How to Use counterinsurgency in a Sentence

counterinsurgency

noun
  • The military has launched a counterinsurgency.
  • Some of those jobs are no longer necessary, as the needs in areas such as counterinsurgency have changed since the scaling back of troops in Iraq and the withdrawal from Afghanistan.
    Theresa Braine, New York Daily News, 27 Feb. 2024
  • As anyone who has done counterinsurgency work knows, this is just going to pour more gasoline on the fire.
    Brynn Tannehill, The New Republic, 12 Dec. 2022
  • But the 1970s was also the beginning of the counterinsurgency against the enforcement of laws against white-collar crime.
    Robin Kaiser-Schatzlein, The New Republic, 15 Sep. 2020
  • The counterinsurgency against the PKK in the early 1990s looked different.
    Jason Scheideman, Washington Post, 9 May 2017
  • He was seen as a counterinsurgency expert, and close to Modi.
    BostonGlobe.com, 8 Dec. 2021
  • Since coming to power in Afghanistan three months ago, the Taliban have been waging a counterinsurgency campaign, vowing to put down the threat from IS.
    Fox News, 12 Nov. 2021
  • Halfway around the world, American troops were soon mired in a bloody and brutal counterinsurgency.
    Time Staff, Time, 18 May 1950
  • The United States has renewed its commitment to the counterinsurgency in Afghanistan.
    Mujib Mashal, BostonGlobe.com, 30 Apr. 2018
  • Once, Marja was the site of one of the biggest battles of the two-decade war, part of the United States’ counterinsurgency campaign to weaken the Taliban and build up a local government.
    New York Times, 18 Dec. 2021
  • Four militants and a police official with the counterinsurgency force were killed in the fighting, said Col.
    Aijaz Hussain, The Christian Science Monitor, 25 June 2018
  • These became the basis for what is now known as counterinsurgency doctrine.
    Jonathan M. Katz, The New Republic, 20 Aug. 2021
  • The Philippine resistance turned against the United States, which fought a years-long counterinsurgency war to maintain control.
    James Brooks, Anchorage Daily News, 4 Mar. 2022
  • For the American forces on the ground the final weeks of the war, the task at hand wasn’t a presence patrol, or counterinsurgency operations or clear-hold-build or nation-building.
    New York Times, 30 Aug. 2021
  • Human rights groups allege the devices were placed there by the Burmese military, which has long used the explosive devices to quell counterinsurgencies.
    Annie Gowen, Washington Post, 13 Sep. 2017
  • Through the conflict, the Sri Lankan government ran national deficits to finance the counterinsurgency.
    Neil Devotta, The Conversation, 18 July 2022
  • But the plan to pacify the stronghold failed and came to symbolize larger problems with the counterinsurgency strategy, The Post reported.
    New York Times, 9 Dec. 2019
  • Officially called the Army Special Forces, the unit, known by the caps the soldiers wore, was composed of soldiers trained in counterinsurgency and guerrilla warfare techniques.
    Daniel E. Slotnik, New York Times, 27 Apr. 2018
  • America has since spent more than 90 times that amount in Afghanistan on a stabilization and counterinsurgency effort.
    Gil Barndollar, WSJ, 20 Apr. 2021
  • Apart from the limited experiments at serious counterinsurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan, all three presidents have sought to kill their way out of the problem.
    Katherine Zimmerman, National Review, 12 Oct. 2017
  • Both warring generals Burhan and Dagalo have history in the area, having played key roles in the counterinsurgency against rebels in the region’s civil war that began in 2003.
    Amy Cassidy, CNN, 2 May 2023
  • Biden supported the Afghan War, but counseled President Obama against sending more troops to that country to try to win a counterinsurgency campaign.
    Noah Millman, TheWeek, 3 Mar. 2020
  • As part of its sweeping counterinsurgency in Sinai, Egypt has blocked journalists from reporting in the peninsula.
    Ishaan Tharoor, Washington Post, 5 Feb. 2018
  • Although, soldiers in Afghanistan could benefit from the fruits of the modernization effort, a counterinsurgency is very different from a near-peer war.
    Vikram Mittal, Forbes, 19 Apr. 2021
  • By the 2000s, the police had become a critical player in a counterinsurgency strategy aimed at rooting out the FARC, in which the military cleared rebels from territory and the police held that ground.
    New York Times, 12 May 2021
  • Defense officials said the United States is planning to continue its counterinsurgency mission in Iraq for the time being.
    Washington Post, 27 Sep. 2020
  • Last October, the army launched counterinsurgency operations there after the killing of nine border guards.
    Esther Htusan, The Seattle Times, 4 July 2017
  • Two decades of war in Afghanistan and Iraq saw money diverted to counterinsurgency conflicts, not building the advanced forces that America needs to prevail against 21st century peer threats.
    Dave Deptula, Forbes, 17 Sep. 2021
  • Revolution was afoot, at least until 1932, when the Salvadoran government, again at the behest of the coffee planters, launched a vicious counterinsurgency.
    Michael Pollan, The Atlantic, 6 Apr. 2020
  • The cuts will mainly be in already-empty posts – not actual soldiers – including in jobs related to counterinsurgency that swelled during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars but are not needed as much today.
    Lolita C. Baldor, The Christian Science Monitor, 28 Feb. 2024

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'counterinsurgency.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Last Updated: