No description available.

No description available.

This manuscript is a study of the Thirty-Third Infantry, United States Volunteers, a regiment that was recruited in Texas, the South, and the Midwest and was trained by officers experienced from the Indian Wars and the Spanish-American War. This regiment served as a front-line infantry unit and then as a constabulary force during the Philippine War from 1899 until 1901. While famous in the United States as a highly effective infantry regiment during the Philippine War, the unit's fame and the lessons that it offered American war planners faded in time and were overlooked in favor of conventional fighting. In addition, the experiences of the men of the regiment belie the argument that the Philippine War was a brutal and racist imperial conflict akin to later interventions such as the Vietnam War. An examination of the Thirty-Third Infantry thus provides valuable context into a war not often studied in the United States and serves as a successful example of a counterinsurgency.

According to conventional wisdom winning hearts and minds is one of the most important goals for defeating terrorism. However, despite repeated claims about U.S. efforts to build popular support as part of the war on terror during the first seven years after 9/11, a steady stream of polls and surveys delivered troubling news. Using a counterinsurgency and social movement informed approach, I explain why the United States performed poorly in the race for Muslim hearts and minds, with a specific focus on problems inherent in the social construction of terrorism, the use of an enemy-centric model while overestimating agency, and the counterproductive effect of policy choices on framing processes. Popular support plays wide-ranging roles in counterterrorism, including: influencing recruitment, fundraising, operational support, and the flow of intelligence; providing credibility and legitimacy; and, sanctifying or marginalizing violence. Recognizing this the U.S. emphasized public diplomacy, foreign aid, positive military-civilian interactions, democracy promotion, and other efforts targeting populations in the Muslim world. To explain the problems these efforts had, this thesis argues that how Americans think and talk about terrorism, reflected especially in the rhetoric and strategic narrative of the Bush administration, evolved after 9/11 to reinforce normative and enemy-centric biases undermining both understanding of the underlying conflicts and resulting efforts. U.S. policy advocates further misjudged American agency, especially in terms of overemphasizing U.S. centrality, failing to recognize the importance of real grievances, and overestimating American ability to implement its own policies or control the policies of local governments. Finally, the failure to acknowledge the role of U.S. policies counterproductively impacted contested framing processes influencing the evolution of mobilization. The resulting rhetoric and actions reinforced existing anti- American views, contributed to the perception that the war on terror is really a war on Islam, and undermined natural counter narratives.

Ce mémoire porte sur la question de l’innovation militaire en temps de guerre et plus particulièrement sur la transition de la guerre conventionnelle vers la contre-insurrection des forces armées américaines au cours de la guerre d’Irak. Cette transition est un cas d’innovation militaire intéressant puisqu’il s’agit d’un changement radical dans les pratiques militaires de l’Armée américaine et du Corps des marines particulièrement parce qu’ils ont régulièrement tenté d’éviter les missions de contre-insurrection au cours de leur histoire. Cette recherche tentera d’expliquer comment les forces américaines ont innové au cours de la guerre d’Irak Nous considérons que le passage de la guerre conventionnelle à la contre-insurrection des forces américaines est le résultat d’un processus d’innovation militaire en temps de guerre qui se produit simultanément à partir de la base et du sommet de l’organisation militaire américaine. Tout d’abord, à la base, nous estimons que les unités américaines de l’Armée et des marines ont développé de nouvelles capacités de contre-insurrection à la suite d’un processus d’exploration de nouvelles tactiques et de nouvelles techniques sur le champ de bataille. Ensuite, à partir du sommet, nous croyons que la contre-insurrection est le résultat d’un changement stratégique au niveau des opérations des forces américaines. Ce mémoire est divisé en quatre chapitres. Le premier est consacré aux modèles théoriques d’innovation militaire. Le deuxième présente un aperçu de la guerre d’Irak de 2003 à 2007. Les chapitres 3 et 4 analysent respectivement la contre-insurrection comme un processus d’innovation militaire par la base et par le sommet. / This master is about wartime military innovation and more precisely about the transition of the US armed forces from conventional warfare to counterinsurgency during the Iraq war. This case of military innovation is interesting because it marks a radical change in the practices of the US Army and the US Marine Corps all the more so as they both have been frequently trying to avoid counterinsurgency missions in their history. This research will try to explain how the US armed forces have innovated in the Iraq war. We consider that the transition from conventional warfare to counterinsurgency is the result of a process of innovation produced simultaneously at the bottom and at the top of the US military. First of all, from the bottom-up, we think that units from the Army and the marines have developped new counterinsurgency capacities following an exploration process of new tactics and techniques on the battlefield. Then, from the top-down, we believe that counterinsurgency is the consequence of a strategic change in the operations of the Army and the marines. This research will be divided in four chapters. The first chapter is devoted to the military innovation models. The second chapter will present a brief narrative of the Iraq war from 2003 to 2007. Chapters 3 and 4 will offer an analysis of the counterinsurgency innovation process respectively from the bottom-up and the top-down.

The goal of this study is to ascertain how Thailand wages counterinsurgency (COIN). Thailand has waged two successful COINs in the past and is currently waging a third on its southern border. The lessons learned from Thailand’s COIN campaigns could result in modern irregular warfare techniques valuable not only to Thailand and neighboring countries with similar security problems, but also to countries like the United States and the United Kingdom that are currently reshaping their irregular warfare doctrines in response to the situations in Afghanistan and Iraq. The first set of COIN lessons comes from Thailand’s successful 1965-85 communist COIN. The second set comes from Bangkok’s understudied 1980s-90s COIN against southern separatists. The third set comes from Thailand’s current war against ethnic Malay separatists and radical Islamic insurgents attempting to secede and form a separate state called “Patani Raya,” among other names. Counterinsurgency is a difficult type of warfare for four reasons: (1) it can take years to succeed; (2) the battle space is poorly defined; (3) insurgents are not easily identifiable; and (4) war typically takes place among a civilian population that the guerrillas depend on for auxiliary support. Successful COINs include not only precise force application operations based on quality intelligence, but also lasting social and economic programs, political empowerment of the disenfranchised, and government acceptance of previously ignored cultural realities. Background: In 1965, communist insurgents, backed by the People’s Republic of China and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam), began waging an insurgency against Thailand in order to overthrow its government and install a Marxist regime. The Thai government struggled, both politically and militarily, to contain the movement for years, but eventually, it prevailed. Its success was based on a combination of effective strategy and coordination, plus well-designed and run security, political, and economic programs, the latter nowadays called the “three pillars of COIN,” a phrase developed by David Kilcullen, a modern COIN theorist and practitioner. One of Bangkok’s most successful initiatives was the CPM program (civil-military-police), which used a linked chain of local forces, police, and the military to not only provide security for villages, but also economic aid and administrative training to rural peoples. State political programs that undercut communist political programs backed by masterful diplomacy and a constant barrage of rural works helped erode the communist position. The 1980s-90s COIN against southern separatists followed similar lines. The far South’s four border provinces, comprised of 80 percent ethnic Malay Muslims, had been in revolt on and off for decades since Bangkok annexed the area in 1902. Bangkok had waged haphazard COIN campaigns against rebel groups there for decades with mixed results. But after the successful communist COIN was up and running in 1980, Bangkok decided to apply similar ways and means to tackle the southern issue. The government divided its COIN operations into two components: a security component run by a task force called CPM-43, and a political-economic component run by the Southern Border Provinces Administrative Center, or SB-PAC. SB-PAC also had a Special Branch investigative capacity. Combined, the 80s-90s southern COIN strategy relied on extensive military intelligence networks to curb violence, civilian administrators to execute local political reforms, and local politicians to apply traditional Malay and Muslim problem solving techniques to keep the peace. These programs worked well against the multitude of southern insurgent groups that conducted sporadic attacks against government and civilian targets while also running organized criminal syndicates. By the end of the 1990s, with a dose of Thailand’s famed diplomacy and help from Malaysia’s Special Branch, Bangkok defeated the southern separatists. In January 2004, however, a new separatist movement in southern Thailand emerged – one based on ethnic Malay separatism and radical Islam. It is a well-coordinated movement with effective operational expertise that attacks at a higher tempo than past southern rebel groups. It moreover strikes civilian targets on a regular basis, thereby making it a terrorist group. Overall, it dwarfs past southern movements regarding motivation and scale of violence. Thai officials think the Barisan Revolusi Nasional Coordinate, or BRN-C, leads the current rebellion, but there are several other groups that claim to also lead the fight. Members of the insurgency are nearly exclusively ethnic Malays and Muslims. The movement demonstrates radical Islamic tendencies thought its propaganda, indoctrination, recruitment, and deeds. It is a takfiri group that kills other Muslims who do not share its religious beliefs, so it wrote in its spiritual rebel guidebook, Fight for the Liberation of Patani. BRN-C seeks to separate the four southernmost provinces of Pattani, Yala, Narathiwat, and Songkhla from Thailand in order to establish an Islamic republic. The separatists base their revolt on perceived military, economic, cultural, and religious subjugation going back to the early 1900s. And they have a point. The central government has, at different times in the past, indeed treated southerners with tremendous disdain and sometimes violence – especially those considered insurgents. But Bangkok has also instituted scores of economic and social aid programs in the south – mosque building, college scholarships, and medical aid, for example – so it has not been a continual anti-Muslim “blood fest” as government detractors have painted it. Still the maltreatment, certainly many times less than yesteryear, has provided today’s insurgents with ideological fodder for a steady stream of recruits and supporters. Combined with radical Islam, it has bonded the insurgents to a significant degree. Statistically, in the 2005-07-time frame, insurgents assassinated 1.09 people a day, detonated 18.8 bombs a month, and staged 12.8 arson attacks a month. In 2005, they conducted 43 raids and 45 ambushes. The militants target security forces, government civilians, and the local population. They have killed fellow Muslims and beheaded numerous Buddhist villagers. The insurgents’ actions have crippled the South’s education system, justice system, and commerce, and also have maligned Buddhist-Muslim relations. Overall, the separatists pose a direct threat to Thailand’s south and an indirect threat to the rest of the country. Moreover, their radical Islamic overtones have potential regional and global terrorist implications. The Thai Government spent much of 2004 attempting to ascertain whether the high level of violence was, in fact, an insurgency. To begin with, the government, led by PM Thaksin Shinawatra, was puzzled by the fact that the separatists had not published a manifesto or approached Bangkok with a list of demands. By mid-2004, however, the insurgents had staged a failed, region-wide revolt, and their prolific leaflet and Internet propaganda campaign clearly demonstrated that a rebel movement was afoot. By fall 2005, the separatists had made political demands via the press, all of which centered on secession. By 2006, a coup against PM Thaksin succeeded and the military government that replaced him instituted a new COIN strategy for the south that by 2008 had reduced violence by about 40 percent. Some of the tenets of this new strategy were based on Thailand’s past successful COIN strategies. Whether or not the government has concocted a winning strategy for the future, however, remains to be seen. This paper analyses these COIN campaigns through the COIN Pantheon, a conceptual model the author developed as an analytical tool. It is based on David Kilcullen’s three pillars of COIN.

Ce mémoire porte sur la question de l’innovation militaire en temps de guerre et plus particulièrement sur la transition de la guerre conventionnelle vers la contre-insurrection des forces armées américaines au cours de la guerre d’Irak. Cette transition est un cas d’innovation militaire intéressant puisqu’il s’agit d’un changement radical dans les pratiques militaires de l’Armée américaine et du Corps des marines particulièrement parce qu’ils ont régulièrement tenté d’éviter les missions de contre-insurrection au cours de leur histoire. Cette recherche tentera d’expliquer comment les forces américaines ont innové au cours de la guerre d’Irak Nous considérons que le passage de la guerre conventionnelle à la contre-insurrection des forces américaines est le résultat d’un processus d’innovation militaire en temps de guerre qui se produit simultanément à partir de la base et du sommet de l’organisation militaire américaine. Tout d’abord, à la base, nous estimons que les unités américaines de l’Armée et des marines ont développé de nouvelles capacités de contre-insurrection à la suite d’un processus d’exploration de nouvelles tactiques et de nouvelles techniques sur le champ de bataille. Ensuite, à partir du sommet, nous croyons que la contre-insurrection est le résultat d’un changement stratégique au niveau des opérations des forces américaines. Ce mémoire est divisé en quatre chapitres. Le premier est consacré aux modèles théoriques d’innovation militaire. Le deuxième présente un aperçu de la guerre d’Irak de 2003 à 2007. Les chapitres 3 et 4 analysent respectivement la contre-insurrection comme un processus d’innovation militaire par la base et par le sommet. / This master is about wartime military innovation and more precisely about the transition of the US armed forces from conventional warfare to counterinsurgency during the Iraq war. This case of military innovation is interesting because it marks a radical change in the practices of the US Army and the US Marine Corps all the more so as they both have been frequently trying to avoid counterinsurgency missions in their history. This research will try to explain how the US armed forces have innovated in the Iraq war. We consider that the transition from conventional warfare to counterinsurgency is the result of a process of innovation produced simultaneously at the bottom and at the top of the US military. First of all, from the bottom-up, we think that units from the Army and the marines have developped new counterinsurgency capacities following an exploration process of new tactics and techniques on the battlefield. Then, from the top-down, we believe that counterinsurgency is the consequence of a strategic change in the operations of the Army and the marines. This research will be divided in four chapters. The first chapter is devoted to the military innovation models. The second chapter will present a brief narrative of the Iraq war from 2003 to 2007. Chapters 3 and 4 will offer an analysis of the counterinsurgency innovation process respectively from the bottom-up and the top-down.

Between 1960 and 1968 the United States conducted intensive psychological operations (PSYOP) in Vietnam. To date, no comprehensive study of the psychological war there has been conducted. This dissertation fills that void, describing the development of American PSYOP forces and their employment in Vietnam. By looking at the complex interplay of American, North Vietnamese, National Liberation Front (NLF) and South Vietnamese propaganda programs, a deeper understanding of these activities and the larger war emerges. The time period covered is important because it comprises the initial introduction of American PSYOP advisory forces and the transition to active participation in the war. It also allows enough time to determine the long-term effects of both the North Vietnamese/NLF and American/South Vietnamese programs. Ending with the 1968 Tet Offensive is fitting because it marks both a major change in the war and the establishment of the 4th Psychological Operations Group to manage the American PSYOP effort. This dissertation challenges the argument that the Northern/Viet Cong program was much more effective that the opposing one. Contrary to common perceptions, the North Vietnamese propaganda increasingly fell on deaf ears in the south by 1968. This study also provides support for understanding the Tet Offensive as a desperate gamble born out of knowledge the tide of war favored the Allies by mid-1967. The trend was solidly towards the government and the NLF increasingly depended on violence to maintain control. The American PSYOP forces went to Vietnam with little knowledge of the history and culture of Vietnam or experience conducting psychological operations in a counterinsurgency. As this dissertation demonstrates, despite these drawbacks, they had considerable success in the period covered. Although facing an experienced enemy in the psychological war, the U.S. forces made great strides in advising, innovating techniques, and developing equipment. I rely extensively on untapped sources such as the Foreign Broadcast Information Service transcripts, Captured Document Exploitation Center files, and access to the U.S. Army Special Operations Command Archives. Additionally, I have digitized databases such as the Hamlet Evaluation System and Terrorist Incident Reporting System for Geographic Information System software analysis. The maps provide examples of the possibilities available to the historian using these datasets.

Upprorsbekämpning på taktisk nivå är problematiskt därför att konflikter som kräver sådanbekämpning, alltid är unika. Det finns inte heller någon generell teori som leder tillframgång.Syftet med uppsatsen är att undersöka ifall Kilcullens 28 artiklar går att tillämpa på denlyckade upprorsbekämpningen i Malaya.Metoden som användes är kvalitativ textanalys av britternas taktiska doktrin underkonflikten, the conduct of anti-terrorist operations in Malaya (ATOM), utifrån Kilcullens 28artiklar. Även artiklar skrivna av officerare och soldater under konflikten har använts för attge stöd till påståenden samt för att belysa ifall britterna faktiskt följde sin taktiska doktrineller ej.Resultatet visar att det inte går att applicera Kilcullens teori på britternas taktiska agerande iMalaya. Endast 10 av 28 artiklar var applicerbara.Författaren drar slutsatsen att Kilcullens 28 artiklar möjligen inte är användbara somgenerella riktlinjer för handlingsalternativ på taktisk nivå. Författaren lyfter emellertid att flerstudier på andra konflikter behövs för att fastställa påståendet. / Counterinsurgency (COIN) on the tactical level is difficult because these conflicts are alwaysunique and there is no theory that generally leads to victory.The purpose of this study is to analyze if there is a resemblence between Kilcullens 28articles and the succesful COIN of the brittish security forces in the Malayan emergency.The method that has been used is the qualitativ analysis of documens. The main documentthat has been analyzed is ATOM, the brittish tactical doctrine during the emergency. Articlesthat have been written during the emergency, 1948-1960, by officers and soldiers, have beenused to to elucidate if the brits actually followed their tactical doctrine or not.The author concludes that Kilcullens 28 articles might not be useful as general guidelines foraction at the tactical level. The author highlights, however, that more studies on otherconflicts are needed to establish the claim.

This thesis asks two central questions: (1.) Is there a link between atrocities committed during American counterinsurgency campaigns and race? (2.) Is there continuity between the counterinsurgency techniques deployed in the Philippines and in Iraq in this respect? In an effort to answer these questions I propose to briefly outline the chapters which are to follow. In Chapter 1 I propose to tackle the question of race using the following questions as broad guides to my investigation: what is it? how do we understand it? how will it be operationalized? In other words, this first chapter serves both as a literature review and an outline of the theoretical framework to be adopted in the later sections of this thesis. It outlines the current state of the concept ‘race’ in the literature of various fields of politics with an eye to finding space for a critical approach. In the end, I settle on the elegant framework set forth by Roxanne Lynn Doty. In Chapter 2, carrying forward Doty’s operationalized concept of race, I undertake an analysis of the discourse and practice surrounding American Counterinsurgency Policy during the invasion of the Philippines from 1899-1903. First; I investigate the role that racialized discourse played in the domestic and international contexts surrounding the invasion of the Philippines. Second; I delve into the empirical historical record to attempt to sketch out how racism was deployed on the ground in the counterinsurgency in the Philippines and what relationship the acts of atrocity committed there had with racial discourse. Following the findings of Chapter 2 I attempt to investigate the extent to which these mechanisms existed in the counterinsurgency in Iraq in Chapter 3. The investigation of Iraq is structured similarly to that of the Philippines but, due to the absolute abundance of information on Iraq, it is broken into three sections. The first section examines the role of race in the 2 domestic politics of the United States before, during, and after September 11, 2001. The second section sketches out an emerging international logic concerning military intervention and development. The final section sketches out the empirical reality of how race was used in atrocity in Iraq.