ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to provide a brief overview of the theory and practice of counterinsurgency in the Third World since World War II. The decade of the 1960s marked a sharp increase in interest in theories of revolution and counterinsurgency in the United States and a marked shift of military resources towards containing revolutionary activity in the Third World. The systematic and widespread use of torture as a weapon in the counterinsurgency specialists’ arsenal first came into prominence during the Algeria war. By and large the social science approach to revolution and counterinsurgency emphasized both the political and social causes of insurgency, and – initially at least – social, political and economic means of combating the insurgents. Thus, in the long term it can be argued that, provided Third World countries which undergo revolutions remain within the world economic system, then these revolutions do not necessarily spell disaster for US, European and Japanese economic interests.
