Assessing Revolutionary and Insurgent Strategies

For anyone interested in studying unconventional warfare please see this web site:

http://www.soc.mil/ARIS/ARIS.html

We owe a great debt to Paul Tompkins and USASOC for reviving and updating this seminal (but long dormant) work begun by the Special Operations Research Office.  It sure would be nice to re-establish it.  Perhaps JSOU should become the new SORO.

V/R

Dave

ARIS STUDIES

• Casebook on Insurgency and Revolutionary Warfare, Vol. 1: 1933-1962
• Casebook on Insurgency and Revolutionary Warfare, Vol. II: 1962-2009
• Irregular Warfare Annotated Bibliography
• Human Factors Considerations of Underground in Insurgencies
• Undergrounds in Insurgent, Revolutionary and Resistance Warfare

The Assessing Revolutionary and Insurgent Strategies (ARIS) series consists of a set of case studies and research conducted for the US Army Special Operations Command by the National Security Analysis Department of The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory.

The purpose of the ARIS series is to produce a collection of academically rigorous yet operationally relevant research materials to develop and illustrate a common understanding of insurgency and revolution. This research, intended to form a bedrock body of knowledge for members of the Special Forces, will allow users to distill vast amounts of material from a wide array of campaigns and extract relevant lessons, thereby enabling the development of future doctrine, professional education, and training.

From its inception, ARIS has been focused on exploring historical and current revolutions and insurgencies for the purpose of identifying emerging trends in operational designs and patterns. ARIS encompasses research and studies on the general characteristics of revolutionary movements and insurgencies and examines unique adaptations by specific organizations or groups to overcome various environmental and contextual challenges.

The ARIS series follows in the tradition of research conducted by the Special Operations Research Office (SORO) of American University in the 1950s and 1960s, by adding new research to that body of work and in several instances releasing updated editions of original SORO studies.