Non-Violent Insurgency: How Smart Rebels Win small wars

[Dayuhan]

On my model I have a space for those populaces where there are high conditions of insurgency, but no actual insurgency exists. Either the populace is effectively suppressed from action out by the state, or they have opted to employ non-violent tactics. (In such a situation our doctrine only recognizes the situation as insurgency once the populace decides both to act out AND to do so violently.)

One thing to watch out for here is the tendency to define "conditions of insurgency" in Western terms that emphasize democracy and liberty. In much of the world populaces are willing to trade off liberty for security and prosperity, and a government that provides security and prosperity is able to get away with conditions that might easily spark revolt where poverty is higher.

The absence of violent resistance to Government in places like China and Saudi Arabia is not simply a function of suppression: that's a facile explanation that fits the model, but it's not adequate or accurate. The Saudis are no more free than they were during the oil glut and attendant economic crisis, but they are a lot more prosperous, and popular dissent has declined accordingly. China's economic boom has done a great deal to mute dissent. In both cases, despite political conditions that would drive an American to revolt, large-scale populace resistance to government is not likely to happen unless a significant economic upheaval arrives.

Fear is a powerful motivator. When people are financially secure they have something to lose. If they fear that the collapse of the established order is likely to produce conflict and insecurity and to threaten what they have, they may opt to support the established order despite its drawbacks. In much of the Arabian Gulf common citizens support their governments not because they love them, but because they fear chaos more than they fear tyranny.

Not the only factors in play, of course, but factors that have to be considered.

Rigidity of doctrine is always a mistake, and any time we fit circumstances into doctrine rather than adjusting doctrine to fit circumstances we are doing ourselves harm. The old rigid doctrine deserves to be challenged, but replacing it with equally rigid and equally absolutist ideas would be a mistake, IMO.

We may split hairs over tools and framework, but wow, a lot of the current boing-on would have never registered with me as likely to happen.

Libya with reports of 40-50 shot dead by security forces.
Bahrain with reports of several killed dead in clashes with security forces, and the key terrain of the traffic circle seized again by the protesters.
Egypt at a low, slow simmer that has everyone watching...

What's next, and what the US does to try to steer the situation to an outcome that favors, will be terribly important, but I wonder just how important the five years after 2011 are in the minds of the people trying to forge a plan...and policy. The old ways of looking at things just a year ago seem to be changing at the rate of the microchip.

I wouldn't have called any of it "unlikely"... all of these (with the possible exception of Bahrain) were clearly unstable situations with high potential for rapid change. The timing of course is never predictable, and the rapid sequence of near-simultaneous outbursts does come across as a surprise. If any one of these countries saw a popular uprising it would not come as any special surprise, I think... they all had it coming.

Steering the situation to an outcome that favors requires a good assessment of interest. I hope we take a long-term view and try to foster real independence, even if it means dealing with people we're uncomfortable with and dealing with governments that perceive their interests as diverging from ours. I think, for example, that it would be a very bad idea for us to push openly or covertly for exclusion of the Muslim Brotherhood from governance in Egypt.

I suspect that the next 5 years will be very difficult ones in Tunisia and Egypt. It would be lovely to see a clean transition to democracy and prosperity, but it's not likely to be so easy.

[jcustis]

Steering the situation to an outcome that favors requires a good assessment of interest. I hope we take a long-term view and try to foster real independence, even if it means dealing with people we're uncomfortable with and dealing with governments that perceive their interests as diverging from ours. I think, for example, that it would be a very bad idea for us to push openly or covertly for exclusion of the Muslim Brotherhood from governance in Egypt.

This is precisely what I fear, that we won't have a long-term view that expands past the next sound byte.That's where wide misjudgments will be made...and the rest will be armchair hindsight.

[Marc]

Steering the situation to an outcome that favors requires a good assessment of interest. I hope we take a long-term view and try to foster real independence, even if it means dealing with people we're uncomfortable with and dealing with governments that perceive their interests as diverging from ours. I think, for example, that it would be a very bad idea for us to push openly or covertly for exclusion of the Muslim Brotherhood from governance in Egypt.

I suspect that the next 5 years will be very difficult ones in Tunisia and Egypt. It would be lovely to see a clean transition to democracy and prosperity, but it's not likely to be so easy.

I agree that a favorable outcome requires a thorough analysis of each actor's interest. Westerners often overlook the fact that in non-democratic countries, pursuing one's political ambition is a life-or-death decision. In the USA, the candidate that looses the presidential elections does not have to fear for his life. The contrary is often the case for people who try to take power in non-democratic countries but fail. Under these circumstances, every actor's plans are determined as much by his ambition than by his fear of what will happen to them if he fails.

So what will the Egyptian political landscape look like six months from now? Three main actors will probably determine the outcome: secular groups, the Muslim Brotherhood, and the Army. IMO, it is useful to analyze their plan A, their plan B, as well as their worst case scenario.

Plan A of the secular groups is to unite around a democratic project and lead Egypt towards freedom, security, and prosperity. Their worst case scenario is to be marginalized or oppressed by either a military autocrat or an Islamist regime. Their plan B is a power sharing arrangement between themselves and the Muslim Brotherhood to marginalize the regular army.

Plan A of the Muslim Brotherhood is an Islamic republic. However, the Muslim Brothers are pragmatic enough to realize this is not within reach at the moment. Such a project would require a popular Islamic army (like the Pasdaran in Iran) to balance the power of the regular army. At the moment, this is simply beyond their reach. Their worst case scenario is the emergence of a military autocrat like Nasser who removes them from the political scene. Their plan B is a power sharing arrangement between themselves and secular groups to marginalize the army.

Plan A of the Army is to found a military regime. However, the generals are not blind to the fact that this is precisely what the revolution was all about. At the moment, the generals are simply unable to put the genie back in the bottle. Their worst case scenario is the loss of all their priviliges as the prime political and economic power in Egypt. Their plan B is to bide their time and foster disagreements between the Muslim Brotherhood and secular groups and within secular groups themselves. Political instability will put the army in the role of arbitrator, a steppingstone towards a monopoly on political power.

I guess that, at the moment, all actors will opt for their Plan B. This will result in a system that is much more democratic than Moubarak's regime. However, it will be very fragile. Every actor will look for the first opportunity to move to Plan A and every actor will fear that the worst case scenario is just around the corner.

[Dayuhan]

Plan A of the Muslim Brotherhood is an Islamic republic. However, the Muslim Brothers are pragmatic enough to realize this is not within reach at the moment. Such a project would require a popular Islamic army (like the Pasdaran in Iran) to balance the power of the regular army. At the moment, this is simply beyond their reach. Their worst case scenario is the emergence of a military autocrat like Nasser who removes them from the political scene.

I actually suspect that the Muslim Brotherhood would be the primary beneficiary of a repressive military dictatorship. Moderate opposition would be stifled, and the Brothers are used to operating underground. It would take them a while to do it, but they would very likely emerge as the sole organized opposition to an unpopular and unsustainable government. As yu say, the Brotherhood is not in a position to impose an Islamic State right now... but if they are the primary lever in toppling a new dictatorship, they would be.

[Marc]

Dayuhan,

You may be right. Yesterday, I re-read an account of the Iranian revolution (Jihad: the Trail of Political Islam) by Gilles Kepel. The book emphasizes the importance of organizational power in the aftermath of a revolution. I especially like the quote below on page 110.

As the shah's isolation grew, the support of his principal ally, the United States, was weakened by the election of Jimmy Carter to the White House in November 1976. The brutal tactics of the Savak became a target of the new American president's human rights policy, and Carter himself applied pressure on the shah to liberalize Iranian civil society. Naturally enough, the secular middle class took this criticism as a signal that the United States had withdrawn its unconditional support of the Pahlavis. The year 1977 saw a spate of meetings and demonstrations by the liberal opposition, which for the first time in many years was not repressed by the regime. The clergy took very little part in this short-lived "Tehran spring." Though the secular middle class was the first group to shake off political apathy, it proved incapable of taking the lead in a general resistance to the shah. It lacked the charisma necessary to rally the bazaaris and the urban poor around its cause, and it did not have an organized party base capable of mobilizing these social groups with slogans they could understand. Meanwhile, the student-led Marxist movements were too weak for mobilization, having been decimated by repression or distanced by exile. The way was open for a clerical splinter group led by Khomeini.

This text could have been written yesterday about the situation in Egypt.

[Dayuhan]

Interesting how little attention Libya is getting here... possibly because it's not a US ally and we can't point to it as an example of US support to a repressive dictatorship?

Despite that, if Qaddafi falls there are a number of possible repercussions, not all of them negative. Both the process and the aftermath could be quite ugly though, it seems to be quickly spinning out of the "non-violent" category.

We'll see.

[Bob's World]

Interesting how little attention Libya is getting here... possibly because it's not a US ally and we can't point to it as an example of US support to a repressive dictatorship?

Despite that, if Qaddafi falls there are a number of possible repercussions, not all of them negative. Both the process and the aftermath could be quite ugly though, it seems to be quickly spinning out of the "non-violent" category.

We'll see.

Actually Qaddafi jumped on board the GWOT ally bandwagon and has been suppressing his populace in recent years in the name of US blessed counterterrorism.

I am, however, surprised at the ruthless comments coming from his son, as I was under the impression from an article I had read a while back about his son being much more moderate and wanting to implement several reforms that would have granted the populace greater rights and liberties.

Certainly though there is a complex range of issues across all of these diverse populaces of all these many nations, and the US relationship is unique with each. Not everything is about us, and I certainly have never said it was. I have said, and will continue to say though, that the US needs to take greater responsibility for how our Cold War engagement has shaped the politics of this region and the consequences of populaces, joined and empowered by the modern information age, acting out to achieve greater liberties, respect and self. I have also said that over reliance on "facts" is dangerous, as these type of uprisings are based in perception, rather than fact. And as Wilf often says, in this reason everyone has their own perspective on what the "facts" are. I doubt many share our perspective in that regard.

[Dayuhan]

Actually Qaddafi jumped on board the GWOT ally bandwagon and has been suppressing his populace in recent years in the name of US blessed counterterrorism.

Nominally, yes, though calling him a US ally would be a huge exaggeration, and it's not as if he ever needed or asked our permission to suppress his populace. Certainly the US isn't in any way enabling him, nor do I see any evidence that the US is perceived as a supporter or enabler.

I am, however, surprised at the ruthless comments coming from his son, as I was under the impression from an article I had read a while back about his son being much more moderate and wanting to implement several reforms that would have granted the populace greater rights and liberties.

I'm not that surprised... I had the feeling that the son was being set up in a sort of "good cop" role, but that the "reforms" under discussion were never intended to be more than cosmetic. The son is in the same boat as the father, and knows it; if that boat is threatened he'll defend it as viciously as any of them.

I have also said that over reliance on "facts" is dangerous, as these type of uprisings are based in perception, rather than fact. And as Wilf often says, in this reason everyone has their own perspective on what the "facts" are. I doubt many share our perspective in that regard.

I've also said many times that managing perception is very different from managing fact, and we have to know the difference. If people are responding to actual policies or actual circumstances, we may be able to alter their response by altering policies or circumstances. We can't do that if people are responding to a perception that is not in fact grounded in any reality subject to our influence.

Since we speak of perception, we also have to accept that any US attempt to intervene in or influence domestic policy in other countries, especially in the Muslim world, will be perceived as self-interested meddling, no matter what we say or what we actually intend. Nobody anywhere will ever believe that we are the champion of the populace, least of all the populace. We cannot impose ourselves uninvited in that role with any credibility: what we intend is irrelevant, the perception will be that we are trying to influence or control events for our benefit.

We cannot correct the perceptions left by past meddling with present or future meddling. The answer to bad meddling is not good meddling, it's less meddling. We also can't change these perceptions overnight: they will take as long to change as they took to create, possibly longer: trust is more easily broken than built. We can start the process by thinking twice, and then twice more, before pushing ourselves into other people's domestic affairs.