A Practitioner's Guide to Understanding Insurgency and Dealing with it Effectively
by Colonel G. L. Lamborn, Small Wars Journal
The People in Arms (Full PDF Article)
Since Clausewitz's day, many thinkers, military and civilian, have written about the problem of insurgency or, as Clausewitz put it, the people in arms." Unfortunately, on the one hand, many of these works were written at the level of the political scientist or sociologist, and were therefore largely theoretical, and thus of little interest to the tactician. On the other hand, many works were purely tactical in nature -- useful to the man at squad or platoon level, but lacking any broader theoretical context to explain why what is observed exists. These tactical manuals thus became formulaic" -- in such and such a circumstance, do this." But explanations of why a particular insurgency came to be, or its specific dynamics or vulnerabilities, have generally been given short shrift or ignored entirely. Thus, many tactical books are long on how to conduct kinetic" activities, but woefully short on what really matters about dealing effectively with insurgencies. The theoretical books are long on what ought to be done, but often lack an operational perspective that would provide some idea as to how to go about doing what is recommended.
Clausewitz himself admits (Chapter 26) that his understanding of the people in arms" was limited, though he states that the importance of this form of conflict would grow with the passage of years. Clausewitz evidently did not understand that the people in arms" was to become far more than merely a useful adjunct of conventional operations, such as the partisan or resistance movements in Napoleon's day or in Nazi-occupied Europe. From peasant uprisings and relatively unfocused tribal warfare in remote areas of the globe during the nineteenth century, irregular warfare has evolved into a distinct species of conflict with its own rules" and dynamic. Unfortunately, many senior Western military officers, trained in the strategy and tactics of conventional warfare, are slowly (sometimes very painfully) learning that the rules" of conventional warfare as taught at Sandhurst, West Point, or Saint-Cyr do not necessarily apply to insurgency.
The author has been a student and observer, and sometimes a participant, in various insurgencies since his initiation" in Vietnam in 1969. What is presented in this work is a distillation of those experiences and studies gathered over approximately forty years on four continents, to include some firsthand experience with the contemporary American struggles in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as some experience in working with insurgent movements in the 1980s. This short work is intended to give the reader an understanding of the true nature of insurgency and a glimpse at the reasons why we have not always dealt with it effectively. If the reader gains some insight into insurgency, and can apply his knowledge intelligently, Jimmy Doolittle's wish will come true: we will start fighting more from the neckline up -- and less from the neckline down.
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I agree that we should learn from the history books on the influence of the people in war. The nations people win or lose wars, and history has proven this. Its critical the weight of a nations people can rally or take down a military or government. A Prussian General, Carl Von Clausewitz had these same ideas. He argued that war differed from other political expression in that it is produced and governed by three dominant tendencies know as the "paradoxical trinity". It is composed of the elements of primordial violence, hatred, and enmity which mainly concern the people. The second is probability and chance which the army and commander must contend with. Thirdly is the element of subordination, which says that war is subordinate to political polices which the government controls. In order for success of any war, all three elements need to maintain a balance. A good study of this is Napoleon Bonaparte failing to keep the balance of these three magnets in his war with Spain. He lost the war in Spain, because he failed to take in account the element of the Spanish people. Napoleons failure of the ideals of the people of Spain, the peoples social classes, and guerrilla actions used by the people on the French caused his demise.
The struggle that Napoleon failed at was balancing the struggle of ideals between French revolutionary passion and the religious conviction with the Spanish. The majority of Spaniards shared a passionate dedication to Catholicism and passionate dismissal of the revolutionary French. The Spanish priests encouraged the peasants to believe that the French would change their beliefs and religion, and portray the French as unholy and unwholesome. The priests maintained the power and influential base on the rural population, and because of this it started the settings for the movement against the French.
In Spain they were two completely different social classes. Spanish liberals in the towns accepted French rule because they associated it with liberal reform and embraced the enlightened views and rule. Peasants in the countryside rejected French rule and had an antagonism toward the Spanish liberals in the towns. French allied itself with the Spanish urban liberals and the British allied itself with the rural peasants. The two social classes of Spain were now aligned with two different world powers, with a major war to come on Spanish soil.
Napoleons army was the best force on force army and was about to conquer the European continent until the fight came to Spain. Wellington by now along with the other allies could not beat the French, but they were learning and adapting. The allies needed and edge and they found it with the Spanish peasants. Wellington needed to break down the French Army by imposing a regular and irregular conflict against him. He would use Allied conventional forces to fight the French face to face and use the Spanish peasants to attack using irregular warfare. In essence the peasants became a guerilla force that Wellington could use in conjunction with his force to cause Napoleon to fight on two fronts. This guerilla warfare was the edge that the Allies needed in defeating Napoleon. This technique used by Wellington and the peasants eventually defeated and drove out the French, and the beginning of the end for Napoleon and the French Army.
Napoleon failed to use Clausewitzs Paradoxical Trinity by balancing the magnet of people with the other two. Napoleon lost the war in Spain, because he failed to take in account the ideals of the Spanish people, their social classes, and the Spanish guerrilla actions. The French and Spanish people needed to rally by hatred, passion, or violence for France to have won the war. The French had the passion, the Spanish rural population had the hatred and the British Army along with the Spanish guerillas had the violence. Napoleon had the biggest and best army in Europe, and was defeated by the rural population in Spain. It doesnt matter how much money or men you have if you dont have the passion in your ideals to make war.
I agree this is a well written article. However I disagree that we should never do COIN. Granted we may not be good at it, but this has a lot to do with our strategic culture and the forces structure it creates, than in inability to do COIN.
Gain's comment that history should inform our judgement is absoultely correct. History is our only guide to the future being the future is unknown. Learning from history helps planners think through similar challenges. We seem to have a significant problem at the stategy and policy level because we contantly fail to learn from the past.
A good exampole is the major lesson from teh French Algerian war in the 1950s. The French strategy was based on the idea that they could win through operational military success. It did not work. They won every battle to include the battle of Algiers, but still lost the war. I see similar logic/approach in some of US strategy over the last several years.
Ken:
Excellent criticism of what I agree is a very thoughtful and well written piece.
I agree with your concluding point about the wrongheadedness of a bifurcated force and the need to stay on track with a general purpose force (GPF).
I also really liked your concluding point about playing to "our strengths, not those of our prospective opponents." And I might add with a question, why is it that we seem to always want to default to protraction, or the "long war?" It seems to me that OUR protraction--or the "long war," or an era of "persistent conflict"--plays exactly to the enemy's strengths and to our inability to do strategy since the seeming only response to these kinds of people's war is long term presence of American ground combat forces. A few months ago I watched a video interview of writer Craig Mullaney where in speaking about Iraq, Astan, and the years ahead he said that in these long wars the "Achilles Heel" of America is her "lack of patience." Maybe so for experts of the Population Centric Counterinsurgency persuasion, but in the view of strategy and policy I have come to conclude that lack of patience on the part of the American people in these kinds of limited war may actually be a virtue.
Lastly, Ken, I would just add to your excellent criticism of the Colonels piece another point of criticism to consider. In so many of these articles, essays, books, etc. on peoples war, counterinsurgency, irregular war, etc there seems to be the automatic need to offer either principles or lessons learned. After spending a lot of time in the secondary literature on this topic over the past two years I think that much of this still relates back to the American militarys loss in Vietnam and the desire to look to the past through history and through personal experience to find solutions to problems that can be used for templates for action in the present and in the future. If there were depth and breadth to these derived principles and lessons learned then there might be utility to them, but almost to the letter they all tend to center on the same principles of population centric counterinsurgency. Some might say that that is a good thing since there appears to be a positive realization of 'universal truths" to counterinsurgency. But remembering Clausewitzs dictum always makes me skeptical about such universal truths that have been turned into immutable rules for action; that history should inform the commanders judgment but never accompany him to the battlefield.
gian
Good article. Most of the practices and principles discussed are unquestionably the ideal solutions for dealing with insurgencies and similar problems.
The author, however, makes the fairly common mistake of alluding to our experience in the continental U.S. and the Philippines as well as that of the Philippines themselves in later years -- and of the British in Malaya, all classics of counterinsurgency. However, all suffer from one glaring deficiency as models. In each case, the 'counterinsurgent' <i>was</i> the government. In Viet Nam, in Afghanistan and Iraq, we were or are not the government nor are we likely to be in the future -- and that difference is extremely important; so important that its being overlooked by many is both interesting and problematic...
Still, his take on most factors is quite sound and accurate, I believe. The troublesome issue to me is that he comes quite close to espousing a radically different training regimen and organization for the conduct of such campaigns as a part of future foreign internal defense or security force assistance. We cannot afford and do not need a radical restructure of the force to support dedicated organizations for such missions -- other than Special Forces, which are already in being, who are quite good at what they do and which have been quite successful in limited scope SFA and FID missions here and there around the world.
I doubt this was the author's intent but my takeaways from the article are:
- Confirmation that we as a nation and as armed forces do not really do this mission very well. No one does, really, yet we do not adapt to it at all well.
- Counterinsurgency and allied campaigns require a great deal of patience.
- Americans should probably put great effort into the avoidance where possible of such campaigns because Americans generally do not evince a great deal of patience.
At a recent War Game preparatory effort, a discussion arose over Reconnaissance. The comment was made that we, in the large armed forces, do not do that mission at all well and that more effort and training should be undertaken to improve the situation. The response from a Cavalry Colonel was "We don't have the patience to do that, so we just go out heavy and look for trouble." That was digested, acknowledged and the discussion moved on to other things. Theres a strong message in that...
For a number of reasons we as a nation (and our armed forces) are unlikely to ever be more than marginally competent at such campaigns. We should seek to avoid them by preempting potential insurgencies through better intelligence, particularly human intelligence; strong diplomatic efforts and low key SFA led by Special Forces.
There is always the possibility of that approach not being fully adequate. A total recast of our current organization is neither desirable or affordable.
The ideal solution to prepare for the contingency of deployments to stabilize friendly governments that request assistance -- and when our interests indicate -- is to add key elements of counterinsurgency training to the Officer and NCO education system. It is not generally necessary for most initial entry training other than simply better, more thorough and inclusive training (particularly on fire discipline at which we are notoriously bad).
Also obviously needed are well planned, simple pre-deployment training packages using the G. L. Lamborn prescriptions and a few others. These would be used by the units destined for such missions Those units should also receive an augmentation cell that is tailored for the nation and mission. Effort on both fronts underway and should be continued.
A dedicated training location and force for such units is not desirable due to time and space constraints and the far more important human factor that Officers and NCOs do not take well to donated training; they assume the position that "If you're going to do this, I'll ignore it until I get my people back. Then I'll do it MY way..."
"Experts" impose an unintended consequence; commanders are supposed to be responsible for all their units do or fail to do -- if you farm out 'training' to contractors or MTCs, you've just lifted a lot of responsibility and potential acquisition of knowledge and capabilities from a lot of people...
Nor is a bifurcated force the answer; a big war Army and a small war Army will go their separate ways and both will suffer for that. Add the fact that solution is unaffordable and unsustainable and that neither such force would provide adequate capability for its presumed mission.
We can provide full spectrum GPF that can use Colonel Lamborn's precepts -- when absolutely necessary. However, we need to be aware that we are unlikely to ever do a very good job at it; it's just not our forté.
We should play to our strengths, not those of prospective opponents.