Counterinsurgency Machine

A groundbreaking analysis of how universities, nonprofits, and philanthropy do the state’s work of curtailing left-wing activism.

In this fiery polemic, political theorist Dylan Rodríguez addresses the phenomenon he calls “the counterinsurgency machine,” a formal and informal coalition of institutions that temper revolutionary movements. Counterinsurgency, a tool of military warfare that aims to quell enemy forces while bolstering the legitimacy of the dominant power, has since the mid twentieth century crept beyond the limits of official state power into venues of civil society, applying the tools of war in defense of racial capitalism. Tracing the legacy of counterinsurgency from colonial control through the development of the US military’s Counterinsurgency Field Manual and the FBI’s COINTELPRO, this book shows how counter-revolutionary efforts are increasingly channeled through progressive, liberal, and left-oriented “social justice” actors, both unwittingly and opportunistically. Through a series of case studies, Rodríguez explores how contemporary counterinsurgency relies on an ensemble of universities, nonprofits, philanthropic foundations, and advocacy campaigns to infiltrate and redirect autonomous and abolitionist efforts, including student support for Palestine and movements against police violence.

Like The Revolution Will Not Be Funded before it, which identified the workings of the nonprofit industrial complex in collusion with the state, Counterinsurgency Machine elaborates how a similar logic runs through an array of cultural organizations, despite their stated goals. This timely, paradigm-shifting text is a critical field guide for movement activists and academics.