1
According to Fearon Laitin (2003), these conditions include financially, organizationally, and politically weak central
governments, the presence of rural base areas, rough inaccessible terrain, and rebels with superior local knowledge, and
external support.
2
These imperatives draw on the works of a number of classic counterinsurgency texts. The four objectives defined here are
adapted from multiple conversations with Colonel David Maxwell, a current counterinsurgency scholar- practitioner who
commanded US Special Forces operations in the Southern Philippines in support of Operation Enduring Freedom 2001-
2003. These four tasks are most appropriately applied against rebels employing guerrilla tactics and operating in cellular
networks. These tasks are somewhat less relevant against rebels conducting larger scale conventional operations or
advanced stages of mobile guerrilla warfare.
3
Numerous scholarly studies of military effectiveness in conventional settings identify initiative as a key component of this
capacity. A number of studies draw on the Historical Evaluation Research Organization (HERO) data set compiled by the
US Army Concepts and Analysis Agency which contains a measure of initiative coded based on who initiated contact in a
given battle or conflict episode. One of the key findings of one such study by Dan Reiter and Allen Stam in Democracies at
War (2002) is that soldiers from democratic countries demonstrate higher levels of initiative on the battlefield and this high
initiative predicts success. Stephen Biddle, in Military Power (2004) uses this data to demonstrate the significant impact
initiative has on conflict outcomes that build on findings in his previous articles on (1996, 2002, 2004). Risa Brookes
(2003), in a detailed critique of Reiter and Stam (2002) and Kenneth Pollack (2002) makes the important observation that
the meaning of the initiative variable in the HERO data may not be consistently interpreted by those using the data and
Reiter and Stam in particular. I use a measure of initiative from a new data set that I define in the next section and use
extensively in empirical tests presented in this paper.
4
Stahis Kalyvaas describes this dynamic particularly well in this 2006 book, Logic of Violence in Civil Wars.
5
Thompson, p. 88.
6
Deployed units often have a difficult time incorporating training into their schedules given the all-consuming requirements
of their mission.
7
Pollack’s findings in Arabs at War…Thompson about South Vietnam…
8
A conspicuously absent enabling factor for initiative is the commitment and desire to seize the initiative at each level in the
military chain of command and ultimately of the civilian authorities that employ them. Measuring this important affect is
beyond the scope of this paper.
9
July 2006 interview in Afghanistan with US Special Forces Operational Detachment-Alpha commander who requested
anonymity. The Special Forces officer lamented that conventional commanders leading this spring offensive in eastern
Afghanistan failed to integrate locally recruited forces effectively. Operation Mountain Thrust, the summer offensive in
southern and central Afghanistan, in contrast, put special forces in the lead along with greater numbers of indigenous forces
with far better results.
10
These statistics are cited by Robert Cassidy in “Winning the War of the Flea: Lessons form Guerrilla Warfare” Military
Review, September-October 2004 p.45.
11
This force also has an increased potential to inflict greater harm on the local population. Military capability combined
with local knowledge has led to more effective ability of the government to commit atrocities.
12
Multiple interviews with US Special Forces commanders in Afghanistan June-July 2006 support this assessment.
13
This targeting could take the form of violence or coercion resulting in being intimidated to tolerate rebel activities or
forced to surrender their issued firearms and equipment.
14
FOB mentality in Iraq, PRT’s in Afghanistan.
15
Rules of engagement for conventional operations are often defined in such terms and are comparatively straightforward
relative to those governing counterinsurgency warfare.
16
Frank Kitson in Bunch of Five, 1977 describes this dynamic with his example of well trained and led British troops
fighting the Mau Mau in Kenya prior to incorporating knowledge gained from the locally recruited “pseudo gangs” that
eventually led to the Mau Mau’s demise. The experiences of the US Special Operations Task Force in Somalia in 1993 is
an example of the finest soldiers in the world in terms of quality at the small unit level whose mission was severely
compromised as a result of limited local information.. The Rangers of B Co. 3d Ranger Battalion and personnel from the
Joint Special Operations Command that composed Task Force Ranger were the very best soldiers available to the US. The
quality of their small unit leaders and training undoubtedly prevented a bad situation from becoming a catastrophic one.
Greater information on the threats in the area in Mogadishu, however, may have helped them better anticipate the events
that unfolded on October 3, 1993.
17
The data is compiled from the original field reports of every operational incident reported to the Armed Forces of the
Philippines’ Joint Operations Center by deployed military units conducting internal security operations against the ongoing
insurgent and terrorist threats around the country. Highlights of the information coded from these incident level reports
include the date, location, participating units and description of each incident along with measurable results in terms of
government, rebel and civilian casualties; fire arms recovered/lost; and the number of rebels surrendered, captured, and
apprehended as a result of the operation. The author is indebted to the Chief of Staff Armed Forces of the Philippines and
Convention