Death before dismount? : mechanization, force employment, and counterinsurgency outcomes in Iraq
Recent research suggests that heavily mechanized armies perform worse in counterinsurgency campaigns than those that use fewer vehicles. The U.S. military’s 2007 operations in Iraq, however, present an empirical quandary for the mechanization hypothesis: a vehicle-heavy army proved able to suppress an insurgency, allowing Iraqi leaders to work towards a long-term political solution. This paper argues that force employment, not mechanization, drives counterinsurgency outcomes—what matters is not that armies have many vehicles or soldiers, but how they choose to use them. When heavily mechanized forces change their tactics and doctrine to line up with counterinsurgency principles, shifting from an enemy-centric to a population-centric approach, outcomes dramatically improve while military-wide mechanization levels remain constant. Using an original dataset, this paper conducts a large-n regression analysis of the impacts of mechanization at the provincial level in Iraq, and finds little support for the mechanization hypothesis. A subsequent comparative case study, of the heavily mechanized 3 Armored Cavalry Regiment’s operations in Tall Afar and the light infantry 82 Airborne Division’s operations in Fallujah, indicate that force employment rather than mechanization is a key indicator of counterinsurgency outcomes. The finding has important implications for force structure policy, as it indicates that mechanized forces can indeed conduct successful counterinsurgency campaigns. Thesis Advisor: Roger D. Petersen Title: Arthur and Ruth Sloan Professor of Political Science
Money in the Bank-Lessons Learned from Past Counterinsurgency (COIN) Operations
Abstract : The Global War on Terror (GWOT) is being waged in multiple theaters possessing a wide spectrum of social dynamics, regional relationships, histories, political cultures, strengths and weaknesses, and salient grievances. As insurgent threats evolve and assume new forms, the United States must also evolve in its ability to counter potentially prolonged threats in several parts of the world. Because of the potential for global reach in contemporary insurgencies, the ability to draw on lessons learned from past counterinsurgency (COIN) operations using different historical cases can be valuable, helping current and future leaders prevent a repetition of mistakes and elucidating a foundation on which to build contemporary responses. Despite the need to look to the past for clues on how to proceed at present or in the future, it is also important not to generalize, making lessons learned not a loose analogy but a perfectly matching antidote. Rather than disregarding successes and failures as phenomena of the past or attempting to shove round lessons into square counterinsurgencies, strategists must consider a range of possible responses.
Repressive coping before and after diagnosis of breast cancer
Objective: The aim was to investigate to which extent emotional repression is a premorbid coping tendency of cancer patients and/or a coping response to the threat posed by a cancer diagnosis. The results of one previous study of breast cancer patients suggest the latter possibility, and our aim was to replicate and extend these findings.