Rhodesian COIN (consolidated thread, inc original RLI)

[JMA]

Mike,

Kalyvas' ideas seem to resonate with me at first glance.

Clearly in almost all insurgencies there is some commonality in beliefs that leads to the insurgent cause receiving initial (tentative) support from the population.

However, it reaches a point when the insurgents need to "protect the revolution" by exerting a tight control over the civilian population... including executions.

I have mentioned the paranoia among insurgents over spies/sell outs/informers (real or imagined) among the rural population. This led to violence/executions being carried out as a warning to the population and to make an example of certain individuals. This I maintain was driven by the insurgents need to survive. Their life expectancy was not good and they knew it. The peasants bore the brunt of their fear and paranoia.

I will need to read further to fully understand how Kalyvas differentiates between 'indiscriminate violence' and 'selective violence' and (importantly) why there is a need to differentiate between the two.

One of the sources in Mark O'Neill's Second-party Counterinsurgency is Stathis Kalyvas, his theory and empirical research into selective and indiscriminate violence in irregular civil wars. I've arranged Kalyvas' online materials in chronological order from 1999 through 2009. I've not read all of them (only a quick skim in part only); but I believe what amounts to an online book is worth the slog. On cursory view, the basic idea seems to accord with Jack McCuen (RIP 2010; Birmingham Mich obit, West Point Tribute; I may have posted these before).

First as to Kalyvas, The Logic of Violence in Civil War - Wiki



Here are the online publications I found:



From the 2009 article, we get a brief summary of the theory from Kalyvas:



bimodal camel text.jpg

"Figure 16.1" - Ken White (see ref.) field expedient method of explaining a bimodal chart (beats Powerpoint, but you have to water and feed the camel ).

PSV = Peak Selective Violence (by hegemonic party); PIV = Peak Indiscriminate Violence (by non-hegemonic party). The logic is that, if you have hegemonic control, you should have good local intelligence and you can select targets. The non-hegemonic party suffers the converse; either it foregoes violence or has to go with indiscriminate violence.

Kalyvas does not promise a silver bullet, but rather a hard slog, valley by valley, village by village - with everything being very local.

Ref. for "Bactrian curve", KW post from 2008, I have whoa'd. Hoist by my own pet...



Good reading.

Regards

Mike