The American Way of War: Cultural Barriers to Successful Counterinsurgency - Jeffrey Record. Cato Institute policy analysis, September 2006.  The U.S. defeat in Vietnam, embarrassing setbacks in Lebanon and Somalia, and continuing political and military difficulties in Afghanistan and especially Iraq underscore the limits of America's hard-won conventional military supremacy. That supremacy has not delivered decisive success against nonstate enemies practicing protracted irregular warfare; on the contrary, America's conventional supremacy and approach to war—especially its paramount reliance on firepower and technology—are often counterproductive.  The problem is rooted in American political and military culture. Americans are frustrated with limited wars, particularly counterinsurgent wars, which are highly political in nature. And Americans are averse to risking American lives when vital national interests are not at stake. Expecting that America's conventional military superiority can deliver quick, cheap, and decisive success, Americans are surprised and politically demoralized when confronted by Vietnam- and Iraq-like quagmires.  The Pentagon's aversion (the Marine Corps excepted) to counterinsurgency is deeply rooted in the American way of warfare. Since the early 1940s, the Army has trained, equipped, and organized for large-scale conventional operations against like adversaries, and it has traditionally employed conventional military operations even against irregular enemies.  Barring profound change in America's political and military culture, the United States runs a significant risk of failure when it enters small wars of choice, and great power intervention in small wars is almost always a matter of choice. Most such wars, moreover, do not engage core U.S. security interests other than placing the limits of American military power on embarrassing display. Indeed, the very act of intervention in small wars risks gratuitous damage to America's military reputation.  The United States should abstain from intervention in such wars, except in those rare cases when military intervention is essential to protecting or advancing U.S. national security.

Anatomy of a Successful COIN Operation: OEF-P and the Indirect Approach - Colonel Gregory Wilson, U.S. Army.  Military Review article, November - December 2006.  The history of insurgent conflict during the Philippines Insurrection (1899-1902), Malayan Emergency (1948-1960), and Hukbalahap Rebellion (1946-1954) shows that successful COIN operations are protracted efforts that rely heavily on indigenous security forces.  Therefore, the U.S. WOT strategy should emphasize working indirectly “through, by, and with” indigenous forces and building their capacity to conduct effective operations against common enemies.

CORDS / Phoenix: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Vietnam for the Future - Mr. Dale Andrade and Lieutenant Colonel James Willbanks, US Army. Military Review article, March - April 2006. As the United States ends its third year of war in Iraq, the military continues to search for ways to deal with an insurgency that shows no sign of waning. the specter of Vietnam looms large, and the media has been filled with comparisons between the current situation and the “quagmire” of the Vietnam War. Differences between the two conflicts are legion, but observers can learn lessons from the Vietnam experience—if they are judicious in their search. For better or worse, Vietnam is the most prominent historical example of American counterinsurgency (COIN) - and the longest - so it would be a mistake to reject it because of its admittedly complex and controversial nature. An examination of the paci­fication effort in Vietnam and the evolution of the Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS) program provides useful insights into the imperatives of a viable COIN program.

The Long Small War: Indigenous Forces for Counterinsurgency - Lieutenant Colonel Robert Cassidy, US Army. Parameters article, Summer 2006. The United States and its partners are prosecuting a protracted war against insurgents and terrorists who are animated by an ideology stemming from a radical fundamentalist interpretation of Islam. As of early 2006, the American national security bureaucracy began to use the appellation the “long war” in place of the Global War on Terrorism. At least one document describes this long war as the defining struggle of our generation, one that shifts emphasis from large-scale conventional military operations to small-scale counterinsurgency operations. The long war may last for decades.  In distilled form, the corpus of current national strategic and military documents calls for American forces to leverage allies to help defeat insurgent and terrorist enemies in this perennial effort. For instance, the National Security Council’s November 2005 National Strategy for Victory in Iraq calls for the development of Iraqi security forces while simultaneously carrying out a counterinsurgency campaign to defeat insurgents in Iraq. It identifies Iraq as a principal arena in the war against terror, stating that success there is an essential element in the long war. As another example, the February 2006 National Military Strategic Plan for the War on Terrorism, the American military-strategic framework for prosecuting the long war, tasks the American military both to enable partner nations to counter terrorism and to help counter international ideological support for terrorism. Most recently, the March 2006 National Security Strategy of the United States of America states that the United States must “strengthen alliances to defeat global terrorism” and stresses the need to work with allies and to build indigenous security forces to defeat terrorists and insurgents in Iraq and elsewhere.

Revisiting CORDS: The Need for Unity of Effort to Secure Victory - Major Ross Coffey, US Army. Military Review article, March - April 2006. According to the National Strategy, weekly strategy sessions at the highest levels of the U.S. Government ensure that Iraq remains a top priority. At the operational level, the “team in Baghdad—led by Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and General George Casey—works to implement policy on the ground and lay the foundation for long-term success.” Each of the eight pillars have corresponding interagency working groups to coordinate policy, review and assess progress, develop new proposals, and oversee the implementation of existing policies. The multitracked approach (political, security, and economic) to counterinsurgency in Iraq has historical parallels with the Civil operations and Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS) program of the Vietnam War era. established in 1967, CORDS partnered civilian and military entities engaged in pacification of Vietnamese rural areas. The program enhanced rural security and local political and economic development and helped defeat the Viet Cong (VC) insurgency. Significantly, CORDS unified the efforts of the pacification enti­ties by establishing unity of command throughout the combined civil-military organization. Lack of unity of effort is perhaps the most significant impediment to operational-level interagency action today. The victorious conditions the National Strategy describes might be unachievable if the interagency entities present in Iraq do not achieve unity of effort. To help achieve unity of effort, Multi-Force–Iraq (MNF-I) and the nation should consider adopting a CORDS-like approach to ensure integrated action and victory.

Draining the Swamp: The British Strategy of Population Control - Lieutenant Colonel Wade Merkel, US Army. Parameters article, Spring 2006.  Thirty years after the end of the Vietnam War, the United States and its Army again find themselves confronted with a tenacious insurgency, this time in Iraq. Given our decidedly mixed record in counterinsurgency operations, we tend to look elsewhere for successful models. Many look to the British, especially their exemplary and thorough victory in Malaya, to provide such a model.¹ Commentators cite the British Army’s superior organizational adaptability and flexibility, strategic patience, their predilection for using the minimum force necessary, the relative ease with which they integrated civil and military aspects of national power, and the apparent facility with which they adapted their strategies to local circumstances of geography and culture.  We would indeed do well to emulate the aforementioned characteristics of British counterinsurgency practice, but there was more to British success in Malaya than a good attitude. The key element of their success was the effective internment of the Chinese “squatter” population, the segment of Malayan society from which the insurgents almost entirely drew their strength.² By interning the “squatters” in fortified “New Villages,” the British and their Malayan allies were able to deny the communist insurgents access to recruits, food, and military supplies. It also allowed them to narrow the scope of their intelligence efforts, as the insurgents had to maintain contact with their base under the very noses of the Anglo-Malayan government.

Managing Counterinsurgency: Lessons from Malaya - Walter C. Ladwig III. Military Review article, March - April 2006. May-June 2007.  What are the mechanisms by which interagency and inter-governmental integration can be achieved? FM3-24 highlights the unity of effort achieved in Vietnam through the Civil Operations and Rural Development Support organization. Yet this is only one method of integrating civil and military efforts in counterinsurgency. The British achieved effective integration in a host of successful counterinsurgency campaigns through the employment of an executive-committee system. Among these campaigns was the Malayan Emergency, a British-led campaign against Communist guerrillas that lasted from 1948 to 1960. The Malayan Emergency is an example of successful coordination between the civil and military elements of government as well as between multiple nations. Making war by committee is not usually the best approach to military operations, but the British experience in Malaya is a case of a successful counterinsurgency effort conducted against the backdrop of a complex political arrange­ment. It demonstrates one method of achieving close coordination and effective management of civil and military resources.

Strategic Challenges for Counterinsurgency and the Global War on Terrorism - Dr. Williamson Murray. US Army Strategic Studies Institute study, September 2006.  In March 2006, President George W. Bush signed a new National Security Strategy that he refers to as a “wartime national security strategy” and states that to follow the path the United States has chosen, we must “maintain and expand our national strength.” One way to do this is to study and propose solutions to the complex challenges the United States faces in the 21st century. At the U.S. Army War College, the students have embraced this challenge and spend a year developing their intellectual strength in areas that extend well beyond the familiar operational and tactical realm to which they are accustomed. This collection of essays written by students enrolled in the U.S. Army War College Advanced Strategic Art Program (ASAP) reflects the development of their strategic thought applied to a wide range of contemporary issues based in theory, doctrine, strategy and history.

Counterinsurgency: A Symposium, April 16-20, 1962 - Rand. This report is based on the Symposium on Counterinsurgency held at Rand’s Washington Office during the week of 16 April 1962. The purpose of the symposium was to bring together those with first-hand experience of guerrilla and counterguerrilla warfare for informal exchanges of information that might lead to fresh insights and a detailed body of expert knowledge. The subjects discussed include patterns and techniques of counterinsurgency, effective organizational and operational approaches, political action, psychological warfare, intelligence and counterintelligence, and requirements for victory. This new release of the report includes a new foreword by Stephen T. Hosmer that elucidates the relevance of this symposium to contemporary guerrilla and counterguerrilla operations.

Irregular Warfare: Counterinsurgency Challenges & Perspectives - Briefing slides from the 10 October 2006 Dwight D. Eisenhower National Security Series panel.  Includes the presentations of the four panelists:

• Counterinsurgency Best Practices - Dr. Kevel Sepp

• The Evolution of American Counterinsurgency Doctrine - Dr. Conrad Crane

• International Perspectives on Counterinsurgency - MG Jonathon Riley

• The Lessons of Tal Afar - LTC Chris Hickey

Small Wars Project: Disarming the Local Population - Arthur Lewis Speyer III. US Marine Corps Command and Staff College thesis, May 2006. Disarmament operations are a critical component of security and stability operations (SASO).  Despite the frequency and importance of disarmament missions to SASO, limited current guidance exists to aid commanders.  Disarmament operations do not lend themselves to simple checklists for success.  The single, most significant factor in predicting a successful disarmament operation is the psychological aspects or perception of security by the local population.  In addition, disarmament operations require the careful balance of incentives and punishments through voluntary and coercive methods. Disarmament operations do not take place in a neutral environment, but inside a complex cultural, religious, historical context.  To successfully conduct a disarmament operation, one must understand the role weapons play within the targeted culture. By working within local cultural hierarchies and understanding the cultural terrain, tact and diplomacy are powerful toolsets.  As Marines continue to conduct disarmament missions worldwide, more detailed guidance is needed so Marines do not have to re-learn the same lessons from conflict to conflict.  Disarmament operations will be a central focus of future battlefields.  The lessons learned go well beyond Iraq and Afghanistan.  The millions of unaccounted small arms will be a permanent feature on all future threat environments.  The proper neutralizations of these weapons is a core tenet of SASO missions and critical to force protection.  The absorption of these issues into training and doctrine is essential for Marines to succeed in the wars of the future.

External Assistance: Enabler of Insurgent Success - Jeffrey Record. Parameters article, Autumn 2006. Much of the key theoretical literature on the phenomenon of weak victories over the strong discounts or altogether ignores the importance of external assistance. Andrew Mack argues that the best explanation of insurgent success is possession of superior political will and therefore greater readiness to sacrifice; the insurgents win because they wage a total war against an enemy that fights but a limited war. Ivan Arreguin-Toft contends that superior strategy—e.g., protracted irregular warfare against a conventional foe—best explains insurgent victories.  Gil Merom believes that chances of insurgent success hinge greatly on government regime type; insurgencies fare much better against democracies than against dictatorships because the former lack the stomach for brutal repression.  These explanations share a common assumption: the key to offsetting the stronger side’s material superiority lies in the weaker side’s possession of superiority in such intangibles as political will and strategy. The United States was defeated in Indochina because the Vietnamese Communists displayed a far greater willingness to fight and die⁵ and pursued a strategy that simultaneously limited their exposure to US military strengths (firepower, air mobility) and exploited American political vulnerabilities (the electorate’s aversion to indecisive, protracted wars for limited objectives).  However, even the most committed and cunning insurgency cannot hope to win without material resources. A rebellion must have arms. The Vietnamese Communists, among the most tenacious and skilled enemies the United States has ever fought, could hardly have prevailed unarmed, which is how they would have had to fight absent the massive Soviet and Chinese assistance they in fact received. North Vietnam, the political and military engine of the Communist war in Indochina, had no arms industry; it had to import even small arms and small-arms ammunition from the Soviet Union, China, and other Communist Bloc countries. The Soviets and the Chinese also supplied trucks, radios, medicines, medical equipment, artillery, tanks, fighter aircraft, naval vessels, an integrated state-of-the-art national air defense system, thousands of technical advisors, and over 300,000 (Chinese) logistics troops who manned and maintained North Vietnam’s railroad system against US air assault.⁶ Had the Vietnamese Communists been isolated from external assistance, as were their fellow Communist insurgents in Malaya and the Philippines in the latter 1940s and early 1950s, they almost certainly would have suffered the same fate: defeat. But the United States was never in a position to seal off North Vietnam from the Communist Bloc, much less South Vietnam from North Vietnam. It was the combination of stronger political will, superior strategy, and foreign help that decided the Vietnam War.

Challenges in Fighting a Global Insurgency - Lieutenant General David Barno, US Army (Ret.). Parameters article, Summer 2006.  The strategic nature of war has changed, and our military and government are striving to adapt to fight and win in this new environment. Today we are engaged in a global counterinsurgency, an unprecedented challenge which requires a level of original strategic thought and depth of understanding perhaps comparable only to that of the Cold War. Our ongoing political-military actions to achieve success in Iraq and Afghanistan are simply subordinate efforts of this larger, complex world war. Our enemies today clearly understand the value of asymmetrical approaches when dealing with the overwhelming conventional combat power of the United States military. Unfortunately, our unmatched conventional capability has slowed the US response to the changing, asymmetrical nature of modern war. We as a military are at risk of failing to understand the nature of the war we are fighting—a war which has been characterized as “a war of intelligence and a war of perceptions.” We must confront this dilemma and take our thinking to a new strategic level in this era to understand the tools and strategic approaches required to create victory in this very different 21st-century environment.

The “Problems of Mobilization” and the Analysis of Armed Groups - Dr. Anthony Vinci.  Parameters article, Spring 2006.  The first step in knowing your enemy is deciding what to call him. When dealing with non-state, armed groups, there is a set list of categories which are used for classification. These categories include insurgent, guerilla, warlord, terrorist, and militia. From this initial classification we tend to apply a set of assumptions about the groups for our analysis and response. For instance, if we believe we are fighting a guerilla insurgency, we ask where the popular support is coming from; or if it is a terrorist group, we apply counter-terror tactics.  The danger in this approach is that poor classification and analysis may lead to an improper response. At best, this may be ineffective; at worst, it can be catastrophic. For instance, the Ugandan government began by treating the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) as a guerilla insurgency, and this led to standard strategies such as creating protected hamlets in order to distance the group from local support. However, the LRA had never had much local support, nor did it really need it. Thus, the protected hamlet strategy has not reduced the LRA’s ability to continue the conflict and has served only to further alienate the affected population from the Ugandan government. If the LRA was better classified and analyzed, the Ugandan army’s response might have been more effective.

Training Indigenous Forces in Counterinsurgency: A Tale of Two Insurgencies - Lieutenant Colonel James Corum. US Army. US Army Strategic Studies Institute monograph, March 2006. The author examines the British experience in building and training indigenous police and military forces during the Malaya and Cyprus insurgencies. These two insurgencies provide a dramatic contrast to the issue of training local security forces. In Malaya, the British developed a very successful strategy for training the Malayan Police and army. In Cyprus, the British strategy for building and training local security forces generally was ineffective. The author argues that some important lessons can be drawn from these case studies that are directly applicable to current U.S. counterinsurgency doctrine.

How to Win in Iraq - Andrew F. Krepinevich Jr. Foreign Affairs article, September / October 2005. Because they lack a coherent strategy, U.S. forces in Iraq have failed to defeat the insurgency or improve security. Winning will require a new approach to counterinsurgency, one that focuses on providing security to Iraqis rather than hunting down insurgents. And it will take at least a decade.

The Importance of Building Local Capabilities: Lessons from the Counterinsurgency in Iraq - Anthony Cordesman. Center for Strategic and International Studies report, July 2006.  This report argues for fundamental changes in the way the US plans to fight counterinsurgency and counterterrorism campaigns. It argues that the US must place far higher reliance on local allies in both counterinsurgency and counterterrorism campaigns. It also argues that the US must work with existing allied governments and seek reform and transformation at the far slower pace that Middle Eastern and other nations and societies in the developing world can accept.

Iraqi Insurgency - Talk of the Nation National Public Radio audio roundtable, June 2005. Guests are David Greene (NPR correspondent),  Christopher Gelpi (associate professor of Political Science at Duke University), Colonel Thomas X. Hammes (U.S. Marine Corps, author of The Sling and the Stone: On War in the 21st Century), Shawn Woodward (military historian at the Dupuy Institute) and Stanley Karnow (Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, author of In Our Image: America's Empire in the Philippines and Vietnam: A History).

Iraqi Insurgent Media: The War Of Images And Ideas - Daniel Kimmage and Kathleen Ridolfo.  Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty report, June 2007.  The book-length report, "Iraqi Insurgent Media: The War Of Images And Ideas" by RFE/RL regional analysts Daniel Kimmage and Kathleen Ridolfo, provides an in-depth analysis of the media efforts of Sunni insurgents, who are responsible for the majority of U.S. combat deaths in Iraq. Kimmage and Ridolfo argue that the loss of coordination and message control that results from decentralization has revealed fundamental disagreements about Iraq's present and future between nationalist and global jihadist groups in Iraq and that these disagreements are ripe for exploitation by those interested in a liberal and democratic Iraq.

Counterinsurgency: Relearning How to Think - Lieutenant Colonel Gerald Galloway, US Army.  US Army War College Strategy Research Project, 2005.  The U.S. military's experience with insurgencies spans its history from the American Revolution to its recent experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan. The current geostrategic environment is fertile for global insurgency, primarily the threat of radical Islamic extremists who have learned to leverage 21st century technologies to enhance their strategic power projection capability. This paper will examine the adequacy of current U.S. counterinsurgency strategic policy, operational concepts and doctrine. Through the review of two case studies, the British Army in Malaya 1948-1960 and the United States Army in the Philippines 1898-1902, insights for strategic leaders and planners will be gleaned and proposed for inclusion in future doctrinal updates.

Rethinking the Challenge of Counterinsurgency Warfare: Working Notes - Anthony Cordesman. Center for Strategic and International Studies paper, November 2005. Much of the analysis of counterinsurgency is similar to the parable of the blind men and the elephant, except the men are not totally blind and the elephant keeps changing its shape and behavior:

• We see the portion of the problem with we fight or work with directly, or where we focus our research.
• We read the same old histories and case studies – forgetting all have failed before.
• We reinvent the same technical solutions in new forms.
• We find the answer that suits the facts, as we know them.

Reinventing the Counterinsurgency Wheel - Major Adam Strickland, USMCR. Small Wars Journal article, July 2005. Just as early philosophers sought answers to questions concerning the essence of life, for over two thousand years military strategists and theorists have sought answers to the most basic questions on warfare. To this end, men such as Sun Tzu in the 4^th Century B.C.E. with The Art of War, and General Carl Von Clausewitz in the 19^th Century A.C.E. with On War completed works that remain the standards by which all military thought emanates and is compared, and from which nearly every soldier, sailor, airman, and Marine are taught. Similarly, men such as General Sir Frank Kitson, Sir Robert Thompson, Ernesto Guevara, and Chairman Mao Zedong each completed seminal works on insurgency and counterinsurgency in the 1930s, 60s and 70s that should be utilized in the same manner and with the same respect as Clausewitz; however, receive little attention from military theorists and concept writers today. As the military struggles with the application of limited resources against a seemingly endless demand for troops and leaders prepared for the rigors of counterinsurgency operations, countless persons have been tasked to investigate the fundamentals of insurgency and counterinsurgency (COIN) as the military services struggle to produce new COIN doctrine for our troops engaged in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Just as no one would dare assert that they could articulate conventional military theory better than Sun Tzu or Clausewitz, no one should assume that any document produced will be more helpful or well-articulated than those already available by Thompson, Kitson, etc. on insurgency and counterinsurgency, and thus cease all efforts to reinvent the wheel and needlessly expend limited resources.

Small Wars and Counter-Insurgency Warfare: Lessons from Iraq - Major M. W. Shervington, British Army. Cranfield University thesis, July 2005. On 1 May 2003, President George W. Bush stood aboard USS Abraham Lincoln, in front of a banner stating ‘Mission Accomplished’, and declared that ‘major combat operations have ended. In the battle for Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed.’ The President’s declaration has proved to be a false dawn. Despite a breathtaking conventional military campaign that removed Saddam Hussein’s regime in 43 days, the US-led Coalition has since been embroiled in countering an increasingly violent, diverse and unpredictable insurgency. This dissertation provides some historical perspective to the development of insurgency and counter-insurgency. It traces the background to the creation of the modern state of Iraq. It examines the post-conflict insurgency in Iraq. It considers those decisions made by the Coalition that most contributed to its emergence and growth. It analyses those lessons that should contribute to future British counterinsurgency (COIN) doctrine. The paper addresses four themes. First, the US military alone in Iraq is conducting a COIN campaign against an insurgency that is unprecedented in history. Secondly, key lessons for British COIN doctrine must be learnt from the American politico-military experience; the British Army must therefore be receptive and open-minded. Thirdly, Iraq has witnessed a continued failure by American and British policy-makers to learn the lessons from history. Lastly, COIN operations in Iraq have to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people as they have to do with the perceptions of the wider Muslim world and the American and British electorates. It is a battle of perceptions in a war over ideas.

Strategic Aspects of Counterinsurgency - Colonel Joseph Celeski (USA Ret.). Military Review article, march - April 2006. After the fall of the Berlin Wall and end of the Cold War, new debates began at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, about the changing nature of the threat environment. What would the 1990s bring in the form of strategic threats to America? The War on Drugs? Transnational crime? Asym­metric warfare and fights in the urban environment? Next “big one?” Not much debate occurred on irregular warfare, however, because the military still existed in a bubble of denial about its Vietnam War experience. Those who sought to learn about theoretical warfare areas other than Clausewitzian trinitarian warfare found but one elective on the subject of irregular warfare and could only learn about indirect war by reading Sun Tzu. Conventional military strategists did not hold counterinsurgency (COIN) and irregular warfare acolytes in high esteem. In fact, strategists marginal­ized COIN and irregular warfare, never regarding irregular warfare as worthy of strategic-level discus­sions. This attitude hindered the formulation of an unconventional warfare (UW) theory and kept irreg­ular warfare out of strategic wargaming scenarios. In fact, strategists viewed counterinsurgency as a discipline with tactical and operational components that did not lend themselves to strategic consider­ation. Ironically, strategists continued to believe this even as all of the ingredients for a national security debate and the elevation of this form of war to a strategic art were forming around them. True strategic thinking on the subject of COIN and irregular warfare should consider time and space and the long strategic view. What will the critical areas for the global war on terrorism (GWOt) be in the near future? One day we will find ourselves out of Iraq and Afghanistan with our force postured for the next crisis. What strate­gic direction will we take, and what should we be prepared to accomplish?

Principles, Imperatives, and Paradoxes of Counterinsurgency - Eliot Cohen, Lieutenant Colonel Conrad Crane (USA Ret.), Lieutenant Colonel John Horvath (USA), and Lieutenant Colonel John Nagl (USA).  Military Review article, March - April 2006. America began the 20th century with military forces engaged in counterinsurgency (COIN) operations in the Philippines. Today, it is conducting similar operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, and a number of other countries around the globe. During the past century, Soldiers and marines gained considerable experience fighting insurgents in Southeast Asia, Latin America, Africa, and now in Southwest Asia and the Middle East. Conducting a successful counterinsurgency requires an adaptive force led by agile leaders. While every insurgency is different because of distinct environments, root causes, and cultures, all successful COIN campaigns are based on common principles. All insurgencies use variations of standard frameworks and doctrine and generally adhere to elements of a definable revolutionary campaign plan. In the information age, insurgencies have become especially dynamic. Their leaders study and learn, exchange information, employ seemingly leaderless networks, and establish relationships of convenience with criminal gangs. Insurgencies present a more complex problem than conventional operations, and the new variants have a velocity that previous historical insurgencies never possessed.

A Hundred Osamas: Islamist Threats and the Future of Counterinsurgency - Dr. Sherifa Zuhur. US Army Strategic Studies Institute monograph, January 2006. This monograph takes its title from President Hosni Mubarak’s prediction that American involvement in Iraq would give rise to a “hundred Osamas.” The author explores “the new jihad” and the regeneration of Islamist insurgencies and extremist movements in the context of religious and political movements throughout the Muslim world. It describes the contributions of various Islamist leaders to this discourse of extremism and how their strategies of recruitment, retention and engagement function. In contrast, various U.S. responses to extremists are critiqued, and new elements of a counterstrategy are proposed.

What Lies Beneath: Saddam's Legacy and the Roots of Resistance in Iraq - Captain Peter Munson, USMC. US Navy Naval Postgraduate School thesis, December 2005.  Saddam Hussein’s patrimonial coercive rule reshaped major aspects of the Iraqi state and society, providing structures and motivations that have fueled resistance in the wake of regime change. By linking literature describing the effects of Ba’ath rule on the Iraqi state, society, and individual to the characteristics and motivations of the resistance, a more nuanced understanding of the complex landscape of Iraqi transition is possible. Repressive regimes produce a lasting and complex legacy in the structures of state and society that they leave behind. This legacy is often contentious and unpredictable, complicating efforts toward a democratic transition. This thesis concludes that, in the case of Iraq, patrimonial coercive rule produced a set of Sunni sub-state power structures that coveted the state and personal powers enjoyed under the old system. This sub-state landscape has proven to be difficult terrain for a successful transition, producing a network of actors that resist for varied motives. Exploration of the case of Iraqi transition reveals a demand for balanced political and military policies that address the sociopolitical roots of the resistance as well as the violent symptoms. Military initiatives alone cannot produce a solution to the problems in Iraq.

Maginot Line or Fort Apache? Using Forts to Shape the Counterinsurgency Battlefield - Lieutenant Colonel Geoffrey B. Demarest, U.S. Army, Retired, Ph.D., J.D., and Lieutenant Colonel Lester W. Grau, U.S. Army, Retired. Military Review article, November - December 2005. As the 19th Century waned and the 20th century dawned, T. Miller-Maguire, a noted, prolific military writer, disparaged the fortification mentality of the French, citing the futility of their northern fortifications during the 1800s. In 1899, he scorned French efforts in the Ardennes well before the failures of those fortifications during World Wars I and II. Maguire was not alone. Fortifications and forti­fied field works have a bad reputation among ca­sual military historians and experienced generals. The generations after Maguire saw the Maginot Line bypassed and the vaunted Eban Emael taken easily by German paratroops and concluded fortifi­cations are expensive, become obsolete rapidly, and are bypassed easily if not taken. Moreover, troops garrisoning fortifications are prone to defensive-mindedness and timidity. Offensive-mindedness and maneuver are preferred to indecisive, pro­tracted fortification warfare. Even so, fortifications have served well in certain strategic contexts and should not be discarded as a contributing element in strategic military planning.

Operation Knockout: COIN in Iraq. Colonel James K. Greer, U.S. Army. Military Review article, November - December 2005. On 12 December 2005, Coalition and Iraqi forces demonstrated again the flexibility and agility so necessary for counterinsurgency (COIN) operations against a smart, adaptive foe. After concentrating large-scale operations for months in Ninewah and Al Anbar Provinces northwest and west of Baghdad, Coalition forces conducted a new, no-notice operation in Diyala Province, northeast of Baghdad. Named Operation Knockout, this successful action reinforced the tactics, techniques, and procedures needed to defeat the insurgents and terrorists in Iraq. The bread-and-butter offensive COIN operation in Iraq is the battalion and smaller unit cordon and search. From 2003 to 2004, Coalition forces conducted literally dozens of these operations daily. In 2005, however, Iraqi Security Forces independently planned, prepared for, and conducted most cordon and search operations. Confronted constantly by these operations, some insurgent and terrorist cells adapted to survive; others did not, and Coalition and Iraqi forces disrupted their operations or destroyed them. Coalition and Iraqi forces have also been successful in large-scale, deliberate offensive operations such as in Fallujah in November 2004 and in Tal Afar in September 2005. Publicized ahead of time and with deliberate force buildups accompanied by provincial, tribal, and sectarian diplomacy, these large-scale operations resulted in significant gains in two major insurgent strongholds—gains that were reinforced with economic, social, and civil efforts. As with cordon and search operations, large-scale offensive operations are increasingly Iraqi-led. For example, in 2004 nine Coalition battalions led five Iraqi Army battalions in the attack on Fallujah. By contrast, in the successful 2005 attack on Tal Afar, 11 Iraqi Army battalions led 5 Coalition battalions. Coalition forces killed or captured insurgents who did not flee Tal-Afar, disrupted their cells, and restored law and order to the towns and surrounding areas.

Déjà Vu All Over Again? - Lieutenant Colonel Charles Armstrong, USMC (Ret). Marine Corps Gazette article, October 2004. On 16 July 2003, Central Command’s new leader, GEN John Abizaid, told the press, “Saddam Hussein loyalists . . . are conducting what I would describe as a classical, guerrilla-type campaign against us.” A few days later a news report from Afghanistan referred to a battle between U.S. troops and Taliban insurgents. A month later U.S. Marines landed in Liberia to start a peacekeeping mission of undetermined length. Is this déjà vu, or are things really different this time? I predict counterinsurgency experts are about to be in greater demand.

Can the “War on Terror” Be Won? - Anthony Cormack. Small Wars Journal article, July 2005. The ‘War on Terror’ can and must be won. However, in order to do so the West – and, as keystone to the West’s defences, the United States most of all – must undertake a fundamental and wide ranging re-assessment of the conflict in light of Clausewitz’s timeless advice. Once the nature of the conflict is discerned, the means and ways to achieve victory will become more readily grasped. When seen in this light, it becomes self-evident that the ‘war on terror’ is not a war on terror – there can be no such thing - but a war against a distinct terrorist group, al Qaeda, and its affiliates, which is conducting a global insurgency campaign against the West. Although this Global Salafist Insurgency exhibits various distinctive characteristics, time-tested principles of counterinsurgency will provide the bedrock upon which a successful campaign can be formulated.

Is There a Deep Fight in a Counterinsurgency? - Major Lee Grubbs (USA) and Major Michael Forsyth (USA). Military Review article, July-August 2005. Is there a deep fight in counterinsurgency operations? Based on our experience as planners in Combined Joint Task Force 180 during Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) IV in Afghanistan, we say, “Yes.” Our previous military education and training taught us that depth on the battlefield was physical in nature. Field Manual 3-0, Operations, states that “depth is the extension of operations in time, space, and resources.”1 This is a decidedly linear construction of the battlefield based on industrialized warfare between conventional enemies. Because little has been written about the deep battle in an insurgency environment, this article examines depth in the nonlinear battlefield and how planners might develop operational effects to defeat insurgencies.

Going to War With the Allies You Have: Allies, Counterinsurgency, and the War on Terrorism - Dr Daniel Byman. US Army Strategic Studies Institute monograph, November 2005. Potential U.S. allies in counterinsurgencies linked to al-Qa’ida frequently suffer from four categories of structural problems: illegitimate (and often repressive) regimes; civil-military tension manifested by fears of a coup; economic backwardness; and discriminatory societies. Because of these problems, allies often stray far from the counterinsurgency (COIN) ideal, both militarily and politically. Their security service culture often is characterized by poor intelligence; a lack of initiative; little integration of forces across units; soldiers who do not want to fight; bad leadership; and problems with training, learning, and creativity. In addition, the structural weaknesses have a direct political effect that can aid an insurgency by hindering the development and implementation of a national strategy, fostering poor relations with outside powers that might otherwise assist the COIN effort (such as the United States), encouraging widespread corruption, alienating the security forces from the overall population, and offering the insurgents opportunities to penetrate the security forces. Washington must recognize that its allies, including those in the security forces, are often the source of counterinsurgency problems as well as the heart of any solution. The author argues that the ally’s structural problems and distinct interests have daunting implications for successful U.S. counterinsurgency efforts. The nature of regimes and of societies feeds an insurgency, but the United States is often hostage to its narrow goals with regard to counterinsurgency and thus becomes complicit in the host-nation’s self-defeating behavior. Unfortunately, U.S. influence often is limited as the allies recognize that America’s vital interests with regard to fighting al-Qa’ida-linked groups are likely to outweigh any temporary disgust or anger at an ally’s brutality or failure to institute reforms. Training, military-to-military contacts, education programs, and other efforts to shape their COIN capabilities are beneficial, but the effects are likely to be limited at best.

Speak No Evil: Targeting a Population’s Neutrality to Defeat an Insurgency - Captain Christopher Ford, US Army. Parameters article, Summer 2005. Operation Iraqi Freedom was predicated partially on a presumption of widespread popular support among the Iraqi people for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. The theory held that a relatively small military force could topple the Ba’athist regime with swift attacks aimed at key targets. Then, using momentum secured by liberating an oppressed people, a temporary government comprised of expatriate technocrats could step in to rule the country until a government could be elected. Shortly thereafter, the reasoning held, the country would achieve stability and the United States could dramatically reduce troop levels. This vision was largely deflated shortly after coalition troops dashed north, securing vast swaths of Iraq and quickly destroying remnant military forces. Despite stunning military success, the victory failed to simultaneously produce the anticipated wellspring of support. Within three months of the fall of Baghdad, this notion was completely discredited as Iraq found itself in the grip of a nationwide wave of violence. The violence has continued, remaining remarkably consistent despite periodic surges and depressions of attacks. During this time, the coalition flooded the country with hundreds of thousands of troops and billions of dollars in reconstruction aid.3 Despite significant troop numbers, large sums of money, and a great deal of personal commitment by all forces over the past two years, one thing has remained predictably constant: the population’s neutrality. The recent national elections in January present the most marked aberration from the population’s general ambivalence; yet it remains to be seen whether this represents the genesis of a paradigm shift.

The Evolution of a Revolt - T. E. Lawrence. Army Quarterly and Defence Journal, 1920. In the emergency it occurred to me that perhaps the virtue of irregulars lay in depth, not in face, and that it had been the threat of attack by them upon the Turkish northern flank which had made the enemy hesitate for so long. The actual Turkish flank ran from their front line to Medina, a distance of some fifty miles: but, if we moved towards the Hejaz railway behind Medina, we might stretch our threat (and, accordingly, their flank) as far, potentially, as Damascus, eight hundred miles away to the north. Such a move would force the Turks to the defensive, and we might regain the initiative. Anyhow, it seemed our only chance, and so, in January, 1917, we took all Feisal's tribesmen, turned our backs on Mecca, Rabegh and the Turks, and marched away north two hundred miles to Wejh, thanks to the help of the British Red Sea Fleet, which fed and watered us along the coast, and gave us gun-power and a landing party at our objective. This eccentric movement acted like a charm. Clausewitz had said that rearguards modulate the enemy's action like a pendulum, not by what they do, but tby their mere existence. We did nothing concrete, but our march recalled the Turks (who were almost into Rabegh) all the way back to Medina, and there they halved their force. One half took up the entrenched position about the city, which they held until after the Armistice. The other half was distributed along the railway to defend it against our threat. For the rest of the war the Turks stood on the defensive against us, and we won advantage over advantage till, when peace came, we had taken thirty-five thousand prisoners, killed and wounded and worn out about as many, and occupied a hundred thousand square miles of the enemy's territory, at little loss to ourselves.

T. E. Lawrence and the Mind of an Insurgent - James Schneider. Army magazine article, July 2005. In 1946 French Gen. Raoul Salan conducted several interviews with Vo Nguyen Giap, the Vietnamese general who planned and directed the military operations against the French that culminated in their defeat at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu. Salan was part of a post-World War II negotiating mission established to finalize the return of French authority to Vietnam. Later he would command the French Expeditionary Corps in Vietnam from May 20, 1951, until May 1953, conducting the last successful military action against Ho Chi Minh. In an action designated Operation Lorraine, Salan’s forces swept through the Red River Valley and the jungles of North Vietnam on October 11, 1952. The following year he turned over his command to Gen. Henri-Eugene Navarre, the ill-fated commander at Dien Bien Phu. During the 1946 interviews, Salan was struck by the influence of one man upon the thinking of Giap; that man was Thomas Edward Lawrence. Giap told Salan: “My fighting gospel is T. E. Lawrence’s Seven Pillars of Wisdom. I am never without it.”

Patterns of Insurgency and Counterinsurgency - John Lynn. Military Review article, July-August 2005. Whether or not we welcome the prospect, counterinsurgency operations are in our future. Statebuilding and counterinsurgency are primary tasks for U.S. Armed Forces. As U.S.  Marine Corps General Anthony Zinni has noted, “military conflict has changed and we have been reluctant to recognize it. Defeating nation-state forces in conventional battle is not the task for the 21st century. Odd missions to defeat transnational threats or rebuild nations are the order of the day, but we haven’t yet adapted.” For Zinni, statebuilding, peacekeeping, and counterinsurgency are not military operations other than war; they are war. In The Pentagon’s New Map, Thomas Barnett argues that to extinguish terrorism we must integrate the entire world into the global economy and thus give everyone a stake in it, which amounts to saying that if the terrorists are on the train they will not want to blow up the tracks. Barnett adds that when incentives fail in a quest for the greater good, we might have to force reluctant regimes to get on board. This would require maneuver forces to execute a coerced regime change, followed by statebuilding to create stability and security in the face of some level of insurgency.

Countering Global Insurgency - Lieutenant Colonel David Kilcullen, Australian Army. Article, November 2004. This paper proposes a new strategic approach to the global War on Terrorism. The paper argues that the War is best understood as a global insurgency, initiated by a diffuse grouping of Islamist movements that seek to re-make Islam’s role in the world order. They use terrorism as their primary, but not their sole tactic. Therefore counterinsurgency rather than traditional counterterrorism may offer the best approach to defeating global jihad. But classical counterinsurgency, as developed in the 1960s, is designed to defeat insurgency in a single country. It demands measures – coordinated political-military response, integrated regional and inter-agency measures, protracted commitment to a course of action that cannot be achieved at the global level in today’s international system. Therefore a traditional counterinsurgency paradigm will not work for the present War: instead, a fundamental reappraisal of counterinsurgency is needed, to develop methods effective against a globalised insurgency.

Al Qaeda's Global Insurgency: Airpower in the Battle for Legitimacy - Captain Matthew Lacy, USAF. Air & Space Power Chronicles article, July 2003. While the success of U.S. led coalition forces in bringing down the Taliban government has been impressive, clearly the enemy has not given up. Some may dismiss current assaults on friendly forces as mere harassment. Nonetheless, such attacks highlight the difficulty of fighting a zealous and determined enemy despite unquestionable U.S. military superiority. As this paper will demonstrate, Al Qaeda’s terrorist network amounts to no less than a global insurgency. The War on Terror--the overarching, or parent conflict, to all sub-operations waged to make the world safe from repeats of September 11—is a war of counterinsurgency. The U.S. military has both doctrine and experience that addresses counterinsurgency, and those ideas should be applied to all aspects of this war. Such a framework will serve as a useful lens through which to identify both strategies and pitfalls in the War on Terror. Likewise, a review of the characteristics of counterinsurgency as they relate to terrorism will shed light on the use of airpower in the challenges that lay ahead.

On Guerrilla Warfare - Mao Tse Tung. Written by Mao in 1937, when Japanese imperialists occupied all of China, this book served as an instruction manual for guerrilla fighting, written based on more than a decade of personal experience by Mao. Based on the basic strategy and tactics of warfare as described by Sun-tzu, Mao stresses the importance of guerrilla warfare tactics in a revolutionary war, emphasizing that they must be combined in conjunction with conventional warfare tactics.

Guerrilla Warfare - V. I. Lenin. 1906.

Guerrilla Warfare - Ernesto Che Guevara. 1960.

Guerrilla Warfare: A Method - Ernesto Che Guevara. 1963.

Ernesto (Che) Guevara de la Serna (1928-1967) - Biography and background.

Che Guevara: Fundamentals of Guerrilla Warfare - Major Jackie Clark, USMC. US Marine Corps Command and Staff College paper, 1988.  The purpose of this paper is to review the writings of Ernesto Che Guevara (1928-1967) on the subject of revolutionary guerrilla warfare. A veteran of the l968 Cuban Revolution and one of the first Cuban advisors in the Congo, Guevara spent the last decade of his life participating in revolutionary struggles throughout the Third World. His book Guerrilla Warfare is considered by many to be a "cookbook" for insurgent fighters. The military tactics and strategies he presents therein are based on his extensive battlefield and political experiences as a guerrilla leader. As such, his writings provide an excellent foundation upon which contemporary military leaders can develop a sound understanding of insurgent warfare.

Che Guevara and Guerrilla Warfare: Training for Today's Nonlinear Battlefields - Captain Steve Lewis, USA. Military Review article, September-October 2001. Guerrilla warfare principles are part of the Marxist dogma to which many insurgent organizations adhere. Because US forces might face similar situations in the future, it is important for commanders to study such tactics in order to be successful on nonlinear, changing battlefields. Although not considered a strategic military genius, Guevara's effective, realistic principles served him well. They included mobility, movement by night, careful use of ammunition (supplies), flexibility, careful study of the ground and surprise and fury.

Back to the Street without Joy: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Vietnam and Other Small Wars - Lieutenant Colonel Robert Cassidy, USA.  Parameters article, Summer 2004.  In 1961, Bernard Fall, a scholar and practitioner of war, published a book entitled The Street Without Joy. The book provided a lucid account of why the French Expeditionary Corps failed to defeat the Viet Minh during the Indo-china War, and the book’s title derived from the French soldiers’ sardonic moniker for Highway 1 on the coast of Indochina—“Ambush Alley,” or the “Street without Joy.” In 1967, while patrolling with US Marines on the “Street without Joy” in Vietnam, Bernard Fall was killed by an improvised explosive mine during a Viet Cong ambush. In 2003, after the fall of Baghdad and following the conventional phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom, US and Coalition forces operating in the Sunni Triangle began fighting a counter-guerrilla type war in which much of the enemy insurgent activity occurred along Highway 1, another street exhibiting little joy. Learning from the experience of other US counterinsurgencies is preferable to the alternative.

Relearning Counterinsurgency Warfare - Robert Tomes. Link to Parameters article, Spring 2004.  Thirty years after the signing of the January 1973 Paris peace agreement ending the Vietnam War, the United States finds itself leading a broad coalition of military forces engaged in peacemaking, nation-building, and now counterinsurgency warfare in Iraq. A turning point appeared in mid-October 2003 when US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s memo on the future of Iraqi operations surfaced. His musings about whether US forces were ready for protracted guerrilla warfare sparked widespread debate about US planning for counterinsurgency operations.  Little attention has been paid to the theory and practice of counter-insurgency warfare in mainstream strategic studies journals.

Unlearning Counterinsurgency - Steven Metz. US Army Strategic Studies Institute article, 2004. Once again insurgency and counterinsurgency have become issues of great importance to the U.S. military, particularly the Army. This is not a new phenomenon, but the latest manifestation of an old cycle. Several times in the past the Army has mastered counterinsurgency, only to see attention wane when the strategic significance of insurgency subsided, thus forcing it to re-learn the skill when a new threat emerged. Now we must do this again.

Counterinsurgency: "A Realistic Appreciation" - Captain Robert Aspry, USMC. Marine Corps Gazette article, April 1963.   Ever since the explosion of the first atom bomb over Hiroshima, paradoxes have been the order of the military day. The advent of counter-insurgency is no exception. At a time when man-made vehicles are reaching for the moon and when the state of the weapons art is so advanced as to defy the understanding of most laymen, suddenly we revert to small wars in remote areas-suddenly the individual soldier comes back into his own.Enter Paradox Two. The old context of small war in the remote area has undergone drastic change. What used to be good for the United Fruit Company in Nicaragua has given way to issues that threaten to engulf mankind. Such is the thrust of Communism the rise of nationalism, and with it the pride of small and sometimes new countries, that today's small war becomes a production rather more sophisticated than firing a king-sized missile 4,000 miles on target.  The problems introduced by counter-insurgency are made abundantly clear both by the individual remarks of the Forum experts, and by the logical case with which these remarks glide from one area of the subject to another. To Gen Krulak's assertion that counter-insurgency is a complicated war, we have Adm Libby quietly adding that counter-insurgency is but another type of war, one that should not stampede us into precipitate reorganization of the military establishment. With Mr. Galula's and Dr. Tanham's assertions that counter-insurgency must be fought as a war-by-committee, we have Gen Griffith's belief that the conventional military establishment is not the best organization to wage war-by-committee. With Gen Krulak's mention of the annoyance of enemy sanctuary in a foreign country, we have Mr. Baldwin's advice that the government should consider authorizing our forces to participate in attacks on foreign sanctuaries.  If by clarifying certain issues of counter-insurgency our experts have mingled in each other's areas, they are merely underlining Paradox Three of counter-insurgency-its clear-cut confusion. Insurgency and counterinsurgency are as difficult to grasp as Gen Griffith's metaphorical drop of mercury. Their fragments will probably intrude on every facet of American life; yet their wholeness does not lend itself to immediate comprehension; one purpose of my few pages is to try to file a pragmatic path to the cumulative arrow of the experts' thoughts.

The British Army and Counterinsurgency: The Salience of Military Culture - Lieutenant Colonel Robert Cassidy, USA. Military Review article, May - June 2005. Historically British Army culture has influenced its approach to counterinsurgency. The British Army’s experiences in small wars and counterinsurgencies during the 19th and 20th centuries remain topical and salient. The U.S. military and its coalition partners, including Britain, are prosecuting counterinsurgency campaigns in Afghanistan, Iraq, the Philippines, the Horn of Africa, and elsewhere. An analysis of British military cultural predilections in the context of counterinsurgency is therefore germane because the U.S. Army is transforming while in contact, and a big part of Transformation is about military cultural change. If U.S. military culture has traditionally exhibited a preference for a big, conventional-war\ paradigm, and if this preference has impeded its capacity to adapt to small wars and counterinsurgencies, then there might be something to gain or learn from examining the cultural characteristics of another army with a greater propensity for counterinsurgency. In short, military culture comprises the beliefs and attitudes within a military organization that shape its collective preferences toward the use of force. These attitudes can impede or foster innovation and adaptation. Military culture sometimes exhibits preferences for either small wars or big wars.

Military Doctrine and Counterinsurgency: A British Perspective - Gavin Bulloch.  Parameters article, Summer 1996. The experience of numerous "small wars" has provided the British army with a unique insight into this demanding form of conflict. Service in Northern Ireland has given the present generation of soldiers their main firsthand source of basic experience at the tactical level, but this also tends to constrain military thinking on the subject because of the national context and political connotations. There are of course many lessons to be learned because of the similarities between the campaign in Northern Ireland, which is designated as Military Aid to the Civil Authorities (MACA) and those counterinsurgency campaigns which may be conducted elsewhere. But there are also significant differences. Tactics such as jungle patrolling and convoy anti-ambush drills--which from the perspective of Northern Ireland seem to be relics of a colonial past--may be very relevant in a different operational setting.

Counterinsurgency - The French Experience - Transcript of a 1963 presentation given by Dr. Bernard Fall to the students and faculty of the Industrial College of the Armed Forces.

An Interview with Bernard Fall - Sergeant Roy Johnson. Marine Corps Gazette article, April 1967.  Text of a taped interview with Dr. Fall shortly before his death 12 February 1967. Dr. Fall was killed by a land mine while accompanying a Marine patrol 14 miles north of Hue. He was a professor of government at Howard University and the author of Street Without Joy, The Two Viet-Nams and Hell in a Very Small Place. The interviewer is Marine Sgt. Hoy Johnson of Combat Info Bureau, Da Nang.

Modern Warfare:  French View of Counterinsurgency - Colonel Robert Trinquier, French Army.  1961.  Since the end of World War II, a new form of warfare has been born. Called at times either subversive warfare or revolutionary warfare, it differs fundamentally from the wars of the past in that victory is not expected from the clash of two armies on a field of battle. This confrontation, which in times past saw the annihilation of an enemy army in one or more battles, no longer occurs. Warfare is now an interlocking system of actions-political, economic, psychological, military-that aims at the overthrow of the established authority in a country and its replacement by another regime. To achieve this end, the aggressor tries to exploit the internal tensions of the country attacked-ideological, social, religious, economic -any conflict liable to have a profound influence on the population to be conquered. Moreover, in view of the present-day interdependence of nations, any residual grievance within a population, no matter how localized and lacking in scope, will surely be brought by determined adversaries into the framework of the great world conflict. From a localized conflict of secondary origin and importance, they will always attempt sooner or later to bring about a generalized conflict.

War in Algeria: The French Experience - Colonel Gilles Martin, French Army. Military Review article, July-August 2005. Discussing the Algerian War with the objectivity of a historian is difficult. A number of generations of French and Algerian politicians and soldiers have been intimately involved in these events. In both countries, to speak of the Algerian War meant, and still means, to venture into the political realm. In this article, I describe the distinct phases of the war to draw useful conclusions for contemporary counterinsurgency operations. The Algerian War began on 1 November 1954 and ended 8 years later, in 1962, following the independence of Algeria. The conflict was a colonial war between France and the Algerian people, but it was also a civil war between loyalist Algerian Muslims who still believed in a French Algeria and their independence-minded Algerian counterparts.  During its final months, the conflict evolved into a civil war between pro-French hardliners in Algeria and supporters of General Charles de Gaulle. The French Army had to wage a war against guerrillas, insurrection, and terrorism, a “revolutionary” war in which the conquest of the population was at stake, exactly as it was in another war that had just ended in Indochina with the defeat at Dien Bien Phu. At the time, the French Army thought it had won in Algeria. On the other hand, France’s political leaders wanted nothing more to do with the former colony.

A Review of Algerian War of National Liberation Using the U.S. Army's Current Counterinsurgency Doctrine - Colonel Karl Goetzke, US Army. US Army War College Strategy Research Project, 2005.  The extensive body of historical material on the Algerian War of National Liberation provides valuable information on a major counterinsurgency operation that achieved tactical success, but ultimately failed at the strategic level. The techniques, tactics, and procedures (TTPs) used by the French Army are cited by many military writers as the paradigm for how to conduct an effective counterinsurgency. From this perspective, it is appropriate to examine current U.S. Army doctrine, recently published in FM 3-07.22, Counterinsurgency, in light of the Algerian experience. Such an examination has added value in light of the on-going War on Terrorism.

Losing the Moral Compass: Torture and Guerre Revolutionnaire in the Algerian War - Lieutenant Colonel Lou DiMarco, US Army (Ret.). Paramters article, Summer 2006.   One of the keys to success in the US war on terror and counterinsurgency, in Iraq and around the world, is the ability to use intelligence to effectively target the adversary. Obtaining useful intelligence is one of the most important challenges of counterinsurgency operations. This requirement has focused attention on the interrogation of combatants captured on the battlefield and in raids on safe-houses in third-party states.  Almost from the beginning of US counterinsurgency operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, accusations have been made that US interrogation techniques have included torture. Typical of the domestic reporting is an article in Newsweek in June 2004, titled “New Torture Furor,” which states that the US Defense Department was exploring legal means for justifying torture. The foreign press has echoed what was reported in the United States, and expanded upon it. The German magazine Der Spiegel asserted that torture was rampant among US forces, and it represented the United States as “exempting itself from international criminal jurisdiction. While the rest of the world is expected to abide by the UN Convention against Torture, for example, the Americans evaluate international law on the basis of whether it serves their interests.” This type of reporting is a strategic distraction and has the potential to cause a crisis in American foreign policy. It erodes international and domestic support and can embolden the enemy. Senior US officials have had to speak forcefully on the subject of torture to control the domestic and international damage, distracting their focus from the details of nation-building in Iraq. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has had to invest considerable effort in reaffirming that US policy officially prohibits torture and affirming American support for the UN Convention against Torture (CAT), indicating that “it [CAT] extends to US personnel wherever they are, whether they are in the US or outside the US.” Still, rumors and accusations persist that US forces routinely abuse prisoners. The French newspaper Le Monde reported in March 2006—without any hint of ambiguity—that the United States has condoned the “use of torture in secret prisons on foreign soil, and . . . justif[ied] the illegal treatment of prisoners in Guantanamo Bay.”

The Theory and Practice of Insurgency and Counterinsurgency - Bernard Fall. Naval War College Review article, Winter 1998.  Reprint from the April 1965 issue.  If we look at the 20th Century alone we are now in Viet-Nam faced with the forty-eighth 'small war.' Let me just cite a few: Algeria, Angola, Arabia, Burma, Cameroons, China, Colombia, Cuba, East Germany, France, Haiti, Hungary, Indochina, Indonesia, Kashmir, Laos, Morocco, Mongolia, Nagaland [an Indian state on the Burmese border], Palestine, Yemen, Poland, South Africa, South Tyrol, Tibet, Yugoslavia, Venezuela, West Irian [Indonesia, on New Guinea], etc. This, in itself, is quite fantastic.

Best Practices in Counterinsurgency - Dr. Kalev Sepp. Military Review article, May-June 2005. We can discuss “best practices” common to successful counterinsurgencies by studying the past century’s insurgent wars. Historical analysis helps us understand the nature and continuities of insurgencies over time and in various cultural, political, and geographic settings. While this does not produce a template solution to civil wars and insurrections, the sum of these experiences, judiciously and appropriately applied, might help Iraq defeat its insurgency. Nations on every continent have experienced or intervened in insurgencies. Not counting military coups and territorially defined civil wars, there are 17 insurgencies we can study closely and 36 others that include aspects we can consider. Assessment reveals which counterinsurgency practices were successful and which failed. A strategic victory does not validate all the victor’s operational and tactical methods or make them universally applicable, as America’s defeat in Vietnam and its success in El Salvador demonstrate. In both cases, “learning more from one’s mistakes than one’s achievements” is a valid axiom. If we were to combine all the successful operational practices from a century of counterinsurgent warfare, the summary would suggest a campaign outline to combat the insurgency in present-day Iraq.

Counterinsurgency: Strategy and the Phoenix of American Capability - Steven Metz. US Army Strategic Studies Institute paper, February 1995.  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.

Pseudo Operations and Counterinsurgency: Lessons from Other Countries - Lawrence Cline. US Army Strategic Studies Institute report, June 2005. This monograph examines the role of pseudo operations in several foreign counterinsurgency campaigns. Pseudo operations are those in which government forces disguised as guerrillas, normally along with guerrilla defectors, operate as teams to infiltrate insurgent areas. This technique has been used by the security forces of several other countries in their operations, and typically it has been very successful. A number of factors must be taken into account before attempting pseudo operations, especially their role in the intelligence and operational systems. Although it is likely that most insurgent movements have become more sophisticated, many of the lessons learned from previous pseudo operations suggest their continued usefulness in counterinsurgency campaigns.

Shadows of Things Past and Images of the Future: Lessons for the Insurgencies in our Mist - Max Manwaring. US Army Strategic Studies Institute monograph, November 2004. This monograph comes at a time when U.S. and other world political and military leaders are struggling with the “new” political psychological aspects of unconventional conflict. Unfortunately, the strategic theory of unconventional political war has played little part in the discourse. Yet political-insurgency war is the most likely type of conflict to challenge the maintenance and enhancement of global and regional security over the near-to-long term. Contemporary political-insurgency war is a threat we can ill afford to ignore. Through the analysis of the cases of Argentina (1969-79), Peru (1962-present) and Italy (1968-82), the author identifies the political-strategic challenges of modern unconventional conflict.

Insurgency and Counterinsurgency: American Military Dilemmas and Doctrinal Proposals - Colonel Dennis Drew, USAF.  Air Research Institute Cadre paper, March 1998.  This paper addresses the difficult problems presented to the US military establishment by so-called low-intensity conflict. The authors objective is to develop counterinsurgency doctrinal concepts. The author provides a foundation for the concepts by analyzing insurgent warfare with particular emphasis on the fundamental differences between insurgencies an conventional European-style warfare. From this analysis, the author develops and describes both the fundamental and operational dilemmas the United States faces when attempting to engage in counterinsurgency. Finally, the author draws upon the entire study to present the four basic elements, and their corollaries, of a counterinsurgency doctrine and resulting force structure implications.

Insurgency and Counterinsurgency in the 21st Century: Reconceptualizing Threat and Response - Steven Metz and Raymond Millen.  US Army Strategic Studies Institute monograph, 2004.  Since the attacks of September 11, 2001, the United States has developed a national security strategy designed to eliminate the conditions that spawn asymmetric threats. An important part of that is helping build stable, legitimate governments in nations which allowed or supported terrorism and other forms of asymmetric aggression. This has led the United States to renewed involvement in counterinsurgency.  The United States, particularly the Army, has a long history of counterinsurgency support. During the past decade, though, this has not been an area of focus for the American military. To renew its capability at counterinsurgency, the military is assessing 21st century insurgency, particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan, and revising its strategy, operational concepts, organization, and doctrine.

Everything You Think You Know About the American Way of Fighting War Is Wrong - Max Boot. Link to Foreign Policy Research Institute article, October 2002.  It's a small war, a term of art popular around the 20th century to describe encounters between small numbers of Western soldiers and irregular forces in what is now called the Third World.

Winning the War of the Flea: Lessons from Guerrilla Warfare - Lieutenant Colonel Robert Cassidy, USA.  Military Review article, September - October 2004.  Counterguerrilla warfare, or the “war against the flea,” is more difficult than operations against enemies who fight according to the conventional paradigm. America’s enemies in the Global War on Terrorism, including those connected to “the base” (al-Qaeda), are fighting the war of the flea in Iraq and Afghanistan. Employing terror to attack the United States at home and abroad, they strive to disrupt coalition efforts by using guerrilla tactics and bombings to protract the war in Iraq and elsewhere and to erode America’s will to persevere.

A Flame Kept Burning: Counterinsurgency Support After the Cold War - Dr. Steven Metz. Paramters article, Autumn 1995.  The insurgents of the world are sleeping. Outside the former Soviet Union, few new insurgencies have emerged since the end of the Cold War, and many old ones, from the Philippines to Peru, from Mozambique to El Salvador, from Northern Ireland to Israel, are lurching toward political settlement. But sleep is not death--it is a time for rejuvenation. Since the means and the motives for protracted political violence persist, it will prove as attractive to the discontented of the world in the post-Cold War global security environment as it did before. Eventually insurgency will awaken. When it does, the United States will be required to respond.

The Vulture and The Snake Counter-Guerrilla Air Warfare: The War in Southern Lebanon - Shmuel Gordon. Mideast Security and Policy Studies, No. 39, July 1998. In recent years there has been a growing interest in counter-guerrilla warfare, taking an ever more important place alongside the preparation for High Intensity Conflicts (HIC), though little theoretical discussion of the subject has taken place. Guerrilla strategy and tactics, however, have been thoroughly studied in all their aspects in the writings of Clausewitz, Lenin, Mao Tse-tung, Lawrence, Che Guevara, Giap and Debray. Guerrilla warfare encompasses much beyond the purely military, and so does the struggle against it. This struggle integrates political activity, economic and social policy, ideological and religious confrontation, psychological warfare, the competition for public opinion and for the media. Thus, the results of a struggle between a state and a guerrilla movement are not necessarily decided on the battlefield. However, it is very important to address the military aspect of counter-guerrilla warfare, since, while military victories do not necessarily end the overall conflict, military failures in the struggle against guerrillas are conducive to a guerrilla victory. The major part of the literature in this field concentrates on guerrilla warfare, while, strangely, despite the fact that intellectual centers and think-tanks are largely located in countries that have to fight guerrillas, the literature that addresses counter-guerrilla warfare is quite limited.