Description
Book Synopsis From Afghanistan to Angola, Indonesia to Iran, and Colombia to Congo, violent reactions erupt, states collapse, and militaries relentlessly pursue operations doomed to fail. And yet, no useful theory exists to explain this common tragedy. All over the world, people and states clash violently outside their established political systems, as unfulfilled demands of control and productivity bend the modern state to a breaking point.
This book lays out how dysfunctional governments disrupt social orders, make territory insecure, and interfere with political-economic institutions. These give rise to a form of organized violence against the state known as irregular war. Research reveals why this frequent phenomenon is so poorly understood among conventional forces in those conflicts and the states who send their children to die in them.
Trade ReviewIf Jonathan Hackett's
Theory of Irregular War had been available in the early 2000s, we might have taken far more thoughtful approaches in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, and the many other conflicts of the post-9/11 era. Hackett weaves together his ground-up experience with a ruthless academic critique of contemporary theory and practice in what will surely be essential reading for the inevitable irregular wars to come."—Dr. Ben Connable, author of
How Insurgencies End "Analytically rigorous and methodologically sound, Hackett's work is a precious contribution to the literature on irregular war. Theorizing, especially in social studies, is not for the faint-hearted, but Hackett accomplishes that mission with grace and humility."—Bilal Y. Saab, former senior advisor in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, author of
Rebuilding Arab DefenseTable of Contents
- Table of Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Preface
- Part I: Thinking About Irregular
- 1. Enemies of the State
- Existing Theoretical Frameworks
- A Note on Method
- A Note on Sources
- Structure of the Book
- 2. A Framework of Thought, Action, and Justice
- A School of Thought and Action
- John Rawls and the Theory of Justice
- The Functional Sovereign
- The Dysfunctional Sovereign
- Violent Resistance and the Dysfunctional Sovereign
- 'Asabiyyah and Anomie
- 3. The Structure of Irregular War
- Theories and Philosophies of War, or "On Clausewitz"
- Irregular War: A Social, Territorial, and Political Affair
- Irregular War and Social Order
- Irregular War and Sovereign Territory
- Irregular War and Political-Economic Institutions
- The Conduct of Irregular War
- Structures of Conflict: Insurgency and Revolution
- Part II: The Synecdoche Trap
- 4. Problems of Scope, Method, Bias, and Character
- Problem One: Scope
- Problem Two: "Methodismus"
- Problem Three: Bias
- Problem Four: Character
- The Human Element
- 5. Conventional War Theory and Regular Wars
- Law and Doctrine
- Doctrinal Disconnect
- Wars, Conventional and Regular
- 6. Conventional Forces in Irregular Wars
- Combatting Bandits in Small Wars
- A French Vision of Disaster
- The British Method
- American Force
- Suppression and Destruction
- Third-Party Intervention
- Part III: A Theory of Irregular
- 7. Irregular War Conditions
- Conditions of Social Order and Sovereign Dysfunction
- Conditions of Sovereign Territory and Sovereign Dysfunction
- Conditions of Political-Economic Institutions and Sovereign Dysfunction
- 8. The Elements: People, Politics, and Propaganda
- Thinkers and Actors
- The Why
- Wings of Resistance
- Ideology and the Message
- 9. A Dialectic of Irregular War
- The Intersection of People and the State
- The State and Its Enemies
- Irregular Wars and Sovereign Dysfunction
- Concluding Irregular Wars
- Chapter Notes
- References
- Index
