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Old Lessons, New Doctrine

Classic Insights into Counterinsurgency Are Especially Trenchant Today

By James A. Thomson

James Thomson is president and chief executive officer of the RAND Corporation.

PHOTO: DIANE BALDWIN

In October, the New York Times reported that the U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps were drafting a new counterinsurgency doctrine for use within an updated field manual. Reflecting lessons from Afghanistan and Iraq, the doctrine places a high priority on protecting civilians, restoring municipal services, and reconstituting indigenous security forces.

In crafting the doctrine, the military services “drew upon some of the classic texts on counterinsurgency by the likes of T. E. Lawrence of Arabia and David Galula,” the Times noted.

Little known outside military circles during most of his career, Galula was an important early contributor to counterinsurgency research at RAND. As a consultant here in the early 1960s, he wrote a path-breaking analysis, Pacification in Algeria: 1956–1958, based on his command of French army troops during Algeria’s war of independence. Under his command, French forces cleared an insurgent-filled area near Algiers and restored it to government control. The experience gave him a ground-level view into what did and didn’t work.

In this RAND study and his later book, Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice, Galula argued that the key to counterinsurgency is support from the local population, requiring that military authorities ensure the people’s safety and maintain effective police and other public services. Force alone will not succeed. Counterinsurgency succeeds when it melds the political with the military. All these recommendations appear in today’s new counterinsurgency doctrine.

With the growing insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is gratifying to see the lessons RAND has learned in the course of five decades of counterinsurgency research being put into action. This work began during the Vietnam era, continued into the 1980s and 1990s with work on international terrorism and on insurgencies in Nicaragua and El Salvador, and carries on today as we advise senior U.S. civilian and military authorities about emerging global threats.

Perhaps no researcher figures more prominently throughout this history than does RAND analyst Stephen Hosmer. He brought Galula to our attention and authored numerous classic RAND reports that continue — years, if not decades, after publication — to influence national security policy. Hosmer’s 1963 report on a RAND symposium, which brought together what is arguably the most distinguished group of counterinsurgency and guerilla warfare experts ever assembled, is being used by U.S. military and civilian officials in Washington and Baghdad today.

A report Hosmer wrote in 1986 was one of the first to identify terrorism, subversion, and insurgency as three distinct forms of covert aggression. His 1990 report, years ahead of its time, called for the U.S. military to develop counterinsurgency doctrine, to train counterinsurgency specialists and units, and to create a counterinsurgency institute. Hosmer continues to work on issues related to the ongoing counterinsurgency efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Others at RAND, notably Brian Jenkins and Bruce Hoffman, have assessed ways to counter and to influence al Qaeda and other emerging terrorist threats, examined past counterinsurgency campaigns for lessons to apply to Iraq and Afghanistan, and explored how computer links and other networks are changing counterinsurgency theory and practice.

Although these studies have differed in tone, they all echo Galula in calling for policymakers to build counterinsurgency and counterterrorism efforts on a political as well as a military foundation. This message has been a consistent theme running through 45 years of RAND research. Sadly, this message — and similar ones from other experts in the United States and elsewhere — became lost after Vietnam, despite the perseverance of those like Hosmer to keep it alive. That our message is now being heard and acted upon at the highest levels is a testament to the salience and longevity of our efforts in service of public welfare and security — both at home and abroad.