This study explores the nature of the insurgency in Afghanistan, the key challenges and successes of the U.S.-led counterinsurgency campaign, and the capabilities necessary to wage effective counterinsurgency operations. By examining the key lessons from all insurgencies since World War II, it finds that most policymakers repeatedly underestimate the importance of indigenous actors to counterinsurgency efforts. The U.S. should focus its resources on helping improve the capacity of the indigenous government and indigenous security forces to wage counterinsurgency. It has not always done this well. The U.S. military-along with U.S. civilian agencies and other coalition partners-is more likely to be successful in counterinsurgency warfare the more capable and legitimate the indigenous security forces (especially the police), the better the governance capacity of the local state, and the less external support that insurgents receive.

After the 2001 ouster of the Taliban from Afghanistan, the United States and its allies found themselves in a country devastated by a series of wars. This book looks at how, working with their Afghan counterparts, they engaged in a complex effort to rebuild security, development, and governance, all while fighting a low-intensity war.

This thought-provoking work analyzes the major debates surrounding counterinsurgency campaigns and uncovers the internal security problems derailing effective strategies for restoring stability. As countries across the globe continue to adjust their security operations to counter an increasingly volatile political landscape, the issue of how to identify and derail a host of violent groups remains of considerable interest. This comprehensive volume offers an examination of the effectiveness of contemporary counterinsurgency efforts, revealing which approaches offer the greatest chances of success internally, regionally, and internationally. Featuring perspectives from experts and analysts in the field of irregular warfare and international security, this is an unparalleled exploration of all types of insurgency from warlordism, to piracy, to guerilla movements. The book looks beyond the popular focus on Iraq and Afghanistan, delving into the internal security operations of regions not normally studied. Chapters cover goal setting and measurements for restoring security, information operations and strategic communications between insurgent groups and governments, and the different approaches of governments in combating political unrest. Case studies include movements in Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, Egypt, and South Africa.

The book aims to explain the factors that brought about a high degree of similarity between American and Canadian foreign and security policies during the Afghanistan intervention. Specifically, it seeks to explain why, despite their different positions in the international distribution of power, the United States and Canada embraced similar counterinsurgency (COIN) strategies from 2005/2006 to 2011. During this time, the United States and Canada fought against insurgent groups, sought to maintain stabilized areas by mentoring Afghan forces, and invested in infrastructure and governance. These goals, which corresponded to the ‘clear,’ ‘hold,’ and ‘build’ COIN components, entailed sending troops and civilian officials to a war zone and committing financial resources.

Long considered the masters of counterinsurgency, the British military encountered significant problems in Iraq and Afghanistan when confronted with insurgent violence. In their effort to apply the principles and doctrines of past campaigns, they failed to prevent Basra and Helmand from descending into lawlessness, criminality, and violence. By juxtaposing the deterioration of these situations against Britain's celebrated legacy of counterinsurgency, this investigation identifies both the contributions and limitations of traditional tactics in such settings, exposing a disconcerting gap between ambitions and resources, intent and commitment. Building upon this detailed account of the Basra and Helmand campaigns, this volume conducts an unprecedented assessment of British military institutional adaptation in response to operations gone awry. In calling attention to the enduring effectiveness of insurgent methods and the threat posed by undergoverned spaces, David H. Ucko and Robert Egnell underscore the need for military organizations to meet the irregular challenges of future wars in new ways.

This book analyses the various ways counterinsurgency in Afghanistan is gendered. The book examines the US led war in Afghanistan from 2001 onwards, including the invasion, the population-centric counterinsurgency operations and the efforts to train a new Afghan military charged with securing the country when the US and NATO withdrew their combat forces in 2014. Through an analysis of key counterinsurgency texts and military memoirs, the book explores how gender and counterinsurgency are co-constitutive in numerous ways. It discusses the multiple military masculinities that counterinsurgency relies on, the discourse of ‘cultural sensitivity’, and the deployment of Female Engagement Teams (FETs). Gendering Counterinsurgency demonstrates how population-centric counterinsurgency doctrine and practice can be captured within a gendered dynamic of ‘killing and caring’ – reliant on physical violence, albeit mediated through ‘armed social work’. This simultaneously contradictory and complementary dynamic cannot be understood without recognising how the legitimation and the practice of this war relied on multiple gendered embodied performances of masculinities and femininities. Developing the concept of ‘embodied performativity’ this book shows how the clues to understanding counterinsurgency, as well as gendering war more broadly are found in war’s everyday gendered manifestations. This book will be of much interest to students of counterinsurgency warfare, gender politics, governmentality, biopolitics, critical war studies, and critical security studies in general.

Moyar presents a wide-ranging history of counterinsurgency which draws on the historical record and interviews with hundreds of counterinsurgency veterans. He identifies the ten critical attributes of counterinsurgency leadership and reveals why these attributes have been more prevalent in some organizations than others.

Counterinsurgency, the violent suppression of armed insurrection, is among the dominant kinds of war in contemporary world politics. Often linked to protecting populations and reconstructing legitimate political orders, it has appeared in other times and places in very different forms – and has taken on a range of politics in doing so. How did it arrive at its present form, and what generated these others, along the way? Spanning several centuries and four detailed case studies, The Counterinsurgent Imagination unpacks and explores this intellectual history through counterinsurgency manuals. These military theoretical and instructional texts, and the practitioners who produced them, made counterinsurgency possible in practice. By interrogating these processes, this book explains how counter-insurrectionary war eventually took on its late twentieth and early twenty-first century forms. It shows how and why counterinsurgent ideas persist, despite recurring failures.