Managing Global Counterinsurgency: The Special Group (CI) 1962–1966

The contemporary American counterinsurgency discourse has emphasised a particular historical narrative of Vietnam to justify large-scale military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Absent from this narrative is any reference to the broader Cold War context in which Vietnam existed alongside numerous other small-scale counterinsurgencies and was therefore the exception, not the rule. This article seeks to redress this shortcoming by examining the way counterinsurgency was conceived and managed at the level of ‘grand strategy.’ Specifically, it focuses on the Special Group (Counterinsurgency) to demonstrate that senior policymakers under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson understood ‘counterinsurgency’ as involving ‘indirect’ assistance to foreign governments, rather than taking ‘direct’ military action with American ground forces.     

Waging the inchoate war: Defining,fighting, and second-guessing the ‘Long War’

Abstract

This article answers three questions: What is the nature of the Long War? How is progress (or lack thereof) to be assessed? Where is it likely to go next? An appreciation of Clausewitz shows that practical centers of gravity exist for the Long War, and that the conflict pivots upon the ability to persuasively link ideology to events via a strategic narrative. A close examination of an illustrative case study, the interaction between the US and the late Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq 2004 – 2006, shows that Al Qaeda has suffered a severe setback, but also that the nature of the war is set to shift yet again. Further tangible progress for the US requires waging the Long War as a global counterinsurgency based on a strategy of ‘selective identification’ (versus pure ‘disaggregation’) as well as an understanding of how to more effectively craft a strategic narrative.     

Just How Important Are ‘Hearts and Minds’ Anyway? Counterinsurgency Goes to the Polls

Despite all the talk of ‘hearts and minds’ being the key to counterinsurgency, local public opinion is rarely studied and when it is, it often yields surprising conclusions. Through analyzing polling data from Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, this article shows that public opinion is less malleable, more of an effect rather than a cause of tactical success, and a poor predictor of strategic victory. As a result, modern counterinsurgency doctrine’s focus on winning popular support may need to be rethought.     

The Wretched of the Empire: Politics,Ideology and Counterinsurgency in Rhodesia, 1965–80

This article examines the vital importance of political ideology in formulating effective counterinsurgency, by examining the case of Rhodesia between 1965 and 1980. During this period, the Rhodesian Front (RF) Government of Ian Smith adopted a radical right-wing ‘world-struggle ideology’ to justify settler resistance to African decolonisation. The RF's ideology, based on settler-status anxiety, upheld a conspiratorial interpretation of modern politics that emphasised virulent forms of Anglophobia, anti-communism, anti-internationalism and anti-liberalism. The Smith Government portrayed African nationalism not as an indigenous political phenomenon, but as an external instrument of world communism and Western appeasement. After 1972, when Rhodesia faced a protracted insurgency, many of the principles of RF ideology were applied to counterinsurgency warfare with disastrous results. Because the Rhodesian Government viewed African guerrilla warfare as unrelated to domestic politics, Rhodesian counterinsurgency lacked a realistic political dimension. The dictates of settler ideology blinded the Rhodesian Government to the vital need to win ‘hearts and minds’ by applying timely principles of political pacification and reform to its counterinsurgency effort. Instead a Rhodesian counterinsurgency campaign of maximum force was pursued. Such a campaign proved counter-productive accelerating strategic deterioration and leading ultimately to the political victory of the African guerrilla cause in 1980.     

The Dutch COIN approach: three years in Uruzgan, 2006–2009

Rarely has a military commitment led to such intense discussion in the Netherlands as the Task Force Uruzgan (TFU) mission in Afghanistan. In February 2010, the Netherlands' coalition government even collapsed after the two largest parties failed to agree on the withdrawal of Dutch troops from Afghanistan later this year. This article deals first of all with the difficult discussion over the Afghanistan mission of the TFU. The authors then subject three ISAF operations to close scrutiny. The authors provide some suggestions to help understand better this pivotal point in the execution of the whole operation and thus give a fuller picture of the Dutch counterinsurgency approach in Uruzgan.     

Unnecessary or unsung? The utilisation of airpower in Britain's colonial counterinsurgencies

Making extensive use of primary archival documents, this article seeks to explore whether airpower in three of Britain's most significant post-war colonial counterinsurgency campaigns, Malaya, Kenya and South Arabia, was an unnecessary part of British strategy, offering little useful military force due to the futility and strategic damage rendered by offensive bombardment, or whether airpower was indeed an unsung factor that provided operational flexibility through its effectiveness in a supply context, as well as its intelligence role in providing valuable aerial reconnaissance. In all three case studies the role played by the RAF in medical evacuations, in troop drops, in crop spraying during food-denial initiatives, and in providing ‘Voice Aircraft’ for the propaganda campaign, provide insights into an under-explored component of Britain's politico-military efforts in counterinsurgency in the 1950s and 1960s and suggests that the main strategic value of airpower in counterinsurgency, then and now, lies in its non-kinetic functions.     

Are non‐lethal weapons a viable military option to strengthen the hearts and minds approach in Afghanistan?

Commanders of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) have repeatedly stressed the hearts and minds approach in Afghanistan, in saying that the human terrain is decisive for a successful outcome of the mission. Avoidance of civilian casualties is considered of strategic importance, and by nature highly dependent on the management of tactical level Escalation of Force (EoF) situations. Non‐lethal weapons (NLWs) are expected to enable tactical commanders to avoid innocent civilian casualties in such situations. This article considers a selected NLW on its potential to accomplish this requirement. It uses a defence technology assessment approach to analyse EoF situations experienced by Dutch ISAF forces in which the NLW is inserted. The analysis demonstrates that a range of contextual factors in the Afghanistan high‐risk environment tend to narrow down the window of opportunity for the NLW to help defuse the risk of unintended civil casualties.     

Imperial nostalgia,the liberal lie,and the perils of postmodern counterinsurgency

Since 9/11, counterinsurgency is back in fashion; the ‘war on terror’ has even been branded a ‘global counterinsurgency’. However the context within which counterinsurgency originally arose is critical to understanding the prospects for its present success; the radically changed environment in which it is currently being conducted casts into considerable doubt the validity of the doctrine's application by many national militaries currently ‘rediscovering’ this school of military thought today. Above all, classical counterinsurgency was a profoundly imperial, state-centric phenomenon; consequently it only rarely faced the thorny issue of sovereignty and legitimacy which bedevils and may doom these same efforts today.     

Deterring Insurgents: Culture,Adaptation and the Evolution of Israeli Counterinsurgency, 1987–2005

This article studies the Israeli ‘way of war’ in counterinsurgency in the period 1987–2005 by analysing the characteristic features of Israel's approach and its ability to adapt to the challenges posed by the Palestinian and Lebanese insurgencies. It first outlines the evolution of the Israeli counterinsurgency. It subsequently examines the Israeli approach through the lens of the country's strategic culture, illuminating its features, rationales and goals, and concludes by examining to what extent Israel managed to adapt to the challenges of fighting insurgents.     

Mapping Out a Counterinsurgency Campaign Plan: Critical Considerations in Counterinsurgency Campaigning1

This paper argues on the basis of a series of historical examples that include the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaya and Northern Ireland, that there is no perfect counterinsurgency model and that each counterinsurgency campaign is different. Counterinsurgents need to have a series of basic tenets to wage successful war against guerrillas and insurgents. These include: a clear political policy from the government under insurgent attack, a strategy to keep the population safe, successful intelligence gathering, a recognition that successful counterinsurgency is manpower intensive and a high priority on the destruction of the insurgent infrastructure. This paper urges that in period of peacetime it is essential that militaries develop a Standing Counterinsurgency Concepts Unit that can conceptualise past and present insurgent patterns and build this into military and strategic planning.     

Conceptualizing the War in Afghanistan: Perceptions from the Front, 2001–2006

Analytical focus on military operations in Iraq continue to overshadow analysis of the war in Afghanistan as it enters its sixth year. It is now possible to discern several clearly-delineated periods of coalition counterinsurgency and stabilization operations. What is the nature of the war and how has it evolved? Has there been success so far in Afghanistan?     

The Weight of the Past(s): The Impact of the Bundeswehr’s Use of Historical Experience on Strategy-Making in Afghanistan

This article seeks to explain the basic dynamics of the development of the German military approach in Afghanistan between 2003 and 2010 by looking at the impact of the Bundeswehr’s established uses of historical experience. First, the German military approach in Afghanistan has slowly evolved from a peacebuilding and mediation mission towards a full-fledged combat deployment. Second, the Bundeswehr’s exclusive focus on the World War II experience has contributed to the emergence of the Balkans experience as a formative experience that shaped initial operational thinking in Afghanistan. Third, because a thorough debate on the historical foundation of counterinsurgency remained absent, the operational shift in 2009 was perceived as a return to ‘classical’ military tasks and thus led to an almost exclusive focus on training for combat.     

Guerrilla warfare in Katanga: the Sanga rebellion of the 1890s and its suppression

ABSTRACT

This article discusses the origins and development of the Sanga insurgency of the 1890s with a view to demonstrating that, contrary to commonly held stereotypes, pre-colonial warfare was neither simple nor unchanging. Its tactics, it is argued here, repay the sort of close analysis commonly reserved for other typologies and theatres of war. The Yeke, against whose exploitative system of rule the Sanga and their allies rose up in 1891, survived the onslaught by entering into a strategic alliance with Lofoi, a newly established station of the Congo Free State, and its limited contingent of regular Force Publique troops. An in-depth examination of the joint Yeke-Force Publique counterinsurgency campaign leads to the conclusion that the novelty of the ‘small wars’ that accompanied the Scramble for Africa should not be overstated. In southern Katanga and, by implication, elsewhere, these confrontations were shaped by processes of mutual borrowing in which African military practices and even political aims were not necessarily subordinate to European ones.     

Size Still Matters: Explaining Sri Lanka’s Counterinsurgency Victory over the Tamil Tigers

The military effectiveness literature has largely dismissed the role of material preponderance in favor of strategic interaction theories. The study of counterinsurgency, in which incumbent victory is increasingly rare despite material superiority, has also turned to other strategic dynamics explanations like force employment, leadership, and insurgent/adversary attributes. Challenging these two trends, this paper contends that even in cases of counterinsurgency, material preponderance remains an essential—and at times the most important—factor in explaining battlefield outcomes and effectiveness. To test this, the paper turns to the case of the Sri Lankan state’s fight against the Tamil Tiger insurgency, a conflict which offers rich variation over time across six periods and over 25 years. Drawing on evidence from historical and journalistic accounts, interviews, memoirs, and field research, the paper demonstrates that material preponderance accounts for variation in military effectiveness and campaign outcomes (including military victory in the final campaign) better than strategic explanations. Additionally, a new quantitative data-set assembled on annual loss-exchange ratios demonstrates the superiority of materialist explanations above those of skill, human capital, and regime type.     

Winning hearts and minds in the ‘war on terrorism’

Ten days after the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon US President George W Bush addressed a joint session of Congress. In an emotional speech he declared war on terrorism and vowed that the US would not rest until all of the perpetrators were brought to justice and A1 Qaeda destroyed. In virtually the next breath he hastened to add that the US-led campaign would not be a war on Islam, a promise Muslims might have found more reassuring had the President not sounded so much like a Baptist preacher. Whatever its propaganda value, the speech distorted the reality of the struggle facing the West while tacitly acknowledging an important truth. Since terror is merely a weapon in a larger struggle, there can be no war on terrorism per se. The West faces a counterinsurgency campaign on a global scale. Winning the hearts and minds of disaffected people in lands where terrorism thrives must be central to conducting this campaign.     

Minimum force in British counterinsurgency

With strategic success in Iraq and Afghanistan far from certain, comforting beliefs about Britain's superiority at counterinsurgency have come under increasingly sceptical scrutiny. This article contributes to the debate with particular reference to the supposedly pivotal principle of minimum force. After discussing the recent literature on the subject, the article critiques the methodology employed by advocates of the traditionalist view on British COIN, arguing for a more rigorous historical approach based on primary sources. Following these historical matters, it is argued that conceptually, minimum force should be analysed dialectically in relation to practices of exemplary force, and above all, on the evidence of what happens in a conflict. Arguably the value ascribed to doctrine in strategic analysis has become unduly inflated, and we must look beyond it to understand war and political violence.     

Self-Defense Militias,Death Squads,and State Outsourcing of Violence in India and Turkey

What explains the variation in states’ nonstate partners in civil warfare? States often use nonstate actors to do what their regular military forces cannot do well – navigate the local population. Some of their nonstate partners are ordinary civilians, while others are battle-hardened fighters with a rebellious or criminal past. The choice of proxy carries serious implications for the patterns and effects of violence during civil war, human rights, and international security. This article is the first to disaggregate the nonstate counterinsurgents and offer an explanation for why and how states use each type. It brings together the politics of collaboration with the politics of exploitation. The article shows that the state’s use of nonstate proxies is shaped by the supply of willing collaborators, the state’s ability to exercise control over them, and the trade-offs underlying the use of the different types of nonstate actors. The empirical evidence used to support this argument comes from a novel, comparative study of Turkey’s counterinsurgency campaign against Kurdish separatists and India’s counterinsurgency against Kashmiri separatists. The original data were collected through fieldwork in the disputed territories of each country.     

Enmeshed in insurgency: Britain's protracted retreats from Iraq and Afghanistan

Ten years of counterinsurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan have produced little in Britain's national interest. This article examines the political objectives set in these wars and the reasons why they have proved elusive. The core foreign policy aim was to sustain Britain's position as a great power by assuming responsibility for global order. Alliances with the United States and NATO would be the diplomatic tool for pursuing this aim. These alliances brought obligations, in the shape of agreed common threats. Rogue regimes with weapons of mass destruction and international terrorists harboured in failed states were deemed the primary threats to British security. Military means were therefore used in Iraq and Afghanistan to attack them. Whether Tony Blair's vision of global order ever made sense is debatable, and it attracted scepticism from the outset. The article argues experience in Iraq and Afghanistan showed that a strategy to eliminate terrorism (the WMD threat turned out never to have existed) by expeditionary counterinsurgency could only fail. Therefore the attention lavished on operational-level performance by most studies is misplaced, because no amount of warfighting excellence could make up for strategic incoherence. Finally, the article proposes the more important question arising from the last ten years is why the UK pursued a futile strategy for so long. The difficulties associated with interpreting events, a malfunctioning strategic apparatus, weak political oversight, and bureaucratic self-interest are posited as the most significant explanations.