Counterinsurgency: Theory and Reality
Daniel Whittingham · Stuart Mitchell
Oct 2022 · Casemate
Ebook
192
Pages
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About this ebook
An overview of modern Western militaries' response to armed rebellion, from Indochina to Northern Ireland to Iraq.
Counterinsurgency—or efforts to defeat and confine a rebellion against a constituted authority—has become a buzzword in recent times, but the term is as old as society itself. This concise history covers the development of modern counterinsurgency over the last two hundred years, from the concept of "small wars" and colonial warfare to the ideas of early insurgents like Clausewitz and the theories of Lawrence of Arabia to the methods of twentieth-century insurgents including Mao and Che Guevara.
It also examines a number of post-1945 insurgencies and how Western armies have tried to counter them, in particular the French in Indochina and Algeria, as well as the United States in Vietnam and the reaction to the American experience there. This is compared with the British approach in the years after World War II, particularly in Malaya, but also in Kenya and Northern Ireland. Against this backdrop, there is an investigation of counterinsurgency in Afghanistan and Iraq, the rise of COIN literature, and the subsequent backlash against that literature—and finally, a discussion of the future of COIN.
Counterinsurgency—or efforts to defeat and confine a rebellion against a constituted authority—has become a buzzword in recent times, but the term is as old as society itself. This concise history covers the development of modern counterinsurgency over the last two hundred years, from the concept of "small wars" and colonial warfare to the ideas of early insurgents like Clausewitz and the theories of Lawrence of Arabia to the methods of twentieth-century insurgents including Mao and Che Guevara.
It also examines a number of post-1945 insurgencies and how Western armies have tried to counter them, in particular the French in Indochina and Algeria, as well as the United States in Vietnam and the reaction to the American experience there. This is compared with the British approach in the years after World War II, particularly in Malaya, but also in Kenya and Northern Ireland. Against this backdrop, there is an investigation of counterinsurgency in Afghanistan and Iraq, the rise of COIN literature, and the subsequent backlash against that literature—and finally, a discussion of the future of COIN.
About the author
Daniel Whittingham is a lecturer in the History of Warfare and Conflict at the University of Birmingham. He is interested in all aspects of the conduct of war, with a particular focus on British military history, thought, and strategy. Whittingham's main research interests are British colonial warfare in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, counterinsurgency, the First World War, and the Second World War. Stuart Mitchell is a senior lecturer in the Department of War Studies at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. He has taught counterinsurgency to the British Army for several years, as well as to overseas personnel on diplomatic visits.
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