Bernard Fall and Vietnamese Revolutionary Warfare in Indochina

This article assesses Bernard Fall’s concept of Vietnamese Revolutionary Warfare in Indochina between 1953 and 1958. It also investigates differences in the conceptualization of Revolutionary Warfare between Fall and proponents of French military doctrine known as la guerre révolutionnaire. The last component of the article considers limits of Fall’s influence on counterinsurgency doctrine.     

Emulating US Counterinsurgency Doctrine: Barriers for Developing Country Forces,Evidence from Peru

ABSTRACT

Recent US advances in counterinsurgency doctrine have been adopted by developing country armed forces. Nevertheless, no systematic study has examined the barriers they face to implementing highly involved counterinsurgency strategy. Tracing the evolution of Peruvian doctrine demonstrates that Peru was able to quickly improve the unity of effort, intelligence capacity, and military basing to meet the demands of a population-centric hearts-and-minds approach to counterinsurgency. Nevertheless, the limited tactical initiative and flexibility of Peruvian forces remains a challenge. The Peruvian experience is instructive for other militaries undergoing similar transitions. However, given the diversity of insurgent conflicts, this doctrine is not universally appropriate.     

The revisionist historiography of Britain’s decolonisation conflicts and political science theses of civilian victimisation in counterinsurgency

ABSTRACT

Recent historical research exposed the myth of self-restraint as the distinctive feature of British counterinsurgency during decolonisation. This article shows that the revisionist historiography of British counterinsurgency has important, but unnoticed, implications for political scientists. Specifically, historical scholarship challenges the predictions and causal mechanisms of the main social scientific theses of civilian victimisation in counterinsurgency. Using revisionist historians’ works as a source of data, I test those theses against Britain’s decolonisation conflicts. I find that they do not pass the test convincingly. I conclude that political scientists should be more willing to explore the theoretical implications of new historical evidence on counterinsurgency campaigns.     

All Counterinsurgency is Local: Counterinsurgency and Rebel Legitimacy

Abstract

Although the concept of legitimacy is central to Western counterinsurgency theory, most discourse in this area black-boxes the concept. It hence remains under-specified in many discussions of counterinsurgency. Fortunately, recent research on rebel governance and legitimacy contributes to our understanding of the problems faced by counterinsurgents who want to boost state legitimacy while undermining that of the rebels. Taken together, this research illustrates that a rational choice approach to legitimacy is simplistic; that micro-level factors ultimately drive legitimacy dynamics; and that both cooption of existing legitimate local elites and their replacement from the top–down is unlikely to succeed. Western counterinsurgency doctrine has failed to grasp the difficulties this poses for it.     

Winston Churchill and the third front 1

The premise of most Western thinking on counterinsurgency is that success depends on establishing a perception of legitimacy among local populations. The path to legitimacy is often seen as the improvement of governance in the form of effective and efficient administration of government and public services. However, good governance is not the only basis for claims to legitimacy, especially in environments where ethnic or religious identities are politically salient. Some experience in Iraq suggests that in environments where such identities are contested, claims to legitimacy may rest primarily on the identity of who governs, rather than on how whoever governs, governs. This article outlines the intellectual foundations of existing policy and doctrine on counterinsurgency, and argues that development and analysis of counterinsurgency strategy would benefit from a greater focus on the role of ethnic and religious identity in irregular warfare.     

‘Legitimacy is the Main Objective’: Legitimation in Population-Centric Counterinsurgency

Abstract

This article seeks to contribute to the understanding of the role of legitimacy and different forms of legitimation in population-centric counterinsurgency. An analysis of the logic underlying this counterinsurgency concept sheds a light on the former as it identifies legitimacy as the crucial mechanism through which a collaboration strategy seeks to obtain control over the local population. An exploration of Weber’s primary types of legitimate authorities provides the insight that counterinsurgents might operationalize legitimation through either rational-legal ways or by co-opting local power-holders who hold a position as traditional or charismatic leaders. The exact choice of strategy depends on the pattern of legitimacy in the target society and therefore so-called cultural legitimation is pivotal.     

Keep the change: Counterinsurgency,Iraq, and historical understanding

This article explores the historical reasoning behind counterinsurgency thinking, particularly as applied to Iraq, using Douglas Porch's book, Counterinsurgency: Exposing the Myths of the New Way of War as a reference point. It argues that the classic historical analogies of counterinsurgency theory were inapt in dealing with the conflict in Iraq, and that the historical reasoning behind counterinsurgency more generally deserves greater scrutiny. Not only are the analogies of questionable applicability, but the evidence of causation in prior conflicts is ultimately unproveable. In the end, Counterinsurgency theory and the US Army's Field Manual 3-24 on Counterinsurgency were politically useful during the ‘Surge’, beginning in 2007, but remain intellectually and historically problematic.     

America and public opinion in France: 1939–45

Julian G. Hurstfield, America and the French Nation, 1939–1945. London: University of North Carolina Press, 1986. Pp.309; £25.45.

John F. Sweets, Choices in Vichy France: The French under Nazi Occupation. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986. Pp.306; £22.50.     

The Myth of British Minimum Force in Counterinsurgency Campaigns during Decolonisation (1945–1970)

This article argues that the dominant paradigm in studies of British small wars positing a central role of minimum force in doctrinal guidelines for counterinsurgency needs to be even more fundamentally revised than has been argued in recent debates. More specifically, it argues that minimum force is nowhere to be found in British doctrine during the small wars of decolonisation. The need for revision also applies to the way British counterinsurgency is usually sharply contrasted with French counterinsurgency. British doctrine during this period is better understood when placed in its proper historical context. This means comparing it with the other two most significant examples of doctrinal development for small wars of decolonisation – those of France and Portugal. This comparison shows that British counterinsurgency was not uniquely population-centric, and this characteristic cannot, therefore, be the reason for its arguably superior if far from infallible performance. Evidence for these arguments comes primarily from doctrinal sources developed specifically to deal with counterinsurgency, complemented with insights from key military thinkers and archival sources of relevance practices. Some wider implications of this analysis for the relationship between combat experience and doctrinal development as well as for counterinsurgency are identified.     

Using Indigenous Forces in Counterinsurgency Operations: The French in Algeria, 1954–1962

While the importance of indigenous forces for successful counterinsurgency operations has long been recognized by great powers fighting local insurgencies, the factors that determine the performance of such forces have attracted relatively little scholarly attention. This paper aims to contribute to our understanding of those determinants through an examination of the role and performance of auxiliary indigenous units in French counterinsurgency operations during the Algerian War (1954–62). The findings presented here suggest some important lessons for those seeking to recruit and deploy effective indigenous forces in counterinsurgency operations.     

From small wars to counterinsurgency: C.W. Gwynn, ‘Imperial Policing’ and transformation of doctrine

ABSTRACT

The complicated problematic of Imperial Policing in many respects still comes down to the principle of minimum force, and much of what we consider an integral part of the modern doctrine of counterinsurgency, is perceived as by-product of post-1945 colonial experience. Charles Gwynn wrote about it in his still underestimated text-book on internal security, ‘Imperial Policing’. As a result, there is a lack of clear understanding how colonial (based on local experience) knowledge was transformed into the expert (universal, transferable) knowledge in confronting rebellions at the doctrinal level. This article examines the work of Gwynn as part of a transitional stage from the age of global empires to the age of nuclear superpowers within the context of internal security doctrine. Adaptation to the new realities during the interwar period and after the World War II – reconfiguration of the British army epistemological system in confronting insurgencies – was a hard process. In this sense, the question about transformation of colonial knowledge into expert knowledge onto the field of internal security is a part of a more general and sensitive question about transition from colonialism to the post-colonial age.     

Bayonets on Musa Dagh: Ottoman Counterinsurgency Operations – 1915

This article examines the Ottoman military's escalatory response to violence and frames the Armenian insurrection of 1915 in the historical context of contemporary early twentieth-century counterinsurgency campaigns. A case study is presented, from a military historian's perspective, of counterinsurgency operations conducted by the Ottoman Army's 41st Infantry Division against Armenian insurgents on Musa Da? (Musa Dagh) in an operational area south of Iskenderun (Alexandretta). In this particular operational area, it appears that the modern label which most closely approximates what happened there is ethnic cleansing. Finally, the article concludes with an objective assessment of the effectiveness of the Ottoman Army's counterinsurgency operations.     

Building Legitimacy: Interactional Dynamics and the Popular Evaluation of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in Turkey

Abstract

Previous research has identified a variety of general mechanisms to explain how insurgents build legitimacy. Yet, there is often a gap between these mechanisms and the interactional dynamics of insurgencies. This article attempts to bridge this gap through a theoretically informed analysis of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party’s (PKK) insurgency in Turkey. I show how the PKK’s efforts to cultivate legitimacy, Turkey’s counterinsurgency strategies, and civilian perceptions of the PKK, all mutually influenced one another. Based on this analysis, I argue that the mechanisms that produce popular legitimacy coevolve with insurgents’ behaviors, states’ interventions, and civilians’ perceptions.     

Insurgency and Genocide: La Vendée

The struggle between the peasant population of the Vendee and the revolutionary government in Paris during the 1790s was perhaps the first, and certainly one of the earliest, of the modern ideological insurgencies. The conflict demonstrates the fatal weaknesses of a purely popular guerrilla movement deprived of sustained outside assistance. It also brings to the surface some less‐familiar aspects of the French Revolutionary regime. Most notably, that regime, determined to eradicate rather than conciliate the Vendean peasantry, employed methods that foreshadowed the techniques of National Socialism.     

COIN fights: A response to Etzioni

Etzioni both exaggerates and minimizes the influence of my book Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife on different components of US military doctrine, mischaracterizes my treatment of the Malayan Emergency, and unfairly denigrates the successes of counterinsurgency in Iraq from 2007 to 2011 while misattributing the reasons for its failures in both Iraq and Afghanistan.     

Expeditionary police advising: some causes of failure

ABSTRACT

The practice of dispatching teams of police advisors to other states to build or train foreign security forces began at the end of the nineteenth century, yet there exists no definitive history of the practice, or any definitive theoretical approach underpinning why such missions succeed or fail. Drawing upon their recent edited book on expeditionary police advising, and by examining the donor or sending states, the host nations, and the use of police in counterinsurgency situations, the authors present some key reasons why such missions fail, and lay some groundwork for additional study of this important subject.     

Concepts of Legitimacy: Congruence and Divergence in the Afghan Conflict

ABSTRACT

Revisiting the US-led counterinsurgency campaign in Afghanistan, we examine to what extent the concepts of legitimacy of the Taliban and the US counterinsurgents showed congruence with pre-existing Afghan notions of legitimacy. We move beyond dominant approaches of social contract theory and materialist legitimacy by using a threefold model of legitimacy to assess the different concepts of legitimacy. Both the Taliban and the US, we argue, diverged markedly from historically developed notions of legitimate rule. The article demonstrates that counterinsurgents need to be aware of and adapt to local norms. Moreover, we point towards relevant norms in the case of Afghanistan.     

Beyond the Unidades de Polícia Pacificadora: Countering Comando Vermelho’s Criminal Insurgency

Ten years ago, in 2008, the Brazilian Government adopted a strategy to regain control over the favelas in Rio de Janeiro – the Pacifying Police Units (UPP). In spite of initial favorable results, the main threat, namely the Red Command (CV), fought back and by 2014 the UPP strategy was badly frayed. In order to defeat this threat, it is necessary to reconceptualize CV as a criminal insurgency and to pinpoint and address the social and political factors that sustain it. This allows for a response inspired by the ‘shape-clear-hold-build’ counterinsurgency approach, which while cost-intensive is, in the long term, the most sustainable path to achieving security within the favelas and integrating these neglected areas within the broader city of Rio de Janeiro.     

Defeating Balkan Insurgency: The Austro-Hungarian Army in Bosnia-Hercegovina, 1878-82

The occupation and pacification of Bosnia-Hercegovina by Austro-Hungarian forces between 1878 and 1882 constitutes a politico-military rarity: a major colonial-style campaign waged in Europe. Yet Vienna's 1878-82 operations in Bosnia - including a hard-fought, multi-corps invasion followed by a sustained counterinsurgency campaign to put down lingering resistance to Habsburg rule - remain little known even among scholars of the region and counterinsurgency experts. However, their strategic lessons are of import today, as Vienna's battlefield successes in Bosnia brought a degree of peace and stability to the region that it has rarely known in modern times. Moreover, Austro-Hungarian military leaders waged a victorious campaign in the field that strengthened political objectives, and provided a textbook example of how to vigorously wage a counterinsurgency campaign against religiously-inspired foes in harsh terrain without undermining the occupier's political legitimacy.     

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.