Measuring Success in Third Party Counterinsurgency: The Problems with Violence Levels and the Potential of Non-Combatant Attitudes

Abstract

What defines success in counterinsurgency? Many scholars and policymakers rely on levels of violence as the metric for operational effectiveness, but this paper suggests that such an indicator may be highly problematic for two reasons. First, our ability to isolate the causal mechanisms that drive levels of violence is hampered by insufficient data. In particular, we do not have sufficient publicly available data on counterinsurgent troop strength. Second, for third party counterinsurgents that do not intend to have a permanent presence in a country, levels of violence may not reflect the degree to which the underlying conditions that motivated the insurgency have been addressed, nor the long-term capacity of the local incumbent government to either establish security or provide the goods and services that are at the core of a “hearts and minds” counterinsurgent strategy. Instead, I suggest that non-combatant attitudes regarding the post-occupation future are a better operationalization of success, as they provide more information regarding the potential for stability beyond the current security environment. Finally, I suggest that such attitudes are likely to be bleak, as third parties disincentivize incumbent governments from doing the heavy work of “hearts and minds” counterinsurgency.

Keywords: insurgency, third parties, strategy