Insurgency vs. Civil War

[Entropy]

Staying away from Vietnam, how would you folks classify the Thirty Years War (outside of exceedingly messy)?

Good question!

One theme I'm getting from the discussion here is that people are classifying based on three rough criteria:

1. Classification based on how the conduct of the conflict - ie. guerrilla warfare vs "conventional" warfare.

2. Classification based on the actor's intent or "why they are fighting."

3. Classification based on the actor's type of organization- ei. nation states, tribes, etc.

One problem that makes the 30 years war difficult to classify is that today we base our interpretations of conflict around #3 - the nation state as the "standard" political entity. If two states are in conflict, then it is "war." If the conflict occurs within the borders of what we call a state, then it is civil war/insurgency. So, as long as we put the state at the top of the organizational hierarchy, I don't think we will be able to "fit" many types of conflict, including the 30-years war, into a war/civil war/insurgency construct.

Of course, Wilf will come in and remind us again that these classifications are arbitrary and largely useless because war is war.

Mike,

My point exactly - why can't South Vietnam be viewed as the "insurgents" against the North? This goes back to my earlier point that these classifications are often self-referential.

[marct]

One theme I'm getting from the discussion here is that people are classifying based on three rough criteria:

1. Classification based on how the conduct of the conflict - ie. guerrilla warfare vs "conventional" warfare.

2. Classification based on the actor's intent or "why they are fighting."

3. Classification based on the actor's type of organization- ei. nation states, tribes, etc.

Nice summation, Entropy! Okay, what if we use these three classification, what, "dimensions(?), as the basis for defining a set of boundary conditions and see where that takes us? So,

1. the "How" a conflict is conducted would be tactical and grand tactical (yeah, I use the older system; so sue me ). That "how" or, rather, a group / factions selection of a given "how" at a point in time, should be conditioned by a number of different factors such as technology, social organization, time, ideology, cultural mores. As such, we might want to refer to insurgency / COIN as an "operational" (grand tactical) choice amongst a variety of others such as "conventional", "raising political awareness" (a la Mao), subversion, popular demonstrations, terrorist strikes, counter-terrorism, etc.

2. the "Why" question is a lot "fuzzier" in some ways, but I would suggest it gets back to two core areas: competing narratives / systems and competing faction placement (dynastic wars or which general runs banana republic X this week?). I *think* that this is a more strategic and grand strategic level, and definitely more in line with questions of legitimacy, governance, strat comm, etc.

3. The organizational type question should also feed back into both the first and second types, and is probably the critical one in terms of international law (Mike?). That said, I suspect that it is also the least important in operational terms except inasmuch as it produces operational limitations. The other thing is that if we want to produce a model like this, we would probably have to decompose organizational type into sub-characteristics such as resource control, governance, force "reach" (possibly further sub-divided by battlespace?), etc.

Leaving off how useful this might be for generating definitions, especially by spotting definitional "holes" and overlaps, I think that this might also get to Bob's point about it having some practical use.

[jmm99]

we are on the same page:

Mike,

My point exactly - why can't South Vietnam be viewed as the "insurgents" against the North? This goes back to my earlier point that these classifications are often self-referential.

So, let's then look at Giap's strategy as a counter-insurgency strategy (rather than an "insurgency" strategy), which was quite different from the conventional "clear-hold-build" COIN strategy.

In fact, it was the reverse:

1. build - establish the guerrillas and political cadres (ongoing from 1959 on a generally increasing basis).

2. hold - secure base areas (well accomplished, with some assistance from Kissinger, by the 1973 Paris Accords).

3. clear - achieve juncture of unconventional and conventional forces after causing dispersal of ARVN forces (success in 1975).

In a sense, Jim Gant has suggested something similar without citing Giap.

Regards

Mike

[Steve Blair]

Of course, if we ignore Marc and focus on Vietnam, this could also take on a different aspect. SVN was never really heavily controlled by either the French or the Viet Minh (it wasn't as settled as the north, for one, and lacked the industrial base), and the traditional "seat" of Vietnamese government had been in the center of the country (Hue). So looking at local realities, it doesn't become as simple as a Northern counterinsurgency against the South. Much of SVN was something of a recent acquisition in historical terms, and the people there had developed different cultural patterns and dialects than their northern "cousins." Plus you had certain indigenous populations added to the mix as well.

Still, the Entropy/Mike angle is an interesting one, and might provide some insight into possible reasons for some of Giap's decisions and outlooks.

[slapout9]

1. build - establish the guerrillas and political cadres (ongoing from 1959 on a generally increasing basis).

Mike

Yes,Yes,Yes that is exactly what we did when I went through the "One Minute Guerrilla Warfare Course" this was basic Special Warfare, which we seem to have forgotten and it can be done very fast as Operation Jawbreaker proved (we left out demobilization)as well as several others during the Ike administration. We had one bad one "Bay Of Pigs" and then went off on the COINISM theory.