Jeffrey Record's Beating Goliath: Why Insurgencies Win uses the age old anecdote of the struggle between David and Goliath to explain why the strong sometimes lose to the weak – that is, why Davids are sometimes able to triumph over Goliaths despite myriad obvious disadvantages. Jeffrey Record specifically focuses on "states fighting non-state actors" (Record ix), or in other words, states confronted with domestic or international insurgencies. He then goes on to explore the role that external assistance plays in war outcome determination. By examining instances in which the United States has lost against materially weaker opponents, Record is able to partially explain the causal factors of these types of defeats by using a three component model that encompasses will, strategy, and type of government. Beating Goliath: Why Insurgencies Win scrutinizes the role of external assistance on the outcomes of such conflicts, and Record ultimately concludes that intentional (and to a significantly lesser extent, unintentional) external assistance to insurgencies or guerrillas conducting nonconventional warfare has the ability to facilitate a crucial change in roles: the initially weaker actor can and often does becomes the stronger actor with the aid of said external assistance. Record thus valorously postulates, "the presence or absence of external assistance may be the single most important determinant of insurgent war outcomes" (Record 23). Jeffrey Record states that "all major failed U.S. uses of force since 1945...have been against materially weaker enemies" (Record vii), but he strangely ignores one of the most recent and highly publicized defeats of failed U.S. counterinsurgency action: the U.S. led intervention in Somalia aga... ... middle of paper ... ...he contras in El Salvador as another case, as it is a good example where indiscriminate use of force severely hindered successful operations from a public standpoint, another side argument that he again brought up in the conclusion as one of his main points. Perhaps Record's book is suffering an identity crisis: he could benefit from deciding whether he wants to explain a possible independent variable, external assistance, or whether he wants to draw conclusions from previous works and use this information to exact policy prescriptions. What he ends up with, unfortunately, is a confused mix of the two. Works Cited Cassidy, Robert M. Counterinsurgency and the Global War on Terror: Military Culture and Irregular War. Stanford: Stanford UP, 2008. Print Record, Jeffrey. Beating Goliath: Why Insurgencies Win. Washington, D.C.: Potomac Books, Inc., 2009. Print.
In August of 1992, President George Bush Sr. sent US soldiers into Somalia to provide humanitarian relief to those Somalis suffering from starvation. The major problems in Somalia started when President Mohammed Siad Barre was overthrown by a coalition of opposing clans. Although there were several opposing groups, the prominent one was led by Mohammed Farah Aidid. Following the overthrow of Barre, a massive power struggle ensued. These small scale civil wars led to the destruction of the agriculture in Somalia, which in turn led to the deprivation of food in large parts of the country. When the international community heard of this, large quantities of food were sent to ease Somali suffering. However, clan leaders like Aidid routinely hijacked food and exchanged it for weapons leaving thousands to starve to death. An estimated 300,000 Somalis died between 1991 and 1992 (Clancy 234-236). US soldiers were later sent into Somalia to capture Aidid, but when the operation got bloody, displeasing the American public, Clinton withdrew troops (Battersby 151). In The Morality of War, Brian Orend outlines ethical guidelines that should be followed in all three stages of war: jus ad bellum, jus in bello, and jus post bellum. Orend states that a nation can be moral going into war, but immoral coming out of one. Did the US act justly in all facets of the Somali conflict? The United States espoused all the guiding principles of jus ad bellum but right intent, upheld the principals of jus in bello, and clearly failed to uphold several aspects of jus post bellum during the armed humanitarian intervention in Somalia.
The original mission in October of 2001 was the destruction of al- Qaeda forces responsible for the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the overthrow of the Taliban regime that had given al-Qaeda a safe haven. Those goals had been met rather quickly and by the spring of 2002, Afghanistan had a new government and was seemingly proceeding down the path toward democracy. Coalition forces remained in Afghanistan but in the latter half of 2002 and through 2003, United States units largely resided in a small number of bases from which they mounted periodic security missions.
Schweitzer, Y., & Shay, S. (2003). The globalization of terror: The challenge of al-qaida and the response of the international community. New Jersey: Transaction Publishers.
Martin, Geoff, and Erin Steuter. Pop Culture Goes to War: Enlisting and Resisting Militarism in the War on Terror. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2010. Print.
War and violence in Central America is a result of governmental injustice due to the United States’ foreign policies. The United States supported El Salvador with weapons and money throughout the civil war. As a result of enforcing these policies, El Salvador’s poverty, population and crime rate increased. The books “.After.” by Carolina Rivera Escamilla and “The Tattooed Soldier” by Hector Tobar give us a glimpse of the issues Central Americans face.
Most Americans believe that the troop presence in Iraq and Afghanistan is due to the terrorist attacks on the United States. And while it is hard to deny that the 9-11 attacks were the impetus for putting boots on the ground, it is imperative that the chain of events following the horror of September 11 are seen to reflect the willingness and wants of actors in control before the towers fell. In no field other than politics does the justification for action often come from a noteworthy event and the true cause stays hidden behind the headlines.... ... middle of paper ... ...
the role of the state and also from the perspective of how the decision to fight impacts the
In this section, I will provide a brief history of U.S. military involvement on the African continent, starting with the Barbary Wars and working up through the current date. This historical documentation will highlight the change in the role the United States has played in Africa [post 9-11???]. Prior to 9-11, the United States’ interactions were mainly [capture summary here]. Since [?], however, the continent has faced a marked increase in violent extremism and terrorism leading the United States to partner with many African nations in counterterrorism initiatives. These, and other initiatives, mean an increasing number U.S. service members are deploying to Africa to take part in training, humanitarian issues and military operations. These military activities are run by United States African Command, a recently created combatant command.
The events that were portrayed in “Black Hawk Down” drastically affected the U.S.’ foreign policy during the 1990’s. The U.S soldiers went into a country in East Africa called Somalia. They went into the one city, Mogadishu, to capture top lieutenants of the warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid. The mission was only supposed to take an hour, but it ended up lasting the entire night into the next morning. It was a short war that the U.S. never wanted to get into.
The world’s history is majorly shaped by mega wars that happen both inside and outside the boundaries of individual nations. Almost every sovereign state in the world had to forcefully liberate itself from its colonizers and oppressors mainly through warfare. For instance, America had to fight a long and exhausting revolutionary war against the British before it could attain its independence in 1783, likewise is the fate of many other nations. It is important to understand the two distinct types of wars that exist and their implications. Guerrilla warfare and the conventional military warfare are two types of war that are very different in their execution and military approach. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the similarities and differences existing between the American war in Vietnam and the American Revolution (Vetter, 1997).
In conclusion, despite being portrayed as the weaker side of the war, Algeria came out on top and got what it wanted from France. The film and Record article both present the idea of asymmetric war as a topic of significance. What the United States can learn about insurgency and counterinsurgency operations is to construct a military that is trained and skilled in things such as the language and culture of the country so that it has a logistical advantage over the enemy as well as to put less focus on the technological aspect. More time should be devoted into building the will to fight in our soldiers so that we don’t lose to the weak. Overall looking into the strategies of why the weak win as well as adapting these strategies to our military will help us be more successful in our wars.
Since the end of the Cold War, non-state actors have risen in both prevalence and apparent power. The presence of non-state entities has caused significant ethical and political problems with Western ideology. Coker discusses issues concerning non-state actors in “Ethics and War in the 21st Century” with special attention given to the conflicting cultural ideas regarding warfare concerning the USA. The ability to label a target as not only an enemy combatant, but a fundamentally opposed force that is willing to ignore common practices and ethics is one that Coker denounces and attempts to explain. The disparity of established ethics between the two groups is only complicated with emerging weapon technologies, most importantly non-lethal weapon systems. In recent decades, the concept of a diffused enemy has proven to be ethically more problematic regarding identification and actions against a combative force with considerations for emerging technologies.
The purpose of this essay is to inform on the similarities and differences between systemic and domestic causes of war. According to World Politics by Jeffry Frieden, David Lake, and Kenneth Schultz, systemic causes deal with states that are unitary actors and their interactions with one another. It can deal with a state’s position within international organizations and also their relationships with other states. In contract, domestic causes of war pertain specifically to what goes on internally and factors within a state that may lead to war. Wars that occur between two or more states due to systemic and domestic causes are referred to as interstate wars.
David Galula and Roger Trinquier have common roots, they were French citizens and both lived in the 20th century when the study of counterinsurgency theory was coming into focus. Each of these men experienced bitter conflicts of war. Galula fought in North Africa, Italy, and France. In addition, Galula fought in irregular wars located in China, Greece, Indochina, and Algeria. Galula was a lieutenant colonel when he decided to author his now classic book. Whereas, Trinquier an officer in the colonial infantry defended the French concession in Shanghai and later in Indochina under the Japanese occupation where he was held prisoner of war in a Japanese internment camp. After Trinquier’s release from prison, he continued to serve in Indochina and additionally in Algeria. Both men wrote from first-hand experience and published their accounts in 1964 while the Cold War waged. Communism ideology vs. the free world theorists collided across the face of the globe in a race for domination. Counterinsurgency has been an American strategy since the 1960s ebbing and flowing in strategic signi...
When comparing and contrasting U. S. military operations and capabilities with regard to regular versus irregular warfare it is important to understand the definition of irregular and the spectrum of conflict. In recent history, the term “irregular warfare” has been used interchangeably with or alongside insurgency and counterinsurgency warfare. This usage and comparison is too narrow. ...