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Bullets Not Ballots: Success in Counterinsurgency Warfare
"Examines how governments succeed against an armed, organized, persistent political challenge from their own people. It argues that compellence, the use and threat of force, explains and predicts counterinsurgency success as the result of government accommodation of rival political and armed elites, which gains the government information necessary to target the insurgency militarily; and the forceful control of civilians, which disrupts the flow of resources to the insurgency"--
232 pages, Hardcover
First published May 15, 2021
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
March 3, 2022
Counterinsurgency has been an interest of mine since early in my college days, and the stubborn fixation on tactics over politics in the literature frustrated me. The puzzling contradiction between various on-the-ground tactics that specialists claim work so well and the obvious failure of one campaign after another was never satisfactorily explained; they just leave you with the impression that if only war planners committed to their pointy-hatted ideas more, then counterinsurgency would work.
This book took an intuition I've had about the subject and translated it into a theory and accompanying analysis of six counterinsurgency campaigns. The author demonstrates that, contrary to conventional wisdom, successful counterinsurgency requires the accommodation of elites and the brutal repression of civilians and insurgents alike. The counterinsurgent government is competing not for popular support, but for elite support, and the welfare of ordinary people is basically irrelevant; all that matters is that they be forcefully separated from insurgent territory so they cannot provide material support to it.
A common reaction to this theory is that it's heartless, that we should be concerned about liberal values and human rights. But this objection is normative/ The author's task is merely to describe the requirements for successful counterinsurgency, and if it is true that such a thing necessitates an intolerable moral cost, then the proper conclusion to draw is not to cling to a fantasy of benevolent liberal empire but rather to give up the counterinsurgent mission altogether.
The backlash against this kind of approach, I think, is motivated by a desire to rescue liberal imperialism, not to actually defeat insurgencies in a just manner. But the fact is that if we accept the responsibility of empire, we can be effective or civilized, but not both. The fantasy that the two can be reconciled, or more appropriately that the latter is a prerequisite for the former, is just that: a fantasy.
This book took an intuition I've had about the subject and translated it into a theory and accompanying analysis of six counterinsurgency campaigns. The author demonstrates that, contrary to conventional wisdom, successful counterinsurgency requires the accommodation of elites and the brutal repression of civilians and insurgents alike. The counterinsurgent government is competing not for popular support, but for elite support, and the welfare of ordinary people is basically irrelevant; all that matters is that they be forcefully separated from insurgent territory so they cannot provide material support to it.
A common reaction to this theory is that it's heartless, that we should be concerned about liberal values and human rights. But this objection is normative/ The author's task is merely to describe the requirements for successful counterinsurgency, and if it is true that such a thing necessitates an intolerable moral cost, then the proper conclusion to draw is not to cling to a fantasy of benevolent liberal empire but rather to give up the counterinsurgent mission altogether.
The backlash against this kind of approach, I think, is motivated by a desire to rescue liberal imperialism, not to actually defeat insurgencies in a just manner. But the fact is that if we accept the responsibility of empire, we can be effective or civilized, but not both. The fantasy that the two can be reconciled, or more appropriately that the latter is a prerequisite for the former, is just that: a fantasy.
December 24, 2023
A decent read concerning the efforts to create greater order through the use of organised violence
The book makes a convincing case, contra the conventional wisdom, that successful counterinsurgency is not a process of building a centralised, modern, liberal, democractic state; providing political, economic, and social reforms intended to support such an effort; and providing public goods to people to gain their support. Rather than being a competition to govern with the people as the prize, counterinsurgency is competition for power among armed groups, with success defined as one armed group coming to dominate the rest
The book employs comparative historical analysis on six differing case studies to trace the political effects of counterinsurgent uses of force, rather than simply assuming their outcomes
Among the case studies, the British defeating the threat of the Malayan National Liberation Army through elite accommodation and uses of force was particularly compelling in supporting the book's argument that neither popular support nor political reform are necessary to succeed against an insurgency, instead forming coalitions and accommodating elites play an important role in strengthening governmental military and political capabilities
The book makes a convincing case, contra the conventional wisdom, that successful counterinsurgency is not a process of building a centralised, modern, liberal, democractic state; providing political, economic, and social reforms intended to support such an effort; and providing public goods to people to gain their support. Rather than being a competition to govern with the people as the prize, counterinsurgency is competition for power among armed groups, with success defined as one armed group coming to dominate the rest
The book employs comparative historical analysis on six differing case studies to trace the political effects of counterinsurgent uses of force, rather than simply assuming their outcomes
Among the case studies, the British defeating the threat of the Malayan National Liberation Army through elite accommodation and uses of force was particularly compelling in supporting the book's argument that neither popular support nor political reform are necessary to succeed against an insurgency, instead forming coalitions and accommodating elites play an important role in strengthening governmental military and political capabilities
August 22, 2025
Good companion to Talmadge’s Dictator’s Army.
Interesting contrast to much of the last twenty years of counterinsurgency literature.
Interesting contrast to much of the last twenty years of counterinsurgency literature.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews