Support to Resistance: Strategic Purpose and Effectiveness

Abstract

In Support to Resistance: Strategic Purpose and Effectiveness, Will Irwin (a retired United States Army Special Forces officer) presents a historical case study of 47 Support to Resistance (STR) operations conducted by the United States Government (USG) after World War II (WWII). Irwin defines STR as a subset of unconventional warfare (UW) which “represents a coordinated application of all U.S. instruments of national power to influence and empower a resistance movement.” Such coordination is typically directed by the Department of Defense (DoD), Department of State (DOS), or Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), depending on the resistance movement’s nature. For each case, Irwin examines USG’s use of STR, the effectiveness of USG STR operations against repressive authoritarian regimes or unfriendly occupying forces, and the geopolitical and strategic conditions which led each post-WWII administration to use STR as a foreign policy alternative to large-scale armed confrontation. Irwin’s original qualitative analysis adds insight to discourse on resistance proxy and UW. He asserts that between 1940 and 2003, the USG conducted more successful STR operations: