CANADA - "Cheek by Jowl" with U.S. on COIN in Afghanistan

July 2011 and beyond, no country will have been more closely integrated with U.S. President Barack Obama and Gen. Stanley McChrystal's counterinsurgency war in Afghanistan than the Canadians. Shortly after McChrystal took over as commanding general of all NATO and U.S. troops occupying Afghanistan earlier this year, he praised the Canadian Forces for their implementation of "population-centric counterinsurgency (COIN)" in the southern part of the country. The Canadians have been in southern Afghanistan since mid-2005, where they've operated without the national caveats that are seen to have prevented most NATO contributors from going aggressively after the insurgency.