David H Ucko
David H. Ucko, Ph.D., is the Head of the Net Assessment Section at NATO HQ. Prior to joining NATO, he was a professor at the College of International Security Affairs (CISA) of the National Defense University, Washington DC, where he taught irregular warfare and strategy to international military and civilian practitioners. From 2019-2023, he was the chair of CISA's Department of War & Conflict Studies (WACS) and, from 2018-2022, the Director of the Regional Defense Fellowship Program, whereby he led the College's international deployment of mobile education teams. Dr Ucko is a senior visiting fellow at the Department of War Studies, King's College London and an adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins University.
Dr Ucko has published several books on war-to-peace transition, civil wars, and strategy. Most recently, he authored The Insurgent's Dilemma: A Struggle to Prevail (Hurst / Oxford University Press, 2022) and, with Thomas A. Marks, Crafting Strategy for Irregular Warfare: A Framework for Analysis and Action, 2nd ed. (NDU Press, 2022). His publications also include a wide variety of peer-reviewed articles on political violence, strategy, and irregular warfare.
Dr Ucko was previously program coordinator and research fellow for the Conflict, Security & Development Research Group at the Department of War Studies, King's College London. He has also held visiting fellowships and research positions at various think-tanks, including the RAND Corporation in Washington DC, the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP) in Berlin, and the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in both in DC and in London.
Dr Ucko obtained his Ph.D. at the Department of War Studies in 2007, with a thesis examining the US military's institutional learning of counterinsurgency in the 2001-07 period. In 2001, he was awarded a First Class BSc in International Relations from the London School of Economics and, in 2004 a MRes at the Department of War Studies.
Dr Ucko has published several books on war-to-peace transition, civil wars, and strategy. Most recently, he authored The Insurgent's Dilemma: A Struggle to Prevail (Hurst / Oxford University Press, 2022) and, with Thomas A. Marks, Crafting Strategy for Irregular Warfare: A Framework for Analysis and Action, 2nd ed. (NDU Press, 2022). His publications also include a wide variety of peer-reviewed articles on political violence, strategy, and irregular warfare.
Dr Ucko was previously program coordinator and research fellow for the Conflict, Security & Development Research Group at the Department of War Studies, King's College London. He has also held visiting fellowships and research positions at various think-tanks, including the RAND Corporation in Washington DC, the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP) in Berlin, and the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in both in DC and in London.
Dr Ucko obtained his Ph.D. at the Department of War Studies in 2007, with a thesis examining the US military's institutional learning of counterinsurgency in the 2001-07 period. In 2001, he was awarded a First Class BSc in International Relations from the London School of Economics and, in 2004 a MRes at the Department of War Studies.
less
InterestsView All (9)
Uploads
Books by David H Ucko
In the face of this dilemma, some insurgents are learning new ways to ply their trade. With subversion, spin and disinformation claiming centre stage, insurgency is being reinvented, to exploit the vulnerabilities of our times and gain new strategic salience for tomorrow. As the most promising approaches are refined and repurposed, what we think of as counterinsurgency will also need to change.
The Insurgent's Dilemma explores three particularly adaptive strategies and their implications for response. These emerging strategies target the state where it is weak and sap its power, sometimes without it noticing. There are options for response, but fresh thinking is urgently needed-about society, legitimacy and political violence itself.
The United States, and the West, struggle to understand and respond to irregular warfare, whether by states or nonstate actors. Attempts to master the art have generated much new jargon, ranging from “hybrid war” to “the gray zone,” and most recently “integrated deterrence.” The terminology belies a struggle to overcome entrenched presumptions about war—a confusion that generates cognitive friction with implications for strategy. To inform a better approach, this monograph presents an analytical framework to assess and respond to irregular threats. The framework is based on the pedagogical approach of the College of International Security Affairs (CISA) within the National Defense University (NDU), the only U.S. irregular warfare college. It is designed to cut through the analytical ambiguities of irregular warfare and map such strategies to design an effective counter. Though an analytical framework is no panacea for the malaise facing Western strategy, it is an indispensable starting point for all that must follow.
Articles by David H Ucko
Shortly after its invasion of iraq in 2003, the U.S. military began to release doctrine for counterinsurgency operations. The field manuals have since then become increasingly nuanced and emphasized the need to prioritize stability operations on the same level as major combat. Yet how much of an effect have these publications had on the wider Department of Defense and on the Army and Marine Corps in particular? This article assesses the current state of learning within the U.S. military and finds that while changes are taking place, there are still many important areas marked by continuity with decade-old priorities. if the U.S. military wants to develop a force that is truly “full-spectrum”, the publishing of field manuals must be complemented by difficult trade-offs and more balanced resource-allocation. As part of this process, it will also be critical to engage with the growing narratives that are once again seeking to push counterinsurgency off the table as a U.S. military priority.
In the face of this dilemma, some insurgents are learning new ways to ply their trade. With subversion, spin and disinformation claiming centre stage, insurgency is being reinvented, to exploit the vulnerabilities of our times and gain new strategic salience for tomorrow. As the most promising approaches are refined and repurposed, what we think of as counterinsurgency will also need to change.
The Insurgent's Dilemma explores three particularly adaptive strategies and their implications for response. These emerging strategies target the state where it is weak and sap its power, sometimes without it noticing. There are options for response, but fresh thinking is urgently needed-about society, legitimacy and political violence itself.
The United States, and the West, struggle to understand and respond to irregular warfare, whether by states or nonstate actors. Attempts to master the art have generated much new jargon, ranging from “hybrid war” to “the gray zone,” and most recently “integrated deterrence.” The terminology belies a struggle to overcome entrenched presumptions about war—a confusion that generates cognitive friction with implications for strategy. To inform a better approach, this monograph presents an analytical framework to assess and respond to irregular threats. The framework is based on the pedagogical approach of the College of International Security Affairs (CISA) within the National Defense University (NDU), the only U.S. irregular warfare college. It is designed to cut through the analytical ambiguities of irregular warfare and map such strategies to design an effective counter. Though an analytical framework is no panacea for the malaise facing Western strategy, it is an indispensable starting point for all that must follow.
Shortly after its invasion of iraq in 2003, the U.S. military began to release doctrine for counterinsurgency operations. The field manuals have since then become increasingly nuanced and emphasized the need to prioritize stability operations on the same level as major combat. Yet how much of an effect have these publications had on the wider Department of Defense and on the Army and Marine Corps in particular? This article assesses the current state of learning within the U.S. military and finds that while changes are taking place, there are still many important areas marked by continuity with decade-old priorities. if the U.S. military wants to develop a force that is truly “full-spectrum”, the publishing of field manuals must be complemented by difficult trade-offs and more balanced resource-allocation. As part of this process, it will also be critical to engage with the growing narratives that are once again seeking to push counterinsurgency off the table as a U.S. military priority.
This chapter provides a more complex image. The principles and theory derived from British experiences are generally still relevant, but the notion of an enduring British approach to counterinsurgency that reflects such theory must be challenged. As should be expected, there has been great variation in the conduct of operations both between and (critically) within specific campaigns. The more successful campaigns can be said to share certain unsurprising characteristics – such as operational adaption and the tailoring of armed force to political ends – but the track record as a whole is too inconsistent to speak of a particular style or institutional ethos. Instead, the British experience – while replete with lessons, both negative and positive – must be approached via specific cases rather than as a reified whole. Glossing over important discontinuities in the search for an approach encourages the construction of myths, which while identity-furnishing and flattering produces not only bad history, but a poor basis for operations to come.
Indeed, from the discussion of a British approach to counterinsurgency cannot be excluded Britain’s most recent experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq. In the aftermath of Saddam Hussein’s toppling in 2003, it was expected that Britain would adapt more readily to the challenges of insurgency that soon enveloped the country. Yet, contrary to many hasty and largely decontextualised comparisons between British and American styles of combat, it was ultimately Britain that struggled to adapt, stumbling as it did over its own institutional complacence and its related misreading of the situation. The British campaign in Afghanistan reveals that the experience in Basra was no aberration and that something fundamental has changed in Britain’s ability to conduct counterinsurgency as it often did. The question, then, for Britain and its allies is whether the notion of a British approach to counterinsurgency was ever helpful or can still be made relevant for operations today and tomorrow.