"Reviewing Insurgencies and Counterinsurgencies" Topic

"Insurgency is an old concept. If you were to travel back to Iraq between 2334 and 2279 BC, you would find a man called Sargan. Sargan ruled a vast empire spanning from Southern Iraq to Southern Turkey, enforced by overwhelming military power. His Akkadian hordes, armed with high-tech composite bows and sophisticated logistics, laid waste to all before them. Their strategy was a simple one; ‘mass slaughter, enslavement, the deportation of defeated enemies, and the total destruction of their cities.' For years their technological edge and brutal strategy allowed the Akkadians to dominate. When they inevitably fell, however, they did not fall to a superior empire. They were victim to a new phenomenon: a tireless, guerrilla-style attack from the unsophisticated barbarian hordes all around them. In 2190 BC the city of Akkad, near modern Baghdad, finally fell.

Max Boot believes that the defeat of the Akkadians was the ‘birth of insurgency'.[1] If he is right, it was the start of an inauspicious history for a style of conflict that continues to thrive today. The places are even the same. Four thousand years after the fall of Akkad, not two hours drive away in the town of Fallujah, a combined force of 10,000 US Marines, British Highlanders, and Iraqi soldiers engaged in a brutal fight against a violent group of insurgents. Since then the counterinsurgency (COIN) campaign in Iraq has expanded into a clash that seems to pit the developed world against an extremist ideology. From ancient beginnings, insurgency now has a global face.

Some would say that the journey from Akkad to Fallujah proves that the ugly history of insurgency rhymes through the ages. But is this really true? Are there really continuities in a meaningful and instrumental sense? Perhaps more importantly, do the strictures born of society, geography and environment dictate who wins and loses? These are the questions that eighteen leading scholars have sought to answer in a new volume entitled Insurgencies and Counterinsurgencies: National Styles and Strategic Cultures…"
Review here
link

Amicalement
Armand

From what I have learned/been instructed in the past. Not all insurgencies are the same generally, IMO. Albeit many have some of the same factors, etc. E.g. Looking at the US War in Vietnam/SE Asia in the '60s. It's a bit different than what has and is occurring in Iraq, A'stan, etc. In many cases.

I think learning from the past, we have to be careful to learn the "right" things. And among other factors don't let national bias, etc., influence the results/lessons learned, etc.. But try to take in all factors from strategic to tactical, etc. The Big picture down to the individual combatants involved, etc.