Pathological Counterinsurgency: How Flawed Thinking about Elections Leads to Counterinsurgency Failure

(Hardback)

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Pathological Counterinsurgency critically examines the relationship between elections and counterinsurgency success in third party campaigns supported by the United States. From Vietnam to El Salvador to Iraq and Afghanistan, many policymakers and academics believed that democratization would drive increased legitimacy and improved performance in governments waging a counterinsurgency campaign. Elections were expected to help overcome existing deficiencies, thus allowing governments supported by the United States to win the hearts and minds of its populace, undermining the appeal of insurgency. However, in each of these cases, campaigning in and winning elections did not increase the legitimacy of the counterinsurgent government or alter conditions of entrenched rent seeking and weak institutions that made states allied to the United States vulnerable to insurgency. Ultimately, elections played a limited role in creating the conditions needed for counterinsurgency success. Instead, decisions of key actors in government and elites to prioritize either short term personal and political advantage or respect for political institutions held a central role in counterinsurgency success or failure. In each of the four cases in this study, elected governments pursued policies that benefited members of the government and elites at the expense of boarder legitimacy and improved performance. Expectations that democratization could serve as a key instrument of change led to unwarranted optimism about the likely of success and ultimately to flawed strategy. The United States continued to support regimes that continued to lack the legitimacy and government performance needed for victory in counterinsurgency.

Reviews

This illuminating and timely work reveals the limited ability of an outside power such as the USG to instill legitimacy in a weak government by encouraging elections during a counterinsurgency campaign. Greene exposes the flawed assumptions inherent in the equation of genuine democratic reform with an externally imposed electoral processespecially in countries like Iraq and Afghanistan. As Greene reminds us, there is a terrible price to be paid for magical thinking about the power of elections to turn the tide against entrenched insurgencies. This book should be required reading for Trumps foreign policy advisors, especially as they consider next steps in the Middle East. -- Vivian S. Walker, Central European University
Professor Greene's fundamental insight on the necessary yet insufficient nature of elections in successful counterinsurgencies is a crucial one. In each of his case studies, he demonstrates how too great a concern with the fact of an election has crowded out clear thinking about the fundamental prerequisites for holding an election, and for requirements for transparency and constraint of the victors. His book should be on the shelf of anyone hoping to avoid the errors of the recent and not-so-recent past. -- Thomas Wingfield, National Defense University
Pathological Counterinsurgency is an invaluable guide for those seeking to understand third-party counterinsurgency campaigns. Greene addresses the critical question of whether elections promote a host countrys legitimacy and performance. With implications for counterinsurgency, stability operations, and foreign interventions, Pathological Counterinsurgency should be required reading for those designing and implementing US foreign policy today. -- Peter G. Thompson, National Defense University

Author Bio

Samuel Greene is associate professor at the Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies and the National Defense College in the United Arab Emirates.