While the merits of counterinsurgency ("COIN") as a strategy for fighting modem war remain hotly debated, the interaction of law with COIN has received less attention. This thesis tracks international law's role in the construction of modem United States ("U.S.") COIN doctrine and assesses how international law's doctrinal interaction has held up downrange in Iraq and Afghanistan. In doing so, it responds to empirical and causal voids that persist in debates about international law's function in world politics. I argue international law has played an important but underappreciated role in designing and prosecuting modem U.S. COIN doctrine, specifically, Field Manual 3-24, Counterinsurgency, released by the U.S. Army and Marine Corps in December 2006 ("FM 3-24"). I suggest international law's influence can be understood, individually and collectively, through three pathways: in the ideational pull of the rule of law; in international law's capacity to demonstrate and articulate legitimacy; and in the mandatory consequences of international law's interaction with domestic law. The emerging claim is that the U.S. has approached legitimate warfare in increasingly legal terms, which has had implications for the use of force, detention operations, and the overall construction of the military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. My research draws on FM 3-24's drafting history, interviews with its writing team, field documents, and interviews with military officers of various ranks who have served multiple deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:665298 |
| Date | January 2012 |
| Creators | McLeod, Travers |
| Publisher | University of Oxford |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
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