COIN Counterinsurgency (merged thread)

[Bill Moore]

Posted by Bob's World,

We act based upon an authority granted by the nation we came from, not one granted from the populace of the nation we are in.

O.K., well said and I buy that, so what are we actually doing, because it isn't FID, because the nation doesn't support much of what we're doing. In simple terms it seems we're conducting counter-rebellion or counter-resistance operations against those who oppose our will for their future. I definitely wouldn't advocate developing doctrine for that since it runs against the grain our morals (or should). I'll stick with occupation doctrine, and the legal requirements for an occupying force are defined by international law. If we assumed those roles earlier and stayed out of the internal political transformation role we may be in a different place today. Our views that are not that far apart.

[Bob's World]

Oh I know we see things very similarly, to paraphrase, "we are divided by a common doctrine."

[Compost]

This is an important point, so I will elaborate a bit.

First, Compost, I absolutely am not suggesting that we need to go fly our flag over the capitals of other countries in order to allow us to implement our outdated COIN doctrine; what I am saying is that unless we actually intend to make some foreign land our own, it is NEVER appropriate to execute COIN overseas.

Bob, you have gone way off my track. The meaning of “An out-of-country flag tied to FID” seemed clear to me: the flag of a euphemistically named ‘host nation’ raised above a FID effort conducted by the US or other. Also have commented several times that COIN is a malapropism, and more vitally a flawed conop.

Your response then proceeded to “Yes, we took out the legitimate governments of Iraq and Afghanistan in the pursuit of solutions that we believed would better meet our own national interests.” After that the argument veered back into FID with “As a FID force we are always subordinate to the sovereignty of the nation we are in.” It then proceeded into a concerned discussion of sovereignty, constraints, collective will with value-laden statements such as “long overdue adjustments that led the nation to that troubled place.”

It general it was odd, strangely disconnected and different from your previous posts which I have found lucid and usually interesting.

Now back to my intended track. There has been a lot of military confusion in both Iraq and Afghanistan. That confusion was mainly caused by poor operational planning and lack of appropriate doctrine to displace COIN (back to the practitioner’s own country where it belongs). The result has been that many units in Iraq and Afghanistan seemingly came to rely on trial and error learning-on the-job iteration. Also that mis-guided insistence on COIN precepts meant that contrary lessons learned were not put on the feedback loop into doctrine but instead departed with a unit until its next posting back into the theatre.

What would be useful to reduce future confusion is discussion and development of an alternate doctrine, or doctrines dependent upon the objective. The methodology of interstate doctrine has to proceed from application/intervention to an acceptable end-state. FID which endorses one side is from my viewpoint rarely suitable. However, the end-state must include a viable political entity of some kind; possibly an authoritarian, socialist or plutocratic regime rather than full-fledged democratic state. Possibly two or more such states as in balkanization.

Peace-making is a good candidate because it admits coercion in the multiple sense of openly acknowledging its use, and employing it in one form or another against all local participants. Peace-making also promotes the use of patronage and other rewards to local individuals, groups and interests who make concessions or are to some extent compliant.

There are other candidate doctrines. Occupation followed by picking a batch of sometime or would-be politicians is one. Perhaps that is what is really meant by FID. If not then an early need would be a euphemistic name that suggests repair of a failed state. It would be interesting to read discussion of the pros and cons of that and other candidates.

[Bob's World]

Compost,

Perhaps we are talking past each other, what I hear you saying is that is we could just develop the right doctrine and strategy, then we could do these interventions more effectively.

What I am saying is that no amount of tactical or doctrinal manipulation will make much difference so long as we cling to the same outdated and inappropriate strategic perspectives and context. We replace generals, we shift tactics, and we dig the hole deeper. This in not to say that it is impossible to go out and help others, what it is to say that it is impossible to go out in the name of helping others while our true focus is on controlling and shaping events to best help ourselves. Current COIN doctrine enables such flawed strategic context. By in large, the tactics within our COIN doctrine all have merit, it is in the critical area of context and nuance that they fall apart in terms of providing enduring effectiveness.

Changing FM 3-24 from a COIN manual to a FID manual is merely one step, but it would be a powerful one.

Most of the friction in the Middle East is rooted in populaces that have been evolving over the past 100 years, and that in recent decades no longer have the threat of godless Soviet occupation as a "greater evil" to balance Western manipulations against combined with a tremendous increase in access and amount of information about the world around them. The populaces are moving forward, while the governments are doing their damnedest to sustain the status quo. As those gaps widen between the will of the populace and what they expect of governance, and the policies and actions of the government, it creates an exploitable condition. The people in general feel increasingly that the government is out of touch and that they have no legal means available to the to regain/gain control over the government to address this concern. If the conditions/perceptions are significant enough and no legal options are available the people will seek illegal courses of action (violent, non-violent, or some mix).

The US cannot "fix" this through military intervention. The US cannot "fix" this through development and aid. The US cannot "fix" this by demanding governments adopt US values and forms of governance (which would create an even larger gap between the government and the people than already exists). Our best course is to get our messaging straight in regards to our support for the people of the region, and to privately engage governments in regards to these "sovereignty gaps." The proverbial mountain (populace) will not come to Mohammed (the government), so Mohammed must go to the mountain. By making small accommodations tailored to their respective populaces the governments of the region create far more stability than any amount of increased security or bribes or development could ever hope to produce.

US interventions are always about us and our concerns, and then either seek to preserve the status quo or impose some radical westernized change; and that is a recipe for disaster.

[Bob's World]

I find when I talk about political tensions within a nation of the type that lead to insurgency with civilians who work in other aspects of governance, they often have a hard time grasping the context. Too many years of military leaders talking of insurgency as "war" when what we are talking about is often definitely not war contributes to the ineffectiveness of talking in terms of insurgency. This is an effort I am working on to describe this dynamic in the context of "Sovereignty."

Any comment or feedback is most welcome and very helpful.

[Compost]

Compost,

Perhaps we are talking past each other, what I hear you saying is that is we could just develop the right doctrine and strategy, then we could do these interventions more effectively.

Yes we have been 'talking' past each other. Posts 38 and 39 are worth reading. It is easy to agree that when a "people in general feel increasingly that the government is out of touch" an appropriate response could be to provide diplomatic or other support to further some change.

My interest is elsewhere: the subset in which a state is being disrupted by an internal minority using armed force, and operating with or without external support.

[Dayuhan]

Any comment or feedback is most welcome and very helpful.

1. The term "sovereignty" has traditionally been used to describe a nation's relationship with and degree of independence from other nations. Applying it to a totally different concept is likely to cause confusion and obstruct discussion. Not that there's anything wrong with the idea you're expressing, but other terminology might make it easier to work with.

2. The idea of "the collective populace" seems dangerous to me... once we posit it we tend to look for it, or even to assume it exists, even if it doesn't.

3. "Populaces are evolving at an accelerated rate in the current ecosystem" needs empirical support. It's a long way from being self-evident. It's probably true in some places and certainly less so in others, but I don't think it's something we want to assume as given.


PS... maybe it would be useful to describe this with the word "legitimacy", rather than "sovereignty"?

[AmericanPride]

Bob,

I think you have the cart before the horse. You state that "sovereignty" is a "social contract between every populace and their government." You state that "sovereignty" is then "perceived" by the population and that what follows is an mandate for the government to implement the population's will. Social contract theory is a Western construction and is not universally applicable, if we assume it to be theoretically suitable in the first place. Your chart assumes a universal desire for democratization, that democracy is a universal concept singularly defined, and that the population at large has anything whatsoever to do with the formation and practice of government. To turn your theory right-side up, I think you only have to switch the two sentences in the green "Sovereignty" box, and restate the "fundamental duty" of the government to say that it is to preserve the power of represented interests. Thus, conflict does not emerge between the government and the people, but between the incompatible interests of those subject to the power of the government.

[Bob's World]

Dayuhan and American Pride, thank you both, good comments that help both to improve the concept that I am working to develop, and to better communicate it as well.

First, on the issue of "Sovereignty" as a whole, yes, we mostly consider it in terms of rights and duties between states,(and that too is largely defined in terms of western concepts that we associate with the treaties of Westphalia coming out of the wars of Reformation that finally broke the hold over western Europe exercised by the Holy Roman Empire through the Catholic church; and then refined, defined, and exported around the world in the age of discovery and subsequent colonization of much of the globe. This too has a De jure (how defined and woven within much of international law) and De facto (what any state can actually enforce - clearly even the US has no ability to secure its borders, a principle tenet of sovereignty).

What I attempt to explore here is the dynamics internal to each state; with de jure being the form of government and the policies and actions of a state to exercise its sovereign duties under that nation's laws; and de facto being how the populace as a whole feels about that official approach, and what they perceive more appropriate forms, policies and approaches would be.

Now, I completely agree with Dayuhan that there is no single voice or mindset for "the populace." This term, and similar terms such as "The American people" are used all the time and must be conferred to mean a collection of perspectives of varying weight and prevalence across any nation that like anything can be compiled, normalized and averaged. We try to measure these things with specific metrics, but I don't like such approaches that attempt to objectify certain criteria, as there is the risk that one picks the wrong criteria and draws a dangerously flawed conclusion. While at the same time I do believe that there are certain critical "bands" of perceptions that are them most important to certain phenomena. This is why I narrowed down to "legitimacy" "respect" "justice" and "hope" for my insurgency model. I would caution against picking any handful of criteria to measure, stack, track and plot as gospel for any of those, as the tendency becomes to mistake precision for accuracy. I believe it is better to take a more instinctive approach, to consider the totality and to trust one's (or collective) instincts to observe and assess once the right criteria are identified. Great military commanders do this instinctively, they ignore the smoke, blood, chaos and noise, and hone in on critical factors which they assess in their heads and make decisions upon. Great civil leaders do this as well. Great business leaders, etc.

Sometimes these lists are captured, such as Jomini's efforts to identify and distill the "principles of war" as a list of such criteria that Napoleon would mentally assess and balance. While many discount Jomini's efforts I have always found them to be profoundly helpful at all levels of military operation when applied as broad categories to mentally assess and always attempt to maximize. From an age when "Strategy" was really "tactics", Jomini's work is, IMO, a timeless tactical guide.

So, on this Sovereignty chart, while yes, I do believe that over time all cultures are generally trending to more liberal forms of government, where it is more widely believed that sovereignty comes from the people rather than from god, and that it is best exercised in a form that allows that same populace some degree of control and is not all vested in a single man who is above that control; I also recognize that such evolutions take time and can go in either direction depending on a vast range of factors, culture, events, etc unique to every state/nation/whatever.

This is not intended to be a "model", nor to project that populaces always move to more liberal perceptions, or that governments always cling to more conservative designs. But rather to create an image that helps to visualize the key points in the lower right box.

That when government and populace diverge in how they believe their nation should exercise its sovereignty, there grows a gap that is ripe for exploitation.

That the populace is where it is, and that it is the duty of government to move to them, and to stay in synch, not the duty of the people to toe some line the government draws for them.

and that external solutions will always lack legitimacy so will always be suspect (next chart), but that they too often also call for changes of governance based upon the de jure or de facto beliefs of that external power rather than the de facto beliefs of the affected populace, so are every bit, and typically more so, flawed than what exists now.

Examples abound across the Middle East where populaces have evolved to be out of line with current systems of government. Those governments must evolve, but if they adopted the US values and form of democracy the US cries for it would create gaps far more massive than what exist now and lead to even greater instability and violence due to governments being both illegitimate AND out of synch in terms of sovereign concepts.

Sometimes it is neither a move to the left or right, but both. I believe the Saudi populace wants a government that is in many ways even more conservative in terms of being closer to the teachings of Islam, and less corrupted by wealth and Western influences; while at the same time they want some degree of greater control/voice, such as a judiciary that is not controlled by the king. The Saudi royals in effect straddle the populace, and will fall in the gap if they do not listen and respond. In Syria I suspect it is more a populace moving toward more liberal models and a government clinging to a more conservative one. Each situation is unique, but all call for the government to listen, assess, and respond to their own populace (not foreign presidents) and to move to be closer to what the people want wherever that might fall on the spectrum of options.

We want other to be like us, but we focus on form over function. We need merely be the champion of others being able to sort things out for themselves, and for the idea that government must be responsive to its own populace first.

[Dayuhan]

First, on the issue of "Sovereignty" as a whole, yes, we mostly consider it in terms of rights and duties between states....

What I attempt to explore here is the dynamics internal to each state; with de jure being the form of government and the policies and actions of a state to exercise its sovereign duties under that nation's laws

I see where you're going with it. My objection to the term "sovereignty" is purely semantic, but I don't think it's irrelevant at all. Because that word has an accepted and extended usage, its use automatically puts the reader in a certain frame of mind conditioned by that convention. Trying to redirect the conversation from that point to where you're going may lose some people completely or obstruct understanding in others. I just think that choosing terminology with fewer pre-existing associations would make it easier to communicate what you're getting at.

and de facto being how the populace as a whole feels about that official approach, and what they perceive more appropriate forms, policies and approaches would be.

Again, "populace as a whole" is a loaded and dangerous concept. Populaces and their beliefs/desires rarely break down into a neat continuum with a clear balance point. More often they cluster at points along that continuum, in factions with distinctly conflicting beliefs and desires. This is especially true when we're involved or contemplating involvement, because we don't do that until those internal conflicts are becoming very pronounced.

We have to accept that our understanding of these internal dynamics is always imperfect, and that our pre-existing beliefs will always intrude on our evaluation of such situations. Basing action on our imperfect assessment of what "the populace" of another country thinks or wants is skating on very thin ice indeed.

This term, and similar terms such as "The American people" are used all the time and must be conferred to mean a collection of perspectives of varying weight and prevalence across any nation that like anything can be compiled, normalized and averaged.

Disagree strongly, as in rend the garments and clutch the hair. I don't think there is anything we could do that would be worse than trying to normalize and average. Of course we need to try and understand the complex interplay of factions and frictions, what groups want, where their support lies, where they are or are not willing to compromise, etc, ad infinitum. We have to recognize that this understanding will always be incomplete, but we still pursue it. Attempts to normalize and average do not enhance understanding, they obstruct it, especially when political differentiation is on sectarian, ethnic, or similar lines. If we normalize and average we address policy to a hypothetical construct, and we're likely to end up antagonizing everybody in the picture.

This is why I narrowed down to "legitimacy" "respect" "justice" and "hope" for my insurgency model.

I think that selection reveals a quintessentially American bias. As I've noted before, several key factors are omitted, notably economic prosperity and fear of change.

I believe the Saudi populace wants a government that is in many ways even more conservative in terms of being closer to the teachings of Islam, and less corrupted by wealth and Western influences; while at the same time they want some degree of greater control/voice, such as a judiciary that is not controlled by the king.

Is that a "normalized and averaged" belief?

I'd be hesitant to say what "the Saudi populace" - or any other populace - wants, though I'd go to the extent of saying that the Saudi populace wants us to stay the %$#@ out of their business.

We need merely be the champion of others being able to sort things out for themselves, and for the idea that government must be responsive to its own populace first.

Why do we need to be anybody's champion, especially when the people in question haven't asked us to take that role? Seems like a fairly presumptuous mantle for anyone to assume.

[Ken White]

...so what are we actually doing, because it isn't FID, because the nation doesn't support much of what we're doing. In simple terms it seems we're conducting counter-rebellion or counter-resistance operations against those who oppose our will for their future.

Bill, you elsewhere mentioned the idea that SOF should be reinvented every 20 years. I agreed in principle but noted I'd been saying ten years for a long time -- and I've lately come to believe that five years would be even better.

Let me extrapolate that thought a bit. In WW II, all the belligerents formed ad-hoc groupings of not only SOF but 'conventional' forces as well. Most of these worked out rather well, the few that did not were quickly disbanded.

Those organizations were resoundingly disliked by the major forces, partly from jealousy, partly from the semi-valid complaint that they skimmed the cream of personnel but largely from the fact that with respect to both personnel and logistic support, they posed large burdens on the very bureaucratic support structure -- who strongly resented the added burden.

In essence, a bureaucratically inclined structure was forced to produce and support ad-hoc groupings of tactical and operational -- even strategic -- forces rather precisely tailored for missions. That worked and worked well for the most part, some poorly conceived efforts not withstanding. Some point to the Chindits and the Marauders as such failures but I suggest that they were not as effective as they might have been due to then available technology as much as any other failing. We have better -- or the capability to produce better -- tech today. We also arguably have better people and we certainly have the capability to train more effectively (if and when we wish to do so).

A problem resulted from those force developments. Many are still here and still doing what they found to be important at their birth. The world has changed significantly and they have not.

That's a vast over simplification but one can grasp the idea and see permutations that are applicable. Indeed, the point can be made that the US Army as an entity is still stuck in WW II in a good many respects. The point can also be made that current technological advances should allow -- and does, when we want it to do so -- far more rapid fielding of purpose specific equipment. Unfortunately, our stifling bureaucracy and flawed cost avoidance measures do not allow for such adjustment of personnel or of unit structure on a total force basis -- even though with today's computational, logistic and information dissemination ability that should not be a problem...

We currently have fallen into a less than ideal situation where many elements of foreign policy have devolved to the Combatant Commands in the absence of a better National Security Council apparatus, a less assertive DoS and a few other factors. I think that should be changed but there is a plus to that in the near term -- potential military missions within an AOR can be identified early and fairly accurately, more so than is possible at a national level with a worldwide focus (or lack of focus...).

It would thus be possible to finitely tailor and train forces for FID or other missions -- to include assisting in various ways the maintenance of sovereignty and the precluding of gap seeking success -- for the periods envisioned as being required. Stand them up, train, deploy, bring them home, reconstitute into new (lesson learned included) organization and repeat. The Troops can cope with that. Whether the bureaucracy can cope is not really questionable -- that it will absolutely not want to do so is a certainty.

Nor will the wives and families wish to do so, cope, that is -- but the strong will do so as they have for years. Much of that problem can be ameliorated with sensible policies.

We could do that reinvention of units thing if we wished and it would likely be a significant practical and effectiveness improvement over the current process which relies on mass and not skill or finesse. Always of course with a weather eye for the fog of war...

[Dayuhan]

Looking at these two comments...

This term, and similar terms such as "The American people" are used all the time and must be conferred to mean a collection of perspectives of varying weight and prevalence across any nation that like anything can be compiled, normalized and averaged.

We need merely be the champion of others being able to sort things out for themselves, and for the idea that government must be responsive to its own populace first.

Would you want government to be responsive to the actual multifaceted populace, with its varied and often incompatible preferences and expectations... or to your hypothetical "normalized and averaged" populace? If we're to be the champion of others, for which of those do we appoint ourselves champion?

Just trying to illustrate the problem of attempting to build policy around a hypothetical "normalized and averaged" construction of popular preference...

[Bob's World]

After a processing a great deal of tremendous insights and inputs from here and elsewhere, an updated snapshot that attempts to avoid some of the unintended implications in the first version, and to clarify some key points as well:

[Dayuhan]

In the first graphic, showing the relative position of populaces, it might be worth pointing out that the ability of government to "reconcile the grievances" depends not only on the adaptability and will to adapt of government, but also on the degree of trust and the extent of the gaps between the various portions of the populace. When the gaps separating those factions are extremely wide and there's a high level of pre-existing hostility there, it gets much much harder for governments to find any viable ground for reconciliation. Inability to reconcile aggrieved multiple factions isn't necessarily evidence that government is unresponsive. It can also mean that the factions have no interest in reconciliation. Spread those black arrow points representing the positions of the various populace factions out close enough to the margins and the zone of stability can become a pretty inaccessible place.

It's not purely up to government to reconcile multiple factions. The factions also have a say, and if they really don't want to reconcile and their demands are far enough apart, governance can become effectively impossible.

I still think your criteria for popular acceptance of government display a high degree of American bias. The ability to provide prosperity and security is often a very compelling factor in popular acceptance, especially when populaces perceive an external threat.

[Bob's World]

Certainly one may have a segment of the populace that feels there is no way to reconcile their primary concerns with the government. As the US government extended out to include regions populated by native americans they certainly could find little common ground with their adoptive governments.

To a lesser degree a similar dynamic is at play closer to you between the Muslim south and Catholic North of the Philippines. But if the government in the north put half as much effort into addressing the critical factors as they do into suppressing the negative effects of ignoring those factors, they would be much farther along the road to a future stability. Compromise is hard, particularly for governments who see that as a challenge to their sovereignty rather than a required component of implementing their sovereignty. One does not "apease" when they address the concerns of their own populace, only when they compromise their own popualce to address the concerns of some foreign government or populace. To compromise wisely at home makes government stronger and enhances their sovereignty abroad.

[M-A Lagrange]

Certainly one may have a segment of the populace that feels there is no way to reconcile their primary concerns with the government. As the US government extended out to include regions populated by native americans they certainly could find little common ground with their adoptive governments.

To a lesser degree a similar dynamic is at play closer to you between the Muslim south and Catholic North of the Philippines. But if the government in the north put half as much effort into addressing the critical factors as they do into suppressing the negative effects of ignoring those factors, they would be much farther along the road to a future stability. Compromise is hard, particularly for governments who see that as a challenge to their sovereignty rather than a required component of implementing their sovereignty. One does not "apease" when they address the concerns of their own populace, only when they compromise their own popualce to address the concerns of some foreign government or populace. To compromise wisely at home makes government stronger and enhances their sovereignty abroad.

Bob,

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.
To take an exemple I know better than Philippines, when french government said they wanted to withdraw from Algeria, part of the population that previously was supporting the government turned against it.
This is the real challenge to sovereignty governments are facing in doing compromises.
The real solution lay in preventing insurrection by making sure that domestic policies are including everyone since day 1.
That said, if it happened, there would be no insurgencies anywhere.

[Bob's World]

"That said, if it happened, there would be no insurgencies anywhere."

Perfection is hard to achieve, but yes, in many ways insurgency is a result of choices made by humans in government that adversely affect humans subject to that government. There will always be conflict, but the better governments understand and remain diligent to their role, and the more certain the populace feels in their ability to legally address their grievances (and no, that is not a "Western" concept); the more stable a socieity will be.

How they do that is driven by the culture of the people involved. A key take-away I intend for American audiances is that the appication of American values, forms of government, or perceptions of what right looks like will almost invariably create gaps every bit as large, if not larger, than what already exists. And those external answers will never by perceived as "legitimate."

That is the deal breaker issue in Afghanistan that we treat like a third rail. Everyone know's its there, but no one will touch it. That is why the insurgency grows increasingly worse no matter how hard our efforts are to address various aspects of effectiveness, or to establish better control.

[M-A Lagrange]

"That said, if it happened, there would be no insurgencies anywhere."

Perfection is hard to achieve, but yes, in many ways insurgency is a result of choices made by humans in government that adversely affect humans subject to that government. There will always be conflict, but the better governments understand and remain diligent to their role, and the more certain the populace feels in their ability to legally address their grievances (and no, that is not a "Western" concept); the more stable a socieity will be.

How they do that is driven by the culture of the people involved. A key take-away I intend for American audiances is that the appication of American values, forms of government, or perceptions of what right looks like will almost invariably create gaps every bit as large, if not larger, than what already exists. And those external answers will never by perceived as "legitimate."

That is the deal breaker issue in Afghanistan that we treat like a third rail. Everyone know's its there, but no one will touch it. That is why the insurgency grows increasingly worse no matter how hard our efforts are to address various aspects of effectiveness, or to establish better control.

I tend to believe that you are addressing two different problematics here (Might be wrong).
1) The reaction to a foreign invasion
2) Insurgencies

What triggers a response to a foreign intervention followed by a military invasion and the installation of a "puppet" national government is/are completely different from what triggers an insurgency against a national government.
I was quite stuck when I read Killcullen's accidental insurgency of the amalgam between the situation in Irak/Afghanistan and the one in Thailand.

yes on a military point of iew you can treat both sitations as an insurgency. But political roots are very very different.
What makes it different is not the perception by insurgent but the nature/difference between a national government established since several years and an government establish by/through a foreign power.
Because an invided country is not home, you will never grasp the roots of the problematic (in terms of response to an insurgency). The fact it is not home also explain why it is treated as a third rail.

That said, this does not mean the COIN military and civilo-military response to an insurgency will never work.
Actually, IMHO, in many cases, you may have the feeling that COIN response elaborated by a foreigner would be much more appropriate to response than FID in many "national insurgencies".
What I have difficulties to answer to is what COIN tactics and strategy (ennemy or populace centric or anything else) would be appropriate for an insurgency triggered by a foreign invasion.

[Dayuhan]

Certainly one may have a segment of the populace that feels there is no way to reconcile their primary concerns with the government....

Compromise is hard, particularly for governments who see that as a challenge to their sovereignty rather than a required component of implementing their sovereignty. One does not "apease" when they address the concerns of their own populace, only when they compromise their own popualce to address the concerns of some foreign government or populace.

Again I think you're locking yourself into the "government vs populace" paradigm and disregarding the very significant impact of conflict among segments of the populations... and the degree to which those populace-populace conflicts are not fully controllable by or responsive to government.

I fully agree with the points M-A is making, and would apply a particularly resounding "Amen" to the following:

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.

What triggers a response to a foreign intervention followed by a military invasion and the installation of a "puppet" national government is/are completely different from what triggers an insurgency against a national government.

[Bob's World]

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.

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.

All of this is in the chart. And in the papers I have published as well.