The Long War - Insurgency, Counterinsurgency and Collapsing States

by Berger; Mark T.

• ISBN13: 9780415464796
• ISBN10: 041546479X
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-03-31
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

The rise and fall of the Cold War coincided with the universalization and consolidation of the modern nation-state as the key unit of the wider international system. A key characteristic of the post-Cold War era, in which the US has emerged as the sole superpower, is the growing number of collapsing or collapsed states. A growing number of states are, or have become, mired in conflict or civil war, the antecedents of which are often to be found in the late-colonial and Cold War era. At the same time, US foreign policy (and the actions of other organizations such as the United Nations) may well be compounding state failure in the context of the post-9/11 Global War on Terror (GWOT) or what is also increasingly referred to as the #xE2;#xAC;#xDC;Long War#xE2;#xAC;". The Long War is often represented as a #xE2;#xAC;#xDC;new#xE2;#xAC;" era in warfare and geopolitics. This book acknowledges that the Long War is new in important respects, but it also emphasizes that the Long War bears many similarities to the Cold War. A key similarity is the way in which insurgency and counterinsurgency were and continue to be seen primarily in the context of inter-state rivalry in which the critical local or regional dynamics of revolution and counter-revolution are marginalized or neglected. In this context American policy-makers and their allies have again erroneously applied a #xE2;#xAC;#xDC;grand strategy#xE2;#xAC;" that suits the imperatives of conventional military and geo-political thinking rather than engaging with what are a much more variegated array of problems facing the changing global order. This book provides a collection of well-integrated studies that shed light on the history and future of insurgency, counterinsurgency and collapsing states in the context of the Long War. This book was previously published as a special issue of Third World Quarterly.

Table of Contents

The Long War: insurgency, counterinsurgency and collapsing states	p. 1
Part I: The Long War and the Comparing and Modelling of Insurgency, Counterinsurgency and Collapsing States: From 'Shock and Awe' to 'Hearts and Minds': the fall and rise of US counterinsurgency capability in Iraq	p. 21
From Collapsing States to Nee-trusteeship: the limits to solving the problem of 'precarious statehood' in the 21st century	p. 35
Engaging or Withdrawing, Winning or Losing? The contradictions of counterinsurgency policy in Afghanistan and Iraq	p. 49
The Battle for Iraq: Islamic insurgencies in comparative perspective	p. 65
Less is More: the problematic future of irregular warfare in an era of collapsing states	p. 79
Things Come Together: symbolic violence and guerrilla mobilisation	p. 99
Things Fall Apart: the endgame dynamics of internal wars	p. 125
Part II: The Long War and the Future of Insurgency, Counterinsurgency and Collapsing States: The End of War as We Knew It? Insurgency, counterinsurgency and lessons from the forgotten history of early terror networks	p. 173
The Misleading Problem of Failed States: a 'socio-geography' of terrorism in the post-9/11 era	p. 191
Caudillos and the Crisis of the Colombian State: fragmented sovereignty, the war system and the privatisation of counterinsurgency in Colombia	p. 207
The Insurgency of Global Empire and the Counterinsurgency of Local Resistance: new world order in an era of civilian provisional authority	p. 223
The Last Empire? From nation-building compulsion to nation-wrecking futility and beyond	p. 239
All Roads Lead to and from Iraq: the Long War and the transformation of the nation-state system	p. 261
Index	p. 269
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