This thesis attempts to convince Air Force leadership to shift its approach to expeditionary airpower in counterinsurgency (COIN) from one that emphasizes advanced technology for striking targets to one which focuses on airmen to influence indigenous populations. Judging history, airpower will certainly play a supporting role in any effort to quell insurgency through reconnaissance, airlift, and close air support. Thus, wherever the American military deploys for COIN, the Air Force will not only operate, but will also deploy substantial numbers of expeditionary airmen. This forward presence of American airmen at expeditionary airbases enables the Air Force to participate in pacification where it most counts on the ground, in the surrounding community, and among the indigenous population. To contribute more fully, airmen must comprehend the nature of insurgency to reveal the unique challenges it poses for airpower. To meet these challenges, airmen must develop an appropriate strategic framework for waging COIN so as to correctly shape the expeditionary Air Force by exploiting its own human capital to solve human problems. By bolstering its aviation advisors and security forces, and creating its own cadre of civil affairs airmen, the Air Force can most significantly improve its effectiveness in COIN.

Thesis (M.S. in Operations Research)--Naval Postgraduate School, June 2004. / Thesis advisor(s): Thomas Lucas. Includes bibliographical references (p. 82). Also available online.

Thesis (M.S. in Defense Analysis)--Naval Postgraduate School, June 2004. / Thesis advisor(s): Hy Rothstein. Includes bibliographical references. Also available online.

Thesis (M.S. in Defense Analysis)--Naval Postgraduate School, June 2004. / Thesis advisor(s): Kalev Sepp. Includes bibliographical references (p. 87-89). Also available online.

Despite its reputation for instability and weak states, the continent of Africa has seen very few attempts at secession. The 1960s saw the early attempts of Katanga and Biafra to split away from their host states, only for these attempts to be crushed in short order. Since then there have only been a handful of notable attempts at secession: the early attempts by the Southern Sudan to split from the North, the secessionist desires of Cabinda to separate from Angola, the Casamance separatists of Senegal, and finally the long and still unrecognized separation of Somaliland from the failed state of Somalia. What is notable is that none of these have borne permanent fruit despite the persistence of the separatist fronts (although the Southern Sudan may now finally be embarking on its own separate existence). In each case, from Katanga to Somaliland, the theoretical state has encountered resistance on the national, regional, and global scale to their existence and have never yet been recognized. However, despite these setbacks, there currently has been one successful secession in Africa: that of Eritrea. Eritrea faced the same political and military difficulties that all other secession attempts have faced in Africa. Their host state of Ethiopia was perhaps the most revered on the continent and throughout the thirty year conflict had the international support of alternatively the United States and the USSR. The Organization of African Unity and its members remained unrelentingly in favor of territorial integrity for all African States. The Eritreans could not even gain regional recognition for their struggle. Despite all of this, they prevailed in their thirty-year struggle for independence. Critical to their success were four interwoven factors that allowed them to overcome those barriers that had stopped their secessionist predecessors: the anomalous history of Eritrea and Ethiopia, the Eritreans' practice of the theories of protracted war, the simultaneous social revolution the Eritreans carried out, and finally the Eritreans' pragmatic relations with their surrounding dissident groups. This work argues that these four central factors were the keys to Eritrea's aberrant and so far unique victory in their struggle for secession. / text

This thesis examines the influences on and evolution of the Irish Republican Army‘s guerrilla war strategy between 1917 and 1921. Utilizing newspapers, government documents, and memoirs of participants, this study highlights the role of propaganda and political concerns in waging an insurgency. It argues that while tactical innovation took place in the field, IRA General Headquarters imposed policy and directed the conflict with a concern for the political results of military action. While implementing strategies necessary to effective conflict of the war, this Headquarters staff was unable to reconcile a disjointed and overburdened command structure, leading its disintegration after the conflict.

Thesis (M.A.)--Guo li zheng zhi da xue, 1972. / Cover title. On double leaves. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 134-136).

Thesis (M.A. in National Security Affairs)--Naval Postgraduate School, Dec. 2004. / Thesis Advisor(s): Kenneth J. Hagan. Includes bibliographical references (p. 199-204). Also available online.

Thesis (M.S. in Defense Analysis)--Naval Postgraduate School, June 2005. / Thesis Advisor(s): John Arquilla, George Lober. Includes bibliographical references (p. 87-97). Also available online.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 2006. / Title from first page of PDF file (viewed September 5, 2006). Available via ProQuest Digital Dissertations. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 250-268).