The power of "Potential Energy"
I admit I take liberties with the current definition of insurgency. I do this for a variety of valid reasons:
1. The current definition demands the presence of violence, and sees insurgency as a form of war and warfare.
2. The current definition of COIN is written from the perspective of an intervening colonial military.
3. The focus on violent internal challenges to the state, regardless of purpose, leads to conflation of true insurgency with similar, but very different conditions, such as piracy, organized crime, civil war, etc. Each has a unique nature that demands a different category of engagement for best enduring effect. All, however, can be temporarily suppressed by brute military force.
4. The current definition of insurgency does not differentiate between one's role in their own country versus one's role intervening in some other country.
This is just off the top of my head, but these points go to the fine nuances that differentiate between success and victory.
I had the pleasure to attend the Rand COIN conference last week, and enjoyed a presentation by Dr. McCormick that was built upon his "Diamond" Insurgency model, but onto which he had applied a couple of new concepts. His proposal was that some situations are "State Heavy," where all of the conditions are in the favor of the state, so no insurgency has much chance. The Insurgent must "play uphill." Some are "Insurgent Heavy," where opposite conditions exist, and the State must "play uphill." Most are somewhere in between, where the insurgent and state compete until either the insurgent or the state reach the other's "break point."
Layered onto this is the perspective that the insurgent "must grow to win"; but that initially there is actually a sense of balance as the State "can hit, but cannot see"; whereas the Insurgent "can see, but cannot hit."
Good discussion, with Dr.'s John Gordon, Ahmed Hashim, Steve Metz and Peter Chalk all on the board.
As I listened, it struck me as to the similarities and difference of how Gordon and I look at insurgency. We both look for the commonalities in the pursuit of simple solutions to complex problems. At that point we then bifurcate, where Gordon's Diamond then lays out a clean model of "What" the dynamic of insurgency is between the State, the Populace, the insurgent, and the International actor; my model is more focused on the "why" of the interactions of these same actors.
This brings me to this point on why I think "violence" is such a poor defining characteristic for insurgency.
As Gordon was describing a "State Heavy" situation, I was thinking "Saudi Arabia and these many other Arab allies where such high conditions of insurgency exist, but any action is suppressed by the state so completely that no one dare act out." The example he gave, however, was Norway. A place where the populace is so content in their governance that no serious movement could possibly take root to begin with. This is the difference between a situation where there are high conditions of insurgency and the state must exert control (verb) and a state where there are low conditions of insurgency and the state enjoys control (noun) of the populace. One state spends its energy controlling the populace and spends little effort on the other essential elements of good governance. The other states are those who are so focused on providing good governance that little energy is required to "control" the populace's behavior.
On my model I have a space for those populaces where there are high conditions of insurgency, but no actual insurgency exists. Either the populace is effectively suppressed from action out by the state, or they have opted to employ non-violent tactics. (In such a situation our doctrine only recognizes the situation as insurgency once the populace decides both to act out AND to do so violently.)
Taking into account the velocity and acceleration from suppressed stability to the achievement of the government breaking point in Tunisia and Egypt, the concept that struck me was that of "Potential Energy." Where high conditions of insurgency exist, based upon the populaces perceptions of the poor governance (IAW my model), but where the state acts aggressive to compress and suppress that populace into submission, it creates a tremendous potential energy for rapid and powerful acceleration and velocity of popular action. Once ignited, these dynamic explode, and on Egypt's case, can achieve the government break point before the populace even has time to organize any true leadership organization to lead the movement (yes, the Muslim Brotherhood was there, but they were caught just as flat-footed as Mubarak, and did not cause or lead events there. They will however exploit to their purposes if allowed to).
Power = Force x Speed. When the potential energy is great enough it generates explosive speed, which can overcome previously overwhelming government force.
Of note, the state of insurgency in both Egypt and Tunisia still plot in the same place on my model. Nothing has been done yet to address the conditions of insurgency, so the plot is still far to the right, in Phase II "Strategic Stalemate". The only difference is that the populace has morphed from being "suppressed" to acting "non-violently". Such a movement can move quickly straight up into violence by the tactical choice of either the state or the populace. Moving the dynamic to the left, and into Phase 0 "peace/pre-insurgency" will take much time and government effort focused on the right aspects of governance. Focus must be on goodness over effectiveness to move the plot to the left.
This shows the plot for Afghanistan. Many of our Sunni Allies plot directly below this in the suppressed/non-violent category.
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