Quote Originally Posted by William F. Owen View Post
Since when were insurgencies not an attempt to seize power?

The COIN crowd never want to look at Sierra-Leone and Mexico, because it tramples the model, so they dismiss it as relevant to what they want to study, and talk about. War is War.
Identification of what something is is best done by understanding how it came to be, rather than what it looks like as it sits before one in some mature state.

This is how science identifies and classifies all plants, animals and minerals. It avoids all kinds of confused conclusions that can come from looking at some specific stage of something in isolation.

Yet insurgency is just one "stage" of the lifecycle of the dynamics between a populace and its government. It does not define that dynamic, one must go to its birth point to understand it most clearly.

Granted, historically military theorists, historians, political scientists and politicians have dumped all manner of informal conflicts into various buckets with little regard for such scientific approaches.

As an example, Colombia was a nationalists insurgency that got into the drug business. Mexico is a drug business that is beginning to challenge government. Two very different forms of genesis at work, and therefore two very different problems requiring very different solutions to resolve. Yet people go: "Violence? Check. Drugs? Check. Government on the ropes? Check. Ok toss these in the narco-terrorist insurgency bucket. Next!"

Insurgency is a unique form of illegal political challenge to government. The "war is war" crowd is uncomfortable with that idea, as it requires them to have more tools than a hammer and to be a bit more sophisticated than "two up and one back."

Certainly a change of power is common to all. If the insurgent opts to employ violent tactics, then violence is common as well in that stage. We need to look past the commonalities and focus on the differences at the point of inception. Otherwise one is apt to pick the wrong solution for the problem.

If I am just dealing with some cartel that wants to seize the diamond mines and control their profits; or expand the profit margin of his illegal drug enterprise by reducing governmental obstacles; that is not insurgency.

But for the COINdinistas, I would offer that going in and building nations while committing oneself to preserving the current government in power is not COIN either; and is highly unlikely to produce any better results than the "war is war" approach as neither addresses the root causes of the problem. One focuses on the symptoms of popular dissatisfaction, and one focus on the symptom of the illegal violent challengers that feed on that dissatisfaction.

I, for one, prefer to hold governments to task. To hold civil authorities to a higher standard that demands that they take responsibility for their actions. To apply the "Crate and Barrel Rule" to them: You broke it, you bought it. For true insurgency the cure comes in the repair of governance. Insurgent violence is a supporting effort problem to be managed while that takes place.

For a power grab for profit? Very different. Crush the power grabber and one has likely solved the problem.