The Future Of Counterinsurgency

This thought-provoking work analyzes the major debates surrounding counterinsurgency campaigns and uncovers the internal security problems derailing effective strategies for restoring stability. As countries across the globe continue to adjust their security operations to counter an increasingly volatile political landscape, the issue of how to identify and derail a host of violent groups remains of considerable interest. This comprehensive volume offers an examination of the effectiveness of contemporary counterinsurgency efforts, revealing which approaches offer the greatest chances of success internally, regionally, and internationally. Featuring perspectives from experts and analysts in the field of irregular warfare and international security, this is an unparalleled exploration of all types of insurgency from warlordism, to piracy, to guerilla movements. The book looks beyond the popular focus on Iraq and Afghanistan, delving into the internal security operations of regions not normally studied. Chapters cover goal setting and measurements for restoring security, information operations and strategic communications between insurgent groups and governments, and the different approaches of governments in combating political unrest. Case studies include movements in Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, Egypt, and South Africa.

David Kilcullen is one of the world's most influential experts on counterinsurgency and modern warfare, a ground-breaking theorist whose ideas "are revolutionizing military thinking throughout the west" (Washington Post). Indeed, his vision of modern warfare powerfully influenced the United States' decision to rethink its military strategy in Iraq and implement "the Surge," now recognized as a dramatic success. In Counterinsurgency, Kilcullen brings together his most salient writings on this vitally important topic. Here is a picture of modern warfare by someone who has had his boots on the ground in some of today's worst trouble spots-including Iraq and Afghanistan-and who has been studying counterinsurgency since 1985. Filled with down-to-earth, common-sense insights, this book is the definitive account of counterinsurgency, indispensable for all those interested in making sense of our world in an age of terror.

This volume covers a timely debate in contemporary security studies: can armed forces adjust to the rising challenge of insurgency and terrorism, the greatest transformation in warfare since the birth of the international system? Containing essays by leading international security scholars and military professionals, it explores the Fourth-Generation Warfare thesis and its implications for security planning in the twenty-first century. No longer confined to the fringes of armed conflict, guerrilla warfare and terrorism increasingly dominate world-wide military planning. For the first time since the Vietnam War ended, the problems of insurgency have leapt to the top of the international security agenda and virtually all countries are struggling to protect themselves against terrorist threats. Coalition forces in Afghanistan and Iraq are bogged down by an insurgency, and are being forced to rely on old warfare tactics rather than modern technologies to destroy their adversaries. These theorists argue that irregular warfare—insurgencies and terrorism—has evolved over time and become progressively more sophisticated and difficult to defeat as it is not centred on high technology and state of the art weaponry. Global Insurgency and the Future of Armed Conflict will be of interest to students of international security, strategic studies and terrorism studies.

The notion of counter-insurgency has become a dominant paradigm in American and British thinking about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This volume brings together international academics and practitioners to evaluate the broader theoretical and historical factors that underpin COIN, providing a critical reappraisal of counter-insurgency thinking.

When the U.S. military invaded Iraq, it lacked a common understanding of the problems inherent in counterinsurgency campaigns. It had neither studied them, nor developed doctrine and tactics to deal with them. It is fair to say that in 2003, most Army officers knew more about the U.S. Civil War than they did about counterinsurgency. The U.S. Army / Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual was written to fill that void. The result of unprecedented collaboration among top U.S. military experts, scholars, and practitioners in the field, the manual espouses an approach to combat that emphasizes constant adaptation and learning, the importance of decentralized decision-making, the need to understand local politics and customs, and the key role of intelligence in winning the support of the population. The manual also emphasizes the paradoxical and often counterintuitive nature of counterinsurgency operations: sometimes the more you protect your forces, the less secure you are; sometimes the more force you use, the less effective it is; sometimes doing nothing is the best reaction. An new introduction by Sarah Sewall, director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, places the manual in critical and historical perspective, explaining the significance and potential impact of this revolutionary challenge to conventional U.S. military doctrine. An attempt by our military to redefine itself in the aftermath of 9/11 and the new world of international terrorism, The U.S. Army / Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual will play a vital role in American military campaigns for years to come. The University of Chicago Press will donate a portion of the proceeds from this book to the Fisher House Foundation, a private-public partnership that supports the families of America’s injured servicemen. To learn more about the Fisher House Foundation, visit www.fisherhouse.org.

Years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, a loosely organized insurgency continues to target American and Coalition soldiers, as well as Iraqi security forces and civilians, with devastating results. In this sobering account of the ongoing violence, Ahmed Hashim, a specialist on Middle Eastern strategic issues and on irregular warfare, reveals the insurgents behind the widespread revolt, their motives, and their tactics. The insurgency, he shows, is not a united movement directed by a leadership with a single ideological vision. Instead, it involves former regime loyalists, Iraqis resentful of foreign occupation, foreign and domestic Islamist extremists, and elements of organized crime. These groups have cooperated with one another in the past and coordinated their attacks; but the alliance between nationalist Iraqi insurgents on the one hand and religious extremists has frayed considerably. The U.S.-led offensive to retake Fallujah in November 2004 and the success of the elections for the Iraqi National Assembly in January 2005 have led more "mainstream" insurgent groups to begin thinking of reinforcing the political arm of their opposition movement and to seek political guarantees for the Sunni Arab community in the new Iraq. Hashim begins by placing the Iraqi revolt in its historical context. He next profiles the various insurgent groups, detailing their origins, aims, and operational and tactical modi operandi. He concludes with an unusually candid assessment of the successes and failures of the Coalition's counter-insurgency campaign. Looking ahead, Hashim warns that ethnic and sectarian groups may soon be pitted against one another in what will be a fiercely contested fight over who gets what in the new Iraq. Evidence that such a conflict is already developing does not augur well for Iraq's future stability. Both Iraq and the United States must work hard to ensure that slow but steady success over the insurgency is not overshadowed by growing ethno-sectarian animosities as various groups fight one another for the biggest slice of the political and economic pie. In place of sensational headlines, official triumphalism, and hand-wringing, Insurgency and Counter-Insurgency in Iraq offers a clear-eyed analysis of the increasingly complex violence that threatens the very future of Iraq.

This timely book offers a world history of insurgencies and of counterinsurgency warfare. Jeremy Black moves beyond the conventional Western-centric narrative, arguing that it is crucial to ground contemporary experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq in a global framework. Unlike other studies that begin with the American and French revolutions, this book reaches back to antiquity to trace the pre-modern origins of war within states. Interweaving thematic and chronological narratives, Black probes the enduring linkages between beliefs, events, and people on the one hand and changes over time on the other hand. He shows the extent to which power politics, technologies, and ideologies have evolved, creating new parameters and paradigms that have framed both governmental and public views. Tracing insurgencies ranging from China to Africa to Latin America, Black highlights the widely differing military and political dimensions of each conflict. He weighs how, and why, lessons were “learned” or, rather, asserted, in both insurgency and counterinsurgency warfare. At every stage, he considers lessons learned by contemporaries, the ways in which norms developed within militaries and societies, and their impact on doctrine and policy. His sweeping study of insurrectionary warfare and its counterinsurgency counterpart will be essential reading for all students of military history.