In the 1950s, RAND pioneered the study of counterinsurgency as a viable strategy of limited war with a geographical focus on Asia due to the U.S. involvement in Korea and the French presence in Indochina. Since then, research on counterinsurgency specifically—and irregular warfare more generally—has grown extensively, spurred by an evolving geopolitical context, the availability of new data, new areas of study, and novel methodological approaches. In this report, we present an overview of the existing state of research on state responses to asymmetric threats, with a specific focus on counterinsurgency strategies from 2002-2022. This report is based on research conducted for the Global Responses to Asymmetric Threats project, which is part of a broader research effort, Irregular Warfare Net Assessment Data Structure (IW-NEADS).
Publication Information
Radziszewski, Elizabeth, Sean Doody, Amy Pate, Salma Bouziani, and Madeline Romm. 2023. “Government Responses to Asymmetric Threats: The State of the Literature on Counterinsurgency from 2002 to 2022.” Global Responses to Asymmetric Threats. College Park, MD: START (January).