Beating Goliath: Why Insurgencies Win (review)

Jeffrey Record sets out to explain the paradox of how weak insurgencies defeat major powers. With the American Revolution, Napoleon's campaigns in the Iberian Peninsula, the French Indochina War, the Vietnam War, the Soviet-Afghanistan War, Algeria and Iraq as supporting case studies, Record argues that no single issue explains outcomes, the most consistent factor in explaining David's success over Goliath is the role of outside support. Other factors such as selecting the right strategy and having the political will to accept the costs of war play their part as well. It also helps to have the right opponent. Western democracies tend to do counter-insurgency poorly due to the fleeting nature of political will when the reason for sacrifice is not readily apparent to the public. Democracies do successfully fight insurgencies, but the past suggests that the public must see the sacrifices as proportionate to the campaign aims.

Record is at his best in his chapter on the US dilemma in Iraq. The insurgency in Iraq presents unique challenges for the United States and its Iraqi allies. Nationalism and tribalism exist side by side. Unlike Vietnam where the insurgency appeared as Maoist in nature with a central bureaucracy, class ideology, and clearly stated objectives, Iraq's insurgents share a common enemy but no common ideology or endstate. The insurgency is urban based using the culture itself as its camouflage. Western militaries built to fight symmetrical opponents find their strength negated by the ambiguity and fog such environments create. Outside support is important but not as important as in Vietnam. Iraq was, after all, full of weapons and munitions at the time of the American invasion and failure to secure them, along with the Bush administration's decision to disband the army, did much to insured their infusion into the insurgent effort.

When the United States entered Iraq in March 2003, it did so with little concern for the requirements of what is known as Phase IV (stability) operations. Instead of the 350,000 soldiers Army Chief of Staff General Eric Shinseki recommended, the National Command Authority never deployed more than 160,000 soldiers. Although Phase III operations (the conventional attack), proved the Iraqi army hollow, the American manpower shortfall, Record notes, made it difficult to secure key installations, including ammunition depots, power plants, hospitals, and sewage treatment facilities at the perceived end of hostilities. This failure set the conditions to grow the insurgency amidst a sea of rising popular discontent. With little understanding of the forces it had unleashed, the United States military proved slow to recognize the nature of the threat and the challenges ahead. Record correctly notes that US success rests on two "daunting political challenges" namely that of setting up a functioning government and creating a viable police and military to protect the new institution. The insurgency has grown over time as has the US understanding of the challenges. Whether David beats Goliath along the Tigris-Euphrates remains undetermined.

In nearly every respect, Record has given us a thoughtful, well-researched, historically based, look at a problem all too timely. There are few shortfalls in his coverage but two warrant comments. What Record presents to us is essentially a variation of Clausewitzian analysis with a great deal of effort spent on explaining the political nature of insurgency. In nearly every chapter, Record appears to be using the varying relationships between the corners of Clausewitz's "paradoxical" trinity as his reference point. He does this with barely a mention of Clausewitz. Secondly and more importantly, Record leaves almost without comment the role of the media in affecting popular opinion. Both sides in modern insurgencies leverage media with a talent unseen in wars past. The reality that conflict in the world's far off corners has potentially a world wide audience in near real time puts a great deal of strain on combatants to manage the message. These two shortcomings aside, Beating Goliath: Why Major Insurgencies...