Counterinsurgency

Abstract

This chapter provides an overview of counterinsurgency, which means defeating armed, organized, persistent political challengers to the government. What explains success in counterinsurgency? This book argues that government success against an insurgency is a nonviolent and violent competition among elites that leads to political stability after a single armed actor — the counterinsurgent government — gains dominance over the others within its territory. The use of compellence (the use or threat of force to change an actor's behavior) and brute force (the power to take and to hold) together break the challenger's ability and will to fight. The book examines counterinsurgency as a form of liberal great power military intervention with relevance to contemporary Western policy debates and offers better understanding of how the use of force may — or may not — help threatened governments attain their political objectives. The chapter then introduces the compellence theory, which differs from good governance counterinsurgency.