Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2007, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects:

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2007, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects:

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2019, History

During World War II, guerrillas from across the Philippines opposed Imperial Japan's occupation of the archipelago. While the guerrillas often fought each other and were never strong enough to overcome the Japanese occupation on their own, they disrupted Japanese operations, kept the spirit of resistance to Japanese occupation alive, provided useful intelligence to the Allies, and assumed frontline duties fighting the Japanese following the Allies' landing in 1944. By examining the organization, motivations, capabilities, and operations of the guerrillas, this dissertation argues that the guerrillas were effective because Japanese punitive measures pushed the majority of the population to support them, as did a strong sense of obligation and loyalty to the United States. The guerrillas benefitted from the fact that many islands in the Philippines had weak Japanese garrisons, enabling those resisting the Japanese to build safe bases and gain and train recruits. Unlike their counterparts opposing the Americans in 1899, the guerrillas during World War II benefitted from the leadership of American and Filipino military personnel, and also received significant aid and direction from General Douglas MacArthur's Southwest Pacific Area Headquarters. The guerrillas in the Philippines stand as one of the most effective and sophisticated resistance movements in World War II, comparing favorably to Yugoslavian and Russian partisans in Europe.

Committee: Peter Mansoor (Advisor); Mark Grimsley (Committee Member); Bruno Cabanes (Committee Member); Robert Perry (Committee Member) Subjects: History

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2018, Political Science

A good deal of research in the counterinsurgency literature focuses on the effects of service provision and nation-building programs that incentivize support for the counterinsurgent force. At the same time, many insurgent groups also engage in similar distributions of public goods. The overall consequences of these non-state service programs are much less well understood, and this dissertation seeks to identify these effects by assessing the link between the provision of social services and insurgent success against state forces. When the role of social services is evaluated using traditional statistical methods, it appears that these public goods increase the likelihood that a militant group will perform well against the state. However, the observation of these non-state social service programs is shaped by underlying conflict dynamics that affect the ability to draw conclusions about their role in the outcome of a fight. The groups that choose to provide services and succeed in doing so despite government efforts to stop them are likely to be stronger than those groups that we do not see providing services. The endogeneity of social services therefore calls into question the finding that services make insurgents more successful. As a solution to this challenge, this project applies flexible joint regression modeling, a recently-developed approach for endogenous treatment variables, to assess the impacts of insurgent-provided services in the complex contexts of civil conflict and counterinsurgent operations. Results of this analysis indicate that social service programs implemented by insurgents do not significantly shape the outcome of civil conflict.

Committee: Bear Braumoeller (Advisor); Christopher Gelpi (Committee Member); Jan Pierskalla (Committee Member); Bradley Holland (Committee Member) Subjects: Political Science

Doctor of Philosophy, University of Akron, 2017, History

During the antebellum era, black activists organized themselves into insurgent networks, with the goal of achieving political and racial equality for all black inhabitants of the United States. The Negro Convention Movement, herein referred to as the Black Convention Movement, functioned on state and national levels, as the chief black insurgent network. As radical black rights groups continue to rise in the contemporary era, it is necessary to mine the historical origins that influence these bodies, and provide contexts for understanding their social critiques. This dissertation centers on the agency of the participants, and reveals a black insurgent network seeking its own narrative of liberation through tactics and rhetorical weapons. This study follows in the footing of Dr. Howard Holman Bell, who produced bodies of work detailing the antebellum Negro conventions published in the 1950s and 1960s. Additionally, this work inserts itself into the historiography of black radicals, protest movements, and racial debates of antebellum America, arguing for a successful interpretation of black insurgent action. Class, race, gender, religion, and politics, all combine within this study as potent framing devices. Together, the elements within this effort, illustrates the Black Convention Movement as the era's premier activist organization that inadvertently pushed the American nation toward civil war, and the destruction of institutionalized slavery.

Committee: Walter Hixson Ph.D. (Advisor); Elizabeth Mancke Ph.D. (Committee Member); Zachery Williams Ph.D. (Committee Member); Kevin Kern Ph.D. (Committee Member); Daniel Coffey Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: African American Studies; African Americans; American History; Black History; Black Studies; Gender; History; Journalism; Minority and Ethnic Groups; Religion

Master of Arts (MA), Wright State University, 2014, International and Comparative Politics

As the United States moved closer to ending its military involvement in Afghanistan by the end of 2014, intense debate on the relevance and success of the United States' counterinsurgency (COIN) strategy in the country continues. Many observers have been quick to declare the strategy a failure without fully analyzing the critical components of COIN doctrine that are necessary for a campaign to succeed, and the extent to which those components were in place in Afghanistan. This study examines the case of Afghanistan by determining whether the U.S.'s counterinsurgency strategy was successful in achieving the four main objectives identified by FM 3-24 as necessary for COIN's success. This study also looks at whether or not the United States' COIN strategy was successful in generating and maintaining the public support needed to carry out a prolonged counterinsurgency operation. By utilizing a mix of deductive logic based on contemporary COIN theory and currently available scholarly resources, government documents, and U.S. and ISAF military field reports, this study seeks to answer whether the counterinsurgency strategy devised by Generals David Petraeus and Stanley McChrystal was successful in achieving the four main objectives needed for the success of this strategy in Afghanistan.

Committee: Pramod Kantha Ph.D (Committee Chair); Vaughn Shannon Ph.D (Committee Member); Donna Schlagheck Ph.D (Committee Member) Subjects: Comparative; International Relations; Military Studies; Political Science

Master of Arts (MA), Wright State University, 2014, International and Comparative Politics

What role does foreign support play when an insurgent group adopts terrorism? Utilizing both quantitative analysis and in-depth case studies, this thesis examines the effects of foreign support among other commonly cited explanations for an insurgency's adoption of terrorism. In addition to observing the effects of foreign support on the adoption of terrorism, the effects of government regime type, insurgent group goal type, insurgent group strength, and foreign benefactor type are analyzed. After executing a multiple logistic regression analysis of 109 intrastate conflicts occurring from 1972 to 2007 and conducting detailed case studies for the Tamils in Sri Lanka and the Kurds in Iraq, this thesis concludes that specific types of foreign support from non-state actors not only make insurgent groups significantly stronger but also make them more likely to adopt terrorism thus calling into question the weapon of the weak argument.

Committee: Vaughn Shannon Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Pramod Kantha Ph.D. (Committee Member); R. William Ayres Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Comparative; International Relations; Political Science

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2008, Political Science

Within a large and growing literature on insurgencies, scholars have engaged in fierce debate about the determinants of conflict outcomes. Having noted that materialcapability is a poor predictor of conflict outcomes, intense disagreement has arisen over why this is the case. Some argue that insurgencies are defeated through military and police means of punishment and prosecution. This is referred to as the combat model. Others argue that insurgencies are ultimately defeated through political means, and I refer to this as the social model. Why each of these two processes is thought to be more effective is rarely well explained or specified by their proponents. Because each of these model yields different and competing expectations for the outcomes of insurgent conflicts, I evaluate their relative merits in this study. To evaluate these two competing schools of thought in the security studies literature, I present a conditional theory of insurgent outcomes that predicts when the combat and social models will be relevant. In order to do this, I approach insurgencies using scholarship from the study of terrorism, deriving three archetypical motivational logics of insurgency action: strategic, organizational, and extremist. From the scholarship on insurgencies, I also develop a typology of counterinsurgency strategies focusing on three broad but distinct strategic approaches: policing, accommodation, and reciprocal punishment. The combination of a particular insurgent motivation with a particular counterinsurgent strategy will result in an increase or decrease in insurgent violence. I hypothesize that this conditional model will better predict insurgent outcomes than either the combat model or the social model alone. However, even if it does not, its evaluation will still serve as a useful comparison of the relative merits of those two models. To test the model I code statements made by leaders of insurgencies to discern their motivations and compare these codings to t (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Donald Sylvan PhD (Committee Co-Chair); Richard Herrmann PhD (Committee Co-Chair); John Mueller PhD (Committee Member); Alexander Thompson PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Political Science

Master of Arts (MA), Ohio University, 2011, Political Science (Arts and Sciences)

This research examines the historical use of population control techniques by insurgents, and how the Taliban can profit from such lessons of the past. A greater understanding of the complex relationship that exists between insurgents and populations is intrinsically valuable, and by analyzing the ways in which the Taliban can improve their strategic outlook, it becomes possible to devise ways to counter such improvements. A discussion on insurgency theory and literature gives way to a comparative case study analysis. The histories and usages of population control by the Malayan Races Liberation Army, al-Qaeda in Iraq, and Hezbollah are analyzed, and from their various successes and failures are derived a series of recommendations for the Taliban on how best to incorporate population control into their own strategy. Though the Taliban have suffered recent setbacks at the hands of coalition forces, a patient and well executed strategy of population control can likely ensure their eventual success.

Committee: Marc Scarcelli PhD (Committee Chair); Myra Waterbury PhD (Committee Member); Brandon Kendhammer PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: International Relations; Military History; Military Studies; Political Science

Master of Arts (MA), Ohio University, 2008, Political Science (Arts and Sciences)

The Goldwater-Nichols Act was passed in 1986 to make the American military more capable of fighting conventional wars. However, in the post-Cold War world, the United States increasingly faces unconventional threats. This study examines the effect that Goldwater-Nichols has had on U.S. Counterinsurgency capabilities, comparing thecases of Vietnam and Afghanistan. It draws on bureaucratic theory to understand how changes in institutional structure affect warfighting. I conclude that the expanded power of the unified combatant commands and an increased focus on jointness has made the U.S. more capable of fighting insurgencies. Counterinsurgency in Vietnam suffered from a fractured chain of command and an overemphasis on offensive strategies. Afghanistan has seen a rationalization of decision-making and a greater focus on 'hearts and minds' strategies. Insufficient commitment from Washington civilian leadership, however, has deprived U.S. troops in Afghanistan of the resources they need to prevail.

Committee: Patricia A. Weitsman Ph.D. (Advisor) Subjects: Armed Forces; International Relations; Political Science