Lessons on Political Violence from America’s Post–9/11 Wars

Abstract

A large literature has emerged in political science that studies the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. This article summarizes the lessons learned from this literature, both theoretical and practical. To put this emerging knowledge base into perspective, we review findings along two dimensions of conflict: factors influencing whether states or substate groups enter into conflict in the first place and variables affecting the intensity of fighting at particular times and places once war has started. We then discuss the external validity issues entailed in learning about contemporary wars and insurgencies from research focused on the Afghanistan and Iraq wars during the period of US involvement. We close by summarizing the uniquely rich qualitative and quantitative data on these wars (both publicly available and what likely exists but has not been released) and outline potential avenues for future research.

Winning Hearts and Minds in Civil Wars: Governance, Leadership Change, and Support for Violent Groups in Iraq

“…Given the important role of civilians in insurgencies and conventional civil wars, there is surprisingly little empirical research investigating public attitudes in conflict theaters. A recent survey of political science research on post-9/11 wars and insurgencies in Afghanistan and Iraq reveals that only 11 studies analyzed public opinion in these two countries, whereas almost five times as many examined the wars' impact on U.S. public attitudes (Mikulaschek and Shapiro 2018). The difficulty of researching public opinion in war theaters goes a long way in explaining the striking dearth of knowledge about civilian attitudes during conflict.…”

Managerial capacity in conflict environments: Management effects of private military and security companies in Iraq

“…Third, future US military operations will employ PMSCs, and a better understanding of management principals is necessary to improve their involvement in operations. The results are most applicable to conflicts that resemble Iraq, those conflicts with vast power imbalances between the US and opposing forces (Mikulaschek and Shapiro , p. 188). In Iraq, DoD struggled to integrate PMSCs into chains of command, generating confusion, double standards and policy inconsistencies, which reduce military effectiveness (Dunigan ).…”

Sex as the secret: counterinsurgency in Afghanistan

“…Both are produced as seemingly unknown and unknowable and, yet, the possession of each is held as central to establishing control. My argument additionally serves as a reminder to contemporary assessments of COIN practices and successes that gender is not epiphenomenal or irrelevant but is fundamental to its logic, and to its logic of violence (Berman and Matanock 2015;Hazelton 2017;Mikulaschek and Shapiro 2018).…”