Problem Definition
Efforts to define the force size required to restore and then maintain order in a failed or failing state have been sporadic and far from complete. To date, it has been a problem with “no simple answers” and, as result, ad-hoc planning has been the norm for military strategists. The recently revised United States Army’s “Field Manual 3-24, Counterinsurgency” states that performing a successful counterinsurgency operation requires one counterinsurgent, at a minimum, for every fifty people in the area where the counterinsurgency is being waged. The manual further goes on to state that this ratio is merely a guideline, with appropriate ratios to be determined as necessary by the environment and the nature of the insurgency. Given this guidance, two questions arise. First, “How do I frame the environment and the nature of the insurgency to determine a troop density?” Then, “Given, the framework from the first question, what is an appropriate troop density?”