Modern warfare: A French view of Counterinsurgency

A classic counterinsurgency text, Modern warfare provides an accessible, practice-orientated handbook to fighting insurgencies based on the author’s own experiences fighting in Indochina and Algeria in the 1940s and 1950s. Among Trinquier’s central critiques is what he considers to be the conventional army’s struggles to adapt to the thinking, training, equipment, and operations necessary for counterinsurgency operations. He was among the first authors to recognise the importance of population-centric tactics in counterinsurgency operations and stresses the requirement for government forces to adapt to the conflict at hand and reassure the population of its security and support. A product of his time and experiences, Trinquier views the enemy’s terror tactics as a normal part of modern warfare and supports similarly severe methods amongst friendly forces – including population relocation and control, as well as torture – as a normal part of modern operations necessary to defeat such an enemy. Trinquier’s work is seminal in the field and remains relevant today, but some aspects should be weighed carefully, including his support for extreme measures in counterinsurgency operations.