U.S. Strategy Beyond Counterinsurgency
Celeste Ward, Senior Defense Analyst, RAND Corporation

November 5, 2009
5:00 pm - 6:30 pm
LBJ Library Brown Room
10th Floor

The Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law invites you to U.S. Strategy Beyond Counterinsurgency with Celeste Ward, Senior Defense Analyst at the RAND Corporation on Thursday, November 5, 2009, at 5:00 pm in the LBJ Library Brown Room, 10th Floor.

Over the last few years, the theory and doctrine of counterinsurgency have effectively become the dominant framework for conceptualizing current wars and the future of warfare. But the unquestioned acceptance of counterinsurgency theory and its implicit assumptions threaten to lead the United States dangerously astray. Celeste Ward will argue that Iraq should not appropriately be described as a counterinsurgency, the Surge was not an application of the doctrine in any case and that it accomplished less than has been described by many.

Celeste Ward is a Senior Defense Analyst at the RAND Corporation. Prior to joining RAND, she was the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Stability Operations Capabilities in the Office of the Secretary of Defense from August 2007 - January 2009. She joined DoD from her second tour in Iraq, where she served for all of 2006 as the political-military advisor to the MNC-I commander, GEN Peter W. Chiarelli. She also served in Iraq from November 2003 - June 2004 with the Coalition Provisional Authority, where she assisted in the creation and stand-up of the Iraqi Ministry of Defense.

This presentation is part of the Strauss Center's International Security Speaker Series, which features leading scholars and policy practitioners discussing challenges and solutions for meeting the security demands of the modern world.

The Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law is a nonpartisan research center at The University of Texas at Austin dedicated to promoting policy-relevant scholarship on the problems and opportunities created by our increasingly globalized and interconnected world. For more information on the Strauss Center, please visit www.robertstrausscenter.org.