This paper will focus on the evolution of insurgency and counterinsurgency in Iraq from 2003 - 2009. The Iraq war, split into three periods, reflects the three major evolutions of U.S. counterinsurgency doctrine. The first period 2003-4004, highlights the U.S.’s inability to understand the Iraqi insurgency and implement policies to counter it. The second period, 2005-2006, was a period of decentralization. Some coalition units practiced counterinsurgency techniques during the second period; however, coalition units that practiced counterinsurgency adopted these techniques as they saw fit. This period of decentralization allowed some coalition gains but progress was often short lived. Counterinsurgency was still not implemented across the military, and often new units rotating in did not follow the same counterinsurgency techniques. The final stage, commonly referred to as “The Surge”, centralized counterinsurgency doctrine starting in the beginning of 2007. This centralized counterinsurgency effort has allowed a full transition to Iraq authority. To understand the Iraqi insurgency, I will use a theoretical framework consisting of insurgency doctrine and practice from the Cold War period. Cold War period literature serves as tactical foundation for current insurgent kinetic action. However, unlike the Cold War insurgencies, the Iraqi insurgency was segmented with no overarching political goal other than to remove the coalition troops. To understand the Iraqi insurgency a theoretical framework of “spoiler campaigns” will be developed by combining both Cold War and current insurgent theory. The theoretical framework I will use to explain the counterinsurgency evolution will be based largely on David Galula’s seminal work published on insurgency and counterinsurgency warfare. More contemporary works from David Kilcullen and John Nagl who were instrumental in developing U.S. counterinsurgency operations will also be included to further explain how and why the U.S. military adopted the strategies that it did. The main questions and answers addressed in this work revolve around how and why the Iraqi insurgency and U.S. counterinsurgency developed in the way it did. Additionally, three other questions will be asked from this research. 1) Could the U.S. have done things differently to end the insurgency earlier? 2) Has the U.S. learned enough from the Iraq War to implement counterinsurgency operations in other campaigns? 3) What are the policy implications moving forward, how is the case of Afghanistan different?

When addressing volatile social tension in Lebanon, scholars frequently employ the phrase, ‘Lebanon was on the brink of civil war’ in one way or another. When analyzing protracted civil conflict, most scholars argue that it is made possible by the dynamic push and pull between local, regional and international pressures. This paper does not disagree with these scholarly rationalizations, but argues that they must be empirically tested to situate an event along the continuum of social tension and civil conflict. Using the method of fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA), this paper asks, “what are the causal factors that distinguish social tension from protracted civil conflict in the Lebanese context, and in turn, what ensures an escalation?” The comparative social science approach allows for this paper to address an expansive time period (i.e., 1841-2008) and different contextual conflict periods (including the 1860 Civil War, the first phase of the Lebanese Civil War--1975-1976--and the May 2008 Clashes to name a few). Moreover, this study considers all selected cases as having a degree of membership to the protracted civil conflict outcome (perhaps a limited one for cases usually termed as social tension), an application of “fuzzy set logic.” In not merely supposing that a certain event is or is not a civil conflict, this study tests combinations of causal factors (i.e., how constitutional challenges to the ruling power and armament of opposing groups can spark civil conflict vs. how the presence of foreign intervention and threats to group identity can spark civil conflict) to assess what patterns (i.e., the absence, presence or intensification of X, Y and Z factors) distinguish social tension from protracted civil conflict. Furthermore, this paper addresses which of the five tested causal conditions could be considered the most crucial to ensure an escalation to protracted civil conflict: severe threats to group identity facilitated by demonizing rhetoric (i.e., “enemy images”). This paper contributes to both the fields of fsQCA and conflict studies in the Middle East as it simultaneously extends the application of fsQCA to conflict dynamics in Lebanon, while elaborating and challenging theories on conflict in Lebanon through empirical justifications.

This paper will focus on the US economic reconstruction policies in Iraq from 2003 to 2004, particularly under the guise of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA). The economic philosophies of neoliberalism and creative destruction will be used as a theoretical framework, with Joseph Schumpeter's work as a cornerstone for the latter. In order to place the Iraqi case into a historical framework, CPA policies will be compared to previous examples of economic reconstruction, particularly the post-war Marshall Plan as it was applied to West Germany, and look at the economic and political philosophies that drove those reconstruction efforts. Finally, the paper will follow the economic reforms set forth during the CPA era to the present day, in order to analyze the effects of neoliberalist policies on Iraq’s economic development over the past last seven years. To be sure, the two examples of US-led, post-war reconstruction projects in 1945 Germany and 2003 Iraq represent two drastically different sets of contexts, both in the respective international system and economic status of the country. While Germany had developed into a top industrial nation by the outbreak of war in 1939, Iraq had suffered under decades of violent conflict, economic ineptitude and crippling sanctions. Nonetheless, the cases are still comparable through an analysis of the divergent economic philosophies that motivated the respective reconstruction efforts. For planners looking to rebuild post-war Europe, a heavy emphasis was put on the power of the state as the sole legitimate force capable of ensuring robust economic growth. In post-Saddam Iraq, Washington and its allies saw the neoliberalist principles of privatization and the absence of government interference, combined with the economic opportunities elucidated through Schumpeterian creative destruction, as the guiding force towards stability and eventual prosperity for Iraq and the region as a whole. As for the relationship between economic and political reforms, statist planners of the post-war era viewed economic development as the desirable result of durable political advancements. However, economic development through the free market was seen as both the ends and the means to political stability in Iraq, as demonstrated by the speeches and policies of CPA head L. Paul Bremer and Bush administration officials. In total, this analysis will be done using a wide range of primary and secondary sources, including governmental policy briefs, economic development reports, memoirs, speeches and newspaper op-ed pieces.

Currently, the financial aspects of counterterrorism and counterinsurgency strategies focus on the necessity of international regulations for limiting the resources available to a certain terrorist/insurgent group or non-state actor. Regulating the banking sector, particularly offshore, as well as various forms of money transfer and illicit dealings forms the main scope of this activity. Though these regulations can be successful at times, success often is a relative term consisting of equal parts reactivity, broad-scoped focus and luck. Additionally, one of the noted downfalls of current “counter-finance” policies is that they fail to be effective in states which lack the necessary institutional strength to adequately implement them. Yet it is exactly these states where funding activity tends to occur most often and most uninterruptedly. Therefore, increasing the amount or scope of regulation logically seems like an ineffective solution to this problem absent drastic improvements in state capability. However, there emerges another option: instead of utilizing a reactive, institutional-level, international set of regulations founded largely upon quantitative data-mining, why not use a more proactive, local, strategic/tactical model based upon qualitative observation? What this allows is an interdisciplinary approach combining the efforts of economists, social-scientists and area specialists that can locate chokepoints vulnerable to a variety of pressures. By incorporating the growing literature on terrorism financing, social network theory, counterterrorism/insurgency strategy and area studies knowledge, this paper will present the case that there exists a more effective alternative for combating conflict than simply regulating financial activity from international high-rises. This alternative provides the tools necessary to help identify financial networks that enable the perpetuation of conflict as the means for closing pathways and curtailing conflict. As such, it buttresses the potential of traditional approaches with in situ knowledge of regional and global financial networks and practices (both illicit and licit) that fund conflict to narrow the focus of activity, thereby maximizing effectiveness while limiting unintended consequences. In order to do so, the adaptive approach places decision-making in the hands of those familiar with the nuances of a nation or region and allows them to trace the financial activity through the networks in which they operate based upon this understanding. From here, economic and social theoretic analysis pinpoints the positions most susceptible to the various forms of intervention (regulation, kinetic action, interdiction or co-optation) which are then carried out by local or international institutions.