Insurgency vs. Civil War

[Bob's World]

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

But it was, as is often the case, one of many insurgencies all aimed against the illegitimate agents of the governance of the Holy Roman Empire. The wars were never about the promotion of Protestantism. (Ideology is always a critical requriement, but never an end unto itself. For some in movement, sure, but for the movement itself? No.)

In fact, Martin Luthor was pretty upset when smart political types recognized the value and power of his fresh thoughts on Christianity and co-opted them to fuel their insurgency against the Catholic governance.

All fueled by the information age created by the invention of the printing press, that served to "democratize" knowledge. Once the Catholic Church lost its monopoly on knowledge, it was only a matter of time before they also lost their monopoly on governance as well.

[Ken White]

Our national pride, coupled with the fear of the expansion of communist ideology, led us to make decisions counter to our national ethos, and embroiled us in an otherwise wholly avoidable conflict. We should learn from this experience. The best COIN is done well in advance of a situation going kinetic, and because we did not appreciate that fact we adopted policies that were largely responsible for what followed.

Actually, that's all correct but you left a couple of things out.

Add the fact that Kennedy in addition to wanting to appear tough on Communism (your 'national pride,' part 1) also wanted even more to boost the US economy which was in the doldrums and a small war would fit the bill nicely and aid Democratic electoral hopes.

Eisenhower had been tempted to do the same thing to boost Republican hopes but the then CofS Army, Matthew Ridgeway, talked him out of it. Kennedy moved people to insure no one tried to talk him out of it. He inherited a negatively inclined Lemnitzer as Chairman but replaced him with a recalled from retirement pro-intervention Maxwell Taylor to rid himself of a turbulent priest...

We also DID appreciate the fact that best COIN was done in advance of total deterioration but we deliberately and with full knowledge ignored it mostly for domestic political reasons ('national pride,' parts 2 and 3). That "fear of the expansion of communist ideology" was an excuse, not a reason. We do that kind of stuff a lot...

Our ethos is bi-polar. The ethos you espouse is in the books; the ethos we follow more often than not is keyed to cut throat domestic agendas and our international interests as perceived by the administration of the day. Lately, those all tend to be awfully mediocre...

All that is why for over two years I have continued to say the Jones version is great, ideally could be implemented -- but is not likely to be because it doesn't allow for such machinations which are critical to the survival of the US political class. Add our electoral process and the concomitant lack of continuity and your hopes are unlikely to be realized.

[Bob's World]

Ken,

No version of history is perfect, and I am sure I put my own twist on information that is already "well twisted" by others.

Key is that when we get into these messes that we do so knowingly. I am, based on my own personal experience with senior leadership, not so sure they appreciated the nature of the problem and how the actions they selected were likely to play out in the long run. We will still make political decisions for political reasons as you wisely point out, but armed with a more sophisticated understanding of these types of movements we can create into the original design aspects that can go a long way toward mitigating the downside of the likely consequences.

[Dayuhan]

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.

If one side of a civil war must be the state, that would exclude a case like Somalia, where there is no state. Seems an unnecessary qualification to me.

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.

A numerical cutoff offers precision, and some absurd possibilities as well. If the cutoff is 1000/year, that means a conflict could easily be a civil war one year, an insurgency the next, then a civil war again... which makes the distinction less than useful.

I have a bit of trouble defining a combined arms force of over 200K as an insurgent one. I think you fall into the trap of defining insurgency as anything Mao described. The Maoist approach was to use insurgency to prepare for conventional war.

I'll stick to my point that insurgency is a strategy, and a given protagonist may shift in and out of it. I think we befuddle ourselves when we try and define insurgency by its political objectives. We just can't transcend our obsession with the Cold War security environment.

By that standard it seems that irregular warfare by internal forces opposed to the state is insurgency, while regular warfare by internal forces opposed to the state is civil war. That of course requires some fixed line defining irregular vs regular warfare.

Is irregular warfare the strategy, or insurgency... or are they the same thing?

Is the difference between civil war and insurgency purely quantitative, a civil war simply being a large insurgency? Or is there a qualitative difference as well?

Given current circumstances, a more relevant question might be how much foreign participation is required for a conflict to be inter-state, rather than civil war or insurgency. Are both civil war and insurgency by definition purely internal?

At a certain level the distinctions become semantic, and certainly there's going to be some overlap. At the same time, though, it's useful to have some consensus on what these terms mean.

[Ken White]

...based on my own personal experience with senior leadership, not so sure they appreciated the nature of the problem and how the actions they selected were likely to play out in the long run.

however, with similar experience, I frequently noted that the problem was generally well understood but that the ego of said senior soul overrode his common sense and he presumed he of all people would be able to overcome the obvious downsides.

Usually wrongly...

[Bob's World]

however, with similar experience, I frequently noted that the problem was generally well understood but that the ego of said senior soul overrode his common sense and he presumed he of all people would be able to overcome the obvious downsides.

Usually wrongly...

I was thinking about this. I think they probably defined "The Problem" as that of keeping Vietnam being chalked up as a "loss" in the containment of communism column. Target fixation on that one aspect, coupled with some likely cockiness from recent successes the Dulles Brother concept of covert regime change was having, caused them to think this would all just sort out ok.

So I'll agree they went in eyes wide open and acting "knowingly", but I really don't think they acted "understandingly."

I think there is still a lot of that going around. Over fixate on one aspect of the problem and engage to address that; and then minimize the dangers from other aspects of the problem that we don't fully understand to begin with. Those being what ultimately turn out to be the real threat to achieving our interests all along.

Both in Vietnam and in the GWOT we went in over fixated on ideology; misunderstood both the role of insurgency in the GWOT, and also the (minor) role of ideology in insurgency. We fixated on the wrong aspect of the problem, exposing ourself to greater danger and risk to the aspects of the problem that were the most dangerous all along.

[Entropy]

however, with similar experience, I frequently noted that the problem was generally well understood but that the ego of said senior soul overrode his common sense and he presumed he of all people would be able to overcome the obvious downsides.

Usually wrongly...

One thing I really didn't appreciate until these last ten years is the importance of domestic political considerations. A foreign policy or war strategy that appears completely bonkers may be the "best" at meeting domestic political considerations, which are inherently short-term. So I've concluded that rational national strategy really isn't possible unless the stars align and domestic politics and rational strategy are mutually supportive. My admittedly limited sense of history suggests that such alignments are exceedingly rare.

BW,

Point being, the machinations of governments do not determine if a movement is an insurgency or not. It is the roots within the populace that determine the nature of it.

Sure, but I don't see anything you wrote that contradicts the idea that the South and their US backers were the "insurgents" intent of overthrowing the "established" government headed by Ho. This is mainly a rhetorical argument I'm making as I personally think the conflict can't easily deconstructed into a single classification. Personally, I think there were three elements that aren't mutually exclusive:

1. A proxy war between great powers with opposing ideologies.
2. A civil war between two "states" created as a result of that proxy war.
3. An insurgency as part of that civil war.

Without #1, I'm not sure #2 and #3 would have occurred, but my knowledge of SE Asian history is admittedly weak.

[Bob's World]

"Sure, but I don't see anything you wrote that contradicts the idea that the South and their US backers were the "insurgents" intent of overthrowing the "established" government headed by Ho."

I missed this chapter in the history book... I think you might of 'over-thunk' this one a bit.

Better i think to step back and see that there was a continuous effort by the populace of V. (not all of them, obviously many had cast their lot with the illegitimate occupiers) to throw out the French-Japanese-French-S.Vietnamese/US over a period of time in which the role of "counterinsurgent" changed hands often, but that of the insurgent was one of keep keeping on to once again regain some form of control and self-determination of their country and populace. State formed, keys to the South passed from one illegitimate owner to the next, all moot to the relentless pursuit of liberty by the insurgent.

[Entropy]

I agree there was an insurgency in South Vietnam, and that the insurgency was supported by North Vietnam. I'm specifically disputing the idea that North Vietnam, the North Vietnamese government and the North Vietnamese people were "insurgents" against the government of South Vietnam. If that is what you're suggesting, then I'm not sure how any level of "good governance" by South Vietnam could end such an insurgency. I'm suggesting that a reasonable alternative view is that South Vietnam was a foreign-sponsored effort to foment an insurgency against the north with the goal over overthrowing the north and replacing the established government there.

[Ken White]

I think they probably defined "The Problem" as that of keeping Vietnam being chalked up as a "loss" in the containment of communism column. Target fixation on that one aspect, coupled with some likely cockiness from recent successes the Dulles Brother concept of covert regime change was having, caused them to think this would all just sort out ok.

That was the announced reason -- just as "Saddam's WMD" were the announced reason for going to Iraq...

Viet Nam was almost totally over the US economy and 'looking tough' for domestic political reasons. Communism was way down the list of 'why.'

So I'll agree they went in eyes wide open and acting "knowingly", but I really don't think they acted "understandingly."

Depends on who your talking about. Most in State, DoD? I agree. The real decision makers up top -- Not at all, they understood but thought they were smart enough and the Army was good enough to make it work in spite of the drawbacks. They weren't and the Army was not.

It also depends on what specific items are involved in the knowing versus the understanding. Most problems were understood and discounted -- again, just like Iraq...

Egos.

Over fixate on one aspect of the problem and engage to address that; and then minimize the dangers from other aspects of the problem that we don't fully understand to begin with. Those being what ultimately turn out to be the real threat to achieving our interests all along.

Sometimes. Just as often not. As I said, perception of the Administration in power at the time. See Afghanistan...

We fixated on the wrong aspect of the problem, exposing ourself to greater danger and risk to the aspects of the problem that were the most dangerous all along.

We can disagree on that for the real deciders, you're possibly generally correct for the minions.

Egos. Plus we aren't as nice -- or as dumb -- as many would like to believe.

[Bob's World]

I agree there was an insurgency in South Vietnam, and that the insurgency was supported by North Vietnam. I'm specifically disputing the idea that North Vietnam, the North Vietnamese government and the North Vietnamese people were "insurgents" against the government of South Vietnam. If that is what you're suggesting, then I'm not sure how any level of "good governance" by South Vietnam could end such an insurgency. I'm suggesting that a reasonable alternative view is that South Vietnam was a foreign-sponsored effort to foment an insurgency against the north with the goal over overthrowing the north and replacing the established government there.

We separate in our minds everything after North Vietnam was formed from everything prior. Granted, the majority of US direct engagement was after, so that was our paradigm. By the time most Americans knew where it was on a map the state of N. Vietnam had been there for 10 years and we were well entrenched in our support of the Diem government of the new state of South Vietnam.

My point is that we apply an artifical timeline based on OUR experience and assess meanings from that perspective onto that of the insurgent. I suspect if you were part of the Vietnamese movement to throw off this series of illegitimate governments and western interlopers you would see the formation of the state of N. Vietnam as just a waypoint toward your ultimate victory; a half-measure that provided you with a convenient sanctuary to continue to wage the insurgency from, as well as equally convenient access to the global governmental community through legal venues. Meanwhile the Maoist insurgency continued to complete the mission of removing foreign governments and their local puppets from the whole of Vietnam; surging to conventional warfare when feasible, falling back to unconventional tactics when necessary, but always pressing to that ulitimate victory.

The only way we could have addressed the legitimacy problems that the government of South Vietnam had was to go ahead and enable the nation-wide elections that Ike squelched back in 1956. But by 1965 with our perspective that these were two separate states, to hold such a 2-state election seemed rediculous, right?

[slapout9]

Maybe the reason that Insurgency is so hard to define is because there is no such thing. It is not a valid concept...it mis-identifies reality. Either there are Civil Wars-citizens of a sovereign country rebelling against their government. Or Guerrilla Warfare -armed civilians fighting for some cause which doesn't recognize traditional boundaries(countries) and may or may not have anything to do with a political cause.

[William F. Owen]

Maybe the reason that Insurgency is so hard to define is because there is no such thing. It is not a valid concept...it mis-identifies reality. Either there are Civil Wars-citizens of a sovereign country rebelling against their government. Or Guerrilla Warfare -armed civilians fighting for some cause which doesn't recognize traditional boundaries(countries) and may or may not have anything to do with a political cause.

.....keep talking. I can see something useful here. You mean there is basically, war and rebellion? Am I reading you right?

[slapout9]

.....keep talking. I can see something useful here. You mean there is basically, war and rebellion? Am I reading you right?

Close enough. Yes and it goes to my experiences with the "one minute guerrilla course" What if you think of Viet Cong Insurgency as simple North Vietnamese Soldiers that simply wore civilian clothes? It was a covert invasion from the north "Guerrillas From The Mist of North Vietnam) later they just changed into regular NVA uniforms. So it was really nothing but an invasion.

This goes to MW and Wyly's lecture on the "Concept Of The Objective" we lost Vietnam because we never picked any Objectives in the NORTH,something vital to the enemy. We just blew up the south and gave them a band aid.?

[Ken White]

By the time most Americans knew where it was on a map the state of N. Vietnam had been there for 10 years and we were well entrenched in our support of the Diem government of the new state of South Vietnam.

Sort of. Our MAAG in Viet Nam was set up by Truman in 1950. South Viet Nam dates from 1949. When partition arrived in 1954, we had been there four years in ever increasing numbers (from 53 in 1950 to 900 in 1960 to 16K in 1963, 2% of the entire Army of the time...). The North authorized 'armed propaganda in 1956, raising that to an 'armed struggle' for the south in 1959. Kennedy made Viet Nam an about 30-40% household word during the 1960 campaign, made big headlines by massively upping the Adviser effort in 1961 and 62. In 1963 Viet Nam got the attention of most all Americans with Ap Bac.

Thus I'm unsure where you get the rather imprecise 10 years or when you think most Americans knew where on the map the country happened to be. Poetic and fictional license are cool but history and policy aren't 'posed to be licentious

I suspect if you were part of the Vietnamese movement to throw off this series of illegitimate governments and western interlopers you would see the formation of the state of N. Vietnam as just a waypoint toward your ultimate victory...

Probably true but the majority of Viet Namese, those from and of the South (and the estimated 2M northerners who wanted to head south but were stopped by the Viet Minh) -- and Americans as well as others rightly see it in a different light.

The only way we could have addressed the legitimacy problems that the government of South Vietnam had was to go ahead and enable the nation-wide elections that Ike squelched back in 1956. But by 1965 with our perspective that these were two separate states, to hold such a 2-state election seemed rediculous, right?

Wrong. Way wrong. Many have overestimated the control the North had over the NLF / VC. Ike didn't squelch the referendum (1955, not 56), the US position was that Diem's government had to be elected and have legitimacy. Lansdale in fact told Diem that if he stacked the deck and won with an overstated majority, he'd recommend that the US withdraw all support. However, the fact that the North would not have played fair caused most in the US Government to breathe a sigh of relief when Diem adamantly refused to a nationwide referendum. Thus the leftist myth -- and it is a myth -- that the US pushed Diem to that position.

A lot of Viet Nam 'history' is academically corrupted hogwash...

An idealized view of Viet Namese -- or US -- history can lead one to assumptions that won't hold up. Or have I said that before...

[jmm99]

Here, just throwing out some discussion points - that is, in brother Fishel's terms, the two statements are possible operational definitions for working purposes. Read them in that light.

"war" = an armed conflict (violence) between two or more population groups regarded as separate population groups at the commencement of the conflict.

"rebellion" = an armed conflict (violence) within one population group at the commencement of the conflict, which separates into two or more population groups as the conflict progresses.

As used above, "population group" could be defined variously - e.g., AQ is a population group based on its ideology.

-----------------------------
The North Vietnamese viewed it not as an invasion but as a series of campaigns (1959-1975) within one country. The North was their Rear Area, the South was their Front Area, with Laos and Cambodia as important LOCs. In the end, their one country concept won (Vietnam + 2 sats, Cambodia & Laos). That is not my opinion; but simply what Giap and other NVA generals said (e.g., Giap's Oct 1967 pre-Tet rant, "The Big Victory, The Great Task", part 1 and part 2).

[jmm99]

Vietnam has numerous examples of history being spun to fit the agenda of the spin's proponent. One of the simplest to debunk is Ike's "80%" statement, which was popularized by Wayne Morse (Sen. from Oregon - Wiki) and others in the mid-1960's and after.

The actual original statement is as follows, Eisenhower's Views on the Popularity of Ho Chi Minh:

Source: Dwight D. Eisenhower, Mandate for Change, 1953-56 (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Compnay, Inc., 1963), p. 372

I am convinced that the French could not win the war because the internal political situation in Vietnam, weak and confused, badly weakened their military position. I have never talked or corresponded with a person knowledgeable in Indochinese affairs who did not agree that had elections been held as of the time of the fighting, possibly 80 per cent of the population would have voted for the Communist Ho Chi Minh as their leader rather than Chief of State Bao Dai. Indeed, the lack of leadership and drive on the part of Bao Dai was a factor in the feeling prevalent among Vietnamese that they had nothing to fight for. As one Frenchman said to me, "What Vietnam needs is another Syngman Rhee, regardless of all the difficulties the presence of such a personality would entail."

Italicized parts are what the spinners usually leave out - and they ignore the last two [bolded by me] sentences entirely - resulting in something like this:

"I am convinced and I have never talked or corresponded with a person knowledgeable in Indochinese affairs who did not agree that had elections been held, possibly 80 per cent of the population would have voted for the Communist Ho Chi Minh as their leader."

Ain't agitprop wonderful ?

The actual statement, of course, was aimed at the French War (1954 and prior), compares Bo Dai and Ho, and has nothing to do with 1956 and Diem (who did win an election against Bo Dai, and who was something of a Syngman Rhee).

Ironically, Ike's statement supports the position that the French playboy puppet Bo Dai was a negative influence on "good governance" (as Marse Bob Jones might say). And, other evidence is abundant that Diem in the net result did not establish governmental "legitimacy" (in security, opportunity and ideology). BUT, Ike's "Mandate" statement is not part of that evidence.

Regards

Mike

[Backwards Observer]

Nothing new to anyone here, but interesting to me is how this old field manual is fairly clear and to the point. The writing style reminds me of a guy who would sing "You're in the Army now, you can't afford a cow etc. etc.". whenever some bull$ went down, or if he ran out of Chesterfields.

Section III. Insurgency - History, Causes and Prevention

5. Examples of Insurgency Movements

[excerpt]

(3) Elimination of foreign exploitation.

The resistance movement in Indo-China from 1946 to 1954 (Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos) is an example of the unified desires of major segments of the population to violently resist colonial exploitation. This was anti-colonialism in its truest form. All of Indo-China was characterized by an agrarian economy with low standards of living, high illiteracy, and low health standards. They were easily exploited by the forces of communism. Ho Chi Minh, a devoted Communist, with external support, launched an insurgency which culminated in the withdrawal of France from Indo-China. The insurgency continues in those portions of Indo-China (Republic of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos) outside the Communist-led Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam).

... --- ...

6. Basic Causes and Motivation Factors of Insurgency

The following conditions are characteristic of many transitional societies and lend themselves to the development of insurgent movements:

a. Social

(1) Conflicts in traditional social organizations and customs as a result of contact with other cultures.

(2) The expectation of radically improved living standards within a short period of time.

(3) Pressure of a dense and rapidly expanding population in an agrarian society.

(4) Divisive rifts in the population stemming from class, ethnic, religious, or linguistic differences.

(5) Aspirations of the underprivileged for improvement in their social status and opportunities for individual expression and individual satisfaction.

(6) Widespread illiteracy and an inadequate educational system.

(7) Indolent national character.

(8) The gap between the powerful urban elite and the unorganized and inarticulate majority of the peasants.

"Well, I don't think there is any question about it. It can only be attributable to human error. This sort of thing has cropped up before and it has always been due to human error." Oh, the Humanity!

http://smallwarsjournal.com/document...63doctrine.pdf

[M-A Lagrange]

Apparently, we seem to reach some concensus here:
there are only wars (international wars) and rebellions (non international wars).
And among rebellion (I prefer non international wars) we have:
- insurgencies: rebellion from part of apopulation against foreign force or heavyly supported government by foreign forces
- civil war: rebellion of part of the population against the government but all actors are domestic.

Somehow, we come back to ICRC definitio of wars: international and non international. The trick being how to deferenciate a "riot" (non covered by GC and considered as purely domestic police issue) to insurgency/civil war.
And that is were the scale comes in. The ratio of 1000 death/year is absurd, knowing it covers also people who died because of consequences not only the KIA, but can be a starting point for measuring violence and qualify the events as war and not riots.
Also, there is a need to have organised bodies with political goals. (Still from GC)
For example drug lords, even if they cause more than 1000 death/year, are not entering in the closed circle of insurgents/rebels who get recognation by GC.
Actually, in my opinion, it's the international community which defines if a rebellion is or turn into a civil war or an insurgency.

[Bob's World]

For what it's worth, while I recognize the the widely held nature of the positions promoted by both Mr,'s White and Owen, I non-concur on both:

Ken knows Vietnam and the history of US involvement there. I don't challenge any of his facts. I look at the facts and assess them based on my understanding of insurgency. Too many base their understanding of insurgency based on the US version of the facts. My opinion is that this leads to a very flawed understanding of insurgency. It is based on the perspective of the 3rd party FID actor instead of the 1st party insurgent actor, and lends a bias that confuses the rationale of those who were actually causing the problems and why they were causing them.

As to the "war is war" position; I hold that not all violence is war and it is dangerous to treat it as such and that COIN is best viewed as a civil emergency by the challenged government. In this light it is EXTREMELY valuable to understand the difference between insurgency and other forms of conflict so that one can apply an appropriate solution.

As we all know, most COIN is long, drawnout, and typically with very temporal results. I hold that this is because all too often it has just been seen as a type of warfare, with COIN approached as war as well. History says this only works if one takes the position that how the populace feels about being oppressed by their government does not matter. Oppression works, if continuous and ruthless. Enlightned governance as promoted by the West demands that such tactics be set aside, and require instead that governments actually listen to their people and make adjustments in how they govern when necesary to maintain stability. Not because they legally have to, but simply because that is what good governance does.