What is the role of negotiations when countering an insurgency?

Abstract

Within today's irregular warfare environment, negotiations with insurgents are difficult because, in part, insurgents are often characterized as terrorists. Early in the Iraqi conflict, there was a perceived notion that the insurgent and terrorist were morphing into one entity. This perceived morphing has, arguably, influenced some US policy makers and senior military leaders to be very reluctant to negotiate with Iraqi Insurgents. Acknowledging such a reluctance, this thesis will focus on the role of negotiation in countering insurgencies. During the examination of historical cases of negotiations with insurgents, this thesis identifies commonalities within the case studies and tests the thesis' hypotheses. The conceptual framework utilizes several publications and articles to determine the feasibility and suitability of the information collected from case studies, to determine the role negotiations can play in countering an insurgency. The commonalities gathered from the historical case studies and analysis of the conceptual framework serves as the foundation to construct a notional negotiation strategy to counter the insurgency in Iraq. In conjunction with the information gathered from the historical case studies and literary surveys, this thesis applies a theoretical model and defined terms to act as steering mechanisms when developing a notional negotiation strategy.