counterinsurgency

[ koun-ter-in-sur-juhn-see ]

noun

, plural coun·ter·in·sur·gen·cies.

1. a program or an act of combating guerrilla warfare and subversion.

adjective

1. of, relating to, or designed for combating guerrilla warfare and subversion:

   counterinsurgency funds.

counterinsurgency

/ ˌkaʊntərɪnˈsɜːdʒənsɪ /

noun

1. action taken by a government to counter the activities of rebels, guerrillas, etc

counterinsurgency

1. Military power applied in guerrilla warfare in support of the established government.

Other Words From

• counter·in·surgent noun adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of counterinsurgency¹

First recorded in 1960–65; counter- + insurgency

Example Sentences

Instead, nearly all wars now are civil wars, complex arenas of counterinsurgency and terrorism.

From Time

The former Princeton University undergraduate and Afghanistan counterinsurgency instructor said, to the mirth of his co-hosts, that he hadn’t washed his hands in a decade.

From Nautilus

There were some good places to fight a counterinsurgency campaign in Afghanistan, I would argue, but the Pech Valley surely wasn’t one of them.

From Washington Post

Allen worked closely with those tribal leaders during the counterinsurgency in Iraq in 2007 and 2008.

From The Daily Beast

Salahaddin is an internal province of Iraq, and its force was tailored for counterinsurgency.

From The Daily Beast

The searches enraged the local civilian population and derailed the counterinsurgency operations taking place at the time.

From The Daily Beast

Washington termed our endless and thankless task counterinsurgency—and Anbaris made good insurgents, very good insurgents.

From The Daily Beast

A strike on Syria is not a prelude to a decade-long counterinsurgency campaign with 100,000 U.S. forces on the ground.

From The Daily Beast

Related Words

• battle
• campaigning
• clash
• combat
• competition
• discord
• fighting
• rivalry
• strife
• struggle
• war