Conversations in Conflict Studies presents Michael Jensen

"Getting Counterinsurgency Right: The U.S. Military and Success in Afghanistan." Speaker Michael Jensen is a post-doctoral fellow in the Moynihan Institute at Syracuse University. He works with the Consortium on Qualitative Research Methods and teaches on topics related to international security for the Department of Political Science. His talk will focus on how conventional armies adapt to the challenges of unconventional warfare. He will review the roles that organizational culture, learning, and lawmaker policy directives play in the process of counterinsurgency adaptation. In particular, he will discuss how these factors are impacting the U.S. military as it tries to change its "Decisive Force" operational paradigm and employ a population-centric counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan. He will assess whether the U.S. military is likely to succeed in changing its approach to counterinsurgency, and he will discuss what adaptation means for the future of U.S. national security.