The Promise of Borderlands

Given current discussion on the viability of the nation?Cstate, and recognizing the potential of emerging supra-state structures like the European Union, the paper looks at a ??third space,?? exploring the capacious topos of borderlands, and its promise in creating a new kind of community that is non-reducible either to that of a nation, or a nation?Cstate.     

Insurgency and Counterinsurgency in Iraq

The United States has long been frustrated in fighting insurgencies. An almost unbroken string of mostly ill-fated experiences in effectively prosecuting this unique blend of political-military operations can be traced backward over nearly half a century from the situation in Iraq today to the early 1960s when the U.S. became heavily engaged in Indochina's wars. Vietnam and Iraq thus form two legs of a historically fraught triangle—with America's experiences in El Salvador in the 1980s providing the connecting leg. The aim of this article is not to rake over old coals or rehash now familiar criticism. Rather, its purpose is to use the present as prologue in order to understand in counterinsurgency terms where we have gone wrong in Iraq; what unique challenges the current conflict in Iraq presents to the U.S. and other coalition military forces deployed there; and what light both shed on future counterinsurgency planning, operations and requirements.     

Security Through Sociology: The North Caucasus and the Global Counterinsurgency Paradigm

The global counterinsurgency strategy to combat terrorism emphasizes responding to the social and economic needs of communities where terrorists may find support. Public opinion data can help in that strategy, as shown by a 2006 survey of 1,200 young males from three provinces in Russia's North Caucasus. Conventional wisdom notwithstanding, the survey shows few signs of burgeoning radical Islam or ethnic animosity. Instead, economic conditions and poor governance are primary concerns. The region provides both an opportunity and threat: policymakers can and should address the region's needs; if not, radical Islamist groups can turn it into a flashpoint for terrorism.     

An Alternative Internationalism: The Main Lines and Legacies of Polish Sovietology,Promethean Orientalism and the Soviet ‘Southern Borderlands’, 1926–1939

Abstract

‘Prometheism’ was an interwar movement of borderland nationalists from the former Russian Empire who envisioned the division of the Soviet Union into independent nation-states. This article argues that ideological affinities and diasporic connections made the Promethean cause an attractive ‘alternative internationalism’ to the Soviet system for exiled thinkers hailing from the so-called ‘southern borderlands’ of Crimea, the Caucasus, the Volga region and Central Asia. In the 1930s, Prometheism drew intellectuals from these regions to Poland, where the movement’s thinkers formulated ambitious visions of Eurasian liberation from Soviet power.     

Strategy in Counterinsurgency: A Distilled Approach

How does an established state authority respond to an insurgency? How does such an authority plan and carry out its struggle to counter an armed non-state actor and why? The issue of strategy in counterinsurgency (COIN) remains a rather contentious subject and several practitioners and theorists on COIN have prescribed various remedies to the same problem. This article offers a re-evaluation of the concept of strategy in COIN and outlines the practices and mentalities that counterinsurgents should adopt (and avoid) to successfully counter an insurgency.     

从民主社会主义到社会民主主义——苏东剧变后西欧社会民主党的战略调整

冷战期间,西欧各国社会民主党虽然对以苏联为代表的现实社会主史一直持坚决反对、严厉批判的态度,但事实上现实社会主义的存在是社会民主党人推行的社会改良主义的一个重要条件.正因如此,苏东剧变、苏联解体并没有为西欧社会民主党带来任何政治利益,反而使它们的社会基础变得更为脆弱.西欧十几个国家曾经出现社会民主党万马齐喑、无一执政的局面.为了摆脱困境,西欧各国社会民主党先后实行了战略调整,纷纷放弃了"民主社会主义"的原则,改打"社会民主主义"或"第三条道路"的旗帜.这一转变表明,西欧各国社会民主党已经彻底放弃了改造现行社会的计划而与目前西方的资本主义制度完全认同.     

Counter-COIN: Counterinsurgency and the Preemption of Strategy

The notion of “counterinsurgency” (COIN) has for some years been the central concept driving military operations in Afghanistan, and before that, in Iraq. It constitutes the dominant idea influencing much current military planning of the major Western powers. This study questions the assumptions and relevance of the thinking behind counterinsurgency doctrine. It suggests that the ultimate effect of its dominance is to reduce the highly contingent nature of war to a list of techniques, the application of which are regarded as a sufficient precondition whenever states deem that they are confronted by conflicts that can be described as an “insurgency.” Such assumptions are both arbitrary and risk crowding out necessary, although by their nature very difficult, political judgments that are required for the effective construction and implementation of strategies that seek to ensure that the ends sought are proportional to the means employed.     

The Other Side of the COIN: Private Security Companies and Counterinsurgency Operations

The Iraq War was a watershed regarding the scope of battlefield support by Private Security Companies (PSC). Skeptics soon raised concerns about these new actors being an impediment to the success of the very same operations they are meant to support. According to the critics, PSCs are grist to the mill for insurgents as they employ aggressive tactics and thereby alienate the population, cause credibility problems because they enjoy impunity, and increase coordination problems since they are not subordinated under the military chain of command. This article argues that this is not a necessary result of their employment, but rather the consequence of a lack of preparedness to operate alongside PSCs. However, the military is accustomed to adapting to new unexpected circumstances. Hence, when problems occurred, the armed forces underwent a trial and error learning process that improved PSC employment. The empirical picture supports this view. Initially, the counterinsurgency effort did indeed suffer from the actions, lack of oversight, and lack of coordination of PSCs. However, over the course of the Iraq War, most of the shortfalls were either improved significantly or even resolved.