Technology in Counterinsurgency Warfare.

• Author: Handley, John M.
• Position: 'The Role and Limitations of Technology in US Counterinsurgency Warfare' - Book review

The Role and Limitations of Technology in US Counterinsurgency Warfare, by Richard Rubright, Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press (Potomac Books), 2015. ISBN 13: 978-1-61234-675-5, 328 pages (end-notes, references, and an index), $36.95.

Richard Rubright served five years in the U.S. Army Special Forces. He completed his doctorate at the University of Reading and is currently a professor at the Joint Special Operations University at USSOCCOM (US Special Operations Center Command).

This is a very well written and relatively easy to understand book, which is saying a lot for a doctoral dissertation that has been reworked into such a publication. It generally follows the normal approach to any thesis or dissertation with an introduction, literature review, methodology, findings and discussion, and finally the conclusion and recommendations. What Dr. Rubright has done is to take the dissertation's introduction, literature review, and methodology and worked them into a single pre-chapter entitled "Strategy and Context." The findings and discussion portion follows as five distinct chapters that will be dealt with below, while the conclusion and recommendation portion is entitled "Implications."

For any book of this type, definitions are important and those are contained in the "Strategy and Context" section, including counterinsurgency warfare, counterinsurgency force, the revolution in military affairs, the military technology revolution, and American culture. Perhaps the most important definition is the concept proposed by the author of "the operational offensive, tactical defensive" role for counterinsurgency forces. The entire book is formed around this concept as it reoccurs in every chapter. The research question Dr. Rubright investigated is, "What is the most important role of technology in U.S. counterinsurgency operations and how does the United States best leverage its technical superiority to ensure harmony between military capability and sound strategic practice?" (p.3-4). The book hopes to add to current counterinsurgency literature an analysis of the appropriate role of technology and strategy (p.5). To do so, the author brings together the theoretical and strategic classifications of Clausewitz, Sun Tzu, and Mao since together they offer universal principles to guide both insurgents and counterinsurgency forces (p.8). Throughout the book, the author argues that counterinsurgency warfare "provides a good environment for...