Author: Gregory Fremont-Barnes
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 717
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Book Description
This two-volume history of counterinsurgency covers all the major and many of the lesser known examples of this widespread and enduring form of conflict, addressing the various measures employed in the attempt to overcome the insurgency and examining the individuals and organizations responsible for everything from counterterrorism to infrastructure building. How and when should counterinsurgency be pursued as insurgency is growing in frequency and, conversely, while conventional warfare continues to decline as a means by which political rivals seek to impose their will upon each other? What lessons from the past should today's policymakers, strategists, military leaders, and soldiers in the field keep in mind while facing off against 21st-century insurgents? This two-volume set offers a comprehensive history of modern counterinsurgency, covering the key examples of this widespread and enduring form of conflict. It identifies the political, military, social, and economic measures employed in attempting to overcome insurgency, examining the work of the individuals and organizations involved, demonstrating how success and failure dictated change from established policy, and carefully analyzing the results. Readers will gain valuable insight from the detailed assessments of the history of counterinsurgency that demonstrate which strategies have succeeded and which have failed—and why. After an introductory essay on the subject, each chapter provides historical background to the insurgency being addressed before focusing on the specific policies pursued and actions taken by the counterinsurgency force. Each section also provides an assessment of those operations, including in most cases an analysis of lessons learned and, where appropriate, their relevance to counterinsurgency operations today. The set's coverage spans modern counterinsurgencies from Europe to Asia to Africa since 1900 and includes the ongoing counterinsurgency operations in Afghanistan today. Its wide, international approach to the subject makes the set a prime resource for readers seeking specific information on a particular conflict or a better understanding of the general theories and practices of counterinsurgency.
Author: Al J. Venter
Publisher: Robert Hale
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 436
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Book Description
Author: Michael Radu
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351478656
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 495
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Book Description
The appearance of ideologically motivated anti-communist insurgent groups in the Third World is an important new phenomenon that has received little serious attention. Analysis has focused on American attitudes, while the indigenous roots and motivations of such groups have remained largely unexplored. Michael Radu fills in the gap in The New Insurgencies, with case studies and contributions from Anthony Arnold, Paul Henze, Justus van de Kroef, and Jack Wheeler.As the authors show, more often than not, Third World anti-communist insurgencies express a general rejection of values and ideologies from outsiders. Many of these insurgencies reflect violent opposition to regimes installed by the Soviets during the 1970s, yet they only rarely articulate a struggle for liberal democracy. Nationalism, religion, or the preservation of traditional political and economic patterns are more often the true motivations. And while insurgents often apply military and occasionally political methods used by successful Marxist-Leninist insurgencies of this century, they tend to be rural based and close to the aspirations of the peasant masses rather than directed by the educated and urbanized elites.The New Insurgencies includes case studies of major anti-communist movements today, including those in Afghanistan, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Angola, and Nicaragua. It shows that in each, the role of local powers such as South Africa, Thailand, and Pakistan rather than direct U.S. support has been critical to the insurgents' effectiveness. In part this may be because the old bipartisan Washington consensus based on anti-communism has evaporated; and Radu explores why this has occurred.Regardless of Washington's support, the new insurgencies are likely to persist. Their impact on U.S., Soviet, and world policy will be profound. The New Insurgencies combines extensive use of firsthand data, including personal knowledge of some of the major personalities involved, with extensive bibliogra
Author: Simon Robbins
Publisher: The History Press
ISBN: 0752479016
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 568
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Book Description
‘Who is the enemy?’ This is the question most asked in modern warfare; gone are the set-piece conventional battles of the past. Once seen as secondary to more traditional conflicts, irregular warfare (as modified and refashioned since the 1990s) now presents a major challenge to the state and the bureaucratic institutions which have dominated the twentieth century, and to the politicians and civil servants who formulate policy.Twenty-first-century conflict is dominated by counterinsurgency operations, where the enemy is almost indistinguishable from innocent civilians. Battles are gunfights in jungles, deserts and streets; winning ‘hearts and minds’ is as important as holding territory. From struggles in South Africa, the Philippines and Ireland to operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and Chechnya, this book covers the strategy and doctrine of counterinsurgency, and the factors which ensure whether such operations are successful or not. Recent ignorance of central principles and the emergence of social media, which has shifted the odds in favour of the insurgent, have too often resulted in failure, leaving governments and their security forces embedded in a hostile population, immersed in costly and dangerous nation-building.
Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Infantry
Languages : en
Pages : 396
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Book Description
Author: John P. Cann
Publisher: Helion and Company
ISBN: 1910777544
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 481
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Book Description
Following the 1952 reorganization of the Portuguese Air Force from the army and naval air arms, Portugal now had an entity dedicated solely to aviation that would bring it into line with its new NATO commitment. As it proceeded to develop a competence in modern multiengine and jet fighter aircraft for its NATO role and train a professional corps of pilots, it was suddenly confronted in 1961 with fighting insurgencies in all three of its African possessions. This development forced it to acquire an entirely new and separate air force, the African air force, to address this emerging danger. This is the story of just how Portuguese leadership anticipated and dealt with this threat, and how it assembled an air force from scratch to meet it. The aircraft available at the time were largely castoffs from the larger, richer, and more sophisticated air forces of its NATO partners and not designed for counterinsurgency. Yet Portugal adapted them to the task and effectively crafted the appropriate strategies and tactics for their successful employment. The book explores the vicissitudes of procurement, an exercise fraught with anti-colonial political undercurrents, the imaginative modification and adaptation of the aircraft to fight in the African theaters, and the development of tactics, techniques, and procedures for their effective employment against an elusive, clever, and dangerous enemy. Advances in weaponry, such as the helicopter gun ship, were the outgrowth of combat needs. The acquired logistic competences assured that the needed fuel types and lubricants, spare parts, and qualified maintenance personnel were available in even the most remote African landing sites. The advanced flying skills, such as visual reconnaissance and air-ground coordinated fire support, were honed and perfected. All of these aspects and more are explored and hold lessons in the application of airpower in any insurgency today.
Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Military art and science
Languages : en
Pages : 116
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Book Description
Author: John P. Cann
Publisher: Helion
ISBN: 1913118231
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 74
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Book Description
Portuguese paratroopers or “paras” began as a stepchild of the army and found a home in the Portuguese Air Force in 1955. Initially, the post-World War Two Portuguese Army seemed to have had mixed emotions about the need for elite, special-purpose forces that operated in small units with the attendant flexibility and elevated lethality. Shock troops have been traditionally controversial, and even the vaunted military theorist Baron Karl von Clausewitz saw little point in them. The history of the paras in the Portuguese Army is illustrative of this ambivalent view. Nevertheless, in a “war of the weak” in which insurgents avoid government strengths and exploit its vulnerabilities using agility, deception, and imagination, such small, crack government units are particularly well suited to counterinsurgency operations. This appreciation emerged with the threat of a new kind of war in Portuguese Africa, an insurgency, and the new and visionary Air Force well understood the potential of paras when combined with the mobility of the helicopter. The Air Force saw an urgent need for troops who could fight an unconventional war, who could not only defeat an enemy but separate him from the population in which he sought concealment and support and on which he depended for funding, recruits, and intelligence. These were specialised warfighters who in one minute were physically destroying an insidious enemy and in the next administering aid and support and protecting a vulnerable population. These were just the troops that Portugal would require for military success in its approaching battle fought between 1961 and 1974 to retain its African possessions, and this vision would be realized on the African battlefield with devastating consequences. This book tells the paras’ story as researched from Portuguese sources. It details how they were formed and trained and how they developed their imaginative, effective, and feared tactics and applied them in operations to protect the population from insurgent predations and destroy a vicious enemy.
Author: US Army Military History Research Collection
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 626
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Book Description
Author: Gabrielle Hecht
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262294753
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 348
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Book Description
Investigations into how technologies became peculiar forms of politics in an expanded geography of the Cold War. The Cold War was not simply a duel of superpowers. It took place not just in Washington and Moscow but also in the social and political arenas of geographically far-flung countries emerging from colonial rule. Moreover, Cold War tensions were manifest not only in global political disputes but also in struggles over technology. Technological systems and expertise offered a powerful way to shape countries politically, economically, socially, and culturally. Entangled Geographies explores how Cold War politics, imperialism, and postcolonial nation building became entangled in technologies and considers the legacies of those entanglements for today's globalized world. The essays address such topics as the islands and atolls taken over for military and technological purposes by the supposedly non-imperial United States, apartheid-era South Africa's efforts to achieve international legitimacy as a nuclear nation, international technical assistance and Cold War politics, the Saudi irrigation system that spurred a Shi'i rebellion, and the momentary technopolitics of emergency as practiced by Medecins sans Frontières. The contributors to Entangled Geographies offer insights from the anthropology and history of development, from diplomatic history, and from science and technology studies. The book represents a unique synthesis of these three disciplines, providing new perspectives on the global Cold War.
