Counterinsurgency 101

As I’ve noted in my previous posts, the Army and Marines are conducting a new kind of warfare called counterinsurgency or COIN. COIN will involve increased risk for our soldiers and Marines. COIN aims to fight terrorists and related insurgencies by stabilizing shaky governments, often the kinds of governments that may be repugnant to Americans. Because of these factors, I believe it is important for Americans with little military experience to understand something about insurgencies and counterinsurgency operations.

FM 3-24, Counterinsurgency, is the Army’s and the Marine’s bible and guidebook for understanding insurgencies and performing counterinsurgency operations. This field manual, which was issued in December 2006, was perhaps the most thoroughly vetted field manual ever produced. It distills years of U.S., British, French, and other experiences in fighting counterinsurgencies. Comments and advice from both military and civilian experts were included. It is the best single source for understanding the nature of insurgencies and for countering those insurgencies.

In this and several future posts, I will present and discuss some important highlights from FM 3-24. A pdf version of FM 3-24 is available from many places but try the Combined Arms Center library. I recommend the University of Chicago Press edition available at Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, and other book sellers. This edition has a very informative introduction by Lt. Colonel John Nagl and an introduction by Sarah Sewall who introduces some of the important national and global implications of this manual.

Before getting into FM 3-24 I’d like to talk about the changing nature of war. As the United States’ developed the technology to conduct massively successful attacks on other countries’ armies, we also moved to a more moral kind of war that involved fewer casualties in both the local civilian population and our troops. The same is true to a lesser extent for much of Europe and some other military powers. But there remains many peoples who have aspirations different from the West.

Since those other peoples cannot hope to defeat the West militarily, they’ve moved on to what is called asymmetric war – one in which the two sides have vastly different capabilities and in which to two sides wage war in completely different ways. The only common factor is technology which allows both to organize and conduct battle in new ways, and allows both sides an equal opportunity to broadcast their message to the world.

Whereas the West upholds a sense of civilized warfare and honors the dignity of human life where possible, insurgents have chosen the opposite path of conducting barbaric war without regard for human life. Whereas the West’s militaries are built to target the enemy’s military, insurgents primarily target civilians whether friend or enemy. This leaves the dilemma for the West of whether to adopt the barbarity of insurgents and thereby descend to their level, or to find other means to combat a threat that may eventually threaten the future of the West and its ideals.

Our combat troops were practicing COIN operations in Iraq before FM 3-24 was published. There were several notable successes in getting the Iraqis on our side. Unfortunately these successes tended to be local and temporary as new units with less COIN expertise replaced them.

FM 3-24 lists six approaches used by insurgents:

1. Conspiratorial
2. Military-focused
3. Protracted popular war
4. Urban
5. Identity-focused
6. Composite and coalition

The conspiratorial approach involves a few leaders with a militant cadre seizing the government. The military-focused approach involves a a military force in an insurrection that seizes the government. Lenin’s Bolshevik Revolution is an example of the first approach, while Che Guevera was active in the second approach in Cuba and other third-world countries. These two approaches are not evident in the world today and they offer little opportunities for COIN operations. I will not discuss these first two approaches.

Acceptance of a government by its people is the key to understanding how these insurgenies begin. A citizenry will accept a government if it provides solutions to their basic needs, even if that government does honor personal liberty or freedom. An authoritarian government or even a dictatorship may be accepted if it provides security and basic services and infrastructure, especially when those factors have been recently missing. Failed or failing states, and other unstable governments cannot provide these essential functions a they become candidates for insurgent takeovers.

The protracted popular war Is the most complex and interesting. Mao Zedong’s insurgency in China is the model for this approach. Mao envisioned three phases. During the first phase, called strategic defensive, the government is stronger than the insurgency and insurgents concentrate on surviving and gaining public support. Terrorism is the their main tool and direct combat is avoided.

The second phase, strategic stalemate, is when the two forces are balanced. Terrorism is replaced by guerilla warfare. Insurgents control some territories and may set up a counter state or government to address the citizens’ needs for security, courts, and basic services. Note here that the insurgents often cause the loss of security and other needs but, using propaganda, the insurgents can also step in to “solve” the problems.

The insurgency will have probably divided into a fighting cadre and a political cadre by the time of the second phase. The political cadre concentrates on undermining the government. In urban areas, the insurgents usually form into loosely connected cells, each of which conducts its own operations and propaganda.

Mao’s third phase was strategic counteroffensive when the insurgents have superiority. The insurgents then transition to conventional military operations and destroy the government’s military and take over the government.

Mao’s insurgency was highly successful. The theory has been modified and refined to fit other situations and cultures. If these phases of a protracted popular war seem familiar, you might be a Vietnam vet. A highly refined version was used by the North Vietnamese and they called it “The Struggle.”

This newer concept is a little difficult to understand but the time is worthwhile because the model for the most sophisticated insurgencies in the world today – the kind our troops are now facing.

The Army explains this modified protracted popular war by invoking the concept of logical lines of operations (LLOs). An insurgency has the singular, overarching goal to topple an existing government and install their own government in its place. To achieve that singular goal, the insurgency will have several strategic goals. LLOs form a sort of plan whereby many diverse techniques of insurgency war will be conducted over time and in different locations but all geared to achieving a strategic goal. The diverse techniques will include terror, guerilla warfare, propaganda, and conventional warfare.

It is difficult for COIN forces to determine the purpose of each individual LLO action since these actions will be diverse in location and time. To COIN forces, the actions may seem unorganized and without a definable goal. Yet the goals do exist.

This modified protracted popular war also allows for failure of specific actions as long as the overall effort still tends toward a strategic goal. For example, if the insurgency fails at guerilla warfare they may revert back to terrorism. The Tet Offensive in 1968 was a military failure but was highly successful in weakening America’s support for the Vietnam War. And the insurgents did win that war.

The current spike in suicide bombings in Iraq as a similar attempt to destroy America’s will to continue. The current operations around Baquaba and Baghdad have apparently been successful except for the escape of 80% of the insurgents. To counter the apparent success, some or all of the insurgent factions simply execute high-visibility terrorist actions, not involving combat troops, in other areas of Iraq.

With the LLOs approach, insurgents might concentrate on killing government officials in one area, providing a shadow government with security in another area, using roadside bombs in another, an so on. What appears to be random acts of violence are in reality part of an overall plan to meet more specific and strategic objectives. FM 3-24 refers to this as a shifting “mosaic war” and notes the difficulty of envisioning the coherent whole.

Personally, I find this LLO description of the protracted popular war as applying to the situation in Iraq, but not going far enough (but I’ve only read half of FM 3-24). As complicated as LLOs sound, the description tends toward a single insurgency or at least insurgents with common or overlapping goals. It also tends to view the citizens as a somewhat monolithic entity, all sharing some common desires. In Iraq we have Shia, Sunni, al Qaeda, and al Qaeda-Sunni insurgent factions, sharing no or very few goals. The Iraqi citizens are divided into opposing Shia and Sunni sectarian values, as well as a multitude of ethnic divisions.

If the protracted popular war seems complicated, then the situation in Iraq seems vastly complicated. If you feel overwhelmed by all this complexity, I recommend a visit to Intel Dump and read the comments. I especially recommend the article and comments on Big Army don't do small wars and The Good Fight. You will find many comments by soldiers and Marines that are fighting in Iraq and these comments are not your usual, short snaps of emotional opinion. The comments are often lengthy, thoughtfully well formed, and to the point of COIN in practice. I think you will be impressed by thought and efforts these NCOs and junior officers are putting into the battle. Had we sent enough troops earlier, I believe these remarkable soldiers and Marines would have given us a free and stable Iraq.

The urban approach is often the most difficult to counter. The Irish Republican Army used this as their main approach. In other places, as in Iraq, it is an important component of a the broader protracted popular war. The urban approach thrives when peoples of different beliefs or social status are thrust together as in cities. Terrorists can then use these normal differences to create disorder, incite sectarian violence, kill government or opposition leaders and otherwise weaken the government, intimidate the people, pin the police and military forces to a protection role and thus allow the terrorist to operate elsewhere, and cause the government to “crack down” and appear to be repressive.

The identity-focused approach is one in which insurgents mobilize the support of parts of a population based on their identity with a religion, clan, tribe, or ethnic group. I do not view this a so much a different approach but as an additional layer tool insurgents use in the other approaches. It has been especially effective in Iraq as part of the protracted popular war.

The last approach mentioned is the composite and coalition approach. This merely notes that insurgents may combine parts of all the other approaches and that the combination will shift over time. Iraq is given as an example and I think this is a catch-all approach that might address my misgivings that the protracted popular war approach did not go far enough in describing the conditions in Iraq.

This post has presented only the top-level, overview of the kinds of insurgencies our troops will face. I think I’ve given enough flavor to demonstrate that insurgencies are complex and that COIN operations involve a level of complexity that is equal to the complexity of conventional war operations.

In future posts, I will talk about the roles assigned to members of an insurgency, and then I will discuss the vulnerabilities of any insurgency.