Are insurgencies easier nowadays ?

[philgollin]

I’ve put this question in the “general” forum rather than the “free-fire” one as it is intended to be a serious question regarding the tactical considerations of insurgency rather than the motivations – although, OF COURSE, one can’t divorce the two entirely.

 

So, Why are insurgencies “nowadays” seemingly more powerful and easier than in previous centuries?

 

This is NOT meant to be about any present day dispute, but really comparing post-war insurgencies with previous centuries.

 

In previous centuries relatively large numbers of peasants/civilians/surfs/ whatever were held in awe by small armed elites. Even such successes (e.g. Napoleonic era Spanish Guerrillas) were limited and depended upon outside help. Even WW2 partisans and resistance fighters had variable results.

 

However, since the fifties, seemingly more and more uprisings have been more difficult to put down, with or without outside assistance on either side.

 

Obviously, there is the easier access to relatively long ranged personal weapons and either military or home-made explosives, but does this really explain the difference in results ?

 

Is the difference really more to do with different expectations from the underdogs and (much less likely) more “civilised” behaviour from the rulers ?

 

Any ideas ?

[Guest JamesG123]

Modern mass media has made old, effective strategies for destroying native resistance ("insurgencies") untenable. In the good ol' days if the population misbehaved you would sack their cities, burn their crops, and rape their women. Come to think of it, that was the usual routine for simply conquering the neighboring tribe, city, country. If they still put up a fight after that, well, that's when things get really nasty.

Now a days if you try it, nosy foreigners start whining about "ethnic cleansing" and "genocide". That just takes all of the fun out of conquering and pillaging...

[Brian Kennedy]

That, plus the increased importance of ideology in warfare, plus explosives.

[Guest aevans]

That, plus the increased importance of ideology in warfare, plus explosives.

 

We've got explosives too, and more of them. What we don't have is the will to use them in ways the enemy would use them on us.

 

As for ideology...well, every insurgency has always had some kind of ideology, even if it was just the ideal of less taxes and fuller bellies. That's all insurgencies really have, through all but the end game stage of their existence.

Edited April 9, 2007 by aevans

[Ssnake]

Better intelligence through better communication.

Sure, we can track and target cell phones, but only if we know that a certain number belongs to a bad guy. Then there's Google Earth, the Internet, international communities providing the local insurgents with information and eventually "freedom fighter" volunteers. Plus, long distance travel is faster and therefore mucho cheaper these days. Finally, insurgencies attract more media attention these days; in addition there will always be some more or less weird ideology justifying the insurgency (plus their usual cheerleaders, be they European Maoists or Hardcore Christian Neocons), and drawing external support of it, including state sponsored weapon supplies in proxy wars or state sponsored terrorism, depending on the eye of the beholder.

[Stevely]

or Hardcore Christian Neocons

 

What insurgency have these guys sponsored/ justified?

[Ssnake]

Shiite uprising in Iraq, and I think the conservatives ran shop in the US during the Mujahedeen's fight against them Russkies in Afghanistan. These days... well, maybe you could count certain activities in Iran though that's certainly not a high profile operation. Do the Contras count? Chile? The Shah in Iran?

 

The question is, how long do you want to go back (the thread started with the changing nature of insurgencies after WW2), and where do you draw the line between conventional conservatives and "neocons" (I'm not really sure what that's supposed to tell me anyway, except that those using the term usually make it sound ominously and dangerous; I just didn't want to focus exclusively on European Maoists in my example).

[Guest JamesG123]

Or that you have to look beyond purely historical examples and realize that the phenomenon is general. You could consider the violent anti-abortion "movement" (or the KKK, or the Black Panthers, etc.) in America as an insurgency...

[Paul F Jungnitsch]

The colonial powers got a lot weaker this last century, especially after the two world wars did their part in bleeding out Europes wealth. At the same time the natives got stronger, better organized, and more egalitarian (if just the landlords are changing, who cares?). And once the locals picked up on those facts the die was cast. There was no way a tiny nation like the Netherlands was going to hold Indonesia, for example.

 

But other than the colonial examples it still very tough to win an insurgency against a local government with a majority ethnic base. The Eritreans did manage it but it took them 30 years.

[Grant Whitley]

Or that you have to look beyond purely historical examples and realize that the phenomenon is general. You could consider the violent anti-abortion "movement" (or the KKK, or the Black Panthers, etc.) in America as an insurgency...

 

The Reconstruction era KKK undeniably qualifies as a group waging an insurgency.

[Archie Pellagio]

There are several factors.

 

1. The relativity of insurgency.

The advent of the United nations and the entrenching of the nation states post war have by and large killed off wars of territorial expansion on a large scale, most wars these days are civil, small cscale border disputes and only rarely international conventional wars.

 

2. Modern western sensibilities. Put simply, we can't go Chengis Khan on their asses.

 

3. The importance of greater ideology to insurgents. Drawing on a much greater pool of manpower, funding and equipment. The american insurgency bankrupted the french. These days every man and his dog sponsors some crony or another in one way or another.

[Brian Kennedy]

We've got explosives too, and more of them. What we don't have is the will to use them in ways the enemy would use them on us.

 

As for ideology...well, every insurgency has always had some kind of ideology, even if it was just the ideal of less taxes and fuller bellies. That's all insurgencies really have, through all but the end game stage of their existence.

 

1) Yeah, but the force-multiplier effect of explosives is a lot more evident among the underdogs. A lot of other modern technology is a force-multiplier as well -- one common parlor game among folks I know is to talk about what 20 Muslim terrorists could do in New York ca. 1901 (if they managed to get there in the first place, which would be a lot more difficult).

 

2) As for ideology, people don't tend to strap on suicide vests so that afterward they'll have less taxes and fuller bellies.

[m1a1mg]

Information Operations has changed the battlefield.

 

Additionally, worldwide access to all sorts of weapons has made a huge difference.

[JWB]

Insurgencies aren't much easier, counterinsurgency is much more expensive. An insurgent is any nutter with a bottle of petrol. 100 years ago his target would be wooden building that would be replaced the next day. Today his target would be building filled with electronics or an airplane that he is riding in.

[Luckyorwhat]

...one common parlor game among folks I know is to talk about what 20 Muslim terrorists could do in New York ca. 1901 (if they managed to get there in the first place, which would be a lot more difficult).

 

That's not quite fair, comparing empowered citizens of the past to the helpless herds of today. And the modern western pseudo-socialist systematic forced disarmament of civilians, 'for the public safety', really throws a wrench in the works.

 

If you could guarantee that every individual in 1901 would have a life-time of propaganda conditioning telling them to comply with criminals, that violence is bad and self defence worse, and that individuals should defer to the group in all things, and of course they all be forbidden to carry any object specifically designed to be a weapon or able to be adapted as such... Then I believe 20 motivated individuals could burn entire boroughs to the ground.

[Stevely]

Shiite uprising in Iraq, and I think the conservatives ran shop in the US during the Mujahedeen's fight against them Russkies in Afghanistan. These days... well, maybe you could count certain activities in Iran though that's certainly not a high profile operation. Do the Contras count? Chile? The Shah in Iran?

 

The question is, how long do you want to go back (the thread started with the changing nature of insurgencies after WW2), and where do you draw the line between conventional conservatives and "neocons" (I'm not really sure what that's supposed to tell me anyway, except that those using the term usually make it sound ominously and dangerous; I just didn't want to focus exclusively on European Maoists in my example).

 

Well your second paragraph hits it, those examples you name are really before the time of the neocons (or at least their ascendancy to influence). Of course "neocon" has evolved to mean a lot of things to a lot of people, little of it now having to do with that intellectual movement per se. Overseas at least it seems that it now means Bush supporter/ voter/ Republican.

 

I am not sure that Chile and Iran are good examples (military coup and supporting government in the face of what became a successful insurgency, though by that point Carter abandoned the Shah). Contras and Mujahedeen were very much creations of people, many of whom (those still around) are rather bitterly opposed to the actual neocons.

 

This is kind of a tangent, not really germane to your main point, it's just that the neocons themselves - by the time they ascended to influence we were fighting insurgencies as opposed to supporting them.

[philgollin]

............ -- one common parlor game among folks I know is to talk about what 20 Muslim terrorists could do in New York ca. 1901 (if they managed to get there in the first place, which would be a lot more difficult). .......

 

I don't know of the details in the US, but Europe did suffer a spate of "Anarchist" attacks in the early 20th century. It was almost "fashionable" and certainly affected the politics and security measures of many countries.

[Sardaukar]

Indeed, political assasination and bomb attacks were all aroung in Europe during late 19th and early 20th century. Quite large number of assasinations and other attacks were carried out by anarchist groups...surprisingly large number.

[Ssnake]

Of course "neocon" has evolved to mean a lot of things to a lot of people, little of it now having to do with that intellectual movement per se. Overseas at least it seems that it now means Bush supporter/ voter/ Republican.

It gets even better. The German term capturing the ominous spirit of "Neocon" closest is "Neoliberal". (One should understand though that "liberal" here stands for libertarian, so it's not quite as flabberghasting on second thought).

[Exel]

The american insurgency bankrupted the french.

 

The French?

[Argus]

If there was a key technical point, I'd say it was ready access to breechloading small arms.

 

To be an effective producer of firepower once took group discpline and training anove the individual level to get anything worth having. This (IMHO) peaked in the late Victorian/Edwardian period with Blackadder's sharpened pieces of fruit, but that was an ecconomic superioity not strictly technical, the European nations had BL/MBL wepaons, the 'natives' did not (in any numbers), and the Imperials knew it too.

 

Look at the effort say the British went to in controling the flow of BL arms into vairous corners of the world. pPowder and shot they hardly cared about, but they banned .45 caliber spoting arms to keep ammo components off local markets. Afghans with Jezails were one thing, Afghans with Martini-Henrys etc were seen in a very different light and with SMLE's... no fun at all.

 

Once the bad guys got some level of parity in small arms, the superiority of the formed Armys declined dramatically. It didn't vanish, but things got a lot harder AFAIK. When everything else is added into the picture, explosives, communications ect, it still comes down to an X-ray with an AK is simply more capable of causing harm to the troops than his GG Grandfather was with a pointy piece of Mango.

 

A gun is an equaliser.

 

On the political/intellectual side I'd put it down to external support, or rather more effective external support driven by the cold war and the proxi-battles is sponsored. In yea olden daz it seems to me an insurgent leader had his native wit perhaps a couple of handed down stories to take as examples and maybe a half interested ally across the border. Now days you could fill a libaray with the literature, take a 'doctrate' from one of a dozen training camps and find more sponsors than the Olympic games if you mouth the right platitudes.

 

Governments (of a stripe) are actively keen to use insurgency as a foreign policy tool, where in the past they were ofen as worried about the 'revolution' spreading into their own regions. Government backing brings the tools for the job and the ammo to keep them fed - bringing me back to the start. The spread of insurgencies has followed the proliferation of automatic weapons. Circa WW1 a maxim was worth the modern equivilent of a good years wage in the west (IIRC), after WWI a Lewis could be had for a 1/8 to a 1/4 of that. After WWII people were just about giving automatic weapons away, what price a Sten or a battlefield pick-up MG-42? Today they're paying 'revolutionaries' and Jhaidi's to take AK's and PKM's.

 

I'd vote for:

 

1. Automatic weapons

2. 'Education'

3. Plausable Deniability

 

shane

Edited April 10, 2007 by Argus

[Stevely]

Good post, Argus.

[WRW]

Near where I live is terrain that say 30 years ago would have been great hiding out country. Now with helicopters and NVG, it would be a death trap.

[Ariete!]

I think it's definitely a combination of politics and technology.

 

> The widespread availability of automatic weapons / RPGs / HE means that even summarily traiend but ideologically motivated foes can inflict significant losses. One example: imagine the situation in IRaq (not to eb controversial, but it's quite topical) if there were't seemingly inexhaustible supplies of HE available to teh insurgents.

 

> As most governments / countries become gradually more sensitive to violence/death of their own citizens and other nations', the degree of usable violence in non life-or-death situations is diminishing.

 

> Generally, the easier it is to 'publish' information, the greter the imapct of ideology (good or bad). The reformation coudl nto avhe happened without the printing press, probably. Al Qaeda probably beenfits a lot from the existence of the internet/satellite TV.

 

> Armies in general are a fraction of the size they used to be (due ot a lot of reasons but largely attributable to rising incomes / unpopularity of conscription), while potential insurgent populations are much larger -- thsi si a huge simplifcation, I know, but if you, again, tke the middlke east and you look at the number of (non-starving) 16-40yr olds vs. even a coupel of generations ago, clearly the manpower is an issue.

[swerve]

Near where I live is terrain that say 30 years ago would have been great hiding out country. Now with helicopters and NVG, it would be a death trap.

 

Think the quiescence of the PKK these days might be connected?