The New Counter-insurgency Era in Critical Perspective

Front Matter....Pages i-xiii
Introduction....Pages 1-5
Front Matter....Pages 7-7
Minting New COIN: Critiquing Counter-insurgency Theory....Pages 9-31
COIN and the Chameleon: The Category Errors of Trying to Divide the Indivisible....Pages 32-57
Our Own Worst Enemy: The Unspoken Paradox of Large-Scale Expeditionary COIN....Pages 58-81
Government in a Box? Counter-insurgency, State Building, and the Technocratic Conceit....Pages 82-110
‘Our Ghettos, Too, Need a Lansdale’: American Counter-insurgency Abroad and at Home in the Vietnam Era....Pages 111-126
Bringing the Soil Back in: Control and Territoriality in Western and Non-Western COIN....Pages 127-143
Counter-insurgency and Violence Management....Pages 144-155
Mass, Methods, and Means: The Northern Ireland ‘Model’ of Counter-insurgency....Pages 156-172
David Galula and the Revival of COIN in the US Military....Pages 173-197
Front Matter....Pages 199-199
Testing the Surge: Why Did Violence Decline in Iraq in 2007?....Pages 201-231
After a Decade of Counter-insurgency, Eliminate Nation-Building from US Military Manuals....Pages 232-239
The Conceit of American Counter-insurgency....Pages 240-256
‘The Population Is the Enemy’: Control, Behaviour, and Counter-insurgency in Central Helmand Province, Afghanistan....Pages 257-277
The Reluctant Counter-insurgents: Britain’s Absent Surge in Southern Iraq....Pages 278-296
Front Matter....Pages 297-297
Questions about COIN after Iraq and Afghanistan....Pages 299-318
The Military Utility and Interventions Post-Afghanistan: Reassessing Ends, Ways, and Means....Pages 319-339
‘What Do We Do If We Are Never Going to Do This Again?’ Western Counter-insurgency Choices after Iraq and Afghanistan....Pages 340-365
Back Matter....Pages 366-375