counterinsurgency

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• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  6/8/2021
  

  The U.S. War On Drugs Helped Unleash The Violence In Colombia Today

  by Kyle Longley

  Counternarcotics operations have been a pretext for funding a buildup of the Colombian security forces, allowing a US-friendly rightist government to avoid dealing with the economic and social causes of unrest. 

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• SOURCE: Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft
  9/28/2020
  

  Stephen Wertheim's "Tomorrow the World: The Birth of US Global Supremacy" (video)

  In his new book, Tomorrow, the World, Stephen Wertheim reveals how American leaders suddenly and unexpectedly decided to turn the United States into the world's armed superpower — and never looked back.

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• SOURCE: The New Yorker
  10/1/2020
  

  How Trump Brought Home the Endless War

  by Stephen Wertheim

  The Global War on Terror reconfigured American foreign policy around military force against abstract ideas and indeterminate enemies. The divisions of domestic politics set the stage for Donald Trump to move the war to the streets of the United States. 

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• 8/2/2020
  

  Federal Agents, “Insurrection,” and the Long, Bloody History of U.S. Counterinsurgency

  by Rachel Ida Buff

  Now, on the streets of U.S. cities, federal agents join militarized police in waging war on Americans who are exercising their lawful rights of freedom of speech and assembly. There is no doubt that the results endanger us all.

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• SOURCE: The New Republic
  7/21/2020
  

  Trump Has Brought America’s Dirty Wars Home

  by Stuart Schrader

  The history of the Office of Public Safety, created to support counterinsurgency around the globe during the Cold War, demonstrates that Trump’s ardor for authoritarian force has long-standing, homegrown roots.

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• SOURCE: Responsible Statecraft
  6/26/2020
  

  What Defunding the Police can Mean for U.S. Foreign Policy

  by Stuart Schrader

  To start this process will require looking inward, but it will be impossible without looking outward as well — by rethinking the U.S. role in the world, shrinking the Department of Defense’s massive footprint, and redirecting its resources and legitimacy toward more peaceful streets.

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• SOURCE: Boston Review
  6/25/2020
  

  Policing the World (Review)

  by Andrew Lanham

  Since World War II, the United States has spread its style of policing—and police technology—around the world as a way to exert control. This link between modern policing and the national security state means they will have to be democratized together.

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• SOURCE: The Intercept
  6/2/2020
  

  A Short History of U.S. Law Enforcement Infiltrating Protests

  It is a historical fact that law enforcement frequently infiltrates progressive political movements using agent provocateurs who urge others to engage in violence.

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• The Iraq War: Learning Lessons, Ignoring History

  by Michael H. Hunt

  Front page of March 20, 2013 edition of the New York Times.Talk about a gap between serious academic history and the policy community. The New York Times, which has made a big deal of the tenth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, offers a stunning case in point. At least five different items in the paper for Wednesday, March 20, seek some perspective from “authorities” heavy tilted toward policy specialists and former Bush administration officials. There is nary a historian of any sort to be seen.