A recent conversation with a colleague about the nature and definition of counterinsurgency got me thinking, ‘what is it, really’? Readers will be familiar with the old doctrinal ‘definition’: ‘those military, paramilitary, political, economic, psychological, and civic actions taken by a government to defeat insurgency’. This definition is certainly broad enough, failing in fact to exclude any action ostensibly taken to counter an insurgency from its remit. By definition, therefore, counterinsurgency has no inherent form or substance; it is simply the label used to describe any operation intended to defeat irregular forces. Even the effectiveness of such action is irrelevant to the use of the term: by definition, ‘counterinsurgency’ is about the intention to defeat the insurgency, not the actual success in doing so.
This begs the question of whether the notional distinction between counter-terrorism and counterinsurgency has any merit. It also makes the ‘conventional’ versus ‘ counterinsurgency’ distinction dubious as either approach, if ‘taken by a government to defeat insurgency’, is by definition ‘counterinsurgency’.
Maybe all of this is unnecessary: we all know what we mean when we say ‘counterinsurgency’, right? The reason there is no better definition is because counterinsurgency is a fluid concept that is dependent on circumstance. This seems to be the line taken by David Kilcullen in The Accidental Guerrilla, a book that sets out splendidly what counterinsurgency is. Kilcullen writes:
As we all know, there is no such thing as a “standard” counterinsurgency… the set of counterinsurgency measures adopted depends on the character of the insurgency: the nature of counterinsurgency is not fixed, but shifting; it evolves in response to the changes in the form of insurgency. This means that there is no standard set of metrics, benchmarks, or operational techniques that apply to all insurgencies or remain valid for any single insurgency through its life-cycle. And there are no fixed “laws” of counterinsurgency, except for the sole and simple but difficult requirement to first understand the environment, then diagnose the problem, in detail and in its own terms, and then build a tailored set of situation-specific techniques to deal with it.
There are a few things to comment on there. First, there is this initial formulation ‘as we all know’. Possibly nothing is meant of it here, but it does points to a central problem with the way we use the term ‘counterinsurgency’. We use the term loosely to describe something that we all recognise as such, more or less. So the term is a useful shorthand term to describe something so difficult to define that we prefer not to try – and until proved wrong, we assume we all mean the same thing.
That heuristic consensus, the use of shorthand to avoid talking details, is fine among members of this community, but how to respond to the legitimate questions of outsiders, asking for a definition or for a clearer sense of what this counterinsurgency thing is really about?
This brings us to a second point: are there really no constant, defining characteristics of counterinsurgency? Kilcullen talks of the ‘laws’ of counterinsurgency, but mentions only the importance of understanding and responding to local circumstances. If that is the sole ‘law of counterinsurgency’, does any behaviour prompted by such an understanding invariably constitute counterinsurgency? Were Wehrmacht operations in occupied France counterinsurgency? Was the strategy of annihilation adopted by Syria’s former President Hafez Assad against the Muslim Brotherhood in 1982 ‘counterinsurgency’, and if not, why not? Would it be because they did not, in our estimation, have a good enough understanding of local circumstances, or are there other implicit (and more important) distinctions at play?
This conundrum is what gets us into terms like ‘population-centered counterinsurgency’ or ‘enemy-centered counterinsurgency’, to distinguish what we want counterinsurgency to mean from the meaning that others may ascribe to it. Analytically speaking, these are awkward and highly unsatisfying. Similarly, there is a temptation to talk of ‘good counterinsurgency’ or ‘bad counterinsurgency’ so as to differentiate between those who ‘get it’ and those who do not. The vagueness inherent to these statements is testament to the lack of specificity in our understanding of what counterinsurgency really is.
Of course no one owns the definition of ‘counterinsurgency’ and no one ever will. But because the term may legitimately mean completely different things to different people, be operationalised in a wide variety of ways and still be ‘counterinsurgency’, perhaps it is a term with little utility. Its utility, as noted above, lies in its use as shorthand for something we think we all agree on, but once we get down to specifics, I fear it may be a vacuous concept, devoid of any substance or intrinsic meaning.
If this is a problem, one potential solution may be to laden the definition of ‘counterinsurgency’ with more content. One way of achieving greater precision may be to focus on the concept of ‘legitimacy’. I thought that the old definition of irregular warfare as ‘a violent struggle among state and nonstate actors for legitimacy and influence over the relevant populations’ was quite good and may in fact be particularly relevant to counterinsurgency. Ah, but what’s ‘legitimacy’ — well it would need to be defined but there is also no need to be overly churlish.
Or is it better to drop ‘counterinsurgency’ altogether. I suspect this may be the case, but find myself unable to abandon what is such a convenient shorthand. Still, the term is clearly is not necessary to the discussion of war-to-peace transitions: witness Mats Berdal’s recent and excellent book on Building Peace After War, which mentions counterinsurgency but once and nonetheless says more good things on this topic than many books with ‘counterinsurgency’ in their title.
Then again, his book also features a fairly lengthy bit on ‘scope and definitions’, necessary because of its use of the term ‘post-conflict peace-buildling’, which is not without its own foibles. So it would seem whatever term we resort to presents its own ambiguity and imperfections. It is Friday afternoon so I will need to resume these idle musings at a later stage. In the meantime, I take some comfort from the final paragraph in Mats Berdal’s introductory chapter:
It should be evident already that the use of the term ‘post-conflict’ to describe the kinds of operational settings and challenges explored in this book is strictly misleading. The term appears destined to stay, however, and this is in part why no attempt has been made to replace it here. That said, a degree of terminological inexactitude is unavoidable in dealing with this subject, and historian Hugh Seton-Watson’s exculpatory plea in the introduction to one of his works seems appropriate here as well. Acknowledging that the effort to make sense of his chosen subject ‘undoubtedly lacks neatness’, he adds that this is ‘inevitable because the subject itself is not neat’.
{ 4 trackbacks }
{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
A very good question. To add to the confusion I’m going to ride on the the statement that governments “do counterinsurgencies”. Would it be a counterinsurgency if a non-government organization (tribal, terrorist, private military contractor, etc) defeated an insurgency without focusing on the government? A tribal/ethnic group might fight over custom, land, safety, etc (though this might make them a form of local, unrecognized government), a terrorist organization might do so over ideology or necessity, a PMC might do so to protect the property of a company that had hired them. What would the examples be if not counterinsurgency? Irregular warfare even if some of the actors use conventional military standards?
A very thought-provoking piece!!!
Or, just plain ‘war amongst the people’ and in the case of non-state actor groups warring with NSAGs perhaps ‘war amongst the peoples’ would be more accurate.
Napoleon saw war in front lines and industrialised attrition between organised peoples. Who invented counterinsurgency?
Do you mean the practice or the designated title? The practice probably goes back at least two thousand years and was simply never designated as a specialized method of fighting an opponent, while the title is probably a few decades old. I know the British were practicing it, whether it was called that or not, as early as the 50s against modern insurgents (Malaya) and at least mentioned something resembling insurgencies going back to the wars in Ireland.
I think the British have been practicing coin ops since the Boer War or was it before? The War of Independence was similar yet not recognised. The Brits invented the concentration camp in South Africa working on the principle that if everyone was incarcerated then the minority of baddies were as well. Of course, this only alienating the majority in the meantime. I suspect there were many prior minor wars where the British and the then superpowers adopted similar tactics. Chemical Ali, who recently came to a short and rather sudden end, adopted similar tactics with the Kurds working on the principle that if he gassed the lot, he would at least catch the few.
I suspect ‘civil-war’ was most appropriate for many centuries until we arrive at today’s accepted hegemony. And, let us face it – it has been a long struggle and continues unabated in many parts of the world.
You could term the American Revolution* as a proto-insurgency or a rebellion with some aspects of an insurgency. The battles in the north were certainly fought conventionally, while the battles in the south contained far more unconventional aspects.
On the matter of civil wars I imagine that up to a certain point in history they were a mixture of conventional and unconventional fighting due to the lack of formalized military, and resumed being such around the end of the Second World War.
*War of Independence, etc.
It is a symptom of our respective educations that when I see ‘War of Independence’ I think ‘Which one?’
Being a former colonial power means you’ve been involved in rather a lot of people’s wars of independence. It also means you’ve lost quite a few of them.
Pardon the interruption…
I have a strong sense that this entry is as a result of a previous blog topic, in which the author expressed his appreciation for the application of “classic COIN” by the US Marines in Afghanistan. At the time of reading, I expressed personal reservations regarding the existence of such a thing as “classic COIN” – but chose to withhold a contribution to that effect since the comment was made in passing and was peripheral to the topic. In short, I accepted the reference to “classic COIN” in the spirit that it was made.
Regarding COIN itself, it often happens that some term is used in a number of ways, and that such usage would be reasonable and accepted – and to illustrate that, a number of questions regarding COIN:
a. Is COIN a Means of Policy?
It could be – the Vietnam war is a case in point, where COIN could be used to describe the “continuation of (US Foreign) Policy by other Means”. So COIN could be used to describe a War.
b. Is COIN a Grand Strategy?
Yes, one could argue that its possible existence as a Means of Policy would automatically qualify such a usage. And the Vietnam war is once again, a case in point – from a South Vietnamese perspective, countering the Viet Cong insurgency formed the basis of the National Strategy.
c. Is COIN a General Strategy?
In terms of answering the question: “how will the war be fought”, using COIN as such, will most definitely be valid. COIN doctrine is distinct, we can train for it – in fact, we should train for it. It has specific equipment not otherwise found on the battlefield, or in other equipment tables. It has distinct tactics, methods, procedures and drills.
d. Is COIN an Operational Strategy?
On the question “by what set of methods will the Field Commander create an untenable situation for his opponent in a particular theatre?”, we can identify those methods and means of coercion that are clearly COIN. We build strings of forward bases, conduct foot patrols, convoy protection, checkpoints, etc.
e. Is COIN a… I think I’ve established the trend by now. It is also a set of tactics, procedures, drills, tips, tricks, etc.
So there is diversity in usage… But COIN is not the first concept to be subjected to this “rough treatment” nor will it be the last. So why is this a problem with COIN in particular? I believe that there are three further considerations that may cast light on this:
a. In the first place, COIN has a potted history (to be extremely polite). It has (with the notable exception of the Malaysian Emergency), yet to prevail against an Insurgency. With the effect that COIN as a term, is a “Judas Kiss”, if you can describe your actions as COIN, you’re doomed to fail – and that perhaps then also the only true attribute of “classic COIN”. The theory looks good on paper, but it is not holding up in the field. So, COIN is a work in progress – lots of Work required, and very little Progress to date.
b. It could be argued that COIN cannot exist without Insurgency. Insurgency is a prerequisite, a constituent of COIN, if you like. Now, defining and operationalising Insurgency can be pretty fluid as well – as a result, COIN will suffer more of the same problems.
.c Expanding on the above, Insurgency is often interchanged as a term with other terms – Terrorism, Insurrection, Guerrilla, Rebellion, Revolutionary, etc – often in a value-laden manner and with a degree of emotion involved: Terrorists are BAD, Freedom Fighters are GOOD. My GOD will eat your GOD for breakfast. Ideological (and sometimes religious – as in the case of Afghanistan) fervour dictates the language – and herein lies the true operationalisation issue. We are attempting an epistemological process on a normative or dogmatic discourse.
Is this logically possible? Or could we take the values and dogma into account when we define the term – somehow build these into the (already clunky) definition? The blogger asks: Should we “drop”?. Or should we “bulk out”? And then it occurred to me? Why not a third option: that of simplifying the definition?
Now, if you’re expecting a “Silver Bullet” at this moment, sorry… you are about to be disappointed. But I can offer you this: At the highest level, COIN can be described as a Means of Policy – in particular, a Strategy. And we know that COIN requires the existence of Insurgency as a prerequisite. Drawing to an extent upon Evolutionary Epistemology, COIN can therefore be defined as: a Strategy that attempts to prevail against Insurgency.
Chaos and Mayhem… my work here is done.
Actually several insurgencies have been defeated since the 1950s. It’s simply that most of the victories were rather brutal and possibly not considered COIN, and that the successful insurgencies have far more attention than the unsuccessful ones. Also a large percent (possibly a majority) of all insurgencies simply drag on for decades until they end by military fortune or by peace agreements.
Therefore, is there some conclusion that ‘insurgency’ is in fact a misnomer? Let alone ‘counter-insurgency’
Whereas, what we are really talking about is civil-war fought along unconventional lines? i.e. fought by individuals and not free-voters supported by the tax paying majority.
And, when we talk of ‘unconventional’ – we have the norm of suicide attackers, warlords, rebels, terrorists, etc. What of say a dirty bomb or a serious biological attack? Would that legitimise an insurgency to a civil-war or interstate-war? Probably the closest has been the 9/11 attack (measured against the sinking of the SS Lancastria this would be similar in life loss except backed by a tax-paying majority)
I would argue that maybe the phrase ‘irregular/unconventional warfare’ should be expanded and that insurgencies/counterinsurgencies should be grouped as a type of irregular warfare that generally take place with the aim of either separating from a nation/creating a nation or bringing about a change in government.
Also, you could simultaneously categorize an insurgency/counterinsurgency as a specific type of civil war fought by irregular means. Generally it is understood that civil wars are supposed to be more ‘conventional’, but I would say that modern civil wars are not.* I suspect that the real reason most nations refuse to call an insurgency a civil war is that doing so might suggest that the insurgents have some legitimacy.
Of course the above presumes that there is a conventional form of warfare. Currently that would be inter-state warfare fought by the respective nations armed forces fighting one another.
*On that note, has anyone ever found good studies of tactics used in modern civil wars? Specifically, I mean how groups in nations like Yemen, Sudan, or Somalia actually fight? In general the best you can find on them is a brief mention of their existence before switching to the more interesting topic of all the human rights abuses the wars cause.
Stephen,
Some very valid questions, thank you for that. I cannot offer universally accepted answers, but in my efforts to understand this myself, I’ve come up with the following. If I may, I’d like to start by going back to the Basics, and then look at some specific examples, hopefully clarifying some of these concepts along the way:
War, whether Inter-state, or Internal (as a term, intended to refer to any type of conflict that cannot be described as existing between two or more states – including Civil War, Insurgency, etc), remains according to Clausewitz: the continuation of policy by other means.
Looking at the keyword “Policy”, (and drawing on David Easton) we see that it is a set of values which, during the practice of Politics, the actor will allocate AUTHORITATIVELY to a society. So we could argue (by concatenating Easton and Clausewitz), that war is the continuation of the attempt to allocate a set of values authoritatively to a society by other means (I include the word “attempt”, simply because War in this context, is a process, possibly with an unknown outcome).
Bear in mind that none of the above distinguishes between inter-state and internal wars. so let us cover that.
Returning for the moment to the keyword “Authoritatively”, we see that it relates to the ACCEPTED application of force, and hovering over the keyword “Accepted”, we’ll see that this has context in both the Inter-state and Internal areas.
Let us consider a “usual” political process as a round-up of “Acceptance”: the UK is about to experience a General Election. The political parties that aspire to be accepted by the various constituencies, (and thereby win seats in the House of Commons), propagate their sets of values (or policies) to those constituencies. The constituents will, come the General Election, choose to accept (or reject, by exclusion) certain sets of values, and as a result, one political party will emerge from the General Election with the highest degree of acceptance, i.e. the most seats in the House of Commons, and presumably be in the position to form the next UK Government as a result. The Internal Acceptance of the Forceful Allocation of Values to the community is now complete. During all of this process, the UK will maintain relations with practically every country and international institution that exists. As far as these relationships are concerned, it remains “business as usual” – the new government may be congratulated (by most of the European nations, the USA and others), or could be met by a stony silence or a new flurry of rhetoric (I’m sure that Iran and Argentina will fall in this category), or simply ignored (a couple of South-East Asian countries may fall in this category). The point is, regardless of the response, the other state and international actors will accept the right of the new UK Government to allocate values – they accept this in terms of the country’s Sovereignty, if you like (though I’ll exclude this term from the further discussion – in fear that I may end up writing a book).
So that is what usually happens – and please accept this description in the spirit of the discussion.
Armed as we now are with the Basics (though I have no doubt not done it full justice), we can now look at what happens when things are unusual – and for the purpose of this contribution, let’s stick with the UK example and cast our minds back in time to the previous century. And what we see is that, even in the Utopia that is the UK political process (consider that however you see fit), there existed dissent. A bewildering number of organisations in Northern Ireland chose not to accept the sets of values – I’m referring to the “Troubles” here.
Emotions aside, and attempting to adhere to a clinical analysis of the Troubles, we can ask a number of questions relating to it:
(1) Was this Politics?
Let us rephrase the question: Was this an allocation of a set of values by accepted force to a community?
“Yes”, “No”, “Maybe”, “Dunno”, “Don’t care”, “Get the torches and pitchforks”, the audience cried. But on a clinical analysis, (and at the risk of spending the rest of my life on the run from lynch mobs), we can see that it was. None of the above Basics specify a majority vote, or even a democratic process. These organisations had sets of values and they allocated that to a community. The community, at least in part, accepted the allocation of these sets of values as legitimate.
(2) Was this a War?
Let us rephrase the question: Was this the continuation of the attempt to allocate a set of values authoritatively to a society by other means?
Once again (having arranged a plastic surgeon to alter my appearance after this submission): yes, it was. A policy existed, and these organisations pursued the continuation of this policy by other means. Clausewitz did not prescribe acceptance/legitimacy, or state/non-state. Hell, he didn’t even specify the nature or type of “other means” – though this does become apparent in the body of his work. But he defines War simply as this: the continuation of policy by other means.
(3) Was this an Inter-state War, or an Internal War?
By now, I’m probably on the run from both sides. But sympathies and fund-raising parties aside, there was only ever one state actor involved and several non-state actors. If we accept by Clausewitzian definition (with a smattering of Easton) that this was a War, the Troubles was an Internal War.
(4) If this was an Internal War, what TYPE was it? Was it a Civil War?
Ahhh, a term not yet covered. Let’s take the American Civil War as an example, and ask ourselves a short-cut question: Who (or where) was the US President during the Civil War? Was it the the President of the Union (the North), or the President of Confederate States of America (the South)? There are a number of ways to slice this:
We could argue that the US Government was the same government that existed at the very second the War started. So the North then. Except that seven Southern States had declared their independence from the United States BEFORE Lincoln was inaugurated. “But that is semantics”, you cry. Whether he was the President, or the President-Elect doesn’t matter – he was the elected (and accepted) leader of the Nation. Not so, these seven states (and the four states that joined the CSA after hostilities had commenced), did not accept Lincoln as their President, choosing to accept Jefferson Davis (and an opposing set of values pertaining Slavery and the Rights of States) in his stead. Lincoln and the North, in turn, did not accept the secession, describing it as a Rebellion – but that did not cut the mustard in the South.
We could argue that the US Government was the same government that received International Recognition. Would that then be the South? After all, the British and French governments sold warships to the CSA – international recognition does not get much better than that. But they also maintained diplomatic relations with the Union. Confusing, innit?
And such is the nature of Civil War. All sides can claim acceptance by a section of the population and general external recognition (so, by more than a handful of failed or rogue states). The continuation of policy by other means now describes a process whereby two (or more) legitimate and internationally recognised internal actors attempt to prevail against one another – a struggle to allocate values authoritatively by means other than the “usual” – an election by artillery, if you like.
It could be argued (albeit weakly) that the US Government ceased to exist at the moment of the declaration of independence by those seven states, because the USA ceased to exist – being replaced as it was, by the Union and the CSA. The subsequent Civil War was therefore an attempt by the North to RESTORE the USA and an attempt by the South to MAINTAIN the CSA. One Government and a bunch of rebels, or two Governments, depending on who’s flag you saluted. I need to point out though that this comment is only valid if made in context of the historic event. As it is with War, the winner takes it all. So a contemporary analysis may arrive at a different set of assertions.
Getting back to the question… no, the Troubles was not a Civil War? While we could argue that there was a degree of internal (and regional) acceptance, there was never any degree of International Recognition of these organisations and their right to govern.
(5) Was it an Insurgency?
Another term not yet covered, and sticking to the above format, first an example. And since I’ve yet to upset anybody in Asia, let us consider the same question regarding South Vietnam at the time of the Vietnam War. Once again, we ask the question: who (or where) was the President of the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam). Easy! We start with President Ngo Dinh Diem, (hailed as the “leader of the free world” in Australia and the USA), and then (after his life came to an abrupt end in the back of an APC), we had Duong Van Minh, followed by Ngueyen Khanh, etc, etc. The point is, regardless of how “nice” these guys were, how they came to power, or how they lost it – these were the leaders of South Vietnam. They were located at the Capital (Saigon), from where they headed up the Government of the Republic of Vietnam, received foreign diplomats, and went about the business of allocating values authoritatively to the people of South Vietnam.
Yes, we had people in black pyjamas (Viet Cong) running around the countryside, brandishing the latest in Soviet manufactured small arms in the process – this much is true. So what about them? What sort of acceptance and recognition did they receive? Well, they experienced acceptance in the territories under their control – in much the same way as Diem (and others) experienced acceptance in the areas controlled by the Government. But as for international recognition? None!
“Hold it there mister!” you cry – “in the previous example, you said that the supply of arms constitutes Recognition. We KNOW that the Viet Cong received everything they needed to conduct operations from the North. Is that not Recognition?” No – admittedly by a technicality. The North did not recognise the Viet Cong as a Government of the South, mainly because the North did not recognise the division of Vietnam at all. As far as Uncle Ho and his allies were concerned, there was only one Vietnam – with one Vietnamese Government (themselves). They maintained a strong central policy regarding the South – Unification of ALL of Vietnam under the seal of the Hanoi Government.
So, our Insurgency has acceptance from a section of the population, but no (or highly fragmented) external recognition.
So… back to the Troubles and the question: in for a penny and all that… yes, it is possible to describe the Troubles as an Insurgency. An Insurgency is an instance of War where there is a degree of internal acceptance of values other than those that the Government attempts to allocate, but it lacks general external acceptance (excluding general sympathies or the support of failed or failing states).
(6) Was it Terrorism, or a Guerrilla War?
There are tests that can be applied to determine the answer to that. For the sake of brevity, (though we are well past that point) and in full recognition that I’ve annoyed a large enough percentage of the world population by now, I’m going to beg off and pretend that I do not have an opinion.
In addition to the above, please remember that (from a Maoist perspective at least), the end result of Revolution is achieved by the successful completion of distinct phases. Insurgency fits in there somewhere.
Rounding up (finally)… an epic contribution to demonstrate that these terms (Insurgency, Civil War) do have places in the discourse. In my opinion (as is all of the above), we should not avoid the usage of a term in its correct context, simply because others do not.
And that is it… A quick three-sixty to assess the damage – and then slink off to avoid the incoming.
Excellent post!