Rage Against the Machines: Explaining Outcomes in Counterinsurgency Wars

2009 ◽  
Vol 63 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-106 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason Lyall ◽  
Isaiah Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
World War I ◽  
Paired Comparison ◽  
External Support ◽  
Information Collection ◽  
Rough Terrain ◽  
Partial Support ◽  
World War ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Rewards And Punishment

AbstractDuring the nineteenth century, states routinely defeated insurgent foes. Over the twentieth century, however, this pattern reversed itself, with states increasingly less likely to defeat insurgents or avoid meeting at least some of their demands. What accounts for this pattern of outcomes in counterinsurgency (COIN) wars? We argue that increasing mechanization within state militaries after World War I is primarily responsible for this shift. Unlike their nineteenth-century predecessors, modern militaries possess force structures that inhibit information collection among local populations. This not only complicates the process of sifting insurgents from noncombatants but increases the difficulty of selectively applying rewards and punishment among the fence-sitting population. Modern militaries may therefore inadvertently fuel, rather than deter, insurgencies. We test this argument with a new data set of 286 insurgencies (1800–2005) and a paired comparison of two U.S. Army divisions in Iraq (2003–2004). We find that higher levels of mechanization, along with external support for insurgents and the counterinsurgent's status as an occupier, are associated with an increased probability of state defeat. By contrast, we find only partial support for conventional power- and regime-based explanations, and no support for the view that rough terrain favors insurgent success.

The Fascist Turn in the Dance of Serge Lifar

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Franko
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
World War I ◽  
Critical Reception ◽  
World War ◽  
Close Attention ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Gradual Development ◽  
Critical Discourses

This book is an examination of neoclassical ballet initially in the French context before and after World War I (circa 1905–1944) with close attention to dancer and choreographer Serge Lifar. Since the critical discourses analyzed indulged in flights of poetic fancy a distinction is made between the Lifar-image (the dancer on stage and object of discussion by critics), the Lifar-discourse (the writings on Lifar as well as his own discourse), and the Lifar-person (the historical actor). This topic is further developed in the final chapter into a discussion of the so-called baroque dance both as a historical object and as a motif of contemporary experimentation as it emerged in the aftermath of World War II (circa 1947–1991) in France. Using Lifar as a through-line, the book explores the development of critical ideas of neoclassicism in relation to his work and his drift toward a fascist position that can be traced to the influence of Nietzsche on his critical reception. Lifar’s collaborationism during the Occupation confirms this analysis. The discussion of neoclassicism begins in the final years of the nineteenth-century and carries us through the Occupation; then track the baroque in its gradual development from the early 1950s through the end of the 1980s and early 1990s.

International Opera in Nineteenth-century New York

2020 ◽  
pp. 244-269
Author(s):  
Karen Ahlquist
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
World War I ◽  
Buenos Aires ◽  
Considerable Extent ◽  
World War ◽  
Metropolitan Opera ◽  
The City

This chapter charts how canonic repertories evolved in very different forms in New York City during the nineteenth century. The unstable succession of entrepreneurial touring troupes that visited the city adapted both repertory and individual pieces to the audience’s taste, from which there emerged a major theater, the Metropolitan Opera, offering a mix of German, Italian, and French works. The stable repertory in place there by 1910 resembles to a considerable extent that performed in the same theater today. Indeed, all of the twenty-five operas most often performed between 1883 and 2015 at the Metropolitan Opera were written before World War I. The repertory may seem haphazard in its diversity, but that very condition proved to be its strength in the long term. This chapter is paired with Benjamin Walton’s “Canons of real and imagined opera: Buenos Aires and Montevideo, 1810–1860.”

A Perverted Balance: Modern Salafism between Reform and Jihād*

2017 ◽  
Vol 57 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-66 ◽  
Author(s):  
Itzchak Weismann
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
World War I ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Political Struggle ◽  
World War ◽  
Religious Intellectuals ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Late Ottoman ◽  
Muslim Brothers

This article argues that there are structural affinities and continuities between the late nineteenth-century modernist reformers and today’s quietist, political, and jihādī Salafī factions. Salafism refers to the basic theological-ideological formation that postulates a return to pristine Islam to overcome tradition and bring regeneration. The Salafī balance between authenticity and modernization promoted by enlightened religious intellectuals in the late Ottoman period was shattered by the events of World War I and its aftermath. This resulted in its bifurcation between conservatives, who adopted literalist and xenophobic Wahhābī positions, and modernists, primarily the Muslim Brothers, who employed innovative means in their religio-political struggle to re-Islamize society and oust colonialism. The Salafī balance was reconstructed after independence on new, unenlightened lines in the Saudi Islamic Awakening (al-Ṣaḥwa al-Islāmiyya), which combined the erstwhile rigorous Wahhābī teachings with radicalized Islamism. Global jihādī-Salafism completed the perversion of the modernist Salafī balance by reducing the authentic way of the salaf to excommunication and violence and by using the most modern means in its war against both Westerners and indigenous Muslim governments.


Antecedents

2020 ◽  
pp. 25-41
Author(s):  
Rebecca Ayako Bennette
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
World War I ◽  
German Society ◽  
World War ◽  
The Poor ◽  
The Military ◽  
Broad Overview

This chapter gives a broad overview of developments within the main areas of psychiatry, the military, and pacifism and provides the necessary background to understand the conditions prevailing in Germany leading up to 1914. It highlights the rising fortunes and expanding purview of psychiatry in the decades before World War I and references the limits of describing the trends as medicalization. It also explores the general prestige of the military and the role of pacifism in imperial German society. The chapter looks at August Fauser and Erwin Ackerknecht's estimations of psychiatry around 1900, which inhabited opposite ends of the opinion spectrum. It analyses attitudes toward the insane that had been lumped with the larger category of the poor over the nineteenth century.

A (Very Selective) Early History of Ballet in America

Ballet Class ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 3-24
Author(s):  
Melissa R. Klapper
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Young People ◽  
World War I ◽  
The United States ◽  
Early History ◽  
World War ◽  
Ballet Dancers ◽  
Metropolitan Opera ◽  
History Of

Ballet developed slowly in the United States and depended on European dancers and teachers at first, but by mid-nineteenth century a few American-trained ballet dancers were beginning to make their mark. The opening of the Metropolitan Opera Ballet School in 1909 and the tours of Anna Pavlova contributed greatly to popularizing ballet and inspiring young people to begin taking ballet class before World War I. Expansion continued from the 1920s through the 1940s with the founding of the School of American Ballet and the performances of the various Ballet Russe companies in every corner of the country. The Littlefield sisters and Christensen brothers helped make ballet American by establishing important homegrown ballet companies with primarily American dancers. The regional ballet movement fostered further growth. All these developments in professional ballet encouraged ever-increasing numbers of Americans not only to enjoy performances but also to take ballet class themselves.

Political Censorship of the Theatre in Nineteenth-Century Europe

1987 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 220-241
Author(s):  
Robert Justin Goldstein
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
World War I ◽  
European Country ◽  
European Countries ◽  
World War ◽  
The Press ◽  
Printed Word ◽  
End Stage

Censorship of the stage, like censorship of the printed word, was widespread and well-established in Europe in 1815. However, while prior censorship of the press was eliminated throughout Europe by 1914, European countries almost universally retained prior censorship of the stage until (and sometimes well after) World War I. England became the first major European country to abolish censorship of the press in 1695, yet Parliament systematized a formerly haphazard theatre censorship in 1737, and did not end stage censorship until 1968. Most other European countries did not eliminate press censorship until about the middle of the nineteenth century, while maintaining theatre censorship throughout the century, and typically exercised much harsher controls over the stage than over the printed word. As John Allen has noted, ‘In many times and places the drama has been subject to far greater censorship than any other form of literature or art’, reflecting governmental feelings that ‘the theatre, with its power of affecting an audience with possibly subversive emotions and ideas, is more to be feared’.

The Hungarian Diet of 1839-40 and the Fate of Szechenyi's Middle Course

Slavic Review ◽  
1963 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 285-303 ◽  
Author(s):  
George Barany
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
World War I ◽  
World War ◽  
The Government

Halfway between the publication of Széchenyi's Credit (Hitel, 1830) and the revolutionary year 1848, the Diet of 1839-40 stands out as an interesting episode of the Hungarian Reform Age. The importance of this period is generally recognized, but its interpretation is still problematic. Pre-World War I liberal historiographers tended to blame the “government of Vienna” for all the blunders committed before 1848. The conservative Szekfű school, more charitable to Metternich and Austria, was no less nationalistic in its approach to the non-Magyar minorities of Hungary, maintaining the myth of Magyar “spiritual supremacy” between the two world wars. Today, Marxist Hungarian historians try to be fair in their writings about the nationality problem but frown upon analyses of Austro-Hungarian cooperation, considering them apologies for the Habsburg Gesamtmonarchie. Modern Western historians, too, differ in their evaluation of nineteenth-century Hungarian reform and its leaders.

scholarly journals THE NIŠ COOPERATIVE: 1921‒1947

2021 ◽  
pp. 191-205
Author(s):  
DEJAN D. ANTIĆ ◽  
IVAN M. BECIĆ
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
World War I ◽  
Board Of Directors ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
World War ◽  
Banking Services ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Privately Owned

Numerous local monetary bureaus owned by shareholders were established in the Kingdom of Serbia in the late nineteenth century. Many of these institutions, such as the Niš Cooperative, not only engaged in banking services but also owned industrial and trade companies. Economic circumstances changed so significantly after World War I that bank managements often were unable to cope with them. The Niš Cooperative was an example of a stable yet not particularly powerful monetary bureau whose reputation depended on the leading members of its Board of Directors. Unlike most other monetary bureaus, the Niš Cooperative continued operating after World War II up until privately-owned monetary bureaus were closed by the socialist Yugoslav government.

scholarly journals A Song with “Dash” and “Pep”: A HISTORY OF THE “MARINES’ HYMN” TO 1919

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 5-22
Author(s):  
Lauren Bowers
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
World War I ◽  
General Public ◽  
Marine Corps ◽  
Early History ◽  
World War ◽  
History Of

From its unknown nineteenth-century origins, the “Marines’ Hymn” has grown from a collection of unregulated verses into a dignified anthem reflecting the proud history of the Corps. Focusing on the song’s early history until the end of World War I, this article tells the story of that evolution. During this period, the hymn played an increasingly important role in official recruiting and publicity efforts, resulting in a growing popularity among the general public, disagreements about the need to standardize the lyrics, and the introduction of new formats and technologies to allow for wider accessibility. Together, these trends culminated in the authorization and copyright of an official version of the song in the summer of 1919. The “Marines’ Hymn” is known worldwide as a reflection of Marine Corps experiences and values, and this article aims to bring some of its forgotten history and the contributions of its strongest advocates to the attention of a modern audience.

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