Event: The Forgotten Front: Patron-Client Relationships in Counterinsurgency

Event recording from 22/11/2017 In conversation with Deborah Haynes, defence correspondent for The Times, Dr Walter C. Ladwig III discusses the challenges of intervening in internal conflicts and how the United States can best exert influence over a government it is supporting in counterinsurgency to change their policies. Summary: Why has it been so difficult for the United States to effectively assist countries like Iraq and Afghanistan in counterterrorism and counterinsurgency? That's the question Walter Ladwig asks in his new book, The Forgotten Front: Patron-Client Relationships in Counterinsurgency (Cambridge University Press 2017), which analyzes the often-fraught political relationship between the U.S. government and a local regime it is attempting to advise and support in its conflict against terrorist and insurgent groups. Although a patron and its client are often presumed to be partners in such an endeavour, in this study of American interventions in the Philippines, Vietnam, and El Salvador during the Cold War, Ladwig details the stark differences of preferences and priorities that can exist between them. This often means the U.S. must give as much attention to modifying the behaviour of its local partner as it does to counter the insurgents. Author: Walter C. Ladwig III a Lecturer in the Department of War Studies at King’s College London and an Associate Fellow in Asian Security at the Royal United Services Institution (RUSI) in London. Specializing in U.S. foreign policy and internal conflicts, his scholarly work has been published in several journals including International Security, the Journal of Strategic Studies, and Asian Survey, among others. He has commented on international affairs for the Washington Post, the Financial Times, and the BBC and his opinion pieces have appeared in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. Walter received a B.A. from the University of Southern California, an M.P.A. from Princeton University, and a Ph.D. from the University of Oxford. Discussant: Deborah Haynes is the Defence Editor of the Times. She has covered the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, as well as defence and security issues in the UK. She won the 2008 Amnesty International award for newspaper journalism and the inaugural Tony Bevins Prize for investigative journalism for her series on the plight of Iraqi interpreters in the Times that led the UK government to offer hundreds of former Iraqi employees compensation or asylum. Deborah was educated at Cardiff University and Surugadai University in Japan and was named a Doctor of Science honoris causa by the University of Salford.