ABSTRACT
The strategic implications of insurgency have uctuated throughout history. The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) insurgency (1975-1983), for example, was a low-level insurgency that caused little more than minor disturbances in Iraq and less so beyond her borders (Cordesman and Davies, 2008). The Taliban insurgency, which formed following the collapse of Taliban authority in Afghanistan in 2001, spread beyond Afghan borders and into neighboring Pakistan (Farrell and Giustozzi, 2013, p. 847). The movement fed regional instability and challenged the capabilities of the world’s leading military powers, including the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Many insurgency campaigns, like those during the Cold War era, have been overshadowed by larger wars waged between principal state actors. In many cases, their effects were of little concern to state actors preoccupied with great power politics.
