Perspectives on Terrorism (Dec 2010)
Counterterrorism and Counterinsurgency
Abstract
This article focuses on current counterterrorism and counterinsurgency doctrines. It argues that the more traditional frameworks for analyzing counterterrorism campaigns, which structure debates around a military (or war) model or a criminal justice model, need to be updated in the light of the current state of terrorism. As a potential new framework, the author restructures the debate around hard and soft power tactics. He also describes how the existing counterinsurgency literature primarily focuses on two frameworks: classical and modern (or global) counterinsurgency. Using the war in Afghanistan as an example, he compares and contrasts the strengths, weaknesses, and potential offsetting effects of modern counterterrorism and counterinsurgency strategies, arguing that in order for the United States to be successful in its battle against Al-Qaeda’s brand of international terrorism, it must take its struggle from the open battlefields of counterinsurgency into the shadowy world of counterterrorism.
