"Outsourcing Small Wars: Expanding the Role of Private Military Companies in U.S. Military Operations" argues that, under current domestic and international laws, and current military regulations and doctrine, the U.S. Army could, with only a few uniformed personnel, employ a force consisting of predominately private military companies (PMCs) to fight a non-vital interest U.S. small war. This work identifies a historical U.S. willingness to outsource operations that are traditionally conducted by its uniformed military; categorizes outsourcing as surrogate warfare and, therefore, manageable by U.S. Army Special Forces; addresses some of the risks involved with outsourcing; and analyzes the legal environment in which PMCs operate in today today's environment. The recommendation from this thesis includes an illustration of how a Special Forces-led private military force should be organized, paying particular attention to the key components of the contract.

Approved for public release, distribution unlimited / The violent and diffuse nature of the Iraqi insurgency has become a major obstacle to reconstruction and the withdrawal of coalition military forces. The central problem with the coalition's counterinsurgency strategy is that it fails to take into account the diverse goals and historical motivations of the groups involved. A coalition counterinsurgency strategy flexible enough to deal with Iraq's insurgent groups differently as opposed to monolithically will be more effective in achieving stability in Iraq. This thesis argues that the Iraqi insurgency can be disaggregated into categories that will better assist policy makers in identifying and understanding insurgent groups. Sunni, Shi'ite, and transnational categories are used to divide insurgents, showing each to have specific traits. Categories of insurgents are further divided, where insurgent groups are examined in more detail. Based on the disaggregation, recommendations for counterinsurgency strategy orientations are proposed. America's longterm legacy in the Middle East will depend on the conditions of our departure from Iraq. It is only through a more thorough understanding of Iraq's insurgent groups and the proper application of a counterinsurgency strategy which accounts for the differences between groups that America will be able to make this legacy a positive one.

The U.S. government has utilized exiles for decades, the latest example being the use of Iraqi exiles starting after the Gulf War. For close to thirteen years America supported Iraqi opposition groups, overtly after the signing of the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998. DoD's role until months before the invasion of Iraq was minimal, but then increased dramatically. Iraqi opposition groups provided names of volunteers willing to work with the U.S. military. Most were turned away for a number of reasons, but those selected were trained in civil affairs operations and embedded with great success in small teams into U.S. civil affairs units. Another program, even more ad hoc, involved Ahmad Chalabi's fighting forces. Not receiving the welcome from Iraqis that intelligence experts told them to expect, U.S. military commanders were eager to put an "Iraqi face" on operations and build the core of the new Iraqi army. Chalabi's fighters, escorted by Army Special Forces A-Teams, provided a number of useful services to the war effort, but with minimal logistical support and hindered by Chalabi's political ambitions, they were quickly disbanded. Exiles have many of the skills necessary in conventional and asymmetric warfare: language skills, familial ties, and cultural proficiency. But this unique segment of our society needs to be better utilized by DoD. After analyzing each of the Iraqi exile programs in detail, suggestions on how to harness needed skills in the future are offered.

The main theatre of the war in Afghanistan is in its borderlands to Pakistan. There the Taliban strongholds never ceased and its local population seem to affiliate with the enemy. December 1 2009 President Barack Obama presented a new “comprehensive” strategy concerning the mission in Afghanistan. This was a strategy highly dominated by counterinsurgency – or in other words to change the main focus from the enemy to the population. The study’s aim was to analyse the assessment of the borderlands in the new Afghanistan counterinsurgency mission. This was done with the tools of critical discourse analysis and also in identifying ideal types in the counterinsurgency theory. The goal was to understand how the borderlands were assessed in the mission and if the concepts of regional aspects, external support, winning hearts and minds and securing the population were addressed.  The results show that the borderlands were assessed well in accordance to counterinsurgency theory, but the specific cultural aspects of Afghanistan were given little attention. The situation in the borderlands is still to this day very unstable.

A Thesis submitted to The University of Arizona College of Medicine - Phoenix in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Medicine. / While medical diplomacy has played a large role in US counterinsurgency (COIN) campaigns, few studies have been done to show their effectiveness. This study is a systematic review based on literature published by July 2014, looking at military medicine’s role in Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom (OEF/OIF). Both scientific and military databases were searched and yielded an initial 1,204 papers; however, these were later narrowed down to four articles, mostly restricted by the requirement of structured, scientific methods. These four studies were not well‐powered and focused on such different topics that no real conclusion could be drawn on the topic. In the end, the real value of the study was to show that despite the significant amount of resources poured into these COIN medical operations, very little study has been done to see if they have any effect.

Can the success of the Sunni Awakening in Iraq be applied to other counter-insurgency conflicts, or is it an exemplary case? Using case studies including Iraq and Afghanistan, it will be examined whether or not militias can be can be used to fight counterinsurgency campaigns in Afghanistan and generally to other conflicts. It may not work in Afghanistan, and certainly presents a Catch-22 situation, but it may be applicable in certain situations in other conflicts under certain conditions.

This thesis seeks to identify, describe, and analyze the tactics used by the 101st Airborne Division in the pacification of the Republic of Vietnam's Thua Thien province from 1968 to 1972. Despite the larger calamity of the Vietnam War, the 101st developed an effective set of measures against the Vietnamese communist insurgency. These measures depended largely on the ability of the division's lower-level units to attack the Viet Cong political infrastructure, provide security for Thua Thien's population, and build effective South Vietnamese territorial forces in their areas of operation following the communist 1968 Tet offensive. These findings are based on the official reports, orders, and records generated by the division during its service in Vietnam and currently stored in the National Archives in College Park, Maryland and U.S. Army's Military History Institute in Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania. Additionally, the Military History Institute's "Company Command in Vietnam" series of interviews conducted from 1982 to 1984 with officers who served in Vietnam provided valuable insight. This thesis looks at counterinsurgency practices at the lowest levels where theory and policy are translated into action. Operations Narrative: 3 September 1970. "At 0525 hours D Company, 3d Platoon had two frag grenades tossed into its night defensive position. A member of the platoon threw one of the grenades out of the position before it exploded. He jumped on the other grenade and covered it with his body. The grenade did not explode due to the fact that the safety had not been removed."1 I was inspired to undertake and complete this study by the courageous and fortunate soldier in 3rd Platoon, D Company, 3-187th Infantry and the thousands of others like him whose exploits I found in the footnotes of the Vietnam War. Their stories were resting uneasily as antiseptic fragments in a hundred reports, giving single-sentence snapshots of their part in a war many more clever people declared lost just as they began their fight in 1968. Their names are forgotten to time and their efforts largely relegated to obscurity by others who occupied a larger, grenade-free stage at much less personal risk. Still, they are the men we all want alongside us in our night defensive position. Their deeds are much easier to comment on than they were to perform. 1. Hq., 3-187 Infantry, "Combat After Action Report: Operation Texas Star, dated 20 September 1970," p. 5, Box 19, Command Reports, Assistant Chief of Staff Intelligence/Operations (S-2/3), 3d Battalion, 187th Infantry, Infantry Units, Record Group 472, National Archives and Records Administration II, College Park, MD.

Thesis (M.S. in Defense Analysis)--Naval Postgraduate School, December 2009. / Thesis Advisor(s): Tucker, David. Second Reader: Simons, Anna. "December 2009." Description based on title screen as viewed on January 26, 2010 Author(s) subject terms: United States Special Forces, Operational, Detachment Bravo, Advanced Operational Base, B-Team, Special Forces Headquarters Company, Irregular Warfare, IW, Foreign Internal Defense, FID, Counter Insurgency, COIN, Advisory capability, USSF, USSF doctrine, Unconventional Warfare, UW, Indigenous Forces, Host Nation, Operational Role Includes bibliographical references (p. 61-63). Also available in print.

Thesis (M.S. in Defense Analysis)--Naval Postgraduate School, December 2009. / Thesis Advisor(s): Simons, Anna. Second Reader: Borer, Douglas. "December 2009." Description based on title screen as viewed on January 27, 2010. Author(s) subject terms: Abu Sayyaf Group, ASG, Jolo, Sulu Archipelago, Philippines, Moro, counterinsurgency, COIN, Tausug, Filipino Mulsim. Includes bibliographical references (p. 49-50). Also available in print.

Thesis (M.A. in Security Studies (Middle East, South Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa))--Naval Postgraduate School, December 2009. / Thesis Advisor(s): Johnson, Thomas H. ; Hafez, Mohammed M. "December 2009." Description based on title screen as viewed on January 27, 2010. Author(s) subject terms: Suicide terrorism, female suicide bombers, martyrdom, constructivism, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Iraq, counterinsurgency, insurgency, Pashtun, Taliban, Haqqani Network, Tamil, LTTE, Al Qaeda, Salafi Jihad. Includes bibliographical references (p. 135-156). Also available in print.