The U.S. Needs a New Approach to Counterinsurgency. This is What it Can Learn from El Salvador. Washington Post interview with Walter C. Ladwig III, by Nikita Lalwani and Sam Winter-Levy
“After nearly fifteen years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq, the United States is seeking to reorient its approach to counterinsurgency,” the political scientist Walter C. Ladwig III writes in a new paper in International Security. Rather than intervening directly, Washington wants to provide aid and advice to local governments. But the aims of local governments often differ wildly from those of the United States. To local regimes obsessed with maintaining power, Ladwig writes, Washington’s standard prescriptions for reform — “streamlining the military chain of command, ending patronage politics, engaging in economic reform, or embracing disaffected minority groups” — may be as threatening as the insurgency itself.
Using U.S. support to El Salvador during the country’s 12-year civil war as a case study, Ladwig evaluates Washington’s two main strategies for influencing local governments. In a recent conversation, Ladwig explained what these are, which one works best, and what lessons El Salvador offers for U.S. foreign policy today.