| Summary |
The entry into Afghanistan and Iraq of allied troops led to an insurgency, beginning immediately, and lasting throughout the conflict to date. Allied forces thus have had to respond by developing a counterinsurgency. Conventional armies, and their respective governments, have long struggled with how to conduct properly such operations. Most have approached the task with little regard for the history of past counterinsurgent operations, even their own. Some armies have ignored their experience even though they have carried out both insurgency, and counterinsurgency. The problem considered in this thesis is to examine whether past counterinsurgencies can provide legitimate guidance to ongoing operations. The approach used is to examine two case studies from the ancient world, one Greek and one Roman. The examples chosen are ones for which there is a substantial body of source material available, although admittedly their chronological remoteness poses significant challenges in interpretation. The Greek case study focuses on the counterinsurgency of Alexander the Great in Bactria and Sogdia from 329 to 327 BC. The Roman case study focuses on the Jugurthine War in Numidia from 112 to 105 BC. Two main options are available to forces undertaking a counterinsurgency, annihilation of the insurgents, or a milder approach concentrating on removing the insurgents' desire and/or ability to wage war. Historically, successful counterinsurgencies have focused more often on the latter. The British claimed to incorporate the milder approach to counterinsurgency in Malaya from 1948 to 1960 AD by striving to win the "hearts and minds" of the people. One can easily see in both case studies efforts by the counterinsurgents that fell into one or the other of the main options. The counterinsurgents in both cases began by following a strategy of annihilation and moved to a milder approach that was ultimately more successful. Alexander, in particular, employed a "hearts and minds" approach most clearly evidenced by his marriage to a local woman from the region at issue. The final part of the thesis establishes that past counterinsurgencies can provide meaningful guidance to current operations, even ancient counterinsurgencies. The examination of the two case studies illustrates a large number of techniques that are equally viable today as they were then. The existence of such a large number of techniques over two thousand years old still having application may initially seem puzzling. The mystery disappears though when the realization comes that unlike conventional warfare that is highly evolutionary in nature, counterinsurgency and insurgency are not. The news that insurgents have beheaded a captive soldier may be about one of Alexander's Macedonians in 328 BC, or an American G.l. in Baghdad in 2009 AD. |
