The Jones Insurgency Model
The Jones Insurgency Model
A Tool for the Prevention and
Resolution of Insurgency
by Colonel Robert C. Jones
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Offered here is the simple proposition that insurgency happens when
governance fails. Similarly, foreign terrorism happens when one supports these
same failed systems.
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Not the kind of failed governance that draws so much attention to
countries like Somalia; which is probably more accurately described as a
rejection of forced western, Westphalian constructs of governance for forms
more acceptable to their culture and society.
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Not the kind of failed governance that draws so much attention to
countries like Bangladesh; where the lack of effective government services
and widespread poverty are largely seen as "normal" by the affected
populace.
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Not the kind of failed governance that draws so much attention to
countries like Liberia; where auspices of statehood are perverted to
criminal purposes.
No, the failures that lead to insurgency are far more fundamental, and often
so insidious that they are not even recognized or acknowledged by their equally
failing leaders; even when pointed out to them, often quite violently, by their
own populaces. What makes countering such insurgent causation even more
complicated is that these failures do not even have to be real; all that is
required is that some key segment of the populace reasonably believes them to be
true. The irony is not that this happens in countries like those described
above, but that it also afflicts the most developed, upright, and law abiding
countries as well. This is the paradox. This is why counterinsurgency is so
difficult: it can happen anywhere, its causation is rooted in perceptions of
governmental failure; and its resolution is rooted in governmental recognition
and resolution of those same perceptions.
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Colonel Robert C. Jones, U.S. Army Reserve, is a Special Forces officer
currently assigned as the Chief, Strategic Studies for U.S. Special Operations
Command; with duty in Kandahar, Afghanistan as the Chief, Special Operations
Planning and Liaison Element to Regional Command-South. The opinions he
expresses here are his own and represent no NATO, U.S. Government or Department
of Defense positions.
See also this article as published here in the ISAF Counterinsurgency Blog.
