Newswise — The Archive of Modern American Warfare (AMAW) at the Texas Tech University Institute for Peace and Conflict is holding its second annual Symposium on Modern Warfare next month, and registration is now open.
Titled “Insurgency and Counter-insurgency in the Modern Era of Warfare,” the symposium will last from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Oct. 6 at the International Cultural Center, 601 Indiana Ave. It will feature presentations on many facets of insurgency and counter-insurgency theory and practice, including dealing with inter-jihadist relations, the insurgent’s arsenal, impediments to effective counter-insurgency, partnership building, the human terrain and more.
Retired Brig. Gen. Michael Longoria of the U.S. Air Force will present the keynote address, “The Way We Were: Forward Air Controller War Stories at the Beginning of the Two Longest Wars in Our History.” Longoria was a career forward air controller in the Air Force and a special tactics officer in Air Force special operations who spent his entire career leading battlefield airmen. He logged more than 500 combat flight hours as a close air support mission director and more than 500 parachute jumps including a combat paradrop during the invasion of Panama. In his last combat assignment, he was the commanding general of an interagency, combined and joint task force to capture or kill high-value targets in Iraq during his 12th combat tour.
Longoria has been deployed around the world and served on the staff of the National Security Council, the White House and the U.S. Department of Defense, among others. He served as the Special Assistant to the Commander for U.S. Special Operations Command and as a special liaison for U.S. Central Command to INTERPOL in Lyon, France, to place international arrest warrants on top global terrorists. He was directly involved in leading the men and women of the U.S. Air Force close air support system in Afghanistan and Iraq from October 2001 to August 2003 and then impacted air/ground development until his retirement in 2009.
Other sessions will include:
- “Fifty Nifty Islamic States: An Analysis of Inter-Jihadist Relations” by David Pointer III, a Texas Tech master’s student focusing on counter-terrorism
- “Godsend: Shoulder-Fired Anti-Air Missiles as an Insurgent Weapon” by Col. Matthew M. Hurley, a retired U.S. Air Force officer and career intelligence analyst
- “The Iraqi Surge Campaign: New Findings and Interpretations” by Nicholas J. Schlosser, a historian with the U.S. Army Center of Military History
- “Counter-insurgency Operations in the Al Anbar Province, Iraq 2006-2007” by Staff Sgt. John Heeg of the U.S. Air Force
- “Credibility and Reliability: The Building Blocks of Legitimacy” by Sgt. Maj. Michael Irvin of the U.S. Army
- “Impediments to a Successful Counter-insurgency Campaign in Northeastern Afghanistan” by Sid Hamid, a 30-year veteran of the U.S. Army’s Special Forces and both the Afghan and Iraqi wars
- “Building a Strong Alliance with Local Armed Forces in Counter-insurgency: Lessons Learned from Vietnam Veterans’ First-hand Accounts” by Carie (Uyen) Nguyen, a Texas Tech doctoral candidate in U.S. military history
- “The Problem of Local Knowledge in COIN: The American Defense Architecture and the Struggle with the ‘Human Terrain’ in Iraq, Afghanistan and Beyond” by Brian Price, an associate professor of history at Hawaii Pacific University
- “Five Guys Talk About Insurgency and Counter-insurgency” a panel discussion focusing on the doctrinal underpinnings of insurgency and counter-insurgency. The panelists are:
- Col. Michelle A. Miller, a retired officer and combat veteran of the U.S. Army who now serves as an associate professor of tactics at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College
- Col. Richard A. McConnell, a retired artillery officer from the U.S. Army who now serves as an associate professor of tactics at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College
- Col. Ross A. Brown Jr., a retired Army officer in field artillery who now serves as an assistant professor at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College
- Col. Ryan B. Rydalch, a retired Army officer who now serves in the Department of Army Tactics as an instructor as the Command and General Staff Officers Course
- Col. Tony Taylor, an aviator in the U.S. Army currently assigned as a tactics instructor at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College
There is no cost to attend the symposium, and a free luncheon will be provided for the first 100 people to sign up. To register, interested individuals should send their full name to [email protected].
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CONTACT: Andrew Hinton, special projects archivist, Archive of Modern American Warfare, Institute of Peace and Conflict, Texas Tech University, (806) 834-5971 or [email protected]
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