From the Editors

The employment of private security contractors has received considerable attention in recent years. Thomas C. Bruneau's ‘Contracting Out Security’ highlights three problems that have hindered the study of contractors: the resort to political polemic, the mixed and diverse set of drivers that has led governments to resort increasingly to private firms, and problems of methodology and data. Bruneau, of the US Naval Postgraduate School, addresses these challenges and provides an analytical framework for studying security contractors.

Niccolò Petrelli's ‘Deterring Insurgents: Culture, Adaptation and the Evolution of Israeli Counterinsurgency, 1987–2005’ contributes to the debate over strategic culture and counterinsurgency in Israel. ¹ Petrelli, of the Department of International Studies, University of Roma Tre, Rome, Italy, and the International Institute for Counterterrorism (ICT), Interdisciplinary Centre, Herzliya, Israel, analyzes the Israeli ‘way of war’ in counterinsurgency and its evolution from 1987 to 2005 and critically evaluates the track record of Israeli adaptation in war.

As the United States and its allies draw down from Afghanistan, some would prefer to ignore the experience of counterinsurgency. History nonetheless suggests that the prospect of intervening in insurgencies will remain a topic of interest for both scholars and policy makers. Rory Cormac's ‘Coordinating Covert Action: The Case of the Yemen Civil War and the South Arabian Insurgency,’ examines the centralized mechanisms that the British government developed to coordinate its covert action across the government during the 1960s Yemen Civil War. Cormac, of King's College London, uses recently declassified documents and interviews to shed new light on Britain's intervention in the theater. Cormac's essay offers a counterpoint to recent critiques of US bureaucratic performance in Afghanistan. ²

With the aftermath of the ‘Arab Spring’ still playing out, the challenges associated with forecasting political change remain salient to both scholars and policymakers. ³ Uri Bar-Joseph's ‘Forecasting a Hurricane: Israeli and American Estimations of the Khomeini Revolution’ compares the performance of Israeli and American intelligence over the course of the Iranian revolution in 1977–79. Bar-Joseph, who teaches at Haifa University, uses new sources of evidence to argue that Israeli intelligence's intimate acquaintance with Iran's language, history, and culture, gave it an edge over its American counterparts in understanding political developments on the ground. ⁴

The issue concludes with reviews of six recent and notable books in the field of strategic studies.

Notes

1 Lazar Berman, ‘Capturing Contemporary Innovation: Studying IDF Innovation against Hamas and Hizballah’, Journal of Strategic Studies 35/1 (Feb. 2012), 121–47. Sergio Catignani, ‘The Strategic Impasse in Low-Intensity Conflicts: The Gap between Israeli Counter-Insurgency Strategy and Tactics during the Al-Aqsa Intifada’, Journal of Strategic Studies 28/1 (Feb. 2005), 57–75; Hillel Frisch, ‘Motivation or Capabilities? Israeli Counterterrorism against Palestinian Suicide Bombings and Violence’, The Journal of Strategic Studies 29/5 (Oct. 2006), 843–69; Dag Henriksen, ‘Deterrence by Default? Israel's Military Strategy in the 2006 War against Hizballah’, Journal of Strategic Studies 35/1 (Feb. 2012), 95–120; Zeev Maoz, ‘Evaluating Israel's Strategy of Low-Intensity Warfare, 1949–2006’, Security Studies 16/3 (Aug. 2007), 319–49; Thomas Rid, ‘Deterrence beyond the State: The Israeli Experience’, Contemporary Security Policy 33/1 (April 2012), 124–47.

2 Todd Greentree, ‘Bureaucracy Does its Thing: US Performance and the Institutional Dimension of Strategy in Afghanistan’, Journal of Strategic Studies 36/3 (June 2013), 325–56.

3 See also Hillel Frisch, ‘The Egyptian Army and Egypt's “Spring”’, Journal of Strategic Studies 36/2 (April 2013), 180–204; Risa Brooks, ‘Abandoned at the Palace: Why the Tunisian Military Defected from the Ben Ali Regime in January 2011’, Journal of Strategic Studies 36/2 (April 2013), 205–20; Florence Gaub, ‘The Libyan Armed Forces between Coup-proofing and Repression’, Journal of Strategic Studies 36/2 (April 2013), 221–44; Laurence Louër, ‘Sectarianism and Coup-Proofing Strategies in Bahrain’, Journal of Strategic Studies 36/2 (April 2013), 245–60; and Michael Knights, ‘The Military Role in Yemen's Protests: Civil-Military Relations in the Tribal Republic’, Journal of Strategic Studies 36/2 (April 2013), 261–88.

4 See also Robert Jervis, Why Intelligence Fails: Lessons from the Iranian Revolution and the Iraq War (Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP 2010).