Recognizing Distinct Types of Insurgency - "Know the type of conflict you are in."

[Bob's World]

Slap,

What is a "religious insurgency"?? I mean, I get it, that it that often the identity-based population group that is oppressed or discriminated against by the governance over them to the point they feel compelled to act out illegally to force political change is along religious lines, but to call that "religious insurgency" is to shift the focus from the problems of governance to a defining characteristic of one of the parties.

Historians often focus on the superficial. So if the rebelling population is Catholic and the population in power is Protestant, (as in Northern Ireland) they focus on that religious distinction, and not on the fact that Protestant England invaded and colonized Catholic Ireland and the resultant resistance against that perceived illegitimate foreign presence.

Historians often use terms loosely as well. The will use terms like "revolution," "insurrection," "emergency," "resistance," "insurgency," "rebellion," etc as if they all mean exactly the same thing, and I suspect just going with the one that sounds the best poetically.

As to radical Islam? One has to take a radical stance in one's rhetoric if one is going to take on the establishment. You can't just say "we stand for the same perspective as the government, but come risk your life and fortune to join us in an illegal challenge against that government."

Protestants were once the radicals. Now they are the WASPs that are synonymous for conservative and boring. This is why fixating on how a message is being corrupted for the purposes of running an insurgency is so dangerous. But I know why governments do it. Far better to get everyone focused on and excited about the outrageous aspects of the challenger's message, than to have them focus on the reasonableness of much of the political rationale for the insurgency itself.

So, I'll go on record right here. There is no such thing as "religious insurgency." (Other than the movement led by Jesus, that was totally focused on changing religion, and pointedly had no beef with the occupying Romans or Herod the Jewish agent of the Romans). Many insurgents use religion in their ideology, but that is the sales pitch, not the driver of the challenge.

[slapout9]

Galula said that are several types of insurgencies of which, a religious insurgency is one type. I can't remember the page number but it is near the front of his book.

The radical insurgency inside Islxam started in 1979 with the seizure of the holy mosque in Mecca and everything else we see today is an extension of that event.

[TheCurmudgeon]

I will back up one step and start at the beginning. War is always the same and it is based in human psychology, but it goes back farther than politics. I define war as deadly or potentially deadly organized violence committed by a subset of one group, whose actions are morally sanctioned by that group, against a discrete and identifiable other group with a specific objective or goal.

Now, the key at this point is that war, having its foundation in human nature, it has to have a purpose in human development. Since intergroup conflict, or primitive war, was a normal activity for humans in our ancient past (or among the surviving hunter-gatherers), what was their motivation? As it turns out, it was their basic need to survive and reproduce. Conflicts were the result of territorial incursions, retaliation for attacks, and to take women. Other humans invading your territory meant reducing the natural resources your group has to survive on. Letting an attack go unaddressed meant that your group was easy prey. Women were needed to bear children and war tended to be a male dominated activity. At a very basic level, it was the need to survive and reproduce that drove conflict.

It makes sense that human needs were the drive behind human warfare. Human needs motivate human activity . Satisfying needs is necessary for human existence. War was an adapted strategy for humans. “A number of distinct, but overlapping evolutionary approaches to understanding collective violence (with a particular focus on war) have been developed in the last two decades. These approaches share a common assumption that warfare has been selected for in human evolutionary history, although they differ in terms of the hypothesized evolutionary function, and particular evolutionary trajectory of collective violence (citations omitted).” It is reasonable to assume that an adaptive strategy must somehow enhance survival. Therefore it makes perfect sense that a social animal would engage in a societal version of conflict to defend what they need to survive or even take from others the necessities of life if the opportunity presents.

So, war will not be about money, but it can be for power. It can be about anything that is a basic need - survival, reproduction, security, self-esteem, self-expression, autonomy. These are what we go to war over. So however you characterize it, its source needs to be found here. Also, war, as conducted by tribal groups, is a sanctioned activity. Crime is not.

[slapout9]

War is the use of force or FRAUD to obtain an object or goal. This obsession with just a use of force is why we keep loosing. We continue to wear blinders and cannot see the use of outright FRAUD as a Weapon. Every good cop knows this but few soldiers ever get it.

[TheCurmudgeon]

One other point. Assuming that humans psychological motivation for the collective act that is war is based in some need, there can be no "religious" war or insurgency. There can be a war based on identity and self-esteem - "our God is the one true God and yours is false" - but religion is not the true driving force. There is no human need for religion. So as long as that is what you are looking at you will never find the true origin of the motivation of the various actors.

[Bob's World]

Galula said that are several types of insurgencies of which, a religious insurgency is one type. I can't remember the page number but it is near the front of his book.

The radical insurgency inside Islxam started in 1979 with the seizure of the holy mosque in Mecca and everything else we see today is an extension of that event.

Slap, religion is one of the primary types of ideology employed in insurgency, but remember, Galula was a counterinsurgent, not an insurgent. He looked at the problem through the biased eyes of a foreign colonist. He grew up a Frenchman in Africa, and in his book he also said that the insurgency was never against France, only against the ineffective colonial regimes France had put in power. In short, for all of the good in Galula, he was just a man with bias and opinions just like you and I. I think he missed the ball on that particular insight.

As to the Middle East, the political revolts of the modern era against governance began long before 1979. Look to the Constitutional Revolutions in Turkey and Iraq in 1906-08; or the broad resistance energy against the Ottomans that Lawrence tapped into across the Arabian Peninsula and Levant in WWI. By 1979 the concerns with the how Saudi governance was heading were growing. One cannot separate governance from religion in the Middle East, but what you are pointing to are illegal challenges to governance.

But I could be missing something. Lets find an example purely about religion in deed, not just message, and lets discuss.

[Bob's World]

Remember, a main point of this thread is to discuss that most insurgency is not war at all. Resistance between two distinct political systems fits the war paradigm; but revolution within a single political system simply does not share the same nature that is common to war, even though it often shares the same characteristics. We need to deal with things for what they are, not for what they look like.

[TheCurmudgeon]

Remember, a main point of this thread is to discuss that most insurgency is not war at all. Resistance between two distinct political systems fits the war paradigm; but revolution within a single political system simply does not share the same nature that is common to war, even though it often shares the same characteristics. We need to deal with things for what they are, not for what they look like.

I would agree. Revolution does not fit into the definition of war, as long as it is fought within the same group. Not sure how to define it.

[slapout9]

The 1979 siege at Mecca was about Islam not being pure enough....was it not? So radical Islamist wanted to take over what I call mainstream Islam and convert it a pure form of Islam. At least in their eyes. So that seems like a religious insurgency to me. It was not about governance as much as about Islam IMO.

[Bill Moore]

I would agree. Revolution does not fit into the definition of war, as long as it is fought within the same group. Not sure how to define it.

Of course you can't define it, and you can't define war. You think war is this, and Bob can think I it is something else, and I can think it is completely something different. Slap thinks it includes fraud, which seems a bit of a stretch, but since doctrinal explanations no longer (if they ever did) address reality they have little utility outside of their legal context. In the U.S., and in the U.S. only, the government has certain war time powers it can leverage if war is actually declared.

We could all sit around a table drinking beer and find we actually agree with each other on many things, but we each call these things different names. This isn't a minor issue, the military can't be a true profession until it develops a lexicon that the entire force recognizes AND it adapts to the world as it really is. Falling back on Thucydides, Clausewitz, Mao, etc. is a start, but history didn't stop.

For the time being I'm sticking with the definition of war in JP-1, but even that falls short.

[TheCurmudgeon]

Of course you can't define it, and you can't define war. You think war is this, and Bob can think I it is something else, and I can think it is completely something different. Slap thinks it includes fraud, which seems a bit of a stretch, but since doctrinal explanations no longer (if they ever did) address reality they have little utility outside of their legal context. In the U.S., and in the U.S. only, the government has certain war time powers it can leverage if war is actually declared.

We could all sit around a table drinking beer and find we actually agree with each other on many things, but we each call these things different names. This isn't a minor issue, the military can't be a true profession until it develops a lexicon that the entire force recognizes AND it adapts to the world as it really is. Falling back on Thucydides, Clausewitz, Mao, etc. is a start, but history didn't stop.

For the time being I'm sticking with the definition of war in JP-1, but even that falls short.

But Bill, this is the root of the problem. Until we can decide on a definition we are going no where. The JP-1 defines war as a socially sanctioned violence to achieve a political purpose. By this definition, when O'Rielly claimed that he was in a war zone during violent street protest in Argentina where the people were seeking relief for political grievances, he was absolutely right - he was in the middle of a war.

Until we define our terms we will simply talk past one another.

My biggest problem with most of these discussions is that they are largely merely philosophical. There is very little "science" in Military Science. It is mostly history - arguing about this conflict or that. It never digs down to find a common root in all war.

This is why I feel that, before we start this conversation on how to categorize wars, we need to properly define war. Perhaps that is another thread, but I still feel it is important.

... while I am ranting, there is also precious little science in Political Science, so tying our definition to the political realm is only marginally helpful, and largely useless in insurgencies and revolutions.

[slapout9]

Slap thinks it includes fraud, which seems a bit of a stretch, but since doctrinal explanations no longer (if they ever did) address reality they have little utility outside of their legal context.

Bill,
I do believe that and so did Galula and so most LE people I know because we see gangs use it everyday. They firmly believe that if you get what you want by lying that is the way to go, if not then use violence.

[davidbfpo]

I think this book review fits here, as it refers to a governing elite amidst an insurgency and a 'border war(s)' chaning course:

The regime had an efficient army and a repressive police force. Insurgency was minimal, despite hostile frontline states across the borders in Angola, Zimbabwe and Mozambique. Trade sanctions had reinforced Pretoria in its self-righteous isolation, incidentally ridding the country of foreign profit-takers. South Africa’s economy was Africa’s strongest. The sports boycott was irritating, but not remotely such as to induce Afrikaners to capitulate to a black majority....I could see no reason why this should change any time soon. The whites were entrenched....Then suddenly in 1989-91 came a revolution.

What happened next was equally crucial. De Klerk had a Damascene conversion, boldly and emphatically turning to reform. He realised that apartheid was losing intellectual and moral sway over the white minority. He could see the game was up. So-called “separate development” was administrative chaos, with black immigrants pouring into the lucrative mining sector and spreading south into the Cape Province. Most whites sensed change had to come, but they were terrified of what it might mean.

Link:http://www.theguardian.com/books/201...renwick-review

[Bob's World]

The 1979 siege at Mecca was about Islam not being pure enough....was it not? So radical Islamist wanted to take over what I call mainstream Islam and convert it a pure form of Islam. At least in their eyes. So that seems like a religious insurgency to me. It was not about governance as much as about Islam IMO.

Slap, I read a pretty good book on this a couple years ago, and as I recall without going back to do the research, the '79 movement in KSA that took the Holy Mosque in Mecca (and the separate but parallel movement to expel the Americans from Iran) were both extremely political in nature.

In the Kingdom the leader of the movement employed an Islamic ideology, and identified a young man who had the characteristics described in the Koran as prophet who would liberate the people to serve as the central selling point in his movement. The people who believed political change was necessary to that point had been deterred by law, state power, etc. But with the coming of this prophet they believed it was time to act. Power manipulation for political purpose, wrapped in religion. But at the heart, it was a political challenge and revolutionary non-war.

[slapout9]

Slap, I read a pretty good book on this a couple years ago, and as I recall without going back to do the research, the '79 movement in KSA that took the Holy Mosque in Mecca (and the separate but parallel movement to expel the Americans from Iran) were both extremely political in nature.

In the Kingdom the leader of the movement employed an Islamic ideology, and identified a young man who had the characteristics described in the Koran as prophet who would liberate the people to serve as the central selling point in his movement. The people who believed political change was necessary to that point had been deterred by law, state power, etc. But with the coming of this prophet they believed it was time to act. Power manipulation for political purpose, wrapped in religion. But at the heart, it was a political challenge and revolutionary non-war.

Bob,
No it wasn't and that is the point. Islam is primary to politics, bad governance was going to be "fixed" by good religion. I would say all belief systems are primary to governance that is where we get into trouble. Good politics doesn't counter God only a Religious reformation can do that.