ABSTRACT The paper focuses on how technology impacts on irregular conflicts, i.e. conflicts fought by non-state actors. The ability to inflict destruction and produce casualties is no longer directly related to the ability to organize large numbers of people and manage vast stores of resources that has been typical of large, organized state armies, and consequently smaller groups can now inflict more

ABSTRACT When rebels and non-state actors provide services, do they have an effect on identities? The literature suggests that service provision by rebel’s influence identities, which affect post-conflict reconstruction and have some policy-implications on service provision. I argue that service provision has a potential effect on sub-identities and shape the preference of how people self-identify

ABSTRACT From the proclamation of the Union of South Africa in 1910, the Union Defence Force (UDF) had been deployed to suppress several internal disturbances. These unrests varied in terms of their scale, intensity, and geographic location, and represented dissatisfied and disenfranchised parts of the population, both in the Union and South West Africa (now Namibia). The uprisings in turn tested the

ABSTRACT Since the commencement of the counterinsurgency fight against Boko Haram, the Nigerian Army has been faced with internal crises, such as corruption, poor welfare conditions for soldiers, among others, which have undermined efforts at defeating the insurgents. Military authorities have both down-played and denied these internal challenges. The result is frequent mutiny by soldiers. This paper

ABSTRACT The article analyses the gaps and ties betweenthe doctrine and theory, in contrast with the practice, of countering subversive movements in the British Empire during the Interbellum. Contradictions between security services led to the articulation and promotion of different models of counterinsurgency. The research contains an analysis of the guerrilla warfare concept’ evolution within the

ABSTRACT Has the consolidation of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as the dominant party at the national level since the 2014 Lok Sabha election affected internal security outcomes in India? This question assumes particular significance because of the primacy accorded to the use of force in the BJP’s counter-insurgency (COIN) strategy. Using sub-national data on insurgency-related

ABSTRACT Breaker Morant dramatizes the historical trial of a trio of Australian lieutenants who were court-martialed for executing unarmed prisoners during the Second Boer War. The midpoint turned culmination of New Australian Cinema, this film serves as an instructive case study in how soldiers justify harsh acts of violence to themselves and others. The primary mouthpieces for such explanations are

ABSTRACT Desertification-induced conflict involving pastoralists and farmers is primarily driven by competition for water, forage, and land, other factors like ethnicity and religion also come into play. This paper utilizes descriptive analysis and secondary data, adopting the Economic & Migration Theory to explain the issue in the southern frontiers. Findings from the paper show that in the southward

ABSTRACT Over the past two decades the historical record of Britain’s wars against a series of insurgencies has experienced a fundamental academic re-assessment, challenging established beliefs about how the British state and its institutions – in particular the British Army – have waged counterinsurgency, and questioning traditional presumptions that Britain fought its insurgent enemies according

ABSTRACT As a result of the debilitating situation that the Syrian state reached during the Syrian Civil War, the government relies heavily on paramilitary groups to confront security challenges. Existing studies imply that all the paramilitary groups in Syria were formed in a largely top-down process. Focusing on the rise of al-Baqqer Brigade in Syria and relying on a series of in-depth interviews

ABSTRACT Are some conventional military units better equipped to conduct counterinsurgency (COIN) operations than others? COIN theorists and practitioners disagree about mechanization’s impact on COIN effectiveness. We suggest that mechanization is not the critical determinant of COIN effectiveness. Rather, mechanization’s effects vary based on a unit’s force employment approach within local scope

ABSTRACT This article examines Operation Intradon, a covert British counter-insurgency operation in the northern Omani enclave of Musandam. The operation, which ran from December 1970 to March 1971, was driven by the political aim of forcing the Sultan of Oman to take administrative control of this ungoverned enclave. This would then provide protection to the Strait of Hormuz oil route and remove a

ABSTRACT This article examines the effect of foreign military intervention on rebel governance in terms of disaggregated human security. Case studies reveal that, on the one hand, a ‘thirst for legitimacy’ influenced by military intervention has led rebel groups to engage in internal and external diplomatic activities. Moreover, their efforts to develop fundamental rebel governance structures have

ABSTRACT This essay seeks to understand how since the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, marking the end of The Troubles in Northern Ireland, filmic depictions of the conflict reinterpret and interrogate the traditional role of the ‘hero’ in the Irish republican cause. In an analysis of two films released after the Good Friday Agreement, Hunger (2008) and The Wind that Shakes the Barley

ABSTRACT The paper probes colonial counterinsurgency operations in Northeast India and Northwest Burma from the First Anglo-Burmese War (1825–26) to the end of the First World War. While the nature and objective of insurgency movements differ from raid to resistance and then to a full-scale war or gal against the colonial ruler, colonial counterinsurgency operations also employed different strategies

ABSTRACT How do state sponsors of proxy groups in civil wars balance their support of non-state militias with the need for political transition towards stability? This article explores the inconsistencies in Iran’s priorities and proxy strategy that at times limited Iranian influence, and complicated Iraq’s transition from war to peace. It expands on current theories on proxy warfare by focusing on

ABSTRACT This article investigates the transformation of the FALINTIL guerrilla organisation into the national armed forces in post-independence Timor-Leste. It focuses on how these former rebels interpret and legitimise their role in a changed socio-political environment vis-à-vis other national security actors as well as the population. By tackling the issue of the evolution of guerrilla organisations

(2022). Colonial institutions and civil war: indirect rule and maoist insurgency in India. Small Wars & Insurgencies: Vol. 33, No. 3, pp. 550-552.

ABSTRACT This paper examines the cinema of the US-Mexican border in the context of an escalating drug war. It looks at movies released since the early 1980s and argues that Hollywood has supplied a large number of cinematic images of the ‘war on drugs’ that has more helped shape wider political and strategic debates. Using insights from strategic analysis, this paper seeks to show how cinema has represented

ABSTRACT This article examines the role of siege warfare and population control in the coercive counterinsurgency strategy used by the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad to effectively crush the revolution that began in 2011. We extend the coercive counterinsurgency framework offered by Monica Duffy Toft and Yuri Zhukov to analyze the Syrian regime’s use of the twin tactical pillars of siege warfare

ABSTRACT The paper examines local response to the recruitment of Labour Corps in the Chin Hills during the First World War. It probes the tenability of colonial binary of dividing the local population into ‘loyal’ and ‘rebel’ groups. It argues that the so-called ‘loyal’ Zo (Chin) were rather coerced to join the Labour Corps through the influence of the Ukpi. On the other hand, those who resisted colonial

Abstract This introduction to the special issue ”Global Counterinsurgency and the Police-Military Continuum” examines the emergence of global counterinsurgency in the twentieth century and introduces the critical concept of the police-military continuum. Through a review of the recent literature, it also provides a framework for analyzing the relationship of historical trends and contemporary developments

ABSTRACT The Weberian definition of the state as the legitimate monopoly on the means of violence links arms to national power. In practice, the monopoly entails exchanging capital for arms to equip security forces with weapons of war. We examine what happens to these arms when a state collapses. Focusing on Libya, we explore the regional diffusion of small arms and light weapons ejecting out of the

ABSTRACT The US and UN are two of the largest patrons of police reform programs worldwide: between 2000 and 2020, the US provided approximately $160 billion in police assistance to more than 130 countries worldwide; simultaneously, the UN spent over $77 billion supplying police-oriented security sector reform to countries experiencing or having experienced armed conflict, doing so through the deployment

ABSTRACT Within recent critical debates about the geographies and circulations of counterinsurgency knowledge, scholars have focused primarily on dominant centres of power and authority in the global North. Building a framework drawn from critical geography, this article decentres these locations and actors by exploring the global production and circulation of counterinsurgency knowledge from the vantage

ABSTRACT Over the last six years, the P/CVE agenda has emphasized the need of preventative measures to augment kinetic counterterrorism security approaches. Based on field research in Kenya in 2019, this article analyzes the ‘police power’ of P/CVE, which compels populations to participate in their own security and ensure their own governability, otherwise marking them for elimination. P/CVE is read

ABSTRACT Unique within the recent history of environmental hazards, eastern Ukraine illustrates the dangers arising from conflict in an urban landscape heavily modified by human action (including coal extraction and nuclear testing) and requiring active management. To analyze these dynamics and their implications, we examine industrialization in the Donbas region and warfare-accelerated environmental

ABSTRACT The use of agrarian reform within civil war to diminish insurgent support and violence has been a key topic within conflict scholarship, particularly in rural societies. Yet, this research has largely overlooked the ways in which the dynamics of counterinsurgency itself shapes land reform institutions – the procedures governing redistribution and legalization. Focusing on Nicaragua’s Contra

ABSTRACT In India, from the time of emergence of empires in circa 300 BCE till the rise of British power in eighteenth century, military mercenaries and private military companies dominated the politico-military landscape. Premodern India had both secular (military guilds) and religious (based on temples and akharas) military corporations. The mercenaries were mostly marginal peasants and demobilised

ABSTRACT This paper examines cinematic representations of mercenaries from the era of silent movies to the 1980s. It argues that cinema has been selective in the choice of historical periods to depict mercenaries and soldiers of fortune, ignoring for the most part the centuries of European state building in which mercenaries played a significant role. Most mercenary films are anchored in the near present

ABSTRACT This article critically examines the models of protest policing deployed by the Malaysian police during the BERSIH 2.0 wave of protests (2011–2016). Based on participant observation and critical ethnography of these protest events, it explains how the state and police adapted to the surge of street protests in Kuala Lumpur by bringing together various elements of policing practices in its

ABSTRACT The conflict between the armed forces of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the armed forces of Nagorno Karabakh in the Nagorno Karabakh region analyzed in this paper covers the period from 26 September 2020 to 11 October 2020. The Armed Forces of the Republic of Azerbaijan conducted an offensive operation with the maximum use of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) in order to achieve success in the

ABSTRACT Contemporary civil conflicts are increasingly inter- and trans-nationalized: distinctive conflict dynamics extend beyond the boundaries of the respective states and are exposed to foreign involvement, in different forms. Within this trend stands the often mentioned but yet to be fully grasped role of non-state actors, referred to as, among others, proxies, mercenaries, militias (pro-government

ABSTRACT Taking the Capitol riots of January 6 as a point of departure, this article queries the utility of abject white violence to the US security state through a focus on the latest push for domestic terrorism legislation. Drawing on the first-ever National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism released by the White House in June 2021, we trace how the US security state constructs white supremacist

ABSTRACT Since 2018, an increasing number of Iran-backed armed groups have started to be integrated into the Syrian and Iraqi official armed forces. The integration of armed groups allows Tehran to enjoy a multi-layered, longer-term, and potentially less expensive influence in Iraq and Syria. Besides, underlying ideological and ideational ties between the armed groups and Iran continue to affect their

(2022). Advancing private security studies: introduction to the special issue. Small Wars & Insurgencies: Vol. 33, From Condottieri to Cyber-mercenaries: The Past, Present and Future of Private Security Forces, pp. 1-21.

(2022). Concluding comments. Small Wars & Insurgencies: Vol. 33, From Condottieri to Cyber-mercenaries: The Past, Present and Future of Private Security Forces, pp. 294-312.

ABSTRACT A major aspect of the United States’ war efforts in Afghanistan over the past two decades has been the waging of a counterinsurgency campaign. This article analyzes the extent to which the United States and other Western intervening nations developed and implemented rule of law support missions as a component of the overarching counterinsurgency mission. This article evaluates the successes

(2021). Somalia, the clan system and Al-Shabaab. Small Wars & Insurgencies. Ahead of Print.

(2021). Introduction: Maritime Southeast Asia’s encounter with Westphalianism. Small Wars & Insurgencies: Vol. 32, No. 6, pp. 855-866.

ABSTRACT This article explores three interrelated components of the independence movement in Papua – armed resistance, political struggle, and international lobbying. As an insurgency, the armed resistance in Papua is local, sporadic and does not threaten Indonesian control. Indonesia’s predominantly military response to both armed and peaceful resistance has given violence a greater significance in

(2021). Child soldiers research: the next necessary steps. Small Wars & Insurgencies: Vol. 32, No. 6, pp. 1012-1022.

(2021). Fascist warfare, 1922-1945: aggression, occupation, annihilation. Small Wars & Insurgencies: Vol. 32, No. 6, pp. 1023-1025.

ABSTRACT This paper reveals the secrets of BlueLeaks, a massive archive of documents hacked from police agencies, and intelligence centers in the United States. A September 2019 Intelligence Assessment by the Virginia Fusion Center cites counterinsurgency expert David Kilcullen to evaluate the ‘insurgency tactics and strategies’ of environmentalists. What is remarkable about the document is not the

ABSTRACT While war and the military have been recognized as being gendered sites, Private Military and Security Companies (PMSCs) are only rarely studied through a gender lens. Compared to functional, political-instrumental or ideational explanations with respect to the privatization of security, such a lens captures, however, the micro-dynamic and political processes of PMSCs’ boom. We show that gender

ABSTRACT Based on conflict data, interviews and media monitoring, this study of Myanmar’s non-inclusive ceasefires develops a four-step argument about the effect of ceasefires in complex conflict systems. First, non-state armed groups rarely co-ordinate their actions strategically. This makes it easy for governments to obtain ceasefires with some groups while fighting others. Second, when ceasefires

ABSTRACT The history of the mercenary seems little less than the history of organized warfare itself. From the dawn of recorded history to the recent rise of Private Military Companies, mercenaries appear as a historical constant that allows scholars to make grand historical claims about the organisation of force within world history. This article cautions against this view, arguing instead that the

ABSTRACT Many have shown how ‘the British way’, a doctrine of minimum force, was problematic in theory and practice, especially in the final decades of empire. While the role of the colonial police in suppressing uprisings is often overlooked, this article argues that the police carried out everyday counterinsurgency campaigns. Using British archival records, this article examines a 1950 dockworker

ABSTRACT The Special Patrol Group (SPG) of the London Metropolitan Police was formed as a crime-fighting unit in 1965. Beginning in the early 1970s, however, it underwent a transformation of ‘colonial counterinsurgenization’. The SPG shifted its initial role and increasingly took on the characteristics of a colonial counterinsurgency police force operating in the metropolis. The change is seen in the

ABSTRACT In a situation where the Russian national self-image and economic realities fail to add up, this article discusses whether Russian private military companies have become low-cost tools to restore Russian great power status. Our findings suggest that whenever these companies are used in a ‘power as outcome’ way, they appear less successful at adding great power status on the cheap and less

(2021). Ireland, 2021: a century of insurgency, terrorism and security challenges. Small Wars & Insurgencies: Vol. 32, Special Issue on insurgency and counter-insurgency in Ireland, pp. 587-597.

ABSTRACT In April 2019, a so-called ‘dissident’ republican New IRA gun-man killed journalist Lyra McKee, whilst firing at police during a riot in Derry in the North of Ireland. The New and Continuity IRAs remain wedded to an armed campaign for Irish sovereignty, drawing legitimacy from partition and the ongoing British ‘presence’ in Northern Ireland – and rejecting the significance of altered conditions

(2021). Afterword. Small Wars & Insurgencies: Vol. 32, Special Issue on insurgency and counter-insurgency in Ireland, pp. 837-844.

ABSTRACT This article explores how military ‘frontline workers’ use their discretion to interpret and then comply, breach or bypass policies that reach into the tactical level, and why. Based on extensive primary sources including in-depth interviews, end-of-tour reports and data from records, the case study explores the implementation of policies on civil-military relations by military commanders

ABSTRACT The aim of this study is to analyse the impact of the armed conflict in Colombia on the environment, and in particular, terrorist attacks on the oil infrastructure and the phenomenon of oil spills in river basins in the department of Norte de Santander. The study covers the last decade, from 2010 to 2019, and is focused on one of the most violent departments in Colombia, through which the

ABSTRACT Is militarized policing an effective way to combat insurgency? This article uses new global data on policing practices to evaluate whether states with militarized police perform better than those without them. The analysis provides no evidence that militarized police are an asset in counterinsurgency. Indeed, states with militarized units within their national or federal-level police are generally

ABSTRACT The increasing demand for cybersecurity has been met by a global supply, namely, a rapidly growing market of private companies that offer their services worldwide. Cybersecurity firms develop both defensive (e.g. protection of own networks) and offensive innovations (e.g. development of zero days), whereby they provide operational capacities and expertise to overstrained states. Yet, there

ABSTRACT This article will explore the differing attitudes among British parliamentarians towards the use of German soldiers in 1756 and 1776. Utilising speech act theory, it will be shown that German soldiers were constructed as mercenaries in 1776 because they were being employed to fight against British subjects – the North American colonists. However, when nearly identical German soldiers were