Counterinsurgency

[2] The Oxford English Dictionary defines counterinsurgency as any "military or political action taken against the activities of guerrillas or revolutionaries"[3] and can be considered war by a state against a non-state adversary.

[14][page needed] The third Marques of Santa Cruz de Marcenado (1684–1732) is an early author who wrote both advise for conventional military matters he also gave suggestions on the topic of "rebellions".

[29]Kilcullen considers the three pillars to be of equal importance because unless they are developed in parallel, the campaign becomes unbalanced: too much economic assistance with inadequate security, for example, simply creates an array of soft targets for the insurgents.

In developing each pillar, we measure progress by gauging effectiveness (capability and capacity) and legitimacy (the degree to which the population accepts that government actions are in its interest).

"[29][30] Military historian Martin van Creveld, noting that almost all attempts to deal with insurgency have ended in failure, advises: The first, and absolutely indispensable, thing to do is throw overboard 99 percent of the literature on counterinsurgency, counter guerrilla, counterterrorism, and the like.

[31]In examining why so many counterinsurgencies by powerful militaries fail against weaker enemies, Van Creveld identifies a key dynamic that he illustrates by the metaphor of killing a child.

[citation needed] Van Creveld argues that "by definition, a strong counterinsurgent who uses his strength to kill the members of a small, weak organization of insurgents – let alone the civilian population by which it is surrounded, and which may lend it support – will commit crimes in an unjust cause," while "a child who is in a serious fight with an adult is justified in using every and any means available – not because he or she is right, but because he or she has no choice".

Trường Chinh, second in command to Ho Chi Minh of Vietnam, wrote in his Primer for Revolt: The guiding principle of the strategy for our whole resistance must be to prolong the war.

[citation needed] Following a counterattack by the Brotherhood, Rifaat used his heavy artillery to demolish the city, killing between 10-25,000 people, including many women and children.

Asked by reporters what had happened, Hafez al-Assad exaggerated the damage and deaths, promoted the commanders who carried out the attacks, and razed Hama's well-known great mosque, replacing it with a parking lot.

In particular, a state can protect its armed forces while destroying insurgents, but only by indiscriminately killing civilians as the Ottomans, Italians, and Nazis did in the Balkans, Libya, and Eastern Europe.

Within the contemporary context, COIN warfare by African militaries tends to be at the margins of the theoretical debate – even though Africa today is faced with a number of deadly insurgencies.

Specifically, Omeni argues that the trio of historical experience, organisational culture (OC) and doctrine, help explain the institution of COIN within militaries and their tendency to reject the innovation and adaptation often necessary to defeat insurgency.

“The overwhelming and brutal application of force against civilians,” he argued, “will squash domestic opposition.”[49] Treistman thus proposed a convex function to model the relationship between barbarism and counterinsurgency outcomes.

To develop a comprehensive cultural picture counterinsurgency efforts should invest in employing "media consultants, finance and business experts, psychologists, organizational network analysts, and scholars from a wide range of disciplines.

Counterinsurgency communication efforts need a baseline understanding of values, attitudes, and perceptions of the people in the area of operations to conduct successful public diplomacy to defeat the enemy.

[citation needed] Developing information and communication strategies involve providing a legitimate alternate ideology, improving security and economic opportunity, and strengthening family ties outside of the insurgency.

Building rapport with the public involves "listening, paying attention, and being responsive and proactive" which is sufficient for the local population to understand and trust the counterinsurgency efforts and vice versa.

[citation needed] "Given Al Qaeda's global reach, the United States must develop a more integrated strategic communication strategy for counter-insurgency with its allies to diminish violent rhetoric, improve its image abroad, and detect, deter, and defeat this social movement at its many levels.

[citation needed] Public diplomacy is especially important as modern insurgents are more easily able to gain support through a variety of sources, both local and transnational, thanks to advances in increased communication and globalization.

French forces taking control from the Japanese did not seem to negotiate seriously with nationalist elements in what was to become Vietnam,[87] which reaped the consequences of overconfidence at Điện Biên Phủ.

He issued an open letter condemning the danger to the army of the loss of its moral values "under the fallacious pretext of immediate expediency" and was imprisoned for sixty days.

When de Gaulle's policies toward Algeria, such as a 1961 referendum on Algerian self-determination, did not meet the expectations of the colonial officers, Salan formed the underground Organisation armée secrète (OAS), a right-wing terrorist group, whose actions included a 1962 assassination attempt against de Gaulle himself[citation needed] France has had taken Barnett's Leviathan role[92] in Chad and Ivory Coast, the latter on two occasions, most significantly in 2002–2003.

A branch of the Indian Army, known as the Rashtriya Rifles (RR), was created for the sole purpose of destroying the insurgency in Kashmir, and it has played a major role in doing so.

[citation needed] In the 1960s and the early 1970s, Portugal conducted large-scale counterinsurgency operations in Angola, Portuguese Guinea and Mozambique against independentist guerrillas supported by the Eastern Bloc and China, as well by some Western countries.

The situation was unique in that small armed forces, those of Portugal, conducted three counterinsurgency wars at the same time in three different theatres of operations separated by thousands of kilometres.

[101]William B. Caldwell IV wrote: The law of armed conflict requires that, to use force, "combatants" must distinguish individuals presenting a threat from innocent civilians.

[102]In the recent conflicts the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) has been increasingly involved conducting special operations especially the training and development of other states' military and security forces.

"[104] Foreign internal defense policymaking has subsequently aided in Iraqi successes in reclaiming Tikrit, Baiji, Ramadi, Fallujah, and Mosul from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

A comprehensive study by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction concluded that "the U.S. government greatly overestimated its ability" to use COIN and stabilization tactics for long-term success.