counterinsurgency

noun coun·ter·in·sur·gen·cy \ ˌkau̇n-tər-in-ˈsər-jən(t)-sē \

|Updated on: 29 May 2018

Examples: counterinsurgency in a Sentence

Definition of counterinsurgency

: organized military activity designed to combat insurgency

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counterinsurgent

play \ˌkau̇n-tər-in-ˈsər-jənt\ noun

See counterinsurgency defined for English-language learners

Examples of counterinsurgency in a Sentence

The military has launched a counterinsurgency.

Recent Examples of counterinsurgency from the Web

Soon, Rathika and other patients left again when a final counterinsurgency push ordered the evacuation of Tamils, herding even the injured into a no-fire zone which was later shelled.

— Longreads, "A Chance to Rewrite History: The Women Fighters of the Tamil Tigers," 22 May 2018
About 700,000 Rohingya have fled Myanmar’s western Rakhine state to neighboring Bangladesh in the past seven months to escape a brutal counterinsurgency campaign by Myanmar’s army.

— Washington Post, "Indonesian fishermen rescue Rohingya in seas off Aceh," 20 Apr. 2018
About 700,000 have fled western Myanmar to Bangladesh to escape a brutal counterinsurgency campaign by Myanmar's army.

— Fox News, "Expert doesn't expect new Rohingya boat people exodus," 2 Apr. 2018
The reporters were covering a brutal counterinsurgency operation in Myanmar's Rakhine state that drove 700,000 Rohingya Muslims to flee to neighboring Bangladesh.

— Fox News, "Myanmar judge won't declare whistleblower a hostile witness," 2 May 2018
The reason, again, comes down to the difference between an interstate [more traditional] war and a counterinsurgency, or nation-building mission.

— alex ward, Vox, "Why America doesn’t win wars anymore," 9 Apr. 2018
Council members are scheduled to visit Myanmar's northern Rakhine state, where about 700,000 Rohingya Muslims lived before fleeing to Bangladesh to escape a brutal military counterinsurgency campaign — and thousands still remain.

— Fox News, "Diplomats: Swiss envoy to Germany to be new UN Myanmar envoy," 25 Apr. 2018
As the Pentagon embraced counterinsurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan, the State Department withdrew behind bunkers and blast walls, ceding much of its role to men and women in uniform.

— robert f. worth, New York Times, "Can Jim Mattis Hold the Line in Trump’s ‘War Cabinet’?," 26 Mar. 2018
Social Welfare Minister Win Myat will be the first Myanmar cabinet minister to visit the camps since the refugee flow began in August last year in response to a brutal counterinsurgency campaign.

— Fox News, "Myanmar minister hopes to visit Rohingya in refugee camps," 5 Apr. 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'counterinsurgency.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.