Wilf,
Exactly my point when you mention the state of current definitions of insurgency and COIN. They are all derived from and colored by the colonial intervention experience. For one to argue that other perspectives are flawed because they challenge time-honored perspectives puts one in a large, but not necessarily good company with those who:
1. Ignored the need for cleanliness and separation of the sick to avoid infection and transmission of diseases. After all, centuries of medical journals "Prove" that the development of illness is the will of god.
2. Laughed at Columbus' proposal to sail west to reach the east, though there was much evidence that this was true, all of the official works declared it impossible.
3. Same for those who suggested the earth rotated around the sun, etc.
Bottom line, is that centuries of a particular influence and history will shape thinking on timeless concepts that man really has little or no influence over. The colonial experience shapes how those who's culture derives from Western Europe think about insurgency. How could it not?
But to throw out trite lines like "politics is power" is kind of like holding your breath until you turn blue and stomping your feet until I agree with you. So let's look at some of those definitions, ok??
FM3-24:
"insurgency: (joint) An organized movement aimed at the overthrow of a constituted government through the use of subversion and armed conflict. (JP 1-02)."
Ok, I would argue that that is the military shaping a definition to fit their paradigm (and that virtually all joint definitions are a compromise between service positions on a topic and usually suffer from that process). Two aspects that have little to do with causation and everything to do with how it actually manifests in a manner that makes it a military problem to solve are the phrases "constituted government" and "and armed conflict." Is it any less an insurgency if this occur in some culture that does not "constitute" it's governments? No, but such "non-state" problems are too messy, so the military excludes them from being their problem to deal with. "..and armed conflict." Well, the military claims that COIN is a form of warfare, so therefore insurgency must only be where "armed conflict" exists right? There is a "chicken and the egg" dynamic at work here as well as strong shades of our colonial roots. After all, if we go to some foreign land, and constitute a government to rule over them, and then the populace challenges that government with armed conflict, we have an insurgency on our hands and need to wage warfare to reestablish our foreign mandated status quo, right??
Galula (page 1 and 2 of "Counterinsurgency Warfare, Theory and Practice) takes a more exploratory approach:
"a revolutionary war is primarily an internal conflict...the strategically important fact that they were challenging a local ruling power controlling the existing administration, police and armed forces."
"the conflict results from the action of the insurgent aiming to seize political power..."
"Paraphrasing Clausewitz, we might say that 'Insurgency is the pursuit of of the policy of a party, inside a country, by every means.' It is not like an ordinary war - a 'continuation of the policy by other means' - because an insurgency can start long before the insurgent resorts to the use of force."
I think Galula is correct in this insight, and as noted above, the U.S. Army abandoned this perspective for one that better fits their paradigm. Insurgency does indeed start long before the insurgent resorts to violence. Where Galua and I will quibble a bit is on his definitions of COIN. He contends that:
"only one - the insurgent- can initiate a revolutionary war, for counterinsurgency is only an effect of insurgency."
Ok, come on Dave, really? This is that tendency of governments refusing to take responsibility for the effects of their actions, and begs the question "what is insurgency the effect of"?? I contend that all governance is essentially "COIN" but that prior to the growth of subversion and violence it is primarily pre-insurgent and preventative in nature. But as the "goodness" of governance degrades in critical areas (the ones I find most important are legitimacy, justice, equity and hope) that governance becomes less preventative of insurgency and more responsive to insurgency as the populace begins to act out in illegal ways.
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