By James S. Corum PhD, Dennis Showalter
It is the hot method of war: far and wide our army attempts to make inroads, insurgents flout us--and appear to get the higher of the strategists making coverage and conflict plans. during this ebook, a professional with either scholarly and armed forces event within the box appears to be like at circumstances of counterinsurgency long gone wrong. by way of reading the disasters of thoughts opposed to insurgents in Algeria, Cyprus, Vietnam, and Iraq, Lieutenant Colonel James S. Corum bargains infrequent and much-needed perception into what can get it wrong in such situations--and how those blunders could be avoided. In every one case, Corum indicates how the clash might have been gained via the most important energy if its approach had addressed the underlying reasons of the insurgency it confronted; no longer doing so wastes lives and weakens the power’s place within the world.
Failures in counterinsurgency usually continue from universal mistakes. undesirable techniques explores those at strategic, operational and tactical levels. primarily, Corum identifies bad civilian and armed forces management because the basic reason for failure in effectively fighting insurgencies. His booklet, with transparent and useful prescriptions for achievement, exhibits how the teachings of the previous may perhaps practice to our current disastrous confrontations with insurgents in Iraq.
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Extra resources for Bad Strategies: How Major Powers Fail in Counterinsurgency
Sample text
In the case of a great power, insurgencies in other countries rarely pose a direct threat to the national interest, or at least a kind of threat that is evident to the average voter. In short, keeping up the public support for counterinsurgency operations is a difficult task for government. But such support is also a requirement in a democracy. Democracies, by their nature, must conduct conflicts very differently from other states. The strategy of democratic states must be broadly supported by the public and the public’s elected representatives.
That kind of fundamental competence, the competence Corum presents as essential to counterinsurgency, is not beyond the grasp of democratic systems and institutions. A fundamental discontinuity nevertheless persists between Corum’s sophisticated, calibrated caution and that “violence of spirit” so often described before and after de Tocqueville as an inherent temptation for democracies. That discontinuity informs this book—and Corum’s presentation and analysis of its consequences makes Bad Strategies a major contribution to a vital discussion.
Approaching Counterinsurgency Insurgency and counterinsurgency have been with us since the start of recorded history. Indeed, several books of the Old Testament record insurgencies such as David against King Saul, or the Maccabees against the Greeks. There is nothing new about rebel groups trying to overthrow the government or gain independence or autonomy. In the modern era insurgency has been the preferred means, often the only practical means, by which a faction or group can confront the power of the government, or confront the forces of a major power.