Defining Insurgency

[Bob's World]

Well I certainly see terrorism as a tactic, and the same with counterterrorism.

Often, when the conditions of insurgency exist, groups with too much brain and not enough brawn to try to go toe to toe with the government symmetrically, but who opt for violent tactics over non-violent tactics, will employ the tactic of terrorism to advance their cause.

Similarly, those who emerge from communities that are not experiencing conditions of insurgency significant enough to support the emergence of insurgent groups will often employ tactics of terrorism. This can be a McVeigh from the heartland of America who believes the federal government must be attacked; or perhaps a young man in Paris who's own community is not to the level of supporting insurgent groups (yet) but he acts out in support of a group he strongly affiliates that he believes is being oppressed, or that the oppression is supported, by the government he attacks.

Or it can be by a profit motivated group like a Mexican drug cartel.

Many would argue it is also a tactic employed by governments to break the will of the populaces of the states they wage war against. (Though in equal number there are those who take the position that a state cannot conduct an act of terrorism, which I find a bit self-serving. "I write the rules, so I can't break the rules")

Perhaps a bridge concept is this idea I am developing about the conditions of insurgency.

The conditions of insurgency could be quite high, but there not be any insurgent groups actively working. This could be like in Saudi Arabia where to act out is to disappear, or it could be just because that catalytic event to set things in motion has not happened yet.

So, the Act of insurgency is different than the condition of insurgency. The act may well be considered a strategy, that then in turn employ some mix of violent and non-violent tactics. But success is not from attacking the groups that emerge. Success is not from countering either the tactics or the strategy. Success is from addressing the conditions. The rest you must contend with, but the conditions are what one must understand and resolve.

Typically waging war against the organizations, strategies or tactics is counter-productive to addressing the conditions.

[slapout9]

Often, when the conditions of insurgency exist,

This is where I disagree slightly. There are no conditions of Insurgency. There are conditions of Illegitimacy someone and it is always a someone(s) that claims to have some moral right to pass a rule/law that benefits the few at the expense of the many. When these conditions of Illegitimacy exist it will eventually lead to some type of an Insurgency/Strategy to correct the "Moral Bomb" that is about to explode.

[Bob's World]

Slap, Ok, there is no right answer, and we're both dropping rounds with effects on target. I prefer my breakdown as I have it, as I don't want to pack too much into one box. I very intentionally unpacked Justice and respect and hope as I feel it helps to assess the situation and design solutions.

If you say simply "fix legitimacy" we send in the elections team, conduct elections and then say "there, they held elections so conditions of legitmacy are establshed." Whoa nelly, not so fast... Too simple results in solutions that are too simplistic. Even with the four criteria I use I still routinely get "yes, but what do you want us to do??"

To reduce the entire complexity of insurgency to one concept is like the law student tale of the student who kept reducing his outline for his contracts class until he had it compressed from 100+ pages ultimately down to a single word nemonic. Then when he sat for the test he forgot that word... Too much compression can be a bad thing.

[slapout9]

If you say simply "fix legitimacy" we send in the elections team, conduct elections and then say "there, they held elections so conditions of legitmacy are establshed." Whoa nelly, not so fast... Too simple results in solutions that are too simplistic. Even with the four criteria I use I still routinely get "yes, but what do you want us to do??"

But you see that is my point. That is what we would probably do but that does not make it legitimate to the population in focus. Maybe they don't want an election system that creates continuous turmoil and uncertainty,maybe they would rather have something else. There are other systems out there that are better(in the populations eyes) and we are going to learn and accept that or we will end up with a very hard road to travel.

[John T. Fishel]

Sir Robert Thompson said, in his book Defeating Communist Insurgency, "If the [revolutionary] organization is already established, well-trained, and disciplined., it will not be defeated by reforms designed to eliminate the cause. It will only be defeated by establishing a superior organization and applying measures to break the revolutionary organization." (For revolutionary organization we can substitute the insurgents or insurgent organization.)

Cheers

JohnT

[Entropy]

Sir Robert Thompson said, in his book Defeating Communist Insurgency, "If the [revolutionary] organization is already established, well-trained, and disciplined., it will not be defeated by reforms designed to eliminate the cause. It will only be defeated by establishing a superior organization and applying measures to break the revolutionary organization." (For revolutionary organization we can substitute the insurgents or insurgent organization.)

Cheers

JohnT

That seems to pretty much describe the various fighting factions during the Russian Revolution. I can't find the exact quote at the moment, but Lenin said something like, "Power was rolling around in the streets and we just happened to pick it up."

And actually, the demise of the Russian Empire is an interesting history regarding questions on insurgency. There were organizations that began as ideological movements, then became what we might call insurgents, then fielded conventional fighting forces during the civil war, then were beaten to return to underground movements, insurgents etc. Added into this were many nationalist/separatist movements, anarchists, plus a lot of foreign intervention.

Since the definition of insurgency seems to be continually up for debate, I'm beginning to wonder if it isn't one of those things that exists in the eye of the beholder - IOW kind of like pornography - difficult to describe, but one "knows it when they see it."

[Ken White]

will in future occur not due to poor governance but simply to replace whatever governance exists -- good, bad or as most are, indifferent -- with 'OUR governance.'

Government is not a terribly natural thing. It is needed but it is rarely truly good -- people intrude and screw it up -- I can think of no nation that has a truly 'totally satisfied with the government' population. I can think of a great many that have political parties or grouping that do not like the current milieu and wish to change it. The drive to do that violently often comes from the "poor governane" aspect -- it also comes from the 'we want OUR governance' crowd.

As Steve Metz said:

The unspoken assumption is that insurgencies occur because states don't adequately follow the Western-defined path, and will be defeated if states do.

That's true and the western construct can lead one down a primrose path...

Seems to me that Insurgency thus can be -- most often is -- a strategy. If adopted as a strategy by the Insurgents, their issue then becomes the degree or intensity for the insurgency, i.e, what techniques or methods will be used to implement the strategy.

Or, to quote Slapout9:

Insurgency is a Method....used by a Motivated individual(s).....to exploit any available Opportunity.

Yep and IMO, that makes it a Strategery to use that method to exploit sumpn...

[Bill Moore]

Ken, as you well know I strongly agree with your view,

will in future occur not due to poor governance but simply to replace whatever governance exists -- good, bad or as most are, indifferent -- with 'OUR governance.'

Legitimacy is concept that we in the West approach with great bias based on American liberalism (and usually promoted by our lawyers), yet it has little to do with real reasons people fight. In the simpliest and truest terms insurgency is a violent struggle for power. The victor whether insurgent or the current regime will never be viewed as legitimate by all in the vast majority of countries. America and some nations are unique in that we established a functional melting pot, but that is not a model we can impose on other nations. Of course that didn't happen overnight, and it can be argued we didn't achieve internal stability until 100 years after the Civil War.

Posted by John T.

Sir Robert Thompson said, in his book Defeating Communist Insurgency, "If the [revolutionary] organization is already established, well-trained, and disciplined., it will not be defeated by reforms designed to eliminate the cause. It will only be defeated by establishing a superior organization and applying measures to break the revolutionary organization." (For revolutionary organization we can substitute the insurgents or insurgent organization.)

This is a fact that has been demonstrated again and again throughout history. At this point it is no longer really about politics, but more about basic pychology and sociology principles that influence people's behavior. Too many people confuse the underlying causes that led insurgencies to oust the illegitimate colonialists after WWII with all cases of insurgency. Insurgency in 2010 is not about throwing out colonial governments and replacing them with even worse governments, but a struggle for power that has little to do with legitimacy and much more to do with greed and hatred.

Finally injecting UW into the insurgency debate simply muddies the waters. UW is an American definition for a means that other nations and non-state organizations have used for centuries. For the regime still being challenged it is a State sponsored insurgency. It is still an insurgency. Iran may use the strategy of insurgency to pursue its goals in Lebanon for example. This is the risk of falling in love with our definitions, we'll end up describing and responding to the conflict in a way that conforms to our pre-determined definitions and doctrine.