Counterinsurgency Warfare Research Articles

Close Encounters of the Tribal Kind: the Implementation of Co-option as a Tool for De-escalation of Conflict – The Case of the Netherlands in Afghanistan's Uruzgan Province

In contemporary counter-insurgency campaigns de-escalation is typically achieved by obtaining the local population's collaboration. The rationale underlying this approach is that such collaboration spawns control over the population and therefore weakens the insurgent's position. This article seeks to understand how this approach is practised in the reality of contemporary counter-insurgency warfare. In Iraq as well as Afghanistan counter-insurgents were confronted with fragmented indigenous societies in which the various local segments were dominated by local power-holders. Consequently, obtaining the local population's collaboration required co-option of these agents. As such a strategy of co-option is a highly localized approach, this article focuses on Afghanistan's Uruzgan province and analyzes the implementation of co-option by the Netherlands' Task Force Uruzgan (TFU), which operated there from 2006 to 2010. The analysis discusses how the counter-insurgents obtained a profound understanding of Uruzgan's societal landscape and how co-option of local power-holders became part of the counter-insurgency routine. In the end, co-option was successfully implemented as TFU even succeeded in obtaining the collaboration of previously marginalized elements of the population. However, as the methods employed for co-option were mainly of a persuasive nature, the TFU co-option strategy was less effective in containing the influence of notorious spoilers. Thus this case study provides an insight into the dynamics and limitations of co-option as a tool for de-escalation in contemporary counter-insurgency warfare.

The Micropolitics of “the Army You Have”: Explaining the Development of U.S. Military Doctrine After Vietnam

The U.S. Army's recent embrace of counterinsurgency warfare and nation building complicates theories of military politics. For decades, critics declared the army too risk averse, too parochial, and too insulated to change, often thwarting civilian demands for greater flexibility. How should we understand these recent, unexpected changes? In this article I synthesize insights from historical institutionalism and American political development to derive a micropolitical perspective on institutional change. This approach advances two components as necessary before an institution transforms. First, mid-level agents shift the unofficial discourses through which they understand and describe the institution's core missions and capabilities. These slow and often subtle changes create a mismatch between the mid-level actors and the institution's paradigm. This erosion of institutional order provides an opportunity to reformers. The second component of transformation is the work of these reformers to forge coalitions with elites inside and outside government and press institutional leaders for change. In the rest of the article, I demonstrate the efficacy of the micropolitical approach by investigating how the army developed its AirLand Battle doctrine after the Vietnam War. My analysis of recently declassified correspondence, oral-history interviews, and the writings of officers and experts shows how mid-level officers and external reformers were able to shift the discourses of army leaders and develop an institutional paradigm that endured for decades. Indeed, AirLand Battle influenced the Weinberger criteria for deploying American troops, and it shaped U.S. conduct during the Persian Gulf War of 1991. This suggests a research program that could demonstrate why and how the U.S. Army's way of war changed during the 2000s, as well as how durable this transformation will be.

Reversal of Fortune? Strategy Change and Counterinsurgency Success by Foreign Powers in the Twentieth Century

Will a strategy change toward one of “hearts and minds” alter the eventual outcome of the American-led allied war effort in Afghanistan? We investigate this question by analyzing 66 cases of counterinsurgency warfare from the twentieth century in which a foreign power seeks to defend a central authority in a state or colonial territory against an insurgency. We identify whether and when a foreign power implemented a change in its counterinsurgency strategy, whether said change involved a shift toward a strategy reflecting a hearts and minds emphasis, as well as the foreign power's eventual success or failure in prevailing over insurgents. We find that while shifting toward a strategy of hearts and minds increases the chances for success, the improvement is modest and requires nearly a decade to produce. Furthermore, we find that the impact of a strategy change is conditional on the timing of the change, with a “window of opportunity” associated with success closing after approximately eight years of war. Our findings bode poorly for allied efforts in contemporary Afghanistan.

‘Getting COIN’ at the Tactical Level in Afghanistan: Reassessing Counter-Insurgency Adaptation in the British Army

This article reassesses the extent to which the British Army has been able to adapt to the counter-insurgency campaign in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. While adopting Farrell's definition of bottom-up military adaptation, this article contends that the task force/brigade level of analysis adopted by Farrell and Farrell and Gordon has led them to overstate the degree to which innovation arising from processes of bottom-up adaptation has actually ensued. Drawing on lower level tactical unit interviews and other data, this article demonstrates how units have been unable or unwilling to execute non-kinetic population-centric operations due to their lack of understanding of the principles of counter-insurgency warfare.

Home Away From Home: Dynamics of Counterinsurgency Warfare

The aim of this article is to obtain a better understanding of the outcomes of counterinsurgency warfare. It advances the hypothesis that the combined presence of a unified revolutionary force and external sanctuary will significantly increase the chances of victory for insurgents. The variables are tested against Portugal's involvement in the Colonial War, accounting for Portuguese defeat in Guinea-Bissau. The article concludes by extending the hypothesis to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, determining that the ability of the United States to succeed in Afghanistan is limited unless it seals the border with Pakistan and weakens the unity of insurgent forces.

Biopolitics and Political Space

Biopolitics and Political Space

Weaponizing Anthropology: Social Science in Service of the Militarized State (review)

David H. Price, Weaponizing Anthropology: Social Science in Service of the Militarized State. Petrolia and Oakland, CA: CounterPunch and AK Press, 2011. 219 pp. With dedications to Laura Nader, David H. Price delivers a powerful anthropological manifesto. From Nader, he acknowledges, we have been taught to study up and confront power. More, as Weaponizing Anthropology proves an example of, Nader tells us that this means that we will have to work harder than those aligned with power. In Price's upfront analysis, the powerful are the social scientists behind the Human Terrain of the US armed forces who have adapted (should I say abducted?) anthropology for their counterinsurgency warfare ambitions. As Price shows beyond any doubt, their ambitions are intellectually soiled, representing a kind of anthropology that without self-insight is a bad version of the obsolete cataloguing exercises of Peter Murdock and the like-minded. Moreover, the Human Terrain anthropologists have the power, backed by secrecy and military might, to ignore the usual academic standards of peer-review, critical reflection, and intellectual openness. In short, they are as intellectually closed as the societal and cultural descriptions they present. At the same time, military people today claim the role as global humanitarians. Here the Human Terrain is seen as merely a tool in the global war on terror, with mainstream US media acting as cheerleaders for the program (95). In the process, ethical research standards as we have come to know them no longer exist. Torture has been accepted by the powerful as they set out to defend Western liberal democracy, but also, it seems, as a tool in the very production of ethnographic data. In the warzone, the Human Terrain proponents say, the anthropologist has to finish his interview within no more than seven minutes, before sniper attacks can be expected. How deep an understanding, rapport or trust develops in 7 minutes? asks Price (158), adding that uniformed Human Terrain social scientists have killed and even cold-bloodedly executed hand-cuffed informants, and they have themselves been killed in action-slash-fieldwork. Price exposes real ethical and political consequences for anthropology, and in his critical assessment he revisits well-known anthropological debates. Even if the colonial legacy in anthropology has been discussed endlessly, Price's work proves this to be perhaps more important than ever. Just as it was becoming passe to remark on anthropology's status as colonialism's wanton stepchild, he states in the opening sentence of the book, George Bush's Terror War rediscovered old militarized uses for culture, and invigorated new modernist dreams of harnessing anthropology and culture for the domination of others. Here is again a political of global ambitions that presents a fundamental ethical dilemma for the everyday work of the anthropologist. But such a is not only ethically indefensible and politically questionable. It is also epistemologically faulty, as Price shows, because it is an anthropological that creates something misshapenly Frankenstinean (182). A rich history of anthropological thought, debate, and controversy is glossed over as something completely homogenous, a manual set for use, and in the process profound epistemological differences are (183). Anthropology becomes a monster, and Price expends quite some effort in identifying the intellectual roots for this monstrous project. Even with well-respected, old-time anthropologists, Price can delineate how the Human Terrain anthropologists not only misrepresent their thoughts, but many do it in ways that are pure plagiarism. No references are given, context is removed, and the usual peer-review process is made nearly impossible. Anthropology becomes a closed business. Price does a great job in identifying and disclosing all those misquoted sources. Victor Turner is one such old-time giant whose writings are shamelessly decontextualized and cannibalized by the Human Terrain anthropologists. …

WESTERN MILITARY CULTURE AND COUNTERINSURGENCY: AN AMBIGUOUS REALITY

Contemporary campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan once again have demonstrated that conventional armies experience many problems in adapting to counterinsurgency operations. This article seeks an explanation for those problems by exploring the conceptual background of both Western-style conventional armies and counterinsurgency. In essence, Western military culture is about fighting large-scale decisive battles with armies of other states. This contrasts strongly with counterinsurgency, which is about outbidding the insurgents for the favour of the people with a minimised use of force. The article analyses the further consequences of this conceptual clash between Western military culture and counterinsurgency in the reality of counterinsurgency warfare. It is explained that the contrast between both concepts leads to an ambiguous reality in which soldiers are aware of the specifics of counterinsurgency theory, but refer back to Western military culture for fighting counterinsurgency campaigns.

Blast-Induced Color Change in Photonic Crystals Corresponds with Brain Pathology

A high incidence of blast exposure is a 21st century reality in counter-insurgency warfare. However, thresholds for closed-head blast-induced traumatic brain injury (bTBI) remain unknown. Moreover, without objective information about relative blast exposure, warfighters with bTBI may not receive appropriate medical care and may remain in harm's way. Accordingly, we have engineered a blast injury dosimeter (BID) using a photonic crystalline material that changes color following blast exposure. The photonic crystals are fabricated using SU-8 via multi-beam interference laser lithography. The final BID is similar in appearance to an array of small colored stickers that may be affixed to uniforms or helmets in multiple locations. Although durable under normal conditions, the photonic crystalline micro- and nano-structure are precisely altered by blast to create a color change. These BIDs were evaluated using a rat model of bTBI, for which blast shockwave exposure was generated via a compressed air-driven shock tube. With prototype BID arrays affixed to the animals, we found that BID color changes corresponded with subtle brain pathologies, including neuronal degeneration and reactive astrocytosis. These subtle changes were most notable in the dentate gyrus of the hippocampus, cerebral cortex, and cerebellum. These data demonstrate the feasibility of using a materials-based, power-free colorimetric BID as the first self-contained blast sensor calibrated to correspond with brain pathology.

Blast-Induced Color Change in Photonic Crystals Corresponds with Brain Pathology

A high incidence of blast exposure is a 21st century reality in counter-insurgency warfare. However, thresholds for closed-head blast-induced traumatic brain injury (bTBI) remain unknown. Moreover, without objective information about relative blast exposure, warfighters with bTBI may not receive appropriate medical care and may remain in harm's way. Accordingly, we have engineered a blast injury dosimeter (BID) using a photonic crystalline material that changes color following blast exposure. The photonic crystals are fabricated using SU-8 via multi-beam interference laser lithography. The final BID is similar in appearance to an array of small colored stickers that may be affixed to uniforms or helmets in multiple locations. Although durable under normal conditions, the photonic crystalline micro- and nano-structure are precisely altered by blast to create a color change. These BIDs were evaluated using a rat model of bTBI, for which blast shockwave exposure was generated via a compressed air-driven shock tube. With prototype BID arrays affixed to the animals, we found that BID color changes corresponded with subtle brain pathologies, including neuronal degeneration and reactive astrocytosis. These subtle changes were most notable in the dentate gyrus of the hippocampus, cerebral cortex, and cerebellum. These data demonstrate the feasibility of using a materials-based, power-free colorimetric BID as the first self-contained blast sensor calibrated to correspond with brain pathology.

‘Guatemala Will Never Change’: Radical Pessimism and the Politics of Personal Interest in the Western Highlands

AbstractThis article examines how neoliberal multicultural governance shapes the political imaginaries and practices of rural indigenous Guatemalans in the town of San Pedro Necta. Decades of counter-insurgency warfare have displaced radical politics into sanctioned forms of ethnic empowerment, memory and development, but most indigenoussampedranoshave maintained radical investments. Persistent political violence, stalled reforms and clientelist favouritism undermined multicultural inclusion, development and optimism regarding the 1996 peace accords, and weakened community autonomy. The resulting mix of pessimism, unmet needs and divisionism has discouraged progressive politics and normalised political disengagement and, increasingly, self-interested affiliations with multiple conservative parties, including corrupt authoritarian populists implicated in genocide.

Livelihood diversification and civil war: Dinka communities in Sudan's civil war

It is generally recognised that diversification is among the livelihood strategies adopted by rural households to manage risk events, yet understanding of its status and effectiveness in the context of civil war is lacking or inadequately researched. The empirical findings in a non-conflict context suggest that the higher the risk and the more assets available, the more households will diversify. This article is an attempt to gain a nuanced understanding of the status of livelihood diversification in the context of civil war. The empirical findings of this article indicate that diversification is not always the best livelihood strategy option in the context of civil war. Within the households exposed to civil war, those exposed to endogenous counter-insurgency warfare tend to diversify their primary livelihood activities less. Contrary to commonly held views, among the households exposed to exogenous counter-insurgency warfare, the non-poor households tend to diversify their primary livelihood activities less than the poor households. Similar findings are also observed from the results of the comparative analysis of different forms of diversification in crop production, livestock management and assets. The differential status of livelihood diversification observed during civil war is more explained by the nature and characteristics of counter-insurgency warfare.

A Corrective for Cultural Studies: Beyond the Militarization Thesis to the New Military Intelligence

This paper theorizes a new military intelligence and offers a modest corrective to the orthodoxy of the militarization thesis prevalent in cultural studies and the critical human sciences. The biopolitical orientation of population-centric counterinsurgency (COIN) warfare in Afghanistan reveals the multidirectional travel of rationalities and forms of coherence between modern liberal ways of rule and Western-bloc expeditionary ways of war. Through the work of Michel Foucault, and drawing on Michael Dillon and Julian Reid’s analysis of the biopoliticization of war (2008), COIN is interrogated as a continuation of biopolitics by other means. Conceptualizing a continuum of “fast” and “slow” military violence to produce islands of security and stability, COIN generates a mix of persuasive material forces that, while not kinetic or combat-oriented, are internal to the battlespace of military warfighting. The aim of this theoretical intervention is to trouble our understanding of military violence and power. Rather than subscribe unconditionally to the idea of a domineering military contaminating domestic civilian environments, the paper establishes a different trajectory: perhaps there is always-already a spirit of counterinsurgency internal to the art of biopolitical governmentality, which in turn conjugates contemporary military ways of war.

Major Combat Operations and Counterinsurgency Warfare: Plan Challe in Algeria, 1959–1960

In 1959–60, the French Army in Algeria achieved a major tactical and operational military success under the command of General Maurice Challe, in which the French destroyed half of the combat capability of the Algerian insurgency. Rather than adopting a population-centric, or “hearts and minds,” approach to coin, the French Army created an innovative method for military success based on the use of major combat operations against the military power of the insurgency. The success of major combat operations in Plan Challe is omitted or dismissed in most of the Algerian War historiography, which focuses instead on French pacification. An analysis of Plan Challe, however, provides lessons and examples for the conduct of a successful sustained counterguerrilla campaign, a coercive method seldom discussed in current debates over coin warfare.

A question of command: counterinsurgency from the Civil War to Iraq

According to the prevailing view of counterinsurgency, the key to defeating insurgents is selecting methods that will win the people's hearts and minds. The hearts-and-minds theory permeates not only most counterinsurgency books of the twenty-first century but the U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual, the U.S. military's foremost text on counterinsurgency. Mark Moyar assails this conventional wisdom, asserting that the key to counterinsurgency is selecting commanders who have superior leadership abilities. Whereas the hearts-and-minds school recommends allocating much labor and treasure to economic, social, and political reforms, Moyar advocates concentrating resources on security, civil administration, and leadership development. Moyar presents a wide-ranging history of counterinsurgency, from the Civil War and Reconstruction to Afghanistan and Iraq, that draws on the historical record and interviews with hundreds of counterinsurgency veterans, including top leaders in today's armed forces. Through a series of case studies, Moyar identifies the ten critical attributes of counterinsurgency leadership and reveals why these attributes have been much more prevalent in some organizations than others. He explains how the U.S. military and America's allies in Afghanistan and Iraq should revamp their personnel systems in order to elevate more individuals with those attributes. A Question of Command will reshape the study and practice of counterinsurgency warfare. With counterinsurgency now one of the most pressing issues facing the United States, this book is a must-read for policymakers, military officers, and citizens.

Counterinsurgency's Impossible Trilemma

Ever since the conventional wars in Iraq and Afghanistan turned into irregular conflicts, both students of war and practitioners have furiously debated counterinsurgency's logic, goals, and chances...

Death by moderation: the U.S. military's quest for useable weapons

This book addresses an important but little-noticed phenomenon in the revolutionary world of military technology. Across a wide range of otherwise-unrelated weapons programs, the Pentagon is now pursuing arms that are deliberately crafted to be less powerful, less deadly, and less destructive than the systems they are designed to supplement or replace. This direction is historically anomalous; military forces generally pursue ever-bigger bangs, but the modern conditions of counter-insurgency warfare and military operations 'other than war' (such as peacekeeping and humanitarian assistance) demand a military capable of modulated force. By providing a capacity to intervene deftly yet effectively, the new generations of 'useable' weaponry should enable the U.S. military to accomplish its demanding missions in a manner consistent with legal obligations, public relations realities, and political constraints. Five case studies are provided, regarding precision-guided 'smart bombs', low-yield nuclear weapons, self-neutralizing anti-personnel land mines, directed-energy anti-satellite weapons, and non-lethal weapons.

Defeating Mau Mau, creating Kenya: counterinsurgency, civil war, and decolonization

This book details the devastating Mau Mau civil war fought in Kenya during the 1950s and the legacies of that conflict for the post-colonial state. As many Kikuyu fought with the colonial government as loyalists joined the Mau Mau rebellion. Focusing on the role of those loyalists, the book examines the ways in which residents of the country's Central Highlands sought to navigate a path through the bloodshed and uncertainty of civil war. It explores the instrumental use of violence, changes to allegiances, and the ways in which cleavages created by the war informed local politics for decades after the conflict's conclusion. Moreover, the book moves toward a more nuanced understanding of the realities and effects of counterinsurgency warfare. Based on archival research in Kenya and the United Kingdom and insights from literature from across the social sciences, the book reconstructs the dilemmas facing members of society at war with itself and its colonial ruler.

The twenty-first century Armed Forces of the Philippines: orphan of counter-insurgency or military geared for the long war of the century?

This article examines the factors that account for the Armed Forces of the Philippines's (AFP) never-ending involvement in many wars of the third kind. It discusses the essence of counter-insurgency warfare or low-intensity conflict in the Philippine setting. The article then notes that the disruption in the US military assistance after 1992, the AFP's inability to modernize, and its continuous campaign against communist and secessionist insurgents have adversely affected its structure and overall combat efficiency. It also analyzes the impact of the global war on terror on the Philippine military's counter-insurgency operations and the reforms undertaken by the Philippine defense establishment to address these issues. In conclusion, the article argues that reforms will not lead to a significant transformation of the AFP as it will continue to be an orphan of counter-insurgency in the near future. However, if wars of the third kind will persist, this situation will paradoxically make the AFP the only military in Southeast Asia aptly geared for the long war of this century.

Counter-insurgency in the Grey: The Ethical Challenge for Military Conduct

This study examines contemporary counter-insurgency (COIN) warfare in terms of military ethics. The intention is to reflect upon the changing face of COIN conduct in the light of serious ethical challenges resulting from modern trends affecting combatant status, and the deployment of military force in a multipurpose framework. It shall engage with what many commentators have termed the ‘grey area’ of the Just War tradition: the ambiguous and challenging interim zone that lies in between the more clearly defined forms of COIN conduct. The resultant analysis shall suggest the need for a more nuanced form of ethical conduct, orientated around restraint, more flexible discriminatory principles and a proportionality framework closer to domestic policing than formal warfare. In particular, this analysis suggests that by hybridizing the military imperative with the policing model of the continuum of force a more effective, less vague and more ethically coherent construct can be produced. By embracing these concepts, military practitioners may overcome ambiguous and unhelpful moral guidance and tailor their conduct more closely to the challenges of the contemporary COIN environment. Such actions will assure they act as justly as possible in the face of ‘grey area’ ethics.