How Insurgencies End

[jmm99]

Politik by other means, how do you derive this:

from Wilf
ALL war is "80%" political....

It would seem that ALL war is "100%" political following that CvC logic.

Now, if one accepts the concept that each war has some effort made toward the "political struggle" and other effort made toward the "military struggle", then one could assign percentages of effort to each struggle. But, do you, Wilf, accept the concept of a "political struggle" as a part of war ?

Regards

Mike

[William F. Owen]

But, do you, Wilf, accept the concept of a "political struggle" as a part of war ?

Absolutely! All War is a political struggle, but the Armed Force can only be part of the Armed struggle. Armed force can only be instrumental. Armed force is never The Policy.

a.) If there is no use violence, it is not war
b.) War is political violence.
c.) Armed Forces are purely instruments of actual or threatened violence for what ever policy they are required to set forth
d.) The cause of all conflict is political.

[Dayuhan]

Absolutely! All War is a political struggle, but the Armed Force can only be part of the Armed struggle. Armed force can only be instrumental. Armed force is never The Policy.

a.) If there is no use violence, it is not war
b.) War is political violence.
c.) Armed Forces are purely instruments of actual or threatened violence for what ever policy they are required to set forth
d.) The cause of all conflict is political.

This is true. That's why discussion of war, small or large, must also involve discussion of policy, and why a discussion such as this one invariably involves policy aspects. no need or reason to shy away from it, no?

[William F. Owen]

This is true. That's why discussion of war, small or large, must also involve discussion of policy, and why a discussion such as this one invariably involves policy aspects. no need or reason to shy away from it, no?

Dam straight! It may be that your policy aim cannot be set forth via violence, or is not effective in doing so. Military force is a tool to be applied very selectively. It cannot set forth every policy, and using military force changes the policy being set forth!

The error in the US Military way of thinking is to say "our policy should be X, so we can employ military power", as opposed to "We can destroy the enemies armed force using military power," and leave it to the policy makers to answer the exam question. It also largely ignores that policy does not stay static and is almost never based on a deep understanding of military power.

[Bob's World]

To throw another monkey wrench into the gears, I don't think Insurgency should be classified as "war" at all.

It's kind of like a tomatoe. All your life you think its a vegetable, becuase everyone has always told you it was a vegetable, you've always treated it like a vegetable, you always mix it with other vegetables; and then one day some horticulturist comes along and tells you its really a fruit.

I won't take that any farther, but I think we gain clearer insights as how to approach insurgency and the relative roles of the Host nation government, its military and that of any outside governments and their militaries that intervene to assist by looking at insurgency not as war, but as a civil emergency. Not to apply the rules of war, but to apply the rules of military support to civil authorities. Not to supplant the civil leadership, but to supplement the same, holding them to task.

We've been treating insurgency like war for too long. Its violent like war, it has an "enemy" like war, it will kill you and drain your national blood, treasure, and influence like war. But it isn't war. If I eat tomatoes all my life and refuse to recognize they are a fruit it really doesn't matter much. But if I mischaracterize a major event like an insurgency, I could inadvertantly harm, or even destroy my nation.

Ohh yeah. And Wilf asked a few posts back about "non-violent insurgencies." Here is where I largely agree with Kitson. He saw this as a spectrum along a scale of violence. The causal factors being the same, but what begins as "subversion" at some point becomes "insurgency", not because the events somehow changed in nature, but merely becuase it had become more violent. So, Kitson would call non-violent insurgency "subversion." Same event, just different stages. Sometimes the subversives win without having to employ violence, as with Ghandi or King. Or sometimes an insurgency is suppressed back down into a subversive phase for a number of years before it goes "insurgent" again, as in Mindanao. You solve it when you address the root causes, and level of violence is only one of many metrics to measure success with, and certainly not the decisive measure.

[William F. Owen]

And Wilf asked a few posts back about "non-violent insurgencies." Here is where I largely agree with Kitson. He saw this as a spectrum along a scale of violence. The causal factors being the same, but what begins as "subversion" at some point becomes "insurgency", not because the events somehow changed in nature, but merely becuase it had become more violent.

I'd see "subversion" as entirely political. Does subversion include violence? It can, but it is not primarily violent - it is "subversive."
What Kitson better contributes is how the military can go after the insurgents, which is what the military should focus on doing.

[Dayuhan]

To throw another monkey wrench into the gears, I don't think Insurgency should be classified as "war" at all.

Again, I think one of the problems with these discussions is that we, like the Rand monograph, lack a consensus definition of insurgency. It's all very well to take the the "I know it when I see it" approach, but it makes discussion difficult, because while we all know it when we see it, we may be seeing it in different places.

I think we gain clearer insights as how to approach insurgency and the relative roles of the Host nation government, its military and that of any outside governments and their militaries that intervene to assist by looking at insurgency not as war, but as a civil emergency. Not to apply the rules of war, but to apply the rules of military support to civil authorities. Not to supplant the civil leadership, but to supplement the same, holding them to task.

Agreed, but I'd point out that these formulations have little or no applicability to our current engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan, because in neither of these cases did we "intervene to assist".

He saw this as a spectrum along a scale of violence. The causal factors being the same, but what begins as "subversion" at some point becomes "insurgency", not because the events somehow changed in nature, but merely becuase it had become more violent. So, Kitson would call non-violent insurgency "subversion." Same event, just different stages. Sometimes the subversives win without having to employ violence, as with Ghandi or King. Or sometimes an insurgency is suppressed back down into a subversive phase for a number of years before it goes "insurgent" again, as in Mindanao. You solve it when you address the root causes, and level of violence is only one of many metrics to measure success with, and certainly not the decisive measure.

I'm not sure that the level of violence is the only distinguishing factor. Certainly we could imagine a continuum moving from dissidence to subversion to insurgency. But where, then, would we place someone like Timothy McVeigh? Based purely on the level of violence, we'd call it insurgency, but I'm not convinced that's appropriate. I'd think that a certain level of organization and scope is necessary to distinguish an insurgency from the work of a small number of very angry dissidents.

In similar vein, we often assume that dissidents embrace violence because no peaceful avenue for change is available to them. In some cases that's true, in some it's not. Sometimes people embrace violence because they are unable to generate enough popular support to make use of conventional vehicles for change... again, such as McVeigh, or the Baader-Meinhof, or other violent but extremely restricted fringe groups. Certainly this is violent dissidence, but can it be called "insurgency"?

Possibly a load of unnecessary semantic detail, but given the extent to which insurgency is discussed here it might be useful to define the term.

[MikeF]

Again, I think one of the problems with these discussions is that we, like the Rand monograph, lack a consensus definition of insurgency. It's all very well to take the the "I know it when I see it" approach, but it makes discussion difficult, because while we all know it when we see it, we may be seeing it in different places.

Agree.

Agreed, but I'd point out that these formulations have little or no applicability to our current engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan, because in neither of these cases did we "intervene to assist".

Partially agree. We intevened to force arbitration on non-cooperative actors in the hopes that we could force a better solution (governance).

I'm not sure that the level of violence is the only distinguishing factor. Certainly we could imagine a continuum moving from dissidence to subversion to insurgency. But where, then, would we place someone like Timothy McVeigh? Based purely on the level of violence, we'd call it insurgency, but I'm not convinced that's appropriate. I'd think that a certain level of organization and scope is necessary to distinguish an insurgency from the work of a small number of very angry dissidents.

I was going to make a similar reply. The problem with BW's tomato analogy is that oftentimes, the root causes or ideas or grievances behind the rebellion or secession is deeply ingrained in the community. For example, if we look at other areas in the Phillipines where the communist continue to mobilize, the root causes seem to be land reform and reparations issues that pre-date back before the christians and the United States were ever introduced. How do you resolve that? But BW has a point, every 20 years the insurgency vanishes, the gov't chalks up a win in the COIN category, and then they rise again in perpetual cycle.