Counterinsurgency

A - B

Asprey, Robert B. War in the Shadows: The Guerrilla in History. 2 vols. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1975. Revised and updated. 1 vol. Fairfield, NJ: William Morrow, 1994.

Petersen sees War in the Shadows as a "masterful account of irregular warfare from ancient times to Vietnam." Commenting on the 1994 edition, Surveillant 3.6 says this is a "must have, benchmark work, now updated and expanded to include guerrilla activity since the original publication." The book includes a "comprehensive and hard-hitting strategic evaluation of the Vietnam War."

For Bradford, Air & Space Power Journal (2008) [http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil], the revised version remains "the most definitive study of guerrilla warfare available." Asprey "brilliantly imparts lessons of guerrilla warfare, its causes and effects, and victories and defeats. His reminders to the military about going off to an unconventional war half-cocked contain some of the most valuable military thinking of our time. War in the Shadows is ... a usable doctrinal text of events that, while historically embedded, continue to speak to the contemporary experience of unconventional warfare."

Barber, Willard F., and C. Neale Ronning. Internal Security and Military Power: Counterinsurgency and Civic Action in Latin America. Columbus, OH: Ohio State University, 1966.

Barnet, Richard J. Intervention and Revolution: America's Confrontation with Insurgent Movements Around the World. Cleveland, OH: World, 1968.

Petersen: "Critical of CIA and U.S. policy."

Beckett, Ian F.W. Modern Insurgencies and Counter-Insurgencies: Guerrillas and Their Opponents Since 1750. London: Routledge, 2001.

According to Berger, et al, I&NS 22.6 (Dec. 2007), the author "provides a long-term historical overview of insurgencies and counterinsurgencies." Beckett stresses "the historical and contemporary habit of Great Powers to take a relative lack of interest in counterinsurgency."

Beckett, Ian F.W. The Roots of Counter-Insurgency: Armies and Guerrilla Warfare, 1900-1945. London: Blandford, 1988.

Beckett, Ian F.W., and John Pumlot. Armed Forces and Modern Counter-Insurgency. New York: St. Martin's, 1985.

Bell, J. Bowyer. The Myth of the Guerrilla: Revolutionary Theory and Malpractice. New York: Knopf, 1971.

Berger, Mark T., and Douglas A. Borer. "The Long War: Insurgency, Counterinsurgency and Collapsing States." Third World Quarterly 28, no. 2 (2007): 197-215.

Bevilacqua, A.C. "Intelligence and Insurgency." Marine Corps Gazette 60 (Jan. 1976): 40-46. [Petersen]

Birtle, Andrew J. U.S. Army Counterinsurgency and Contingency Operations Doctrine 1942-1976. Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 2006.

Cassidy, Parameters 37.4 (Winter 2007-08), comments that this is a "gem of a book." It has "eight full chapters on the development, propagation, and implementation of counterinsurgency and contingency operations doctrine." In his conclusion, the author assesses "the impact and value of the entire corpus of Vietnam-era counterinsurgency doctrine vis-à-vis the lack of military success in Vietnam."

Blaufarb, Douglas S. The Counterinsurgency Era: U.S. Doctrine and Performance, 1950 to the Present. New York: Free Press, 1977.

"The crime of Phoenix was not the use of harsh methods to apprehend or destroy the enemies of the GVN. Its crime was ineffectiveness, indiscriminateness, and, in some areas at least, the violation of the local norms to the extent that it appeared to the villagers to be a threat to them in the peaceful performance of their daily business. The Americans involved erred in not appreciating the extent to which the pathology of Vietnamese society would distort an apparently sound concept. The GVN was guilty of both misfeasance and malfeasance in executing the program." (p. 276)

Blaufarb, Douglas S., and George K. Tanham. Who Will Win? A Key to the Puzzle of Revolutionary War. Bristol, PA: Crane Russak, 1989.

Boot, Max. The Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise of American Power. New York: Basic Books, 2002.

Berger, et al, I&NS 22.6 (Dec. 2007), note that this work is "devoid of conceptual innovations" but deals with its time span in an "engaging and incisive fashion."

Boot, Max. War Made New: Technology, Warfare and the Course of History, 1500 to Today. New York: Gotham, 2007.

For Berger, et al, I&NS 22.6 (Dec. 2007), this work is "highly readable, but also a highly schematic treatment of the dramatic changes in the character of warfare over five centuries." The book "is engaging and well written," but "does little to contextualize the changes" cataloged from 1500 to the present.

Brown, Jason M. [MAJ/USAF] "To Bomb or Not to Bomb? Counterinsurgency, Airpower, and Dynamic Targeting." Air & Space Power Journal 21, no. 4 (Winter 2007): 75-85.

Abstract: "Air strikes, independent from ground operations, are known as 'dynamic targeting.' These types of strikes have typically been counterproductive in counterinsurgency campaigns due to subsequent collateral damage, whether real or perceived. However, Major Brown asserts that commanders and planners who integrate dynamic targeting into the counterinsurgency campaign using careful target selection; quick, precise employment; and solid assessment of the enemy and population will produce positive, tangible results."

Bulloch, Gavin [Brigadier/British Army (Ret.). "Military Doctrine and Counterinsurgency: A British Perspective." Parameters 26, no. 2 (Summer 1996): 4-16. [http://www.carlisle.army.mil/usawc/Parameters/96summer/bulloch.htm]

"There is a clear relationship between force applied in war and force applied during a counterinsurgency campaign. The doctrine of maneuver warfare also applies equally to both types of warfare. In both situations force has to be applied selectively and in a controlled and measured fashion. Physical destruction is a means and not an end in a counterinsurgency campaign; the doctrine seeks to contribute to creating the conditions for political success with less force, more quickly, and with reduced costs. The theory of maneuver warfare shares a common ancestry with some of the most successful insurgent strategies. The military planner who is fully educated into this doctrine is more likely to cope with the real and inherent complexities of a counterinsurgency campaign than those who remain unaware of the doctrine."

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