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    Council Member SteveMetz's Avatar
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    Default Insurgency in the 21st Century

    Just for chuckles and grins, I thought I'd toss the introduction to the book I'm working on up here. The title is Perdition's Gate: Insurgency in the 21st Century. It's under contract to Polity (although I'm past due so they may dump me). I only have about 50 additional pages written, but am plugging away.

    The mere mention of insurgency evokes diverse images and emotions. For some, it is admirable, even glorious, with heroic freedom fighters throwing caution and personal safety to the wind in pursuit of elusive justice. For the populations who have lived through it, it is tragedy, a source of protracted danger and suffering, often with both insurgents and counterinsurgents acting as violent parasites. For security forces which confront it, it is a vexing and complex problem where strength and weakness take bizarre psychological forms, where the normal logic of strategy is twisted in strange ways, often leaving no good courses of action, only a series of bad and worse ones. For Western publics, the image is often of confusing and desultory wars in confusing, far away places stealing their treasure and youths. None of these are entirely wrong. Insurgency is all this. And more.

    How can one thing have such radically diverse implications, even meanings? The answer is that insurgency is simply a strategy (albeit a psychologically complex one with a paradoxical logic). Its techniques vary in diverse venues. Insurgency in one cultural and historical setting is somewhat like insurgency in other ones, but is also very different. At its simplest, insurgency is a strategy adopted by groups which feel compelled to force a major alteration of the political situation in which they find themselves but see no other effective means to do so. They reject working within the existing political structures and are too weak to change in through a direct application of power, whether a coup de main or the waging of conventional war.

    Like conventional war, insurgency has both an enduring essence and a changing nature. Its essence is protracted, asymmetric violence; political, legal, and ethical ambiguity; and the use of complex terrain, psychological warfare, and political mobilization. It arises when a group decides that the gap between their political expectations and the opportunities afforded them is unacceptable and can only be remedied by force. Insurgents avoid battlespaces where they are at a disadvantage--often the conventional military sphere--and focus on those where they can attain parity, particularly the psychological and the political. They seek to postpone decisive action, avoid defeat, sustain themselves, expand their support, and alter the power balance in their favor. And because insurgency involves a layered psychological complexity, multiple audiences and a range of participants with different methods and objectives, it is imbued with what Edward Luttwak called a “paradoxical logic”--what initially appears best may not be, and every positive action has negative implications as well.

    Insurgency in some form has existed as long as there have been states and empires. As these political units expanded their territory and control, they sometimes encountered less formal organizations like tribes and clans, many with a warrior ethos and a tradition of raiding and small scale armed violence. These informal groupings lacked the resources to confront states and empires through conventional methods. They were, by contrast, practiced in the ways of irregular warfare and what later became known as guerrilla operations. So they did what they could. The result was asymmetric warfare that often dragged out for years, decades, even centuries. It may have not been modern insurgency with its focus on the psychological domain but it was, at least, "proto-insurgency." The same sometimes happened when populations under the control of a state or empire grew restive to the point of violent resistance or otherwise sought to further their ends through armed violence. Asymmetric methods, particularly guerrilla warfare, piracy, or organized banditry were their only options.

    Modern insurgency, then, is the linear descendent of protracted asymmetric warfare and other forms of irregular or guerrilla activity organized for political objectives and focused on the psychological battlespace. It too has existed for a very long time. It is impossible identify its historic beginnings. But, over time, it has varied in two dimensions. One is the role that insurgency plays in the wider security environment. It has vacillated, for instance, in strategic significance. At times it has played a major role in shaping the wider security environment, at other times it has been peripheral. Similarly, there have been periods when insurgency is closely linked to other forms of conflict. In the Cold War, for instance, it was surrogate war between superpowers concerned that direct confrontation between them might escalate to nuclear armageddon. At other times, insurgencies raged with little relationship to the interaction of great powers (the African, Asian, and American insurgencies of the 1990s, for instance). The second dimension is the form and dynamics of insurgency itself. This has multiple components which will be explored in this book.

    The question, then, is why this book has been written. There are two central reasons. First, insurgency itself—and, by necessity, counterinsurgency—are changing. One of the most important tasks for both scholars and professionals working the fields of security and intelligence is to understand the distinction between insurgency's enduring essence and its changing nature. It would be a mistake to err too far on either the side of continuity or change. Insurgency is different in some key ways than during its "golden age" of the second half of the 20th century. But not everything has transformed. Throughout this book, then, we will point a finer point on the observation that insurgency has both an enduring essence and a changing nature, seeking to add analytical meat to that skeleton of an idea.

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    Council Member SteveMetz's Avatar
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    Default Introduction, Continued

    The second reason we have undertaken this project is that the existing scholarly literature on insurgency, for all of its great sweeps of description, analysis, and creativity, has shortcomings. It is dominated by several types of works. One includes "how to" manuals, normally written by a practitioner experienced at either making insurgency or countering it. This genre is extensive. A catalog of it would include such luminaries as T.E. Lawrence, Mao Zedong, Che Guevara, Vo Nguyen Giap, Carlos Marighella, Richard Taber, and, from the counterinsurgency perspective David Galula, Roger Trinquier, Frank Kitson, Julian Paget, and Robert Thompson. Several U.S. military officers who have developed expertise on insurgency and explained it on the pages of military journals such as Parameters and Military Review would fall into this group, including U.S. Army generals Peter Chiarelli and David Petreaus and retired colonels John D. Waghelstein and Kalev Sepp, British brigadier Nigel Aylwin-Foster, retired British brigadier Gavin Bulloch, and former Australian army officer David Kilcullen. Closely related are writers from within the military, intelligence, or defense analytical communities who, while bringing impressive scholarship to bear, are concerned with what the U.S. government calls "actionable" analysis. They not only provide assessments, but derive strategic and operational recommendations from them, seeking praxis. This group would include John McCuen, Douglas Blaufarb, Bard O'Neill, Thomas X. Hammes, Robert Cassidy, Bruce Hoffman, John Nagl, David Kilcullen, and Max Manwaring among others. A third group would include academic historians or political scientists with an historical bent such as Robert Asprey, Ian Beckett and Anthony Joes.

    In the broadest sense, then, the literature consists of "how to" analysis or historical narrative. Without deprecating the importance of either, we seek something different, specifically to unveil and explain the dynamics of insurgency. The first part oif our appraoch will explain and assess the context of insurgency. There are specific political, cultural, and strategic settings in which insurgencies tend to emerge and flourish. We will not pursue the "causes" per se, but will explore the factors which facilitate insurgency. The second will explore the conceptual maps of those who undertake insurgency, who confront it, who support it or those who use it, or who become inadvertent participants. These are composed of discrete decisions. We will, as much as the data allows, explore the key strategic decisions made by participants in insurgency (to include counterinsurgency). For each strategic decision, we know what was decided, but will explore and assess why decisions were made the way they were. What were the expectations of the participants? Their priorities? What other options might they have considered? Why, in other words, did they make the decision they did rather than a different one (which likely would have had a different result)? In a sense, within these pages we will emulate the powerful analytical and teaching tools used by many militaries. The first is the "staff ride." In this, experts take groups to places on battlefields then provide background information to help them understand why, at that place and at a given time, military commanders thought and decided as they did. While we will not take readers to the scene of insurgent conflict, we will attempt to do so in a virtual sense. The second tool is wargaming. Advanced militaries make extensive use of this, having game participants role play, giving them information that those actually involved in warfighting or strategic decisionmaking would have, then seeing how they respond. And why.

    Rather than stand alone case studies of past or present insurgencies, we will use a wide range of vignettes to illustrate its dynamics. Our goal will be to integrate vignettes from a wide range of insurgencies. Like any type of armed conflict, insurgency has some cross-cutting characteristics but also a number of regional or cultural peculiarities. Thus we will exploit illustrative examples from Asia, Africa, and the Americas. Finally, we will tackle this project from the perspective of four participants in insurgency: insurgents themselves (whom we will call "the desperate"); counterinsurgents ("the beleaguered"); outside states which support either insurgents or counterinsurgents ("the manipulators"); and, other groups, whether armed or unarmed, which affect insurgencies to include militias, organized crime, private military corporations, the international media, international organizations, and humanitarian relief organizations ("the shapers"). Ultimately, our hope is to provide a new perspective, perhaps even a radical one, on an old phenomenon that, after a very brief slumber, is again capturing the attention of scholars and security professionals.

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    i pwnd ur ooda loop selil's Avatar
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    Need a writing partner?
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    Council Member Abu Buckwheat's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by selil View Post
    Need a writing partner?
    You need to make this a SWJ Group project!
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    Council Member marct's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Abu Buckwheat View Post
    You need to make this a SWJ Group project!
    I've got to agree with that one !

    Just out of interest, Steve, are you using Kilculen's work on complexity in insurgencies? It strikes me that it is the best currently available model.

    Marc
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    Council Member SteveMetz's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by selil View Post
    Need a writing partner?

    Actually, I've been trying the same method I used for my dissertation: when I go to bed at night, I leave the manuscript and some tiny little cookies and thimbles of milk out on my desk and hope that elves come in the darkness and finish it for me.

    That worked before: much of my dissertation reads like it was written by elves on a serious sugar buzz.

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    Council Member SteveMetz's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by marct View Post
    I've got to agree with that one !

    Just out of interest, Steve, are you using Kilculen's work on complexity in insurgencies? It strikes me that it is the best currently available model.

    Marc
    What specifically are you referring to? Dave and I generally think very much alike so I find his stuff very useful. I continue to berate my boss for SSI not publishing his global counterinsurgency piece (despite my strong recommendation). He actually gave it to us first.

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    Council Member marct's Avatar
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    Hi Steve,

    Quote Originally Posted by SteveMetz View Post
    Actually, I've been trying the same method I used for my dissertation: when I go to bed at night, I leave the manuscript and some tiny little cookies and thimbles of milk out on my desk and hope that elves come in the darkness and finish it for me.

    That worked before: much of my dissertation reads like it was written by elves on a serious sugar buzz.
    LOLOL You're more likely to get brownies than elves with that ! Anyway, after having seen your monster barbeque, I suspect that you have way too much cold iron around for that to work !

    Quote Originally Posted by SteveMetz View Post
    What specifically are you referring to? Dave and I generally think very much alike so I find his stuff very useful. I continue to berate my boss for SSI not publishing his global counterinsurgency piece (despite my strong recommendation). He actually gave it to us first.
    That's the one I had in mind specifically. I think it is a really good framework, especially part 3.

    Marc
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    Council Member Mark O'Neill's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by marct View Post
    Hi Steve,



    LOLOL You're more likely to get brownies than elves with that ! Anyway, after having seen your monster barbeque, I suspect that you have way too much cold iron around for that to work !



    That's the one I had in mind specifically. I think it is a really good framework, especially part 3.

    Marc
    One day I hope that people who support the 'global insurgency' theory can explain to me:

    1. Which accepted school of International relations theory they subscribe to that accommodates this theory. Realism certainly does not, nor does any theory that acknowledges or accepts an essentially anarchic global system.

    2. What is the "global" order that the "global insurgents" are trying to overthrow? (Does one assume that they are intuitively neo-rationalists? How does that accord with the fact that many of the commentators who support the theory actually decry the UN, International Law and the liberal interpretations of relations between sovereign states?)

    3. How can we can have a 'global' insurgency of Islamists,that actually is not global?

    As someone who spent awhile(ok, I am slow) in getting my masters in international relations, I have a bit of an issue when historians, anthropologists, sociologists and any other bloody 'ologists' (and the plain ignorant) all of a sudden start offering theories that impinge upon IR theory without clearly having the faintest clue about the subject.

    end rant.
    Last edited by Mark O'Neill; 07-20-2007 at 01:44 PM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Mark O'Neill View Post
    One day I hope that people who support the 'global insurgency' theory can explain to me:

    1. Which accepted school of International relations theory they subscribe to that accommodates this theory. Realism certainly does not, nor does any theory that acknowledges or accepts an essentially anarchic global system.

    2. What is the "global" order that the "global insurgents" are trying to overthrow? (Does one assume that they are intuitively neo-rationalists? How does that accord with the fact that many of the commentators who support the theory actually decry the UN, International Law and the liberal interpretations of relations between sovereign states?)

    3. How can we can have a 'global' insurgency of Islamists,that actually is not global?

    As someone who spent awhile(ok, I am slow) in getting my masters in international relations, I have a bit of an issue when historians, anthropologists, sociologists and any other bloody 'ologists' (and the plain ignorant) all of a sudden start offering theories that impinge upon IR theory without clearly having the faintest clue about the subject.

    end rant.
    This is one of the reasons I get hung up on semantics. I'm one of those "quaint old folks" (well...not really old...not quaint...ok, stubborn bastards) who thinks there is a difference between insurgents and terrorists. To me, the core difference is that insurgents have viable goals and adversaries. Terrorists do not. Their entire construct is aimed at killing and general destabilization. Nothing more. However, the framework of insurgency (especially a "global insurgency") gives terrorists cover and a certain legitimacy they might not otherwise enjoy. I don't buy into the GWOT structure, but I do think there are distinct differences between insurgents and terrorists and that those differences are important.

    end rant.
    "On the plains and mountains of the American West, the United States Army had once learned everything there was to learn about hit-and-run tactics and guerrilla warfare."
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    Council Member SteveMetz's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mark O'Neill View Post
    One day I hope that people who support the 'global insurgency' theory can explain to me:

    1. Which accepted school of International relations theory they subscribe to that accommodates this theory. Realism certainly does not, nor does any theory that acknowledges or accepts an essentially anarchic global system.

    2. What is the "global" order that the "global insurgents" are trying to overthrow? (Does one assume that they are intuitively neo-rationalists? How does that accord with the fact that many of the commentators who support the theory actually decry the UN, International Law and the liberal interpretations of relations between sovereign states?)

    3. How can we can have a 'global' insurgency of Islamists,that actually is not global?

    As someone who spent awhile(ok, I am slow) in getting my masters in international relations, I have a bit of an issue when historians, anthropologists, sociologists and any other bloody 'ologists' (and the plain ignorant) all of a sudden start offering theories that impinge upon IR theory without clearly having the faintest clue about the subject.

    end rant.

    I've never thought of "global insurgency" as a theory of international relations, but as a strategy adopted by a non-state organization. I guess the "global order" that they are trying to "overthrow" is the political/economic hieararchy in which advanced, non-Islamic states dominate the world. And I don't think the word "global" means that they are in every nook and cranny of the world. We spoke of "global communism" even though they didn't literally operate everywhere. (We didn't allow any in South Carolina, for instance).

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    Quote Originally Posted by Steve Blair View Post
    This is one of the reasons I get hung up on semantics. I'm one of those "quaint old folks" (well...not really old...not quaint...ok, stubborn bastards) who thinks there is a difference between insurgents and terrorists. To me, the core difference is that insurgents have viable goals and adversaries. Terrorists do not. Their entire construct is aimed at killing and general destabilization. Nothing more. However, the framework of insurgency (especially a "global insurgency") gives terrorists cover and a certain legitimacy they might not otherwise enjoy. I don't buy into the GWOT structure, but I do think there are distinct differences between insurgents and terrorists and that those differences are important.

    end rant.
    Steve,

    I am in violent agreement with you, as my old oppo in Mozambique would say 'you are deadly right'. The one qualification I would offer is that I think 'terror' is a common weapon that many insurgents choose to use if and when they think that the situation is appropriate.

    Cheers

    Mark

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    Council Member SteveMetz's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mark O'Neill View Post
    Steve,

    I am in violent agreement with you, as my old oppo in Mozambique would say 'you are deadly right'. The one qualification I would offer is that I think 'terror' is a common weapon that many insurgents choose to use if and when they think that the situation is appropriate.

    Cheers

    Mark

    Ditto. As I've mentioned, I consider insurgency a strategy, terrorism a technique or operational method. Most insurgents use terrorism but not everyone who uses terrorism is an insurgent. Take my teenage daughters...

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    Moderator Steve Blair's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mark O'Neill View Post
    Steve,

    I am in violent agreement with you, as my old oppo in Mozambique would say 'you are deadly right'. The one qualification I would offer is that I think 'terror' is a common weapon that many insurgents choose to use if and when they think that the situation is appropriate.

    Cheers

    Mark
    I agree. Terrorism is certainly a tactic, but there are also groups and individuals that rely on it to the exclusion of all else. Lumping them all together misses the boat, IMO, and can lead to poor decision-making.
    "On the plains and mountains of the American West, the United States Army had once learned everything there was to learn about hit-and-run tactics and guerrilla warfare."
    T.R. Fehrenbach This Kind of War

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    Council Member Mark O'Neill's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by SteveMetz View Post
    I've never thought of "global insurgency" as a theory of international relations, but as a strategy adopted by a non-state organization. I guess the "global order" that they are trying to "overthrow" is the political/economic hieararchy in which advanced, non-Islamic states dominate the world. And I don't think the word "global" means that they are in every nook and cranny of the world. We spoke of "global communism" even though they didn't literally operate everywhere. (We didn't allow any in South Carolina, for instance).
    Steve,

    we have to make sure that our words mean precisely what we want them to mean, or we will confuse simple folk. (or find ourselves replicating a scene from 'Alice in Wonderland').

    Social Science 101 tells us that a theory must hold true to a set of understood or declared rules, and be replicable and consistent in order to qualify as a theory.

    If we start to swap the terms 'theory' , 'strategy' and 'description' we are in world of hurt. I think we have a bit of mission creep if folks are now proposing that the alleged phenomena of 'global insurgency' is not a theory ('cause that is certainly the way it appeared in David's piece) but now a 'strategy'.

    Daily changing callsigns are a good opsec measure on tactical radio nets, but a poor substitute for replicable theory.

    As for South Carolina... I guess that even communists recognised the limits of futility
    Last edited by Mark O'Neill; 07-20-2007 at 02:07 PM. Reason: spelling

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    Council Member SteveMetz's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Steve Blair View Post
    I agree. Terrorism is certainly a tactic, but there are also groups and individuals that rely on it to the exclusion of all else. Lumping them all together misses the boat, IMO, and can lead to poor decision-making.

    I can't think of a group that relies on terrorism to the exclusion of all else that is effective. What makes AQ dangerous, in my opinion, is its combination of terrorism and an effective psychological/ideological campaign. I guess I would refer to a group that relied on terrorism to the exclusion of all else "nihilists." Ultimately I think it helps our thinking to group opponents by their objectives or, perhaps, their worldview, rather than by their techniques. AQ didn't pick us as an adversary because we used combined arms operations but because of what they perceive as our political objectives and worldview.

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    Quote Originally Posted by SteveMetz View Post
    Take my teenage daughters...
    Now I suspect we are on very dangerous ground... can we avoid teenage females and stick to something simpler to solve.... like world peace...

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    Council Member SteveMetz's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mark O'Neill View Post
    Steve,

    we have to make sure that our words mean precisely what we want them to mean, or we will confuse simple folk. (or find ourselves replicating a scene from 'Alice in Wonderland').

    Social Science 101 tells us that a theory must hold true to a set of understood or declared rules, and be replicable and consistent in order to qualify as a theory.

    If we start to swap the terms 'theory' , 'strategy' and 'description' we are in world of hurt. I think we have a bit of mission creep if folks are now proposing that the alleged phenomena of 'global insurgency' is not a theory ('cause that is certainly the way it appeared in David's piece) but now a 'strategy'.

    Daily changing callsigns are a good opsec measure on tactical radio nets, but a poor substitute for replicable theory.

    As for South Carolina... I guess that even communists recognised the limits of futility
    I'll need to go re-look Dave's essay. I never thought of it as an attempt at theory creation.

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    Council Member Mark O'Neill's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by SteveMetz View Post
    I'll need to go re-look Dave's essay. I never thought of it as an attempt at theory creation.
    Funny, maybe I read it wrong, but that is how it always struck me. How else can you propose counters such a disaggregation (or any other approaches) as a strategy if you have not established a theoretical understanding of the phenomenon you are trying to defeat?


    It seems to me that if you have not made a theoretical construct to quantify and understand the problem you are trying to counter then you are essentially plucking ideas out of your backside in the hope that one might work. I know that David does not work like that, I believe that his 'countering global insurgency' essay was based on a developed theoretical construct that he believed / possibly still believes, accounted for the phenomena he was proposing a counter for.

    of course.. I could be mistaken - it is after midnight on Friday night here.... I need to get a life....

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    Hi Mark and Steve,

    Maybe it is because Dave is an Anthropologist, but I always assumed that he had a theoretical model based on emergence; certainly his use of complexity theory seemed to fit, and there is a long history inside Antrho of that type of model.

    Marc
    Sic Bisquitus Disintegrat...
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    Senior Research Fellow,
    The Canadian Centre for Intelligence and Security Studies, NPSIA
    Carleton University
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