![Sample our Politics & International Relations journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5947/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Politics-International-Relations.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
Collective identity building is a critical component of most insurgent movements, including constructing a compelling cause with which individuals can identify and a sense of purpose and camaraderie. Counterinsurgencies, by contrast, devote surprisingly little attention to creating identities that compete with insurgents. Instead, they tend to focus on providing goods and services to vulnerable populations with the assumption that emotional resources, such as a sense of identity and purpose, are not necessary. This article draws from theoretical work on identity building to outline how collective identities are constructed, what they include, and how they shape human behavior. It then considers the U.S. led operations in Iraq from 2003–2011, and compares these efforts to the emergence of Sunni Islamist insurgencies in Iraq to investigate how insurgents used identity building, but counterinsurgents did not. It then applies this theoretical literature to construct a program for how counterinsurgents could include identity construction as part of its strategy to undermine insurgent movements.
Disclosure statement
The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the U.S. Army War College, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. government.
Notes
1. Atran, 2015.
2. Erikson, Identity, Youth and Crisis.
3. This article defines terrorism as a tactic that threatens or uses violence, usually against civilians, with the aim of gaining publicity or making governments look weak and ineffective. Insurgency is the wider strategy designed to challenge existing governments, overthrow governments, or secede from states. Therefore, terrorism is a tactic that insurgents can use to further their overall political goals.
4. Arena and Arrigo, “Social Psychology, Terrorism and Identity.”
5. Arena and Arrigo, “Social Psychology, Terrorism and Identity”; and Crenshaw, “The Psychology of Political Terrorism.”
6. Horgan, Walking Away from Terrorism; and Moghaddam, “The Staircase to Terrorism.”
7. Meade, Coming of Age in Samoa.
8. Benedict, Patterns of Culture.
9. Norenzayan, Schaller, and Heine, “Evolution and Culture,” 345.
10. Ibid., 346.
11. Geertz, “Religion as a Cultural System,” 80.
12. Ibid., 81.
13. Swidler, “Culture in Action,” 273.
14. Swidler, “Culture in Action,” 278.
15. Atran, Talking to the Enemy, 8–9.
16. Anderson, Imagined Communities; and Atran, Talking to the Enemy, 11.
17. McBride, Collective Dreams, 1.
18. Ibid., 3.
19. Ibid., 1–22.
20. Eller, From Culture to Ethnicity to Conflict.
21. Eller, From Culture to Ethnicity to Conflict, 11.
22. Clausewitz, On War.
23. Taber, The War of the Flea, 12.
24. Sharpe, From Dictator to Democracy.
25. Taber, The War of the Flea.
26. Galula, Counterinsurgency Warfare, 12.
27. Ibid., 13.
28. Byman, Understanding Proto-Insurgencies, 11.
29. Ibid.
30. Ibid., 12.
31. U.S. Department of the Army, Insurgencies and Counterinsurgencies.
32. U.S. Department of the Army, Insurgencies and Counterinsurgencies, 3–3.
33. Kilcullen, “Intelligence,” 144.
34. Galula, Counterinsurgency Warfare, 31.
35. Atran, Talking with the Enemy, 32–40.
36. Ibid., 39.
37. Kilcullen, Accidental Guerilla, xxiv-xxvii.
38. Packer, “Knowing the Enemy,” 2.
39. Galula, Counterinsurgency Warfare, 14.
40. See note 32 above.
41. Kilcullen, “Intelligence”; Kilcullen, Accidental Guerilla; and Taber, War of the Flea.
42. Gregg, “Beyond Population Engagement.”
43. Dobbins, et al, America’s Role in Nation Building; Dobbins, et al, The UN’s Role in Nation Building; and Dobbins, et al, The Beginner’s Guide to Nation Building.
44. Fukuyama, State Building, 99.
45. Ghani and Lockhart, Fixing Failed States, 144.
46. Perito, ed., Guide for Participants in Peace, xxxiv.
47. Gregg, Building the Nation.
48. Gregg, Arquilla and Rothstein, eds. The Three Circles of War.
49. Bensahel, et al, After Saddam, 175–176. Chandrasekaran, “Interim Leaders Named in Iraq”; and Wright, “Iraqis Back New Leaders.”
50. “Coalition Provisional Authority Order Number One.”
51. Makia, “The Iraqi Elections of 2010 – and 2005.”
52. Bensahel et al, After Saddam, 142–147.
53. Al-Salhy and Arango, “Sunni Militants Drive Iraqi Army Out of Mosul.”
54. Department of Defense, “Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq.”
55. “Iraq’s Oil War”; and Blanchard, “Iraq: Oil and Gas Legislation.”
56. “Constitution of the Republic of Iraq.”
57. Packer, “The Lessons of Tal Afar.”
58. Anderson, “Inside the Surge.”
59. Clayton and Johnson, “The Enemy of My Enemy is My Friend”; and Porter, “Iraqi Prime Minister.”
60. Hashim, Insurgency and Counterinsurgency, 59–124.
61. The Sunni Insurgent movement went through several iterations, mergers and name changes, See: Kilcullen, Blood Year, 21–23.
62. Hashim, Insurgency and Counterinsurgency, 18.
63. Hashim, Insurgency and Counterinsurgency, 23–24, 28.
64. Hashim, Insurgency and Counterinsurgency, 29.
65. Gregg, “Jihad of the Pen”; Lia, The Society of Muslim Brothers, 54–60; Esposito, Islamic Threat, 121; Adams, “Mawdudi and the Islamic State”; and Maududi, “Self-Destructiveness of Western Civilization.”
66. Hashim, Insurgency and Counterinsurgency, 115–116.
67. Ibid., 116.
68. Ibid., 71.
69. Wood, The Way of Strangers, 118–120; Williams, Counter Jihad, 201–202; Kilcullen, Blood Year, 29–36; and McCants, ISIS Apocalypse, 7–15.
70. Kilcullen, Blood Year, 29.
71. Hashim, Insurgency and Counterinsurgency, 68.
72. Ibid., 69.
73. Kilcullen, Blood Year, 32–35; and McCants, ISIS Apocalypse, 15.
74. Wood, “What ISIS Really Wants,” 20.
75. Wictorowicz. “Anatomy of the Salafi Movement,” 207.
76. Wood, “What ISIS Really Wants.”
77. John Renard, Islam and the Heroic Image, 105.
78. McCants, ISIS Apocalypse, 126.
79. Caris and Reynolds, “ISIS Governance in Syria,” 4; and Irving, “What Life Under ISIS Looked Like from Space.”
80. See note 47 above.
81. See note 47 above.
82. Ghani and Lockhart, Fixing Failed States, 206–211; and Humayun, Exum, and Nagl, “A Pathway to Success in Afghanistan.”
83. “7 Rules, 1 Oath.”
84. Atran, “The Role of Youth,” Emphasis his.
85. Ibid.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Heather S. Gregg
Heather S. Gregg is an associate professor in the Department of Military Planning, Strategy and Operations at the U.S. Army War College. She is the author of Building the Nation: Missed Opportunities in Iraq and Afghanistan (University of Nebraska 2018); The Path to Salvation: Religious Violence from the Crusades to Jihad (University of Nebraska 2014); and co-editor of The Three Circles of War: Understanding the Dynamics of Modern War in Iraq (Potomac, 2010).