Engaging or withdrawing, winning or losing? The contradictions of counterinsurgency policy in Afghanistan and Iraq

摘要

In the late summer and autumn of 2003, facing increasingly violent opposition in both Afghanistan and Iraq, the USA implemented contrasting policies. In Afghanistan, it began to expand its footprint, creating Provincial Reconstruction Teams (prts) around the country. In Iraq, on the other hand, the US military withdrew from cities, garrisoning itself in armed camps. Despite the worsening situations in 2005 - 06, this paper argues that establishing prts in Afghanistan is a policy that should be repeated elsewhere, albeit with significantly more personnel deployed to a country. It is far more in line with counterinsurgency theory and US military doctrine, acting to win the support of the population. In Iraq, however, the more consolidated US bases helped to set the stage for the worsening situation and should not be allowed in future conflicts. Although they lessened the danger to US forces, they contradicted counterinsurgency policy and theory in other ways, creating vacuums of power into which guerrillas could enter. More broadly this trend is characteristic of a wider policy failure on the part of the USA and reflects the profound contradictions of Washington's approach to counterinsurgency both before and after 2003.