Browsing by Subject "Counterinsurgency"

Now showing 1 - 6 of 6

Bargaining and fighting in the moonlight
(2011-08) Cohen, Matthew Leonard; Lin, Tse-min; Wagner, R. Harrison (Robert Harrison); Trubowitz, Peter; McDonald, Patrick; Granato, James
"Audience costs" models of international relations suggest a purely informational role for domestic politics in conflict settings. Here, domestic politics serve as a rich signal of belligerents' true intentions, allowing them to more quickly resolve disagreements, decreasing the likelihood and duration of war. But if belligerents can have different beliefs about publicly available information, then domestic politics might confuse rather than clarify conflict situations, increasing the likelihood and duration of war. I present empirical evidence of conventional "audience costs" models' shortcomings in explaining the dynamics of the US counterinsurgency efforts in Iraq and the response of Iraqi insurgents to those efforts. I then develop a formal model to show how differences in beliefs between insurgents and counterinsurgents about domestic political audiences in Iraq may have contributed to the prolonged nature of the conflict. I argue that the underlying cause of the conflict's duration is disagreement between belligerents about whether and how Iraqi civilians contribute to a successful counterinsurgency, leading belligerents to disagree not only before fighting about who is likely to win, but during fighting about who is actually winning.
Demystifying counterinsurgency : U.S. Army internal security training and South American responses in the 1960s
(2016-12) Lyles, Ian Bradley; Brown, Jonathan C. (Jonathan Charles), 1942-; Twinam, Ann; Garfield, Seth W.; Madrid, Raul L.; Deans-Smith, Susan
United States’ counterinsurgency activities in the Western Hemisphere provide a new lens with which to investigate Latin America’s Cold War experience. This dissertation contributes to the debate over the impact of American foreign policy in the region by reconstructing a key component of Washington’s strategy: the U. S. Army’s counterinsurgency training of South American military forces during the 1960s and 1970s. Counterinsurgency casts a long shadow over U. S. foreign relations with Latin America but few authors explain what that doctrine entailed and how Washington sought to disseminate it among its regional allies. This dissertation contributes to the new Cold War literature on Latin America by using previously unpublished and declassified materials to demystify the term “counterinsurgency.” It examines American training of South American militaries and explains the doctrine and tactics the U.S. Army sought to transmit to its counterparts under the rubric of counterinsurgency. After reconstructing the U.S. Army’s institutional apparatus for teaching internal security, this dissertation investigates the impact of American counterinsurgency efforts. In doing so it seeks to solve an enduring enigma. If the regional hegemon, the United States, exported one consistent counterinsurgency doctrine throughout the Western Hemisphere, why did South American countries experience such widely divergent internal security outcomes during the Cold War? A comparative analysis of six South American nations’ responses to American counterinsurgency yields new insights into Latin America’s Cold War experience. This dissertation argues that U.S. Army counterinsurgency training was more complex, nuanced and perishable than previously understood. Numerous obstacles impeded the U.S. Army’s ability to disseminate its training. Moreover, South American political and military leaders chose whether to accept or reject U.S. counterinsurgency. Washington did not dictate or decree its internal security training. Venezuela, Colombia and Bolivia embraced American counterinsurgency and sought U.S. Army assistance in confronting internal insecurity. Brazil, Argentina, and Chile shunned the American “model.” Military regimes in those nations developed their own internal security doctrine and tactics and conducted “dirty wars” against their populations a result of their own choices, not because of their slight exposure to American counterinsurgency concepts.
Forced indigenous perpetrators : the civil-defense patrols in Guatemala, 1981-1996
(2022-09-14) Markarian, Vasken Gregory; Garrard, Virginia, 1957-; Twinam Villalon, Ann; Garfield, Seth; Sanford, Victoria
This dissertation addresses violence against neighbors and civil war the context of Guatemala's internal armed conflict in the early 1980s. Embroiled in a counterinsurgency war against guerrilla rebel armies, the Guatemalan state-military committed mass state violence against civilians it suspected of being "subversives" and guerrillas. A major tool in this state violence was the "civil defense patrols," forcibly recruited indigenous and campesino (peasant) men into rural militias on the side of the state. But in the aftermath of a genocide against Guatemala's indigenous population, many of these "forced participants" had blood on their hands. How did Guatemalans turn against their own people? This dissertation argues that, coupled with the overwhelming pressure to follow orders, perpetrators and victims acted in subtle and explicit ways to negotiate the terms of forced participation, to carry out orders to commit violence, or to resist them in some way. More than just robotically following orders, civil patrollers found ways to affirm or negate the lives of their neighbors and innocent civilians. When they did, they based their actions on Army protocols as well as their own interpretations of them, their own meanings, and their own "cultural logics" rooted in their local context.
The centrality of legitimacy and the limitations of the small footprint approach to military operations
(2017-05-05) Sorenson, Quinn David; Inboden, William, 1972-; Miller, Paul D
War must be understood as it is, not as we wish it to be. This dictum of Carl von Clausewitz is as relevant today as it was in his time. Now, in the wake of 15 years of persistent low intensity conflict, policymakers argue over the application of military force in the contemporary threat environment. The Powell Doctrine advocates overwhelming force to ensure victory. Detractors, such as David Kilcullen, argue that overwhelming force in the current environment breeds host nation dependence and resentment among the people, and that a “small footprint” approach is more effective. I argue that neither an application of overwhelming force nor a commitment to a small footprint is appropriate under all circumstances. I argue for the centrality of legitimacy as the necessary objective, and that intervening forces, through a comprehensive strategy of regional engagement, can successfully legitimize an illegitimate regime using direct or indirect methods appropriately tailored to the context. I draw on two successful small footprint operations, the American engagement in the Philippines and the French Intervention in Mali, as case studies to define the characteristics of the regime, insurgency, and intervention that enable success.
They didn't win the war : aesthetics and infrastructure in post-counterinsurgency Guatemala.
(2017-05) Flores Aguilar, Alejandro M.; Hale, Charles R., 1957-; Campbell, Craig; Stewart, Kathleen; Velásquez Nimatuj, Irma Alicia; Nelson, Diane; DeCesare , Donna
By studying, producing, and executing ethnographic visual-arts projects, my dissertation analyzes the sociocultural infrastructures intrinsic to sensorial forms of counterinsurgency that spread to the aesthetic regime in contemporary Guatemala. I focus on the historical moment in which counterinsurgency becomes common sense(s) within significant numbers of Guatemalans, for whom the lack of empathy towards the suffering of State-violence is normalized. In the aftermath of Rios Montt’s genocide trial, this lack of empathy is basically triggered by the emergence of a field of expressivity in which the history of State-violence becomes tangible and transmutes in the production of processes of politicization. This dissertation is an attempt to understand the sociocultural sensorial framework in which, on the one hand, it becomes almost impossible to empathize with the victims of genocide and massive extermination; while on the other hand, the spaces and experiences in which the reproduction of this form of hegemony fails and the failure manifests itself in new forms of dissent. My dissertation builds on a two-year multisite fieldwork in collaboration with visual artists, Maya-Ixil researchers, and archivists.
Utilizing Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) in a comprehensive counterinsurgency strategy against the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan
(2015-05) Ernst, Emily Marie; Hindman, Heather; Miller, Paul
The Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) is an extremist organization operating within the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of northern Pakistan. The organization poses a significant threat to Pakistani sovereignty, and so far Pakistani military efforts to contain the TTP have been largely unsuccessful. This paper examines previous Pakistani efforts through the lens of counterinsurgency theory. It then argues Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) theory provides a viable alternative method to counter the TTP in FATA. CVE would be more inclusive of the traditional Pashtun tribal structure that is dominant in these areas, and implementing a CVE plan in Pakistan would allow for a stronger counterinsurgency operation because of this inclusivity.