The New Counter-insurgency Era in Critical Perspective palgrave
Rethinking Political Violence series Series Editor: Roger Mac Ginty, Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Manchester, UK This exciting series provides a space in which to interrogate and challenge much of the conventional wisdom on political violence. Books in the series are at the forefront of research, pushing forward new debate in the field of political violence without rehashing clichés about security, violence and terrorism. Authors from both the critical and orthodox perspectives use the book series to reappraise some of the fundamental questions facing societies on how to deal with and interpret organised violence. Many of the books in the series are comparative, draw on fieldwork, and use insights from a variety of methodologies. Titles include: Linda Åhäll and Laura J. Shepherd (editors) GENDER, AGENCY AND POLITICAL VIOLENCE Stephen Gibson, Simon Mollan (editors) REPRESENTATIONS OF PEACE AND CONFLICT Celeste Ward Gventer, David Martin Jones and M.L.R. Smith (editors) THE NEW COUNTER-INSURGENCY ERA IN CRITICAL PERSPECTIVE Caroline Holmqvist POLICING WARS Military Intervention in the Twenty First Century Jaremey McMullin EX-COMBATANTS AND THE POST-CONFLICT STATE Challenges of Reintegration Stephan Parmentier, Bert Ingelaere, Jacques Haers and Barbara Segaert (editors) GENOCIDE, RISK AND RESILIENCE An Interdisciplinary Approach Rethinking Political Violence series Series Standing Order ISBN 978 0 230 24376 7 You can receive future titles in this series as they are published by placing a standing order. Please contact your bookseller or, in case of difficulty, write to us at the address below with your name and address, the title of the series and the ISBN quoted above. Customer Services Department, Macmillan Distribution Ltd, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS, England
By David Martin Jones and M.L.R. Smith ASEAN AND EAST ASIAN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS: Regional Delusion ASIAN SECURITY AND THE RISE OF CHINA: East Asian International Relations in an Age of Volatility REINVENTING REALISM: Australia s Foreign and Defence Policy at the Millennium By David Martin Jones THE IMAGE OF CHINA IN WESTERN SOCIAL AND POLITICAL THOUGHT TERRORISM AND THE POWER OF INFORMAL NETWORKS (co-edited with Ann Lane and Paul Schulte) GLOBALISATION AND THE NEW TERROR: The Asia Pacific Dimension (co-editor) THE HOWARD ERA (co-edited with Keith Windschuttle and Ray Evans) REGIONALISM AND SOUTHEAST ASIA (co-edited with Lily Yulyadini) By M.L.R. Smith THE CHANGING FACE OF MILITARY POWER: Joint Warfare in an Expeditionary Era (co-edited with Andrew Dorman and Matthew Uttley) SEEKING ALTERNATIVE PERSPECTIVES ON SOUTHEAST ASIA (co-edited with Khoo Kay Kim and Andrew Tan) THE STRATEGY OF TERRORISM: How It Works and Why It Fails (with Peter Neumann) FIGHTING FOR IRELAND? The Military Strategy of the Irish Republican Movement THE CHANGING FACE OF MARITIME POWER (co-edited with Andrew Dorman and Matthew Uttley)
This page intentionally left blank
The New Counter-insurgency Era in Critical Perspective Edited by Celeste Ward Gventer Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law, University of Texas, USA David Martin Jones School of Political Science and International Studies, University of Queensland, Australia and M.L.R. Smith Department of War Studies, Kings College, University of London, UK palgrave macmillan
Editorial matter, selection and introduction Celeste Ward Gventer, David Martin Jones and M.L.R. Smith, 2014 Remaining chapters Contributors 2014 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2014 978-1-137-33693-4 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6 10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2014 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave and Macmillan are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-46362-6 ISBN 978-1-137-33694-1 (ebook) DOI 10.1057/9781137336941 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. Typeset by MPS Limited, Chennai, India.
Contents List of Figures and Tables Acknowledgements Notes on Contributors ix x xi Introduction 1 Celeste Ward Gventer, David Martin Jones and M.L.R. Smith Part I Counter-insurgency: History and Theory 1 Minting New COIN: Critiquing Counter-insurgency Theory 9 Celeste Ward Gventer, David Martin Jones and M.L.R. Smith 2 COIN and the Chameleon: The Category Errors of Trying to Divide the Indivisible 32 M.L.R. Smith 3 Our Own Worst Enemy: The Unspoken Paradox of Large-Scale Expeditionary COIN 58 Jeffrey Michaels 4 Government in a Box? Counter-insurgency, State Building, and the Technocratic Conceit 82 Colin Jackson 5 Our Ghettos, Too, Need a Lansdale : American Counter-insurgency Abroad and at Home in the Vietnam Era 111 William Rosenau 6 Bringing the Soil Back in: Control and Territoriality in Western and Non-Western COIN 127 James Worrall 7 Counter-insurgency and Violence Management 144 Paul Staniland 8 Mass, Methods, and Means: The Northern Ireland Model of Counter-insurgency 156 John Bew 9 David Galula and the Revival of COIN in the US Military 173 Douglas Porch Part II Counter-insurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan? 10 Testing the Surge: Why Did Violence Decline in Iraq in 2007? 201 Stephen Biddle, Jeffrey A. Friedman, and Jacob N. Shapiro vii
viii Contents 11 After a Decade of Counter-insurgency, Eliminate Nation-Building from US Military Manuals 232 Bing West 12 The Conceit of American Counter-insurgency 240 Gian Gentile 13 The Population Is the Enemy : Control, Behaviour, and Counter-insurgency in Central Helmand Province, Afghanistan 257 Ryan Evans 14 The Reluctant Counter-insurgents: Britain s Absent Surge in Southern Iraq 278 Huw Bennett Part III Counter-insurgency and Future Warfare 15 Questions about COIN after Iraq and Afghanistan 299 Joshua Rovner 16 The Military Utility and Interventions Post-Afghanistan: Reassessing Ends, Ways, and Means 319 Matthew Ford 17 What Do We Do If We Are Never Going to Do This Again? Western Counter-insurgency Choices after Iraq and Afghanistan 340 Paul Schulte Index 366
List of Figures and Tables Figures 1.1 The Counterinsurgency Field Manual s diagrammatic summary of COIN theory 20 10.1 Baghdad neighbourhoods 207 10.2 Violence trends by AO 215 14.1 Civilian deaths in the MND (SE) region, 2003 2011 284 Tables 10.1 Areas of operation with SOI stand-up 216 10.2 Comparisons of violence trends pre- and post-soi stand-up 217 14.1 Troop deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, 2003 12 289 ix
Acknowledgements This volume resulted from a workshop at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum in Austin, Texas. We would like to extend our thanks to the Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law at the University of Texas, Austin, and its Director, Francis J. Gavin, for sponsoring the workshop and the production of this volume. We would also like to extend our thanks to Jacqueline Chandler for her considerable administrative support. Likewise, Jessica Mahoney also provided invaluable assistance. x
Notes on Contributors Huw Bennett is Lecturer in the Department of International Politics, Aberystwyth University, UK. He has published widely on British counterinsurgency since 1945, and his book Fighting the Mau Mau: The British Army and Counter-Insurgency in the Kenya Emergency was published in 2012. John Bew is Reader in History and Foreign Policy at the War Studies Department at King s College London, UK, and Director of the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence. In 2013 he was appointed to the Henry A. Kissinger Chair in Foreign Policy and International Relations at the Library of Congress. His previous publications include Talking to Terrorists: Making Peace in Northern Ireland and the Basque Country (2009). Stephen Biddle is Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at the George Washington University, USA, and Adjunct Senior Fellow for Defense Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. His book Military Power: Explaining Victory and Defeat in Modern Battle (2004) has won four prizes, including the Council on Foreign Relations Arthur Ross Award Silver Medal for 2005 and the 2005 Huntington Prize from the Harvard University Olin Institute for Strategic Studies. He holds AB (1981), MPP (1985), and Ph.D (Public Policy, 1992) degrees, all from Harvard University. Ryan Evans is a Ph.D candidate at the War Studies Department, King s College London War, UK, and an Associate Fellow at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence. From 2010 to 2011, he worked for the US Army s Human Terrain System in Afghanistan where he was embedded as a social scientist supporting the British-led Task Force Helmand. He has an MA in Intelligence and International Security from King s College London. Matthew Ford is Lecturer in the Department of International Relations at the University of Sussex, UK. He has taught at King s College London, Birkbeck College, and the Universities of Hull and Birmingham. He read philosophy at the University of Reading and holds an MA and Ph.D in War Studies from King s College London. Jeffrey A. Friedman is a postdoctoral fellow at the Dickey Center for International Understanding at Dartmouth College, USA. He received his Ph.D (Public Policy, 2013) and AB (Government, 2005) degrees from Harvard University. xi
xii Notes on Contributors Gian Gentile is Associate Professor of History at the United States Military Academy at West Point. He received a Bachelor of Arts Degree in history from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1986 and a Ph.D in History from Stanford University. He served in Iraq in 2003 and 2006. He has been a visiting fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York City and he currently directs the Military History Program at the United States Military Academy. Colin Jackson is Associate Professor of Strategy & Policy at the US Naval War College. He holds degrees from the University of Pennsylvania s Wharton School (MBA, Finance), Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (MA, International Economics and Strategic Studies), Princeton University s Woodrow Wilson School (BA, Public and International Affairs), and MIT (Ph.D, Political Science (Security Studies)). He served four years on active duty with the United States Army in Germany as an armour and cavalry officer. More recently he served as the Executive Officer for Policy Planning, International Security Force Afghanistan. He continues to serve as a Lieutenant Colonel in the US Army Reserve. Jeffrey Michaels is Lecturer in Defence Studies at King s College London, UK. Previously he worked as a research associate in the Department of War Studies and has served as an intelligence officer attached to the US European Command and the Pentagon s Joint Staff. William Rosenau is a Senior Analyst at the Center for Strategic Studies, CNA, a federally funded research and development centre in Alexandria, VA. Before joining CNA, he served in the RAND Corporation s International Security Policy department, and as chair of RAND s Insurgency Board; as a policy adviser to the coordinator for counterterrorism, US Department of State; and as a special assistant to the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict. His degrees are from Cambridge (MA) and King s College, London (Ph.D). Douglas Porch is Distinguished Professor of National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California. He earned his Ph.D from Corpus Christi College, Cambridge University. A specialist in military history, he is the author of numerous books and articles. His most recent book, The Path to Victory: The Mediterranean Theater in World War II, received the Award for Excellence in US Army Historical Writing from the Army Historical Foundation. His most recent work, Counterinsurgency: Exposing the Myths of the New Way of War, will be published in 2013. Joshua Rovner is Associate Professor of Strategy and Policy at the US Naval War College, adjunct professor in the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University, and reviews editor of the Journal of Strategic Studies. He holds a Ph.D in Security Studies from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Notes on Contributors xiii Paul Schulte is Non-Resident Senior Associate of the Nuclear Policy Programme of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and Senior Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Defence Studies at Kings College London, at the School of African and Oriental Studies, and at the UK Defence Academy. His academic background includes an undergraduate degree from the London School of Economics, the Royal College of Defence Studies Senior Officers Course, and an international fellowship at the Weatherhead Centre for International Affairs at Harvard. In 2004 he worked with the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq in 2004. Jacob Shapiro is Assistant Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University and Co-Director of the Empirical Studies of Conflict Project. He is the author of The Terrorist s Dilemma: Managing Violent Covert Organizations and his research has been published in American Journal of Political Science, Journal of Political Economy, International Security, and a number of other journals. He is a Navy veteran and holds a Ph.D in Political Science from Stanford University. Paul Staniland is Assistant Professor of Political Science and Co-director of the Program on International Security Policy at the University of Chicago, USA. His book manuscript, Networks of Rebellion: Explaining Insurgent Cohesion and Collapse, examines the origins and evolution of insurgent groups. He holds a Ph.D in Political Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Bing West is a former Assistant Secretary of Defense and combat marine. He has written eight books about combat in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Over the past decade, he has embedded with dozens of platoons on hundreds of patrols. His book about advisers in Vietnam, The Village, has been on the Commandant s Reading list for 40 years. Three other books about Iraq and Afghanistan have been New York Times bestsellers. James Worrall is Lecturer in International Relations and Middle East Studies in the School of Politics and International Studies at the University of Leeds, UK. He is joint reviews editor for the academic journal Civil Wars and a founding member of the Terrorism and Political Violence Association; he is the author of Statebuilding and Counterinsurgency in Oman: Political, Military and Diplomatic Relations at the End of Empire (2013).