Non-Violent Insurgency: How Smart Rebels Win small wars

[Bob's World]

Violence or the threat of violence has always played a key role in these movements.

Is this not also the case with Diplomacy? With Deterrence? Is not "the threat of violence" typically the forcing function behind much of the influence that governments wield?

Do not be distracted by that fact, the point is that insurgent movements may well set conditions for success through violence; but that they ultimately achieve their aims more effectively once they switch to non-violent tactics.

I was under the impression that this site was focused primarily on not how to go out and about the globe starting and winning small wars so much as it is about effectively preventing, or when that is not possible, prevailing when confronted with the same.

Currently there is tremendous unrest in many populaces around the world. They will act out. They have a choice, to do nothing and endure the unendurable; to act out violently; or, to act out non-violently. Insurgency is the condition among the populace that makes them feel this way. Violence is merely a tactic they employ to address that condition.

The point of this thread in not just to get those out there faced with this condition of insurgency to see that they have other options than to act out illegally to address such conditions when legal options are either denied or ineffective than to go straight to violent warfare against the state. The point of this thread is also to those in the Counterinsurgency business to see that COIN is not warfare per se, but rather that it is a condition that must be addressed, not an enemy defeated or war won. At times it will become just that, a bloody affair that must be dealt with. That won't resolve the conditions of insurgency, but if the populace goes down that route they need to understand that it will not end well for them.

For those who prescribe to "protecting the populace" as the primary tenet of COIN, why not make part of your campaign being to encourage the populace to switch to non-violent tactics to address their concerns? That is going to be far more acceptable to them than accusing them of having mass mental illness through "radicalization," or simply telling them through information campaigns that they are wrong about how they feel about there government. At times it might be better to simply say "you make a good point, but you are going about it all wrong." As has been pointed out, even the hardest, most warlike insurgents have found the success they seek in making such transitions from violence to non-violence.

For parties who are outside the "family" of the populace from which both the insurgent and government rise and compete for influence over, what does it matter who prevails so long as they represent the majority of the populace and are willing to join the global community and operate reasonably within the same? Every successful insurgent becomes immediately a struggling counterinsurgent unless they evolve to providing good governance to the populace they represent. If those foreign parties are focused on stability and securing their interests in a particular region first, and who actually governs second, they will be more successful.

This is one of the largest disconnects in US COIN doctrine. It makes the presumption that success requires sustaining the current government in power. Unless that government evolves in the process, all that does is reset the conditions of failure when an insurgent organization was merely defeated militarily. Once we retire the presumptions that COIN is war, and that sustaining a poor governance in power is success, we move to the next level in dealing more effectively with such situations.