On Other War: Lessons from Five Decades of Rand Counterinsurgency Research

Abstract

As part of the global war on terror, Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom showcased the dazzling technological capability and professional prowess of the U.S. military in conventional operations. Yet the subsequent challenges posed by insurgency and instability in both Afghanistan and Iraq have proved much more difficult to surmount for both military and civilian agencies. Further, this difficulty in coping with insurgency may embolden future opponents to embrace insurgency as the only viable means of combating the United States. Thus, both the current and future conduct of the war on terror demand that the United States improve its ability to conduct counterinsurgency (COIN) operations. This study seeks to summarize much of what is known about prior COIN and to make recommendations for improving it based on RAND Corporation's decades-long study of the subject. The body of work generated from this study covers many aspects of COIN, from the most abstract theories of why insurgency takes place to tactical operations. It also covers a wide array of cases, varied in both geography and time, from the British experience in Malaya to the French in Algeria to the United States in El Salvador. However, the research is limited in that almost all of it is based on cases that occurred in the context of the Cold War. Some might question the continuing relevance of studies centered on conflicts that took place in such a radically different geopolitical context. This study is based on the premise that, while many specific details do vary greatly, insurgency and counterinsurgency is a more general phenomenon that is not a product of Cold War peculiarities. Further, many of the alleged differences between past and current COIN are overstated. For example, the fragmented nature of the insurgency in Iraq is often remarked on as almost without precedent. Yet many insurgencies during the Cold War were also highly fragmented. A RAND counterinsurgency bibliography is included.

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