The Theory and Practice of Counter-Insurgency: Warrior-scholars in Irregular War

Description: This book offers an analysis of key individuals who have contributed to both the theory and the practice of counterinsurgency (COIN), thereby providing a platform to engage more deeply with the debate over this issue. Insurgencies have become increasingly the dominant form of armed conflict from the World War II onwards, with the majority of all conflicts from 1945 to 2005 being 'irregular'. Yet current security studies scholarship, despite the recent surge in interest in irregular warfare, is far from reflecting this reality. Moreover, those scholars that have addressed counterinsurgency have overwhelmingly taken either an historical campaign-based approach or have focused on contemporary praxis. The aim of this book will be to help redress that imbalance by providing a rigorous and interesting analysis of those thinkers who have contributed to both the theory and practice of counterinsurgency, here called 'warrior-scholars'. These are soldiers who have bridged the academic-military divide by influencing doctrinal and intellectual debates about irregular warfare. The perceptible degeneration of the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan into insurgent quagmires has sparked a renewal of academic and military interest in the theory and practice of counterinsurgency. Apparent, but still contested, success in Iraq and the need to either retreat or remain in Afghanistan has renewed the debate between advocates of COIN and more conventional strategic thinkers. This book provides a platform from which to engage more deeply and in a longer-term perspective with such a debate. Irregular warfare is notoriously difficult for the military, with the need for a specific conceptualization of victory and for specific guidelines regarding the use and usefulness of force. How to understand and learn about this particular form of warfare is almost equally difficult; especially given the residual anti-intellectualism within Western militaries and the removal from the battlefield of the academy. This book will be dedicated to analysing the best perceivable bridge between these two worlds. This book will be of much interest to students of counterinsurgency, strategic studies, defence studies, war studies and security studies in general.

Price: 125 GBP

Location: Gloucester

End Time: 2025-01-24T10:33:59.000Z

Shipping Cost: 25.09 GBP