Counterinsurgency doctrines in practice are population-centric, and their successful implementation requires a massive investment in human and material resources. In Iraq and Afghanistan, the coalition and host nation militaries resorted to the use of militias to fill the required large number of counterinsurgents. However, in Kunduz, the criminal networks and politically savvy potentates utilized local militias for their interests and perpetrated atrocities on the very civilian population that they were tasked to protect. Similarly, Mosul's tribal militias, taking their inspiration from 2006-2007 awakening groups, mobilized and aligned themselves with the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria against Iraqi security forces in 2014. By illustrating these two cases, I show that the place of militias in counterinsurgency campaigns uncovers the contradiction within the counterinsurgency doctrine. On the one hand, it implores a concerted political will to fight insurgencies. On the other, it primes the counterinsurgent to employ militias whose interests and political goals usually do not align if not entirely contradict with those of counterinsurgent.