Thanks. I had a similar IR class last semester covering all the major theories - balance of power, power transition, etc, and we spent time ad nauseum debating the effects of democracy. Some of the works above were in the course readings.Originally Posted by ipopescu
While working on another research paper on the effects of external support/sanctuary on insurgency I stumbled on the "Democratic Insurgency", and my advisor thinks it would make a worthwhile investigation.
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My alternate topic would have been to compare cases where nations have defeated insurgents with external sanctuary and contrasted the principles employed with "classical" COIN (i.e. Galula et.al) and see if there were differences - and also whether FM 3-24 holds up to it. One critique of our major COIN "success" case studies is that they lack real sanctuary and generally had little external support - Malaya, Kenya, Algeria, El Salvador. Obvious implications for Afghanistan. Figured I would save that for a potential MMAS.
why do you confine yourself to the post world war II period? Is there something special about that period that interests you or do you see it as more relevant to the present day than other previous periods? Perhaps instead of taking 15 or so cases from that period you should expand your historical horizon and move farther back into time.
Sir,
I just have problems with the inclusion of "democracies" prior to 1945 because (a) there are so few, and (b) even fewer experienced insurgency outside of a colonial context. Anti-colonial insurgencies posess a different dynamic. Secondly, it would require coding a completely new dataset than the very robust post-1945 RAND one I have now, which may be beyond my current capabilities. If I pursue my PhD route I probably will re-do and expand the dataset. Kinda hard to do all that research while holding my day job and soon to be in CGSC. The Correlates of War dataset doesn't have sufficient rigor for intra-state war to be useful. There is another finnish dataset but I found multiple errors in coding that would be painful to fix.
Now if you can convince the army to give me two years off after S3/XO time to get a PhD that isn't tied to teaching at West Point, I'm game.Because I was YG 97 and exited my BCT as a MAJ they wouldn't give me advanced civil schooling because I was too senior, hence night classes for me.
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I am hard pressed to think of many democracies that experienced indigenous insurgency outside of the USA and UK prior to 1945 (Brits all over - won every one, and the US vs. Native Americans, again, victory.) I am open to any examples of indigenous insurgent victory against democracy (loosely defined) that cross your mind. And no, I don't count our revolution because I don't think the UK meets the PolSci definition of a democracy until the early 1800's.
I am interested if you can think of any exceptions to my thesis prior to 1945, it would help.
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My alternate topic (potential for MMAS, if I do SAMS) is evaluating whether the historical approach/basis for FM 3-24 (very heavy Philippines, Algeria, Vietnam (x2), and Malaya) and approach to COIN by external counter insurgents holds true across other similar cases, especially those where insurgent possesses external sanctuary. Greece 1945-1950 is the best example, where it was heavily lethal in nature and won when Yugoslavia cut of support for the communist insurgents, as I understand.
Thoughts?
Looks good
I understand and agree with your justifications for limiting the scope to post-1945, but that is a relatively short period of time considering the breadth of history. Still, it looks like you have enough examples to make a case. Sounds like a good topic to me.The scholarly question becomes - why are democratic governments less likely to fall to insurgencies? The point of this thread was to see if any of the experts lurking or present here could demonstrate selection bias - cases I ignored which may discredit the empirical observation I am preparing to write the thesis on - a qualitative and quantitative examination of why this may be so. At this point, I don't know if it is luck, economics, governmental inclusion, military competence, etc. The point is that I don't have a conclusion, just an empirical observation and some data points.
Your real challenge looks to be finding the causalities behind the correlation you've found.
Wow, that's too bad.Because I was YG 97 and exited my BCT as a MAJ they wouldn't give me advanced civil schooling because I was too senior, hence night classes for me.
Close but not exactly. My contention is that "Insurgency" is a style of warfare, or type of warfare, (and not a distinct one) but that it is generally applied to fulfilling political aims that are not possible with so-called conventional means. - though they may create the conditions for the use of conventional means.
Basically, insurgency is warfare. It is not something "other than war." Many different people may use an insurgency to get what they want, for many different reasons. - Just like War.
Infinity Journal "I don't care if this works in practice. I want to see it work in theory!"
- The job of the British Army out here is to kill or capture Communist Terrorists in Malaya.
- If we can double the ratio of kills per contact, we will soon put an end to the shooting in Malaya.
Sir Gerald Templer, foreword to the "Conduct of Anti-Terrorist Operations in Malaya," 1958 Edition
"North Vietnam" was not an outside power
Ok Ken, now I have to comment on your supporting argument that N.Vietnam was an outside power that instigated and manipulated and sustained a S. Vietnam insurgency. This is whole idea of a "North" and "South" Vietnam is just another aspect of the Western Colonial influence imposed on one populace. Vietnam had enjoyed some 900 years of independence from China prior to being subjected to about 100 years of French occupation and colonization. Upon successfully defeating that occupation the country was artificially divided into North and South states for purely Western political purposes. Did China and Russia support the Vietnamese movement to liberate themselves from this Western influence? Absolutely. Was North Vietnam somehow an "outside power" because a group of white men thousands of miles away drew a line on a map? Hardly.
This goes to a key aspect of my Populace-Centric theory. (Not controlling the populace, as in Kilcullen's population-centric tactics applied in Iraq; but in focusing on the needs, desires, perspectives and will of the populace as one engages through their government. To seek to meet our own interests in ways that are not counter to the interests of the populace; and to be, where necessary, an enabler of better relations between a populace and its governance and not a wedge to the same.)
We ignored the will of the Vietnamese populace writ-large by first reinstating the French occupation, and then by enforcing the artificial border through the heart of their homeland as part of our Cold War hedge against the Soviets.
I'd hate to see us make the same (similar) mistake in Afghanistan / Pakistan where a historic populace is also in revolt and we are preparing to commit tremendous energy once again to enforce a border created by white men thousands of miles away that cuts through the heart of the Pashtu homeland to reinforce states that reflect Western interests more than the interests of the Populaces they encompass.
When we learn from history, it is important that we take away the right lessons. Just me, but to me the main lesson is that the west can no longer simply expect eastern populaces to accept what we lay out for them, but that we can still achieve our vital interests in these areas by changing our approach to one of reinforcing the will of the populaces of these regions as prioritized over any vestiges of western governmental constructs imposed over the years, or ideas of how we currently want them to behave.
Surely we can be smart enough to find a way to support divided historic populaces around the world without having to destroy the states they reside within. Surely we can be smart enough to support troubled states without having to destroy the historic populaces that are divided by their borders.
My vote is for fighting smarter, not harder. We need a surge of strategic thinking, not a surge of hard young riflemen like my son. As long as we think we are there to "defeat" some threat as opposed to enable a stronger relationship between a populace and its governance we will fail. As long as people seriously think that a Clausewitzian model of warfare based on study of the Napoleonic wars between states applies directly to this type of conflict we will fail.
This is people business. Understand people first; second understand what actions over the years have manifested in the conditions of conflict that exist. Next, sit down and figure out new ways to meet your national interests in that region that are designed not to reinforce the failed system, but to enable a new system that has a chance to work.
(Ok, this is way longer, and went down a path I did not fully intend when I started typing 20 minutes ago, but sometimes you just have to go with the flow. Ken, clearly this is not all aimed at you. I just think you mischaracterize the true Vietnamese populace, but I also understand you have valid reasons for your positions. You earned them, and I have the highest respect for that.)
Last edited by Bob's World; 01-30-2009 at 12:35 PM.
Robert C. Jones
Intellectus Supra Scientia
(Understanding is more important than Knowledge)
"The modern COIN mindset is when one arrogantly goes to some foreign land and attempts to make those who live there a lesser version of one's self. The FID mindset is when one humbly goes to some foreign land and seeks first to understand, and then to help in some small way for those who live there to be the best version of their own self." Colonel Robert C. Jones, US Army Special Forces (Retired)
Thank you very much for your answer sir.
In my really humble opinion statistics is not a good way to approach such a complex phenomenon with so high number of variables and so little number of cases (opposed to Entropy's opinion).
Last edited by UrsaMaior; 01-30-2009 at 12:57 PM. Reason: Spelling
Nihil sub sole novum.
Cavguy
Take a bit closer look at El Salvador. One of the major problems there was the existence of sanctuaries - the so-called "blosones" - of disputed territory along the Salvadoran/Honduran border allegedly administered by the UN. That was where the FMLN took R&R and massed their supplies from Nicaragua and points beyond.
Much of the discussion here hinges on different definitions of democracy. Suggest you pick one that corresponds well to your Rand dataset and just stick with it.
Cheers
JohnT
Clausewtiz did not base his understanding of war purely on his experiences of fighting against Napoleonic armies. Clausewitz observations on the nature of war is applicable to any form of armed conflict.
Well that's exactly what Clausewitz says, except he wrote On WAR, and you are drifting off into National Policy and Strategy, of which WAR is a subset of skills and capabilities.This is people business. Understand people first; second understand what actions over the years have manifested in the conditions of conflict that exist. Next, sit down and figure out new ways to meet your national interests in that region that are designed not to reinforce the failed system, but to enable a new system that has a chance to work.
Warfare is a tool, and a pretty dam good one, when applied to right problem.
Infinity Journal "I don't care if this works in practice. I want to see it work in theory!"
- The job of the British Army out here is to kill or capture Communist Terrorists in Malaya.
- If we can double the ratio of kills per contact, we will soon put an end to the shooting in Malaya.
Sir Gerald Templer, foreword to the "Conduct of Anti-Terrorist Operations in Malaya," 1958 Edition
Not that this has anything to do with Neil's topic, but....
I have to agree with Ken on this one. There were any number of cultural differences (some major, some minor) between the population in the north and that in the south, as well as the (often ignored) central Vietnam subset (the region around Hue). I would actually characterize the idea of a "unified Vietnamese populace" as another Western fiction that doesn't square well with the reality on the ground. If you dig into any of the literature of the period as well as VC narratives, you'll find that many of them resented the influence of the "foreigners" from the north (ranging from their views on social/moral issues to their harsh accents and different way of doing business - and the dislike was often returned by the cadres from the north who considered their southern counterparts lazy and morally 'loose'). Much of this had to do with the way the Vietnamese people expanded their own influence within the region, but to say that they were the same people because they are ethnically identical (or close to identical) is to ignore the impact that cultural development has on a national or regional identity.
And now back to the thread's topic. I would also agree that it's best to limit this study to the period after 1945, even though I'm personally much more interested in earlier insurgencies. When time and number of available sources are two major considerations, the post-1945 period is hard to beat.
"On the plains and mountains of the American West, the United States Army had once learned everything there was to learn about hit-and-run tactics and guerrilla warfare."
T.R. Fehrenbach This Kind of War
Perhaps I am not the one who is adrift...
Good points, but said another way, one might ask: "Is all violence "warfare"? or "If a state opts to respond to violence by waging warfare against the perpetrators of that violence does that make it warfare"?
Or, as WILF suggests, perhaps is it really a much larger issue that touches National Policy and Strategy?
I believe that many see this the way WILF does and I recognize that it is the majority position, so by a purely democratic or mathmatic analysis, it must be right.
I challenge that status quo thinking though, believing that an insurgency is most often better "neutralized" through addressing root causes than "defeated" by waging war against one's own populace as if it were a foreign state.
When a foreign country intervenes in such an internal conflict to protect interests they have there, they tend to want to keep the current government in place so work to not only do so, but also to help put down the rebellion. Right or Wrong is not the metric, preserving access to the national interest is.
When a foreign country intervenes in such an internal conflict to create interests they desire there, they tend to want to dispose of the government in place, so work to do so and to also lend aid to the rebellion in its efforts. Right or Wrong is not the metric here either, gaining access to the national interest is.
These actions of National Policy and Strategy revolving around these popular revolts make up the family of operations we call "Insurgency" and "Counterinsurgency" and "Foreign Internal Defense" and "Unconventional Warfare." But is it warfare in the true Clauswitzian sense? Perhaps. My point is that it is worth considering through both lights to have the best perspective. The concept of "Irregular Warfare" is based on the perspective that all of these activites are indeed war. But consider the source, IW came from the military, so naturally they see it that way.
Another way is to look at all of these violent internal struggles as all part of man's natural reaction to dealing with problems that can't be resolved peacefully, the appliation of violence. But that does not make it necessarily "war."
Last edited by Bob's World; 01-30-2009 at 05:08 PM.
Robert C. Jones
Intellectus Supra Scientia
(Understanding is more important than Knowledge)
"The modern COIN mindset is when one arrogantly goes to some foreign land and attempts to make those who live there a lesser version of one's self. The FID mindset is when one humbly goes to some foreign land and seeks first to understand, and then to help in some small way for those who live there to be the best version of their own self." Colonel Robert C. Jones, US Army Special Forces (Retired)
I'm not sure you are actually challenging a position I in particular hold. Insurgency is the use of "military means" - organised violence for a "political purpose."
The problem is that the root cause is often impossible to address without defeating the insurgents first. What is more, as in Sierra Leone, the stated cause, (democracy) was not actually the source of the violence (resources).
Sure, addressing the roots of conflict, often avoid/delay conflict. One you are fighting though, it's best to win. Peace is nice. It's not a requirement.
Infinity Journal "I don't care if this works in practice. I want to see it work in theory!"
- The job of the British Army out here is to kill or capture Communist Terrorists in Malaya.
- If we can double the ratio of kills per contact, we will soon put an end to the shooting in Malaya.
Sir Gerald Templer, foreword to the "Conduct of Anti-Terrorist Operations in Malaya," 1958 Edition
To avoid thread derailment, a brief response.
Bob's World saidI do not agree with that statement, not what I said. However, that is closer to reality than the rest of your admittedly correct in idealistic terms argument. Reality differed. As you said:...now I have to comment on your supporting argument that N.Vietnam was an outside power that instigated and manipulated and sustained a S. Vietnam insurgency.And the rest as they say is history -- in the Case of Viet Nam, history with many myths embedded and the normal case of people believing what they want to believe.We ignored the will of the Vietnamese populace writ-large by first reinstating the French occupation, and then by enforcing the artificial border through the heart of their homeland as part of our Cold War hedge against the Soviets.
Steve Blair has it right IMO.
To get back on the thread, Bob's World later said:I agree and that tracks with what I believe CavGuy is trying to show. I'd only offer two cautions for him as to what happened in several of his examples and for the consideration of all as policy issues:I challenge that status quo thinking though, believing that an insurgency is most often better "neutralized" through addressing root causes than "defeated" by waging war against one's own populace as if it were a foreign state.
When a foreign country intervenes in such an internal conflict to protect interests they have there, they tend to want to keep the current government in place so work to not only do so, but also to help put down the rebellion. Right or Wrong is not the metric, preserving access to the national interest is.
Be very sure you truly understand what are the root causes. As the digression on Viet Nam shows, opinions can vary and affect the outcome...
On the second quoted point, I believe such 'keeping' should be determined based on the host nation's national interest, not the intervenor's as generally occurs.
We'll just have to agree to stand 180 degrees out on this
I will have to join Mr. Webster (": a condition of revolt against a government that is less than an organized revolution and that is not recognized as belligerency"), the U.S. DOD and NATO("An organized movement aimed at the overthrow of a constituted government through use of subversion and armed conflict.), and a host of others in disagreeing with your definition of insurgency. In fact, an insurgent, not having a military, can not likely employ "military means." He employs violence. He employs terror, but only in phase III as in Vietnam or China (sorry Ken) does he employ "military means" Certainly the counterinsurgent, possessing a military is free to, and often does, "employ military means" in responding to such violent popular uprisings.
I also take the position that defeating a symptom, (the insurgent), is the delaying action, as new insurgents will always emerge so long as the underlying conditions exist. Addressing the concerns of the populace is the enduring solution. Again, we will remain 180 degrees out on this point, and I am comfortable with that.
Example: The defeat of the MNLF in the 70's is cited as a "victory," yet here they are still fighting the government of the Philippines as the underlying conditions were never addressed.
Any "victory" in an insurgency built primarily on the slain bodies of the rebelling populace has merely buried the coals to burst into flames again in due time. The history of man is replete with examples of this fact.
Last edited by Bob's World; 01-30-2009 at 06:39 PM.
Robert C. Jones
Intellectus Supra Scientia
(Understanding is more important than Knowledge)
"The modern COIN mindset is when one arrogantly goes to some foreign land and attempts to make those who live there a lesser version of one's self. The FID mindset is when one humbly goes to some foreign land and seeks first to understand, and then to help in some small way for those who live there to be the best version of their own self." Colonel Robert C. Jones, US Army Special Forces (Retired)
To this neutral observer,
the last few posts are not really off-topic. Although they deal more with the "How of Fighting" (rather than the "Who of Fighting"), that seems to be a fundamental dichotomy in how these armed conflicts are analysed - and what is considered more important, the "How" or the "Who".
The Lyall paper, "Do Democracies Make Inferior Counterinsurgents? Reassessing Democracy’s Impact on War Outcomes and Duration", and a forthcoming Lyall and Wilson paper, "Rage Against the Machines: Explaining Outcomes in Counterinsurgency Wars", with supporting dataset, emphasize the "How" - seemingly, a counterpoint to Niel's tentative suggestion as to where his dataset is taking him.
That is an observation only - not a judgment.
Brief opinion piece (looking at Vietam from a different viewpoint):
Vietnam seems to me to be a tough nut to catagorize. From the French and US viewpoints, it was an insurgency by the Viet Minh and later Viet Cong with a heavy North Vietnamese overlay. Viewed from Giap's standpoint, it was an insurgency by Vietnamese (North and South) who cast their lot with the French and Americans. From his standpoint (he was a lawyer; then a general), his was the legally constituted government of Indochina from 1946. As such, he mounted counter-insurgency campaigns using different methods depending on the totality of circumstances he faced at the time. Some worked; some didn't. He adapted.
Last edited by jmm99; 01-30-2009 at 08:16 PM.
Bob, very happy to disagree with you, if that it what you wish, but I do not disagree with the definitions you cite. I just used a broader description. For example, there are and have been insurgencies not aimed at "overthrowing a government," as Cavguy points out.
I think you are quibbling over "military means." Military means is 4 guys with AK's, hand guns, or farm implements. Military merely means organised and for a purpose. It is entirely possible to have a military with fewer weapons than members. The Palmach had most of their weapons confiscated by the British, but remained a military force.
"Terror" to mind is the use of criminal means, but with a political purpose - though can equally be employed for criminal purposes.
Sometimes the populace has not position in that at all. In Sierra Leone, the population had no stake in the game at all. In Southern Thailand, there is not a lot you can do to help the Muslim population. They have a pretty good life comparative to the native Thai, - some just think they should not be part of Thailand.I also take the position that defeating a symptom, (the insurgent), is the delaying action, as new insurgents will always emerge so long as the underlying conditions exist. Addressing the concerns of the populace is the enduring solution. Again, we will remain 180 degrees out on this point, and I am comfortable with that.
Last edited by William F. Owen; 01-31-2009 at 07:07 AM. Reason: spelling and content
Infinity Journal "I don't care if this works in practice. I want to see it work in theory!"
- The job of the British Army out here is to kill or capture Communist Terrorists in Malaya.
- If we can double the ratio of kills per contact, we will soon put an end to the shooting in Malaya.
Sir Gerald Templer, foreword to the "Conduct of Anti-Terrorist Operations in Malaya," 1958 Edition
Major problems with that study
A lot of the differences are explained in the dataset inclusion of (a) the 1800's, (b) a looser definition of insurgency, and (c) counting draws as insurgent victory.
Secondly, I have major, major issues with their "case study" of 4ID vs. 101st ABN (AA) in OIF 1 as the example of how mech hurts COIN forces Comparing the 82d ABN in Anbar 2003 and 1AD in Baghdad would yield a somewhat different result. That assertion is plain crap. My IR professor forwarded me that article, and I am working on a rebuttal piece for International Organizations. We hashed a SWC thread on it here - but bottom line if mech hurts COIN forces than how come 3ACR (has least number of dismounted troops of any BCT in the Army), and 1/1 AD (heavy legacy BCT) were hugely COIN successful?
Finally, I would submit the correlation of mechanization and decreasing counterinsurgent success is also clearly related to the information revolution - insurgencies need to spread their message.
What's the dataset coding definition for insurgency, Cavguy? Does it depend on battle deaths (and if so, is the threshold set in absolute numbers, or relative to population size)? How does it differentiate from terrorism?
I ask this because, arguably, the great success of democracies might be that groups never make the transition from protest movement > small terrorist group > full-blown insurgency, and that the "success" of democracies lies rather earlier than their ability to engage in full-scale COIN.
A critic might argue that it is rather like trying to measure the effectiveness of a bug-zapper atop Mount Everest (the body count isn't really getting at the issue of why there are so few mosquitos around...)
In your opinion, what is the significance and consequences of differentiating between violence as "military means" and other forms of politically-driven violence?
When I am weaker than you, I ask you for freedom because that is according to your principles; when I am stronger than you, I take away your freedom because that is according to my principles. - Louis Veuillot
Niel, Lyall-Wilson and you,
because of the differences you cite, seem to engage using the statistical approach (vs. the "matched" units approach) only in their Model 7, where their criteria do still differ from yours, as you point out:
This part of the discourse reminds me of many "battles of the experts" in which I've participated - not as an expert, but as the guy who had to translate the expert to the judge or jury. As you know, many of these battles degenerate (from the non-expert's standpoint) into inside baseball arguments between the experts.(Mech article, p.25 in .pdf)
Interestingly, REGIME only reaches statistical significance in the post-1945 era ~Model 7! and is negatively associated with incumbent victory, suggesting that as states become more democratic their vulnerability to defeat increases. This at once supports and qualifies existing arguments about presumed ineffectiveness of democratic states in COIN wars. To be sure, it suggests that as political systems become more open, the likelihood of defeat is also increased. Yet these shifts in regime type could occur at lower ends of the 21-point Polity2 values—that is, a shift from 5 to a 0—and therefore one should not conclude that stable democracies are especially vulnerable. [71] Moreover, the time-dependent nature of this effect is at least partially inconsistent with claims that audience costs or educated middle classes are hobbling democratic war efforts. Indeed, neither mechanism is exclusive to democracies, nor is it clear why their effects should only be observed after 1945.
[71] We re-estimated Model 7 with a dummy DEMOC variable that denoted whether a state’s regime score was .7, the conventional threshold for being coded a stable democracy, DEMOC was not significant.
What I've gleaned from my experience is that the practical examples weigh more with the non-expert than anything else. E.g.,
because ... da, da, da - and you're off to the races. After reading through Lyall's articles, I can see why you are considering the topic. Bonne Chance.from Cavguy
... but bottom line if mech hurts COIN forces than how come 3ACR (has least number of dismounted troops of any BCT in the Army), and 1/1 AD (heavy legacy BCT) were hugely COIN successful ?
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