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For years, the U.S. government has been waging counterterrorism campaigns against al-Qaida and other armed groups in safe havens and weak states. What explains the effectiveness of such campaigns? The variation in effectiveness may result from differences in select tactical, organizational, and technological capabilities of the counterterrorism state and its local partner, captured by the concept of the Legibility and Speed-of-Exploitation System (L&S). Empirical studies, including novel fieldwork data, on the U.S. drone war in Pakistan’s Waziristan region from 2004 to 2014 reveal the influence of the L&S on targeted groups. From 2004 to 2007, a lack of U.S. counterterrorism capabilities aligning with the L&S allowed both al-Qaida and the Pakistan Taliban to build their operational infrastructure, expand their bases, engage in extensive recruitment drives, and broker important local alliances. In contrast, as the United States made substantial improvements in the L&S from 2008 to 2014, the campaigns against both groups became increasingly effective. Both al-Qaida and the Pakistan Taliban experienced sustained reductions in operational capabilities, losses of bases, and high desertion rates; they also faced growing political challenges, including from within their own organizations. These findings contrast with the view that counterterrorism offers short-term gains at best and is counterproductive at worst.

Does nationalism increase beliefs in conspiracy theories that frame minorities as subversives? From China to Russia to India, analysts and public commentators increasingly assume that nationalism fuels belief in false or unverified information. Yet existing scholarly work has neither theoretically nor empirically examined this link. Using a survey experiment conducted among 2,373 individuals and 6 focus groups with 6–8 participants each, for a total of 50 individuals, we study the impact of nationalist sentiment on belief in conspiracy theories related to ethnic minority groups in Pakistan. We find that nationalist primes – even those intended to emphasize the integration of diverse groups into one superordinate national identity – increase belief in statements about domestic minorities collaborating with hostile foreign powers. Subgroup analysis and focus groups suggest that nationalism potentially increases the likelihood that one views rights-seeking minorities as undermining the pursuit of national status.

Social media is frequently an arena of intense competition among major political actors across the world. We argue that a fruitful way of understanding this competition is as coalitions among key actors and their networks of followers. These coalitions can both advance a shared political message and target mutual rivals. Importantly, coalitions can be tacit or explicit, and they do not necessarily depend on direct state manipulation or repression, although they often do. This makes a coalitional framework particularly valuable for studying complex political environments in which online actors blend cooperation and competition. Empirically, we show the value of this approach with novel data collection and analysis of Twitter and Facebook content from 2018–19 in Pakistan, with a focus on the dynamics leading up to and following the controversial 2018 general election. We map out networks of narrative alignment and conflict on Pakistani social media, providing important insights into the relationships among the major political parties, military, media, and dissidents. Future research can fruitfully explore the causes and effects of powerful social media coalitions.

We investigate the impact of the US drone program in Pakistan on insurgent violence. Using details about US-Pakistan counterterrorism cooperation and geocoded violence data, we show that the program was associated with monthly reductions of around nine to thirteen insurgent attacks and fifty-one to eighty-six casualties in the area affected by the program. This change was sizable, as in the year before the program, the affected area experienced around twenty-one attacks and one hundred casualties per month. Additional quantitative and qualitative evidence suggests that this drop is attributable to the drone program. However, the damage caused in strikes during the program cannot fully account for the reduction. Instead, anticipatory effects induced by the program played a prominent role in subduing violence. These effects stemmed from the insurgents’ perception of the risk of being targeted in drone strikes; their efforts to avoid targeting severely compromised their movement and communication abilities, in addition to eroding within-group trust. These findings contrast with prominent perspectives on air-power, counterinsurgency, and US counterterrorism, suggesting select drone deployments can be an effective tool of counterinsurgency and counterterrorism.

Why are some counterinsurgency campaigns effective while others are not? Existing theories give primacy to hearts-and-minds strategies, preponderance of state forces, and type of rebel group as determinants of effectiveness. This dissertation argues that variation in effectiveness results from differences in select tactical, organizational, and technological capabilities of the counterinsurgent state, captured by the concept of Legibility and Speed-of-Exploitation System (L&S). The L&S varies in the legibility of the population (legibility) and the speed of exploitation of legibility gains (speed). This dissertation shows that campaigns attaining high L&S are effective even when failing to implement a hearts-and-minds strategy, fighting resilient insurgents, and without adequate force levels. Further, the dissertation shows that the variation in the L&S is shaped by the domestic political salience of the counterinsurgency effort and prior experience of counterinsurgent forces in internal war. The dissertation tests predictions of the new theory and orthodox theories in multiple counterinsurgency campaigns and conflicts using novel fieldwork data, archival materials, and historiography: Indian counterinsurgency in Punjab (1984-1994) and Jammu and Kashmir (1989-1999), Pakistani counterinsurgency in the North West Frontier (2002-2011), British counterinsurgency in Malaya (1952-55) and Kenya (1953-56), US counterinsurgency in Iraq (2007-2010), and US Drone War in Pakistan (2004 to 2014). The dissertation’s theory and findings challenge the conventional wisdom that success in counterinsurgency is tied to winning the support of the civilian population.

WHEN President Biden announced the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan last year, one of his main justifications was that A1 Qaeda had been so \"degraded\" that the United States no longer needed to maintain a military presence in a country once used as a Qaeda sanctuary. Mr. Biden also vowed...