Counterinsurgency (COIN) has made a comeback during the early 21-century since the majority of western countries have been involved in peace enforcement in the middle-east. Since its comeback the concept of COIN have been wildly debated but also undergone some chances since its early days, today the majority of COIN theories claims that the local population is the key to winning a COIN campaign. If you gain their trust the insurgency will lose their support and recruiting base, this is the reason why collateral damage resulting in in civilian deaths are contra-productive, it creates more insurgents. This is the incitement to further examine how civilian deaths occur and can be avoided during COIN campaigns. This essay studies the American COIN campaign in Iraq between 2004 and 2009 and aims to investigate whether there is a trilemma-like relationship between the key goals of COIN: protecting civilians, protecting one’s own forces and neutralizing the enemy. Each different goal has been operationalized to something measurable – death statistics. The yearly death toll for coalition troops, Iraqi civilians and insurgents provide the empirical material necessary to answer the question if the main goals can be achieved at the same time or if it’s impossible. The essay is broken down into two parts, the first examines whether an actual people-centric COIN strategy saves civilian lives or if it’s all just in theory. The second part examines the relationship between the key goals. The result in this essay shows that a people-centric COIN strategy, as the one employed by General Petraeus in Iraq during operation Iraqi freedom, actually saves civilian lives. But it also establishes that the key goals can’t be achieved at the same time and that each strategy will come with a consequence.

How can we successfully complete our missions while we are stuck in bunkers? A question representative of a hot topic of discussion regarding the restrictions of force protection measures that are placed on US troops conducting military operations abroad. The discussion, which peaked during the late 1990s early 2000s, was heavily weighted in one direction, namely claiming that force protection has a negative impact on military effectiveness. As the claim generalises force protection, a concept that has numerous definitions and even more interpretations, it therefore seems unlikely that such a generalisation can be made. This study analyses the claim using an idea analysis method, questioning its sustainability and presenting a way of understanding its limitations. In studying the circumstances of the reports that triggered this discussion, the analysis allows us to see the limited relevance of the claim with regard to the broader concept of force protection, while acknowledging its possible relevance regarding the specific aspects that are more commonly associated with the concept.

The following thesis project is an investigation in the topic of security through design. The study sought a site and program susceptible to attack in the public environment in order to design an appropriate response to the inherent tension from those attributes. The work represents an architectural reaction to the engineered assessments and solutions that permeate the post 9/11 world. The seemingly indiscriminate deployment of bollards, planters, and jersey barriers choke the representation of openness and freedom as well as the perception of safety from contemporary cities and buildings. My personal design approach attempts to re-present a constraint through the experience of a user to celebrate the inherent potential of that perceived limitation. The presented solution has embraced security and other "limiting" considerations in the dialogue of design beyond base utilitarian functions. Acknowledging "security through design" solutions in this context requires consideration of various building archetypes and particular sites as independent design variables. The vehicle for this research was found as an institute to counter terrorism located in the Washington D.C. region. / Master of Architecture

In recent years, experience from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq has led to considerable debate regarding counterinsurgency theories and their application in reality. Therefore, it could appear strange that both International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and American forces applied strategies in Afghanistan that contradict fundamental knowledge of counterinsurgency theory. One example is the use of indiscriminate force when combating insurgents, resulting in the loss of civilian lives, even though civilian casualties risk alienating the local population from the counterinsurgent. This thesis aims to examine if the three objectives of force protection, destruction of the insurgent, and protection of civilians can be achieved at the same time in counterinsurgency (COIN) warfare, or if a trilemma-like relationship exists between the three, whereby only two of the three objectives can be achieved simultaneously. By examining statistics such as death tolls within the categories of civilians, insurgents and own forces – and comparing the results over two time periods – some conclusions can be drawn with regard to what happens when the strategic focus changes. This thesis focuses on two time periods, 2006-2009 and 2009-2012, and investigates the strategic focus in COIN operations in each period, and whether or not the outcome in terms of death toll can be explained accordingly. The result of the thesis reveals that the statistics point toward the fact that a trilemma like relationship indeed does occur between the three objectives of counterinsurgency. From these results the thesis suggests that this theoretical framework could prove useful in future conflicts by helping to foresee what will happen when working towards the three different objectives.

For almost two decades Sweden has been a part of NATO: s missions in Afghanistan to create security and ensure that the country will not become a safe haven for terrorist organisations. The discussion how to counter terrorism and insurgency in the 21st century is today a topic where the foundation of modern counterinsurgency is questioned. Critiques against counterinsurgency strategy states that counterinsurgency does not work but merely is a utopia. This essay has studied two periods of the ISAF mission in Afghanistan by testing Zambernardis theory of counterinsurgency trilemma, with the purpose to contribute with new information of conditions within counterinsurgency to the discussion. The theory aims to show that of the three main goals of all counterinsurgency’s; force protection, distinction between enemy combatants and non-combatants and the physical elimination of insurgents, only two can be achieved simultaneously. The study compared the two cases differences regarding casualties to reach the conclusions.The result of the study shows that ISAF achieved two goals simultaneously during the two periods in line with Zambernardis theory. The result of the study shows that when discussing counterinsurgency operations, the relationship between casualties in counterinsurgency’s ought to be included.

This thesis Collective Actions of the UN Security Council for the Protection of Human Rights deals with, as the title suggests, collective actions for the protection of human rights with the mandate of the UN Security Council. The thesis is divided into an introduction, conclusion, and four chapters. In the first chapter, the system of human rights protection is described, as it was set up within the newly-formed United Nations after World War II. This chapter also deals with collective actions of the UN Security Council, with or without the use of force, on a theoretical level, e.g. their authorization and possibility of measures that can be taken within the UN system against the perpetrator. Second chapter deals with examples of collective actions of the UN Security Council during the Cold War period. In this era, collective actions of the UN Security Council were authorized only twice, in case of South Africa as a reaction to their policy of apartheid, and in case of South Rhodesia as a reaction to the unilateral declaration of independence by the white minority government. Both cases are described in the chapter. The following chapter describes the development of human rights theories after the end of Cold War. With the end of the bipolar system, there is a shift in the perception of human...

Thesis (M.S. in Systems Engineering)--Naval Postgraduate School, June 2010. / Thesis Advisor(s): Goshorn, Rachel ; Goshorn, Deborah. "June 2010." Description based on title screen as viewed on June 24, 2010. Author(s) subject terms: Anomaly Detection, Artificial Intelligence, Automation, Behavior Analysis, Distributed Artificial Intelligence, Intelligence-Surveillance-Reconnaissance, Maritime Domain Awareness, Maritime Force Protection, Multi-agent Systems, Network-centric Operations, Network-centric Systems Engineering, Network-centric Warfare, Smart Sensor Networks, Systems Engineering, Systems Integration, System of Systems. Includes bibliographical references (p. 209-212). Also available in print.