Treading on Hallowed Ground

Counterinsurgency Operations in Sacred Spaces
Erscheinungsjahr 2008
ISBN: 978-0-19-534204-8
Verlag: Oxford University Press

Buch, Englisch, 240 Seiten, Print PDF, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm, Gewicht: 415 g

After America's Iraq adventure devolved into a debacle, a chorus of commentators and analysts noted that the U.S. military had no plan to fight a counterinsurgency campaign. Given the failure of conventional tactics, America in the last two years has redoubled its efforts to develop a new strategy to fight the Iraqi insurgency, and has gone so far to place our leading counterinsurgency expert, General David Petraeus, in charge of the Iraq theater. In sum, there seems to be a growing consensus that for better or worse, counterinsurgency will be a core tactic in future American military campaigns. Iraq, of course, presents special problems to the U.S. because of the intensity of religious belief and sectarianism. How do we fight against an insurgency that so often strategically positions itself on 'hallowed ground'--mosques and shrines? Yet Iraq is not unique. As the contributors to Treading on Hallowed Ground show, counterinsurgency efforts on religiously contentious terrain is a widespread phenomenon in recent times, ranging from North Africa to Central and Southeast Asia. Here, C. Christine Fair and Sumit Ganguly have assembled an impressive group of experts to explore the most important counterinsurgency efforts in sacred spaces in our era: churches in Israel, mosques and shrines in Iraq, the Sikh Golden Temple in India, mosques and temples in Kashmir, the Krue Se Mosque in Thailand, and the Grand Mosque in Saudi Arabia. Taken together, the essays comprise the first comprehensive account of this increasingly pivotal component of contemporary war.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Fair, C. Christine

Ganguly, Sumit

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Islam & Islamische Studien Islam & Islamische Studien
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politische Gewalt Terrorismus, Religiöser Fundamentalismus
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Internationale Beziehungen
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziologie Allgemein

Inhaltsverzeichnis

- Contributors

- Introduction: Sumit Ganguly and C. Christine Fair

- 1: Ron E. Hassner: Counterinsurgency and the Problem of Sacred Space

- 2: C. Christine Fair: The Golden Temple: A Tale of Two Sieges

- 3: Sumit Ganguly: A Mosque, a Shrine, and Two Sieges

- 4: Manjeet S. Pardesi: The Battle for the Soul of Pakistan at Islamabad's Red Mosque

- 5: Pascal Ménoret: Fighting for the Holy Mosque: The 1979 Mecca Insurgency

- 6: David Siddhartha Patel: Insurgency and Counter-Insurgency in Iraq's Sacred Spaces

- 7: Joseph Chinyong Liow: Iron Fists Without Velvet Gloves: The Krue Se Mosque Incident and Lessons in Counterinsurgency for the Southern Thai Conflict

- 8: Nora Bensahel: Conclusion: Counterinsurgency in Sacred Spaces

Über Autor(innen)

C. Christine Fair is a senior political scientist with the RAND Corporation. Her research focuses upon the security competition between India and Pakistan, Pakistan's internal security, the causes of terrorism in South Asia, and U.S. strategic relations with India and Pakistan.

Sumit Ganguly is a Professor of Political Science and holds the Rabindranath Tagore Chair in Indian Cultures and Civilizations and is the Director of Research of the Center on American and Global Security at Indiana University, Bloomington. He serves on the editorial boards of Asian Affairs, Asian Survey, Current History, the Journal of Democracy, the Journal of Strategic Studies, and Security Studies.