Best Practices in Counterinsurgency
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Load more
Recommended publications
-
THE PHILIPPINES, 1942-1944 James Kelly Morningstar, Doctor of History
ABSTRACT Title of Dissertation: WAR AND RESISTANCE: THE PHILIPPINES, 1942-1944 James Kelly Morningstar, Doctor of History, 2018 Dissertation directed by: Professor Jon T. Sumida, History Department What happened in the Philippine Islands between the surrender of Allied forces in May 1942 and MacArthur’s return in October 1944? Existing historiography is fragmentary and incomplete. Memoirs suffer from limited points of view and personal biases. No academic study has examined the Filipino resistance with a critical and interdisciplinary approach. No comprehensive narrative has yet captured the fighting by 260,000 guerrillas in 277 units across the archipelago. This dissertation begins with the political, economic, social and cultural history of Philippine guerrilla warfare. The diverse Islands connected only through kinship networks. The Americans reluctantly held the Islands against rising Japanese imperial interests and Filipino desires for independence and social justice. World War II revealed the inadequacy of MacArthur’s plans to defend the Islands. The General tepidly prepared for guerrilla operations while Filipinos spontaneously rose in armed resistance. After his departure, the chaotic mix of guerrilla groups were left on their own to battle the Japanese and each other. While guerrilla leaders vied for local power, several obtained radios to contact MacArthur and his headquarters sent submarine-delivered agents with supplies and radios that tie these groups into a united framework. MacArthur’s promise to return kept the resistance alive and dependent on the United States. The repercussions for social revolution would be fatal but the Filipinos’ shared sacrifice revitalized national consciousness and created a sense of deserved nationhood. The guerrillas played a key role in enabling MacArthur’s return. -
H-Diplo Review Essay
H201-Diplo Review 8Essay H-Diplo H-Diplo Essay Editor: Diane Labrosse H-Diplo Essay No. 158 H-Diplo Web and Production Editor: George Fujii An H-Diplo Review Essay Published on 28 June 2018 Max Boot. The Road Not Taken: Edward Lansdale and the American Tragedy in Vietnam. New York: Liveright Publishing, 2018. ISBN: 978-0-87140-941-6 (hardcover, $35.00). URL: http://tiny.cc/E158 Reviewed by Jeffrey P. Kimball, Miami University, Professor Emeritus dward Lansdale (1908-1987) gave up his job with a California advertizing firm to serve as an intelligence officer in the Office of Strategic Services during World War II. Still with the agency after the war—now renamed the Central Intelligence Agency—he was assigned the role of adviser to the EPhilippine government in its fight to suppress the left-leaning Hukbalahap peasant guerrilla rebellion. The fundamental elements of Lansdale’s counter-guerrilla strategy included reform of the government, propaganda and ‘civic-action’ programs that addressed the peasantry’s concerns, black ops, psychological warfare, and the development of counter-guerrilla military units, tactics, and programs. Lansdale also played an important role in assisting reformist Ramon Magsaysay’s rise to the presidency of the Philippines. For Max Boot, the author of this mammoth 715-page book (including back matter), Lansdale’s counter-guerrilla methods in the Philippines constituted the “road” or strategy that the United States should later have followed in Vietnam– but did not. (In 1959, one of Lansdale’s colleagues, Sam Wilson, renamed and broadened the term ‘counter- guerrilla’ warfare as ‘counterinsurgency’ warfare [321-322].) Lansdale’s brief assignment to Indochina in 1953 as U.S. -
Religion, Class, and the Development of Youth Volunteer Service in the United States, 1934–1973
"TheVolunteer Who Seeks to Help Others Also Helps Himself": Religion, Class, and the Development of Youth Volunteer Service in the United States, 1934–1973 Author: Christopher Staysniak Persistent link: http://hdl.handle.net/2345/bc-ir:107339 This work is posted on eScholarship@BC, Boston College University Libraries. Boston College Electronic Thesis or Dissertation, 2017 Copyright is held by the author, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise noted. “The VOLUNTEER WHO SEEKS TO HELP OTHERS ALSO HELPS HIMSELF”: RELIGION, CLASS, AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF YOUTH VOLUNTEER SERVICE IN THE UNITED STATES, 1934–1973 Christopher Staysniak A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the department of History in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Boston College Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences Graduate School March 2017 © Copyright 2017 Christopher Staysniak “THE VOLUNTEER WHO SEEKS TO HELP OTHERS ALSO HELPS HIMSELF”: RELIGION, CLASS, AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF YOUTH VOLUNTEER SERVICE IN THE UNITED STATES, 1934–1973 Christopher Staysniak Advisor: James M. O’Toole, Ph.D This dissertation examines the development of youth volunteer service in the United States through a constellation of religious, private, and government programs. It explores how this larger impulse, which includes “service trips,” service–learning courses, and postgraduate programs like the Peace Corps, became a normative and ubiquitous opportunity for middle class, and consequently largely white, Americans. This study weaves together multiple programs, and a rich array of ideas and events such as social gospel concerns, pacifism, William James’ arguments for a “moral alternative to war,” gender and class anxieties, Great Depression and Cold War–specific exigencies, the Catholic Lay Apostolate, 1960s student activism, and the War on Poverty. -
Killing Hope U.S
Killing Hope U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II – Part I William Blum Zed Books London Killing Hope was first published outside of North America by Zed Books Ltd, 7 Cynthia Street, London NI 9JF, UK in 2003. Second impression, 2004 Printed by Gopsons Papers Limited, Noida, India w w w.zedbooks .demon .co .uk Published in South Africa by Spearhead, a division of New Africa Books, PO Box 23408, Claremont 7735 This is a wholly revised, extended and updated edition of a book originally published under the title The CIA: A Forgotten History (Zed Books, 1986) Copyright © William Blum 2003 The right of William Blum to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Cover design by Andrew Corbett ISBN 1 84277 368 2 hb ISBN 1 84277 369 0 pb Spearhead ISBN 0 86486 560 0 pb 2 Contents PART I Introduction 6 1. China 1945 to 1960s: Was Mao Tse-tung just paranoid? 20 2. Italy 1947-1948: Free elections, Hollywood style 27 3. Greece 1947 to early 1950s: From cradle of democracy to client state 33 4. The Philippines 1940s and 1950s: America's oldest colony 38 5. Korea 1945-1953: Was it all that it appeared to be? 44 6. Albania 1949-1953: The proper English spy 54 7. Eastern Europe 1948-1956: Operation Splinter Factor 56 8. Germany 1950s: Everything from juvenile delinquency to terrorism 60 9. Iran 1953: Making it safe for the King of Kings 63 10. -
Sanctuary Lost: the Air War for ―Portuguese‖ Guinea, 1963-1974
Sanctuary Lost: The Air War for ―Portuguese‖ Guinea, 1963-1974 Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Matthew Martin Hurley, MA Graduate Program in History The Ohio State University 2009 Dissertation Committee: Professor John F. Guilmartin, Jr., Advisor Professor Alan Beyerchen Professor Ousman Kobo Copyright by Matthew Martin Hurley 2009 i Abstract From 1963 to 1974, Portugal and the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (Partido Africano da Independência da Guiné e Cabo Verde, or PAIGC) waged an increasingly intense war for the independence of ―Portuguese‖ Guinea, then a colony but today the Republic of Guinea-Bissau. For most of this conflict Portugal enjoyed virtually unchallenged air supremacy and increasingly based its strategy on this advantage. The Portuguese Air Force (Força Aérea Portuguesa, abbreviated FAP) consequently played a central role in the war for Guinea, at times threatening the PAIGC with military defeat. Portugal‘s reliance on air power compelled the insurgents to search for an effective counter-measure, and by 1973 they succeeded with their acquisition and employment of the Strela-2 shoulder-fired surface-to-air missile, altering the course of the war and the future of Portugal itself in the process. To date, however, no detailed study of this seminal episode in air power history has been conducted. In an international climate plagued by insurgency, terrorism, and the proliferation of sophisticated weapons, the hard lessons learned by Portugal offer enduring insight to historians and current air power practitioners alike. -
'Malavsiao an Inevitable Creation, 16 September 1963
'Malavsiao An Inevitable Creation, 16 September 1963 Ooi Keat Gin School of Humanities Universiti Sains Malaysia The concept of 'Malaysia' was conceived as a strategy of the westem powers, n Britain, to ensure that its former colonial possessions, namely (British) Malaya and Bomeo (sarawak, Brunei, North Bomeo) did not switch or fall into the socialist/ camp. The genesis of the formation of the Federation of Malaysia which comprised Federation of Malaya, Singapore, Sarawak, Sabah (formerly North Bomeor), and that realized on 16 September 1963 presented a bulwark to the advancement of the i the communist ideology in the Southeast Asia region. The post-war situation and conditi the then British colonial territories and protectorates of Malaya, Singapore, sarawak, and North Borneo witnessed the increasing influence and threat of communism penn the region. comparatively, however, Brunei and North Bomeo had scant Leftist impact. During the 1950s and early 1960s, the mandarins at whitehall, the Foreign office (Fo), colonial office (co) were particularly anxious and apprehensive that their possessions in Southeast Asia appeared to be susceptible and be swept by the Leftist then prevailing in the region. Symptoms of this Leftist wave could be seen in neiehbouri Indonesia (Partai Komunis Indonesia, PKI, Indonesia communist partv). the phi (Hukbalahap, Huk), and vietnam (Viet cong). within Malaya itself, there was the pro Emergency (1948-1960) with the formidable Malayan communist party (MCp), whereas singapore the Barisan sosialis (Socialist Front) was gaining strength and influence, and in Sarawak, the clandestine manoeuvres of the Sarawak communist organization ( through the sarawak united People's Party (suPP) were worrisome, developments that threatening and troublesome. -
Nationalist China in the Postcolonial Philippines: Diasporic Anticommunism, Shared Sovereignty, and Ideological Chineseness, 1945-1970S
Nationalist China in the Postcolonial Philippines: Diasporic Anticommunism, Shared Sovereignty, and Ideological Chineseness, 1945-1970s Chien Wen Kung Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 2018 © 2018 Chien Wen Kung All rights reserved ABSTRACT Nationalist China in the Postcolonial Philippines: Diasporic Anticommunism, Shared Sovereignty, and Ideological Chineseness, 1945-1970s Chien Wen Kung This dissertation explains how the Republic of China (ROC), overseas Chinese (huaqiao), and the Philippines, sometimes but not always working with each other, produced and opposed the threat of Chinese communism from the end of World War II to the mid-1970s. It is not a history of US- led anticommunist efforts with respect to the Chinese diaspora, but rather an intra-Asian social and cultural history of anticommunism and nation-building that liberates two close US allies from US- centric historiographies and juxtaposes them with each other and the huaqiao community that they claimed. Three principal arguments flow from this focus on intra-Asian anticommunism. First, I challenge narrowly territorialized understandings of Chinese nationalism by arguing that Taiwan engaged in diasporic nation-building in the Philippines. Whether by helping the Philippine military identify Chinese communists or by mobilizing Philippine huaqiao in support of Taiwan, the ROC carved out a semi-sovereign sphere of influence for itself within a foreign country. It did so through institutions such as schools, the Kuomintang (KMT), and the Philippine-Chinese Anti-Communist League, which functioned transnationally and locally to embed the ROC into Chinese society and connect huaqiao to Taiwan. -
An American Tragedy" : Strategies of Representing Victimhood in American Narratives of the War in Vietnam
Title: "An American Tragedy" : Strategies of Representing Victimhood in American Narratives of the War in Vietnam Author: Aleksandra Musiał Citation style: Musiał, Aleksandra. (2018). "An American Tragedy" : Strategies of Representing Victimhood in American Narratives of the War in Vietnam. Praca doktorska. Katowice : Uniwersytet Śląski Uniwersytet Śląski w Katowicach Wydział Filologiczny Aleksandra Musiał “An American Tragedy” Strategies of Representing Victimhood in American Narratives of the War in Vietnam Rozprawa doktorska napisana pod kierunkiem: p r o m o t o r : dr hab. Leszek Drong p r o m o t o r p o m o c n ic z y : dr Marcin Sarnek Katowice 2018 Table of Contents Introduction: Secret Histories..................................................................................................................................... 5 Chapter 1: Vietnam Syndromes: Symptoms & Contexts 1.1. The American cultural narrative of Vietnam...............................................................................................17 1.2. Repudiating the 1960s................................................................................................................................... 23 1.3. Squandering Vietnam’s subversive potential.............................................................................................. 34 Chapter 2: “War Is as Natural as the Rains”: Myth and Representations of the Vietnamese landscape 2.1. History..............................................................................................................................................................65 -
Civilian Social Networks and Credible Counterinsurgency
Civilian Social Networks and Credible Counterinsurgency Dotan A. Haim Department of Political Science, University of California, San Diego Abstract How do civilian social networks influence the effectiveness of counterinsurgency? I posit that counterinsurgents' ability to win civilian \hearts and minds" and elicit useful information about insurgents is driven in large part by information about counterin- surgent credibility that flows through civilian social networks. Civilian perceptions of local military control, as well as the government's commitment to economic service provision, are shaped not only by what they observe in their own village, but also by the experiences of their friends and family members in the surrounding area. To test this argument, I use newly collected data on 1) family ties between over 55 mil- lion individuals in 42,000 Philippine villages, 2) village-level insurgent presence (from military intelligence reports) and 3) counterinsurgency-related development projects. I find that counterinsurgency efforts were significantly more effective at reducing in- surgent presence when civilians in targeted villages had family ties to other nearby villages that received development projects. Counterinsurgency efforts were less effec- tive when civilians in targeted villages had family ties to other nearby villages affected by insurgents. 1 Introduction In 2013, the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) was engaged in extensive coun- terinsurgency operations in Gubat Municipality of Sorsogon Province. Two of the villages targeted -
Naito, Hiroaki (2014) Vietnam Fought and Imagined: the Images of the Mythic Frontier in American Vietnam War Literature
Naito, Hiroaki (2014) Vietnam fought and imagined: the images of the mythic frontier in American Vietnam War literature. PhD thesis. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/5101/ Copyright and moral rights for this work are retained by the author A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge This work cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Enlighten:Theses http://theses.gla.ac.uk/ [email protected] Vietnam Fought and Imagined: the Images of the Mythic Western Frontier in American Vietnam War Literature Hiroaki Naito Submitted in Fulfilment of the Requirement for the Degree of PhD School of Critical Studies College of Arts University of Glasgow December 2013 1 Abstract This thesis seeks to examine how a particularly American ideological formation called the frontier myth has been re-enacted, challenged, and redefined in the literary works written by several American authors. Existing researches about the pervasiveness of the frontier mythology in American culture written by scholars such as Richard Slotkin, Richard Drinnon, and others demonstrate that, as the myth of the frontier–––the popular discourse that romanticizes early white settlers’ violent confrontation with American Indians in the New World wilderness–––has been deeply inscribed in America’s collective consciousness, when they faced with the war in a remote Southeast Asian country, many Americans have adopted its conventional narrative patterns, images, and vocabulary to narrate their experiences therein. -
Information Warfare: Issues for Congress
Information Warfare: Issues for Congress Catherine A. Theohary Specialist in National Security Policy, Cyber and Information Operations March 5, 2018 Congressional Research Service 7-5700 www.crs.gov R45142 Information Warfare: Issues for Congress Summary Information warfare is hardly a new endeavor. In the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC, Persian ruler Xerxes used intimidation tactics to break the will of Greek city-states. Alexander the Great used cultural assimilation to subdue dissent and maintain conquered lands. Military scholars trace the modern use of information as a tool in guerilla warfare to fifth-century BC Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu’s book The Art of War and its emphasis on accurate intelligence for decision superiority over a mightier foe. These ancient strategists helped to lay the foundation for information warfare strategy in modern times. Taking place below the level of armed conflict, information warfare (IW) is the range of military and government operations to protect and exploit the information environment. Although information is recognized as an element of national power, IW is a relatively poorly understood concept in the United States, with several other terms being used to describe the same or similar sets of activity. IW is a strategy for using information to pursue a competitive advantage, including offensive and defensive efforts. A form of political warfare, IW is a means through which nations achieve strategic objectives and advance foreign policy goals. Defensive efforts include information assurance/information security, while offensive efforts include information operations. Similar terms sometimes used to characterize information warfare include active measures, hybrid warfare, and gray zone warfare. -
Cold War Counterinsurgency and Liberal Governance
Managing Revolution: Cold War Counterinsurgency and Liberal Governance Author: Peter Berard Persistent link: http://hdl.handle.net/2345/bc-ir:108101 This work is posted on eScholarship@BC, Boston College University Libraries. Boston College Electronic Thesis or Dissertation, 2018 Copyright is held by the author, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise noted. Managing Revolution: Cold War Counterinsurgency and Liberal Governance Peter John Berard A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the department of History in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Boston College Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences Graduate School March 2018 © Copyright 2018 Peter John Berard MANAGING REVOLUTION: COLD WAR COUNTERINSURGENCY AND LIBERAL GOVERNANCE Peter Berard Advisor: Seth Jacobs, PhD Counterinsurgency doctrine, as an intellectual project, began as a response on the part of liberal world powers to the dual crises of decolonization and the Cold War. Unlike earlier meanss of suppressing rebellions, counterinsurgency sought not to quash, but to channel the revolutionary energies of decolonization into a liberal, developmentalist direction. Counterinsurgency would simultaneously defeat communists and build a new and better society. As early efforts at developmentalist counterinsurgency failed in Vietnam in the early 1960s, the counterinsurgent’s methods and goals changed. The CORDS Project, starting in 1967, replaced the emphasis on building a new society with altering present societies in such a way as to prioritize surveillance and the removal of subversive elements. From its inception, the political visions that counterinsurgency seeks to implement have shifted alongside – and at times prefigured – changes in liberal governance more broadly. TABLE OF CONTENTS Table of Contents .....................................................................................................................