Counterinsurgency Myths and Methods: Evidence from the Iraq War

• In Event: Poster Session: International Security II

Abstract

When do counterinsurgency campaigns succeed, and why do governments learn the wrong lessons from previous campaigns? To date, data-rich population-centric studies of counterinsurgency have substantially influenced military doctrine and operations over the last decade and reached almost mythic levels amongst senior officers. This paper argues, however, that these theories overstate the importance population-centric tactics and underestimate (and in many cases ignore) the role that combat power and the introduction of U.S. combat forces play in reducing violence during counterinsurgency campaigns. It argues that counterinsurgency campaigns only succeed when the state is able to project and maintain coercive power into contested zones and militarily combat insurgent groups. The influx of competent kinetic forces into a region, therefore, is both a necessary and sufficient condition for violence to decline in a counterinsurgency campaign. To test this, I utilize a new dataset cataloguing U.S. and Coalition battalion locations during the Iraq War from 2004 – 2008, and find that population-centric models of counterinsurgency are ineffective when not employed in the presence of combat forces. Then, through a reevaluation of a central motivating case—the Battle of Tal Afar—I find that population-centric tactics such as reconstruction, dismounted patrols, courageous restraint, and tribal engagement were only effective after major kinetic clearing operations had already reduced violence levels significantly. It is therefore the ability of the state to project coercive power and execute kinetic operations, rather than population-centric tactics, that principally explain variations in violence during the Iraq War.

Author

• Carrie A. Lee, U.S. Air War College