New book on emerging trends in counterinsurgent warfare
The Global War on Terror has brought counterinsurgency back on the geopolitical agenda of Western states. In contrast to a kinetic approach that primarily aims at killing the enemy, contemporary counterinsurgency emphasises the importance of non-military efforts for winning the battle by winning the hearts, minds and acquiescence of people. This approach also moves beyond a narrow state-building focus, and instead takes populations, culture and human relations as the key terrain for interventionary warfare.
Through the prism of counterinsurgency, this edited volume critically assesses emerging trends in warfare and international interventionism. It asks how contemporary counterinsurgency approaches work and are legitimized; what concrete effects they have within local settings, and what the implications are for how we can understand the means and ends of war and peace in our post 9/11 world.
The book is essential reading for anyone interested in understanding recent changes in global liberal governance as well as the growing convergence of military and seemingly non-military domains, discourses and practices in the contemporary making of global political order.
“This book brings fresh theoretical and empirical insights to contemporary counterinsurgency and its relationship to liberal peace-building, humanitarianism and population-centric warfare. It offers a provocative analysis of the ways in which counterinsurgency is moving beyond the parameters of state- and nation-building outlined in FM 3-24 to a qualitatively new development in which the main objective of intervention is managing life at the local level.” (Alice Hills, Durham University)
“As Western powers are reflecting on the not-so-successful counterinsurgency operation in Afghanistan, this volume looks into the more recent transformations in counterinsurgency practices elsewhere, in international as well as national operations. By scrutinizing the forms and implications of the current ‘turn to the local’ in counterinsurgency practice and doctrine, Moe, Müller and the contributors give us a very timely, necessary and concise update to the analysis of changes and (not least) continuities in the relation between liberalism and the use of force in the current world.” (Finn Stepputat, Danish Institute for International Studies)
Reconfiguring Intervention: Complexity, Resilience and the 'Local Turn' in Counterinsurgent Warfare is edited by Louise Wiuff Moe (DIIS) and Markus-Michael Müller, Freie Universität Berlin, and published by Palgrave MacMillan as part of the book series Rethinking Political Violence. It is also available as e-book.
