Keep the change: Counterinsurgency, Iraq, and historical understanding

Abstract

This article explores the historical reasoning behind counterinsurgency thinking, particularly as applied to Iraq, using Douglas Porch's book, Counterinsurgency: Exposing the Myths of the New Way of War as a reference point. It argues that the classic historical analogies of counterinsurgency theory were inapt in dealing with the conflict in Iraq, and that the historical reasoning behind counterinsurgency more generally deserves greater scrutiny. Not only are the analogies of questionable applicability, but the evidence of causation in prior conflicts is ultimately unproveable. In the end, Counterinsurgency theory and the US Army's Field Manual 3-24 on Counterinsurgency were politically useful during the ‘Surge’, beginning in 2007, but remain intellectually and historically problematic.

Keywords::

• counterinsurgency
• Iraq, historical reasoning
• historical analogy
• Galula
• Douglas Porch
• Malaya
• Field Manual 3-24

Notes

^1.Fall, ‘Counterinsurgency’.

^2.Wilde, Importance of Being Earnest, p. 6.

^3. Author's notes and recollections; also see Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 287–9.

^4. Ibid.

^5. Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms, Joint Publication 1-02, 12 April 2001, as amended through 13 June 2007, p. 265.

^6. Nicholas Sambanis, ‘It's Official: There Is Now a Civil War In Iraq’, New York Times, 23 July 2006, under ‘Op-Ed Contributor’, accessed 28 November 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/23/opinion/23sambanis.html?_r = 0.

^7. Author's notes and recollections; also see Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 239.

^8.Nagl, ‘Foreword’, xiv.

^9. See, for example, Peter Bergen, ‘How Petraeus Changed the US Military’, CNN Opinion, 11 November 2012, accessed 30 November 2013, http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/10/opinion/bergen-petraeus-legacy/index.html.

^10. See, for example, Ucko, The New Counterinsurgency Era, and Smith, The Utility of Force.

^11.Clausewitz, On War, 96.

^12. Quoted in Howard, ‘The Use and Abuse of Military History’.

^13.Blackwill, ‘Afghanistan and the Uses of History, 4.

^14.May, ‘Lessons’ of the Past, p. xi.

^15.Neustadt and May, Thinking in Time.

^16. Howard, ‘The Use and Abuse of Military History’.

^17.Kuklick, Blind Oracles, 121–2.

^18.Blackwill, November 28, 2013, p 4.

^19. Quoted in Yuen Foong Khong, Analogies at War, 8.

^20.Department of the Army, US Army Counterinsurgency Handbook, xiv.

^21.Demarest, ‘Let's Take the French Experience in Algeria’, 21.

^22.Nagl, Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife.

^23.Blackwill lecture November 28, 2013, p. 4.

^24. The problems with applying the analogy of the Malayan Emergency to Iraq and Afghanistan have been carefully and convincingly recorded by a number of historians in recent years. See, for example, Hack, ‘The Malayan Emergency’. Also see Gentile, Wrong Turn.

^25.Smith, ‘COIN and the Chameleon’.

^26.Thornton, ‘The British Army and the Origins of Its Minimum Force Philosophy’.

^27. Alex Marshall, ‘Imperial Nostalgia’. Also see Cohen, ‘The Myth of a Kindler, Gentler War’.

^28. Nigel Morris and Lewis Smith, ‘Hague to Express “Sincere Regret” Over Mau Mau Uprising and Announce Compensation of 14 Million Pounds”, Independent, 6 June 2013, accessed 2 December 2013, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/hague-to-express-sincere-regret-over-mau-mau-uprising-and-announce-compensation-of-14m-8647184.html.

^29. Huw Bennett, for example, shows the use of the Mau Mau rebellion in modern counterinsurgency rhetoric and offers a convincing corrective in Bennett, ‘The Other Side of the Coin’. Also see Bennett, ‘The Mau Mau Emergency’.

^30. Nagl, ‘Foreword’, xix.

^31.Galula, Counterinsurgency Warfare.

^32. As Geoff Demarest points out, in Pacification in Algeria, ‘Galula asserts that “it is necessary to punish in exemplary fashion the rebel criminals we have caught… The rebels’ flagrant crimes must be punished immediately, mercilessly, and on the very spot where they took place.”’ Quoted in Demarest, ‘Let's Take the French Experience’, 21.

^33.Fall, ‘Counterinsurgency’, 18.

^34. As Philip Zelikow explains, ‘A generalization is the way people bridge from one experience to another. Some social scientists prefer the term “theory”. They might treat a historical generalization as a species of theory.’ In Zelikow, ‘Histories Personal and Collective’, 12.

^35.Fishstein and Wilder, ‘Winning Hearts and Minds?’.

^36.Eikenberry, ‘The Limits of Counterinsurgency Doctrine’, 64.

^37.Maier, Review of Blind Oracles; my emphasis

^38. Ibid.

^39. Jim Garamone, ‘In Letter to Troops, Petraeus Says Surge Gives Coalition Momentum’, Armed Forces Press Service, 7 September 2007, accessed 28 November 2013, http://www.defense.gov/News/NewsArticle.aspx?ID = 47348.

^40. Tom Rogan, ‘Why Iraq Is On the Precipice of Civil War’, The Atlantic, 5 June 2013, accessed 29 November 2013, http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/06/why-iraq-is-on-the-precipice-of-civil-war/276562/.