The Ugly Truth: Insurgencies are Brutal
The Ugly Truth: Insurgencies are Brutal
by Dr. Robert Bunker
Download the Full Article: The Ugly Truth: Insurgencies are Brutal
The recent release by WikiLeaks.org of over seventy thousand classified U.S. Military documents pertaining to the insurgency in Afghanistan has generated immense media and public interest and is being compared in scale to the release of the 'Pentagon Papers' in 1965 by Daniel Ellsberg. Immediate U.S. governmental condemnations concerning unnecessarily placing troops in harm's way, on the one hand, combined with war crimes accusations, on the other, have only served to heighten the rhetoric surrounding the posting of these documents on the Web. The criminal and unauthorized manner in which this massive volume of documents was leaked has only helped to further politicize and emotionally galvanize commentators taking sides on this issue.
The intent of this short essay is to move past the hype, rhetoric, and passions of the moment and get to the core of the issue at hand. The ugly truth has nothing to do with who released the documents, why they were released, or even what political outcomes and potential policy fallout will occur after the dust settles. The core issue at hand is that insurgencies, by their very nature, are inherently brutal. This point was recently driven home after doing a considerable amount of research and reflection on issues pertaining to insurgent use of targeted killing, via both the techniques of assassination and political execution, and engaging in subsequent discourse on this topic with insurgency warfare scholars and practitioners. Further sensitizing me to this truth is that, prior to the insurgent analysis, I was recently involved in an edited book project on Mexican drug cartels and the criminal insurgencies taking place within the lands of our Southern neighbor with over twenty-five thousand dead since December 2006.
Download the Full Article: The Ugly Truth: Insurgencies are Brutal
Dr. Robert J. Bunker holds degrees in political science, government, behavioral science, social science, anthropology-geography, and history. Training taken includes that provided by DHS, FLETC, DIA, Cal DOJ, Cal POST, LA JRIC, NTOA, and private security entities in counter-terrorism, counter-surveillance, incident-response, force protection, and intelligence. Dr. Bunker has been involved in red teaming and counter-terrorism exercises and has provided operations support within Los Angeles County. Past associations have included Futurist in Residence, FBI Academy, Quantico, VA; Counter-OPFOR Program Consultant (Staff Member), National Law Enforcement and Corrections Technology Center—West, El Segundo, CA; Fellow, Institute of Law Warfare, Association of the US Army, Arlington, VA; Lecturer-Adjunct Professor, National Security Studies Program, California State University San Bernardino, San Bernardino, CA; instructor, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA; and founding member, Los Angeles County Terrorism Early Warning Group. Dr. Bunker has over 200 publications including short essays, articles, chapters, papers and book length documents. These include Non-State Threats and Future Wars (editor); Networks, Terrorism and Global Insurgency (editor); Criminal-States and Criminal-Soldiers (editor); Narcos Over the Border (editor); and Red Teams and Counter-Terrorism Training (co-author— forthcoming). He has provided over 200 briefings, papers, and presentations to US LE, MIL, GOV, and other groups in the US and overseas. He can be reached at [email protected].
This quote should be framed and hung in every Professional Military Education institution, the National Security Council and every policy and decision makers’ office:
“Within this broader context, the ugly truth that insurgencies are brutal must never be forgotten. Democracies have little stomach for them because too many gray areas exist–the just causes are quickly tarnished, allegations of war crimes and actual war crimes take place on all sides, and, as in all conflict and war, the indigenous populations caught in the middle suffer the most. Distressingly, more and more insurgencies are breaking out globally that seemingly require the attention, and ultimately the blood and financial resources, of the United States to respond to them. It is hoped, whatever administration is in power–be it Democrat or Republican– that wise, measured, and grand strategic decisions will be made. It is far easier to wreck the position and power of a state by undertaking the wrong international policies, especially as it pertains to undertaking foreign wars, than to build up or regain the power and prestige lost. America has been a great power throughout the 20th century. What has been gained over the course of a century can be lost in only a few short years.”
Wise words.
Amen.
Absolutely correct.
Now that everyone agrees with the statement—can we finally get to the point of understanding just why these insurgencies are breaking out—this includes the narco side as well?
Can we finally ditch the failed concept of human terrain as it is an inherent part of any intelligence preparation of the battlefiled and does not require six figure social scientists to tell us what it is, Can we finally understand that all insurgencies and this includes the narco side in fact have ecosystems that for some strange reason no one really wants to cleanly address, Can we finally have a frank and honest debate about “open source warfare” as the driver behind the ever increasing number of insurgenices, Can we admit that in fact what we are seeing in the growing number of insurgencies is in fact 5GW with “open source warfare” as the driver and we are not prepared for it, Can we finally admit to ourselves that in fact the current COIN as being practiced is not what some have written/discussed in 2004 and 2005 and it does require being brutal and while COIN is all about being pop centric we cannot always protect the population.
NOTE: How else can one explain the evolution process of an insurgency which takes a 600 dollar investment and drives a US response of over 2B in US counter costs–one of the most potent examples of “open source warfare” in a long time just recently quoted in a Wired article.
What amazes me is that any older SF vet will tell you that the insurgencies of the 60s/70s were brutal, and have always been brutal–we need to analyze just why the general public/politicans think otherwise and why does it take someone now to tell us what we knew in 1971?
Have we as a society simply forgotten how to learn from the past or to question the past as it sure does appear that we have forgotten how to simply think.
The cautionary statement at the end of the quote is definitely worth paying attention to; the implication that these insurgencies somehow require our attention in the form of preserving current governments in power is, however a point I would challenge.
Most successful “insurgencies” are actually not brutal, and not even violent. Dr. Maria Stephens, formerly of Tufts, and currently at the US Embassy in Kabul has done some excellent research on what she calls non-violent insurgencies. We in the military tend to be blinded by our violence-based definitions for insurgency and our proclivity to see COIN as “warfare” that combine to lead us down a certain path in this regard.
In my work I see a common causation for both the non-violent and violent forms of insurgency. Going violent is a choice. Countering the violence addresses that choice, but misses the underlying causation. By being able to shift our focus from “choices” (violent vs non-violent; form of ideology applied to rally the populace; politics of either the insurgent or the counterinsurgent; etc) and instead focusing on the primal, human issues at work in the dynamic between those who govern and those who are governed, we get, IMO, far closer to an understanding that allows us to shape approaches that are far less likely to put our nation at risk than the current approaches are.
Could the most common cause of insurgencies — brutal or otherwise — be:
a. When certain segments of a population become threatened with — or actually lose — rights, privileges, status, prestige, wealth, property, livelihood, etc.,
b. Under some new governmental and/or societal arrangements,
c. With such violations often being pursued and justified by such reasons as “modernization,” “universal values,” “modernization,” “human progress,” etc.,
d. Possible examples being: (1) Southerners in the 1860s United States, (2) samurai in latter 19th Century Japan and, today, (3) various individuals, populations, groups and nations — due to the demands of present-day globalization, its proponents and its bodyguards?
In order to preclude “brutal insurgencies” in instances such as those presented at “d” above, how might government (1) meet/have met its “societal transformation” goals without (2) infringing the rights, privileges, property, status, prestige, wealth, livelihood, etc., of those concerned?
Change always happens, this is inevitable.
Change always pisses someone off; this too is inevitable. Failure to change is also going to piss someone off.
Look at societies emerging from the sort of quasi-feudalism that prevailed for so long in much of Latin America. The peasantry and the working class want change and they want it faster. The governing elites see change as a direct threat to their rights, privileges, property, etc. It is difficult to resolve these opposing motives without conflict. If a society has reached the point where domestic conflict involves violence, it’s is generally not going to be possible to resolve the conflict by addressing everyone’s issues: the interests and imperatives involved are in fundamental conflict.
I really don’t think it’s possible to contrive a useful generic description of “insurgency” or its causes. Each case is unique and must be understood as such. Overall theories are more likely to obstruct understanding than to assist it, because they impose preconceived assumptions about causes and effects.
Dayuhan—what if they were in fact a common set of characteristics to be found in all of the last insurgencies?
From our analysis and modeling we find that there are 15 key characteristics that define a successful insurgent ecosystem; these are listed below with a short name to describe the feature.
1. Many body: There are many more autonomous insurgent groups operating within conflicts than we had previously thought. For example, there were 100+ autonomous groups operating in Iraq (as of 2006).
2. Fluidity: The insurgents are loosely grouped together to form fluid networks with short half-lives. This is very different from the rigid hierarchical networks that have been proposed for insurgent groups.
3. Redundancy: If we remove the strongest group from the system another group will rise to replace the previous strongest group
4. Splinter: When a group is broken it does not generally split in half but instead shatters into multiple pieces
5. Redistribute: When a group is broken the components are redistributed amongst the other groups in the system. The redistribution is biased towards the most successful remaining groups.
6. Snowball: The strongest groups grow fastest
7. Tall poppy: The strongest groups are the predominant targets for opposition forces
8. Internal competition: There is direct competition amongst insurgent groups for both resources and media exposure. They are competing with each other in addition to fighting the stronger counterinsurgent forces.
9. Independent co-ordination: Autonomous groups act in a coordinated fashion as a result of the competition that exists between them.
10. Emergent structure: Attacks in both Iraq and Colombia become ‘less random and more coordinated over time
11. Evolution: The strategies employed by the groups evolve over time where successful groups/strategies survive and unsuccessful strategies/groups are replaced.
12. High dimensional: Connection occurs over high dimensions (i.e. Internet, cell phone etc) and is not dominated by geographic connections.
13. Non-linear: It is approximately 316* times harder to kill 100 people in an attack than it is to kill 10 people. (*Results for a conflict with alpha=2.5).
14. Independent clones: the fundamental structure and dynamics of insurgent groups is largely independent of religious, political, ideological or geographic differences.
15. Stigmergy communications: is a mechanism of spontaneous, indirect coordination between agents or actions, where the trace left in the environment by an action stimulates the performance of a subsequent action, by the same or a different agent. Stigmergy is a form of self-organization. It produces complex, apparently intelligent structures, without need for any planning, control, or even communication between the agents. As such it supports efficient collaboration between extremely simple agents, who lack any memory, intelligence or even awareness of each other.
Anon:
I note that none of these characteristics address the question of causation or motivation.
I’m curious, though… when you refer to “a successful insurgent ecosystem”, what successful insurgencies were included in the study? I’m wondering about the data set, and about the definition of “successful”.
I note that the only insurgencies you refer to are those in Iraq and Colombia; I’m not sure either could be called “successful”. I’m not personally convinced that the conflict in Iraq, at least in its early and middle stages (relative to current status), was an insurgency at all: it seems to me to be less an insurgency than an armed competition to fill the governance vacuum left by the removal of Saddam.
I realize that it’s a fearful breach of precedent, but to get back to the original topic…
Armed conflict is inherently brutal. Armed conflict between or among states is brutal. Armed conflict among non-state actors (criminal gangs, ethnic militias, etc) is brutal. And, yes, insurgency is brutal. I suspect that this is less a characteristic of insurgency than a characteristic of armed conflict, of which insurgency is a subset.
Dayuhan;
1. the study covered 15 current insurgencies and were based on open source reporting-a total of 54K data sets were used–initial Afghanistan review was indicating as well the same characteristics
2.successful insurgenicies could be defined as those insurgencies that still exist as the goal as an insurgent group is not to be destroyed by the counterinsurgent
3. tend to disagree with you on the Iraqi Sunni inusrgency comment as they defintively were even in the intial and middle stages were an insurgency based on throwing out the US and then later taking on the Shiia during the ethnic cleansing phase—they might have appeared to be filling a governance void but they definitely were structured to resist from their view the US occupation from day one.
Sunni insurgencies excluding AQI who had a different agenda all together from the other groups.
Even the Mahdi Army and the other Shiia insurgent groups began copying their Sunni counterparts in the TTP areas as they stepped up their attacks on the US.
Dayuhan;
One example of survival of the fittest as the main driver of an insurgency—Tamil Tigers—do not think for a moment the movement is dead-it is just in survival mode as they never calculated that the government would destory the population in order to drive them into non existence. The governement formulated what I see as the first test of the theory of total non-population centric COIN—would be interesting to watch how the Tigers recover long term.
We could go into the former Algerian insurgency which was really going nowhere and were basically in a survival mode as well–then with a rebranding effort focusing on AQ they exploded back on the stage and are in fact now giving the counterinsurgent ie the government a run for their money.
So yes there are times in the development of an insurgency that the long term goal is just to hang in and survive and I would also venture a guess that a number of insurgencies really do not want the government to totally fail and end up as a “failed state” as it forces them into nation building.
Will get you a definition of insurgency that applies to both non violent as well as violent actors.
The research sounds like this:
http://blog.ted.com/2009/12/16/ted_fellow_sean/
http://www.ted.com/talks/sean_gourley_on_the_mathematics_of_war.html
It was all the rage for a while but eventually drew fire. This blog offers a representative sample of the criticism (although Dayuhan’s comments are similar):
http://www.registan.net/index.php/2010/01/27/a-comment-on-common-ecology-quantifies-human-insurgency/
Not sure of its status now.
Cow Cookie—couple that research together with Kilcullens’s “conflict ecosystem” and you would have a deepened insight into the evolution of the insurgency especially the IED fight that currently this following comment seems to indicate we are losing rather badly against.
Just a side note–not even the Human Terrain System with it’s new budget of 170M (up from a startup of 40M) has not been able to contribute anything of value to the demise of the IED networks so why do we have them in the game? With a 400% increase in cost have we gained 400% in effectiveness?
Monday, 09 August 2010
JOURNAL: Open Source Warfare and IED Design Innovation
Insurgencies that utilize open source warfare are almost always extremely innovative (see earlier posts on the topic). As a result, big conventional militaries find it very difficult to keep up even when they spend tens of billions and hire thousands of consultants (while, unfortunately, studiously avoiding a study of the method of warfare that creates this innovation gap). With this in mind, here’s a new article in Wired magazine on the innovation rates seen in IEDs, and how these innovations are spreading globally as new groups adopt this form of warfare. Here are some choice quotes:
“I can take $600, go into a bazaar, and make a device,” says one senior Jieddo officer. “And I can tie up $1.2 billion to $2 billion of US money by doing it.”
This escalating arms race, pitting kitchen-table bombsmiths against US government technologists, began in the early months of the Iraqi insurgency. The first IEDs were often simple radio-controlled bombs, made from two or three 155-millimeter artillery shells set off by a signal from a cheap household gadget, like a key fob car alarm switch or a wireless doorbell buzzer. US troops, traveling in unarmored Humvees, were defenseless against them until each of the services hastily bought hundreds of radio-frequency jammers — with codenames like Cottonwood, Ironwood, MICE, ICE, Warlock Red, Warlock Green, Jukebox, and Symphony — capable of generating an invisible hemisphere of electromagnetic energy that could drown out those trigger signals. Eventually, Jieddo would oversee the deployment of more than 40,000 jammers in Iraq.
The bombers quickly learned how to circumvent the electronic countermeasures. They used handheld radio-frequency meters and bombs with dummy trial-and-error firing circuits to figure out what part of the spectrum the jammers blotted out and how big the jamming field was. Then they simply switched to new remote controls that used bandwidths beyond the jammers range. When US technicians introduced electronic countermeasures to jam low-power radio-control devices like garage door openers and car alarms, insurgents moved to high-power devices, including two-way radios and extended-range cordless phones. Then they moved on to mobile phones in every local cell network, from 1G to 3G. While this race had been run before, it had never taken place at such speed.
At the beginning of this year, US forces in Iraq reported a new version of the passive infrared trigger, nicknamed the Black Cat. It looked exactly like a regular passive infrared sensor, but the motion detector was altered to be triggered instead by radio frequencies. Shielded to prevent it from being set off by household radios and with reduced reception range, the new device is one of the most devious yet. Designed to detect the passing bubble of a coalition jamming systems powerful radio field, the Black Cat has brought Jieddo full circle: It is an IED that will detonate only when it detects an IED countermeasure.
Late one afternoon in April, Llamas shows me the latest device theyve been working on, just in from Afghanistan. A neatly made plywood box about 8 inches high and 5 inches square, it has a length of replica detonation cord emerging from the base. Llamas pulls the box open, revealing a layer of soft foam and a wooden plunger attached to the lid. When stepped on or driven over, he says, the foam is compressed and the tip of the plunger, which is saturated with a chemical, descends into a chamber at the bottom of the box. That chamber contains a second substance, and when the two chemicals mix, a pyrotechnic reaction ignites the end of the detonation cord, which leads to an explosive charge. The box is the logical conclusion of years of reverse evolution in insurgent weapons technology. Without a power source, a blasting cap, or a single piece of wire or metal contact, it has no electromagnetic or metallic signature. Linked to a charge mixed up from odorless homemade explosives, packed beneath a dirt road, it would be all but impossible to detect: a Flintstones land mine. “Its a block of wood, basically,” Llamas says.
Anon:
successful insurgenicies could be defined as those insurgencies that still exist as the goal as an insurgent group is not to be destroyed by the counterinsurgent
Have to disagree. The goal of the insurgent is to win; to seize power. We all know the cliche that “the insurgent wins by not losing”, and there’s some truth in it, but even here survival is a means to an end, not an end in itself. To see survival as success I’d say there has to be some evidence that the surviving insurgency is growing and has some form of momentum on its side. For example, the New People’s Army in the Philippines survives (largely due to the incompetence of the opposing government) but in severely degraded form (largely due to its own incompetence); it would be difficult to justify calling it a success.
tend to disagree with you on the Iraqi Sunni inusrgency comment as they defintively were even in the intial and middle stages were an insurgency based on throwing out the US and then later taking on the Shiia during the ethnic cleansing phase—they might have appeared to be filling a governance void but they definitely were structured to resist from their view the US occupation from day one.
That brings us back to the definition of “insurgency”, and I’ve noted before that given the extent to which insurgency is discussed here we don’t spend much time trying to establish what it is. If we use this definition:
an organized rebellion aimed at overthrowing a constituted government through the use of subversion and armed conflict
we could say that resistance to foreign invasion/occupation, by regular or irregular means, is arguably not insurgency at all. My own perception is that the removal of Saddam created a power vacuum in which there was no generally acknowledged government (insurgency requires a government by definition), and within that vacuum a number of armed players, including the US and its selected Iraqi representatives, were competing for power. That competition was not really insurgency until a government emerged that was recognized as a constituted government by Iraqis – recognition by the US or other external players would of course be irrelevant.
Of course when we put semantics and definitions aside we’re essentially talking about the same thing, but I do think that the term “insurgency” is occasionally misused.
Dayuhan—getting off track but a response is as follows;
1. the goal of an insurgency is sometimes not that of the overthrow of the government but it sometimes attempts to neutralize the government influence in areas that it deems necessary ie do the narco groups in Mexico want the total failure of the Mexican government or really just less federal power along the border, did the Islamic Army of Iraq really want power again or were they attempting to influence the Sunni population using the argument of resistance to the invaders, were the Shiite groups fighting to represent Iran or were they settling old religious scores from 1400 years ago —insurgent groups always have a number of competing goals at the same time
2. That competition was not really insurgency until a government emerged that was recognized as a constituted government by Iraqis – recognition by the US or other external players would of course be irrelevant.
Would argue that the IAI whcih started it’s IED campaign against US forces in late 2003 early 2004 was already structured into an insurgency structure aimed at the throwing out of the US as there was no Iraqi government in 2003/2004. This goes as well for the other strong 2003/2004 Sunni group Ansar al Sunnah.
I would personally argue that based on the number of Saddam Intelligence Service officers involved in tracking and eliminating any form of Sunni Salafi activity prior to the arrival of the US –Saddam definitely had a very quiet internal insurgency going on that we were simply not aware of. Kind of like taking the lid off of a cobra basket and having no flute.
Just my opinion.
Anon:
Again a definitional hangup, but I’m not sure a purely profit-oriented criminal enterprise such as Mexico’s narco-groups would qualify as “insurgency”.
I agree that insurgent groups by any definition frequently have multiple overlapping motives, but I’d still maintain that the capacity to endure is generally a means to an end, not an end in itself, and I’m still not sure I’d equate survival with success.
Certainly Saddam faced violent dissent from a number of sources, for the most part not terribly well coordinated and fairly effectively suppressed. Whether that dissent was extensive and organized enough to be called “insurgency” is another question, again one which hinges largely on the definition of “insurgency”. Whether the resistance to Saddam’s rule and the subsequent resistance to US occupation are in any way continuous or related phenomena is still another question.
I’m still not convinced that regular or irregular resistance to foreign invasion/occupation can be called insurgency, at least until and unless the occupying force is recognized as the Government… but again it all comes down to a definition of “insurgency”. What’s yours?
Apologies for coming into this debate late but Im interested in the statement made by Robert C. Jones: “Most successful insurgencies are actually not brutal, and not even violent.”
1.If they are not violent by that rationale any political or organised group protesting against a government could be described as an insurgency. For example an environment group protesting against logging forests at one end or the Orange Revolution in the Ukraine at the other?
2. If non-violent insurgency is permitted to take place then the government and its arms of enforcement are operating in a more open society; so what are we worried about?
3. If the insurgency is non-violent then in the context of our need to adapt, learn and evolve in how we deal with violent insurgencies what can non-violent insurgencies teach us since the mind of the violent insurgency is radically different. Surely we only care about violent insurgencies, no matter how they start, or what motivates them because they destablise geopolitical and economic structures, brutalise communities and in many instances draw international forces into the firing line.
I only ask these questions because Im genuinely interested and would appreciate being pointed towards some of Dr Stephens work.
Jason
Hi Jason, you wrote:
I’m not sure if this applies, but:
Here is a link that gives a snapshot on Maria and here work:
http://fletcher.tufts.edu/profilesalum/stephan.shtml
She is co-authoring a book on the topic currently and her Doctorial thesis is on this topic. I’ll try to track a copy of that down.
One area where she and I agree is that violent tactics or non-violent tactics are a choice that an insurgent populace makes. Often movements try both over the course of what may be generational struggles with poor governance. Historically, when the populace opts to take a non-violent (but still illegal) approach to pressure government to make changes that it does not want to make, they are more successful.
There are so many critical points that can be drawn from this observation; I’ll list a few off the top of my head:
1. Our current definitions of insurgency are too militaristic, too focused on violence as the defining factor, and tend to drive us to overly militaristic, warlike approaches to COIN;
2. If I am right that insurgency is a natural response by a populace that perceives itself to be oppressed by “Poor Governance” (See my paper describing my insurgency model here on SWJ for more of that); then a better approach to pouring in tons of blood and treasure by intervening powers might be to convince the insurgent to switch to more successful non-violent approaches and to take a more neutral role in helping to resolve the differences than the current approaches focused on sustaining a failing government over the objections of its populace.
3. This opens a broad, rich new area for Unconventional Warfare. Too much of that doctrine is rooted in WWII and the fomenting of violent insurgency. While the training in insurgency is a essential part of what makes SF good at COIN, FID and so much of what we do; adding a “fomenting of non-violent insurgency” (Maria kicked me hard for suggesting this) opens up options that make UW much more viable for employment as part of an overall US policy.
Yes, Insurgency is brutal. But it does not have to be.
Three additional resources are the following DVDs that Maria gave me copies of:
“Orange Revolution” (About the populaces response to the stolen presidential election in the Ukraine in 2004)
“A Force More Powerful” (A much broader look that looks at India in the 30s, the US civil rights movement in the 60s, Denmark in WWII, Poland in 80-81, and Chile in 83)
“Bringing Down a Dictator” (Yugoslavia in 2000)
I would add “The Battle of Algiers” to this list as it shows how a movement is not defined by its tactics, and can shift from violence to non-violence. The benefit of non-violence is that it allows foreign powers, the UN, etc to throw their support behind a movement, when they cannot, even when the cause is just, when the approach is violent.
I’m sure there are cases where nonviolent but extralegal opposition to government (still not sure this is “insurgency” but again that’s the old definitional question) is a conscious choice of an opposition movement. That’s not always the case, though.
I was in the middle of a successful non-violent insurrection once, the overthrow of Ferdinand Marcos in 1980. This was not in any way a conscious choice by an insurgent movement: the primary existing insurgency, the New People’s Army, had nothing to do with it. Neither was it planned or organized by anyone. It was an unintended consequence of a long string of generally duplicitous and inept decisions by a remarkable number of parties: the Marcos administration, the Reagan administration, the NPA, a group of coup plotters, and a few others besides. When it happened it was without plan or direction.
I also learned from events that even when media are thick on the ground, the media, and history, often get things wrong. Always wise to take accounts with many grains of salt.
The point is simple that it’s not always (I suspect that it rarely is) as simple as a conscious decision by an insurgent movement to embrace non-violence.
I think the assumption that insurgency is “a natural response by a populace that perceives itself to be oppressed by Poor Governance” can also be an oversimplification. Certainly insurgency is unlikely to thrive without an aggrieved populace, but in many cases insurgent movements are dominated by individuals that are trying to ride an those grievances and exploit them as a way to gain power for ends totally unconnected to the welfare of the populace. For this reason insurgent movements are likely to violently derail any effort at addressing grievances that challenge their raison d’etre.
It’s all too easy for a violent insurgency and an oppressive government to form a symbiotic relationship, each justifying the existence of the other. In such cases the welfare and desire of the populace are not generally a concern to either: they fight over power.
Dayuhani —still owe you the insurgent definition but it will not be the definition taken from the FM—this below is along the lines of what I will send you:
This was written in August 2004–it is I am afraid far closer to the truth now as it was then if we go back and reanalyze the Sunni insurgency if we say compare it to the IAI journal written by the founder of the IAI from the period of 2003 thru early 2005 before it was uncovered from a cache near Abu Ghraib and only partially translated journal is an eye-opener and goes a long way in answering the question of ‘how was it possible for the Sunni insurgent groups to go from as a Mao phase one guerrilla war to a full blown phase three in under three years—we have never wanted to clearly address that evolution and the drivers of that evolution–we are asking the very same questions now in Afghanistan–it was a quietened Taliban up through 2006 and then they exploded out of the chute in 2007—what was the evolution that drove that sudden expansion and what were the drivers—even SWJ is avoiding that discussion.
Che’s theory lives on
Iraq’s insurgency is a variant of Che’s foco insurgency in that it operates without a need for popular support. However, the environment today differs in many important ways that provide it with the opportunity of success. Here’s why Iraq’s insurgency has gained traction:
ââ¬Â¢Multiplexed loyalties. Iraq is riven by ethinic, tribal, political, and religious loyalties. This provides numerous fault lines for guerrillas to exploit.
ââ¬Â¢An occupation. The US occupation serves as a focal point for guerrilla activity. The elimination of the Baathist military sufficiently weakened the state in ways that made it easy for a foco insurgency to gain momentum.
ââ¬Â¢Modern networks. Iraq has a modern (although dilapidated) infrastructure that is ripe for attack. This infrastructure is critical for its economic recovery and is in stark contrast to the sparse networks of developing nations ~40 years ago. Additionally, a diverse set of global media networks allow guerrillas to circumvent state controls on information to amplify fault lines.
The Bazaar vs. the Foco
A series of tactical innovations allows global guerrillas to both survive and thrive in Iraq. These innovations (cumulatively called the bazaar) allow it to survive state counter-pressure, learn/advance, and deplete the ruling government of funds/authority/legitimacy. In contrast, the foco was unable to accomplish this. Also, unlike the foco, the end point of the bazaar isn’t a new state but the destruction of the state. Here’s how global guerrillas have improved on the model:
ââ¬Â¢A diverse set of small groups with different motivations. These groups don’t have a center of mass (hierarchy) that can be targeted. Their small size provides them excellent OPSEC and the collapse any subset of groups doesn’t disrupt the whole. Strength through diversity.
ââ¬Â¢A bazaar of violence. This bazaar provides a clearinghouse of money, information, and other resources necessary for rapid group learning and improvement. This complex system enables small groups to exceed the rate of improvement of centralized organizations.
ââ¬Â¢Leverage from markets and networks. These networks provide Iraq’s guerrillas rates of return far in excess of those expected for groups of their size.
What this means
A vibrant bazaar insurgency in Iraq will set the stage for the following events:
ââ¬Â¢Iraq’s bazaar will outlast the US occupation. The choice for the US will be to either continue to write a blank check for Iraq and run up deficits or withdraw. It is only a matter of time before the decision to withdraw is made.
ââ¬Â¢Organic Islamic order. The goal of this insurgency is very much in line with Che’s vision (an organic order that arises out of state weakness). However, in Iraq, the complete disruption of state power isn’t replaced with another state but rather organic Islamic order — the Fallujah and Taliban model.
Remember the US military power did not quieten down Fallujah-AQI turned off the Sunni population and that was the downfall for AQI.
ALCON,
This is an excellent essay; followed by an equally impressive discussion. In the discussion thread, I especially found the distinction between the bazaar and foco in violent insurgencies a useful conceptual frame. I also agree that not all insurgencies are violent and that the violent ones can often be brutal.
I believe the current doctrinal defintions of insurgency are overly narrow and believe the “criminal insurgency” variant is on the rise (especially in Mexico and Latin America, but also in the Nigerian Delta). Lot’s happening to learn from and refine our approaches.
In that vein, Adam Elkus and I have a new essay up at openDemocracy which might compliment Dr. Bunker’s excellent piece and this important discussion thread. See John P. Sullivan and Adam Elkus, “Strategy and insurgency: an evolution in thinking,” openDemocracy, 16 August 2010 at http://www.opendemocracy.net/john-p-sullivan-adam-elkus/strategy-and-insurgency-evolution-in-thinking
JPS
Anon:
The definition question may sound pedantic, but in the context of any given discussion it’s sometimes useful to know where people are coming from. I also feel that part of our problem with grasping “insurgency” is that we apply the term to such a wide range of conditions. In this discussion alone it’s been applied, for example, to both criminal gang enterprises and non-violent movements for political change, a pretty broad spectrum. Expandin the definition to that extent makes it very difficult to come up with any generally relevant conclusion.
If we’re looking at the rapid expansion of Sunni resistance, I’d have to think one factor would have been the imminent prospect of a Shi’a government, potentially an existential threat. Few things motivate violence as effectively as fear.
Survival is certainly desirable for any insurgency, but I still don’t think it’s an end in itself, or an adequate measure of success.
Paul:
The narrow focus of the COIN debate in America will eventually end, but as long as irregulars defy state authority, police and military forces will employ a variety of means–some new, others stretching back thousands of years in origin–to combat them.
Well put my friend —well put.
Kilcullen’s 2004 article on “conflict ecosystem” applies as effectively to criminal insurgents as well as to Salafi based insurgents—it is the evolution of the groups that needs further explanations and the current COIN methodology being pushed by the Army or other organizations such as the Human Terrain approach simply do not provide the answers that are needed.
That is why Robb’s theories of “open source warfare” go along way in explaining that evolution process-ie VBIEDs being used by Mexican narco gangs.
There has been some extensive work done in the area of quantum physics but the COIN field seems to not understand the results but individuals such as Robb fully understood the results as validating his theories.
DARPA’s response to the research—“well when we get the hardware side gap narrowed then we will revisit it”—what the heck does that mean in light of the fact that the research has been completed and is running on laptops?
Dayuhan;
In the tradition of the KISS principle here is a definition of insurgency that fits both the violent and non violent types and allows for the use of “conflict ecosystem and open source warfare analysis” into the reasons driving the evolution and resistance.
ââ¬Â¢insurgent – in opposition to a civil authority or government
1. If violent then guerrilla: a member of an irregular armed force that fights a stronger force by sabotage, harassment, targeted killings, swarm attacks, IEDs, virtually anything that is disruptive to the counterinsurgent ie government and that can even include corruption, smuggling, illegal money exchanges etc.
2. If non violent– then a protestor using any form of ie civil disobedience, passive resistance, mass demonstrations, basically anything short of the use of violence against a civil authority or government
Part of the problem with the current COIN debate is that as it is institutionalized by the military into the doctrinal side—the military tends to structure the term in a fashion understood by the military thus in fact placing it in a straightjacket.
COIN in the 21st century has to be a breathing living entity in order to change as the insurgency reasons and environments change—and basically that does lend itself well to military terminology.
Producing what seems to me to be a term that is hard to use to explain some inusrgenices while it easily explains others.
Anon:
That’s an extremely inclusive definition, embracing a great deal of activity that many of us would see as a normal part of political life. It embraces a great deal of activity that does not need to be (and in fact should not be) “countered”, and a great deal that would elsewhere be called simple criminal activity best countered by domestic law enforcement.
I suspect that to draw any conclusion that’s really relevant to a discussion of COIN you’d have to narrow that down by several orders of magnitude.
Dayuhan;—narrowing it down actually not, I would remain with the same definitions.
The core problem in COIN has been the attempt to fit all COIN terms into doctrinal definitions which I believe in fact have out lived their usefulness as any insurgency changes from country to country, culture to culture and a one for all definition is what is giving the current COIN debate a perception of cognitive dissonance ie the belief that one could export the COIN theories and experiences used in Iraq straight into Afghanistan—I would venture a guess that the Iraq COIN models would as well not work with FARC or against Abu Sayaf or the remaining Tamil Tigers or for that matter the AQ groups in Somalia, Yemen, Morocco, or Algeria.
The definition must have the ability to fit the observed, and from the observed coupled with the theory of open source warfare and the theory of ecosystem insurgency (Kilcullens’ conflict ecosystem)an analysis of the what is being observed can begin.
Make the definition to narrow and then you began the game of trying to redefine what it is that one is observing. IE how would one define the current Iranian Green movement which initially grew out of mass demonstrations/rallies that walked over the edge of violence and then dissapated when the government cracked down with it’s own form of violence and now is virtually underground–now it would be interesting to see how they are surviving the hunt down by the counterinsurgent ie the government as struturally they must take on the insurgent organizational techniques in order to survive.
Which goes to what I previously have said sometimes simply surviving as an insurgent group or non violent organization is the supreme driving goal.
Dayuhan;
Just a side note you have a similiar sliding scale definition of what you are observing when you are working Indications and Warnings.
I don’t think it’s possible to propose a definition of insurgency that doesn’t have a little grey around the edges… but I also see no point in proposing a definition so expansive that it includes practically all political dissent and a fair amount of profit-oriented crime. If we do that, any discussion of countering insurgency would have to be prefaced by some sort of description of what sort of insurgency we plan to counter: are we talking about drug smugglers, rebels who want to overthrow a government, protesters waving signs about saving whales, special interest terrorists, or something else? It’s not as if there will be a single strategy to counter all of them.
A more current follow-up to the question:
Religious Tensions Rise In Indonesia (Christianity Today Blog, July 6, 2010):
http://blog.christianitytoday.com/ctliveblog/archives/2010/07/religious_tensi.html
Probably not a reason to worry, however. As history teaches us, religious tension rarely spills over into violence. This is likely due to the belief in a loving and merciful Creator.
Sectarian violence in Indonesia has a fairly extensive history, and there’s a good deal of blame to go arund on all sides of the equation. I doubt that you’d get a neutral view of affairs from Christianity Today. Sidney Jones at ICG has done some very good and generally even-handed work on the subject.
Not terribly sure how that sort of sectarian violence qualifies as insurgency, though…
Hi Dayuhan, you wrote:
Not terribly sure how that sort of sectarian violence qualifies as insurgency, though…
So the potential for violence should only concern us when it’s labelled as an insurgency? Thanks, that answers my question.
Often what is labeled as sectarian violence is wildly off base as religion is a great way to pick teams and motivate the masses to participate in all kinds of mischief.
The wars of reformation in Europe were between Catholics and Protestants, but were not about religion, they were classic insurgency to throw of the illegitimate governance of the Holy Roman Empire.
Similarly the troubles in Northern Ireland are often characterized as Catholic vs. Protestant; but again are classic insurgency to throw off the illegitimate British Government.
I would suggest looking to see if the established government favors one segment of the populace over the other as a basis of religion; and if the answer is yes, then you most likely are dealing with an insurgency that is employing a religion-based ideology to motivate the masses to rise up and effect political change.
Dayuhan;
A definition should never be a be all end all concept—it should though get you into the ball game of potentially explaining just what the heck one is observing thus it can in effect appear to be all inclusive.
The key is that the definition gets you in the game, then it is the individual analysis of that observation that is in fact the “game” itself—everyone fell all over the early writings of Kilcullen especially his “conflict ecosystem” but as we tend to be–discovered it involved a fair amount of grey cells to both understand and to be used as an analysis tool thus one rarely sees analysis centers using it as a key tool—there is only one analysis center that I can think of that uses it and has developed it into a major tool and focused it on combatting the flow of money to an inusregency and sometimes when they present their work the audience’s reaction is really strange.
Again the sliding form of a defintion is the way forward in COIN—this prohibits to a large degree the institutionalization of the definition for as insurgencies evolve so must the defintions being used must be able to evolve as the old saying goes-nothing stands still in history-it only repeats itself if one is ready to observe intently.
Robert C. Jones wrote:
I guess if folks assured of an E-ticket in the afterlife are all fired up to push inter-faith dialogue into the realm of kinetic energy exchange, there’s not much can be done to prevent it. Spiritual brinkmanship for the faithful.
Backwards…
So the potential for violence should only concern us when it’s labeled as an insurgency?
Violence or the potential for violence, whether it’s labeled insurgency or not, concerns us if it has an impact on our interests. Surely we shouldn’t (and couldn’t) run about the globe trying to settle every fight out there. There’s way too many of them.
Anon:
Re this:
A definition should never be a be all end all concept—it should though get you into the ball game of potentially explaining just what the heck one is observing thus it can in effect appear to be all inclusive.
I’m a little less ambitious: I’m just trying to make sense of the conversation. Of course in my own personal world I’m not trying at all to get into the ball game, just trying to avoid being hit by the ball!
I only stress the definition question because I note that SWJ conversations on “insurgency: often seem to go awry because different participants are talking about very different things. Robert Jones, for example, has a quite narrow and targeted definition of insurgency; yours is extremely general. Not for me to say that either is better or worse, right or wrong, but it’s going to make it difficult for the two of you to have a useful discussion of insurgency, or counter insurgency.
I personally believe that generic studies of “insurgency” by any definition are of limited value in understanding any given insurgency, and to the extent that they create preconceived expectations may actually obstruct understanding. If I’m looking at a conflict I want to strip it of labels and assumptions, start from the ground up, and understand it for what it is, not for what my definition says it should be.
Dayuhan;
If I’m looking at a conflict I want to strip it of labels and assumptions, start from the ground up, and understand it for what it is, not for what my definition says it should be.
This is the core—without a description or a generalized description with indicators HOW do you even know if you are looking at a conflict–the violence side easy as violence is something that can be seen and felt but is it an insurgency-ie narco terrorism, ship highjackings—are they part and parcel of an ongoing insurgency some might say yes, some say no.
Now if it is non violent without a defintion to work with what do you do—if you notice the definition is to get you closer to an explanation of what you are seeing–I did say that one needs then a detailed analysis of what you are observing-so I think we are saying the same thing.
Getting back to the article and a question proposed by anon, why did someone have to tell us what we already knew, which is that insurgencies are brutal? In my opinion it is due to excessive political correctness in our ranks, which came from the universities that produced our current crop of officers. Political correctness is about perceiving the world in a way that follows certain rules, but has NOTHING to do with the way the world really is. It is the new Greek mythology on steroids.
99.9% of all insurgencies are brutal (to include the vast majority of successful ones, that is a reality). Gandhis movement while impressive didnt convince the Brits to pull out of India, that decision was already made (it made have influenced their timeline). What isnt mentioned is the millions killed when East and West Pakistan was created, and the additional tens of thousands of killed when East Pakistan (Bangladesh) separated from West Pakistan. What is also masked with the focus on Gandhi is that India has and currently has more active (brutal militant ones) insurgencies than any other nation in the world. This example is intended to show the world as it really is, versus the world projected by those who wear PC blinders.
Im not sure the author is correct that we feel more compelled now to get involved in than in previous periods in our history, as I recall getting involved in quite a few during the Cold War and politicians debating getting involved in others. I would like to see a historian compare the number of insurgencies (of course we need an accepted definition) were experiencing today compared to the number experienced during the Cold War. I think with the exception of Vietnam, we were just smarter then and largely let State, CIA, and SF assist the host nation, which kept the insurgency the host nations to win or lose. When we park the Marine and Army divisions in that country, then it is our insurgency to win or lose.
Many of us strongly agree with the paragraph COL Maxwell quoted, and I think we need politicians and policy makers that are more swayed by their individual wisdom and courage than by political advisors focused on poll numbers. If they sincerely believe that an internal struggle is truly in our national interest, then how they shape our involvement is critical. Ideally well shape our support as simply support to the host nation, and be clear in our words that the conflict is will be won or lost by the host nation, were just supporting a friend because it is in our national interest to do so. We dont need to say that if the host nation is not effective, well cut our losses and leave and let history take its course, and deal the best we can with the aftermath.
Political advisors will tell policy makers scary stories about how pulling U.S. support will equate to a political disaster, but in reality, Reagan survived pulling out of Lebanon when it was untenable, Clinton survived pulling out of Somalia, and LBJ probably would have survived pulling out of Vietnam before we committed combat troops (especially if his domestic policies were successful). The real danger isn’t in pulling out (during the early stages) or not getting involved in the first place, but in getting entangled in a war that can’t be won (without extreme brutality).
It doesn’t matter what decision a politican makes, he/she will always be attacked by the opposition. Maybe if we had seen more courageous political leadership we wouldn’t have had many of the problems we experienced with other nation’s insurgencies?
We need to get back to relying on wisdom instead of political pressure. Losing over 50,000 thousand men in Vietnam in a questionable war so LBJ would look strong against communism isn’t much different than the political pressure felt today that is forcing less than wise decisions to appear strong against terrorism.
Dayuhan:
Agreed. But does the little scheme of marching up and down the globe to convert the rest of the world to Christianity in order to fulfil the Great Commission increase or decrease the likelihood of fights?
From 1040Window.org:
http://1040window.org/muslim_gospel.htm
Correct me if I’m mistaken, but Judaism itself seems to dispute the claim that Jesus is the Messiah because he cannot trace a patriarchal lineage through the Davidic line.
From Outreach Judaism:
http://www.outreachjudaism.org/king.html
Maybe some attention should be paid to these matters by the Abrahamic faiths before initiating religious confrontations in regions that aren’t ready to assimilate them peacefully.
Certainly one would hope not to see the US Government applying it’s resources to promote the spread of Christianity. However, many individual Americans seem quite willing to place funds and time at the disposal of that cause, and there’s not always a great deal that Government can do, legally, to stop them. An awkward situation, as the distinction is not always appreciated by the target audience.
I’ve witnessed the impact that a few individuals possessed by absolute conviction, loud voices, and a large supply of money can have, and the havoc they can wreak. I’ve often wished there was a way to escort them to some quiet place and apply a roll or two of duct tape, but there are, to put it mildly, complications.
Dayuhan,
Certainly one would hope not to see the US Government applying it’s resources to promote the spread of Christianity.
Um, (cough)…yes, certainly. So one would hope.
Have not more people been killed in the name of any religion that most of the wars together?
Secondly–in this campaign against terror have not the Salafi/Takfiri Islam groups been killing far more Muslims than individuals of other faiths?
So to bring the conversation back to the original thesis—religious wars/insurgencies are always brutal period.
Now we can if we define the use of drugs to create wealth -maximum wealth that is—if we can equate that to being a religion then we could also say more people in say Mexico are being killed in the name of wealth ie religion than say in the civilian population of Afghanistan from the effects of military operations.
For more comment see:
This Week at War: War Is Hell. COIN Is Worse
What will the war on terror look like after Afghanistan?
BY ROBERT HADDICK
August 20, 2010
Foreign Policy
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/08/20/this_week_at_war_war_is_hell_coin_is_worse
Anonymous, I don’t have the stats at my finger tips, but I doubt that religious wars are more responsible for more deaths, or are more brutal than other causes of war. I think it would be highly improbable to assume that wars of religion have killed more than the millions killed during WWI and WWII, or the millions killed in the internal purges conducted by both Stalin and Mao.
Um, (cough)…yes, certainly. So one would hope.
Are you suggesting that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are veiled crusades, fought to advance the spread of Christianity? And here I was thinking it was All About Oil…
Always difficult to disprove such things, but it seems an unlikely theory from where I sit…
Anonymous,
I did some casual (read sloppy) online research, and couldnt find any credible estimates for casualties from wars of religion. However during the 20th Century according to conservative estimates the communists alone killed over 200 million people (not hard to imagine when you think of Stalin, Mao, the Khmer Rouge, etc.), and of course then you throw in the millions of civilian and military deaths caused by the two World Wars, plus the post colonial wars, other insurgencies, and other wars it is clear we just transitioned from a terribly brutal century into the unknown, but I suspect it will also be brutal.
While all wars are brutal, to include insurgencies, despite the title of the article I dont think the authors main point was that insurgencies are brutal. He wrote that his research on the Cartel insurgencies in Mexico simply reminded him about their brutality. I think his main point (besides his good advise to look very carefully before we leap into a situation that could become a quagmire) is that insurgencies have many gray areas and are drawn out for years. Another factor that makes insurgencies so tough to deal with are that they change in character over time, so the original reason that we agreed to enter the fight may no longer be so clear a few years down the road, but once were in pulling out is seldom a desirable option for multiple reasons. Afghanistan and Iraq may not the best examples, since we invaded and overthrew the existing governments, but they still illustrate the point. The invasion of Afghanistan was widely supported as legitimate (and just) after 9/11, but a few years down the road were now battling an enemy that is largely only indirectly related to Al Qaeda. In the meantime we are now supporting a government that has little to no legitimacy with its people, which is tarnishing our image and draining our resources. I dont think any policy maker saw that coming on 9/12/2001.
In Iraq we invaded supposedly to remove Saddam and find his weapons of mass destruction. A lot of other theories have been offered on why we may have invaded, but we didnt find WMD and after we captured Saddam the nature of the conflict changed and we found ourselves not only fighting an Al Qaeda franchise, but also in the middle of a major ethnic conflict. Perhaps policy makers should have seen that one coming, but again over time the character of the war changed, which made it harder to defend our presence.
In Vietnam, we were basically supporting our containment policy, but once we deployed combat forces we didnt have the option of withdrawing without losing face, and we gradually (or not so gradually) became entangled in war that we shaped as the free world against communism (which it was, at least to us), but many of the Vietnamese saw it differently. Again we found ourselves in bed with a host nation government that wasnt viewed as legitimate by its people (gray areas).
Were we ever successful in supporting a counterinsurgency where we sent large numbers of U.S. combat troops besides the Philippines? Our successes in El Salvador, Greece, and the Philippines (during the Huk rebellion when Lansdale supported Magsaysay) seem to have a common denominator, which is minimal U.S. overt presence in the insurgency. So maybe the lesson from the article and subsequent discussion is we should only commit to supporting nations that are experiencing insurgencies with one foot (CIA, Special Operations, State Department), and leave the other foot on solid ground so we can pull our other leg out if the character of the conflict changes to something we dont desire to support anymore. That way we can allow our general purpose forces to rebuild and prepare for the next fight that sadly is coming, even if we dont where it will come from.
Their insurgency problem may touch our interests, but it is still their fight.
When has there been a century that wasn’t brutal? For all the mess that goes on today, it’s worth remembering that the world as a whole is a lot more peaceful than it’s generally been. Whether that’s progress or a lull remains to be seen, but it’s hard to see it as a bad thing.
Re this:
Were we ever successful in supporting a counterinsurgency where we sent large numbers of U.S. combat troops besides the Philippines? Our successes in El Salvador, Greece, and the Philippines (during the Huk rebellion when Lansdale supported Magsaysay) seem to have a common denominator, which is minimal U.S. overt presence in the insurgency.
The extent to which these were “our” fights or “our” victories is debatable. From my own very limited slice of expertise I’d question the “success” of our current engagement in the Philippines, and I’d also question the “success” of efforts against the Huks, who were temporarily suppressed but subsequently re-emerged as the new People’s Army.