Insurgency vs. Civil War

[ryanmleigh]

Rex-
Did you truly mean to say that civil war is a subset of insurgency, or did you mean that insurgency is a subset of civil war? Your example 1 would lead me to believe that there is scale of intrastate conflict, with civil war residing somewhere at the top and insurgency falling somehwere below that.

The current literature would also support some concept of scale. According to COW (Correlates of War) University of Michigan, political violence must incur at least 1,000 deaths to be considered a civil war. There is also a necessity for a minimum number of casualties incurred by the incumbent forces in order to achieve civil war status.

Much of the discussion so far has been terrific, to some degree I think it highlights some of the confusion surrounding the concepts of civil war and insurgency. I believe that is why it is important to identify the differences between them. It goes further than just categorizing conflict. Understanding the conflict should have an impact on how we address it.

[William F. Owen]

Much of the discussion so far has been terrific, to some degree I think it highlights some of the confusion surrounding the concepts of civil war and insurgency. I believe that is why it is important to identify the differences between them. It goes further than just categorizes conflict. Understanding the conflict should have an impact on how we address it.

OK. I'd really like to see you put some flesh on the bones here.
From a practitioners point of view, calling it a Civil War or an insurgency is actually completely superfluous, unless it's blindingly obvious, which it is. Warfare is pretty much warfare. War is War.

[ryanmleigh]

From a practitioners point of view, calling it a Civil War or an insurgency is actually completely superfluous, unless it's blindingly obvious, which it is. Warfare is pretty much warfare. War is War.

I agree wholeheartedly with your statement. At the tactical level, where the rubber meets the road, all war is war. However, I would argue that at the operational and strategic level there is difference in how we approach different types of conflict. That is why I think there is utility is identfying the differences.

[William F. Owen]

However, I would argue that at the operational and strategic level there is difference in how we approach different types of conflict. That is why I think there is utility is identfying the differences.

OK, well apart from the fact I do not think there is an "operational level of War" what is that utility? Why does it matter as concerns strategy or policy?

[ryanmleigh]

The most immediate example I can think of is the disposition and composition of the ANSF in Afghanistan. If we say that we are conducting a COIN strategy in Afghanistan then should force levels not be heavily weighted for the police instead of the army. Yet both the current levels and the espoused end state levels represent a large disparity of army to police, somewhere around 240,000 to 180,000. If we are conducting COIN should those numbers not be reversed? That is just one quick example of why it might matter.

Interesting also to hear to don't believe in the operational level of war. Another discussion I wouldn't mind getting involved in.

[jmm99]

in trying to differentiate between insurgencies and civil wars ?

E.g., military-side (and at what level); or political-side (including legal as a subset of political) ?

And then there could be an "armed social science" definition, as to which I am sure Wilf can lead the charge.

Back to Wilf's first post here - why is it important to you to differentiate ?

Regards

Mike

PS: As regards military vs police ratios, I (from the political-side - police as part of a functioning criminal justice system) can't see where calling a problem an insurgency or civil war would make any difference in deciding on military-police ratios. The ratios and functions of military and police depend on the tangible context - not what you call that context. That context may or may not allow police and judges to operate. As Wilf will say, JMM, I don't want to be baby-sitting your cops and judges - and that posits that I have competent cops and judges (not a given in Astan).

[John T. Fishel]

over Somalia - kinda like his quible with me over RSA (and I can see his point in both cases), the real issue as Wilf succinctly put it and JMM reiterated in his lawerese , why do you want to differentiate? what is your purpose? If it is purely academic, then you might need an operational definition which can pretty much be what you want it to be (so long as it doesn't do too much violence to the general understanding of the term a la Webster),

Cheers

JohnT

[ryanmleigh]

Since there seems to be some issue with why I am looking for a distinction between insurgency and civil war, please allow me to illuminate.

1. I find the lack of coherent difference between the use of terms problematic when assessing conflict.

2. Academic literature seems to intermix the terms, some write very clearly about insurgency separate and distinct from civil wars. Others ignorantly or intentionally intermix terms in both research and literature which can then be used by practitioners of war while not understanding the logic behind the data.

3. I am currently writing a monograph on the distinctions and thought it might be possible to reach a larger audience in order to create discourse as to the meaning of the words insurgency and civil wars.

If the concensus is that there is no difference, fine so be it. I accept that. However, I would still be interested in the discussion which revolves around the use of the words in both strategy and policy.

I hope this helps to clarify why I think there might some utility in identifying any difference. Whether it is political or military. I still find it instructive to debate the meaning of the words.

[Entropy]

Differentiation is certainly difficult and there isn't a universal distinction. One might even argue the only difference is semantic, driven by a rhetorical or propagandist purpose. The distinction is also self-referential to a large degree which would mean that, like "terrorism" there can never be a universally accepted definition.

However, here's a possible simplistic distinction:

Insurgency will always contain a heavy focus on civic action by one or both of the belligerents (usually both). In a civil war civic action is minimal or absent and the focus is on military means.

Thoughts?

[Bob's World]

OK. I'd really like to see you put some flesh on the bones here.
From a practitioners point of view, calling it a Civil War or an insurgency is actually completely superfluous, unless it's blindingly obvious, which it is. Warfare is pretty much warfare. War is War.

If a distinction does not help you deal with a problem more effectively, it probably lends more confusion than help. IW, 4GW, Asymmetric Warfare, etc spring to mind. New names that don't help me solve the problems they describe.

To say that the historic (and recent) distinctions for using the term insurgency or civil war to describe a conflict are a bit loose is generous. I haven't seen a clear distinction and have never seen much rhyme nor reason to how these things have been sorted.

Now, where I disagree with Wilf is that conflict between a state and its own populace is the same as conflict between two states. I understand where he's coming from, and we agree to disagree on this matter. My position is that when a state employs its military against its own populace in COIN that it may suppress the conflict for a time, but makes the underlying insurgency worse, and merely pushing the problem down the road a bit.

That said, if a serious distinction was made between a civil war and an insurgency that divides it into problems with two distinctly different solutions, then there is some value. I don't think agonizing over strategic-operational-tactical levels of conflict applies or his helpful though, so I wouldn't go down that path. If it is insurgency at a tactical level it is insurgency at all levels. Same for Civil War.

So one distinction that I have been playing with lately is that insurgency is revolutionary, an informal or illegally formed movement within a state to either change the current organic government; separatist, break some piece off from a state to form a new state; or Resistance, to overthrow some occupying/colonial force and its puppets. In all these cases I do not believe the COIN force is best served by treating the conflict as "warfare", but rather as a civil emergency that requires addressing the causal concerns rooted in the perceptions of their Legitimacy, the Injustice and Disrespect perceived by the populace, and ensuring that the populace has trusted legal means available to them to address these concerns. There will be fighting, after all, by definition the insurgent is acting outside the law and opens himself to full fury of the state, but resolution will come from addressing the root causes.

A Civil War distinction makes sense if rebel segment of the state has acted within the con struts of the law to separate themselves legally, form a new state, and are then fighting to secure that end. This is what happened in the American Civil War. A new nation was formed legally, that legality was challenged by the Union, and the two state waged a war to settle the matter. Perfectly logical to treat such an event as warfare. However, once one of those states is defeated in war, it may then devolve into an insurgency based on some mix of the categories above.

So based on this definition, there was no civil war in Iraq (unless the Kurds decide to make a full break as a state), and there is no civil war in Afghanistan. Both are insurgencies and are best resolved by addressing them as a whole as civil emergencies which require a main effort of addressing the failures of governance as perceived by their respective populaces; and a supporting effort of justly applying the rule of law to those who bring violence to the state and the populace to achieve their ends.

[SteveMetz]

This seems to have been pretty well covered, but insurgency is a strategy that is sometimes used in civil wars. A civil war is simply an armed conflict where the antagonists are exclusively or primarily citizens of the same state.

[Bob's World]

This seems to have been pretty well covered, but insurgency is a strategy that is sometimes used in civil wars. A civil war is simply an armed conflict where the antagonists are exclusively or primarily citizens of the same state.

But if this is the official answer, I think it is worthy of a deeper look.

If insurgency is merely a strategy employed by a civil war opponent to the state it really doesn't offer much to the counterinsurgent in terms of helping him understand and resolve the threat. Simply defeat the civil war opponent and the insurgency will go away.

But that's not how it works. Every time that tact is taken (and that is often), the insurgency simply flares back up. Perhaps with a new name, new leadership, new ideology, often even a different segment of the society; but always to counter the same failed system of governance that gave rise to the last flare up.

I think we do better when we look at insurgency as a set of conditions that may well manifest in several forms: a miserable populace that does not dare act out; a populace that does act out - either choosing non-violent (subversion) or violent (insurgency) means. The key to effective COIN is to address the conditions and not merely set out to defeat those who dare to respond to the conditions.

[marct]

This seems to have been pretty well covered, but insurgency is a strategy that is sometimes used in civil wars. A civil war is simply an armed conflict where the antagonists are exclusively or primarily citizens of the same state.

But if this is the official answer, I think it is worthy of a deeper look.

If insurgency is merely a strategy employed by a civil war opponent to the state it really doesn't offer much to the counterinsurgent in terms of helping him understand and resolve the threat. Simply defeat the civil war opponent and the insurgency will go away.

Hmmm, well "insurgency", at least in the sense of a popular uprising, might be a tactic employed in a civil war but, on the whole, I have to agree with Bob that it certainly can't be limited to that.

I think we do better when we look at insurgency as a set of conditions that may well manifest in several forms: a miserable populace that does not dare act out; a populace that does act out - either choosing non-violent (subversion) or violent (insurgency) means. The key to effective COIN is to address the conditions and not merely set out to defeat those who dare to respond to the conditions.

Agreed about manifesting in several forms, but I'm not sure I agree with you on the implied crisp distinction between insurgency and subversion. For example, I would argue that Ghandi was an insurgent rather than a "subversive".

[ryanmleigh]

Based on a lot of the recent discussion is there a need to distinguish between the political and military aspects of conflict. Could it be as simple as saying that civil war is primarily a military conflict with political action secondary while an insurgency is primarily a political conflict with military action secondary?

Probably far to simplistic, but still trying to wrap my head around the differences.

[Bob's World]

Just applying Kitson's distinction. Same root cause, Subversion as it grows, Insurgency once the violence exceeeds a certain level (just to show I don't have to come up with my own approach for everything, and to throw Wilf a well-earned bone). But it is these causal conditions of insurgency at the roots of this whole mess that must be the main effort focus of good (effective) COIN. Too often we slave away at defeating the symptoms as they manifest and largely ignore the root causes.

This gets to the crux of my work; and why I see Karzai's efforts with reconciliation as the key to success in Afghanistan, regardless of what General we put in charge of the military coalition efforts. The coalition's military efforts have to be a supporting effort to a supporting effort (Afghan military efforts) for there to be true success. But that is not how we're approaching this.

By focusing on what Karzai is doing at the GIROA level we get at the actual heart of the insurgency. If he is unwilling to go all in on addressing the causal factors, then that is the metric we are looking for in terms of beginning our down-sizing of military effort. We can't just be the goon squad that keeps him in power.

[SteveMetz]

But if this is the official answer, I think it is worthy of a deeper look.

If insurgency is merely a strategy employed by a civil war opponent to the state it really doesn't offer much to the counterinsurgent in terms of helping him understand and resolve the threat. Simply defeat the civil war opponent and the insurgency will go away.

But that's not how it works. Every time that tact is taken (and that is often), the insurgency simply flares back up. Perhaps with a new name, new leadership, new ideology, often even a different segment of the society; but always to counter the same failed system of governance that gave rise to the last flare up.

I think we do better when we look at insurgency as a set of conditions that may well manifest in several forms: a miserable populace that does not dare act out; a populace that does act out - either choosing non-violent (subversion) or violent (insurgency) means. The key to effective COIN is to address the conditions and not merely set out to defeat those who dare to respond to the conditions.

I would never purport to give an official answer. But the key distinction is between defeating an opponent and altering whatever conditions are that gave rise to the conflict in the first place. It doesn't matter whether a war is civil or international, or whether one of the antagonists uses a strategy of insurgency or not, simply defeating the enemy does not assure that the conflict will later re-emerge, but at least opens that possibility. E.g. World War I which did not alter the conditions that gave rise to it, while World War II did.

When a conflict does re-emerge, even if one of the antagonists used insurgency earlier they may not later. South Vietnam did not fall to an insurgency. In other words, a given conflict can have insurgency phases and non-insurgency phases.

Simply because something is a "civil war" does not, in itself, imply whether the goal should be the limited one of defeating existing enemies or altering the conditions which gave rise to the conflict. A civil war simply involves antagonists from the same nation.

[M-A Lagrange]

ryanmleigh
Based on a lot of the recent discussion is there a need to distinguish between the political and military aspects of conflict. Could it be as simple as saying that civil war is primarily a military conflict with political action secondary while an insurgency is primarily a political conflict with military action secondary?

Probably far to simplistic, but still trying to wrap my head around the differences.

Some definitions from Wikipedia that have the advantage to be the ones from ICRC and great scholar:
Civil war:
James Fearon, a scholar of civil wars at Stanford University, defines a civil war as "a violent conflict within a country fought by organized groups that aim to take power at the center or in a region, or to change government policies".Ann Hironaka further specifies that one side of a civil war is the state. The intensity at which a civil disturbance becomes a civil war is contested by academics. Some political scientists define a civil war as having more than 1000 casualties, while others further specify that at least 100 must come from each side. The Correlates of War, a dataset widely used by scholars of conflict, classifies civil wars as having over 1000 war-related casualties per year of conflict. This rate is a small fraction of the millions killed in the Second Sudanese Civil War and Cambodian Civil War, for example, but excludes several highly publicized conflicts, such as The Troubles of Northern Ireland and the struggle of the African National Congress in Apartheid-era South Africa.
Based on the 1000 casualties per year criterion, there were 213 civil wars from 1816 to 1997, 104 of which occurred from 1944 to 1997. If one uses the less-stringent 1000 casualties total criterion, there were over 90 civil wars between 1945 and 2007, with 20 ongoing civil wars as of 2007.
Further definitions
The Geneva Conventions do not specifically define the term "civil war". They do, however, describe the criteria for acts qualifying as "armed conflict not of an international character", which includes civil wars. Among the conditions listed are four requirements:
• The party in revolt must be in possession of a part of the national territory.
• The insurgent civil authority must exercise de facto authority over the population within the determinate portion of the national territory.
• The insurgents must have some amount of recognition as a belligerent.
• The legal Government is "obliged to have recourse to the regular military forces against insurgents organized as military."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_war

Insurgency:
The United States Department of Defense (DOD) defines it as "An organized movement aimed at the overthrow of a constituted government through use of subversion and armed conflict." The new United States counterinsurgency Field Manual, proposes a structure that includes both insurgency and counterinsurgency [COIN]. (italics in original)
Insurgency and its tactics are as old as warfare itself. Joint doctrine defines an insurgency as an organized movement aimed at the overthrow of a constituted government through the use of subversion and armed conflict. These definitions are a good starting point, but they do not properly highlight a key paradox: though insurgency and COIN are two sides of a phenomenon that has been called revolutionary war or internal war, they are distinctly different types of operations. In addition, insurgency and COIN are included within a broad category of conflict known as irregular warfare.
The French expert on Indochina and Vietnam, Bernard Fall, entitled one of his major books Street without joy: insurgency in Indochina, 1946-63. Fall himself, however, wrote later on that "revolutionary warfare" might be a more accurate term. Insurgency has been used for years in professional military literature. Under the British, the situation in Malaya (now Malaysia) was often called the "Malayan insurgency"., or "the Troubles" in Northern Ireland. Insurgencies have existed in many countries and regions, including the Philippines, Afghanistan, Chechnya, Kashmir, Yemen, Djibouti, Colombia, Sri Lanka, and Democratic Republic of the Congo, the American colonies of Great Britain, and the Confederate States of America.[16] Each had different specifics but share the property of an attempt to disrupt the central government by means considered illegal by that government. North points out, however, that insurgents today need not be part of a highly organized movement:
"Some are networked with only loose objectives and mission-type orders to enhance their survival. Most are divided and factionalized by area, composition, or goals. Strike one against the current definition of insurgency. It is not relevant to the enemies we face today. Many of these enemies do not currently seek the overthrow of a constituted government...weak government control is useful and perhaps essential for many of these “enemies of the state” to survive and operate."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insurgency

I would more or less in accordance with Wilf. Insurgency is qualifying a way to conduct war not a good term to describe a “war”.

International and non international wars can be done through irregular warfare or regular warfare.
The use of irregular warfare tactics is not sufficient to describe a movement as acivil war or an insurgency.

Insurgency as others did point it can be against a national government from nationals. Or against a foreign government by nationals. While a civilwar is only 2 or more nationals parties against each others.

[Bob's World]

Steve;

Actually S. Vietnam DID fall to insurgency. We tend to put way too much emphasis on the fact that a bunch of Westerners broke off a chunk of Vietnam in the middle of the insurgency and created this tremendous sanctuary for the insurgency called "North Vietnam." The creation of that state in mid-stream in no way changed the overall nature and goal of the larger insurgency. Ho followed the Maoist model with which prescribes advancing to decisive conventional operations as the final stage of the insurgency, which they surged up to several times, ultimately prevailing. We confused ourselves into thinking we had a state on state war with a supporting local insurgency and thereby got off track on our approach to the problem. We confuse ourselves often in these things by taking too seriously what governments think and perceive. Insurgency is all about what the populace thinks and perceives.

In other places we have confused ourselves by declaring "victory" because one insurgent group has been militarily defeated, while the underlying perceptions of poor governance with the populace have been largely untreated and continue to fester along re-emerging in violence a few years down the road (often with new groups, new ideologies and new leaders). Algeria and the Philippines spring to mind as a couple of recent classic examples of this. The insurgency is the perception among the populace, and is rooted in the government itself, not any one particular group that rises up to challenge that government.

Bob

[ryanmleigh]

I think we do better when we look at insurgency as a set of conditions that may well manifest in several forms: a miserable populace that does not dare act out; a populace that does act out - either choosing non-violent (subversion) or violent (insurgency) means. The key to effective COIN is to address the conditions and not merely set out to defeat those who dare to respond to the conditions.

Bob- Would you say that these root conditions are the same for either civil war or insurgency? Or are there different conditions that lead to different forms of warfare. I imagine that the initial conditions (personnel, equipment, funding) would have an impact on the way the conflict progresses.

Therefore I would also think that there may be different root causes of conflict which make it look, smell, or be an insurgency vice a civil war. Examining the root causes then would be one way to differentiate between the two forms of conflict. Wouldn't you agree?

[Bob's World]

Bob- Would you say that these root conditions are the same for either civil war or insurgency? Or are there different conditions that lead to different forms of warfare. I imagine that the initial conditions (personnel, equipment, funding) would have an impact on the way the conflict progresses.

Therefore I would also think that there may be different root causes of conflict which make it look, smell, or be an insurgency vice a civil war. Examining the root causes then would be one way to differentiate between the two forms of conflict. Wouldn't you agree?

Any distinction must provide some value in suggesting a unique type of problem that requires a unique category of solution.

In that vein, recognizing that over the recorded history of warfare these terms (civil war, revolt, insurrection, insurgency, etc) have been used randomly for a wide range of reasons (a snappy name that rolls off the tongue and is pleasing to the ear probably as high a reason as any), we really cannot look to historic precedence for our answer, merely for examples.

So, I see insurgency as being any informal, illegal revolt growing out of a populace in response to perceptions of "Poor Governance" (rooted in Legitimacy, Justice, Respect and/or Hope) to address some combination of Revolution (change the government), Resistance (remove an unwanted foreign body) or Separatist (break a chunk off to form a new state). I see these as much more being Civil Emergencies rather that true warfare, and should be addressed in a manner that recognizes that the causation is rooted in how a populace feels about its own governance, and that the government must tailor its response to focus on addressing those perceptions, while managing the violence and dealing with the (by definition) outlaw insurgents in a manner that never forgets they are the tip of an iceberg-like segment of the society, and that one cannot just shave the offensive section of the populace off and resolve the problem.

Civil War, on the other hand, is when a State breaks cleanly at the start of the conflict into 2 or more distinct legal entities, with clear boundaries and formal governing bodies. The new states willing to fight to retain their newly declared independence, and the remnant of the old state willing to fight to prevent the same. This is more traditional warfare between these two governments. Once the Civil War is resolved by accepted principles of warfare, however, one may find them self with all of the conditions of insurgency as described above that must be appreciated and managed as well.

Some may say that I am leaning too heavily on the American experience. No, it is merely a distinction that to me provides some form of worthwhile merit.

So, between a populace and its government: insurgency.

When a new government forms, and a new state is formed: Civil War.

In Iraq then, to find a current example, If the new Kurdish state with its distinct border and governance and the existing Iraqi state square off over the desire of greater sovereignty for that Kurdish state, it would be civil war. Any thing that has happened in Iraq over the past 7 years has not, IMO, been civil war.

(note: even with this distinction, it gets fuzzy pretty fast for a separatist movement; such movements probably need to be addressed with a mix of approaches from the start)