Scholars Sebastian L.v.Gorka and David Kilcullen recently observed that modern Western counterinsurgency (COIN) theory is built on a handful of books based upon practitioner experiences in a handful of 20th century conflicts. They also lamented that almost all the better known examples of counterinsurgency are limited to cases where colonial or post-imperial governments were fighting on the territory of dependent ex-colonies; conditions that are atypical of today’s insurgencies. Thus, they concluded that the translation of classic COIN doctrine to the contemporary threat seemed forced and misguided at best. The situation, however, is far worse than that. Drawing conclusions about how to counter insurgencies from a limited number of cases certainly brings into question whether those experiences can be generalized. However, expanding the range of cases not only increases the dataset but also challenges the doctrinal framework itself. It challenges the military doctrinal framework because understanding contemporary conflicts requires understanding those conflicts as politics, not as war