They’re not the same thing and the overlap is not perfect. But the National Security Strategy reflects many of the insights that the counterinsurgents developed in FM 3-24 and beyond. In the shared understandings of the relationship between legitimacy and power — with the correlative focus on the relationship between institutions and respect of rights to legitimacy — it’s clear to see why the Obama administration believes that a foreign-policy coalition of progressives and counterinsurgents is an intellectually cohesive one. It’s not a perfect one, and it’s not an uncomplicated one, and it may not be a durable one. But there is an alignment of focus that’s more natural than progressives/anti-COINdinistas or conservatives/counterinsurgents.*

*Although I should check out Gen. McMaster’s AEI speech today. I don’t think the general conservative preoccupation with war really papers over all the divergences in the conservative/counterinsurgent coalition, since counterinsurgency embraces a restraint in both the conceptions of the utility of force and the application of force that conservatives have difficulties accepting. On the other hand, of course, maybe I just think that because I’m a progressive who can accept counterinsurgent contentions. My progressive critics would certainly accuse me of myopia here, and I often wonder if I should really resist the critique.)