Ellis, John. From the Barrel of a Gun: A History of Guerrilla, Revolutionary, and Counterinsurgency Warfare, from Romans to the Present. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1995. Ellis, John. From the Barrel of a Gun: A History of Guerrilla, Revolutionary, and Counterinsurgency Warfare, from Romans to the Present. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1995.
Fairbairn, Geoffrey. Revolutionary Guerrilla Warfare: The Countryside Version. Baltimore, MD: Penguin, 1974. [pb]
Fall, Bernard B. "The Theory and Practice of Insurgency and Counterinsurgency." Naval War College Review 51 (Winter 1998): 46-57.
Reprinted from April 1965.
Finlan, Alastair. "Trapped in Dead Ground: U.S. Counter-insurgency Strategy in Iraq." Small Wars and Insurgencies 16, no. 1 (Mar. 2005): 1-21.
Galula, David. Counter-insurgency Warfare. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1964. Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2005. St. Petersburg, FL: Hailer, 2005. [pb]
From advertisement: The author served as a French military officer and attache in China, Greece, Southeast Asia, and Algeria. In this work, he seeks to "define the laws of counterinsurgency warfare, to deduce from them its principles, and to outline the corresponding strategy and tactics."
Greentree, Todd. Crossroads of Intervention: Insurgency and Counterinsurgency Lessons from Central America. Westport, CT: Praeger Security International, 2008.
Keiser, Proceedings 134.8 (Aug. 2008), notes the author's view that "U.S. involvement in Central America during the 1980s clearly demonstrated the limits of intervention and use of force in internal conflicts." This work shows that Greentree's "experience as a U.S. foreign service officer in Central America and his professorship at the Naval War College have served him well."
Hammes, Thomas X. "Insurgency: Modern Warfare Evolves into a Fourth Generation." Strategic Forum (Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University) 214 (Jan. 2005): 1-7.
"Fourth-generation warfare, which is now playing out in Afghanistan and Iraq, is a modern form of insurgency. Its practitioners seek to convince enemy political leaders that their strategic goals are either unachievable or too costly for the perceived benefit.... Because it is organized to ensure political rather than military success, this type of warfare is difficult to defeat."
Hammes, Thomas X. [COL/USMC] The Sling and the Stone: On War in the 21st Century. Osceola, WI: Zenith, 2004.
From advertisement: The author shows "how war is evolution, not revolution, and that a 'weaker' opponent will continually evolve to use ways to avoid direct military engagement. Instead of winning militarily, an insurgency will work to test the political will of a more powerful nation to stay the course during a war.... He also examines in detail 'transnational' enemies like Al Qaeda, and how the U.S. military's focus on high-tech weapons designed to overpower an enemy in a short amount of time means little when the enemy has a different concept of the time the conflict will last."
Hoffman, Frank G. "Neo-Classical Counterinsurgency?" Parameters 37, no. 2 (Summer 2007): 71-87.
"The newly issued Army/Marine counterinsurgency (COIN) manual ... is a product of our collective understanding of insurgency and ongoing experiences in Iraq. It is also the product of various schools of thought about modern insurgencies, including what can be called the classical school, based on the concepts of Mao and revolutionary warfare." This article seeks "to capture the impact and implications of the classical school on the new doctrine, as well as evaluate the final product."
Huntington, Samuel P. Modern Guerrilla Warfare: Fighting Communist Guerrilla Movements, 1941-1961. New York: Glencoe, 1962.
Joes, Anthony James. America and Guerrilla Warfare. Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 2000.
Berger, et al, I&NS 22.6 (Dec. 2007), view this as "a straight-forward, chronological, country-by-country view of US involvement in counterinsurgency operations." Overall, the author's "historical examination of US 'small wars' is ponderous and provides no new insights."
Joes, Anthony James. Resisting Rebellion: The History and Politics of Counterinsurgency. Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 2004.
Freedman, FA 83.6 (Nov.-Dec. 2004), comments that the author "has an irritating tendency to convey the size of all foreign countries as multiples of arbitrarily chosen U.S. states." Nevertheless, "there is a lot of knowledge packed into these pages, the detail on particular cases is often fascinating, and the lessons, in the end, are sensible and highly topical."
For Fellenz, Proceedings 131.1 (Jan. 2005), this work "is a comprehensive study of insurgency and the struggles nations have faced to contain them.... The inner workings of rebellion ... are exposed with a literary ease that will keep even the novice reader engaged." Berger, et al, I&NS 22.6 (Dec. 2007), find "little room" in the author's "analysis for the very different political forms that insurgencies take over time and space."
Thornton, I&NS 21.4 (Aug. 2006), calls this book "a solidly informative work using a wealth of sources." It is "well foot-noted," but "the indexing is very poor." In addition, the book has a "rushed quality" to it. Nevertheless, the author "brings together many campaigns and provides some commendable insights." To Manyx, JFQ 42 (3d Quarter 2006), this is "an intriguing contribution.... The multiple detailed examples Joes uses are a central strength." The book is "[t]horoughly researched and annotated"; in addition, it is "intelligently written and easily readable."
Kan, Paul Rexton. "Counternarcotics Operations within Counterinsurgency: The Pivotal Role of Intelligence." International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence 19, no. 4 (Winter 2006-2007): 586-599.
"Intelligence efforts against drug trafficking must adapt to anti-insurgency factors."
Klare, Michael T., and Peter Kornbluh. Low Intensity Warfare: Counterinsurgency, Proinsurgency, and Anti-Terrorism in the Eighties. New York: Pantheon, 1988.
Krause, Lincoln B. "Insurgent Intelligence: The Guerrilla Grapevine." International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence 9, no. 3 (Fall 1996): 291-311.
The author examines the role and practice of intelligence in insurgency situations.
Ladwig, Walter C. "Managing Counterinsurgency: Lessons from Malaya." Military Review (May-Jun. 2007): 56-66.
"In the case of Malaya, maximum effectiveness was achieved when a single individual, Sir Gerald Templer, was empowered to coordinate all aspects of the counterinsurgency campaign. This model served the British well, and they replicated it in later counterinsurgency campaigns in Kenya and Cyprus."
Lindsay, Franklin A. "Unconventional Warfare." Foreign Affairs 40, no. 2 (Spring 1962): 264-274.
Linn, Brian M.
1. "Intelligence and Low-Intensity Conflict in the Philippine War, 1899-1902." Intelligence and National Security 6, no. 1 (Jan. 1991): 90-114.
"It is not too harsh to conclude that for much of the Philippine War, American intelligence was as diffuse, unconnected and disorganized as the resistance the soldiers encountered in the field.... Only at the end of the war, and then only in an area close to the DMI's [Division of Military Information; created by MacArthur in December 1900] headquarters, was the army's official intelligence agency able to play a major role in ending Filipino resistance." What occurred instead was that the officers in the field developed and implemented their own localized intelligence methods.
2. The U.S. Army and Counterinsurgency in the Philippine War, 1899-1902. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989.
O'Toole, I&NS 6.1, calls Linn's work "the most authoritative study to date of this all-but-forgotten chapter of American military history.... Linn has selected four districts on ... Luzon for his study, and he concentrates on both the military and non-military aspects of the US Army's pacification program within each of them.... [A]s intelligence was an integral part of counter-insurgency operations, ... [the author] presents a far more detailed picture than has been published before."
Lomperis, Timothy. From People's War to People's Rule: Insurgency, Intervention and the Lessons of Vietnam. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1996.
Berger, et al, I&NS 22.6 (Dec. 2007), see the author sliding "too easily from one time in place in history to another." He "explains the Vietnam War as a crisis of political legitimacy," but his "argument lacks depth and the centrality of political legitimacy is hardly a new insight." Overall, "Lomperis raises more questions than he answers."
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