US strategic approaches in the African Great Lakes region are primarily based on security assistance for training and equipping African forces for operations in East, North, and West Africa. This assistance risks causing more incidents of violence. A new strategy, based on a comprehensive approach to the security challenges in the region, as well as the deployment of international "boots on the ground" - American or others - is needed to reduce violence and to minimze the risk of new terrorist safe havens appearing in central Africa.

Transnational insurgents are a common feature of contemporary wars, but research on how to address this problem is still scarce. This article examines the South African Defence Force's (SADF) counterinsurgency against Namibian transnational insurgents. It concludes that the South African forces focused a large amount of their efforts outside the borders of Namibia. Highly coercive operations in Angola and Zambia created the space for hearts and minds activities in Namibia, as well as forcing neighboring states to end their support for the insurgents. Although the war in Namibia is somewhat different from contemporary wars, SADF's cross-border strategy gives us some important insights into the regional dynamics of civil wars.

This thesis sets out to increase our understanding on how to conduct successful military interventions in internal wars, such as the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan. But, instead of investigating different variables which might contribute to success, the focus is on the practice of knowledge production.

Numerous scholars have focused on how to conduct military interventions in internal wars successfully. However, research is conducted in different disciplines, such as Peace Studies and War Studies. According to interdisciplinary advocates, this might impede a rational advancement of knowledge. The aim of this thesis, therefore, is to scrutinise whether military interventions in internal wars are understood and approached differently in different disciplines, and to investigate whether these differences result in different knowledge about how to conduct successful military interventions in internal wars. The investigation has been conducted in two steps.

In the first step – focusing on theory – research on peace operations and counterinsurgencies was compared, regarding underlying assumptions, independ­ent and dependent variables, causal mechanisms and methodology. Several differences were identified. Not only are the underlying assumptions, theories, and variables different between the two research areas of peace operations and counterinsurgencies, there are also differences in methodological approaches, such as the unit of analysis. These differences could imply that disciplines frame the way we understand the object of study and how we conduct research.

In the second step – focusing on practice – the ISAF mission in Afghanistan was interpreted from the two disciplinary perspectives. Several differences were identified here as well, suggesting that disciplinary approaches influence our knowledge of how to conduct successful military interventions in internal wars. Departing from the differences found between the two research areas in the first part of the thesis, different ways to overcome these differences are suggested. Following these suggestions, research on military interventions in internal wars might become more rational, potentially increasing our understanding of how to conduct these operations successfully.

The robust approach of the American forces in for example Afghanistan and Iraq is often criticised and compared to the more soft approach of the British forces. However, there are surprisingly few systematic studies on the relationship between the conduct of force and the outcome of peace operations. Two kinds of military conduct in Afghanistan have been explored in this article, one that could be called 'minimum force' and one that could be called 'show of force'. Contradicting the commonly held idea of the superiority of 'minimum force', 'show of force' correlated with a better outcome than the 'minimum force' approach. However, before arguing that a 'show of force' approach is a better way to conduct peace operations, more reliable data on the outcome, and additional case studies, are needed.