Pathological Counterinsurgency explores the perceived links between election legitimacy and governmental power as well as how successful governance strategies aid counterinsurgency campaigns. The research seeks to discover why happy, quiescent populations are less beneficial to insurgencies than villagers actively opposed to current governments. Dr. Greene reviews political and democratization theories to show how the U.S’s foreign election manipulation during insurgency may appear as stabilization.... Pathological Counterinsurgency was an enjoyable read about a difficult subject.

Journal of Strategic Security

This illuminating and timely work reveals the limited ability of an outside power such as the USG to instill legitimacy in a weak government by encouraging elections during a counterinsurgency campaign. Greene exposes the flawed assumptions inherent in the equation of genuine democratic reform with an externally imposed electoral process—especially in countries like Iraq and Afghanistan. As Greene reminds us, there is a terrible price to be paid for magical thinking about the power of elections to turn the tide against entrenched insurgencies. This book should be required reading for Trump’s foreign policy advisors, especially as they consider next steps in the Middle East.

- Vivian S. Walker, Central European University,

Professor Greene's fundamental insight on the necessary yet insufficient nature of elections in successful counterinsurgencies is a crucial one. In each of his case studies, he demonstrates how too great a concern with the fact of an election has crowded out clear thinking about the fundamental prerequisites for holding an election, and for requirements for transparency and constraint of the victors. His book should be on the shelf of anyone hoping to avoid the errors of the recent and not-so-recent past.

- Thomas Wingfield, National Defense University,