COIN Counterinsurgency (merged thread)

[Dayuhan]

You seriously want to know what triggers a response following a military invasion?

The invasion triggers it, it is called a resistance insurgency. The violation of Sovereignty is the major criteria from the list

Then you seriously want to know what happens when that invading force installs a puppet regime? That too is a resistance, but now it is violations of Sovereignty, lack of Legitimacy at a minimum, and more likely than not those segments of the populace not collaborating are also feeling some serious Disrespect, Injustice under the law and a major lack of hope in their ability to exercise legal control of their government....

All of this is in the chart.

I confess that at times i envy your certainty. It must be nice to know you have it all worked out and locked down.

As to "populace on populace" conflicts, that is not insurgency, as insurgency is an illegal political challenge to government. If the kids are just fighting it is just fighting, and probably related to other common factors of greed, anger, etc. Now if one segment of the populace that is outside of good governance is attacking a segment of the populace that is inside of good governance, then that is a part of the insurgency, like the actions of the Rebels against the Tory/loyalists during the American Revolution. Or those of the populace that supports the Taliban against those aspects of the Afghan populace that supports the Northern Alliance.

Again you seem to treat "government" as a separate entity apart from these competing populaces, not an entity that is drawn from these populaces and reflects their competitions and prejudices. I'll echo M-A again:

My only comment would be that you define government as a neutral body above social/ethnical/cultural clivages. But unfortunately, a government is made of people (Human beings to be precise) and reflects the social/ethnical/cultural clivages of a designated country or society. Also, they are accountable to the part of the population who elected them and has to act to please them.

Until this reality is reflected on the chart, rather than "government", "populace a", "populace b" and so on in their neat differentiated boxes, the chart is not reflecting reality on the ground.

One problem with trying to represent these things graphically is that we like our pictures to be neat and defined, and the more neat and defined they are the less relation they bear to what's actually going on outside the wire.

[M-A Lagrange]

Bob,

My point is not to argue with you but rather challenge your graph (I will repeat my self but I do agree with most of what you say and come from almost the same starting point).

Then you seriously want to know what happens when that invading force installs a puppet regime? That too is a resistance, but now it is violations of Sovereignty, lack of Legitimacy at a minimum, and more likely than not those segments of the populace not collaborating are also feeling some serious Disrespect, Injustice under the law and a major lack of hope in their ability to exercise legal control of their government.

I fully agree with that.

As to "populace on populace" conflicts, that is not insurgency, as insurgency is an illegal political challenge to government. If the kids are just fighting it is just fighting, and probably related to other common factors of greed, anger, etc.

I partially agree with that. And therefore partially disagree.

What I am saying is:
1) Governments are a mirror of the populations they administrate. Antagonisms as Christian/Muslims which exist in a country are found in the government. In many countries the dominant group will tend to be over represented and have discriminating policies over minorities. This not because they have bad policies or bad governance but because they govern according to the group they represent: the overwhelming majority (think about the Copts in Egypt).
2) Sure an invasion triggers an insurgency. But in many cases, insurgencies come from the previously mentioned governance problematic (inherent to any government) AND the resistance/self-preservation reaction from a minority who will immediately define itself as “different” from the populace and then act as government is a bunch of outsiders/foreigners invading them (In some cases with good reasons).

That’s why I, personally, tend to make a difference between the two. It’s two different problematic with different roots causes but with a similar huge mess trunk.


Taking South Sudan:
Because people inside SPLA did not receive what they expected, they rebelled and created insurgencies. Cause 1: greed.

Because SPLA is ruling South Sudan with disregard to some ethnic groups, they armed themselves and rebelled. Cause 2: bad governance, exclusion.

But before last year, South Sudan was part of Sudan and SPLA was conducting an insurgency because part of the population felt excluded from national representation and South Sudanese, because of cultural differences (Based on ethnicity and religion mainly but not only), felt different from North Sudanese. Cause: legitimacy and sovereignty.

You have here the perfect example of a large mixture of causes leading to the same thing: insurgency.
For a long time what united insurgent was the sovereignty/legitimacy pb. But once they won the war against north, the same sovereignty/legitimacy pb came back in the face of SPLA (the government) within southeners.

Multiple causes with various level of importance for each groups.

What is a challenge to set up a strategy and decide if you need to conduct population centric COIN or enemy centric COIN or Counter Terrorist operations is the necessity to identify:
- Several insurgencies causes (which are sometime related but not always). IMHO, no insurgency has a single root cause.
- Various respond to different causes according to micro context problematic. You cannot treat a situation as one and only problematic.

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22 November COIN Center Webcast

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COIN is Dead: U.S. Army Must Put Strategy Over Tactics

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COIN is Alive: Know When to Use it!

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[Compost]

This item is focused on discussing what COIN is supposed to be, what it is and what is needed to succeed or more accurately to replace COIN. It excludes discussion of morality and acceptable behavioral norms because those are already codified in military and international law.

Some people believe COIN doctrine contains the experiential, synthesized and theoretical knowledge needed to provide a comprehensive guide for successful action in a theatre such as Afghanistan. If that were valid then the actual mix of material – be it military, political, police, social, other – would be of little importance. The vital aspect would simply be that it was agreed upon and usefully employable.

However, employing COIN doctrine and assessing its use as guidance has lead to argument. That is of itself degrading because COIN is currently used as both a strategy and concept of operation intended to promote understanding, agreement and co-ordination down to sub-unit level. Continuing argument about what is useful, tolerable or useless indicates that there have been some quite substantial changes in operational emphasis within for example ISAF. COIN precepts are also routinely subject to posturing and have generated numerous sound-bites.

Names and phrasing can assist memory and with enough time it is possible to devise a clever name or half-meaningful sound bite about anything. But cleverness often contributes more to novelty and ego than to understanding and productive change. ‘Eating soup with a knife’ is cute but conveys little of real use and every infantry trainee learns early how to tackle congealed muck. The ‘three block war’ is an artificial arrangement with neat boundaries when the common situation is a tangle maliciously contrived to occur within the same block.

The associated term ‘strategic corporal’ is a superlative example of excess. Platoon sergeants and company command teams are well able to guide and constrain junior NCOs and junior officers. So the phrase was not meant as a figurative punch to the head of junior officers but was apparently intended to describe a productive and attainable need. As such it is analagous to requirements creep and the assumption that a combat or combat support platform already heavily equipped and tasked to meet tactical needs can be loaded up with further missions and equipment that serve mainly to increase complexity, training, fatique, maintenance, downtime and also procurement and upgrade costs and word count.

Practitioners of COIN are also prone to use keywords such as ‘seamless’ to imply that adherence to its precepts will result in successful operations. But seamless is also an appropriate descriptor for shrink-wrappers, rigid and inflexible castings and shapeless yowie suits. Anything tailor made to fit well has seams as in a swimmer’s wetsuit, or a dress uniform with discrete margins of surplus to enable later adjustment. In real life ‘seamless’ is code for shallow thinking and a weak substitute for coordination to cope with ever-likely seams and other discontinuities.

Capping it off COIN is often presented as an iron fist and velvet glove. A clever duality that must confuse its would-be and co-opted practitioners when minimum force is stressed as a mandatory requirement to win “hearts and minds”. COIN is altogether too clever and adept at confusing those two items also. Regardless of where the heart is at or is going to, conflict is decided when an adversary comes to perceive realistically or otherwise that a desired outcome is not achievable at tolerable cost. The survivor’s heart may be sore but his mind is dominant even if bitter and resentful.

And then there are the counterveiling maxims. Many of them are hard-learned truisms as exemplified by “Presence patrols generate own goals” and “The minimum force response is an effective way of increasing blue force casualties.”

All the above attempts at cleverness are reminiscent of COIN itself. Extrapolating from the specific to derive a general theorem of applicability and doctrine is difficult. And with good reason because circumstances vary in ways that are not always noted and qualified. And the more one reads the more apparent it becomes that COIN concepts are a ragbag of ideas about what has been sometimes useful in the past melded into a supposedly integrated whole. COIN as practised is not an all-encompassing strategy nor a viable conop for an interposing or expeditionary military power or group.

Repeating some points made elsewhere, ‘counter’ is reactive and intrinsicly weak while ‘insurgency’ is an internal uprising which implies a degree of legitimacy. Though COIN might be appropriate to describe operations in one’s own country, it is nonetheless a malapropism when applied to any form of expeditionary conflict.

The sometime alternative name ‘Foreign Internal Defence’ is usefully descriptive and different as it seems to envisage own forces functioning mainly in an advisory role. But that means the term has limited applicability. Also it must anyway have been thought-up by a poorly informed committee because it licenses the news media to make frequent use of phrases such as “fiddling with the populace” and “fiddling while the cities, towns, villages and countryside burn”.

The ineptitudes of COIN and FID from an international community that developed and productively uses things like kevlar, lasers, MASINT and NVGs. A community so technologically advanced should have enough energy and common sense to employ such resources in an effective strategy and associated concept of operation.

The rest of this item is aimed at the terminology, doctrine and conops to succeed clever and sensitive COIN. Why terminology ? Terminology is a useful starting point and aid to understanding. It can also be a means to more accurately inform and to obtain and retain support within one’s own general population and in the target and other countries.

Peacemaking is as elaborated in earlier posts an appropriate name for a doctrine and an over-arching strategy. It quite literally suggests an external power or international group intruding in some region or country to adjudicate between various interests and participants and to sometimes play one off against another. There are surely other names but peacemaking is good enough and it encompasses both a useful objective and a strategy.

As an alternative to seamlessness it is useful to recall the example of bland sounding anti-submarine warfare - the doctrine which harnessed but held apart two conops each with a diametrically opposed purpose and its own distinct resources. One was convoying that aimed to protect and secure shipping primarily by localized suppression, distraction, deterrence of submarines and secondly by the opportunistic destruction of in-area persistent submarines. Two was hunter-killing aimed at wide-area location, pursuit and destruction of every submarine and all supporting resources. There was in practical terms a huge seam between those two conops. The same could apply in peacemaking.

Winning hearts and minds is a natural task for resident forces. So one conop aimed at local security and HUMINT could employ whatever indigenous military and police resources were available for use in contingencies. That conop might be referred to as MAPOPS or MAPCOPS rather than COIN or FID. Advising and mentoring could be done by visiting special forces who are anyway required to have already-trained linguists for use when alternatively engaged in sponsoring guerilla type operations. Any need for additional numbers of security elements would probably require attachment of visiting regular force units, perhaps of battalion size. As supplementary attached forces it could also be useful to form independent companies based on a reinforced company group. Such units would provide a usefully testing environment for majors being considered for command of a battalion.

Wide-area surveillance and stand-off surveillance of local areas is a task for high technology RSTA assets that are likely to be deployed with visiting forces. Those forces are also certain to have ready access to surface and air vehicles that enable fairly rapid concentration of powerful units and subunits for cutoff, persistent pursuit and destruction of whatever is detected. Isolation, mapping and precise targetting are especially difficult in residential areas but tactical sensors and fusion/display aids are steadily becoming more portable, rugged and easy-to-use. NVGs are one example particularly when curfews are not allowed. This wide-area/regional conop for visiting forces might be referred to as WAMOPS or REMOPS.

In some instances these two conops would of course intersect and probably clash with each other. One example would be an area in which MAPCOPS had not gained sufficient intelligence. But such interaction or clashing could be appropriate because thereafter MAPCOPS or WAMOPS might achieve more than it or the other had previously been able to obtain. The alternative is that both would do worse. That could be left for empirical assessment.

That’s enough stirring the pot in this area of social science. It’s easier to consider amenable topics like military technology.

[jmm99]

on this (my emphasis):

from Compost
This item is focused on discussing what COIN is supposed to be, what it is and what is needed to succeed or more accurately to replace COIN. It excludes discussion of morality and acceptable behavioral norms because those are already codified in military and international law.

Law (including military and international law) is an instrument of policy. What we should know as a basic is that military law and international law are far from being monoliths. They vary substatively from country to country, and from group to group.

"COIN" (which I take as primarily an internal effort by a state against a predominately internal opponent) tends to be legal intensive - especially as the military struggle wanes and the political struggle waxes. The applicable laws - for that struggle - grow out of the respectively opposed policies and politics. Those policies and politics are very much shaped by the acceptable behavioral norms of the opposing forces.

Regards

Mike

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More Commentary on COIN is Dead

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[Compost]

on this (my emphasis):



Law (including military and international law) is an instrument of policy. What we should know as a basic is that military law and international law are far from being monoliths. They vary substatively from country to country, and from group to group.

"COIN" (which I take as primarily an internal effort by a state against a predominately internal opponent) tends to be legal intensive - especially as the military struggle wanes and the political struggle waxes. The applicable laws - for that struggle - grow out of the respectively opposed policies and politics. Those policies and politics are very much shaped by the acceptable behavioral norms of the opposing forces.

Regards

Mike

Agree that law regardless of how established becomes an instrument of policy. It also functions as a constraint on policy. Also believe that although law and practice iterate, law should not be modified for advantage, convenience or other reason during a particular military contingency or conflict.

However, can see that a military power might of its own volition decide on less vigorous use of for example the military need argument in order to further, but never to foster, some adversarial movement toward an acceptable outcome. It other words be lawful and implacable and give mostly pain until you get a concession or some other useful thing.

[Compost]

It other words be lawful and implacable and give mostly pain until you get a concession or some other useful thing.

sri last sentence should read:


In other words be lawful and implacable and give mostly - but not exclusively - pain until you get a concession or some other useful thing.

[jmm99]

from Compost
Agree that law regardless of how established becomes an instrument of policy. It also functions as a constraint on policy.

They certainly apply in a democracy where more than one power center can be a policy-maker. The US "co-equal" three branches, Executive, Legislative and Judicial, are an example. E.g., the Executive establishes a policy which is executed by "laws" (executive orders). That policy and "laws" also act as constraints on policy-making by subordinates in the Executive branch (e.g., DoD).

They also hold over the other two branches unless they "revolt" (here by a number of constitutional methods). Thus, here, the Executive policy (and its "laws") may be accepted or rejected as constraints (rightly or wrongly) by the other two branches.

But, in an absolute autocracy (in theory), the Autocrat's policy (and its "laws") should operate as constraints on everyone in the state. In fact, that theory doesn't quite hold because multiple subordinate power centers are evidenced in, say, Hitler's Germany and Stalin's USSR (albeit less evident in the USSR until after Stalin died.

A country's "insurgent group" also represents a power center, which obviously does not agree with one or more of that country's governing policies and laws.

Regards

Mike

[M-A Lagrange]

On the insurgent and law, the book
Ya Basta!: 10 Years of the Zapatista Uprising Writings of Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ya-Basta-Zap...2389415&sr=8-1

is interresting as you have a compilation of all the laws promulgated by the zapatist movement in the areas under their control.

It is an interresting illustration of Mike point of law as policy tool.

[Bob's World]

law should not be modified for advantage, convenience or other reason during a particular military contingency or conflict.

In many cases "the rule of law" is the primary source of causation for insurgency; and even more often, when many factors are contributing to discontent and subversion within a populace, it is the state's instinct to ratchet up enforcement of the rule of law to regain control over the populace that pushes an uprising to the next level. Typically to the ultimate detriment of the state and the larger society as a whole.

Laws are important. Justice is essential. One is rooted in rules designed to objectively describe the left and right limits of acceptable behavior, the latter is much more principle-based and rooted in the intangible and innate perceptions of what people instinctively feel.

For me, the greatest example of this "Rule of Law" vs "Justice" debate is in the fundamental essence of the message delivered by Jesus (who was widely feared to be an emerging insurgent leader by Roman and Jewish leadership alike). The rule of law is the foremost tool of a regime to control the populace, and certainly that was the case in Palestine, where the Romans used Jewish officials and Jewish law to control the Jewish people. Jesus message constantly challenged the injustice in how the law's of Moses were being applied. You see how many came to him believing he was their salvation from injustice on Earth, only to be gently redirected to the fact that he had a larger mission and purpose for his message.

The law can be perverted to evil purpose, or is designed for controlling purposes that are no longer necessary or appropriate for an evolving populace. Often it is fixing and changing the laws; rather than more vigorous enforcement of the law, that is the critical step a state can make in reducing popular unrest and quelling a growing insurgency.

One sees this also in the history of English law, which is the root of our American system. The Law was the King's tool for controlling the populace, but increasingly when one could not find justice under the law, and evolving populace demanded greater justice. The King's Chancellors began to hear cases, and evolved to the Courts of Chancery, with a rooting in the principles of Equity (Good Faith and Fair Dealing). Ultimately the two merged into one, bringing justice to the law. The timing of this development and reformation of governance that swept Europe are not coincidental.

Can Muslim's find justice under the law in countries such as Syria or Saudi Arabia today? That is for them to answer, for justice is how one feels, which is not well assessed by outside perspectives. State's also have a biased perspective as the writer and enforcer of the law to not well see the growing injustice under the same. The quest for justice is historically far more powerful than even the most vigorous enforcement of the rule of law to keep suppressed indefinitely.

[jmm99]

for another pointer to evidence that insurgents have laws. Here is a sample (4 pages) of a Marcos article written in 1992, Our Word is Our Weapon, including the role of their women in shaping the Zapatista Laws (at p.3 pdf). See also, this SWC thread, Mullah Omar: Taliban Rules and Regulations.

Of course, French women use a more direct method in addressing the "rule of law" and "injustice":



I'm told that Lagrange's mother was the model for this 1968 graphic, but that might be a canard.

Regards

Mike

[jmm99]

having found the 1968 slogan (stored in one of my old semi-frozen mental file cabinets) to accompany La Beaute (ou La Fille du Pave) as her battle cry:

Soyez realiste, demandez l'impossible = Be realistic, demand the impossible.

That does make it a bit difficult, doesn't it, for governments to meet the demands of insurgent groups who adopt this line of reasoning. The battle line is simply drawn at a revolutionary or separatist point which the government cannot approach.

Of course, the response is that the government should offer some compromises (a bit of a sticky wicket to decide which ones without losing authority, etc); thereby splitting away those insurgents who are satisfied with lesser, but possible reforms.

My obvious and simplistic point is that, in defining "COIN", one must consider what is possible and impossible in regard to each side of the coin, the government and the insurgents. The Beauty and the Beast; but which one is which depends on your vantage point.

Regards

Mike

[M-A Lagrange]

I'm told that Lagrange's mother was the model for this 1968 graphic, but that might be a canard.

And my father was on the otherside with the police

My obvious and simplistic point is that, in defining "COIN", one must consider what is possible and impossible in regard to each side of the coin, the government and the insurgents. The Beauty and the Beast; but which one is which depends on your vantage point.

The over simplistic view is to discredit insurgents claims. IN many cases, insurgent claims are a complexe combinaison of irrealist demands (as the students of May 68) and legitimate ones.
The biggest difficulty is to identfy what are insurgent legitimate claims and irrealistic onces.
Responding to legitimate claims will leave insurgent with the only option of radicalisation. Actions of the brits in Malaisia is a very good exemple of government responding to insurgent legitimate claims to cut them from their political advantage.
When distance between insurgents claims are only irrealistic or too radical, you end up in a catch 22 situation or the population.
What ever the governement will do to respond to insurgent claims will never meet population demands as insurgents are not responding to a population legitimate demand.
In that perspective subcommandante Marcos legal work is extremely interresting as it is one of the very few modern insurgency designed to respond to a population demand and not impose a governance/powersharing system over a population by an external group that is not the government.
(Am I clear?)

[jmm99]

as opposed to 1968's CRS and SAC.

Seriously, my summation was too simplistic because it didn't refer to what "the population" wants. That was not meant to exclude "the population". However, "the population" is not likely to be a monolith - your Malayan example involved three major population groups, Malay, Chinese and Indian - and those groups involved subgroups with different wants. The wants of "the population" are harder to determine than, say, the slogans of the government or the insurgents.

But, yes, generally I see true "Rule of Law" as coming from a large majority of the population subject to it - a "constitutional majority" (say, 2/3 -3/4) for major issues. In that respect, I agree with Marcos in what he said about the Zapatista process to develop their laws. Whether what he said was true or false of what was actually done, I don't know.

You also make the point that insurgents, like governments, impose on the population what they believe are the best rules. I suppose Khmer Rouge and Shining Path are examples from the insurgent side. Lots of imposition of law by governments are available. Bob Jones calls that sort of imposition "Rule of Law". I would call it "Rule by Law" - a concept well developed by the Chinese from the Imperial through Communist regimes.

You also make the point that populations are caught in a Catch 22 betwixt the government and the insurgents. You'll get no argument from me on that.

Regards

Mike

[jmm99]

This post from Zenpundit, Do Oligarchies Create Insurgencies?, deserves citation here as a good framework for discussion - and for distinguishing five basic cases: (1) Foreign Invasion; (2) Totalitarian Dictatorships; (3) Democratic States; (4) Colonial regimes; and (5) Authoritarian dictatorships. Not that all of this has not been discussed here at SWC; but this relatively short blog pulls together many facets.

Those facets depend on the actual legal polices and practices exercised by the state. Above I mentioned "Rule by Law", especially with reference to the Chinese systems - Imperial through Communist, as contrasted to "Rule of Law" (as I use that term).

In a traditional historical presentation, I should start with the "Before the Common Era" School of Chinese Legalism and slog through its ups and down to Mao's study of that and competing schools. If so, most everyone would be asleep - and what's its materiality to present-day issues, anyway ?

Here is a series (by various authors) from the NYT (2005-2007), entitled Rule by Law (index of articles below) which have more life and current materiality than what I could present:

Deep Flaws, and Little Justice, in China's Court System (JOSEPH KAHN; Forced confessions remain endemic in a judicial system that faces pressure to maintain "social stability" at all costs. September 21, 2005).

Dispute Leaves U.S. Executive in Chinese Legal Netherworld (JOSEPH KAHN; In China, where the legal system rarely backs investors or ordinary citizens against the state, an entrepreneur has become a pawn in a commercial dispute. November 1, 2005).

Desperate Search for Justice: One Man vs. China (JIM YARDLEY; A father's quest to free his son poses a question about China: Is it possible for a criminal defendant to get a fair trial? November 12, 2005).

A Judge Tests China's Courts, Making History (JIM YARDLEY; A ruling on a mundane case about seed prices opened a debate on judicial autonomy in China's political system. November 28, 2005).

Legal Gadfly Bites Hard, and Beijing Slaps Him (JOSEPH KAHN; Gao Zhisheng has become the most prominent in a string of outspoken lawyers facing persecution. December 13, 2005).

Seeking a Public Voice on China's 'Angry River' (JIM YARDLEY; A proposal for a dam project is now unexpectedly presenting the Chinese government with a quandary of its own making: will it abide by its own laws? December 26, 2005).

When Chinese Sue the State, Cases Are Often Smothered (JOSEPH KAHN; Courts often refuse to issue any verdict at all - or even acknowledge that some legal complaints exist. December 28, 2005).

In Worker's Death, View of China's Harsh Justice (JIM YARDLEY; There is widespread suspicion, even within the government, that too many innocent people are sentenced to death. December 31, 2005).

Rivals on Legal Tightrope Seek to Expand Freedoms in China (JOSEPH KAHN; Two advocates of the rule of law differ on whether to work within the system or to seek an end to Communist rule. February 25, 2007).

If you want a quick Wiki view of Chinese Rule by [or of] Law, go here, here and here.

See also, two short pdfs: The Rule by Law in China Today; and China's Long March to the Rule of Law. From the latter (p.12 pdf):

Rule of law or rule by law?

While there is some evidence that China is in the midst of a transformation to some form of a rule of law, there is at the same time some evidence to support the view that the legal system remains a type of rule by law rather than a form of rule of law. Whereas the core of rule of law is the ability of the law and legal system to impose meaningful restraints on the state and individual members of the ruling elite, rule by law refers to an instrumental conception of law in which law is merely a tool to be used as the state sees fit.

Finally, from this year's NYT, A Return to the Cultural Revolution? (WEI JINGSHENG; April 20, 2011):

WASHINGTON — On April 3, the Chinese Communist authorities secretly detained the well-known artist Ai Weiwei. Neither his family nor friends were notified of what happened to him, why he was seized or where he was. Like everyone else, they have now learned from the Xinhua News Agency that he is under investigation for “economic crimes.”
...
This episode reveals not only the essence of a system where the individual has no rights, but also the evolution of a new brand of repression: the perverted “rule by law” instead of the “rule of law.” In other words, the application of legal loopholes to violate human rights instead of protect them.

Regards

Mike

[jmm99]

I received a PM re: the post above, including two questions.

Why only cite Chinese examples and links?

Chinese law is the best example I know (others may wish to expand the examples) to illustrate "Rule by Law" - which is how oligarchies survive. The ten Chinese examples from the NYT are not unique to China.

The topic of "Rule by Law" ties it into Zenpundit's more general discussion of oligarchies and insurgencies.

In fact, of his five basic cases [(1) Foreign Invasion; (2) Totalitarian Dictatorships; (3) Democratic States; (4) Colonial regimes; and (5) Authoritarian dictatorships], only Democratic States have close to the theoretical "Rule of Law". Even there, actual practice is not always true to the concept that the law and legal system impose meaningful restraints on the state and individual members of the ruling elite. In the other cases, we deal with one form or the other of "Rule by Law" - which can range from the benign to the malign.

-------------------------

Would it not justify its own thread?

I don't think so. The field of Chinese law will find few specialists here - I'm not (despite a reasonable knowledge) because I've no experience in China and can't read Chinese. So, I think that thread would be a non-starter.

The on-going battle between Rule by Law (even if the rules came from heaven) and Rule of Law (where the rules derive from the people and their practices) is of obvious materiality to "IN" and "COIN". But even Mao was torn between the two different constructs right from the gitgo:

Mao on Legalism and Lord Shang - How Shang Yang established confidence by the moving of a pole (1912):

Laws and regulations are instruments for procuring happiness. If the laws and regulations are good, the happiness of our people will certainly be great. Our people fear only that the laws and regulations will not be promulgated, or that, if promulgated, they will not be effective. It is essential that every effort be devoted to the task of guaranteeing and upholding such laws, never ceasing until the objective of perfection is obtained. The government and the people are mutually dependent and interconnected, so how can there be any reason for distrust? On the other hand, if the laws and regulations are not good, then not only will there be no happiness to speak of, but there will also be a threat of harm, and our people should exert their utmost efforts to obstruct such laws and regulations. Even though you want us to have confidence, why should we have confidence? But how can one explain the fact that Shang Yang encountered the opposition of so large a proportion of the people of Qin?

and, To the Glory of the Hans (1919):

It is not that basically we have no strength; the source of our impotence lies in our lack of practice. For thousands of years the Chinese people of several hundred millions have all led a life of slaves. Only one person — the 'emperor'— was not a slave, or rather one could say that even he was the slave of 'heaven'. When the emperor was in control of everything, we were given no opportunity for practice.

We must act energetically to carry out the great union of the popular masses, which will not brook a moment's delay. . . our Chinese people possesses great intrinsic energy. The more profound the oppression, the greater its resistance; that which has accumulated for a long time will surely burst forth quickly. The great union of the Chinese people must be achieved. Gentlemen! We must all exert ourselves, we must all advance with the utmost strength. Our golden age, our age of brightness and splendour lies ahead!

I think these issues and answers belong directly in a discussion of "IN" and "COIN".

Regards

Mike

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Over the Horizon: Dead or Alive, COIN is not the Culprit

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