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Why Counterinsurgency Fails

Author: Dennis de Tray

Publisher: Palgrave Pivot

Published: 2019-10-18

Total Pages: 174

ISBN-13: 9783030074340

This book examines why the U.S. counterinsurgency campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan have failed and presents a solution for future counterinsurgency campaigns that was developed and tested in Afghanistan in the hope that it will spark a conversation that will shape the next counterinsurgency war to U.S. advantage. The author argues that both development assistance and counterinsurgency campaigns - which often go hand in hand - overwhelm weak states with too much money, too many projects, and too many consultants, leading to weaker rather than stronger governments. The solution proposed, was initially developed by David Petraeus but never effectively implemented. Using an insider's perspective, this volume explains the details of this solution and the problem with its mis-implementation in Afghanistan.

Deadly Paradigms

Author: D. Michael Shafer

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2014-07-14

Total Pages: 347

ISBN-13: 140086058X

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Michael Shafer argues that American policymakers have fundamentally misperceived the political context of revolutionary wars directed against American clients and that because American attempts at counterinsurgency were based on faulty premises, these efforts have failed in virtually every instance. Originally published in 1988. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Bad Strategies

Author: James S. Corum

Publisher: Quarto Publishing Group USA

Published: 2008-08-15

Total Pages: 305

ISBN-13: 161673762X

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It is the new way of war: Everywhere our military tries to make inroads, insurgents flout us—and seem to get the better of the strategists making policy and battle plans. In this book, an expert with both scholarly and military experience in the field looks at cases of counterinsurgency gone wrong. By examining the failures of strategies against insurgents in Algeria, Cyprus, Vietnam, and Iraq, Lieutenant Colonel James S. Corum offers rare and much-needed insight into what can go wrong in such situations—and how these mistakes might be avoided. In each case, Corum shows how the conflict could have been won by the major power if its strategy had addressed the underlying causes of the insurgency it faced; not doing so wastes lives and weakens the power’s position in the world. Failures in counterinsurgency often proceed from common mistakes. Bad Strategies explores these at strategic, operational and tactical levels. Above all, Corum identifies poor civilian and military leadership as the primary cause for failure in successfully combating insurgencies. His book, with clear and practical prescriptions for success, shows how the lessons of the past might apply to our present disastrous confrontations with insurgents in Iraq.

Wrong Turn

Author: Gian Gentile

Publisher: New Press, The

Published: 2015-03-03

Total Pages: 142

ISBN-13: 1595588965

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A searing indictment of US strategy in Afghanistan from a distinguished military leader and West Point military historian—“A remarkable book” (National Review). In 2008, Col. Gian Gentile exposed a growing rift among military intellectuals with an article titled “Misreading the Surge Threatens U.S. Army’s Conventional Capabilities,” that appeared in World Politics Review. While the years of US strategy in Afghanistan had been dominated by the doctrine of counterinsurgency (COIN), Gentile and a small group of dissident officers and defense analysts began to question the necessity and efficacy of COIN—essentially armed nation-building—in achieving the United States’ limited core policy objective in Afghanistan: the destruction of Al Qaeda. Drawing both on the author’s experiences as a combat battalion commander in the Iraq War and his research into the application of counterinsurgency in a variety of historical contexts, Wrong Turn is a brilliant summation of Gentile’s views of the failures of COIN, as well as a trenchant reevaluation of US operations in Afghanistan. “Gentile is convinced that Obama’s ‘surge’ in Afghanistan can’t work. . . . And, if Afghanistan doesn’t turn around soon, the Democrats . . . who have come to embrace the Petraeus-Nagl view of modern warfare . . . may find themselves wondering whether it’s time to go back to the drawing board.” —The New Republic

Pathological Counterinsurgency

Author: Samuel R. Greene

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2018-06-29

Total Pages: 225

ISBN-13: 1498538193

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Pathological Counterinsurgency critically examines the relationship between elections and counterinsurgency success in third party campaigns supported by the United States. From Vietnam to El Salvador to Iraq and Afghanistan, many policymakers and academics believed that democratization would drive increased legitimacy and improved performance in governments waging a counterinsurgency campaign. Elections were expected to help overcome existing deficiencies, thus allowing governments supported by the United States to win the “hearts and minds” of its populace, undermining the appeal of insurgency. However, in each of these cases, campaigning in and winning elections did not increase the legitimacy of the counterinsurgent government or alter conditions of entrenched rent seeking and weak institutions that made states allied to the United States vulnerable to insurgency. Ultimately, elections played a limited role in creating the conditions needed for counterinsurgency success. Instead, decisions of key actors in government and elites to prioritize either short term personal and political advantage or respect for political institutions held a central role in counterinsurgency success or failure. In each of the four cases in this study, elected governments pursued policies that benefited members of the government and elites at the expense of boarder legitimacy and improved performance. Expectations that democratization could serve as a key instrument of change led to unwarranted optimism about the likely of success and ultimately to flawed strategy. The United States continued to support regimes that continued to lack the legitimacy and government performance needed for victory in counterinsurgency.

The Failure of Counterinsurgency

Author: Ivan Eland

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2013-07-19

Total Pages: 198

ISBN-13: 144083010X

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This book examines the implications of counterinsurgency warfare for U.S. defense policy and makes the compelling argument that the United States' default position on counterinsurgency wars should be to avoid them. Given the unsatisfactory outcomes of the counterinsurgency (COIN) wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the U.S. military is now in a heated debate over whether wars involving COIN operations are worth fighting. This book provides a comprehensive analysis of the effectiveness of COIN through key historic episodes and concludes that the answer is an emphatic "no," based on a dominant record of U.S. military or political failure, and inconsistency in the reasons for the rare cases of success. The author also examines the implications of his findings for U.S. foreign policy, defense policy, and future weapons procurement.

Counterinsurgency in Crisis

Author: Robert Egnell

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2013-10-08

Total Pages: 249

ISBN-13: 0231535414

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Long considered the masters of counterinsurgency, the British military encountered significant problems in Iraq and Afghanistan when confronted with insurgent violence. In their effort to apply the principles and doctrines of past campaigns, they failed to prevent Basra and Helmand from descending into lawlessness, criminality, and violence. By juxtaposing the deterioration of these situations against Britain's celebrated legacy of counterinsurgency, this investigation identifies both the contributions and limitations of traditional tactics in such settings, exposing a disconcerting gap between ambitions and resources, intent and commitment. Building upon this detailed account of the Basra and Helmand campaigns, this volume conducts an unprecedented assessment of British military institutional adaptation in response to operations gone awry. In calling attention to the enduring effectiveness of insurgent methods and the threat posed by undergoverned spaces, David H. Ucko and Robert Egnell underscore the need for military organizations to meet the irregular challenges of future wars in new ways.

Insurgency and Counterinsurgency

Author: Jeremy Black

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2016-07-29

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 1442256338

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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.

Hearts and Minds

Author: Hannah Gurman

Publisher: New Press, The

Published: 2013-10-01

Total Pages: 306

ISBN-13: 1595588256

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The first book of its kind, Hearts and Minds is a scathing response to the grand narrative of U.S. counterinsurgency, in which warfare is defined not by military might alone but by winning the "hearts and minds" of civilians. Dormant as a tactic since the days of the Vietnam War, in 2006 the U.S. Army drafted a new field manual heralding the resurrection of counterinsurgency as a primary military engagement strategy; counterinsurgency campaigns followed in Iraq and Afghanistan, despite the fact that counterinsurgency had utterly failed to account for the actual lived experiences of the people whose hearts and minds America had sought to win. Drawing on leading thinkers in the field and using key examples from Malaya, the Philippines, Vietnam, El Salvador, Iraq, and Afghanistan, Hearts and Minds brings a long-overdue focus on the many civilians caught up in these conflicts. Both urgent and timely, this important book challenges the idea of a neat divide between insurgents and the populations from which they emerge—and should be required reading for anyone engaged in the most important contemporary debates over U.S. military policy.

Deadly Paradigms: the Failure of U.S. Counterinsurgency Policy

Author: Michael D. Shafer

Publisher:

Published: 1988

Total Pages: 344

ISBN-13: 9780608076379

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