Is an insurgent an insurgent?

[Dayuhan]

Three related comments...

From BW:

Perhaps Shay's rebellion and the Whiskey rebellion in our own fromative history are such examples of issue-driven insurrection; both of which served to help the government understand what "good governnace" looked like in the eyes of the populace and to shape a fledgling national government to more effectively serve its populace in a manner they found acceptable.

Very good examples... but because these incidents did not occur against the backdrop of a national insurgency, they were recognized and managed as what they were. Add a national insurgency to the picture, and things get muddier.

From Wilf:

Exactly - BUT that is NOT a type of insurgency. What they want does not even have to be legitimate. Look at Sierra Leone and Colombia.

Based on the idea that what you describe is an Insurgency, the US brands all "Irregular Warfare" as "Insurgency," this COIN! - and out comes the COIN play book and all the associated baggage.

Very true... but when issue-driven insurrections overlap a national insurgency, they are often classified as insurgency and treated as such. The point I'm trying to make (possibly not very well) is that in any given local scenario, it's worth asking whether this "insurgent" is really an insurgent, as in trying to overthrow a government, or whether the primary motivation is a local issue that might be resolved.

From Entropy...

This…...is a problem if the "governance" is forcibly extended from the outside to a population that has never had it. That is what we are trying to do in parts of Afghanistan. The locals don't think they need (what they consider) outsiders coming in and giving them "governance." They think their governance is just find as it is and simply would like to be left alone to live as have for generations. It seems to me this is fundamentally different than a case where a disaffected population previously existed under some kind of central authority.

Thank you for making the point I was trying to make, and doing a better job at it.

Let me try to rephrase:

The conditions of governance (or lack thereof) that generate insurgency are also likely to generate or exacerbate local issue-driven conflict between citizens and government.

Insurgent groups will try to exploit these local rebellions: if they can absorb them into the insurgency they will, if they cannot they will try to encourage and support the local rebellion as a means to drain the resources of the government.

Governments are likely to respond by classifying the local rebellion as a subset of the insurgency and trying to forcibly suppress it.

The question, then, for anyone engaged in COIN or FID in support of COIN (I'm picking up the acronyms, slowly) on a local level is whether the "insurgents" you face in the field are actually part of a national insurgency, pursuing the goals of that insurgency, or whether they are primarily driven by local issues with government and working with the insurgency on an "enemy of my enemy is my friend" basis. In the latter case, it may be possible to address and resolve the motivating local issue (this may be as simple as leaving people alone and trying to govern them less), thereby re-establishing the legitimacy of government and denying support to the national insurgency.