The Strategic Use of Force in Counterinsurgency : Find, Fix, Fight

The Strategic Use of Force in Counterinsurgency: Find, Fix, Fight focuses on how to understand the relationship between the use of force and the outcomes of such use. Specifically, there is debate as to how to evaluate counterinsurgency conflicts, and what prescriptions flow from that evaluation. The Neo-Classicist school emphasises prescriptions which are either directly from, or inspired by, Cold War counterinsurgency efforts undertaken by anti-communist states. The Revisionist school focuses on how best to evaluate the political dimensions of such conflicts. This book finds that a third approach, Reflective-Action, is best as it combines Neo-Classicism's strength of issuing practical prescriptions with Revisionism's strength for conceptually evaluating counterinsurgency conflicts. This conceptual debate is exposited in three cases. They are the British counterinsurgency during the Malayan Emergency of the 1940s and 1950s, American counterinsurgency in South Vietnam during the 1960s and 1970s, and the Coalition counterinsurgency in Iraq during the 2000s. Cover 1 The Strategic Use of Force in Counterinsurgency 2 The Strategic Use of Force in Counterinsurgency: Find, Fix, Fight 4 Copyright page 5 Contents 6 List of Figure and Table 8 Acknowledgments 10 List of Abbreviations 14 Introduction 16 Chapter 1 36 The Utility of Force and the Definition of Terms 36 Section 1: The Utility of Force 37 Section 2: The Definitions of Insurgency and Counterinsurgency 50 Section 3: The Neo-Classicist/Revisionist Debate over the Nature of Insurgency and the Utility of Counterinsurgency in the post-Cold War World 61 Conclusion 67 Notes 68 Chapter 2 72 Research Approach 72 Section 1: Competing Research Paradigms: Sciences of Structure versus Sciences of Process 73 Section 2: Historical Studies and Counterfactual Reasoning 76 Section 3: Research Traditions within Strategic Studies 80 Section 4: Research Traditions within the Study of Counterinsurgency 83 Section 5: Organizing Concepts in Evaluating the Use of Force 84 Section 6: Summary and Steps Taken in This Book’s Empirical Research 89 Notes 98 Chapter 3 100 Strategic Assessment of British Counterinsurgency during the Malayan Emergency 100 How the Strategic Aspects of the Malayan Emergency Conform to the BHS Themes 102 Historical Narrative of the Malayan Emergency 110 Comparison to Galula 118 Comparison with the Win-Loss Spectrum 122 Counterfactual Analysis of the Malayan Emergency 124 Conclusions 126 Note 127 Chapter 4 128 Strategic Assessment of American Counterinsurgency during the Vietnam War 128 How the Strategic Aspects of the Vietnam War Conform to the BHS Themes 130 Historical Narrative of the Vietnam War 139 Comparison to Galula 148 Comparison to Win-loss Spectrum 150 Counterfactual Analysis of the Vietnam War 152 Conclusions 156 Note 158 Chapter 5 160 Strategic Assessment of Coalition Counterinsurgency during the Iraq War 160 How the Strategic Aspects of the Iraq War Conform to the BHS Themes 162 Historical Narrative of the Iraq War 171 Comparison to Galula 182 Comparison to Win-Loss Spectrum 185 Counterfactual Analysis of the Iraq War 186 Conclusions 189 Notes 190 Conclusion 192 Reference List 204 Index 226 About the Author 234 "The Strategic Use of Force in Counterinsurgency: Find, Fix, Fight focuses on how to understand the relationship between the use of force and its outcomes, by looking at counterinsurgencies in Malaya, Vietnam, and Iraq. The relationship is dynamic, meaning academics and practitioners should think and act accordingly."-- Provided by publisher