legitimacy

At its very core, insurgent warfare is a conflict between competing claims to legitimate governance over a people or territory. The enduring viability of counterinsurgency doctrine thus lies in understanding the factors that contribute to the legitimacy of a regime, and how they are mobilised to engender public resilience and popular support for insurgents’ actions.

Stemming from his must-read book, an important discussion about Helmand, Kandahar, and America's flawed attempt to save Afghanistan.

Fourth Generation Warfare advocates propose a tactical shift in how operations are conducted to defeat an insurgency. This paper explains why, from a legitimacy standpoint, 4GW will lead to a strategic failure.

Brad Fultz offers a qualitative tool to help commanders understand actors in their area of operations through a lens of locally defined legitimacy.