Epistemology of the Checkpoint
Epistemology of the Checkpoint
Gillo Pontecorvo’s Battle of Algiers and the Doctrine of Counterinsurgency
When the U.S. invaded Iraq, they acted according to their standard doctrine of using overwhelming force to incapacitate and destroy the enemy. Despite their initial success, the U.S. forces quickly lost control and faced an insurgency, a kind of warfare for which they were ill prepared both in terms of doctrine and institutional culture. Lacking an up-to-date counter-insurgency doctrine, in the fall of 2003, the Pentagon turned to Gillo Pontecorvo’s 1966 anticolonial docudrama The Battle of Algiers for instruction. This chapter, by Vinzenz Hediger, traces the role the film played in the elaboration of the COIN doctrine and discusses why, despite the considerable intellectual efforts of the authors of manual FM 3-24, the film’s lessons went largely unheeded by the American military.
Keywords: Counter-insurgency warfare, military doctrine, Iraq War, military training, institutional culture, educational film
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