Effectivity of Counterinsurgency in 21st century: Operational Environment of Iraq

This diploma theses looks at the how the counter-insurgency in modern era look like. The aim is to find out what were the forms how coalition forces altogether with central authority fought the rebels, specifically Al-Qaeda and Daesh. The country which is the thesis focused on is Iraq and its operation environment bound with ethnic and religious clashes. Due to the fact that coalition forces were forced to initiate two COIN operations in just a few years, the theses compare and contrast both counter-insurgency operation, since both were led by two partly different field manuals. The final aim is to evaluate the strategies using four criteria: legitimacy, localization, isolation, elimination. The analysis confronts two approaches to COIN, one from 2007, second one from 2014. The research question is: which one of these two counter- insurgency strategies could be seen as more effective? The theses should find out whether there are any lessons learned, and whether the approach of coalition forces to this topic evolved