This afterword assesses some of the themes and issues dealt with in this issue in light of the Iran War that exploded on 28 February 2026. It is in two sections: the first outlines the war itself and the shift that has occurred, at least temporarily, in the Middle East region. The second section identifies five major themes for future research in military studies in light of the war. These are: 1) an enhanced focus on 'strong men' in modern politics; 2) the nature of the US state and its role in imperial power projection; 3) changing forms of war and the emergence of 'post truth' warfare; 4) the changing nature of geopolitics; and 5) the fracturing of 'the West'.

The counterinsurgency era that dominated American military discussion post-9/11 has passed. The desire to move on, particularly since the loss of Afghanistan in August 2021, has left unsettled a conversation on counterinsurgency that, both among supporters and detractors, was often dangerously narrow. Too hastily embraced and too rapidly abandoned, counterinsurgency generated false promises and then became the scapegoat for poor strategy. This article examines the counterinsurgency era that was and demonstrates how fad-like engagement with the topic in both military and academic circles subverted the supposed learning process taking place. It argues that the lessons from this engagement are mostly misleading or at least incomplete, but it also notes that there is minimal appetite to look deeper into a topic now deemed toxic. Therein lies significant danger.

With the United States having shifted its defense emphasis to peer and nearpeer rivals, study of irregular warfare has likewise expanded its scope to applicable lessons for the strategic level, within the context of great-power competition. In theory, meanwhile, concern for sub-state actors remains an integral mission for the Department of Defense (DoD), with formal tasking issued to integrate into joint professional military education (JPME) the insights drawn from the last two decades of commitment. The resulting synthesis has led to a discussion of what has variously been termed gray zone conflict, hybrid war, or political warfare. Often used as synonyms, the terms in reality offer little more than an attempt to describe, for a generation that largely missed the Cold War, what was routine throughout that global struggle: a state of continuous conflict in which the foe used all nonkinetic instruments of power strategically but sought to remain below a threshold provoking a kinetic response. As might be expected, focus remains overwhelmingly on Russia and China. Within this orientation, though, the aggressive mix by Moscow of the kinetic and nonkinetic, most glaringly for outright territorial expansion, has driven a more direct focus upon the warfighting dimension of the issue. China’s use of irregular methods has remained less examined, which points to the inspiration for this dedicated section of three articles in Small Wars & Insurgencies. By way of introduction, the discussion below sets out the intellectual history of China’s approach to irregular warfare, making the case throughout that this strategy is far less novel than meets the eye. Revisiting the past in this manner is not just an exercise in history but reveals the logic, case history, and record that underpins China’s ascendance as a great power today. In other words, to frame the discussion of challenges faced today, and to inform

Overt Maoist insurgency in Nepal, February 1996 to November 2006, was a savage period that involved political violence ranging from terrorism to guerrilla warfare to actual military attacks by insurgent units armed and equipped in the manner of the government forces. The insurgents' objective was to seize political power in order to institute a communist regime. The mainstream Maoists retain a paramilitary capability and use it to execute violence, relying especially upon various front organizations such as the Young Communist League (YCL) and the All Nepal National Independent Students' Union (Revolutionary) (ANNISU-R). An ideological concept lacking specificity, the "two line struggle" essentially holds – just as a communist party is required to lead the masses to an understanding of their true interests, because the party has the best grasp of societal realities and necessary Marxist–Leninist redress – so within the party itself there will constantly be struggles over how to proceed strategically.

Strategically, adaptation to insurgent challenges invariably proves difficult. Not only must the precise nature of the threat be discerned, but adaptation must occur even as the conflict develops. Too often, focus is upon immediate, tactical quick-fixes rather than reform realized through correct strategy and operational art. At the strategic level, irregular warfare is a contest of governance but not in the manner so often portrayed. Rebellion erupts from the perception, more often than not grounded in reality, that the political opportunity structure is failing to deliver justice. The American way of war, which necessarily as per particular strategic culture means the military's approach to warfighting, regardless of level under consideration, leads and often is nearly the entirety of modern US experience in irregular conflict. The conflicts under consideration are irregular only in the sense that the challengers to the existing order must engage in asymmetric approaches, from strategy to tactics.

Julia Lovell’s Maoism: A Global History is history, assessment, and warning. At 610 pages in total, it is a big book, apparently timed to coincide with the 70th anniversary of the people’s republic...

Long a site of unrest, the Southern Border Provinces (SBP) of Thailand has since 2004 been buffeted by its latest and most intense round of bloodshed. Unlike earlier insurgencies, the present challenge is driven not by separatism or ideology but by violent radical Islamism. This necessarily thrusts to the fore consideration of roots of conflict. Global and regional patterns notwithstanding, the Southern insurgency, though privileging terrorism in its approach, has remained an essentially locally produced and sustained movement, committed to local solutions for perceived repression and marginalization of Malay-speaking Muslims within the larger Thai-speaking, Buddhist polity. Necessary in-depth examination, though, has been driven by external actors due to the physical and analytical restrictions attendant to the present political situation.

Strategically, adaptation to insurgent challenges invariably proves difficult. Not only must the precise nature of the threat be discerned, but adaptation must occur even as the conflict develops. ...

Long anticipated but delayed amid internal controversy, the U.S. Army study on the Iraq War has finally appeared. Published as two volumes, it has been worth the wait. Its contents would seem to ma...

The malaise that the United States, and the West, have experienced in recent campaigns stems in large part from unclear thinking about war, its political essence, and the strategies needed to join the two. Instead, analysis and response are predicated on entrenched theoretical concepts with limited practical utility. The inadequacy of understanding has spawned new, and not so new, terms to capture unanticipated trends, starting with the re-discovery of "insurgency" and "counterinsurgency" and leading to discussion of "hybrid threats" and "gray-zone" operations. New terminology can help, but the change must go deeper. Challenging analytical orthodoxy, this article sets out a unifying approach for the study of political violence, or more accurately: violent politics. It provides a conceptual foundation that helps to make sense of recent shifts in warfare. In effect, it offers sorely needed theoretical insights into the nature of strategy and guides the process of responding to nontraditional threats.

During the period 1996–2006, the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) waged overt people’s war to seize state power and institute a new order that realized the party’s understanding of ‘New Democracy’ as posited by Mao Tse-tung. Contextual shifts led to a crucial strategic turning point in September 2005, when the Maoists agreed to a united front with estranged legal parties to oust the monarchy and establish a republic. Though touted as acceptance of political reintegration, the move was tactical rather than strategic. The party had no intention of supporting a parliamentary version of democracy and thus, 2006–2016, engaged in a covert effort to seize power. Central to this effort was the paramilitary Young Communist League (YCL), the members of which responded to inflammatory party verbiage and exhortations with attacks upon rival political actors. These attacks, academically and legally, were terrorism and offered a salient illustration of intra-state unrestricted warfare. Ultimately, organizational, national, and regional circumstances caused the main Maoist movement to move decisively away from its covert approach. By that time, however, radical splinters had embraced the use of terrorism against rival political actors, creating a situation whereby local politics is yet a dangerous endeavor in certain areas and at certain times.

There are times when it seems the Thai southern insurgency will just fade away. Then, as in April (2017), an explosion of violence reminds the world that the challenge remains.In the case at hand, ...

Nearly sixteen years since 9-11, the quest to explain individual motivation for participation in “terrorism” has produced a body of gendered work of increasing sophistication. As illustrated by the case of female combatant participation in Nepal’s Maoist people’s war, however, conflation of irregular terminology confuses the issue as to the object of participation, thus the reasons for joining, staying, or leaving. For Nepali women, agency took the form of perceived self-defense enabled by structural deficiencies in Nepal’s democratic polity. Nonetheless, the organizational expression of solution, people’s war, was itself flawed, leading to a mixed legacy of revolutionary

Recent controversy during the conclusion of peace talks has renewed discussion as to the nature of the effort by Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, or FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), to seize state power. FARC presents itself as an insurgency produced by societal imperfections and purports to speak for the marginalized and alienated of Colombia. Critics contend that FARC is a ruthless narcoterrorist organization that has targeted the people. In fact, FARC comes closer to the latter than the former, because its critical decision to privilege criminality for generation of means destroyed execution of a viable people's war strategy. Ultimately, means devoured ways in such manner as to make ends unachievable. Criminality, though it made FARC perhaps the richest insurgent group in the world during its heyday, laid the foundation for its defeat by ceding legitimacy, and thus mass mobilization, to the democratic state.

This issue of Small Wars and Insurgencies focuses on the continuing importance of Maoist and post-Maoist concepts of people’s war. It has assembled a collection of papers that addresses various examples from around the world, with an emphasis on South America, where the premier illustration, that of Colombia’s FARC, was Marxist-Leninist but not Maoist, yet embraced the form and strategy of people’s war in a bid which at one point had the state in a critical situation. The collection comes in the wake of previous papers published in this journal on politically Maoist insurgent movements in South Asia, notably Mika Kerttuenen’s study of Maoist insurgents in Nepal and Prem Mahadevan’s survey of Maoist insurgencies in India and their links to organized crime (Kerttunen, “A Transformed Insurgency,” 78–118; Mahadevan, “The Maoist Insurgency in India,” 203–20). The papers confirm that people’s war remains an important analytical framework in the study of small wars and insurgencies, for some even a ‘model’ through which to understand distinct types of insurgent movements and their strategies.

In 1948, Colombia entered a period of civil war from which it has never fully emerged. Since 1964, a key contributor to the violence has been the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC). Although motivated originally by high levels of inequality between rich and poor, and guided strategically by Marxist-Leninist ideology and people's war theory, FARC's struggle evolved over several decades to increasingly emphasize drug trafficking and violence against the people. Due to various missteps and missed opportunities by the government, the group grew in strength, reaching its peak during the first years of the presidency of Andres Pastrana (1998-2002). Thereafter, it declined precipitously as it was mauled by the Colombian military during a national resurgence that reached its peak in the course of the initial administration of President Alvaro Uribe (2002-2006) and continued in the second Uribe administration (2006-2010).President Juan Manuel Santos (2010-2014) had initially pledged to continue Uribe's policies, but instead he startled all with a commitment to an open-ended peace process that continues to this day. Santos was narrowly re-elected to a second term (2014-2018) but now finds himself faced with the stubborn refusal of FARC to commit definitively to ending the conflict. This has placed the increasingly unpopular Santos administration in the awkward position of needing a deal at all costs, yet one that will retain legitimacy with a people skeptical about FARC's intentions.The skepticism is warranted. While there have been many claims of irreversible progress in the talks, progress on substantive issues remains limited, not least on the actual demobilization of FARC as an armed organization and its integration into the nonviolent political process. This deadlock is not surprising: after years of decline, FARC's leadership appears to have realized that their armed struggle had no prospects of success. As part of its revised emphasis on the political aspects of the struggle, it conditionally accepted new peace talks but remained determined to obtain as much advantage as possible by exploiting the government's eagerness to seal a deal.Specifically, FARC's proposals reflect three objectives: a desperate attempt to gain legitimacy before the Colombian people and the international community; to be given de facto (if not de jure) political and geographic control over various areas and populations, particularly over important rural regions in the southern part of the country where it has long been active; and to have a constitutional convention called with sectoral representation (ideally with FARC having reserved seats). By satisfying these goals, FARC leaders think they will have better chances to gain political power through elections so as to change the nature of the state-the goal being to turn Colombia into a socialist polity resembling the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. FARC leadership has not abandoned its Marxist-Leninist goals, only cloaked its ideology with language appropriate for the twenty-first century.1In its effort to recast its struggle, FARC has claimed throughout the talks that the inequities and brutality of the state compelled it to wage its insurgency. It purports to speak for a broad social base and simply denies the extent to which it has, for decades, espoused assault on the innocent as its principal methodology for waging war. There is no crime that it has not committed: from torture and murder, to laying extensive (and normally unmarked) minefields throughout the country, to kidnapping and rape, to drug trafficking and extortion.2 All these crimes it refutes, insisting instead that the facts of history be decided by various truth commissions and international panels. Against all polling and public expressions of support, the state is to be made the enemy of the people.Because of the long duration of the negotiations and the excessively high hopes raised by the prospect of peace, the government finds itself in the position of being gradually made to give way. …

To the Top on the Shoulders of the Devil is a comprehensive narrative history of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, from its unofficial emergence as part of a liberal guerrilla ef...