Counterinsurgency Reexamined: Racism, Capitalism, and US Military Doctrine

Abstract

The US has been engaged in coercive projects of counterinsurgency since the Indian Wars in the 19 th century. Racist constructions of the enemy have been central to this process. Counterinsurgency has called forth new waves of contestation at every juncture, which has in turn shaped the very texture of military doctrine. This article draws on archival research, historical geography, and Marxist theory to trace the dialectics of counterinsurgency and insurgency through a series of turning points in US imperial history from the development of small wars doctrine in the 1930s to renewal of counterinsurgency during hybrid wars in Venezuela and Latin America in the current conjuncture. Through a conjunctural analysis, we argue that racism performs fundamental work in achieving consent to counterinsurgency wars, allowing capitalism to survive challenges to its legitimacy.

Settler colonial counterinsurgency: Indigenous resistance and the more-than-state policing of #NoDAPL

“…Explicitly civilizationist and white supremacist, Callwell saw ‘small wars’ as efforts to tame both the savage races and their wild territories. The Small Wars manual has influenced the military and colonial strategies of the imperial European and North American nations for over a century, with the United States codifying its own ‘small wars’ doctrine in the 1930s (Camp and Greenburg, 2020). 2…”

“…As an example of COIN ‘at home’, the FBI’s counter-intelligence program (COINTELPRO) surveilled, delegitimized, disrupted, brutalized, and orchestrated assassinations within mid-century activist groups such as the Black Panther Party and the American Indian Movement, echoing Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) covert operations around the globe (Bloom and Martin, 2016; Johansen, 2013; Kelly et al, 2010; McCoy, 2017). Throughout the 20th century, international and domestic US COIN has regularly reinvented itself along with the structure of global capitalism (Ahmad, 2004) and in direct response to anti-imperial movements (Camp and Greenburg, 2020; Gillham, 2011; Maher, 2021).…”

“…COIN is an iterative method of adapting to changing circumstances and applying diverse maneuvers to achieve strategic goals. COIN institutions must constantly redevelop their maneuvers to keep pace with the innovative resurgence of anti-imperial resistance (Camp and Greenburg, 2020). The dual function of COIN is thus to respond to crisis and to maintain normality.…”

Reclaiming the politics of South-South cooperation

“…It is the relative system-challenging success that has put the major ALBA-TCP members Bolivia, Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, which all are also members of the South Centre, in the frontline of Global North hybrid warfare -a combination of disinformation campaigns (fake news usually claiming 'authoritarianism') with coercive economic, financial and military measures by state and private actors (banks, NGOs, TNCs), including embargoes, confiscations, paramilitary terrorism, coups d'état and cybernetic attacks (AFGJ, 2018;Antonopoulos & Cottle, 2018;Camp & Greenburg, 2020;Jacobs & Kitzen, 2021;Norton, 2021;Tricontinental, 2020). It is the intensified imperialist aggression since 2015, rather than agency-less 'decline', 'crisis' and 'collapse', as neo-colonialist representations purport, that has caused a reduction of intra-ALBA-TPC/Petrocaribe economic, productive and financial cooperation, however, certainly not its destruction 14 (Aponte-García & Linares, 2019; UN, 2021).…”

Why did it take so long? Trump-Bannonism in a global conjunctural frame

“…27. In the book I will elaborate much more fully on these arguments, situating them in relation to key themes in the large literature on U.S. imperialismincluding the debate between Harvey (2003) and Arrighi (2007); Grandin's (2010) analysis of Latin America as the laboratory of U.S. counterinsurgency, and the 1980s as the crucial moment in the formation of a new conservative coalition in the U.S. that was central to the emergence of a new form of imperialism; Singh's (2017) demonstration of the interconnections of inner and outer wars in Race and America's Long War; and the conjunctural analysis of the centrality of racism to U.S. imperialism by Camp and Greenburg (2020). 28.…”