also formed a 

Special Constabulary of some 30,000 men (mostly Malays) to guard 

critical infrastructure targets such as bridges and road junctures, 

which released British troops for mobile operations. Police officials 

enjoyed formal equality in operational matters with military officers 

and civilian government representatives. Due to their knowledge of 

local conditions and criminal procedures, they took charge of many 

intelligence-gathering operations and most interrogation sessions. In 

urban areas, moreover, they arrested many guerrillas and impeded 

insurgent attempts to expand their recruitment base beyond alienated ethnic Chinese. At the peak of the insurgency, the number of 

police in Malaya (70,000 regulars) exceeded the number of soldiers 

(40,000 British and Commonwealth troops, which included 10,000 

Gurkhas).23

The strength of this strategy lies in keeping the insurgency within the 

legal context of a criminality problem, allowing for full use of the judicial 

system to help neutralize the insurgents. Its weakness lies in a potential 

overreach of the state in creating laws that restrict the civil liberties of the 

populace. Often police formations assume military-like postures and similar 

to armies performing policing functions, must eventually be retrained and 

deprogrammed to resume civil-policing functions.

The government may choose not to employ the military in a police-led 

approach if rule-of-law resources are deemed sufficient to handle the problem; this variation is characterized as a direct-policing concept. Within this 
39

Celeski: Policing and Law Enforcement in COIN—the Thick Blue Line

concept, the internal security threat is handled only by the police and law 

enforcement agencies of the host nation. Very little assistance is needed from 

the military. This approach works best against low level, internal security 

threats to a nation—threats that do not appear to have the volatility and 

capacity for expansion into a larger phase based on a Maoist-type model 

for insurgency. 

The insurgents themselves may only be capable of low level banditry 

and criminality and do not enjoy a popular or mass-base appeal from the 

populace. The insurgents are also containable, due to vagaries of terrain and 

environment. India and Bangladesh are two good examples of countries 

who address their internal, low level insurgencies by a law-enforcementonly government response. 

The strength of this course of action lies in the fact the state can husband 

its military resources for more extreme contingencies. Its weakness lies in 

the lack of resources that police organizations have to fight insurgents. 

Operational Art Considerations

COIN practitioners, strategists, and planners can take specific steps to ensure 

the strategic concept ultimately chosen to address internal security threats 

from insurgents—particularly an indirect strategy like policing and law 

enforcement—has the best chance for optimal success. Doctrinally, COIN

is all about legitimacy, manifested in security, rule of law, and governance. 

Lessons learned from military COIN strategies and from various types of 

counterterrorism strategies (which include law enforcement measures as 

part of their tiered structure) form the initial basis of the author’s insights for 

operational campaign design and the commander’s estimate. These insights 

include the following: 

a. It is essential to conduct an accurate threat assessment; this analysis 

dictates the proper matrix of police and law enforcement response to 

achieve the desired end state.

b. The internal security forces, in the aggregate, must pose a credible 

threat to the insurgents.

c. The plan works best when decentralized to account for regional and 

local approaches.
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JSOU Report 09-2

d. Policing and law enforcement techniques within a COIN environment 

should also follow established COIN doctrine and principles.

e. The police and law enforcement officers represent the government and 

its capability to provide services better than the insurgents can; these 

forces must be forces for good and draw the highest respect from the 

populace; if needed, ensure reform and anticorruption measures are 

in place, early on. 

f. High quality intelligence and intelligence sharing between law enforcement and the military will be the essential enabler for the strategy. 

g. Information Operations (IO) will require a supportive media campaign 

reflecting best attributes of the law enforcement sector.

h. It is absolutely essential that the policing and law enforcement effort 

be well coordinated and integrated at all levels of plans throughout 

the government and military.

i. The approach requires a corrective mechanism, adaptable to changing 

conditions; well-developed assessment and measurement systems to 

ascertain progress will be essential. 

Courses of Action

The predominant ways of utilizing police and law enforcement within a 

COIN strategy are based on the experiences amongst counterinsurgents 

gained over several decades. These ways consist of the adoption of the community-policing approach supported by offensive-policing actions such as 

paramilitary operations, counterguerrilla patrolling, pseudo operations, and 

raids. They assist the COIN effort by providing in lieu of or economy-of-force 

assets for area security, point security, and cordon and search operations 

when military forces are not sufficient or the level of government response 

chosen is one of minimal force. 

Community policing is based on an interaction between community 

members and their law enforcement agencies to solve crime, identify suspects, and prevent neighborhood problems in a proactive manner. Police do 

not simply react to crime; they conduct a series of actions that prevent the 

outbreak of criminal activity. This philosophy is transferred to the pursuit 

of insurgents and their activities within the community during offensive 

policing. 
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Celeski: Policing and Law Enforcement in COIN—the Thick Blue Line

Community policing in essence...proposes a partnership with civil 

society so that communities can have input into policing and, in 

return, participate and give support.... Community policing has 

come to be accepted as a positive way of policing society, especially 

by policy makers and senior police in Western societies and has 

become very popular. Different models of community policing are 

found in Western, Asian and other societies, some focusing on city 

areas, others on more rural areas.24

Community policing requires an in-place, indigenous police force (such 

as was learned during the Sunni Awakening in Iraq). Offensive policing 

often requires the expansion of the existing force and specialized training of 

new police and law enforcement formations. If they are nonexistent or ineffective, the counterinsurgent will be required to intervene and develop such 

a police and law enforcement capability. This approach is known as executive 

policing, whereby the international community often assists to provide a 

democratic policing system under the auspices of the United Nations. 

The United Nations Civilian Police (UNPOL) has contributed in numerous peacekeeping operations over the last 45 years since their inception for 

use in the Congo from 1960 to 1964. In the last decade, the number of United 

Nations police deployed per month averaged 1,677; in 2005 this number had 

increased to over 6,000. Over the years, the charter and mandate for United 

Nations police have grown to include the monitoring, mentoring, assisting, 

and training of local police forces as well as direct law enforcement.25

The executive policing—also called international policing—goal is one 

of supporting, establishing or reestablishing, and reforming (if necessary) the rule-of-law mechanisms within a democratic social system. Most 

international actors who participate in these United Nations operations 

take into account the social, cultural, and political context of the policing 

environment. Reform is a key component of the executive or international 

policing effort. Other best practices for executive and international policing include the use of regional law enforcement organizations as the initial, 

rapid deployers, trainers, long-term peace-building actors, and source of 

specialized resource providers.26
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JSOU Report 09-2

Operational Resources

Police and law enforcement agencies provide a variety of assets for use 

within a COIN environment. For planning, these internal security forces 

can be broken down into the following four components: 

a. Local and regional police 

b. National level law enforcement agencies

c. Constabulary or paramilitary forces

d. Special police forces. 

International police and law enforcement actually could comprise a fifth 

means to employ COIN forces, but are not discussed here because they do 

not come under the authority of the state. 

Currently, analysts are still developing the appropriate force ratios 

for COIN forces required in various irregular warfare scenarios based on 

war games conducted under the scope of the Joint Operating Concept for 

Irregular Warfare. This paper is not intended to specify percentages and 

ratios of various types of law enforcement and police needed, but rather to 

describe their form and use. 

A caution is also offered by JSOU senior fellow Dr. Graham Turbiville 

to planners: “...these forces are also sometimes accused of the worst war 

crimes and human rights abuses precisely because they are close to the 

population, well armed, and dealing intimately with a frustrating array of 

police-like problems that cross into combat on occasion. So if poorly led 

or directed—and if not integrated into the overall strategy—they do more 

harm to the COIN campaign than good.” 27

Local and regional forces. Police and law enforcement personnel who are 

generally most familiar with the town, village, tribe, and region in which 

they perform their duties focus primarily on preventing crime within the 

community. In COIN situations, these personnel may become more militarized to handle insurgent attacks and ambushes. Their primary duties 

in a wider COIN context are to provide information on insurgents and the 

activities of insurgent auxiliaries to paramilitary or military forces for the 

latter to act upon.

Local and regional police may expand through the use of reserves during 

COIN operations in order to perform home guard or home militia type 
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Celeski: Policing and Law Enforcement in COIN—the Thick Blue Line

operations, and, in some cases, to conduct counterguerrilla operations based 

on their localities. The overall planner’s intent for the employment of local 

and regional police and law enforcement personnel is twofold:

a. Rapidly grow their numbers through reserve structures or civilian 

populace auxiliary in order to provide for point and area security.

b. Handle the requirements of population resource and control measures 

(e.g., traffic control points, convoy escort, curfews). 

Ultimately, these measures contribute to freeing up the military to focus on 

priority counterguerrilla operations. 

The Neighborhood Watch system, although not comprised of formally 

trained law enforcement officers, can also serve to increase the information-gathering and surveillance capacity of the local police. Many good 

citizens volunteer to assist in traffic control, accident mitigation, reporting of suspicious behavior, and providing transport and logistics to local 

police when needed. During the bush war fought in Rhodesia, private pilots 

in small aircraft volunteered as the Police Reserve Air Wing to transport 

police and constables and to conduct aerial surveillance in support of COIN

operations.

Other assistance from citizens provided a force-multiplier effect to 

local police in order to maintain public good order. Much insurgent activity resembles criminality, and village guard personnel readily expand the 

much needed manpower for the COIN effort. The cautionary note, however, 

is when organizations begin to take law and order into their own hands, 

such as the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC), they can turn to brute 

force and repression to run their neighborhoods. 

National Forces. The National Police and the other law enforcement agencies of the state—organized normally under the Ministry of Interior, such as 

Highway Patrol, Border, Customs, and Port Security—comprise the National 

Forces. These may also include capabilities assigned at the national level, 

tailored to preserving the nation state itself and for the protection of the 

sovereignty of the state (e.g., unique organizations such as national counterterrorism units and centers, Homeland Defense departments, special police 

branches, and intelligence assets). 

National Police are generally used as the main link between central government authority and the local level law enforcement during an insurgency. 
44

JSOU Report 09-2

Historically, the National Police perform the role of a Quick Reaction Force 

for local units, assisting local forces to secure areas once they are rid of 

insurgents and to conduct operations against the insurgent organization 

to capture or neutralize their leadership. The National Police also perform 

duties in the gaps and boundaries created by regional or provincial jurisdictions. Some of their duties may include performing as hostage rescue 

or as national SWAT teams, and even to provide distinguished-visitor or 

diplomat-protection services. 

Constabulary or Paramilitary Forces. Constabularies provide the bridging in the gap created between military operations and police security operations. The purpose for employment of these police paramilitary units—or 

conversely, military police-like units—is to employ these organizations with 

police and law enforcement powers for the restoration and enforcement of 

law and order amongst a civilian populace. Generally, these types of units 

are created and directed under the responsibility of either a Minister of 

Interior or Minister of Defense. At the high end, these units are manned 

and equipped to handle insurrections and larger armed groups who are 

contesting the legitimacy of the established government.

The most common of these units are Gendarmerie and Carabinieri-like 

organizations, which can fight as military formations and still perform 

law-and-order duties, armed with the power of arrest (but again, these units 

may be ordinary soldiers used to restore and keep law and order as part of 

occupation duties). The end state for the use of constabulary or paramilitary 

Figure 4. An Iraqi 

highway patrolman pulls security 

from his turret in 

the back of a patrol 

vehicle at a checkpoint along a highway near Mahawil, 

Iraq, 7 June 2007. 

U.S. Army photo by 

SSgt Sean Foley.
45

Celeski: Policing and Law Enforcement in COIN—the Thick Blue Line

police forces is the transformation of the security situation back to civil 

police and judicial organizations. 

The U.S. military experienced constabulary operations during its COIN

campaign in the Philippines (1899–1902) and deliberate occupation duties 

in Europe after the end of World War II. These duties were performed by 

the U.S. military as a result of lack of host-nation governance capabilities 

along with our status as one of occupation force (required under international law). 

Today, the U.S. military could be required to perform policing law-andorder duties as a result of the Pentagon Directive No. 3000, Military Support 

for Stability, Security, Transition, and Reconstruction (SSTR) Operations,

dated 28 November 2005. Under the mandates and requirements of international law and now within U.S. doctrine, American military forces will 

potentially be organized into constabulary-like units, or may form indigenous or irregular constabulary units, within a security line of operations. 

What is clear, however, from recent high level war-gaming and doctrinal 

review of Joint warfighter tasks required in COIN environments, is that 

little support exists for the creation of a standing U.S. military constabulary organization; it is not currently needed. However, initial experiences 

as occupation forces in Iraq should not restrict considerations on what may 

be required in future conflict.28

Other paramilitary policing organizations are normally formed as part 

of a police reserve in order to keep within the proper legal bounds for their 

employment. The counterinsurgent should know, however, that the creation 

of paramilitary organizations can lead to vigilantism and the people’s ultimate loss of confidence in one of the symbols of government. 

Special Police Units. The counterinsurgent has flexibility in meeting the 

demands of the insurgency through the use of specialized police units; they 

can tailor their use in each situation to the context and mission requirements. On the low end of potential uses is the formation of a police reserve 

to conduct specialized duties, which free up other security forces to focus 

on the insurgents and their structure. 

During the Rhodesian War of 1965–1980 (also known as the second

Chimurenga—struggle), the police reserve served as a trained and standing 

pseudo-army and provided specialized units for missions such as convoy 

escort and area patrolling (“The Blackboots” were a Police Support Unit). 
46

JSOU Report 09-2

The Police Reserve Air Wing also contributed immensely to the manhunting and tracking of insurgents by forming air surveillance counterterrorism units and utilizing their private, fixed-wing aircraft. For further study, 

the story of special police units in COIN during the Rhodesian War can 

be found in Group Captain PJH Petter-Bowyer’s book on his experiences 

during the war, Winds of Destruction, Trafford Publishing, 2003.29

Additionally, the Rhodesian, British, and South Africa police created 

Police Antiterrorist Units to conduct hunter-killer and counterguerrilla 

operations against insurgents operating in the vicinity of border zones. 

These paramilitary units were formed from police officers and indigenous 

Africans. 

The best use for specialized police units is in the area of intelligence 

collection, insurgent “turning” operations, and penetration of insurgent 

organizations. This counterorganization technique is also known as pseudo 

operations—the deliberate masking of origin and intent to fool the enemy 

and convince him you are one of them. 

Psuedo and counterorganization operations are best conducted by police 

as part of a centralized intelligence function. Professor Lawrence Cline 

remarked on the use of these intelligence techniques in a 2005 paper:

The term ‘pseudo operations’ (or some variant of it) indicates the 

use of organized teams which are disguised as guerrilla groups for 

long- or short-term penetration of insurgent-controlled areas. They 

should be distinguished from the more common police or intelligence 

infiltration of guerrillas or criminal organizations. In the latter case, 

infiltration is normally done by individuals.30

The U.S. conducted pseudo operations during the Vietnam War under 

the auspices of the Phoenix Program. The Rhodesians conducted pseudo 

operations into insurgent sanctuaries in a highly effective manner using 

the specialized unit Selous Scouts. The British were also adept at counterorganization techniques under the auspices of police Special Branch intelligence directorates, most notably in Kenya and to some extent during their 

COIN operations in Malaya and Northern Ireland. Of importance to the 

counterinsurgent, however, are some key caveats in the use of pseudo operations offered by Dr. Cline:
47

Celeski: Policing and Law Enforcement in COIN—the Thick Blue Line

a. Pseudo operations must be well funded in order to be successful; 

reward programs make up a huge portion of the effectiveness of 

pseudo operations.

b. It is extremely critical to coordinate and deconflict pseudo operations 

between other friendly security forces operating in the same area of 

operation, thereby preventing compromise of missions or fratricide 

of friendly agents.

c. The military must be involved as the Quick Reaction Force to back 

up police pseudo operations.

d. Well trained intelligence personnel will be required to actually “turn” 

insurgents and use them effectively. 

Effective employment and task organization of existing and potential 

police and law enforcement units—retailored, trained, and equipped to 

handle the unique requirements of the government’s response to its internal security threat—provide an effective solution. Such initiatives solve the 

manpower requirement needed to provide security for the populace and 

provision of law and order as one aspect of governance. Along with manpower, some additional historical policing and law enforcement measures 

are offered for consideration and inclusion into the formulation of the COIN

campaign plan: 

a. Generally, special police and law enforcement powers are needed in 

COIN operations—for example, the increase of government powers 

to deal with terrorism (criminalizing the insurgent) like strengthening of the judiciary during the emergency period, a prison system 

tailored to handle insurgents, and the adoption of unique policies 

and laws (e.g., extradition, no concessions, preemption, immigration 

restrictions, surveillance, search and seizure measures, and public 

speech); extra legal protection for soldiers and police to ensure no 

indemnification occurs when arresting insurgents; and well-written 

rules of engagement, for soldiers and paramilitary police, unique to 

the context of the insurgency

b. Establishment of consequence management assets, force protection 

measures (e.g., for a distinguished visitor, civil air safety, and infrastructure), and public education and awareness programs
48

JSOU Report 09-2

c. Design of measures to attack insurgent support and logistic structures 

(e.g., special task forces created for organized crime and the freezing 

of financial assets)

d. Ensuring international law enforcement capabilities are incorporated 

into the plan.

Regardless of the option chosen, or the ways and means to achieve the 

ends of the strategy for the COIN campaign, military planners must recognize and acknowledge the often significant contribution of manpower 

that police and law enforcement bring to the fight as part of the government response. The counterinsurgent cannot ignore the Thick Blue Line 

and its capabilities to conduct offensive policing during COIN responses. 

This lesson is clear from the early years of COIN efforts in both Iraq and 

Afghanistan. 
49

Celeski: Policing and Law Enforcement in COIN—the Thick Blue Line

5. Insight into Policing Roles in 

 COIN Operations

Coercive practices may deter or crush rebellions, but democratic 

governments generally favor strategies that mingle force with 

finesse. Armed services, paramilitary formations, and police conduct tactically offensive albeit strategically defense operations 

against undergrounds and guerrillas.31

Throughout the available research and analysis on various roles 

for police and law enforcement in COIN environments, some key 

insights consistently appear across the spectrum of any given scenario chosen and should be added to our knowledge of assessment and 

planning factors for police roles in COIN. They are very similar in form 

to governing factors used in course-of-action analysis. Examining their 

nature helps strategists and planners understand their impact when conducting initial assessments and considering incorporation of police and law 

enforcement into their COIN campaign plans—police and law enforcement 

should always be included in COIN planning as a key element of government 

legitimacy. 

Police and Law Enforcement COIN Functions Assessment. COIN success lies in the effective and legitimate use of the government’s capabilities 

in delivering the rule of law, as an alternative to the insurgent message, with 

the police playing an essential role to achieve these ends. Rule of law includes 

the institutions responsible for its procedural steps and the legislation—due 

process—designed to ensure equality and justice to the governed. FM 3-24 

(page 42) discusses it as institutions suggesting law and processes. Appendix 

D identifies the rule of law as three key aspects (page 361): 

a. Government derived from the governed

b. Sustainable institutions (courts, penal systems, and the police) 

c. Fundamental human rights. 

The COIN strategist and campaign planner must conduct a specialized 

assessment of the existing rule-of-law structures and of the capabilities of the 

entire police and law enforcement assets of the country, analyze the threat, 
50

JSOU Report 09-2

then ascertain what additional COIN tasks will be required from police and 

law enforcement (thus making them more offensive-like in nature). 

FM 3-24 provides the COIN practitioner with sound guidance on the 

assessment procedures in Chapter 6, Developing Host-Nation Security 

Forces. The section “Police in Counterinsurgency” is thorough and provides 

COIN planners well-thought-out considerations. The following insights are 

intended to augment this chapter, specifically to change the dynamic from 

community policing to COIN offensive policing. These insights are derived 

from the research conducted for this monograph. The COIN practitioner 

can enhance the integration of efforts to develop offensive policing by also 

considering:

a. Expansion of police reserve units for additional capability in patrolling, security, air capability, and distinguished-visitor and infrastructure protection (consequence management from acts of terror 

and subversion)

b. The conduct of reconciliation activities with former insurgents (e.g., 

demobilization, demilitarization)

c. Counterorganization, countersanctuary, and counterrecruiting techniques that can be employed by law enforcement agencies

d. Special border interdiction tasks (Customs and border patrol 

agencies)

e. Provision for COIN training in police and law enforcement 

academies.

Figure 5. More than 300 

Afghans went through the 

Afghan National Auxiliary 

Police training program at 

the Regional Training Center, 

Jalalabad, Afghanistan, 17 

June 2007. The two-week 

course is designed to give 

the force the basic skills 

to function as part of the 

Afghan National Security 

Forces. U.S. Navy photo 

by Petty Officer 1st Class 

Scott Cohen.
51

Celeski: Policing and Law Enforcement in COIN—the Thick Blue Line

Making police and law enforcement agencies more offensive-like requires 

the militarization of their posts and camps and must take place along with 

the provision of military-like equipment (including ground and air mobility) 

and technology to handle tactical-level combat with insurgents.

Corruption. One of the most prevalent and endemic problems in many 

countries experiencing insurgency and irregular warfare challenges is 

with assuring credible governance on the part of internal security forces. 

Corruption is the decay and denigration of moral framework within a society when any large organization representing the state does not perform in 

the way intended and misuses its unique position vis-s-vis the populace for 

power or private gain. 

Corruption in police and law enforcement agencies manifests itself traditionally in compromised forensics, establishment of a bribe system, misconduct, and worst of all, abuse of the state’s citizens resulting in a climate 

of fear. In an insurgency, the net effect of any form of state corruption is 

as follows:

a. Corrodes the public’s faith and confidence in their government (lessens 

perceptions of efficacy).

b. Decreases government legitimacy (lack of efficiency).

c. Provides the enemy with a source of easy subversion and sabotage as 

well as a ready source of antigovernment propaganda.

Corruption is the first detractor in gaining the favor of the populace to 

support the government’s COIN efforts and not side with the insurgent’s 

offer of alternate governance. Insurgents also use corrupted governmental 

institutions to finance their activities. The largest contributor to corruption 

in law enforcement is low pay. Out-of-hand drug markets, black markets, 

and smuggling franchises often serve to fuel the fire. Fortunately, a good 

body of insights gleaned about corruption from the experiences gained 

during Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom can be 

accessed through searches in the archives of the various military services.

The planners who foresee the need to train and develop (and perhaps 

enhance) law enforcement and police as part of their security line of operation should take into consideration steps needed to control corruption. 

Corruption has an historical and cultural context as its background, depending on where the COIN operation is taking place. It may be a normal method 
52

JSOU Report 09-2

for law enforcement officials to augment meager pay and thus tolerated to 

some extent by the populace. 

Planners and leaders should understand what is and what is not acceptable in the society at large before imposing U.S. or Western values on the 

elimination of corruption. As a minimum, steps derived from the U.S. Army 

lessons-learned documents on corruption-in-governance operations consist 

of the following for situations involving U.S. oversight of suspected personnel or units:

a. Monitor and investigate the illicit activities of senior leadership; 

attempt to emplace or enhance some type of internal affairs investigative division at various levels of the Ministry of Interior.

b. Account for money used in all payrolls and contracts for programs 

designed to support law enforcement and police.

c. Supervise and monitor the daily activities of police and law enforcement in their transactions with the public (e.g., traffic police, local 

police posts, beat cops on the block).

d. Conduct frequent inspections for accountability on equipment 

assigned to police and law enforcement agencies and monitor the 

level and usage of supplies.

Training. The goal for training indigenous security forces (nonmilitary) is 

to have individual units enforcing the law and order with constabulary and 

paramilitary police units establishing law and order in troubled regions of 

the country. The best trainers for police and law enforcement security forces 

are indeed other police and law enforcement personnel. Soldiers generally 

do not make the best individual law enforcement trainers because they lack 

cultural, policing, and native social skills. However, soldiers—especially 

military police—can make great advisors when embedded for community 

policing, constabulary operations, and paramilitary police combat operations as evidenced in Iraq. SOF can often augment these activities as an 

economy-of-force measure, similar to the activities of the U.S. Navy SEALs 

in al-Anbar Province during the Battle of Ramadi during Operation Iraqi 

Freedom. In his recent work, The Sheriff of Ramadi (Naval Institute Press, 

2008), retired SEAL Dick Couch captured the contributions of the Navy 

SEALs to train with and employ local police as one of the COIN measures 

to win the battle. In one of the author’s interviews with SEALs, Commander 

Rick Leonard commented on this aspect of the operation [pg. 144]:
53

Celeski: Policing and Law Enforcement in COIN—the Thick Blue Line

The biggest thing for us in all of al-Anbar was the transition from 

working with the Iraqi army to working with the Iraqi police. Things 

really didn’t settle down in Al-Anbar until we got the local police on 

the streets, and nowhere was that change more important and more 

dramatic than in Ramadi. 

Contractors, and to some extent U.S. allies, are far better and more useful 

to run police recruiting, basic patrolmen skills, and schools and academies. 

More important, allies may be able to contribute types of forces, such as 

SOF, that are essential but consistently in short supply even for precautionary actions. Even more relevant to COIN, with its demands for conducting policing under conditions of threat much greater than those faced by 

American civilian law enforcement agencies, are paramilitary police forces, 

such as Spain’s Guardia Civil, Italy’s Carabinieri, and France’s Compagnies 

Républicaines de Sécurité. The United States has no equivalent organization 

capable of sharing its expertise with local government forces that need to 

develop similar capabilities, so U.S. allies could be invaluable in filling this 

gap.32

However, the military does have a role to play in the collective and 

advanced skills training to prepare law enforcement units for COIN tasks. 

SWAT and counterterrorism units can be reoriented to the demands of 

urban guerrilla warfare; all units will need basic combat tactical skills in 

patrolling and defense and force protection in order to survive their first 

Figure 6. U.S. Marine 

Corps Cpl Roberts 

coaches a female 

police officer during a 

weapons training exercise at the pistol range 

of Joint Security Station 

Iron in Ar Ramadi, 

Iraq, 28 July 2007. 

DoD photo by SSgt 

Michael Kropiewnicki. 
54

JSOU Report 09-2

contact with insurgents. The following examples, derived from earlier COIN

operations, identify additional situations where military training programs 

can help prepare the police for challenges beyond their basic law enforcement duties: 

a. Intelligence training, human rights training, mission planning, 

new equipment training (for military-like gear), Public Affairs, 

Psychological Operations (PSYOP) and Civil Affairs training, leadership training, and command and control techniques 

b. Specialized training by the military could also include explosive ordnance and bomb disposal, unmanned aerial vehicle and surveillance 

training, sniper training, aviation skills, medical skills, riverine and 

port and harbor maritime small-unit tactics, and use of canines.

The military can play a significant role in the preparation of police and law 

enforcement units to operate within the COIN arena as outlined in FM 3-24. 

If employing paramilitary police formations, the military should exclusively 

serve as the trainers, mentors, and advisors. 

COIN planners should consider early on incorporating the variety of specialized law enforcement and policing programs offered by the Department 

of State, Department of Justice, and the various training and mentor venues 

offered by the United Nations and European Union assets. International 

policing efforts under the auspices of the United Nations (such as executive policing) can also contribute in the security line of operations against 

insurgents based upon the level and type of external assistance requested 

by the host country experiencing the insurgency.33

Mobility. One of the key principles of COIN is the need to be as mobile, 

or more mobile, than the insurgent. This principle is not only important 

from a tactical maneuver aspect but also for community policing and law 

enforcement forces to be able to act faster than the insurgents (e.g., reaching a contested village before the insurgents can occupy it or before they 

can ambush a key government position). Surprisingly, one of the biggest 

weaknesses in employment of police and law enforcement out in the COIN

environment is their lack of suitable vehicles and air transport to give them 

the same capability in mobility that may be enjoyed by the military. The 

basic patrol car with lights will not long survive. 
55

Celeski: Policing and Law Enforcement in COIN—the Thick Blue Line

Police will require up-armored vehicles and electronic countermeasure 

(ECM) devices if the insurgent threat includes ambushes and improvised 

explosive devices (IEDs); paramilitary police forces need specialized and 

militarized vehicles for transport and convoy escort and to conduct security 

missions within their areas of responsibility. All police forces, including 

border patrol forces, need light Short Takeoff and Landing (STOL) aircraft 

and rotary-wing assets to conduct surveillance, patrolling, transport, and 

medical evacuation functions in the performance of their duties. 

The counterinsurgent should take into consideration the level of armaments required on these airframes needed to support the expanded police 

and law enforcement COIN role. Many police and law enforcement units 

will need to be able to defend themselves from insurgent attacks prior to the 

arrival of National Police or a military Quick Reaction Force unit. Lastly, 

large, fixed-wing transport is not normally in the complement of police air 

wings, but police and law enforcement should have access to this means of 

transportation when required to deploy long distances in support of the 

COIN effort.

Pseudo Operations. Infiltrating contested civilian communities or operational areas to develop intelligence on enemy organizations (counterorganization) are key contributors to success in COIN when they have been 

generally run as a police intelligence function. The use of specially trained 

Figure 7. 6th SOS 

Special Operations 

aviation advisory 

works with 

Colombian rotarywing aircrew to 

enhance their 

capabilities in law 

enforcement actions 

during counternarcotics operations. 

Source: AFSOC. 
56

JSOU Report 09-2

police, organized into pseudo and tracking teams, mirror or are disguised as 

insurgent and terrorists forces. Special police pseudo operations are tasked 

with the penetration and isolation of the insurgent leadership and their 

primary organizations—for example, tracking key leadership, subversion 

and sabotage once within the organization, the reconnaissance for finding 

insurgent bases, safe houses, and caches—and ultimately the elimination 

of key leaders, cells, and infrastructure. 

Measures of Effectiveness. The question for analysts and campaign planners is to ascertain what law enforcement should be measured within the 

context of the insurgency. The focus is on those policing tasks needed above 

and beyond those required for normal peacetime rule of law performed by 

the various sectors of law enforcement available—local/regional, national, 

and specialized units. Examples of extra-normal policing tasks follow:

a. Increased security of the populace (requires police to become more 

militarized to take on insurgent attacks and acts of subversion)

b. Economy-of-force operations (static security tasks on critical and 

vulnerable assets) in order to free the military to do counterguerrillas 

operations

c. Cross-border sanctuary operations

d. Counterorganization (attacking the insurgent political and military 

organizational and leadership structure)

e. Counterfinancing and countercriminality to attack source of funds 

for insurgents. 

Generally, at the national level, the police have been used historically 

for state-level counterterrorism organizations, combating terrorism tasks 

(such as distinguished-visitor protection), mobile Quick Reaction Forces, 

intelligence gathering, and for pseudo operations to get at enemy leadership 

and organizational structure. The key role for National Police is intelligence 

gathering and their ability to pass on the information and intelligence to 

other law enforcement and military organizations in the fight. Thus, COIN

metrics for national level police should be formed around their ability to 

generate intelligence of a useful nature and to penetrate and damage enemy 

organizations. They also need to be measured on their ability to have operational flexibility in reacting as a national Quick Reaction Force. 

Some comments on metrics for National Police—from Afghanistan 

COIN Academy (afghanistanCOINacademy@gmail.com) discussions during 
57

Celeski: Policing and Law Enforcement in COIN—the Thick Blue Line

a roundtable debate—also include the requirement to measure political 

loyalty, or at least measurable actions between the populace and the local/

regional police peculiar to COIN, such as support for the government 

vice the insurgents.34 Bribes or collection rates amongst governmental law 

enforcement agencies (e.g., those dealing with customs and immigration) 

may also illuminate key factors important to the counterinsurgent. 

One of the panel members recommended a system similar to New York 

City Police Department’s COMPSTAT (Computer Statistics), an accountability system used to enable operational decisions on where, when, and how 

to employ law enforcement measures with respect to the threat, modified 

to the context of the COIN environment. Also, police trainers and mentors 

in Operation Iraqi Freedom/Operation Enduring Freedom are using the 

Army’s Training Readiness and Assessment Tool to measure the police 

capability in conducting activities without assistance from the coalition. 

Regardless of any measurement system chosen, the key metrics must 

accurately measure those items that indicate progress and success or failure within the government response to the insurgency. For instance, instead 

of how many foot patrols are conducted, a better metric would indicate 

how large an area is secured from the effects of the insurgents; instead of 

how many criminals are arrested, a better metric is how many informants 

and snitches are effectively providing information on the whereabouts and 

activities of insurgents or any underground and auxiliary personnel. 

Finally, unity of effort and coordination between the various levels of 

police and law enforcement, in conjunction with military efforts along the 

security line of operations, are paramount to success in COIN. Therefore, 

a useful metric to measure liaison, coordination, communication, and 

interoperability effectiveness would be of great benefit. 

Other Factors. A few observations from this research (e.g., case studies and 

doctrine) have emerged concerning police and law enforcement application 

and are offered to assist the counterinsurgent or the campaign planner in 

developing the logical lines of operation (LLOs) or lines of operation (LOOs) 

for governance and security:

a. It is important early in the planning process to thoroughly analyze 

the host nation’s internal security forces (nonmilitary), their roles, 

and their capabilities. This analysis will establish a baseline of what 

needs to be achieved to build capacity and capability for the conduct 
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JSOU Report 09-2

of a COIN effort on behalf of the government forces. A chart of deficiencies (i.e., what is not present and needed to conduct operations in 

an irregular warfare environment) should be considered in order to 

establish what will be needed above the baseline during the conduct 

of COIN. 

b. Distinct functions of police and law enforcement are based on their 

role within the governmental structure. COIN campaign planners 

should attempt to delineate what local and regional internal security forces will be employed at the tactical level, what forces will 

be employed at the higher levels of government, and what internal 

security forces are matrixed against sovereignty issues (e.g., border, 

customs, immigration). Once complete, the delineation will be useful 

in selecting the most appropriate FID and security assistance measure 

for training by the U.S. government and/or its partners and allies.

c. Clearly identify those areas where military forces, trainers, and advisors serve best to reinforce the enhancement of law enforcement (e.g., 

tactics, force protection, special SWAT and police commando, or 

paramilitary organizations) and leave basic police training and police 

administrative training to the interagency and contractor process.

d. Establish a security plan to account for where military forces must 

be present, visible, and reactive to situations that cannot be handled 

by local law enforcement. 

e. Integrate the efforts of law enforcement into the COIN security plan 

in order to enable military forces to concentrate on priority military 

operations. 

f. Mechanisms for coordinating and integrating operational command 

and control and for intelligence fusion must be established to achieve 

liaison and unity of effort. 

Implementation of rule of law requires a holistic approach to the various components needed to make it effective. Any plan must be flexible and 

integrated with the host-nation efforts. Along with the physical numbers 

of police, internal security forces and special law enforcement units are 

the commensurate civil laws and judicial systems to support the effort. 

The counterinsurgent must also strengthen the LLO along the governance 

track to ensure courts, jails, judges and lawyers, ministries of interior, and 
59

Celeski: Policing and Law Enforcement in COIN—the Thick Blue Line

border and customs activities are developed in parallel with the capacity of 

the host nation to absorb them.

The aforementioned insights and observations appear consistently in any 

historical or contemporary situation involving COIN where the use of police 

and law enforcement agencies represent a large percentage of the manpower 

within the security LOO. The next chapter explores contemporary examples 

of policing and law enforcement in COIN to ascertain unique lessons learned 

at the strategic and operational level, along with some tactical lessons for 

COIN practitioners. 

61

Celeski: Policing and Law Enforcement in COIN—the Thick Blue Line

6. Examples of Policing Within COIN 

 Operations 

Here at COP Falcon, American soldiers live side by side with 

Iraqi army and police. They always patrol together, and the Iraqi 

forces, especially the police who are from the area, connect with 

the local population much better than the Americans could. ‘The 

Iraqi police by far are our intelligence gatherers,’ Bajema said. 

‘You’d be surprised what people will tell the IP.... The people 

just open up to them.’ 35

Bombs Target Police – Kill 6 People in Algeria. Seven bombings 

that targeted police in Algeria killed six people and injured nearly 

30 others, the Interior Ministry said in a statement. It said two of 

the dead and 10 of the injured were police officers. The attack 

occurred in the Boumerdes and Tizi Ouzou districts east of the 

capital, Algiers. Al Qaeda in Islamic North Africa—the new name 

for the Salafist Group for Call and Combat, known by the French 

abbreviation GSPC—claimed responsibility for the Tuesday morning strikes....

36

This chapter explores several case studies to compare the effects of law 

enforcement and policing levels on the outcome of specific COIN

efforts. It is prudent to take a look at examples in COIN offensivepolicing applications to ascertain key lessons for leaders, strategists, and 

planners at the strategic and operational level. The primary objective of any 

COIN operation is to help set the conditions for an environment of effective governance and prevent the government’s destruction by insurgents. 

Effective police and law enforcement activities in COIN are essential to this 

objective and are the primary means by which the state maintains a monopoly of force over the illegitimate and illicit transactions of bad actors. 

This research explores aspects of policing and law enforcement in these 

scenarios: 

a. Over 30 years of COIN and counterterrorism operations in Northern 

Ireland during the Troubles (imperial policing)
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JSOU Report 09-2

b. The ongoing efforts to develop police and national law enforcement agencies in Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring 

Freedom (economy of force or adjuncts to security LOOs)

c. The policing and law enforcement model used to defeat insurgents in 

central India (main effort strategy). 

Northern Ireland 1969–2007 (the Troubles)

When Ireland achieved independence in 1922, six of the nine northern 

counties of Ulster remained under governance of the United Kingdom 

(U.K.). The population of Northern Ireland was divided between Catholics 

and Protestants. Religious tensions between the two grew as a result of the 

division: 

a. Catholics, as the republicans (or nationalists), advocated for the unification of all Ireland and established a political organization—Sinn 

Fein—and an insurgent armed-action wing, the Irish Republican 

Army (IRA). 

b. Protestants, as loyalists (or unionists), wanted to continue political 

affiliation with the U.K. 

By the 1960s, it appeared Protestants were consistently favored politically over the Catholic population and thus Catholic grievances resulted 

in the outbreak of demonstrations and riots in 1968 and 1969. While the 

Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) nicely handled the 1968 riots and demonstrations, the August 1969 riots were beyond police capability, and British 

troops were deployed to back the civil order.37 At the same time, the government missed the initial armed propaganda nature of the urban guerrilla 

insurgency.

The now-nicknamed Troubles had all of the aspects of insurgency and terrorism with the insurgent action arm, the urban guerrillas of the IRA—now 

dubbed the Provisional IRA (PIRA). They resorted to attacks on the police 

forces of the RUC and acts of terror and sabotage against symbols of governance, particularly the Ulster Defence Regiment (military forces). Initially, 

the PIRA appeared as a defensive measure for the disaffected Catholic areas 

of Northern Ireland. 

However, as the urban guerrillas grew bolder, the organization began 

to move politically toward the Marxists and leftists. In what would be its 

first mistake in implementing a policing and civil-order strategy against 
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Celeski: Policing and Law Enforcement in COIN—the Thick Blue Line

the PIRA, the local government responded with the use of special police 

in repressive raids and reprisal (the use of the infamous “B” specials of the 

police reserve), an act from which they would not recover in terms of winning “hearts and minds” as discussed in COIN doctrine and practices.38

As disorder grew, the size and contingent of U.K. military forces deployed 

into Northern Ireland increased under the name Operation Banner. At the 

peak of this operation, more than 21,000 troops were deployed. However, 

throughout the operation the government 

response was seen as a policing problem 

(consistent with U.K. history of imperialpolicing doctrine) using the RUC as the principal security force. All operations against the 

insurgent and terrorist organizations were 

conducted with law enforcement in mind: 

forensic evidence was gathered during detainment of likely insurgents, 

whether detained by police or the Army. 

Operation Banner’s objectives focused on the implementation of law 

and order, the defeat of the insurgency, and a return to a point in security 

operations whereby the RUC could resume control. Throughout, the military 

conducted all of their operations in consort with or approval of the RUC and 

always supported the police forces. In essence, the military forces acted as 

a constabulary force. The RUC eventually grew to over 9,000 in strength to 

handle the problem. More than 277 policemen were killed during the peak 

of operations, attesting to the nature of law enforcement involvement on 

the front lines of the COIN and counterterrorism effort. 

The Special Air Service deployed and operated with spectacular success 

in Northern Ireland during the emergency, and the RUC attempted to emulate their activities (covert operations and pseudo operations) through the 

formation of special police units: unit E4A for surveillance, a Special Patrol 

Group, and a “Bronze” Section for active counterterrorism measures.39 

During the escalation of violence in 1972, the Army launched a divisionalsized operation to clear urban areas of barricades and insurgents, primarily 

in Londonderry. The capture of PIRA urban guerrillas and auxiliary during 

this operation effectively ended the overt insurgency phase of the operation, 

forcing the PIRA to resort back to armed propaganda and terrorism. 

The RUC was able to regain primacy for the security LOO by 1976, keeping the Troubles manageable for decades without intervention by larger 

All operations against the 

insurgent and terrorist 

organizations were 

conducted with law 

enforcement in mind...
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JSOU Report 09-2

military forces. Cease-fires and reconciliation occurred in the 1990s, and 

since 2000, much of the political issues of Northern Ireland have been peacefully negotiated between the U.K., the Northern Ireland government, and 

the disaffected parties. The U.K. closed down its last military operations in 

Northern Ireland in 2007. 

Salient observations and overall key tactical lessons learned during the 

operations on the part of the British military during Operation Banner, 

derived from official government briefings, follow:40

a. If possible, use a campaign plan to resolve unity issues—that is, implement effective command and control between military and police 

forces, with particular importance given to the formal command 

relationships between military and police. Control measures, such as 

tactical and operational boundaries, should be similar between the 

police and the military, and if at all possible, similar to those of any 

overall coordinating intelligence body. Establish joint police-military 

committees or organizations at all levels. It is also paramount to 

establish a single, good IO directorate. 

b. Borders pose strategic and operational problems in a COIN environment because the insurgent may operate between the seams of the 

various sovereignties represented by the border. Insurgents or their 

support structures may operate transnationally or may seek to find 

sanctuary across the border. Cooperation and interoperability are 

needed between the military and law enforcement agencies of bordering countries affected by the insurgency on such matters as customs, 

immigration, and border security.

c. Develop early in the campaign the legal requirements for operational 

framework as the military begins to act more like police (constabulary) 

and the police become more military-like. Rules of engagement and 

special law powers to equip the military will normally be required. 

d. Special training is required to prepare military forces for policing 

operations in COIN environments. There should be consideration 

for COIN schools to deal with policing techniques for the military 

units chosen to operate in urban insurgencies. Comprehensive and 

dedicated training of the police and military on aspects of COIN

(e.g., population resource and control measures, PSYOP, IO, and Civil 

Affairs) and operating with each other will help the two forces succeed. 
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Celeski: Policing and Law Enforcement in COIN—the Thick Blue Line

Riot control is the most essential training, and the police and military must act smoothly together to prevent loss of life and minimize 

damage to property during these demonstrations.

e. Air units become a supporting arm, principally through the employment of helicopters and STOL fixed-wing aircraft. Police will need the 

same mobility requirements as the military.

Policing and law enforcement operations lessons learned suggest that organizational experience in investigative functions should form the basis of 

a consolidated intelligence-gathering service during COIN and irregular 

warfare acts of terrorism from urban guerrillas.41 

Although police tend to become more military-like in COIN (a byproduct of offensive policing), remember that police and law enforcement 

agencies also must continue their work against normal criminal activity. Communities may feel alienated from law enforcement due to police 

focusing on COIN tasks at the expense of ordinary crime, thus making 

the populace uncommitted and uncooperative. IO campaigns will need to 

focus on portraying police and law enforcement agencies as still dedicated 

to protecting law and order and prepared to fight crime through community policing, even during COIN operations. Failure to do so may result in 

a negative manifestation of intended results—the establishment of community vigilantism.42

Finally, a comprehensive police review is needed upon resuming normal 

policing—that is, once COIN efforts are successful—for the optimal move 

from offensive style policing back to civil and community policing. The 

review will ascertain what reform and new roles the various police and 

law enforcement agencies need to pursue. Police may be prejudiced to a 

higher notion of fighting war vice fighting crime (which changes the nature 

of police response to community needs), thus requiring some amount of 

deprogramming.43

Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom

A review of contemporary policing and law enforcement in COIN environments will briefly cover the ongoing operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

Although Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom are not similar, they both represent the American way of war—that is, how the U.S. 
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JSOU Report 09-2

strategically, operationally, and tactically views the role of host-nation police 

and law enforcement agencies within the context of COIN campaigns. These 

operations are typical of employing police and law enforcement as supporting or adjuncts to ongoing security LOOs. Both countries will eventually 

have force strengths of local and national law enforcement agencies that 

will equal or outnumber military forces significantly, once final security 

assistance training objectives are achieved. 

Although U.S. COIN doctrine views the role of law enforcement as supporting the military effort, it seeks to train and establish police along LOOs 

in the security sector with establishing governance as a primary objective. 

This paper argues that the military could support the law enforcement as 

the lead in such a strategic approach.

Operation Iraqi Freedom, Iraq

After the initial capture of Baghdad and the overthrow of the Ba’athist 

regime, the coalition placed less emphasis on police training than creating 

military forces in their plans to reestablish a security force sector. The U.S. 

military leadership preferred that others (interagency, United Nations, NATO

alliance structures, or civilian contractors) train the Ministry of Interior 

forces (e.g., police, border security, and customs). Military leadership further 

clarified U.S. military forces would not be heavily involved in conducting 

the program. The Department of State and the Department of Justice were 

soon overwhelmed by the trainer and advisor (mentor) requirements.44

The Coalition Provisional Authority did not disband police initially, but 

did discharge a large number of the police work force from the Ministry of 

Interior during their initial de-Ba’athification activities. The Department of 

Defense was not initially the lead agency for the formal plan on rebuilding 

of civil internal security forces, especially police and other law enforcement 

agencies under the Ministry of Interior. Paradoxically, the vast majority of 

the manpower pool available to U.S. counterinsurgent effort was (and still 

is) the Ministry of Interior forces.

The Department of State, Bureau of International Narcotics and Law 

Enforcement Affairs, in conjunction with Department of Justice rule-oflaw teams, contracted with DynCorp to establish a Jordanian International 

Police Training Center for this effort. Counteracting the effects of the 

shortage of police training teams and police liaison and mentor teams, the 
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Celeski: Policing and Law Enforcement in COIN—the Thick Blue Line

Department of Justice contracted with MPRI to provide the initial response 

of police personnel under the International Criminal Investigative Training 

and Assistance Program. The numbers provided by MPRI did not reach the 

established requirement.45

The Department of State provided International Police Advisors (IPAs). 

The friction resulting from employment of Iraqi police, supervised by interagency contractors while maneuvering in conjunction with the U.S. military, 

was apparent:46

Perhaps an insignificant reflection on Operation Baton Rouge was the 

lack of formal interagency coordination between U.S. military and 

supporting civilian agencies, specifically the Department of Statecontracted International Police Advisors. Despite the recognized 

directive that military commanders were the senior U.S. representatives in each sector of Iraq, there was no single place, agency, or force 

that directed interagency cooperation. Cooperation was based on ad 

hoc relationships. Seams in interagency cooperation were strained 

as each commando company was split to conduct individual missions. The IPAs seemed more focused on a long-term strategic goal 

of rebuilding Iraqi police units that leaned more toward ‘community 

police patrols.’

DoD assumed the lead in training the Iraqi Police Service under National 

Security Presidential Directive 36 (NSPD-36), and the U.S.-led coalition 

declared 2006 the Year of the Police in recognition of the incontestable value 

policing and law enforcement bring to success in a COIN campaign. 

The number of Ministry of Interior forces ranges from 135,000 to 194,000 

for the Iraqi Police Service and about 60,000 for the National Police, border 

patrol, emergency response, forensics units, and diplomatic protection units. 

Ministry of Interior forces continue to outnumber Ministry of Defense military forces as the first response to the security sector situation in Iraq.47 As 

a symbol of government response, Iraqi security forces overall experience 

casualties about twice as much as other coalition forces; from June 2003 to 

July 2006, the number of security forces and police killed was estimated at 

5,071.48

Overall observations from government committee hearings and findings of the U.S. State Department include key lessons from initial policing efforts in the Iraqi War and are mentioned here. They suggest that 
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JSOU Report 09-2

joint coordination centers serve as the best method to integrate the public 

safety system during an insurgency. All elements of military, police, border 

security, and intelligence functions are effectively aligned and can provide 

enhanced efforts to suppress terrorist, insurgent, or criminal acts. Joint 

Intelligence Centers should also be co-located at this level to collect, analyze, 

and disseminate intelligence information provided by the law enforcement 

community to all government forces responding to the insurgency.49 The 

military can also provide training in logistics, planning, intelligence, patrol 

techniques, and administration, although civilian-experienced, contracted 

police experts are most preferred,

Additionally, one of the largest problems in developing a multiethnic or 

multicultural police force is the infiltration of subversive clan factions. The 

country’s Ministry of Interior must have an aggressive counterintelligence 

and internal investigations capability. Combining the capabilities of SOF

with police efforts can be a very effective counterorganization technique. 

Finally, to effectively grow manpower in COIN, counterinsurgents should 

develop police and law enforcement auxiliary forces (as is now being implemented in the country’s security plan). COIN security improved dramatically when coalition forces were approached by tribal sheiks in al-Anbar 

province to provide men for Iraqi police forces—that is, local security. 

Auxiliary forces, however, must be given a modicum of training in basic 

police procedures, how to defend themselves against insurgents, and enough 

basic equipment to perform their jobs effectively. They must also be loyal to 

the Iraqi government rather than just in the pay of U.S. forces.50 

Figure 8. Iraqi 

police conducting 

training in urban 

close Quarters 

Battle Drills in 

Baghdad. Source: 

Colonel (U.S. Army, 

Ret.) Mark French. 
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Celeski: Policing and Law Enforcement in COIN—the Thick Blue Line

Operation Enduring Freedom, Afghanistan

The COIN operation in Afghanistan illustrates what occurs when the government does not rapidly expand the policing and law enforcement sectors 

as part of the COIN security LOO. However, the case of Afghanistan in 

recent years also illustrates effects that can be achieved when importance 

is placed on the build-up of internal police and law enforcement security 

sectors. The existence of a professional police and law enforcement element 

in the Government of Afghanistan will be a key factor for a successful exit 

of coalition military forces and the return of governance and legitimacy to 

the country.

Upon the capture of the major cities in the spring of 2002, the allied 

coalition quickly moved to support the interim Afghan government elected 

in the May Loya Jirga, with Hamid Karzai as its head. At this stage of the 

war in Afghanistan (Operation Enduring Freedom), first responders in 

the form of tribal, local, and regional police were nonexistent. The lack of 

capacity in this arena contributed to the protraction of the fight against the 

insurgents and made operations against them extremely challenging. 

Gaining local level intelligence, useful in detecting and capturing key 

members of the guerrilla organization, was particularly daunting without the services of a traditional law enforcement organization. Eventually, 

recognition of the importance of a professionalized police force and the 

significant role they should and can play in COIN became an important 

element of coalition efforts.

Donor countries agreed to assist in the rebuilding of the country and 

its security forces to prevent the return of a Taliban regime. The U.S. opted 

to train the Afghan National Army, while the majority of U.S. forces and 

coalition SOF contingents continued hunting the remnants of Al Qaeda and 

the Taliban remaining in Afghanistan. Germany led the effort to develop a 

national Afghan police capability based on the Bonn Agreement:

The Afghans and the coalition partners agreed to set the ANP [Afghan 

National Police] force ceiling at 62,000, a figure based on a calculation 

by representatives of the government of Afghanistan and German 

planners as to the minimum number that could function effectively 

and be supported and financed by the Afghan government over the 

long term. That figure included 44,300 uniformed police, 12,000 
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JSOU Report 09-2

border police, 3,400 highway police, and 2,300 counternarcotics 

police. During the January 2006 international donors’ conference 

in London, conferees reconfirmed the 62,000 ceiling while adding 

a standby reaction police force and adjusting the size of other ANP 

subdivisions.51

As the initial National Police program progressed, no attempt was made 

to establish, rebuild, or improve existing police and judicial capacity at the 

village and province levels. Twenty-plus years of war replaced civil law-andorder systems with warlord security force structures. (Since 2005, efforts 

have been to improve the legal system to include building courthouses and 

selecting judges to serve in them.) 

To fill some of this void, U.S. Special Forces teams and Special Forces 

companies were deployed throughout the country in 2002 and 2003 with 

their attached militias and Afghan National Army contingents performing 

in a manner similar to constabulary operations, often serving as the immediate law in semipermissive and hostile territory. The law enforcement skills 

of many of the U.S. National Guard Special Forces members greatly assisted 

local Afghan efforts to restore some modicum of policing and police posts 

at the village and regional level. 

Lack of credible police to provide local security (community policing 

based on their new Constitution and newly passed laws), lack of progress 

in police programs and equipping, corruption, control by drug warlords 

and regional warlords, and a weak national government have allowed the 

Taliban to reemerge in most of the south and southeastern provinces of the 

Figure 9. Afghan irregulars and 

locally hired security forces 

maneuvering with Special Forces 

teams initially comprised the internal security forces in the aftermath 

of the Taliban defeat in 2002, providing for constabulary-like operations in the remote countryside 

where government control was 

nonexistent. Source: Combined 

and Joint Special Operations Task 

Force-Afghanistan. 
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Celeski: Policing and Law Enforcement in COIN—the Thick Blue Line

country. It was no surprise that the Taliban forces No. 1 target for destruction were the Afghan local police and police posts. 

A year after Canadian and American forces drove hundreds of Taliban 

fighters from the area, the Panjwai and Zhare districts southwest of 

Kandahar, the rebels are back and have adopted new tactics. Carrying 

out guerrilla attacks after NATO troops partly withdrew in July, they 

overran isolated police posts and are now operating in areas where 

they can mount attacks on Kandahar, the south’s largest city.... 

The setback is part of a bloody stalemate that has occurred between 

NATO troops and Taliban fighters across southern Afghanistan this 

summer. NATO and Afghan Army soldiers can push the Taliban 

out of rural areas, but the Afghan police are too weak to hold the 

territory after they withdraw.52

In time, the ANP training program began to falter, requiring U.S. intervention and placement of the equipping function under the command of 

Combined Forces Command-Afghanistan (CFC-A), and executed through 

the Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan (CSTC-A) with 

the use of contractors and embedded military trainers and advisors. 

Developing police in Afghanistan into offensive police with a militarylike capability to stand up to insurgents is a challenge. It took until 2007 

for both the Afghan National Army and ANP to have all their leadership 

vetted by the United Nations—attempting to rid those forces of criminal 

and undesirable elements (the vetting process also including the Ministry 

of Interior and Corps-level police officials). The communications to support 

a police network also was not completed until 2007.

Factors that have ceded vast territory and populace to the insurgents 

follow:

a. Lack of military participation in government internal security sector 

forces development (civil forces) until after 2005

b. Period of having only an interim government (and now a weak government), uncoordinated and conflicting coalition agendas

c. Lack of COIN campaign planning incorporating a strategy for the 

use of police. 
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JSOU Report 09-2

Lack of effective civil security forces in remote rural areas also creates a 

vacuum whereby warlord militias and armed bands form to serve as rule of 

law. Where police do exist, their efforts are mitigated by corrupt practices.

Colonel Jeff Nelson (U.S. Army, Ret.), a JSOU senior fellow, commented 

on the required “unity of effort”’ needed to conduct effective internal security operations and shared intelligence requirements based on his experience 

in the region:

More work has been done to improve the command and control and 

coordination of the entire internal security force sector between 

the NATO and allied forces commands, the CFC-A, the U.S. State 

Department, and the Afghan Ministry of Interior (MoI) and Ministry 

of Defense (MoD). In the early years of the war, a lack of unity of effort 

hampered effective security sector operations. In January 2006, the 

first video teleconference between the MoD and the MoI occurred 

as a result of a joint exercise. Since that time, the linkage between 

the police and the military from the local to the national level has 

improved. Most IED events are joint MoI/MoD responses. The problem is Afghanistan is not a GWOT member, so it has not been entitled 

to shared intelligence. The intelligence-sharing crisis has improved 

(glacier-like) since 2006, initially in response to IEDs. Police and 

military worked these issues with the NATO/CSTC-A actively since 

2006. The problem is the GWOT-intelligence-sharing system.53

Police and law enforcement agencies need commensurate training to prepare them for their unique roles within a COIN environment (offensive policing). They also need militarizing with capabilities to provide for their own 

force protection and response to insurgent attacks. Police in Afghanistan 

are now being trained more and more with military skills needed to battle 

insurgents and have been updated in mobility platforms and weapon systems to improve their responsiveness and survivability. As improved road 

infrastructure develops in Afghanistan, the police will become even more 

effective in remote areas and during the harsh winter months, which now 

trap them within their districts for weeks at a time. 

In rural and remote areas, U.S. Army Special Forces still contribute to 

this growing capability. Most recently, Special Forces units sponsored some 

advanced training for village and tribal police, known as Arbikia (police 

auxiliary hand-picked by tribal elders with tribal area jurisdiction) as an 
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Celeski: Policing and Law Enforcement in COIN—the Thick Blue Line

attempt to fill the gap until the Afghan government response can be more 

robust. One of the recent SOF commanders completing a tour on Operation 

Enduring Freedom during 2007 remarked:

The use of the village auxiliary police, supported by Special Forces, 

is a very successful method to conduct combined raids. The populace 

sees members of its own tribe conducting security operations, vice 

foreigners entering their compounds. As an example, one of the best 

raids netted a suicide bomber as a result of the tribal police information network. The FBI and ATF [Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms] 

operating in Afghanistan say most local fugitives of the law are 

captured in Afghanistan by the local, tribal law enforcement units 

as a result of their intelligence systems at that level. All of this type 

of COIN maneuver is best enhanced through agreements between 

SOF, the military chain of command through to the Ministry of 

Interior and the Ministry of Defense, with the U.S. State Department 

in overall oversight.54

The overall lessons learned from efforts to improve the police and law 

enforcement sectors in Afghanistan make it clear that security of the populace at the lowest levels must be a key COIN objective to prevent insurgents 

from owning space and separating the populace from the legitimate government. Additionally, counterinsurgents in Afghanistan have recognized 

the importance of incorporating police and law enforcement activities—

offensive policing—as a key consideration in their COIN objectives. Finally, 

leaving these programs under the auspice of contractors as part of interagency-rebuilding projects no longer rates as the only method to improve 

the security sector—the military can vastly improve efforts to build police 

forces.55

COIN Policing in India

The last example of a contemporary policing model in COIN is a study from 

field research on the police operations in central India to combat the Naxal 

insurgents. This form of policing and law enforcement in COIN represents 

a direct strategy, where police and law enforcement are the main effort, 

supported by the military. 
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JSOU Report 09-2

India experiences various insurgency threats from Maoists and separatists (leftists) as well as from radical Islamic forces (Punjab and Kashmir). 

Until the November 2008 attacks on the city of Mumbai, India had been 

effective at eliminating or controlling the internal insurgent threats, primarily when the policing model was used (the ongoing COIN in Kashmir 

is a pure military operation). 

A one-week research field trip to India in November of 2006 was useful 

for gathering primary research data in situ on the mechanisms and principles used by the Indian Internal Security Forces to combat insurgents. 

Initial data was gathered through interviews with key members of the MoI 

and interviews with deployed senior police personnel. Additionally, an onsite visit provided the opportunity to observe the policing model used in 

the state of Chhattisgarh, in its Kanker district. 

The insurgent threat in central India is in three states—Chhattisgarh, 

Orissa (east of Chhattisgarh), and Andhra Pradesh (to the southwest). The 

threat comes from the Naxal movement, a leftist insurgency based on Maoist 

and People’s War doctrine, focusing on the plight of the village peasants. The 

goal of the Naxalites is to replace the government in these states. Captured 

Naxalites often have Mao’s Red Book in their possession.

The Insurgency. The Naxalites vary in strength, but estimates hover around 

400–500 insurgents in each state. The Naxalites find sanctuary in the rugged 

terrain of the mountains and jungles found in central India and have yet 

to move into an urban guerrilla format. While the insurgents are lightly 

armed with captured police weapons, it is believed they have received arms 

from the Maoists in Nepal. The wide supposition is that the Pakistani InterServices Intelligence (ISI) also supports these movements in their conduct 

of unconventional war against India. 

The Naxalites have both a political and propaganda arm. They also have 

begun to utilize IEDs (crude and hand-made) and mines to limit police 

mobility. IEDs and mines are made from packing gelignite and dynamite, 

captured from mining and construction projects, into carved bamboo containers or steel cooking pots. IEDs and mines are typically buried along 

the edges of the roads to avoid disturbing the asphalt and police detection. 

Initiators consist of crude wire strung up to 200 meters to a battery for electrical power. This method allows the insurgent to escape back into the jungle 
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Celeski: Policing and Law Enforcement in COIN—the Thick Blue Line

after detonation. While the incidents of IEDs and mines are small, this 

technique hampers police patrolling and access to guerrilla sanctuaries. 

The Naxalites basic form of combat is to either ambush police patrols 

or attack police posts. They also conduct terror and reprisal attacks on the 

unarmed populace. They form only a small core of dissidents, however, not 

indigenous to the areas in which they operate. Naxalites conduct forced 

recruiting from young men found in the villages near their operating bases. 

Captured insurgents have been described as young men, lean and hungry, 

who remained with the insurgents because they felt it gave them self-esteem 

and adventure.

The government, through the police, has attempted counterpropaganda 

using leaflets, handbills, and verbal announcements each time the police 

travel through a village. The government forces also attempted to stir up the 

populace to form an anti-insurgent movement, but the insurgents retaliated 

by killing villagers and burning their homes. The Indian government is now 

considering an expansion of a home-guard type system, arming villagers 

with simple small arms and training them in local defense (as done previously in other insurgencies).

In Raipur (Central India), discussions and interviews with key police 

(the inspector general of the Chhattisgarh district) and law enforcement 

intelligence personnel provide key points on police operations in COIN

environments (from the Indian perspective):

a. All government responses to insurgency are on a case-by-case basis. 

Upon arrival into the contested area, conduct analysis and study 

Figure 10. Crude IEDs formed 

from hollowed-out bamboo 

constructed by Naxal insurgents, found emplaced on 

roads used by police patrols. 
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JSOU Report 09-2

the context. Some COIN operations require military solutions, but 

overall the police model is preferred, using minimum force as the 

doctrinal template.

b. The preferred method for overall police unity of command is to emplace an overall district police inspector or inspector general to lead 

the COIN effort, backed by the national police and in support of local 

and regional police.

c. A variety of police units can be used in a COIN/counterterrorism 

environment—special paramilitary, counterterrorism/SWAT type 

forces, and customs agents, where required. Police must be multitiered 

to cover the village, district, and territorial areas. The insurgency may 

dictate the use of specialized hunter-killer teams.

d. Special police powers granted from the state are helpful. The police 

must be exempted from legal consequence when insurgents resist 

arrest. They need the same degree of latitude in self-defense and 

in protecting civilians from the insurgents when insurgent deaths 

occur.

e. The sharing of intelligence requires remembering the difference 

between what the military and the police need for their own uses. 

The differences will help reconcile tension between them. The military 

often is looking for tactical intelligence to defeat insurgents, while 

the police are looking for investigative, forensic style information 

to build cases and make arrests. Understanding differences aids in 

the collection, analysis, and distribution of the raw data to be shared 

between the two forces. 

f. The study of the numbers incidents by geographic location will allow 

the determination of where to focus the national security assets. The 

study will also reveal when to shift assets and ascertain when the decision must be made to transition from a policing operation to a military 

operation. The best command and control is a cooperative, mutually 

agreed system between the police and the military. A trans-border 

sanctuary situation is pre-agreed upon: the military must take the 

lead in these operations as they are seen as a threat to sovereignty. 

g. Mobility is a key enabler; helicopters and STOL aircraft are the most 

preferred means of rapid mobility as well as to provide logistics, 

transport, and medical evacuation. Generally, police forces do not 

own these types of mobility assets. Vehicular mobility is essential. 
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Celeski: Policing and Law Enforcement in COIN—the Thick Blue Line

Some of the police vehicles are armored (but not armored cars) for 

use in transport of distinguished visitors. Also, armored tactical 

vehicles are needed for SWAT and assault type units. Foot mobility 

(paramilitary forces patrolling) is limited due to the rugged terrain 

and lack of capacity to keep personnel resupplied for long duration 

operations in the field. 

h. Senior leadership in the military should be experienced in small 

wars, and leaders (who include politicians) must be seen frequently 

visiting the front lines to keep a tactical understanding of what is 

occurring in the insurgency. Leadership cannot manage and call the 

shots from afar.

Military forces operating in conjunction with police should employ classic COIN techniques: counterguerrilla warfare, cordon and search (but only 

to man the outer rings—police should go into the buildings), ambushes 

on guerrillas, civil-military operations, Listening Posts/Observation Posts 

along suspected guerrilla lines of communication (police can be trained 

to operate along smuggling routes where terrorists and insurgents share 

transportation), and Quick Reaction Forces to support the police forces. If 

a major fight occurred, the command of the effort should be transferred to 

the military, including defense of police posts, if attacked where the Army 

was present.

In the Kankeer district, about 170 kilometers south of Raipur, this author 

visited with the police superintendent, field police posts, and the commander 

of the police paramilitary maneuver unit. All of the officers chosen to lead 

police units in the COIN effort were highly educated and often had background experience in previous international policing efforts, such as with 

the United Nations force in Kosovo.

As to the efficacy of the policing model vice the military model for COIN

within the district, senior police representatives in the district considered 

the policing model to be more effective. The rationale was that the people 

relate to local police; they are familiar, whereas someone they see in the 

military is not. The people know the policemen share their same dangers 

because they live there, plus the police have the context of every situation 

(something the military would not have). The policeman is usually a person 

from that area, thus related to the local tribe and clan. Additional benefits 

of a police-led COIN effort are that the police have a vast historical record of 
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JSOU Report 09-2

all the activities of their areas (e.g., who has been arrested, who lives there). 

This information forms the basis of their intelligence.

 Special police powers during an insurgency are essential, as previously 

mentioned. Often witnesses will not come forward for fear of retaliation by 

the insurgents. The police need to be able to make cases and arrests without 

placing the witnesses at risk by their appearing in court to testify. The word 

of the police officer must be paramount in court. 

Throughout the field trip it was apparent that the Indian police forces, 

both at the national level and at the local/regional level, understood the 

value of training for COIN with importance attached to training specifically as follows:

a. Intelligence matters

b. Explosive ordnance and bomb disposals

c. PSYOP/IO

d. Civil Affairs

e. Knowledge of paramilitary operations. Using special police units—

described as Greyhounds—to hunt and fight guerrillas while the local 

police handle security issues in their towns.

The Indian police subject matter experts also agreed that a variety of 

bureaus and directorates will need to be established within the law enforcement and policing COIN response, such as an intelligence directorate (start 

in specialized cell at police stations), a counterintelligence capability, a Civil 

Affairs/PSYOP liaison cell, a counterpropaganda cell, and some type of 

bureaus to handle a rewards, demobilization, and repatriation process for 

surrendering insurgents.

The police in India use a variety of classical COIN techniques and principals; a few examples follow:

a. Village self-defense committees

b. Civil Affairs projects

c. Counterpropaganda programs within their PSYOP expertise. 

The activities of the police in COIN are coordinated at each level, with 

the districts under the overall command by the regional superintendent, 

who sits on a weekly council of district and State Police along with civil 

authorities.
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Celeski: Policing and Law Enforcement in COIN—the Thick Blue Line

The author also interviewed officers of a unit of the Central Paramilitary 

Force. The role of the paramilitary forces was to bolster the existing State 

Police posts and to conduct limited foot patrols around their sector. The 

paramilitary force also served as the defensive unit for the outpost and as 

Quick Reaction Force to other posts, if needed.

Additional discussions in Raipur with senior officers addressed a proposal for the establishment of a local and regional police and law enforcement system within a COIN environment. How would a counterinsurgent 

campaign planner implement a police system capable of handling insurgents 

in a province where none exists? These are suggestions from senior Indian 

police counterinsurgent practitioners for establishing a viable law enforcement system in rural, nongoverned or under-governed areas (or reestablishing a system if the situation exists within a failed state):

a. At the village level, pick a man from the locals to be the policeman (or 

he may hire a few folks to help him, thereby policemen). Give him a 

commensurate rank and pay, so he has respect. His only job is to report 

to the police posts on activities in the village, not to have powers of 

arrest. He will use the village elder system to handle minor matters 

of law enforcement (and he may also use the local religious person, 

since they have controlling civil powers in a village). Otherwise, his 

police tasks are very restrictive. Establish a small office for him where 

people can come and sit and talk. You may require him to keep basic 

records of his law enforcement activities.

b. Based on the context of the region, a specified number of villages 

results in the establishment of a centrally located police post establishment. The police post will be led by a constable, with help from a 

subinspector and an assistant subinspector. It is at this place that we 

first find police powers for arrest and detainment, and they should 

not detain anyone for more than 24 hours. There should be a facility 

strictly for local detention. The police post exercises responsibilities for 

investigation, intelligence, and reporting/recording crime. The police 

from the various villages report to the police station. The police in the 

station are responsible for going to the villages if an arrest is deemed 

necessary or to investigate a crime. Because police stations must be 

capable of defending themselves against insurgents, they may have 
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JSOU Report 09-2

special paramilitary units attached to them. (Sufficient manpower is 

needed to defend and tackle the insurgents.)

c. For a specified number of police posts (situation dependent), a district 

commander is established with a superintendent. The intelligence unit 

must be focused on the insurgency and may have specialized hunterkiller teams to conduct counterorganization activities.

d. Within the district, the superintendent should establish a system to 

employ auxiliary security forces made up of the local populace: home 

guards in villages and towns and point security guards (like night 

watchmen) to protect vital assets.

e. Above the district level is the magistrate (one for every four to five 

police posts) where the judicial and administrative legal systems are 

found. These systems may have to be initially manned by levying the 

state for the expertise, until magistrates are trained from the local 

area. The magistrate office contains the prison or detention facility 

and a court system with legal advocates for the defense and prosecution. The prosecutors are government employees. 

All of the examples in this chapter provide important lessons for the 

counterinsurgent contemplating the employment of police and law enforcement agencies within the security LOO of the campaign plan. While these 

examples are few, strategists, planners, and military professionals must 

continue the research and study various historical COIN experiences to 

form principles on the application of police and law enforcement in these 

operations. 

COIN Police Needs Assessment

From these examples, it is possible to derive the requirements and scope of 

policing efforts in COIN environments. Table 1 provides an illustration of an 

assessment model to determine the government security sector response to 

the insurgency; as the body of knowledge grows, analytical products could 

be established to include expanded requirements for the various phases of 

insurgency in order for the response to remain flexible and adaptable; eventually, the matrix should also include tests—that is, for feasibility, acceptability, and affordability.
81

Celeski: Policing and Law Enforcement in COIN—the Thick Blue Line

Table 1. Policing vs. Military Requirements in COIN Scenarios

Insurgency Environment Military Police and Law 

Enforcement Agencies

Transnational Threat

Treats to Sovereignty

Cross-border or border area sanctuary 

High use of military 

response

Supporting effort while continuing community policing

Urban insurgency

Law enforcement credible

Aspects of criminality

Good intelligence

Limited, supporting 

role

High use of police response

Small, rural insurgency

Law enforcement credible

Government legitimacy high

Insurgent lacks popular support

Minor, supporting, 

or no role

High use of police response

Small, rural insurgency

Law enforcement noncredible

Government legitimacy low

Insurgent has popular support 

High use of military 

response; may include constabulary

Professionalize and reform 

police for supporting effort

Large insurgency

Law enforcement credible

Government legitimacy high

Split popular support

High use of military 

response

High use of police response

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Celeski: Policing and Law Enforcement in COIN—the Thick Blue Line

7. Conclusions

The primary frontline COIN force is often the police, not the military. The primary COIN objective is to enable local institutions. 

Therefore, supporting the police is essential.55

The ability to prevent an outbreak of insurgent activities rests on 

the perceived legitimacy of the government to provide its citizens 

security, rule of law, and a better way of life within some type of 

moral framework acceptable to the culture. When effective, police and law 

enforcement institutions can control just about any level of criminality 

and violence to a level acceptable to the populace. If the violence emanates 

from the armed actions of insurgents, police and law enforcement retain 

the capabilities to manage the situation at an acceptable level—that is, if 

the government correctly identifies the origins of the violence as insurgent 

in nature. If policing efforts cannot contain the insurgent threat, then they 

must either be reinforced or the government must choose to inject military 

might to defeat the insurgency. 

Whether the government chooses a course of action to reinforce policing measures or deploy its military, maintaining the rule of law will remain 

paramount throughout the crisis to buttress legitimacy. In order to prevent 

a protracted conflict, which is a central component of insurgent strategy, 

combined military and paramilitary policing efforts, while simultaneously 

continuing community policing, are often the best method to defeat the 

enemy and return society to a level of law enforcement reasonable to control 

societal violence. 

The police and law enforcement sectors are key enablers for the COIN

practitioner. The police and law enforcement organizations often outnumber 

the personnel in the military, are closest to the problem, and are normally 

the first responders to insurgent violence. Conversely, a low level of perceived legitimacy on the part of the 

populace towards its law enforcement 

institutions, often due to corruption 

and ineptness within the police, can almost guarantee that the COIN effort 

will become more difficult in achieving its objectives. 

The police and law enforcement 

organizations often outnumber 

the personnel in the military, are 

closest to the problem, and are 

normally the first responders to 

insurgent violence.
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JSOU Report 09-2

Overall conclusions about the Thick Blue Line described in this paper 

are provided here:

a. Effective police and law enforcement, used in quantity and quality 

in the early stages of violence perceived as manifestations of insurgency, are the best response on behalf of the government to defeat the 

adversary—even if it means reinforcing the policing effort to make it 

more paramilitary like. Arguably, effective policing and law enforcement, perceived as legitimate by the populace, in consort with other 

measures implemented by the government to improve the quality of 

life and ensure security, would serve as a preemptive or preventative 

measure against any chance of an insurgency taking root. 

b. COIN campaigns are considerably enhanced by considering both 

police and the military as a combined security LOO. Assessments 

and planning must always take into consideration the roles offensive 

policing and community policing play as an integrated portion of the 

government’s response to insurgency.

c. To effectively move police from a community policing posture to 

an offensive-policing posture will require paying the same attention 

to their training and equipping as that for the preparation of COIN

military units. Police will need to have increased mobility platforms, 

personal survival protection, and firepower to take on insurgents until 

they can be reinforced by Quick Reaction Forces. Additional skills 

(e.g., in intelligence, bomb disposal, and homeland defense measures) will be required in order for police to be postured for a COIN

environment. The capacity to train and enable police is increased by 

incorporating assets from allies and partners with known capacity 

in police and law enforcement training.

d. The best intelligence for counterinsurgents will often come from military and law enforcement combining their information databases and 

establishing joint-intelligence centers during the COIN effort. Priority 

should be given to the police for the formation of any type of pseudo 

operations when conducting counterorganization activities.

e. Community policing efforts must be maintained on top of offensivepolicing support to the COIN effort in order to maintain the legitimacy of the government. This requires expanding the numbers of 

police during COIN to handle both of these efforts. Police reserves, 
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Celeski: Policing and Law Enforcement in COIN—the Thick Blue Line

community volunteers, auxiliaries, and specialized police units are all 

resources that can be used to expand the capacity of law enforcement. 

Policing also includes retailoring or expanding other law enforcement 

institutions during the insurgency—for example, border patrols, 

maritime and customs patrols, and highway patrols. 

f. Part of the policing efforts in COIN will require fresh legislative authority or the expansion of police emergency powers until the insurgency is 

over. The expanded policing effort will also need commensurate legal 

institutions for the capture, detention, sentencing, or repatriation of 

insurgents—for example, prisons, stockades, additional judges, and 

lawyers (parallel institutions of governance). 

g. At the conclusion of a successful COIN effort, when political end states 

have been met, policing and law enforcement institutions that have 

been utilized in specialized COIN roles will require demobilization 

or retraining to return them to a normal community policing role. 

Adopting offensive police measures in COIN will contribute to a successful campaign against insurgents. The military is used to buy time, but 

the successful end state for COIN

hinges on maintenance of legitimacy to win the war while protecting the civil populace. This aspect 

is the realm where law enforcement serves best as an instrument 

of the state. 

A success metric for a COIN

end state is when the security 

situation begins to revert to one 

that can be handled once again by 

police and law enforcement—back 

to an acceptable level of violence a 

society can live with. Thus, the military finds itself inextricably tied to the 

law enforcement environment in any COIN mission: 

a. Once in taking over COIN from law enforcement

b. Again when conducting the COIN campaign integrating the efforts 

of police and law enforcement to provide security, stability, and 

governance

Figure 11. A senior U.S. Army officer 

meets with his Iraqi police counterpart 

to discuss and coordinate matters concerning the Iraqi Police training. Photo: 

Colonel (Ret.) Mark French. 
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JSOU Report 09-2

c. Again when it must transition its efforts back to law enforcement at 

the successful conclusion of the COIN effort.

All efforts should then be made to continue our understanding of the 

military/law enforcement mix in irregular warfare through capture of ongoing techniques, lessons learned, and from the insight, study, and observations of our professionals. Through these means we will amass a growing 

knowledge of theory and principle relevant for doctrinal updates. This 

monograph was meant to contribute to that process. 

As we shift to indirect strategies based more on “SOFt power,” the training of police and law enforcement agencies within a host nation by U.S. 

resources during security assistance or FID operations will continue to be 

problematic. In the short term, this will be based on the lack of capacity 

within our interagency and lingering cultural bias (and to some extent lack 

of capacity) within our military. 

Bridging solutions through contractors, combined with the efforts of 

our partners and allies, can sustain police and law enforcement efforts on 

a slow but steady progression towards building both capacity and capability within the internal security forces of our partners. If we are to achieve 

success, our military, and most certainly SOF, will increasingly participate 

in future irregular warfare activities involving the Thick Blue Line. 
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Celeski: Policing and Law Enforcement in COIN—the Thick Blue Line

Endnotes

1. Kurt M. Campbell (Center for Strategic and International Studies) and Richard 

Weitz (Center for Future Security Strategies), “Non-Military Strategies for 

Countering Islamist Terrorism: Lessons Learned from Past Counterinsurgencies,” 

paper prepared for Princeton Project on National Security (Princeton, NJ: The 

Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University, 

September 2006), p. 17. See www.princeton/edu/~ppns/papers/counterinsurgency.

pdf (accessed 28 August 2008).

2. John Scurr, The Malayan Campaign 1948-60, Men-at-Arms Series (Oxford, U.K.: 

Osprey Publishing, 1981), pp. 6-7. The various police forces consisted of 500 police 

sergeants initially deployed from Palestine, 10,000 Malay police, a police special 

branch, special constables, and home guards. Special police units consisted of 

Jungle squads (22 companies), Area Security Units (556), and Mobile Operational 

Sections of the Home Guard. 

3. “Iraq Index: Tracking Variables of Reconstruction & Security in Post-Saddam 

Iraq,” The Brookings Institution, Washington, D.C., 29 October 2007, p. 34; available at www.brookings.edu/iraqindex (accessed 24 April 2008).

4. Anthony H. Cordesman, “Armed Nation Building: The Real Challenge in 

Afghanistan,” The Center for Strategic and International Studies, Arleigh A. Bruke 

Chair in Strategy, Washington D.C., November 2007, slides 68–71.

5. Seth G. Jones and Martin C. Libicki: How Terrorist Groups End: Lessons for 

Countering Al Qa’ida: RAND Corporation Research Monograph, 2008.

6. Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates testimony before the House Armed 

Services Committee, 15 April 2008; available from http://ebird.afis.mil/ebfiles/

e20080416594297.html (accessed 5 May 2008).

7. Lewis G. Irwin, “Reforming the Afghan National Police,” Joint Forces Quarterly, 

Issue 52, lst quarter 2009, p. 75. 

8. Russell W. Glenn, Christopher Paul, Todd C. Helmus, and Paul Steinberg, “People 

Make the City,” Executive Summary: Joint Urban Operations Observations and 

Insights from Afghanistan and Iraq (Alexandria, VA: RAND National Defense 

Research Institute, 2007), p. 51.

9. Thomas A. Marks, Maoist People’s War in Post-Vietnam Asia (Bangkok, Thailand: 

White Lotus Press, 2007), p. 314. Dr. Marks writes and lectures extensively on 

various forms of Maoist-inspired insurgencies that have occurred in Southeast 

Asia and in South America. He is a West Point graduate and served in the U.S. 

military, including Southeast Asia. He has traveled extensively to visit past and 

contemporary Maoist insurgent activity. He currently serves as the chair of the 

Irregular Warfare Department at the School for National Security Executive 

Education at the National Defense University and is also a member of the adjunct 

faculty at the Joint Special Operations University, Hurlburt Field, Florida.

10. Kurt M. Campbell and Richard Weitz, “Non-Military Strategies for Countering 

Islamist Terrorism: Lessons Learned From Past Counterinsurgencies,” p. 21. 
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JSOU Report 09-2

11. Joel F. Cassman, “Building the Rule of Law: A Model of Police-Military Relations 

in Latin America,” Low Intensity Conflict and Law Enforcement Vol. 11, No.1 

(Spring 2002), p. 3.

12. Ibid., p 3.

13. Robert Thompson, Defeating Communist Insurgency (St. Petersburg, FL: Hailer 

Publishing, 1966), p. 85.

14. Ibid., p. 86. 

15. Jarett Broemmel, Terry L. Clark, and Shannon Neilson (U.S. Army Majors), “The 

Surge Can Succeed,” Military Review, July-August 2007, p. 110. The authors derived 

their numbers for James T. Quinlivan’s work “Burden of Victory: The Painful 

Arithmetic of Stability Operations,” published in RAND Review (Summer 2003) 

and John J. McGrath’s work “Boots on the Ground: Troop Density in Contingency 

Operations.” See www-cgsc.army.mil/carl/download/csipubs/mcgrath_boots.pdf 

(accessed 23 May 2008). 

16. U.S. Joint Forces Command, Joint Operating Environment: Trends & Challenges 

for the Future Joint Force (Norfolk, VA, 2007), pp.11-12. 

17. Robert L. Leonhard, “From Operational Art to Grand Strategy,” in Rethinking the 

Principles of War, ed. Anthony D. McIvor (Annapolis MD: Naval Institute Press, 

2005), p. 219.

18. The information for this research came from the primary source on the analysis 

of an ongoing program by C. Christine Fair, United States Institute of Peace and 

Peter Chalk, senior policy analyst at RAND Corporation. (Their initial work was 

first published by Taylor & Francis; see endnote 18). It is a summary of findings 

from their ongoing work done under the auspices of the United States Institute 

of Peace.

19. C. Christine Fair (United States Institute of Peace) and Peter Chalk (senior policy 

analyst at RAND Corporation), “United States Internal Security Assistance to 

Pakistan,” ISSN 0959-2318 Print/ISSN 1743-9558 (Taylor & Francis Publications,

2006), pp. 340-345.

20. Bard E. O’Neill, “The Government Response,” Insurgency and Terrorism: Inside 

Modern Revolutionary Warfare (Herndon, VA: Brassey’s, Inc., 1990), pp. 127-

128.

21. Charles W. Gwynn, Imperial Policing (London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1934).

22. Ibid., p. 3-4.

23. Kurt M. Campbell and Richard Weitz, “Non-Military Strategies for Countering 

Islamist Terrorism: Lessons Learned from Past Counterinsurgencies,” pp. 

17-18. 

24. Renata Dwan, Executive Policing: Enforcing the Law in Peace Operations, 

Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) Research Report No. 

16 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 55.

25. Eirin Mobekk, “Identifying Lessons in United Nations International Policing 

Missions” (Geneva, Switzerland: Geneva Center for the Democratic Control of 
89

Celeski: Policing and Law Enforcement in COIN—the Thick Blue Line

Armed Forces [DCAF], November 2005), DCAF Policy Paper No. 9, p. 1. Mobekk 

used statistics from the Monthly Summary of Contributors of Military and Civilian 

Police Personnel, printed by the United Nations Department of Peacekeeping 

Operations; available from www.un.org/Depts/dpko/dpko/contributors (accessed 

23 May 2008).

26. Renata Dwan, “Policing Europe: European Policing? The Challenge of 

Coordination in International Policing,” SIPRI Workshop, 4-5 May 2001, Sweden, 

pp. 3-4; available from http://projects.sipri.se/conflictstudy (accessed 30 April 

2008). 

27. Graham H. Turbiville, Jr., telephone interview 23 January 2008, Dipping Springs, 

Texas.

28. The author participated in a series of high level war games using an irregular 

warfare scenario. Courses of action addressed the role of police, law enforcement, 

and potential constabulary. The consensus of the game participants and strategists was that the U.S. military could easily train units to the requirements for 

constabulary duties; and a standing, expeditionary constabulary organization 

was not needed.

29. Peter Abbot and Philip Botham, Modern African Wars (1): Rhodesia 1965–1980, 

Osprey, Men at Arms Series 183 (Oxford, U.K.: 1986), pp. 18-37.

30. Lawrence E. Cline, “Pseudo Operations and Counterinsurgency Lessons from 

Other Countries” (Carlisle, PA: Army War College Papers, Strategic Studies 

Institute, 2005), p. 1; available from www.carlisle.army.mil/ssi (accessed 12 August 

2007).

31. John M. Collins, Military Strategy: Principles, Practices, and Historical Perspectives

(Dulles, VA: Brassey’s, Inc., 2002), p. 189. 

32. Alan J. Vick, “Air Power in the New Counterinsurgency Era: The Strategic 

Importance of USAF Advisory and Assistance Missions,” RAND Corporation, 

Project Air Force (Arlington, VA, 2006), pp. 78-79. 

33. This research does not explore policing as a function of peace enforcement or 

peace-keeping operations. However, a recommended source for a full discussion 

on executive policing—the employment of international police and practice of law 

enforcement within a particular territory as a United Nations operation—can be 

found in the edited work of Renata Dwan, Executive Policing: Enforcing the Law 

in Peace Operations, SIPRI Report No. 16 (New York: Oxford University Press, 

2002).

34. Discussions were from the Afghanistan Counterinsurgency Clearinghouse, sponsored by the Afghanistan COIN Academy (afghanistanCOINacademy@gmail.

com) during a roundtable debate from a variety of participants.

35. Michelle Tan, “Fighting to Gain a Foothold: Combat Outpost troops report 

steady progress in Ramadi,” The Army Times (Springfield, VA: Ganett Newspaper, 

Military Times Media Group), 19 February 2007, pp. 10-11. 

36. USA Today, 14 February 2007, p. 11A.
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JSOU Report 09-2

37. “Operation Banner: An Analysis of Military Operations in Northern Ireland,” 

Army Code 71842, prepared under direction of the chief of the general staff, 

publications coordinator, U.K. Ministry of Defense, July 2006, pp. 1-1 to 2-4.

38. Leroy Thompson, Ragged War: The Story of Unconventional and CounterRevolutionary Warfare, (London: Arms and Armour, 1994), pp. 85-89.

39. Ibid., pp. 88-89. 

40. “Operation Banner: An Analysis of Military Operations in Northern Ireland,” 

Army Code 71842, prepared under direction of the Chief of the General Staff, 

Publications Coordinator, U.K. Ministry of Defense, July 2006, pp. 4-1 through 

4-13.

41. Lindsay Clutterbuck, “Countering Irish Republican Terrorism in Britain: Its 

Origin as a Police Function,” Terrorism and Political Violence Vol. 18, No. 1 

(Spring 2006), p. 114.

42. Andrew Silke, “Bitter Harvest: The Royal Ulster Constabulary’s Response to 

Paramilitary Vigilantism in Northern Ireland,” Low Intensity Conflict and Law 

Enforcement Vol. 9, No. 2 (Summer 2000), pp. 27-46.

43. Ibid., p. 43.

44. “Development of the Iraqi Security Forces – Stand Up and Be Counted: the 

Continuing Challenge of Building the Iraqi Security Forces,” U.S. House of 

Representatives, Committee on Armed Services, Subcommittee on Oversight 

and Investigations, 110th Congress, 2007, p. 6.

45. Ibid., p. 13-18.

46. John P. J. DeRosa “Operation Baton Rouge: Perspectives from an Iraqi Security 

Forces Advisor,” ARMOR Magazine (Vol. CXV, No. 6), November-December 

2006, p. 38.

47. Ibid., p. 17.

48. Brookings Institution, Iraq Index: Tracking Reconstruction and Security in PostSaddam Iraq; available at www.brookings.edu/fp/saban/iraq/index.pdf (accessed 

23 May 2008).

49. Gordon J. Knowles (MAJ, U.S. Army), “Countering Terrorist, Insurgent, and 

Criminal Organizations: Iraqi Security Forces Joint Coordination Centers – A 

Unique Public Safety System” Military Police Magazine (PB 19-06-2), Fall 2006, 

p. 15.

50. T.G. Kessler (SSgt, U.S. Marine Corps combat correspondent, 2d Marine Division), 

“Unprecedented Recruiting Event Yields Record 60-Plus Recruits,” Leatherneck, 

May 2007, p. 19.

51. “Interagency Assessment of Afghanistan Police Training and Readiness,” 

The Office of the Inspectors General of the U.S. Department of State and U.S. 

Department of Defense (Report Nos. ISP-IQ0-07-07 and IE-2007-001, respectively), U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 14 November 2007, 

p. 5.

52. From a conversation between the author and a senior Special Forces Army officer recently returned from Afghanistan during a 2007 rotation. Due to ongoing 
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Celeski: Policing and Law Enforcement in COIN—the Thick Blue Line

operations in Operation Enduring Freedom by SOF, the officer’s name and position will remain anonymous.

53. Jeffrey W. Nelson, telephone interview 2 August 2008, Hurlburt Field Florida.

54. David Rhode, “Afghan Police Suffer Setbacks as Taliban Adapt,” The New York 

Times, 2 September 2007 (Vol. CLVI, No. 54,055), p. 1.

55. For further information about the progress of the police program in Afghanistan 

and a status of police reform, see the International Crisis Group’s work, “Reforming 

Afghanistan’s Police,” in their Asia Report No. 138, 30 August 2007.

56. FM 3-24, Counterinsurgency, paragraph 6-90. 

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Celeski: Policing and Law Enforcement in COIN—the Thick Blue Line

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