insurgency

Frequent contributor Bob Tollast has posted a valuable interview at Global Politics.  

What factors push humans to the path of war? Is it our thirst for resources, or do political, religious or ethnic differences play a bigger role?

Often overlooked in such analysis is human nature and identity formation, which Fanar Haddad examines in detail, gaining deep insights into the Iraq conflict in his excellent study Sectarianism In Iraq.

Haddad is a London based academic and analyst of Middle Eastern affairs. His research interests are Middle Eastern social history, identity, minority politics, nationalism and popular memory. He previously lectured at the University of Exeter and worked in the Middle East and North Africa Research Group at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. He has published widely on Iraq and the broader Middle East and is author of Sectarianism in Iraq: Antagonistic Visions of Unity. Currently he lectures at the School of Politics and International Relations at Queen Mary, University of London.

Looking at the Iraq war through the prism of identity politics, Haddad’s book also stands out for its analysis of social media such as YouTube to understand the propaganda of civil conflict. As much as being a book about Iraq, Haddad’s work is full of insights for anyone interested in conflict studies, and provides some answers to the question Rodney King once posed: “can’t we just get along?”

It has taken over a year, but the international community is finally starting to accept that Bashar al-Assad cannot remain the ruler of Syria.  The international community’s hesitation allowed Assad to wage war against his own people, killing thousands and devastating Syria’s infrastructure.  Diplomatic overtures intent on ending the conflict between the two warring factions have failed and will continue to fail so long as Assad’s intransigence continues.  No international party is willing to directly intercede in the conflict, rightfully fearing the unforeseen consequences of military intervention.  If the international community intends on removing Assad, then only two options are currently available: assisting in the overthrow of Assad by members of his ruling coalition, or supporting a victory by the opposition against the regime. 

Neither of these options is optimal.  Yet, other options are neither realistic nor tolerable.  The conflict has passed any threshold in which a negotiated settlement would satisfy either party as they stand today.  Assad’s onslaught against his own people shows he is intent on remaining president at any cost.  The opposition, once composed of moderate activists calling for political reform, has evolved into an armed insurgency intent on making the regime pay for its crimes.  If the international community wants to see a new regime in Syria, then it has no choice but to isolate Assad while empowering the opposition.

A coup would likely be the fastest way to end the conflict.  The elite minority ruling Syria is interconnected by commerce, fear, and sectarian loyalty.  The Syrian elite thus far remain loyal to Assad, a testament to both Assad’s ability to instill fear and the strength of the elite pact.  However, no group’s loyalty is unlimited.  Defections within Syria’s officer corps and the severity of the country’s economic collapse reveal dissension within the ruling coalition.  Signs of weakness could be exploited in an effort to turn elite sentiment against Assad. 

The coup could be presented as the only means by which the elite can save their own hides.   Opposition fighters are gaining ground against Syria’s security forces and they intend on tearing down the whole political order, not just Assad.  If the elite stay loyal and lose to the revolution, then they will be at the mercy of the long-oppressed Syrian majority.  Yet, a successful move against Assad by members of his ruling coalition could soften hostilities.  The opposition’s symbolic enemy, Assad, would be gone and the international community could use the coup as an opportunity to pressure the conflicting parties towards negotiation. 

The second option, supporting a victory by the opposition, means that the conflict will continue unabated.  Continued warfare within Syria means thousands more will lose their lives, hundreds of thousands of refugees will flee conflict zones, and the country’s already devastated infrastructure will be further destroyed.  Being outgunned, the Syrian opposition can only win through attrition – inflicting minor wounds against security forces until the regime collapses.  The Syrian opposition is fragmented, internally competitive, and constituted of a diverse collection of organizations that are often as hostile to each other as they are to the regime.  Yet, the opposition is leading an effective revolution when it should have already been decimated.  They enjoy the support of much of the Syrian population and have been successful in pushing the conflict into Assad’s main areas of control.  As it stands today, the Syrian opposition cannot win militarily, but their capabilities are steadily improving.

The success of either of these options requires a great deal of luck.  Syria is in chaos and likely will remain so for the foreseeable future.  Trying to sow dissension among the elite may fail.  The opposition could prove unable to finish off Assad.  There are thousands of things that can go wrong in pursuing either of these options.  Yet, the ongoing humanitarian disaster in Syria must be stopped and the international community has limited their options.  Too much time has already been wasted on proposed political settlements and while the intent of these diplomatic efforts is good, they have only allowed Assad to continue his war against Syria itself.  If the international community will not directly intercede in the conflict, then it must support the opposition.  Otherwise, we are simply allowing a disaster to continue.      

US Army Special Operations Command and Johns Hopkins University/Applied Physics Laboratory National Security Analysis Department have put together a useful reference for small wars students and practitioners entitled "Casebook on Insurgency and Revolutionary Warfare Volume II:  1962-2009."  The resource is available for download in PDF format here.  If you are wondering where Volume I is, that government document covers post-World War I insurgencies and revolutions up to 1962 and can be downloaded in PDF here.  The original was published by the Special Operations Research Office at The American University in 1962.

Volume II is broken down by conceptual categories as can be seen by the table of contents:

I. REVOLUTION TO MODIFY THE TYPE OF GOVERNMENT........... 1 

1. New People’s Army (NPA).............................................................5 

2. Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC)..........39 

3. Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path)............................................71 

4. 1979 Iranian Revolution............................................................113 

5. Frente Farabundo Martí Para la Liberación Nacional (FMLN)...151 

6. Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA)................................195 

II. REVOLUTION BASED ON IDENTITY OR ETHNIC ISSUES........ 229 

7. Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)...............................233 

8. Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO): 1964–2009............277 

9. Hutu–Tutsi Genocides...............................................................307 

10. Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA): 1996–1999............................343 

11. The Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA): 1969–2001...379 

III. REVOLUTION TO DRIVE OUT A FOREIGN POWER.................. 423 

12. Afghan Mujahidin: 1979–1989..................................................427 

13. Viet Cong: 1954–1976................................................................459 

14. Chechen Revolution: 1991–2002..............................................489 

15. Hizbollah: 1982–2009................................................................525 

16. Hizbul Mujahideen....................................................................569 

IV. REVOLUTION BASED ON RELIGIOUS FUNDAMENTALISM.... 605 

17. Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ)......................................................609 

18. Taliban: 1994–2009....................................................................651 

19. Al Qaeda: 1988–2001.................................................................685 

V. REVOLUTION FOR MODERNIZATION OR REFORM................. 725 

20. Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND)....729 

21. Revolutionary United Front (RUF)—Sierra Leone.................763 

22. Orange Revolution of Ukraine: 2004–2005..............................801 

23. Solidarity.....................................................................................825 

The original was broken down regionally and included chapters on Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaya, Guatemala, Venezuela, Argentina, Bolivia, Cuba, Tunisia, Algeria, French Cameroon, Congo, Iraq x 2, Egypt, Iran, Sudan, Korea, China, Germany, Spain, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia.

H/T to Dave Maxwell  

THIS JULY 5^th, France and Algeria marked the fiftieth anniversary of the latter’s independence. An inglorious seven-year war against a nationalist insurgency was brought to a close by President Charles de Gaulle, and with it, the last significant chapter of Western colonialism in the Arab world.

French efforts to “pacify” Algeria were politically doomed despite growing military successes on the ground. Four long years before the 1962 Evian Accords were signed with the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN), the incumbent de Gaulle had concluded that the costs of maintaining the colony had come to outweigh the benefits to Metropolitan France. The war had been socially divisive (leading to a coup against the Fourth Republic), geopolitically counterproductive (isolating France from her NATO allies while creating enmity in the Arab world), and economically disastrous.

De Gaulle wished for a “responsible” pull-out. Subject to a popular referendum, Algeria would be granted its independence in exchange for the promise that France would continue to have access to the naval installations, nuclear sites and gas fields she had invested in there, and that the former colony would not turn into a Soviet proxy-state.

Fifty years later, the United States, which had once been very critical of French objectives in Algeria, would yearn for an analogous conclusion to her own protracted war in Afghanistan.

The general impression of the Algerian War today is that the French lost their colony because the indigenous population kicked them out. The plain truth, however, is that the French were not ousted from Algeria, anymore than the Americans were ousted from Iraq, or will soon be “ousted” from Afghanistan.

Setting the conditions for a “responsible” exit from Algeria in 1962 had required the French to bleed soldiers and treasury for years after the political decision had been made to withdraw. We are seeing the same eerie phenomenon repeat itself in Afghanistan. There, the irony of fighting against insurgencies abroad is emerging in full force; the counterinsurgent’s exit hinges on negotiating with the insurgent he continues to fight.

De Gaulle had negotiated with the FLN from a position of relative weakness; for despite France’s military successes on the ground, her political desire to withdraw was well known to all. The United States is confronted with a similar weakness in Afghanistan. Insurgent groups – the Taliban especially – have capitalized on NATO’s urgency to leave. The Taliban have come to realize that intransigence (to the point of killing negotiators – a recurring theme in Afghan history) will offer the better long-term yield. The more the Taliban wait, the more U.S.–NATO position will become desperate.

One hopes that the difference between Algeria and Afghanistan will lie in the degree to which the insurgent accedes to power in the aftermath of the foreign power’s withdrawal. In Algeria, despite promises of constitutional elections, the FLN had been allowed to achieve quasi-dictatorial control over the entire country following the French pull-out. The repercussions of a similar scenario being repeated in Afghanistan could be worse still. The Taliban’s record of governance offers bleak prospects for Afghanistan's sectarian stability, and more broadly, for the stability of Pakistan and the entire region. The tragedy of such an endgame would lie in the amount of blood and tears spilt by all sides only to yield results that could have been obtained – it will seem in hindsight – without paying such a tribute.

In Afghanistan, it remains to be seen whether the population will muster the strength to reject Taliban rule in the South on the morrow of an American withdrawal, or whether it will cave to the terror and fanaticism imposed by a few, thereby remaining cut-off from the rest of the world.

When national security imperatives or humanitarian concerns justify the toppling of a regime in the future, it is hoped that all efforts towards achieving a revolution from within will first be exhausted prior to contemplating an invasion. Otherwise, the insurgents, regardless of the merits of their banner-cause, will encounter no shortage of recruits to fight against the foreign occupiers of their lands and the perceived domestic lackeys they support.