In 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan with the intention to secure the Afghan communist regime from collapsing. Rebels, called the Mujahideen, began to resist the invasion and the Soviet Union soon found themselves fighting a tedious guerrilla war. The aim of this paper is to examine why the Soviet Union lost this asymmetrical war, even though they had a clear military superiority and stronger actors historically tend to win these types of conflicts. This paper has the ambition to explain in what ways soviet forces lacked proper understanding of not only asymmetrical warfare, but also counterinsurgency warfare, using theories that more closely look at the importance of strategic interactions between actors in asymmetrical wars, and principles of conducting successful counterinsurgencies. The empirical findings can succinctly be summarized by two factors: The Soviet Union was, despite tremendous effort, incapable of breaking Mujahideens will to fight. Insufficient attention was also paid towards cultivating trust with the Afghan populace, nor were strategies employed to rally support for the war against the Mujahideen.

Since 2010 The Islamic State (IS) has resurrected from virtual extinction and has conquered vast territories in Iraq and Syria. It has transformed from a simple group of insurgents to a conventional army which has claimed to be a state of its own since it announced the for-mation of the Caliphate in mid-2014. Researchers have used many different theories to un-derstand the success of IS which has increased our knowledge of the phenomenon. Even so there are still questions that need to be answered in order to fully understand what we are facing in the Middle East (ME) today and what we might encounter in other parts of the world tomorrow. This essay uses revolutionary theories about Communism and Nationalism with the intent to expand our view of modern insurgencies. More precisely it investigates why IS has been so successful in its conquests, which are done through the narrative of its attitude towards the population of Iraq and Syria. The result reveals that IS uses a combination of the two above-mentioned ideologies. IS keeps conflicts going through constant terror against specific groups thus creating a gap be-tween the governments and the Sunnis in the region. Simultaneously it is trying to create an environment where the inhabitants can experience normal living conditions. The future of the ME is worrying since IS and its way of gaining conquests is hard to battle for whoever is intervening.

In four years, ISIS managed to conquer vast areas in both Iraq and Syria and have proven themselves capable of conducting sophisticated military operations. Using terrorism, they have also shocked the world numerous times, most recently in Sri Lanka during the spring of 2019, in an attack leaving more than 250 people dead. Even today there seems to be a discrepancy in how this organization should be defined. Therefore, this thesis examines ISIS through the years of 2010-2015. The ambition is to explain how this organization can be understood through the contrasting theories of hybrid warfare and insurgency from Frank G. Hoffman and David Galula respectively. This thesis concludes that while ISIS’s initial progression bore strong resemblance to the historically typical insurgent, like gaining publicity through terror and using guerilla warfare to acquire supplies and grow, they became something more. They evolved into a hybrid organization capable of mixing conventional combined arms warfare with the deadly effectiveness of irregular methods, essentially converging terrorism with their conventional units. Using modern technology, they managed to turn both social media and commercial products alike, into effective tools of war. This spectacular metamorphosis that is ISIS, illuminates the requirement for development of new theories, or at the very least, to expand on those present today.

Mau Mau var en illegal upprorsmakande organisation i Kenya, sprungen ur det Afrika främjande partiet Kenya African Union under mitten av 1900-talet då Kenya var en brittisk koloni. Mau Maus anhängare kom från den etniskt kenyanska folkgruppen kikuyu som medelst våld ville uppnå målet att skapa ett kikuyukontrollerat Kenya fritt från vita européer. Britternas svar på Mau Mau blev upprorsbekämpning vilken av britterna anses lyckad och präglades av deportering av civila. Undersökningen besvarar frågan huruvida Galulas teori om upprorsbekämpning hade varit tillämpbar på konflikten i Kenya genom en fallstudie på britternas agerande utifrån Galulas teori. För att identifiera likheter och skillnader mellan empiri och teori används textanalys samt Gordon McCormicks Magiska Diamant som ett analys- och operationaliseringsverktyg. Resultatet av fallstudien visar att Galulas teori hade kunnat tillämpas av britterna och genererat en, för britterna, framgångsrik upprorsbekämpning.

Au cours des dernières décennies, l’augmentation du nombre de guerres irrégulières place les armées modernes dans une situation délicate. Pour pouvoir relever ce nouveau défi, ces organisations militaires, avant tout destinées à mener des guerres interétatiques, se doivent d’innover. Plusieurs cas historiques montrent comment, face à de nouvelles formes de conflit, certaines armées se sont lancées dans un processus d’innovation. Le cas de l’armée française en Algérie en est un. L’objectif de ce mémoire est de comprendre comment l’innovation a émergé lors du conflit, et comment elle s’est diffusée au sein de l’organisation militaire. Un survol de la stratégie française en Algérie va permettre de dégager trois principales innovations : La mise en place de la doctrine de la guerre révolutionnaire, la création des Sections Administratives Spécialisées et l’approche de David Galula. L’étude de ses trois cas nous montre que, durant la Guerre d’Algérie, l’innovation provenait principalement des militaires, plus précisément du sommet de la hiérarchie. Cependant, certains exemples d’innovation par le bas existent. Dans ces cas-là, la diffusion se fera via la doctrine informelle. L’exemple de Galula nous prouve néanmoins qu’une innovation se diffuse beaucoup plus difficilement lorsqu’elle émane des hommes de terrain. / During the last decades, the increasing number of irregular wars brought the modern armies into a delicate situation. In order to overcome this new challenge, these military organizations primarily designed for interstate wars had to innovate. Many historical cases show how certain armies have launched into innovation processes because of new forms of conflict. The case of the French army in Algeria is a good example. The main goal of this paper is to understand how innovation has emerged during the conflict, and how it has diffused within the military organization. A glance at the French strategy in Algeria will allow us to highlight three main innovations: the development of the Revolutionary Warfare doctrine, the creation of “Sections Administratives Specialisées, and the David Galula approach. The analysis of these three study cases shows that innovation came mainly from militaries during the Algerian war, particularly those on top of the hierarchy. However, certain examples of bottom-up innovations do exist. In these cases, diffusion will take place via the informal doctrine. Nevertheless, the Galula example demonstrates that an innovation will diffuse with more difficulty when it comes from people on the ground.

Au cours des dernières décennies, l’augmentation du nombre de guerres irrégulières place les armées modernes dans une situation délicate. Pour pouvoir relever ce nouveau défi, ces organisations militaires, avant tout destinées à mener des guerres interétatiques, se doivent d’innover. Plusieurs cas historiques montrent comment, face à de nouvelles formes de conflit, certaines armées se sont lancées dans un processus d’innovation. Le cas de l’armée française en Algérie en est un. L’objectif de ce mémoire est de comprendre comment l’innovation a émergé lors du conflit, et comment elle s’est diffusée au sein de l’organisation militaire. Un survol de la stratégie française en Algérie va permettre de dégager trois principales innovations : La mise en place de la doctrine de la guerre révolutionnaire, la création des Sections Administratives Spécialisées et l’approche de David Galula. L’étude de ses trois cas nous montre que, durant la Guerre d’Algérie, l’innovation provenait principalement des militaires, plus précisément du sommet de la hiérarchie. Cependant, certains exemples d’innovation par le bas existent. Dans ces cas-là, la diffusion se fera via la doctrine informelle. L’exemple de Galula nous prouve néanmoins qu’une innovation se diffuse beaucoup plus difficilement lorsqu’elle émane des hommes de terrain. / During the last decades, the increasing number of irregular wars brought the modern armies into a delicate situation. In order to overcome this new challenge, these military organizations primarily designed for interstate wars had to innovate. Many historical cases show how certain armies have launched into innovation processes because of new forms of conflict. The case of the French army in Algeria is a good example. The main goal of this paper is to understand how innovation has emerged during the conflict, and how it has diffused within the military organization. A glance at the French strategy in Algeria will allow us to highlight three main innovations: the development of the Revolutionary Warfare doctrine, the creation of “Sections Administratives Specialisées, and the David Galula approach. The analysis of these three study cases shows that innovation came mainly from militaries during the Algerian war, particularly those on top of the hierarchy. However, certain examples of bottom-up innovations do exist. In these cases, diffusion will take place via the informal doctrine. Nevertheless, the Galula example demonstrates that an innovation will diffuse with more difficulty when it comes from people on the ground.