Two good counterinsurgency articles in april Atlantic magazine

[arty8]

'Double Blind' by Matthew Teague, the untold story of how british intelligence infiltrated and undermined the IRA during the Dirty War.
'The Coming Normalcy?' by Robert Kaplan, a profile of 1/25, a stryker brigade in Mosul, describes how the soldiers themselves are planning ops, often by passing the TOC entirely.

The author also mentioned an interview with an Algerian officer who when asked how they defeated their own islamic insurgency in the 1990's replied that it was quite simple--the army quietly killed a large number of people with no journalists around. If it were only that easy in Iraq.

Although considered a liberal magazine, I find the Atlantic has some of the best journalism around.

[SWJED]

...I find the Atlantic has some of the best journalism around.

I agree 100% - they have some great stuff on Small Wars and related issues. Subscribers can access their articles online at The Atlantic Online. An interview with Kaplan in the Atlantic can be found at Inside the House of Cards

[davidbfpo]

The article on alleged British methods in Northern Ireland cannot be read in full on the Atlantic Monthly website, but can be found in full on an Irish website:

http://www.westwindnet.com/ireland/d...b=5&o=0&fpart=

Hope this helps. There are also some comments added.

[SWJED]

Hope this helps. There are also some comments added.

Good catch, thanks!

[georgev]

The article on alleged British methods in Northern Ireland cannot be read in full on the Atlantic Monthly website, but can be found in full on an Irish website:

http://www.westwindnet.com/ireland/d...b=5&o=0&fpart=

Hope this helps. There are also some comments added.

Thanks for the tip!
Respectfully,
George

[davidbfpo]

The original link to the article I quoted is now redundant, but The Atlantic article does appear on:

https://www.keepmedia.com/pubs/TheAt...1551860?page=1

There are five pages to the article and I think it is the same article infull, alas without the comments on the original link.

Davidbfpo

[relative autonomy]

Here is CS Monitor article that might be of similar interest as the Atlantic articles

http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0816/p09s02-coop.html

[SteveMetz]

'Double Blind' by Matthew Teague, the untold story of how british intelligence infiltrated and undermined the IRA during the Dirty War.
'The Coming Normalcy?' by Robert Kaplan, a profile of 1/25, a stryker brigade in Mosul, describes how the soldiers themselves are planning ops, often by passing the TOC entirely.

The author also mentioned an interview with an Algerian officer who when asked how they defeated their own islamic insurgency in the 1990's replied that it was quite simple--the army quietly killed a large number of people with no journalists around. If it were only that easy in Iraq.

Although considered a liberal magazine, I find the Atlantic has some of the best journalism around.

Bob Kaplan is far from liberal, though.

Being schizophrenic, I subscribe to the The Atlantic and The Weekly Standard. "My sister, my daughter, my sister, my daughter..."

[tequila]

Kaplan has his own blind spots, some of them quite enormous. He does at least travel to the places he reports on, but like all tourists generally sees what he wants to. Travel reportage is not the same thing as scholarship. Noel Malcolm absolutely eviscerated Balkan Ghosts, for instance, for numerous errors of fact and interpretation, and his biases are quite clear when you read his earlier works. He comes out and states quite baldly at one point (I think it's in The Ends of the Earth) that he judged the stability and wellbeing of a country by the extent to which it catered to his own middle-class Western norms, i.e. by having clean public restrooms. Not exactly the most accurate of standards, perhaps, but certainly useful if you don't have your Lonely Planet handy. He also is prone to making direct analogies between events and places far distant in history, simply to include a classical allusion. It's also a bit odd how every foreigner Kaplan meets ends up talking just like Robert Kaplan.

For true comedic value, check out An Empire Wilderness, as Kaplan applies his eye to modern North America in the 1990s.