Resisting Rebellion: The History and Politics of Counterinsurgency

Extract

Resisting Rebellion: The History and Politics of Counterinsurgency. By Anthony James Joes. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 2004. 360p. $35.00.

At the end of this book, Anthony James Joes has written a two-page epilogue entitled “Conflict in Iraq,” which notes the enormous task that the U.S. government has set itself in the long-term construction of a democratic order in the face of violent opposition and internal social conflict. And while the bulk of the book was obviously written prior to the war in Iraq, it can be read as a constructive critique of U.S. counterinsurgency policy in the months following the invasion. Joes draws on a wide range of cases from over two centuries of guerrilla warfare to illustrate what he sees as the key reasons for the success or failure of numerous counterinsurgency campaigns. His thoughtful and informative analysis provides a useful basis for a comparative perspective that has been largely absent from many of the assessments of the guerrilla war in Iraq and America's counterinsurgency policies.