Hearts and Minds: A People’s History of Counterinsurgency

N.Y.U. Professor Gurman compiles essays on counterinsurgency (COIN), defined as efforts to “eliminate an uprising against a government” and whose chief aim is “to separate the insurgents from the population.” COIN is traced from the Kennedy administration all the way back to Lawrence of Arabia. Contributing authors appraise COIN in countries from Malaya (Malaysia), the Philippines, and Vietnam, to El Salvador, Iraq, and Afghanistan, and discuss various intimidating and punitive COIN tactics, including psychological warfare, night raids, police sweeps, targeted assassinations, scorched-earth campaigns, and softer techniques like the use of state-of-the-art technologies and close cooperation between military and civilian intelligence agencies. Emphasis is placed on the fact that, historically, COIN operations often worsen the “climate of misery” in war-torn nations, yet their effects are sometimes downplayed to conceal “the grisly reality on the ground.” Less attention, notably, is given to COIN successes, leading one to wonder if there have been any. Overall, the book leaves readers with a distinct impression of the difficulties of quelling insurrection when rebels, in Mao’s words, “move amongst the people as a fish swims in the sea.” (Oct.)