Non-Violent Insurgency: How Smart Rebels Win small wars

[William F. Owen]

What are some examples of non-violent approaches to Poor Governance?

I. Nonviolent protest and persuasion
Petitions, wearing symbols, vigils, marches, humorous skits, walk-outs, renouncing honors, mock awards

II. Non-cooperation
Boycotts, strikes, social ostracism, stay-at-homes, refusal to pay taxes, civil disobedience

III. Nonviolent Intervention
Hunger strikes, sit-ins, alternative institutions, blockades

So Small Wars Journal has turned into Small Politics Journal. No Violence? Then it is simply not a military problem. It's Campus, Town-hall politics.

Moreover, a lot of the examples used were actually under-pinned by the option to use violence, and were used in direct co-ordination with armed violence.

[davidbfpo]

Wilf,

Rarely in my knowledge has the use of violence not been preceded by a non-violent phase, notably a public statement of the campaigns aims and so this thread addresses Small Wars in its widest application. I have recently read a book on the Baader-Meinhof gang / Red Army Faction and cite that as an example.

IIRC Frank Kitson's books also covered the pre-violent phase and that the military should stay away then.

So, SPJ it maybe Wilf and no harm is being done here. We are here to discuss and learn - within limits we know well.

Another time for a response to Bob's World.

[William F. Owen]

IIRC Frank Kitson's books also covered the pre-violent phase and that the military should stay away then.

So, SPJ it maybe Wilf and no harm is being done here. We are here to discuss and learn - within limits we know well.

I concur. Politics is the only cause of war. Most politics is non-violent.
So what? We know that. Thucydides and CvC observed that a very long time ago. Soldiers set forth policy using violence. They do not create policy, and they do not seek to apply non-violent means. Ethics is politics, and distinct from personal morality.

Harm is being done IF soldiers are confusing War with Warfare, and the fact that military force is merely instrumental. If people cannot understand that then they are set on a path to their own destruction and confusion, in woolly worded pseudo science. - Something I have witnessed all too often here on SWJ. I point this out in a commitment to the spirit of learning and discussion.

As an analogy, IMO, senior UK police officers are uniquely ill-equipped and unqualified to comment on what drugs should be legal and illegal. If they comment, while in uniform, they are bluffing above their pay grade, and are possibly doing massive harm to the moral of the officers under his command. They're job is to seek to convict those selling drugs, regardless of what drugs are legal or not. Are there some silly laws? Very much.

[Bob's World]

Harm is done as well when soldiers confuse a civil emergency with war; simply because an overwhelmed civil government called for their assistance, there is an identifiable opponent conducting acts of violence, and because their doctrine says "COIN is war."

military mission + violent enemy + doctrine = war. Simple.

The problem being that a study of the history of insurgency suggests that it is not.

It is not really a military mission, it is a civil mission that the military supports, like sending soldiers to a flood or hurricane disaster site.

There it no violent "enemy," it is a small segment of a nation's own populace, supported by a much broader base of the populace than what actually takes up arms, and related by blood and friendship to an even broader base of the populace. This is like dealing with a violent spouse as opposed to dealing with a violent neighbor; the acts may look similar but the consequences are far different.

Sometimes, just sometimes, doctrine is wrong.

But all of that aside, this thread is to assess the relative merits of populaces who take up non-violent approaches to address the condition of insurgency, and how that might be more effective than those who take up violent approaches. Both are in situations where they are forced to act out illegally, violent or non-violent; or it is not insurgency, it would be as Wilf says, just politics if they can simply act legally and peacefully to affect some change of government, large or small.

But to Wilf's credit he has pointed out one excellent reason for choosing non-violent approaches to act out illegally against one's own government to affect political changes based upon perceived conditions of insurgency by the populace:

The state won't be able to so easily call it "war," to brand the organized segment of the populace as "the enemy" or "terrorists" and in turn will not be able to sick the military on them without immediately losing the battle for which side is perceived as "right" or "wrong" in the court of world opinion.

[Bob's World]

Actually those of us who actually are in Special Forces, and work continually with varying aspects of Insurgency, counterinsurgency, unconventional warfare and Counterterrorism understand that this statement is both incorrect and infeasible:

"With some sense of irony, US Special Forces once had a de-facto mission to create violent insurgencies among populations who were not dissatisfied with their Government. - and they still should if that serves US policy. "

We understand that an outsider cannot create conditions of insurgency, only the government of that populace can. You can go in a put a spin on the facts, but a populace in conditions of "good governance" is largely immune to UW efforts to organize and incite insurgency. The populace may be the fuel of insurgency, and SF guys conducting UW may be able to organize the fuel for fire and provide a spark; but if the fuel is well dampened by a healthy government-populace relationship, it will never ignite into insurgency.

No the SF mission was, and still is, to understand this dynamic, and to conduct FID in countries where the US has a relationship with the government, but where we assess the government does not have a healthy relationship with its populace. To help prevent conditions from sliding into violent insurgency if they are still at peace, or to help restore conditions of peace if violent insurgency has already erupted. Similarly to conduct UW in countries where the US does not have a relationship with a government and knows they will never be granted one, but has interests that demand such a relationship. When, and only when, conditions of insurgency exist, and usually only if organized resistance organizations already exist, it is an option to employ SF to conduct UW. That is the mission. The focus is typically on violent insurgency, but SF guys being unconventional thinkers in general, may well pick up on the fact that they can employ the same skills and tactics to incite non-violent insurgency as well. To do so creates far less risk of negative blow-back in the court of world opinion and, as history shows, is far more likely to produce the desired result.

(Wilf, I am all about waging war when war is the mission, and when one does so to do so to the nth degree; but to confuse a mission for war that is not and to wage it regardless, is a tragedy of the highest order.)

[Bob's World]

http://wesfiles.wesleyan.edu/home/ec...h/web/data.zip

This is the raw data compiled for their research, and while one can argue with their conclusions based on one's general understanding of history and insurgency; once one works through the excel spreadsheet one can see the detail of analysis behind this work.

One also sees that success or failure, violent or non-violent; invariably where insurgency erupts the governing authority being challenged lacks any true standing of legitimacy in the eyes of a large segment of the populace being governed.

Well worth taking 5-10 minutes and scrolling through.

[William F. Owen]

One also sees that success or failure, violent or non-violent; invariably where insurgency erupts the governing authority being challenged lacks any true standing of legitimacy in the eyes of a large segment of the populace being governed.

Well when the President tells you who is legitimate and who isn't you'll have the personal opinion that matters.

If the USG says they are legitimate, - as in the Saudi Arabian Royal Family, or the Hashemite throne, then that is the policy, and your job is to kill those trying to get rid of their King, appointed to rule over them by God!

[William F. Owen]

Harm is done as well when soldiers confuse a civil emergency with war; simply because an overwhelmed civil government called for their assistance, there is an identifiable opponent conducting acts of violence, and because their doctrine says "COIN is war."

War is War. COIN (as talked about today) is a pseudo-science constructed by people embarrassed by their connection with instrumental political violence.

Bob's World
Are you saying,

a.) US Military Officers should study non-violent protest?
b.) Non-violent protest should be re-sourced as an instrument of US Military Power?

[Global Scout]

Posted by Dayuhan,

Some dictatorial regimes (eg Philippines 86) collapse before non violent resistance because they have already decayed to the point where they no longer command the loyalty of their own armed forces.

I think you hit the nail on the head, another peaceful protest would have simply been crushed by Marcus if he believed he could control the military, but he knew his military was divided and the U.S. Government gave him and Imelda a comfortable exit. He didn't have to worry facing a violent end like like Mussolini did; otherwise he made have made a different decision.

Many of the examples given as noted by Wilf are not accurrate. King's Civil Rights Movement was NOT an insurgency, it was simply a political movement working largely within the established legal framework. There was no intent to overthrow the government.

Gandhi was NOT responsible for India's independence. Serious Indian and British historians will tell you that Gandhi's civil movement had minimal impact on Britian's decision to give up India. As a matter of fact, Gandhi's movement died 10 years before the British decided to leave. Several factors influenced their decision, but the main one according to knowledgeable historians was the revolts of Indian National Army led by Bose. Although the military revolts failed, the subsequent trial of the militants exposed that Britian lost control of Sepoy's and could not count on them to maintain order in India. Furthermore, not only didn't Gandhi's movement contribute in any significant way to India's liberation, it didn't stop Britian's decision to divide India and create a separate country for the Muslims (East and West Pakistan), which led to consider slaughter on both sides (Hindu and Muslim). Since the Hindu nationalist movement wouldn't support Britian during WWII, the Brits relied on willing Indian Muslims to do so, and in return for their support they were rewarded with Pakistan (a gift that just keeps on giving).

Violence or the threat of violence has always played a key role in these movements. In the case of the Philippines the critical role of the threat of violence was mitigated because Marcus's behavior alienated much of his military. The movement started by Aquino and supported by Cardinal Sin definitely set the conditions for this to happen, but if the military remained loyal to Marcus the movement would have failed.

[Bob's World]

Violence or the threat of violence has always played a key role in these movements.

Is this not also the case with Diplomacy? With Deterrence? Is not "the threat of violence" typically the forcing function behind much of the influence that governments wield?

Do not be distracted by that fact, the point is that insurgent movements may well set conditions for success through violence; but that they ultimately achieve their aims more effectively once they switch to non-violent tactics.

I was under the impression that this site was focused primarily on not how to go out and about the globe starting and winning small wars so much as it is about effectively preventing, or when that is not possible, prevailing when confronted with the same.

Currently there is tremendous unrest in many populaces around the world. They will act out. They have a choice, to do nothing and endure the unendurable; to act out violently; or, to act out non-violently. Insurgency is the condition among the populace that makes them feel this way. Violence is merely a tactic they employ to address that condition.

The point of this thread in not just to get those out there faced with this condition of insurgency to see that they have other options than to act out illegally to address such conditions when legal options are either denied or ineffective than to go straight to violent warfare against the state. The point of this thread is also to those in the Counterinsurgency business to see that COIN is not warfare per se, but rather that it is a condition that must be addressed, not an enemy defeated or war won. At times it will become just that, a bloody affair that must be dealt with. That won't resolve the conditions of insurgency, but if the populace goes down that route they need to understand that it will not end well for them.

For those who prescribe to "protecting the populace" as the primary tenet of COIN, why not make part of your campaign being to encourage the populace to switch to non-violent tactics to address their concerns? That is going to be far more acceptable to them than accusing them of having mass mental illness through "radicalization," or simply telling them through information campaigns that they are wrong about how they feel about there government. At times it might be better to simply say "you make a good point, but you are going about it all wrong." As has been pointed out, even the hardest, most warlike insurgents have found the success they seek in making such transitions from violence to non-violence.

For parties who are outside the "family" of the populace from which both the insurgent and government rise and compete for influence over, what does it matter who prevails so long as they represent the majority of the populace and are willing to join the global community and operate reasonably within the same? Every successful insurgent becomes immediately a struggling counterinsurgent unless they evolve to providing good governance to the populace they represent. If those foreign parties are focused on stability and securing their interests in a particular region first, and who actually governs second, they will be more successful.

This is one of the largest disconnects in US COIN doctrine. It makes the presumption that success requires sustaining the current government in power. Unless that government evolves in the process, all that does is reset the conditions of failure when an insurgent organization was merely defeated militarily. Once we retire the presumptions that COIN is war, and that sustaining a poor governance in power is success, we move to the next level in dealing more effectively with such situations.

[Bob's World]

"War is war. There are varying types of warfare, but defeating an irregular enemy is rooted in some fairly well understood methods of applying military force. What we see with "counterinsurgency theory" is a collection of fallacies that seeks to suggest that somehow defeating an irregular force in rebellion or revolt is not best enabled by applying lethal force against the right people for the right political reason.
If you inflict military defeat on the enemy, you remove his ability to use violence as a political instrument.
You do not out-govern the enemy. You kill him." (Posted by Wilf on a different thread).

Ok, I think this quote represents fairly Wilf's point. It is a reasonable position, and one that is widely held. You don't have to knock on too many doors at the Pentagon to find someone who thinks the best response to illegal violence is a well applied dose of legal violence in kind.

But how does that resolve the underlying condition that gave rise to that violence? Suppression of insurgency works, granted. Tito's Yugoslavia, Stalin's Russia, Saudi Arabia, to name but a few. The examples are many. But in all of these the conditions of insurgency continue to smolder and fester, and once that suppressive force is removed, tend to explode in uncontrolled violence that no one wants (Balkans, Rwanda, and on and on...)

So, if insurgency is seen not as the violent response to these conditions, but rather as the condition itself, it opens up options to both the insurgent and the counterinsurgent as how to go about best resolving the problem. The military may well be given the task of violently suppressing some insurgent group; but that will not resolve the conditions of insurgency. It never has, and it never will. Just as the state must judiciously apply violence when necessary, but most often hold it back in the form of the threat of violence to impose it's will, so must a savvy populace when faced with conditions of insurgency.

Besides, sometimes the government yields its position when faced with non-violence because they recognize it is the right thing to do for everyone involved, and the actions of the insurgent have served primarily to accelerate the timeline. They are not faced with the potential loss of face associated with yielding to violent pressure, and they also have many sane and legal voices from respected organizations around the globe that often come on line supporting the position of the non-violent insurgent as well. Bottom line is that while they could win "the final argument of kings", they realize that doing the right thing is more important than proving one is more powerful. The U.S. Civil rights movement, the collapse of Soviet control of Eastern Europe, the independence of India, etc.

I suspect there are some timelines in the Middle East that could use a bit of acceleration as well. Better that is done non-violently than through the terrorist tactics espoused by Bin Laden and his AQ organization. The sooner the populaces of the Middle East come to recognize this, the sooner they can correct the conditions that they find oppressive. Bin Laden is not an insurgent, he is waging UW to leverage the conditions of insurgency that exist in these populaces. Once those populaces believe they have better options, Bin Laden becomes moot and his movement collapses. To simply destroy Bin Laden and AQ will open the door for the next generation to step forward, and they may well achieve levels of violence that Bin Laden only dreams about. That would be a major strategic error on our part to enable that to happen.

[MikeF]

My curiousity of late has centered around the decision making process an actor uses to determine:

1. Rebel/Revolt/Secede violently
2. Rebel/Revolt/Secede non-violently
3. A dual prong strategy of violent and non-violent movements

Here's a couple of good references,

Constructing the Revolution:
The Social Psychological Development of Radical Spiritual Leaders
by John Ty Grubbs

Deep Inside the Insurgent’s Mind:
Past the Motorcycle Diaries towards understanding Che Guevera
by Hugues Esquerre

Walking with the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement
by John Lewis

Mike

[Bob's World]

A note and link from Dr. Stephan:

"...As for the empirics behind Dr. Erica's Chenoweth's and my contention that nonviolent campaigns have been nearly twice as effective at achieving their strategic goals as their violent counterparts, please check out Erica's web-site (she directs the Program on Terrorism and Insurgency Research at Wesleyan), which contains the Nonviolent and Violent Conflict Dataset (NAVCO). Here it is:"
http://echenoweth.faculty.wesleyan.edu/ptir/.

[jmm99]

to expanded versions of her publications and primary sources, Research and Data.

Cheers

Mike

[William F. Owen]

If you inflict military defeat on the enemy, you remove his ability to use violence as a political instrument.
You do not out-govern the enemy. You kill him." (Posted by Wilf on a different thread).

Correct. This is an immutable verity.

But how does that resolve the underlying condition that gave rise to that violence? Suppression of insurgency works, granted.

None of your business. The underlying causes of an insurgency are utterly irrelevant to you. As a US Army officer, it is absolutely above your pay grade and not your job to address these problems.- quite the opposite! You are an instrument of US Government Policy. You are not there to make the world a better place. Your job is to make the US President the most powerful man in the world, if that's what he wants.
You are their to lay the hard hand of war on who he tells you. He has other people to do the non-violent parts of diplomacy.

With some sense of irony, US Special Forces once had a de-facto mission to create violent insurgencies amongst populations who were not dissatisfied with their Government. - and they still should if that serves US policy.