Mukhtar Ainashe

Understanding Insurgency and Counterinsurgency Through the Lens of Civil War

Editor’s Note: This article is adapted from “Counterinsurgency as order-making: refining the concepts of insurgency and counterinsurgency in light of the Somali Civil War,” published in Small Wars and Insurgencies. Civil war is a complex, messy and intensely political phenomenon whereby established orders are challenged and new ones produced.