Successful counterinsurgency (COIN) requires the integration of security and civil COIN to create conditions that allow the population to choose between the government and insurgents, eliminate the grievances that gave rise to the insurgency, and present the population with choices that are more attractive than what the insurgents can offer. Building on a framework for integrating civil and military counterinsurgency first described in Reconstruction Under Fire: Unifying Civil and Military Counterinsurgency, this volume presents an approach to the civil component of counterinsurgency that builds on detailed background, context analysis, and threat analysis to identify and develop critical civil COIN activities. It illustrates this approach using three case studies: Nangarhar province in Afghanistan, Nord-Kivu province in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Al Anbar province in Iraq. The approach builds on the best aspects of existing conflict assessment methodologies and adds new elements developed specifically for this project. The resulting framework goes beyond the strategic and operational decisions related to designing a program that is appropriate for a given conflict context.

"A companion volume to Reconstruction Under Fire: Unifying Civil and Military Counterinsurgency." "RAND National Defense Research Institute." "This research was ... conducted within the International Security and Defense Policy Center of the RAND National Defense Research Institute"--Preface.

Introduction -- Civil COIN analytic framework: assessing the operating environment -- Civil COIN analytic framework: assessing focus-area needs and capacity -- Nangarhar case study -- Nord-Kivu case study -- Al Anbar case study -- Concluding remarks -- Appendix: assessment techniques.