by Stephen Phillips
Download the full article: Widening the Spectrum of Insurgency
Warfare blogs, Department of Defense forums, and defense industry conferences have debated terms surrounding the current global conflict. This clash has a myriad descriptive names such as "The Global War on Terrorism," "The Long War," and "Overseas Contingency Operation." Similarly, defense pundits have wrestled with the terms, asymmetric warfare, irregular warfare, and terrorism. Another definition that must be reviewed is "insurgency."
Two salient questions are the catalyst for this discussion. First, should criminal enterprises that want to remove rather than replace government control and seek a passive rather than a complicit populous fit into the definition of insurgency? Second, can a non-violent overthrow of a government, a "velvet revolution," be called an insurgency?
Download the full article: Widening the Spectrum of Insurgency
Stephen Phillips is a member of the Senior Professional Staff in the National Security Analysis Department at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. He is also a Naval Reservist serving as a faculty member at the National Defense Intelligence College. The views herein are those of the author and not necessarily those of the organizations with which he is affiliated.
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Stephen Phillips,
You make valid points dispite the push back from some of our friendly antiques. The so-what, as you may have implied, is that we need to relook our authorities and organizations to effectively enable the military (our military like force) to address the criminal-insurgent nexus and subversive threats (which may be unarmed threats, but not always). Our boots on the ground now can effectively address the guerrilla threat, but they can't address the criminal threats funding them (our simply further destablizing the region)or the spreading shadow government. Most of us realize the need for a force that has the intelligence capability of the CIA, the investigative and arrest authorities of the NYC police, yet maintaining our military cpacity to swing a big stick and secure large areas. This is the so what of your argument for those with their boots on the ground. They'll have a hard time winning without these authorities. Maybe the new OSS that some have proposed would contain all these qualities allowing us to address the full sprectrum of insurgent challenges, instead of just focusing on defeating guerrillas which is not decisive and never has been. Bill M.
Sometimes I wonder how much effort is expended in defining and redefining all of this. What is it doing for the boots on the ground? That is where all efforts need to be expended to support the boots on the ground. The boots don't give a damn what you call it, they just want a clear mission (not muddied up with constantly changing terminology), the resources to do it and the flexibility to get it done.
If El Salvador was a successful insurgency, then the Contra's was a failed insurgent movement since they lost influence shortly after their military victory, and Noriega's party came back to power through the election process? Could it be that in El Salvador that the opposition resorted to armed revolt because there was no alternative method to pursuing political power in the 1980s. Then when a true democracy was established they had a legal method to assume power, and this is what the majority wanted? Furthermore, they lost the means to pursue a military strategy after the collapse of the Soviet Union, so they didn't have much of a choice other than pursue power through legal means.
Transfer to the current conflicts of identity, we may find the people in the countries that we think we're trying to liberate would willingly put in power fundamental religious leaders if they really had the choice? We're trying too hard to impose our values, and that is always perceived as interfering in other's people's business. Charlie Daniels had a line about this in one of his songs, "you outside folks better leave us alone." Bill M.
A definition of a word is not a law as the author would have us infer. Thus, it should be broad, just as it was written in the U.S. Army and Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual. Then one would apply the definition in accordance with law on a case by case occurance. Otherwise you'll be refining your definitions until hell freezes over.
I would ask us to consider El Salvador. What was the outcome of that insurgency/counterinsurgency? Surely by 1989-1990 we thought the El Salvadorans had "won". They had a government that quelled an insurgency and the "enemy" FMLN had gone to ground (back to the latent and incipient stage perhaps??) But 20 years later the political FMLN wins an election and comes to power in El Salvador. Who "won" and when did they "win"? Did the FMLN "win" 2 decades later or did El Salvador "win" because there was a peaceful constitutional transfer of power between governments that was based on the choice of the people? I mention these rhetorical questions because I think it is not so easy to measure "winning" and "losing" in these complex situations. The FMLN could not come to power through violent means but with good political organization and working within the system they did achieve political success. Was it a successful 30+ year insurgency or was it a successful political campaign? I do not think we can know for sure (and there will be more opinions on this as there are people thinking about the question!!) but by studying it we might be able to gain some insights into the relationship between insurgency and politics. Or did someone else already figure out there is a relationship between politics/policy and war/conflict??? :-)
The key is to focus on the purpose for action first, then the tactics employed to achieve it.
If the purpose is a change of governance; be it separatist, resistence, or revolutionary, you may well have an insurgency on your hands, but then look to the tactics.
If the challenger operates within the law, employing established methods within the political system of the state, he is merely a political challenger.
If the challenger operates outside the law, but employs non-violent means it is in effect an insurgency, but probably as Kitson reasoned, best classified as a "Subversion."
If the challenger operates outside the law, and employs violent means, it is full insurgency.
The solution set for the government/counterinsurgent is the same for all three though if it wishes to both remain in power and restore stability. It must understand and address the ways in which it is not meeting the needs of the populace that leads the populace to support the challenger, and address those needs themself.
In no case is this a matter of the populace failing the government, but always a case of the government failing the populace.
The problem is that once in power, governments are typically very reluctant to give it up. This is the true greatness of the American form of government; not that we can elect a Black man president, but that while everyone was focused on that moot fact, there was a peaceful transition of power IAW the will of the populace and the terms of the Constitution. God Bless America. We are more fortunate for that one fact than most will ever appreciate.
I'd agree with M-A above that velvet revolutions should not be lumped into the existing insurgency bucket, nor do I think the classic definition of insurgency should be modified as Mr. Phillips suggests. Velvet revolutionaries, in India, Georgia, Ukraine, or even colonial America could have been dealt with through political mechanisms and compromises could have been made on both sides leading to a satisfactory resulution.
Insurgents, however, are beyond that step and the government, in its current state of being, must defeat them IOT survive. To me, far from being a poli-sci expert, it seems that an "insurgent" has crossed the Rubicon as it were and self-nominated himself as an enemy of the state using violent means. I don't think Gandhi or MLK fit that role.
I also disagree with the second argument from the article; criminal organizations or cartels also cannot fit into the insurgency bucket nor warrant the same kind of response insurgencies do. Drug cartels, mafias, etc., to not want government overthrow or removal; their aim is not political in nature. The extension of their economic aims leads to violence, hence their criminal label. If their politics led to violence, they'd fit into the Clausewitzian model; but they do not. They desire merely gov't passivity or acquiescence - non-interference in their profit-making. Furthermore, the COG in an anti-drug cartel fight (or the anti-government fight from the cartel's viewpoint) is not the population as in a classic insurgency. Because the anti-cartel fight is not a military endeavor; it is a criminal element requiring a law enforcement resolution.
I think that's part of the problem that led us to where we are today; a a loosely networked criminal organization, which should only have warranted local (yet globally-synchronized) law enforcement efforts have instead brought to bear the world's most powerful military in a crime fighting effort.
Hell no, a peacefull uprising leading to a government demise is not an insurgency or at least should not be assimilated to it.
Yes, criminal activities using violent means are an insurgency.
But a velvet insurgency is just a political struggle. Insurgency should not be used to qualify every thing, especially political struggle.
This for two reasons: first insurgency does implicate the use of violence. The peaceful installation of a parallele administration does challenge a government on the field of legitimacy bt does not challenge the government in the field of distributing violence. Otherwise, unions are insurgent groups.
secondly: this is giving to inlegitimate governments the legitimacy to use violence against political opponent by stating they are insurgents.