Abstract
Debates about counter-insurgency (COIN) have been a recurring feature of American security policy, most dramatically during the Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan wars. These battles over whether and how to do COIN have resolved little, leading to enduring disagreements over historical memory, policy prescription, and academic theory. This chapter argues that a fundamental flaw of the discourse on COIN is how technocratic and apolitical it is. A consequence has been a profusion of tactical and operational advice that only provides lowest-common-denominator platitudes at the level of strategy. A deep frustration with COIN has emerged among many because its analytical tools are so limited.
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Notes
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The goal is to avoid the ‘conceptual stretching’ that has plagued the counter-insurgency field. Giovanni Sartori, ‘Concept Misformation in Comparative Politics’, The American Political Science Review 64, no. 4 (1 December 1970): 1033–53.
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© 2014 Paul Staniland
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Staniland, P. (2014). Counter-insurgency and Violence Management. In: Gventer, C.W., Jones, D.M., Smith, M.L.R. (eds) The New Counter-insurgency Era in Critical Perspective. Rethinking Political Violence series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137336941_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137336941_8
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
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