Insights on 20 Years of Counterinsurgency Research

Speaker: Dr. Elizabeth Radziszewski (University of Maryland START, Irregular Warfare and Conflict Assessment Group)

Date: 18 April 2023

Speaker Session Summary

SMA hosted a speaker session with Dr. Elizabeth Radziszewski (University of Maryland, National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START)) as part of its SMA General Speaker Series.

Through the 2000s and 2010s, terrorism was a prevalent topic of research among academics, creating a deep pool of peer-reviewed sources. A group of researchers from the University of Maryland, National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) conducted a review of literature from the last 20 years on the study of counterinsurgency (COIN). The pool of literature was comprised of mostly peer-reviewed journal articles—such as Small Wars & Insurgencies—75% of which empirically tested models on government effectiveness relating to COIN. The lever of government power most studied in relation to COIN is the use of military forces. Dr. Radziszewski emphasized that understudied levers of government power must be examined further. These levers of power include a) economic, b) diplomatic, c) legal, and d) financial tools.

The most frequently studied independent variable among the articles was military tactics. Other frequently studied variables include adaptability of actors, overall military capabilities, and doctrine. The literature review identified the most frequent tactics used and how effective those tactics were. These tactics were the use of non-state actors (60% effective), indiscriminate and repressive use of force (29% effective), forced population resettlement (67% effective), increased military presence (78% effective), use of special forces (71% effective), and increasing local security (71% effective). Dr. Radziszewski pointed out several research gaps identified through the study, including a lack of studies on the sequencing and balancing of tactics, maritime tactics, bombing campaigns, and the role of women in these studies.

Speaker Session Recording

Briefing Materials

Affiliated article: https://irregularwarfare.org/articles/the-lessons-of-20-years-of-counterinsurgency-research/

Biography: Dr. Elizabeth Radziszewski is an associate research scientist at START, the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, University of Maryland, where she leads the Irregular Warfare and Conflict Assessment Group. She is the author of Private Militaries and the Security Industry in Civil Wars: Competition and Market Accountability (Oxford University Press, 2020) and Social Networks and Public Support for the European Union (Routledge, 2013).