The New Counter-insurgency Era in Critical Perspective

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xiii

   PDF

2. Introduction

   1. Introduction

      • Celeste Ward Gventer, David Martin Jones, M. L. R. Smith

      Pages 1-5

3. Counter-insurgency: History and Theory

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 7-7

      PDF

   2. Minting New COIN: Critiquing Counter-insurgency Theory

      • Celeste Ward Gventer, David Martin Jones, M. L. R. Smith

      Pages 9-31

   3. COIN and the Chameleon: The Category Errors of Trying to Divide the Indivisible

      • M. L. M. Smith

      Pages 32-57

   4. Our Own Worst Enemy: The Unspoken Paradox of Large-Scale Expeditionary COIN

      • Jeffrey Michaels

      Pages 58-81

   5. Government in a Box? Counter-insurgency, State Building, and the Technocratic Conceit

      • Colin Jackson

      Pages 82-110

   6. ‘Our Ghettos, Too, Need a Lansdale’: American Counter-insurgency Abroad and at Home in the Vietnam Era

      • William Rosenau

      Pages 111-126

   7. Bringing the Soil Back in: Control and Territoriality in Western and Non-Western COIN

      • James Worrall

      Pages 127-143

   8. Counter-insurgency and Violence Management

      • Paul Staniland

      Pages 144-155

   9. Mass, Methods, and Means: The Northern Ireland ‘Model’ of Counter-insurgency

      • John Bew

      Pages 156-172

   10. David Galula and the Revival of COIN in the US Military

       • Douglas Porch

       Pages 173-197

4. Counter-insurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan?

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 199-199

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   2. Testing the Surge: Why Did Violence Decline in Iraq in 2007?

      • Stephen Biddle, Jeffrey A. Friedman, Jacob N. Shapiro

      Pages 201-231

   3. After a Decade of Counter-insurgency, Eliminate Nation-Building from US Military Manuals

      • Bing West

      Pages 232-239

   4. The Conceit of American Counter-insurgency

      • Gian Gentile

      Pages 240-256

   5. ‘The Population Is the Enemy’: Control, Behaviour, and Counter-insurgency in Central Helmand Province, Afghanistan

      • Ryan Evans

      Pages 257-277

   6. The Reluctant Counter-insurgents: Britain’s Absent Surge in Southern Iraq

      • Huw Bennett

      Pages 278-296

5. Counter-insurgency and Future Warfare

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 297-297

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   2. Questions about COIN after Iraq and Afghanistan

      • Joshua Rovner

      Pages 299-318

The notion of counter-insurgency has become a dominant paradigm in American and British thinking about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This volume brings together international academics and practitioners to evaluate the broader theoretical and historical factors that underpin COIN, providing a critical reappraisal of counter-insurgency thinking.

• Counterinsurgency
• Iraq
• Afghanistan
• British and American security policy
• Counter-Insurgency
• government
• insurgency
• intervention
• military manual
• violence

"This comprehensive volume carefully considers counterinsurgency doctrine in action. It's overall conclusions point to the strategic futility of this tactical doctrine and its contribution to the failure of U.S. military power in Iraq and Afghanistan.' - Col (ret) Douglas Macgregor, USA, author of Warrior's Rage, Transformation under Fire and Breaking the Phalanx

"A timely and path-breaking series of analyses that show the shortcomings, but also the enduring features, of the counter-insurgency debate of recent years. A future research agenda is clearly cut out for us." - Isabelle Duyvesteyn, Utrecht University, The Netherlands

"This is a book that no one interested in the way COIN seduced policymakers can afford not to read - and read again. Each chapter casts new light on the theory and practice of counterinsurgency warfare from after World War II to Iraq and Afghanistan. All the authors demonstrate both special knowledge and general understanding of the issues. Explored in all its variations, the basic theme is the contradiction of an outside force promising to protect a population against its local enemies, and in the end creating a dependency." - Lloyd Gardner, Professor Emeritus, Rutgers University, USA and author of the forthcoming Killing Machine: the American Presidency in the Age of Drone Warfare

• Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law, University of Texas, USA

  Celeste Ward Gventer

• School of Political Science and International Studies, University of Queensland, Australia

  David Martin Jones

• Department of War Studies, Kings College, University of London, UK

  M. L. R. Smith

Huw Bennett, Aberystwyth University, UK John Bew, King's College London, UK Stephen Biddle, George Washington University, USA Ryan Evans, King's College London, UK Matthew Ford, University of Sussex, UK Jeffrey A. Friedman, Dartmouth College, USA Gian Gentile, United States Military Academy at West Point, USA Colin Jackson, U.S. Naval War College, USA Jeffrey Michaels, King's College London, UK Douglas Porch, Naval Postgraduate School, USA William Rosenau, Center for Strategic Studies, USA Joshua Rovner, US Naval War College, USA Paul Schulte, Kings College London, USA Jacob Shapiro, Princeton University, USA Paul Staniland, University of Chicago, USA Bing West, former Assistant Secretary of Defense and combat Marine James Worrall, University of Leeds, UK.

Policies and ethics