Download or read book American Counterinsurgency Doctrine and El Salvador written by Benjamin C. Schwarz and published by . This book was released on 1991 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report assesses the political and social dimensions of American counterinsurgency policy in El Salvador. It attempts to explain why low-intensity-conflict doctrine has not produced the desired results and to reassess that doctrine's future utility. The author's appraisal of U.S. involvement in El Salvador leads him to conclude that there is a vast disparity between U.S. objectives and achievements there. For a decade, U.S. policy toward El Salvador tried to synthesize liberal and conservative aims: foster political, social, and economic reform, and provide security to a country whose freedom from communism the United States deemed essential. In attempting to reconcile these objectives, however, the United States pursued a policy that used means unsettling to itself, for ends humiliating to the Salvadorans, and at a cost disproportionate to any conventional conception of the national interest.
Download or read book Counterinsurgency Strategy and the Phoenix of American Capability written by Steven Metz and published by CreateSpace. This book was released on 2012-10-16 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Counterinsurgency is seemingly not of great concern to the U.S. Army today. This may represent a period of remission rather than the apparent abandonment of the mission. It is possible that the U.S. military may again become engaged in counterinsurgency support in the future. In this study, 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. 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 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.
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 The Salvadoran Crucible written by Brian D'Haeseleer and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 390 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Between 1979 and 1992 the United States engaged in its largest counterinsurgency (COIN) and nation-building exercise since the debacle in South Vietnam. For over twelve years, Washington attempted to establish a moderate government in El Salvador and defeat an insurgency by providing American military aid and training, holding elections, initiating development projects, and carrying out socioeconomic reforms. While the U.S. prevented its Salvadoran ally from economic and political collapse, Washington's efforts did not lead to the resolution of the conflict. Arguably, it prolonged the bloodshed and failed address the grievances that fueled the violence. The inability to address the latter continues to plague El Salvador more than two decades after the end of hostilities. Yet, American military strategists and writers hold up the U.S. effort in El Salvador as a successful application of counterinsurgency. Washington's undertaking in this country has also informed its more recent military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. Thus, a close examination of the U.S. intervention in El Salvador is required to assess the success narrative and whether it offers instructive lessons for future contingencies.
Download or read book State Terror and Popular Resistance in El Salvador written by Michael McClintock and published by . This book was released on 1985 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book A Strategic View of Insurgencies written by Max G. Manwaring and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on 1990 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Morass written by Richard Alan White and published by . This book was released on 1984 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this truly ambitious attempt at an integrated analysis of the Central American crisis as a whole, author White stresses the ideological motives and military doctrine behind and beneath the historical development of U.S. counter- insurgency doctrine and its current application in Central America. White emphasizes the centrality of both repression and reform to the doctrine--if reform alone could not defeat insurgents, then it became necessary to resort to repression. In the author's view, after the March 1980 assassination of Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero of San Salvador, the United States began to opt definitively for the use of repression. White criticizes the Reagan administration's Central American policy, but does not believe that things would have been better had Jimmy Carter remained in office. On the contrary, the crucial point is that both "liberals" and "conservatives" in the United States believed that the U.S. could and should intervene to block radical revolution in Central America. The essential debate between the two positions involved only the balance between reform and repression, a balance that had begun to shift toward the latter even before Reagan took office.
Download or read book El Salvador in the Eighties written by Mario Lungo and published by . This book was released on 1996 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Views Salvadoran insurgency of 1980s as 'negotiated revolution,' with adaptation and innovation more important than ideology to left's successes. Presents nuanced history of changes over time in positions of both FMLN and government-US bloc, especially ARENA, and two sides' eventual mutual approximation"--Handbook of Latin American Studies, v. 58.
Download or read book Learning from Conflict written by Richard D. Downie and published by Praeger. This book was released on 1998-06-18 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why have militaries so often failed to learn from conflict and war? Why, for example, despite years of unsuccessful counterinsurgency experiences in Vietnam and El Salvador and repeated recommendations from official Army studies, has the U.S. Army not changed its doctrine for counterinsurgency? Writing for scholars as well as military professionals and policymakers, Downie examines the sources of doctrinal change and innovation from a theoretical perspective and derives practical and relevant policy recommendations. Contrasting with other findings in this field, Downie provides case studies showing that neither external pressure on a military nor institutional recognition of the requirement for doctrinal change is sufficient to explain the process of doctrinal change. A military innovates when it learns, by proceeding through a learning cycle that includes achieving an organizational consensus that permits adoption of new approaches that respond to factors that make existing doctrine deficient. When that process is blocked, militaries are left with outmoded doctrinal approaches that constrain military performance and lead to defeat. This is an important study for military leaders, civilian policymakers, and scholars and researchers dealing with contemporary U.S. military issues.
Download or read book American Military Policy in Small Wars written by Andrew J. Bacevich and published by Potomac Books. This book was released on 1988 with total page 70 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bogen indeholder en kritisk gennemgang af USAs militære hjælp i 1981 til bekæmpelsen af oprøret i El Salvador og betingelserne for den.
Download or read book On Internal War written by William E. Odom and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 1992 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: William E. Odom combines expertise in political science and military affairs to challenge both conventional and unconventional wisdom about insurgencies and political development. The author concludes that in all three components of U.S. strategy for counterinsurgency--political, economic, and military--faulty notions of causation inform policy. U.S. advice to embattled governments fails to recognize the inherent clash of development goals; direct fiscal aid hurts more often than it helps recipient governments; and the focus of U.S. military assistance on fighting insurgents plays to their strengths and fails to exploit their weaknesses. On Internal War reviews the contrasting theory and practice in Soviet and American approaches to their competition in the Third World and relates them to indigenous causes of internal wars. Odom also integrates the military dimensions of insurgencies with external influences and internal politics. Drawing on political development theory, he underscores the sources of instability in Third World states that make insurgencies more likely and offers ways to assess the prospects for democracy in specific cases. The centerpiece of the study is a practical application of the author's analysis to three case studies--El Salvador, Guatemala, and the Philippines--and a regional assessment of the Middle East. Odom provides no panaceas but suggests that more promising strategies can be devised.
Download or read book Vietnam and American Doctrine for Small Wars written by Wray R. Johnson and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Ethics and Counterrevolution written by Kermit D. Johnson and published by University Press of America. This book was released on 1997 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is an ethical critique of U.S. policy and involvement in counterrevolutionary war. It rejects the thesis that the end of the Cold War means the end of revolution, since revolution is grounded in root causes. The defining characteristics of revolutionary war are outlined based on thought ranging from Mao Tse-tung to modern counterinsurgency theorists to recent U.S. national security directives and military publications. Underlying doctrines for U.S. interventions are traced from the Monroe Doctrine and the Roosevelt Corollary to Kennedy's Counterinsurgency Doctrine and the Nixon Doctrine. From previous U.S. war-fighting experience and declaratory policy, an outline of national policy and strategy for counterinsurgency emerges. This policy has been a formula for winning wars, not revolutions. The book advocates the adoption of a modest political Hippocratic oath of 'Do no harm' and argues that civiliization, demilitarization, and the root causes for revolution are necessary for the building of true democracy.
Download or read book El Salvador written by U. S. Military and published by . This book was released on 2017-02-20 with total page 63 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The complexity of the current operational environment, coupled with the increasingly tightened US budget, creates undesirable tensions for the leaders of the United States and the free world. With one war in Afghanistan coming to a closure, instability in Iraq is re-emerging. Joining the enduring crisis in the Middle East and South-Central Asia, President Putin has made his way to the front of major news networks with his Russian world-view of Ukraine. The common theme among these events is that the United States sustains plenty of enemies across the globe, and the issue becomes how to deal with them. The likely answer, found among the policy makers and leaders on Capitol Hill, is to do more with less which reflects back to the early 1990s and the post-Gulf War. This monograph offers the perspective that attempting to do more with less does not work. The purpose of this monograph is to analyze the misconception that using minimal means will produce anything other than minimal results. Using the single case study of the American military intervention in El Salvador in the 1980s, this monograph points to the evidence collected that underscores the results of a policy employing minimal means. Faced with a growing uneasiness coming out of the Vietnam War, the American public simply could not tolerate another war. Under these constraints, President Reagan and the American leadership operating within the diplomatic and military administrations attempted to utilize as minimal an effort required to quell the violence in El Salvador and prevent the spread of Soviet Communism. This monograph analyzes the El Salvador crisis from beginning to end. The origins of the Salvadoran civil war help explain why a country as small and seemingly as insignificant as El Salvador actually mattered to the United States. The geographic location of El Salvador as well as the historical implications of the Monroe Doctrine and the Roosevelt Corollary dictate why the US cared. Additionally, the perceived threat of Communist expansion piqued the interest of American leadership and the global community. The United States felt that its hand was forced and responded with military and diplomatic measures due to the growing threat of an insurgent force funded by Soviet and Cuba Communist governments The concluding sections serve as a cautionary tale of using limited means to achieve big results. The US sought major changes within El Salvador, but simply did not allocate the resources necessary to achieve that desired state. American policy makers and military leaders attempted to reform a system through military force and money, and it did not work. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War is what truly ushered in a peace settlement in El Salvador, not the blood and treasure from the United States.
Download or read book A Strategic View of Insurgencies written by Max G. Manwaring and published by . This book was released on 1993 with total page 27 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Hearts and Minds written by Hannah Gurman and published by New Press, The. 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.
