Is an insurgent an insurgent?

[William F. Owen]

I would call this type of insurgency "issue-driven", with the driving issues primarily local. People in this position may not be trying to overthrow a government or secede from a nation, they are simply trying to force a government to stop doing specific things that they find offensive or opposed to their interests.

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.

[Bob's World]

I think there's another type of insurgency, one that gets less attention here than it might. My own familiarity with this comes from an environment far removed from Afghanistan, but it would not surprise me to see the same phenomenon appearing there.

I would call this type of insurgency "issue-driven", with the driving issues primarily local. People in this position may not be trying to overthrow a government or secede from a nation, they are simply trying to force a government to stop doing specific things that they find offensive or opposed to their interests.

We tend to see these things in national terms: a national insurgency fighting a national government. It is said, though, that all politics are local, and this tends to be very true in tribal areas of decentralized states, where national governments (and for that matter nations) may seem very remote. In these environments, if people are fighting there are often immediate, local reasons that may be resolvable, addressable, and even legitimate. Many of my neighbors were insurgents once (they won, one of the rare places where that's happened), and given the way their government treated them, I can't blame them at all: in their shoes I'd have done the same thing.

National insurgencies tend to be aware of these local issues, and often move to exploit them by offering alliances. When these offers are accepted, that may give the impression that the local insurgency is a subset of the national one. That impression may be false: alliances may be a matter of convenience, and if local issues are addressed they may dissolve.

Of course these local issues may not be immediately visible to an outsider, and local government may not be at all eager to see them become visible, especially if the government or its agents have done specific things that provoked a violent response.

Again, I'm not at all sure that lessons learned among the hill tribes of the northern Philippines have any relevance at all to the hill tribes of northern Afghanistan, but I think it's worth considering that in any given area, some insurgents may be fighting because of local, immediate issues, and that it might be possible to divide these groups from the national insurgency by addressing and resolving the issues that motivate them.

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.

[MikeF]

This thread provides a very good discussion highlighting the complexities involved in small wars. Personally, I find it easier to use the old languages of rebellion, insurrection, guerilla, partisan forces, etc...when confronting these types of conflicts. In the current environment, we use terms like Anti-Iraqi Forces, Anti-Coalition Forces, and Anti-Afghan Forces. These buzz words are too Orwellian for me, and they often minimize the issues, grievances, or ideology of each particular group.

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.

COL Jones,

Sir, how would you categorize a nationalist group that does not necessarily support the current government, but mainly fights American/Coalition forces because they are perceived as occupiers? Many Sunni/Shia groups in Iraq fall into that category. I find it difficult to include them in issue-driven insurrection b/c their biggest beef is that a foreign nation is conducting operations in their homeland. I'm not sure what exactly to call them.

v/r

Mike

[Bob's World]

This thread provides a very good discussion highlighting the complexities involved in small wars. Personally, I find it easier to use the old languages of rebellion, insurrection, guerilla, partisan forces, etc...when confronting these types of conflicts. In the current environment, we use terms like Anti-Iraqi Forces, Anti-Coalition Forces, and Anti-Afghan Forces. These buzz words are too Orwellian for me, and they often minimize the issues, grievances, or ideology of each particular group.



COL Jones,

Sir, how would you categorize a nationalist group that does not necessarily support the current government, but mainly fights American/Coalition forces because they are perceived as occupiers? Many Sunni/Shia groups in Iraq fall into that category. I find it difficult to include them in issue-driven insurrection b/c their biggest beef is that a foreign nation is conducting operations in their homeland. I'm not sure what exactly to call them.

v/r

Mike

in regards to the invader; that may be little more than a minority populace or political party in terms of the nation itself.

Think of if Canada invaded the US to liberate us from Clinton or Bush or Obama. In all cases there would have been nationalist organizations strongly opposed to our sitting government who would have fought to the death to defeat the outside invader. Sure those same Republicans and Democrats go back to slandering each other once the common threat is defeated.

Or like a police officer responding to a domestic dispute. Keep an eye on that oft battered wife, because she may be the one trying club the officer when he cuffs her loser husband.


This is why we need to be slow to simply brand such movements as "Terrorists" as they may well be part of the fabric that will contribute to a strong nation one day. I believe addressing such organizations was a big part of what made the "surge" work in Iraq.

[MikeF]

in regards to the invader; that may be little more than a minority populace or political party in terms of the nation itself....

This is why we need to be slow to simply brand such movements as "Terrorists" as they may well be part of the fabric that will contribute to a strong nation one day. I believe addressing such organizations was a big part of what made the "surge" work in Iraq.

I used to use the movie "Red Dawn" to describe the resistance mentality, but not too many of the younger O's and NCO's have seen it anymore. I'd prefer to call it a resistance movement rather than an insurgency, but I think that it is important to understand that a big majority of armed forces attacking the US will fall in this category, AND they will have the sympathy of the local populace.


Just ran across this article...

Iraqi Group Renounces Violence

Rod Norland
NY Times

BAGHDAD — An extremist Shiite group that has boasted of killing five American soldiers and of kidnapping five British contractors has agreed to renounce violence against fellow Iraqis, after meeting with Iraq’s prime minister.

The prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, met with members of the group, Asa’ib al-Haq, or the League of the Righteous, over the weekend, said Ali al-Dabbagh, a spokesman for the prime minister, confirming reports. “They decided they are no longer using violence, and we welcome them,” he said in a telephone interview.

Mr. Dabbagh first revealed the negotiations in remarks on Monday to Al Iraqiya, the state television network. “We have reached an agreement to resolve all problems, especially regarding detainees who do not have Iraqi blood on their hands,” he said. He did not say anything about British victims of the group.

Asked about that later, he added, “Whether it’s British blood or American blood, it is a violation of the law, and we will treat them no differently.”

Salam al-Maliki, the insurgent group’s liaison to the government, said in a telephone interview that the group had not renounced fighting the Americans. “Of course we want to get into the political process, because circumstances have improved, and the United States is out right now,” said Mr. Maliki, who is not related to the prime minister. “We told the government anyone who has Iraqi blood on their hands, you should keep him in jail. We are only fighting the United States.”

v/r

Mike

[marct]

Hi Mike,

I used to use the movie "Red Dawn" to describe the resistance mentality, but not too many of the younger O's and NCO's have seen it anymore. I'd prefer to call it a resistance movement rather than an insurgency, but I think that it is important to understand that a big majority of armed forces attacking the US will fall in this category, AND they will have the sympathy of the local populace.

Good movie in the old (paranoid) US vs the World genre - sort of a spec fic version of Independence Day (which the younger crowd has probably seen).

As to the difference between a resistance movement and an insurgency, that's a matter of stance or perception of the legitimacy of the "government". If you accept the government as legitimate, then the group is an insurgent group, if not, they are a resistance movement.

Always remember that semantics are relational .

[Entropy]

Question for the council and getting back to the original post for a minute: Is armed opposition to a government which claims authority over that oppostion always considered an insurgency - at least in a broad sense? What are the conditions, if any, where the insurgency label does not apply? What about simply ignoring a government which claims authority but has no power to enforce it, particularly when that government and the claimed authority is new?

[William F. Owen]

Question for the council and getting back to the original post for a minute: Is armed opposition to a government which claims authority over that oppostion always considered an insurgency - at least in a broad sense? What are the conditions, if any, where the insurgency label does not apply? What about simply ignoring a government which claims authority but has no power to enforce it, particularly when that government and the claimed authority is new?

For me, cos words matter, an insurgency (using military means) seeks to replace a governments authority/control with a different government or form of government becoming the controlling authority, of the area and population concerned.
If the aim of the armed action is not aimed at gaining a different government, then it's not an insurgency.

[jmm99]

A good starting point from Wilf:

In A'Stan the Taliban were the constituted government. Again, this shows the lack of rigour the terminology is held to.

During the Taliban "uprising" (ca. 1995 to date), Afghanistan was regarded by all as a nation-state. That does not end the line of inquiry.

Who or what was its government when the Taliban, de facto, held a majority of the country under their control ?

According to Pakistan, for example, the duly recognized government of Astan was the Taliban (the "Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan" as it was unilaterally renamed in October 1997 by the Taliban). According to Russia and Iran, for example, the duly recognized government of Astan was the Rabbani government (allied with the Northern Alliance).

The US position was more complicated, as follows:

1. Rabbani government - recognition ended 15 Aug 1997.

2. No government - 15 Aug 1997 up through 21 Dec 2001.

3. Interim Authority (and successors) - from 22 Dec 2001.

References for all of the above are in this thread.

All of this is more than legal mumbo-jumbo because governmental recognition drives how a group and its members are regarded both diplomatically and militarily. Let's just look at it from a military standpoint.

A Pakistani officer looking across the border would see all forces authorized by the Taliban government (the recognized government by his country), including the AQ 055 Brigade, as being "regular combatants"[*]. He would see the forces of the Northern Alliance as "irregular combatants" (regardless of whether they were authorized or not by the Rabbani government). Also, because Pakistan did not ratify the 1977 Additional Protocals, those irregular combatants could not claim the benefits of the APs.

An Iranian officer would see it differently. He would see the forces authorized by the Rabbani government (the recognized government by his country) as being "regular combatants". He would see the Taliban (including its AQ allies) as "irregular combatants". Also because Iran did not ratify the 1977 Additional Protocals, those irregular combatants could not claim the benefits of the APs.

A Russian officer would see it the same way as the Iranian officer, except that because Russia did ratify the 1977 Additional Protocals, those irregular combatants could claim the benefits of the APs. API does bring in the concept of "national liberation" and "self-determination":

PART I. GENERAL PROVISIONS

Art 1. General principles and scope of application

1. The High Contracting Parties undertake to respect and to ensure respect for this Protocol in all circumstances.

2. In cases not covered by this Protocol or by other international agreements, civilians and combatants remain under the protection and authority of the principles of international law derived from established custom, from the principles of humanity and from dictates of public conscience.

3. This Protocol, which supplements the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949 for the protection of war victims, shall apply in the situations referred to in Article 2 common to those Conventions.

4. The situations referred to in the preceding paragraph include armed conflicts in which peoples are fighting against colonial domination and alien occupation and against racist regimes in the exercise of their right of self-determination, as enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations and the Declaration on Principles of International Law concerning Friendly Relations and Co-operation among States in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations.

A US officer (from 15 Aug 1997 up through 21 Dec 2001), because the US recognized no Astan government, would see all Taliban and Northern Alliance forces as "irregular combatants". Also because the US did not ratify the Additional Protocals, those irregular combatants could not claim the benefits of the APs.

Please note that this is not a question of what international law "should be"; or what government in your mind "should be" recognized. The question is what position has your country taken in recognizing or not recognizing a government. The forces of a recognized government are "regular combatants"; all other conflicting forces are "irregular combatants", except for a "Power" to that conflict which has accepted and applies the GCs (Common Article 2 exception **); and of course the forces of nation-states (HCPs to the GCs) who are involved in the conflict.

The term "insurgency" (as also the terms "rebellion, insurrection, guerrilla, partisan forces") may well have a defined meaning in domestic law; but those terms are surplusage in the LOAC (except for the extent that they enter into the API definition, for example).

----------------------
[*] "Regular" and "irregular", in a LOAC sense, have little to do with how those combatants fight, but a lot to do with authorization by a recognized government and the chain of command. E.g., the Continental Line would have been "irregulars" to the British, but "regulars" to the French.

[**] I can't think of a group that has met the Common Article 2 exception. An example from long before the GCs was the Confederate States of America, where both sides accepted and applied the laws of war as then generally accepted. Actually, the South was the first to do so. Initially, the North attempted to treat the Southern combatants as traitors (its naval forces as pirates). That led to something of a revolt in the Federal courts. The situation was normalized on the North's side by the Lieber Code.

[Bob's World]

Question for the council and getting back to the original post for a minute: Is armed opposition to a government which claims authority over that oppostion always considered an insurgency - at least in a broad sense? What are the conditions, if any, where the insurgency label does not apply? What about simply ignoring a government which claims authority but has no power to enforce it, particularly when that government and the claimed authority is new?

I also believe that those current definitions actually hinder the effectiveness of COIN operations. We often find ourselves so mentally constrained by our terminology that we either act too late, or inappropriately to achieve positive COIN effects.

In the broadest sense, I can make the case that EVERY populace and EVERY Government is some stage of Insurgency at ALL times. While many don't like to think about "perpetual insurgency" (any more than they want to deal with the perpetual warfare that IW offers us); I believe it helps in the understanding of the true nature of insurgency and also to highlight that COIN is Civilian business primarily, with the military just surging to assist as needed, and fading into the back ground again.


Consider an x - y Axis; with "Violence" on the y axis; and "poor governance" or "Despotism" on the x axis. Most populaces and governments plot in the lower left corner, not perfect, but with low violence and reasonable satisfaction within the populace of their governance.

As governance begins to fail, the plot moves to right as to governance despotism; and upward for populace violence. This is in the natural state. A dictatorship may exert strong controls on a populace to keep violence low even as the governance trends to the right and despotism; but if that pressure is removed the populace pops straight up on the violence scale (think end of Tito regime in Yugoslavia).

One can then plot parallel vertical lines across this graph and break out into zones, from left to right: Phase 0 Pre-Insurgency; then Phase I "Survival" (Mao's term) insurgency; then Phase II "Strategic Offensive; and if necessary up into Phase III "Decisive."

The goal of effective COIN then is to not just attack the violence and suppress the populace straight down; but to also "attack" the conditions of poor governance so that the populace and the governance move together down the x-y slope to a sustainable state in pre-insurgency.

Some take aways from this perspective:
1. Insurgency happens when governments fail; so it is the fault of the civil government for breaking it, and the responsibility of the civil government to fix it.
2. COIN is continuous and primarily CIVIL and focused on providing good governance to the populace.
3. Any COIN effort focused just on defeating the military arm of the insurgency merely suppresses it.
4. Any effort to target key leaders or ideology without addressing poor governance also merely suppresses the insurgency. New leaders, new movements, new ideology will emerge to lead the populace once again.
5. The goal of insurgency is not to "defeat" the insurgent, but to repair the poor governance and generally move the populace back into the fold. Efforts to "defeat" are highly likely to be counter to your true goal. After all, how much of the populace must one kill to re-earn their support?


When you don't think you have an insurgency until the situation is so failed as to be in open violence, it is like not thinking you have a fire until the flames are visible from the street. Too late. Too damn late.

[Entropy]

BW,

Thanks for the great comment. I agree with you in a broad sense when you say that every populace and every government is in some stage of "insurgency."

But this...

The goal of effective COIN then is to not just attack the violence and suppress the populace straight down; but to also "attack" the conditions of poor governance so that the populace and the governance move together down the x-y slope to a sustainable state in pre-insurgency.

...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.

A parallel here might be the European colonization of North America. Did we bring them governance and were native Americans "insurgents" simply because they resided in territory we claimed as our own?

The reason I bring this up is because in Afghanistan it's plausible that attempting to bring governance to autonomous populations will cause pushback that drives them into the waiting arms of the Taliban or another insurgent group, even assuming the Kabul government was capable and free of corruption. If we label these autonomous populations "insurgents" because they reject governance from Kabul, we risk making them into enemies. I'm speculating that perhaps that might be a concern of the original poster given his comments.

[marct]

Hi Bob,

In the broadest sense, I can make the case that EVERY populace and EVERY Government is some stage of Insurgency at ALL times.

A lot to consider....

On the whole, i would agree with you on that take. "Government" is a recent invention, say 10-12 kya, and one that many people still dislike.

NB: What follows is me playing academic Devil's Advocate

Consider an x - y Axis; with "Violence" on the y axis; and "poor governance" or "Despotism" on the x axis. Most populaces and governments plot in the lower left corner, not perfect, but with low violence and reasonable satisfaction within the populace of their governance.

Hmmm, I think this is too limited in a number of ways.

First, using a scale for "poor - good governance" implies that there is a singular model on which this can be tracked and rated. Not all "poor governance" is despotism and not all despotisms are poorly governed. I don't think there is, and I believe that the assumption that there is has caused a lot of problems in the current conflicts in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

Second, even if we restrict our definition of "violence" to person on person kinetic conflict, different cultures (not societies) have quite different definitions of acceptable levels and types of violence. We (North Americans) may not consider honour killings as "acceptable violence", but some cultures do. We (Canadians this time) don't accept the level of violence prevalent in most major American cities - does that mean that the US suffers from "despotism" (note, I didn't say "poor governance", especially in light of people's apparent views of Congress )?

Basically, I think that your "violence" scale is flawed and your "governance" scale is way too limited.

As governance begins to fail, the plot moves to right as to governance despotism; and upward for populace violence. This is in the natural state. A dictatorship may exert strong controls on a populace to keep violence low even as the governance trends to the right and despotism; but if that pressure is removed the populace pops straight up on the violence scale (think end of Tito regime in Yugoslavia).

How would you account for non-despotic regimes that have a high degree of violence in their populace? This gets back to one of the flaws I see with your scale for governance; there are too many assumptions about what "good governance" means. In particular, you seem to be setting up a situation where any violence is an indicator of poor governance.

This implies, to me at least, that the State as the institution of governance, must be a Total Organization - responsible for the welfare, emotional states and mindset of all of its citizens. Even worse, again to my mind, is the extrapolation that the State is capable of such responsibilities.

The goal of effective COIN then is to not just attack the violence and suppress the populace straight down; but to also "attack" the conditions of poor governance so that the populace and the governance move together down the x-y slope to a sustainable state in pre-insurgency.

Would that include removing the government? If, for example, the activities of militias and gangs in the US reached an unacceptable point, would you feel that the military would be justified in removing Congress and the Executive branch?

NOTE: This is a rhetorical question, I do not expect an answer! I told you I was in Devil's Advocate mode !

Some take aways from this perspective:
1. Insurgency happens when governments fail; so it is the fault of the civil government for breaking it, and the responsibility of the civil government to fix it.

How about externally engineered insurgencies (e.g. those pushed by the 5th Comintern) designed to first subvert the government, then overthrow it?

2. COIN is continuous and primarily CIVIL and focused on providing good governance to the populace.

Still need a good definition for that.

3. Any COIN effort focused just on defeating the military arm of the insurgency merely suppresses it.

While, at the same time, increasing support for it.

4. Any effort to target key leaders or ideology without addressing poor governance also merely suppresses the insurgency. New leaders, new movements, new ideology will emerge to lead the populace once again.

Um, that would, of course, include the insurgents, wouldn't it?

5. The goal of insurgency is not to "defeat" the insurgent, but to repair the poor governance and generally move the populace back into the fold. Efforts to "defeat" are highly likely to be counter to your true goal. After all, how much of the populace must one kill to re-earn their support?

Sounds like a definition of a disfunctional family to me .

When you don't think you have an insurgency until the situation is so failed as to be in open violence, it is like not thinking you have a fire until the flames are visible from the street. Too late. Too damn late.

Hmmm, if that is accepted, then any political opposition would automatically be considered as an "insurgency". Sounds totally opposed to any form of democratic ideals I'm familiar with!

[/Devil's Advocate]

Okay, moving out of the DA stance, I happen to agree with a lot of your comments even if it didn't seem like I did . I went to the DA position because part of the reason for this thread was the implications of using certain words/understandings, and I wanted to pull out some of the ones in your post.

BTW, I really do think your governance scale is flawed. There are culturally accepted levels and types of "governance" even as there are culturally accepted levels and types of violence. Consider, by way of examples of both, the difference between, say, Texas and New York in how they, as a State, would deal with someone who shot a trespasser on their property (I doubt they'd even be charged in Texas).

I think a better governance scale could be constructed using a combination of cultural expectation of governance and the distance of lived reality from that expectation. Both of these will change and both are also susceptible to change from external sources. It certainly avoids the single implied model in your current scale. In effect, it would ask "What do you expect your government to do?" rather than ask "How well is your government doing X, Y and Z" (which may be culturally not the role of a government).

[kingo1rtr]

I am working in northern Afghanistan and have encountered bit of a problem.

Describing the different actors on the ground has proven difficult using the term "insurgent". Is someone who is not seeking to overthrow the central government, but seeking to establish and consolidate a local powerbase that competes with local government structures an insurgent? Is he a "local insurgent"? Will the sum of all these local actors still qualify as an insurgency?

Any views on this?

Saifullah - I dare say you don't have a library close by (if you do then alls the better) but if you can get hold of Frank Kitson's 'Low Intensity Operations' he offers a very good set of perspectives on various actors in these types of situations.

Some of those who you describe might be in a class that Kitson calls 'subversives'. He describes subversion as 'all measures short of the use of armed force taken by by one section of the people of a country to overthrow those governing....it can involve the use of political and economic pressure, strikes, protest marches and propoganda, and can also include the use of small cale violence...' He goes on to distinguish insurgency as 'the use of armed force by a section of the people against the government..'.

He also highlights Sir Robert Thomson (of Malaya fame) who observed that 'naturally, subversion and insurgency can take place in the same country at the same time...'.

Kitson goes on to observe that 'if subversion fails to achieve its aim, it merges imperceptibly into insurrection...'.

I hope these mild ramblings are of some help.

[Bob's World]

Hi Bob,



A lot to consider....

On the whole, i would agree with you on that take. "Government" is a recent invention, say 10-12 kya, and one that many people still dislike.

NB: What follows is me playing academic Devil's Advocate



Hmmm, I think this is too limited in a number of ways.

First, using a scale for "poor - good governance" implies that there is a singular model on which this can be tracked and rated. Not all "poor governance" is despotism and not all despotisms are poorly governed. I don't think there is, and I believe that the assumption that there is has caused a lot of problems in the current conflicts in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

Second, even if we restrict our definition of "violence" to person on person kinetic conflict, different cultures (not societies) have quite different definitions of acceptable levels and types of violence. We (North Americans) may not consider honour killings as "acceptable violence", but some cultures do. We (Canadians this time) don't accept the level of violence prevalent in most major American cities - does that mean that the US suffers from "despotism" (note, I didn't say "poor governance", especially in light of people's apparent views of Congress )?

Basically, I think that your "violence" scale is flawed and your "governance" scale is way too limited.



How would you account for non-despotic regimes that have a high degree of violence in their populace? This gets back to one of the flaws I see with your scale for governance; there are too many assumptions about what "good governance" means. In particular, you seem to be setting up a situation where any violence is an indicator of poor governance.

This implies, to me at least, that the State as the institution of governance, must be a Total Organization - responsible for the welfare, emotional states and mindset of all of its citizens. Even worse, again to my mind, is the extrapolation that the State is capable of such responsibilities.



Would that include removing the government? If, for example, the activities of militias and gangs in the US reached an unacceptable point, would you feel that the military would be justified in removing Congress and the Executive branch?

NOTE: This is a rhetorical question, I do not expect an answer! I told you I was in Devil's Advocate mode !



How about externally engineered insurgencies (e.g. those pushed by the 5th Comintern) designed to first subvert the government, then overthrow it?



Still need a good definition for that.



While, at the same time, increasing support for it.



Um, that would, of course, include the insurgents, wouldn't it?



Sounds like a definition of a disfunctional family to me .



Hmmm, if that is accepted, then any political opposition would automatically be considered as an "insurgency". Sounds totally opposed to any form of democratic ideals I'm familiar with!

[/Devil's Advocate]

Okay, moving out of the DA stance, I happen to agree with a lot of your comments even if it didn't seem like I did . I went to the DA position because part of the reason for this thread was the implications of using certain words/understandings, and I wanted to pull out some of the ones in your post.

BTW, I really do think your governance scale is flawed. There are culturally accepted levels and types of "governance" even as there are culturally accepted levels and types of violence. Consider, by way of examples of both, the difference between, say, Texas and New York in how they, as a State, would deal with someone who shot a trespasser on their property (I doubt they'd even be charged in Texas).

I think a better governance scale could be constructed using a combination of cultural expectation of governance and the distance of lived reality from that expectation. Both of these will change and both are also susceptible to change from external sources. It certainly avoids the single implied model in your current scale. In effect, it would ask "What do you expect your government to do?" rather than ask "How well is your government doing X, Y and Z" (which may be culturally not the role of a government).

While I do believe that their is a common model or dynamic to insurgency; I also equally firmly believe that each populace-governance dynamic is unique unto themselves. So what may be very peaceful phase 0 conditions in one may be causation for Ph II insugency in another. Similarly, engagement what may well move one populace down from PH I in one, may have no effect on another.

This is why I think much intel is misguided, and virtually all "effectiveness" metrics are just a waste of toner on powerpoint. Good polling is your best source of "goodness" and "badness" of governance. You don't have to achieve perfection to "win", and you certainly don't have to acheive effectiveness of governance.

[Entropy]

This is why I think much intel is misguided, and virtually all "effectiveness" metrics are just a waste of toner on powerpoint. Good polling is your best source of "goodness" and "badness" of governance. You don't have to achieve perfection to "win", and you certainly don't have to acheive effectiveness of governance.

Is it intel that is misguided, or is the intel function being asked the wrong questions?

[Bob's World]

Is it intel that is misguided, or is the intel function being asked the wrong questions?

The fact is that our intel community is all about threats. Threats, Threats, Threats.

Now, did the planners write "defeat" in the plan? yes. So, that just enables intel to justify their focus.

Do the ops guys want to go find and kill bad guys? Yes...but there is a chicken or egg argument beginning, because

Commanders get that damn threat brief every morning. Here are the same High Value Individuals; here are the latest organizations to join the AQ franchise (though the organization has not changed and is still very much a nationalist insurgency); etc. So the command turns to his Ops guys and demands that he does something about these HVIs the intel guy keeps telling him about.

This is how we started; and change comes hard. Intel still resists changing its focus even though the strategic picture has cleared up considerably.

I admit, I am very hard on the intel community. But only becuase they deserve it. There is a growing insurgency of sorts within the community though, as junior members try to evolve to provide analysis of the broader problem, but in large, their leadership keeps them firmly on task studying "bad guys."

[Entropy]

I think a better governance scale could be constructed using a combination of cultural expectation of governance and the distance of lived reality from that expectation. Both of these will change and both are also susceptible to change from external sources. It certainly avoids the single implied model in your current scale. In effect, it would ask "What do you expect your government to do?" rather than ask "How well is your government doing X, Y and Z" (which may be culturally not the role of a government).

I really like that Marc. A central government may be good at doing X, but maybe a population, for cultural reasons, believes "X" needs to be controlled at the local level. In that case, governing capability isn't an issue - both the central government and the local government are capable of providing for "x." Forcing the locals to get "x" centrally does not, in my view, promote "governance."

[Entropy]

The fact is that our intel community is all about threats. Threats, Threats, Threats.

Now, did the planners write "defeat" in the plan? yes. So, that just enables intel to justify their focus.

Do the ops guys want to go find and kill bad guys? Yes...but there is a chicken or egg argument beginning, because

Commanders get that damn threat brief every morning. Here are the same High Value Individuals; here are the latest organizations to join the AQ franchise (though the organization has not changed and is still very much a nationalist insurgency); etc. So the command turns to his Ops guys and demands that he does something about these HVIs the intel guy keeps telling him about.

This is how we started; and change comes hard. Intel still resists changing its focus even though the strategic picture has cleared up considerably.

I admit, I am very hard on the intel community. But only becuase they deserve it. There is a growing insurgency of sorts within the community though, as junior members try to evolve to provide analysis of the broader problem, but in large, their leadership keeps them firmly on task studying "bad guys."

Those are good points. Intel people, especially those in uniform, focus on threats because that is how they are trained. I wrote a little bit about that in this post.

Commanders need to realize that intel works for them. A Commander does not need to get that "damn threat brief" every morning if it's not valuable or doesn't inform decisions they must make. If Commanders want something else, they can provide intel guidance, even if that guidance is a good ass-chewing. I understand what you're saying, but IMO much of the time intel people assume what they brief is what is wanted since there is often little or no feedback from many Commanders, at least in my experience. I've learned through experience that I usually need to hound my Commander before I can get a good handle on exactly what information he/she wants.

[IntelTrooper]

Commanders need to realize that intel works for them. A Commander does not need to get that "damn threat brief" every morning if it's not valuable or doesn't inform decisions they must make. If Commanders want something else, they can provide intel guidance, even if that guidance is a good ass-chewing. I understand what you're saying, but IMO much of the time intel people assume what they brief is what is wanted since there is often little or no feedback from many Commanders, at least in my experience. I've learned through experience that I usually need to hound my Commander before I can get a good handle on exactly what information he/she wants.

If this would fit into my sig line, I would put it there. This bears repeating, big time. And it's partially the fault of passive intel officers who don't teach their commanders what kinds of questions they should be asking. A lot of people got upset when I reported on matters of actual consequence -- corrupt government leaders, public perceptions of government legitimacy, etc. -- and put "Initiative" in the PIR line because no one was asking about those topics. So my team and I quit taking the initiative. If you marginalize us, you'll get a marginal picture of what's going on in your AO.

[Dayuhan]

Some take aways from this perspective:

1. Insurgency happens when governments fail; so it is the fault of the civil government for breaking it, and the responsibility of the civil government to fix it.
2. COIN is continuous and primarily CIVIL and focused on providing good governance to the populace.
3. Any COIN effort focused just on defeating the military arm of the insurgency merely suppresses it.
4. Any effort to target key leaders or ideology without addressing poor governance also merely suppresses the insurgency. New leaders, new movements, new ideology will emerge to lead the populace once again.
5. The goal of insurgency is not to "defeat" the insurgent, but to repair the poor governance and generally move the populace back into the fold. Efforts to "defeat" are highly likely to be counter to your true goal. After all, how much of the populace must one kill to re-earn their support?

Very much a valid analysis, but there's an element that may require more attention.

Much of our discussion of governments and nations assumes functional nationhood, a condition often missing in practice. Many of the "nations" that figure prominently on the lists of troubled and violent states are not really "nations" at all, as most of us understand the concept. What appears to be a failure of government may be evidence that the "nation" as currently constituted is a fictitious construct and effectively ungovernable. In some cases territories arbitrarily designated "nations" can only be held together as such through despotism: if the people have freedom they will inevitably tend to splinter away from a "nation" that they never considered themselves to be part of in the first place. In such cases you can't "bring them back into the fold" because they were forced into the fold in the first place.

Part of the problem in managing these situations is the Western tendency to impose order at the expense of long-term stability. The process by which people move from clan to tribe to nation (ok, vastly oversimplified) is complex and often very messy: it took the ever-so-civilized Europeans many centuries of war to delineate and respect national boundaries. In much of the world this process was aborted by colonialism; it's still thrashing itself out and the process is messy. A system that is trying to move toward equilibrium may appear to be disorderly and unstable, but it is often far more stable than a system where change has been suppressed by the imposition of artificial order.

Change is often disorderly, and disorder often creates threats. Change is also necessary, and if we try to impose order by suppressing change, we will fail. We need to move beyond seeing change - often expressed through phenomena such as insurgency and opposition to national governments - as inherently negative and threatening, and try to manage the process of change, rather than reflexively trying to suppress it.

Edit:

This question from marct may relate in some cases to the issue discussed above:

How would you account for non-despotic regimes that have a high degree of violence in their populace?

One possibility may be that inherent entropy in an artificially constructed "nation" could produce violence whether or not the government is despotic... in some cases, despotism may be the only way to suppress that entropy, though it's not likely to be a permanent solution.