Download or read book Bad Strategies written by James S. Corum and published by Quarto Publishing Group USA. This book was released on 2008-08-15 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Pathological Counterinsurgency written by Samuel R. Greene and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2018-06-29 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Counterinsurgency written by National Defense University and published by CreateSpace. This book was released on 2014-09-28 with total page 62 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The United States has a history of conducting large, conventional, firepower centric wars to achieve victory. This tactic hindered the U.S. approach to counterinsurgency (COIN) since Vietnam. The U.S. consistently failed to recognize it was fighting an insurgency and instead tried to fight the American Way of War. The inability of the military to recognize an insurgency and provide a consolidated, comprehensive, and coherent COIN strategy began in the 1960s and continued through today. This inability has proven to be a significant failure for U.S. strategic interests around the world. From Vietnam until today, the U.S. has failed to learn the essential lesson: large, conventional units cannot do nation building or COIN operations due to their size, their inability to conduct de-centralized operations, and their reliance on heavy firepower. This book examines how U.S. COIN doctrine evolved since Vietnam through a review of historical COIN trends from which U.S. COIN strategy was developed before Vietnam, revised during the interwar years, and reinvented for Iraq, and Afghanistan. This book demonstrates that U.S. doctrine does not show how to link the tactical to strategic applications of COIN properly for success. It then makes recommendations for the future of U.S. counterinsurgency operations.
Download or read book Counterinsurgency written by Steven Metz and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on 1995 with total page 39 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dr. Steven Metz argues that the way the Department of Defense and U.S. military spend the time when counterinsurgency support is not an important part of American national security strategy determines how quickly and easily they react when policymakers commit the nation to such activity. If analysis and debate continues, at least at a low level, the military is better prepared for the reconstitution of capabilities. If it ignores global developments in insurgency and counterinsurgency, the reconstitution of capabilities would be more difficult.
Download or read book Deadly Paradigms written by D. Michael Shafer and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2014-07-14 with total page 347 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Fail written by Jonathan Owen and published by . This book was released on 2017-12 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Provides a military insider's look at why the US counterinsurgency strategy was doomed to failure and details a truly viable strategy for Afghanistan, which promises actual decisive effects in short order. Rewrites how the US military should conduct counterinsurgency operations.
Download or read book Why Counterinsurgency Fails written by Dennis de Tray and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-09-22 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Hearts and Minds written by Hannah Gurman and published by The New Press. This book was released on 2013-10-01 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book The Failure of Counterinsurgency written by Ivan Eland and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2013-07-19 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book The Art of Insurgency written by Donald W. Hamilton and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 1998-01-26 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In his analysis of insurgency war, Donald Hamilton first attempts to provide insight into a strategic concept he believes is little understood today, and to explain its complicated relationship to American policy failures in Southeast Asia during the post-1945 era of containment. The study develops a working model of insurgency, explaining it as both a unique method and type of war-making. Significant findings include the inability of policymakers to perceive a potential insurgency in Vietnam as early as 1946, subsequent American involvement in not one, but three Asian insurgencies during the 1950s, and the ultimate failure of the U.S. military to meet the insurgency challenge in South Vietnam. This inability to eliminate the insurgency led not only to the complete breakdown of the South Vietnamese government, but was the primary reason why further U.S. military action after 1965 would prove ineffectual. This historical narrative also follows the involvement of several key players, including the personalities of Edward Lansdale, Sir Robert Thompson, Archimedes Patti, and Vo Nguyen Giap, who through their life experiences and writings, provide a keen profundity into why insurgencies occur, why they fail, and why they succeed.
Download or read book A Failed Counterinsurgency Strategy written by Paul D. Montanus and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 24 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book An Evaluation of Counterinsurgency as a Strategy for Fighting the Long War written by Baucum Fulk and published by Strategic Studies Institute. This book was released on 2011 with total page 20 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The single greatest national security question currently facing the U.S. National Command Authority is how best to counter violent extremism. The National Command Authority has four broad strategies through which it may employ military forces to counter violent extremism: counterinsurgency, counterterrorism, support to insurgency, and antiterrorism. The Long War is anticipated to continue for decades, perhaps generations. Thus, it is imperative to select the best strategy or strategies for employing military forces. Based on historical lessons in combating terrorism, the best strategy is efficient and sustainable and avoids overreacting, acting incompetently, or appearing to be either over reactive or incompetent. Counterinsurgency is neither efficient nor sustainable from a military, economic, or political perspective. It is a high risk strategy because it is a large, highly visible undertaking through which the United States may easily overreact, act incompetently, or be perceived as overreacting or being incompetent. Counterterrorism, support to insurgency, and antiterrorism are each both efficient and sustainable from a military and economic perspective. These three strategies each have inherent political concerns, hazards, or constraints. However it is considerably less likely that the United States will overreact, behave incompetently, or be perceived as overreacting or being incompetent through engaging in one or more of these three strategies than by engaging in counterinsurgency. Support to insurgencies is economically and militarily efficient and sustainable, but it carries substantial political risks. Thus, an overall strategy combining counterterrorism and antiterrorism is the best means of employing military forces to counter violent extremism.
Download or read book Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam written by John Nagl and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2002-10-30 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Armies are invariably accused of preparing to fight the last war. Nagl examines how armies learn during the course of conflicts for which they are initially unprepared in organization, training, and mindset. He compares the development of counterinsurgency doctrine and practice in the Malayan Emergency from 1948-1960 with that developed in the Vietnam Conflict from 1950-1975, through use of archival sources and interviews with participants in both conflicts. In examining these two events, he argues that organizational culture is the key variable in determining the success or failure of attempts to adapt to changing circumstances. Differences in organizational culture is the primary reason why the British Army learned to conduct counterinsurgency in Malaya while the American Army failed to learn in Vietnam. The American Army resisted any true attempt to learn how to fight an insurgency during the course of the Vietnam Conflict, preferring to treat the war as a conventional conflict in the tradition of the Korean War or World War II. The British Army, because of its traditional role as a colonial police force and the organizational characteristics that its history and the national culture created, was better able to quickly learn and apply the lessons of counterinsurgency during the course of the Malayan Emergency. This is the first study to apply organizational learning theory to cases in which armies were engaged in actual combat.
Download or read book Counterinsurgency written by Steven Metz and published by . This book was released on 1995-02-28 with total page 46 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Today, there is no pressing strategic rationale for U.S. engagement in counterinsurgency but history suggests that if the United States remains involved in the Global South, one may emerge. American counterinsurgency strategy has unfolded in a distinct pattern over the past 50 years. At times, policymakers saw a strategic rationale for engagement in counterinsurgency. When they did, the military and Department of Defense formed or reconstituted counterinsurgency doctrine, concepts, and organizations. When the strategic rationale faded, these capabilities atrophied. This pattern may be repeated in the future. During the last decade of the Cold War, the U.S. military developed an effective approach to insurgency and implemented it in El Salvador, but this focused on one particular type of insurgency: Maoist "people's war." The El Salvador model may not apply to post-Cold War forms of insurgency. Moreover, many of the basic assumptions of American counterinsurgency strategy appear obsolete. Trends such as ungovernability, the routinization of violence, and the mutation of insurgency change the costs/benefits calculus that undergirded Cold War-era strategy and doctrine. During the current period of remission in insurgency, the Army should use its intellectual resources to analyze ongoing mutations in insurgency and to open a debate on the nature of a cogent post Cold War counterinsurgency strategy. This strategy should expand its conceptual framework and stress three principles: selectivity, multilateralism, and concentration on secondary support functions including indirect or second-tier engagement. Such efforts will pave the way for the reconstitution of American counterinsurgency should it be required.
Download or read book Learning from Iraq written by Steven Metz and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 140 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While the involvement of the United States in counterinsurgency has a long history, it had faded in importance in the years following the end of the Cold War. When American forces first confronted it in Iraq, they were not fully prepared. Since then, the U.S. military and other government agencies have expended much effort to refine their counterinsurgency capabilities. But have they done enough?
Download or read book A History of Counterinsurgency written by Gregory Fremont-Barnes and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2015-05-05 with total page 821 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This two-volume history of counterinsurgency covers all the major and many of the lesser known examples of this widespread and enduring form of conflict, addressing the various measures employed in the attempt to overcome the insurgency and examining the individuals and organizations responsible for everything from counterterrorism to infrastructure building. How and when should counterinsurgency be pursued as insurgency is growing in frequency and, conversely, while conventional warfare continues to decline as a means by which political rivals seek to impose their will upon each other? What lessons from the past should today's policymakers, strategists, military leaders, and soldiers in the field keep in mind while facing off against 21st-century insurgents? This two-volume set offers a comprehensive history of modern counterinsurgency, covering the key examples of this widespread and enduring form of conflict. It identifies the political, military, social, and economic measures employed in attempting to overcome insurgency, examining the work of the individuals and organizations involved, demonstrating how success and failure dictated change from established policy, and carefully analyzing the results. Readers will gain valuable insight from the detailed assessments of the history of counterinsurgency that demonstrate which strategies have succeeded and which have failed—and why. After an introductory essay on the subject, each chapter provides historical background to the insurgency being addressed before focusing on the specific policies pursued and actions taken by the counterinsurgency force. Each section also provides an assessment of those operations, including in most cases an analysis of lessons learned and, where appropriate, their relevance to counterinsurgency operations today. The set's coverage spans modern counterinsurgencies from Europe to Asia to Africa since 1900 and includes the ongoing counterinsurgency operations in Afghanistan today. Its wide, international approach to the subject makes the set a prime resource for readers seeking specific information on a particular conflict or a better understanding of the general theories and practices of counterinsurgency.
Download or read book The Salvadoran Crucible written by Brian D'Haeseleer and published by University Press of Kansas. This book was released on 2017-12-15 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1979, with El Salvador growing ever more unstable and ripe for revolution, the United States undertook a counterinsurgency intervention that over the following decade would become Washington’s largest nation-building effort since Vietnam. In 2003, policymakers looked to this “successful” undertaking as a model for US intervention in Iraq. In fact, Brian D’Haeseleer argues in The Salvadoran Crucible, the US counterinsurgency in El Salvador produced no more than a stalemate, and in the process inflicted tremendous suffering on Salvadorans for a limited amount of foreign policy gains. D’Haeseleer’s book is a deeply informed, dispassionate account of how the Salvadoran venture took shape, what it actually accomplished, and what lessons it holds. A historical analysis of the origins of US counterinsurgency policy provides context for understanding how precedents informed US intervention in El Salvador. What follows is a detailed, in-depth view of how the counterinsurgency unfolded—the nature, logic, and effectiveness of the policies, initiatives, and operations promoted by American strategists. D’Haeseleer’s account disputes the “success” narrative by showing that El Salvador’s achievements, mainly the spread of democracy, occurred as a result not of the American intervention but of the insurgents’ war against the state. Most significantly, The Salvadoran Crucible contends that the reforms enacted during the war failed to address the underlying causes of the conflict, which today continue to reverberate in El Salvador. The book thus suggests a reassessment of the history of American counterinsurgency, and a course-correction for the future.
