Counterinsurgency Success

Abstract

This chapter argues that counterinsurgency success is about power, co-optation, building a coalition, and crushing opposition, not good governance. In the cases examined in the previous chapters, great power backing helped the client government achieve counterinsurgent success, and all six states remain at least nominally partnered with the West on important issues. But all six campaigns also had high human and moral costs. These findings force those who support great-power, liberal military intervention to consider unpalatable choices about national interests. Individually and collectively, these cases provide strong evidence of the explanatory power of the compellence theory, with its emphasis on coalition building among rival elites and a military campaign targeting civilians as well as insurgents. The chapter then looks at the implications of this analysis on peacekeeping and state-building efforts.