Counterinsurgency and Operational Art

Abstract

Addressing insurgency requires the same application of operational art as utilized in conventional warfare planning. Counterinsurgency strategy will be driven by the nature of the insurgent movement, with campaigns constructed to use tactics appropriately so that key facets of the insurgent campaign are neutralized. It is especially important to determine whether terror is used as a tactic (a method of action) by an insurgency or as a stand-alone strategy (a logic of action) by a challenger divorced from a mass base. Insurgencies, in turn, will normally emphasize strategically either winning allegiance of the target population or using violence as a substitute for other methods. Each of these approaches requires the weighting of the appropriate campaign elements of the counterinsurgency strategy. Sri Lanka, having faced both approaches, is an especially useful case study.

Notes

 1. Headquarters, Department of the Army, FMI 3-07.22 Counterinsurgency Operations (Ft Leavenworth, KS: ATZL-CD [FMI 3-07.22], October 2004).

 2. Versions have been published or utilized in Colombia, Nepal and the US; in Colombia the entirety was translated into Spanish for use at a Colombian Army (COLAR) conference on operational art.

 3. Certainly the best known effort to deal explicitly with this conundrum is Gillo Pontecorvo's film, The Battle of Algiers (Casbah Films, 1966), available in DVD from The Criterion Collection (2004). It deals, however, with French actions driven by the tactical imperatives of successful campaign completion (i.e. restoring security to Algiers). The strategic dilemma, with attendant campaigns spread across time and space, is presented in the then-sensational (driven as it was by anti-Vietnam War sentiment), now little considered, Pontecorvo film, Burn! (Quemada) (United Artists, 1969), starring Marlon Brando, still available only in VHS.

 4. See esp. Donatella della Porta, Social Movements, Political Violence, and the State: A Comparative Analysis of Italy and Germany (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995).

 5. Most recent contribution to the growing body of literature on the Khmer Rouge is Philip Short, Pol Pot: Anatomy of a Nightmare (New York: Henry Holt, 2004). Valuable for its incisive analysis (in reviewing two recent works) on Khmer Rouge genocidal ideology, policies and actions) is Sophie Quinn-Judge, ‘Education in Murder’, The Times Literary Supplement [London], 18 November 2005, p. 33.

 6. See Robert Jay Lifton, Destroying the World to Save It: Aum Shinrikyo, Apocalyptic Violence, and the New Global Terrorism (New York: Henry Holt, 2000).

 7. Still a classic on the essence of the dilemmas faced by a foreign counterinsurgent is Ellen J. Hammer, A Death in November: America in Vietnam, 1963 (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1987). The title of Chapter 3 goes to the heart of the matter for the outsider: ‘Why Can't a Puppet Act Like a Puppet?’.

 8. It was at least in part our political refusal to accept the indivisible nature of the conflict in Indochina that proved the Achilles heel of our strategic approach in Vietnam. For the Thai case, see the author's Making Revolution: The Insurgency of the Communist Party of Thailand in Structural Perspective (Bangkok: White Lotus, 1996).

 9. Useful for appropriate consideration of the subject-matter under discussion are: Ben Shepherd, War in the Wild East: The German Army and Soviet Partisans (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004); Paul N. Hehn, The German Struggle Against Yugoslav Guerrillas in World War II (New York: East European Quarterly/Columbia University Press, 1979); and Mark Mazower, Inside Hitler's Greece: The Experience of Occupation, 1941–44 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001).

10. Ready reference may be had to the appropriate sections in Ahron Bregman, Israel's Wars: A History Since 1947, 2nd edn (New York: Routledge, 2002). An indispensable companion is Lisa Hajjar, Courting Conflict: The Israeli Military Court System in the West Bank and Gaza (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2005).

11. For focus upon this dynamic at the cutting edge, excellent is the Brian McAllister Linn work not normally in the bookstores, The U.S. Army and Counterinsurgency in the Philippine War, 1899–1902 (Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 1989).

12. For the first case, see David A. Charters, The British Army and Jewish Insurgency in Palestine, 1945–47 (New York: St Martin's Press, 1989); for the second, consult the insurgent victor, George Grivas, General Grivas on Guerrilla Warfare (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1962).

13. Or, to highlight the point with a well-stated title, Michael B. Ballard, Vicksburg: The Campaign That Opened the Mississippi (Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 2004).

14. Excellent for further exploration of this issue is Joseph L. Harsh, Confederate Tide Rising: Robert E. Lee and the Making of Southern Strategy, 1861–1862 (Kent, OH: The Kent State University Press, 1998). For the opposite side, see esp. Robin H. Neillands, Grant: The Man Who Won the Civil War (New York: Cold Spring Press, 2004).

15. Illustration of the multifaceted nature of counterinsurgent response in the American Civil War is the recent work by Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005).

16. I use this and other terminology as would be defined by common sense and ‘plain English’. An entire framework of American and NATO military thought and techniques for ‘operational design’ has evolved – a consequence of ever more parochial understandings of Clausewitz, especially his misunderstood concept, ‘center of gravity’ – and has become as much a hindrance to proper strategic and operational planning as an assistance. Though I shall discuss and utilize some of this military terminology, I shall largely avoid it. For our needs here, the best service publications are those of the US Marines, such as FMFM 1 Warfighting (1989) and MCDP 1-2 Campaigning (1997). They are refreshing in their commonsense approach to conflict. For those who wish to pursue the ‘center of gravity’ debate further, see Antulio J. Echevarria II, Clausewitz's Center of Gravity: Changing Our Warfighting Doctrine – Again! (Carlisle, PA: Army War College, 2002). Echevarria makes a signal contribution to the ‘Fourth-Generation Warfare’ (‘4GW’) debate (‘4GW’ claims a sea-change in warfare has occurred as a result of asymmetric approaches, such as those used by insurgents who lead with violence as opposed to winning allegiance) in ‘Deconstructing the Theory of Fourth-Generation Warfare’, pp. 233–41 in the larger ‘Symposium: Debating Fourth-Generation Warfare’, Contemporary Security Policy, Vol. 26, No. 2 (August 2005), pp. 185–285.

17. Gordon H. McCormick, ‘A Systems Model of Insurgency’, presented at 22 June 2005 meeting of the Insurgency Board. Particularly relevant for this discussion are the McCormick works listed in the bibliography (p. 26).

18. In what has become an extensive body of literature, produced not only by Manwaring and Fishel but also by those who utilize their framework, the seven key dimensions are posited as determining the success or failure of an insurgency: (1) host government military acts; (2) actions versus subversion; (3) unity of effort; (4) military acts of intervening power(s); (5) supporting acts of intervening power; (6) host government legitimacy; and (7) external support of insurgents. See Max G. Manwaring and John T. Fishel, ‘Insurgency and Counter-Insurgency: Toward a New Analytical Approach’, Small Wars and Insurgencies, Vol. 3, No. 3 (Winter 1992), pp. 272–310. McCormick's strategies in ibid, pp. 18–19 (which I paraphrased earlier) are quite compatible but form a tighter package. Their actual wording is: (1) infrastructure development (internal); (2) counter-infrastructure targeting (internal); (3) ‘force-on-force’ operations; (4) counter-infrastructure targeting (external); and (5) infrastructure development (external). Similarly, Manwaring and Fishel list the four major actors involved as Host Government, the insurgent organization, the external power(s) supporting the Host Government, and the external power(s) supporting the insurgency. The population is the medium. McCormick, more strongly influenced by Clausewitz, has his four actors as state, counter-state, international actors and population.

19. Joseph D. Celeski, Operationalizing COIN, Report 05-2 (Hurlburt Field, FL: Joint Special Operations University, September 2005).

20. For such a campaign within a counterinsurgency, see e.g. John M. Shaw, The Cambodian Campaign: The 1970 Offensive and Ameria's Vietnam War (Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press, 2005).

21. An example, illustrated by the title of the volume, is Richard A. Hunt, Pacification: The American Struggle for Vietnam's Hearts and Minds (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1995).

22. As conceptualized in NATO principles of operational design. The earlier point, however, must be emphasized again: what should dominate is not Clausewitzian exegesis, rather the linking of tactics to accomplishment of strategy through common sense operational ‘bundling’ (i.e. construction of campaigns). This may become more clear to practitioners with the enhanced prominence being given to the ‘effects-based approach’, which the British have defined in clear terms that go the heart of proper counterinsurgency: ‘The way of thinking and specific processes that, together, enable the integration and effectiveness of the military contribution within a Comprehensive Approach’. Joint Doctrine Note (JDN) 1/05, The UK Military Effects-Based Approach (Wiltshire: The Joint Doctrine & Concepts Centre, September 2005), pp. 1–3.

23. Fourteen Points: A Framework for the Analysis of Counterinsurgency, BDM/W-84-0175-TR (no further pub. data; produced under contract for USG).

24. Commander of the Royal Netherlands Army, Combat Operations, trans. Translation Service Netherlands Army (The Hague: Landmachtstaf, Directie Beleid en Planning, 2003). We are concerned with ADP II – Part C, ‘Combat Operations Against an Irregular Force’.

25. The discussion that follows is drawn from ibid., pp. 538–40.

26. The wording is chosen deliberately to highlight that nothing in Clausewitz precludes there being more than one center of gravity. The American debate on the matter, ironically, is based upon the English translation in wide circulation, that of Peter Paret, which itself has been judged in need of revision. Refer to the relevant notes in Appendix 1.

27. Excellent illustration is found in Robert W. Komer, The Malayan Emergency in Retrospect: Organization of a Successful Counterinsurgency Effort (Santa Monic, CA: RAND, February 1972).

28. A fine discussion of a well-known case, whereby an approach that was correct nevertheless was not sustainable – and the breaks all went ‘the other way’ – is Francois-Marie Gougeon, ‘The Challe Plan: Vain Yet Indispensable Victory’, Small Wars and Insurgencies, Vol. 16, No. 3 (December 2005), pp. 293–316.

29. Kalev I. Sepp, a colleague of Gordon McCormick, has recently sought to provide ‘Best Practices in Counterinsurgency’, Military Review (May–June 2005), pp. 8–12.

30. An example was the Hamlet Evaluation System (HES) used in the Vietnam War. It sought to measure, however imperfectly, progress in the pacification effort. As described concisely by Hunt: ‘HES evaluated each hamlet in six areas: Viet Cong military activity; subversion and political activities; defensive and security capabilities of friendly forces; administrative and political activities of the government; health, education, and welfare activities; and economic development. Three indicators or questions measured each area, for a total of eighteen indicators per hamlet. Each indicator had a range of six possible ratings (A, B, C, D, E, V), from strong government influence to VC control. The eighteen indicators were averaged to obtain the overall hamlet evaluation. Built into the system were criteria that higher headquarters had set in advance as a means of differentiating secure from insecure hamlets. For each indicator, the adviser selected the rating that he felt best described circumstances in the hamlet. The adviser thus had to interpret local conditions in the light of arbitrarily set standards’. Hunt, p. 95. Less well-known were numerous other efforts to arrive at metrics usable not only for assessment but to guide field operations. A prominent illustration was Headquarters, Department of the Army, U.S. Army Handbook of Counterinsurgency Guidelines for Area Commanders: An Analysis of Criteria, DA Pamphlet No. 550–100 (Washington, DC: Special Operations Research Office, January 1966). The actual authors, as listed inside the ‘pamphlet’ (which was 318 pp.) were M.D. Havron, J.A. Whittenburg and A.T. Rambo, with the work completed in February 1965, prior to commitment of American main force units. It is doubtful their complex presentation had any impact upon its intended audience, but one finding does stand out (p. v): ‘Surprisingly, lessons learned from one counterinsurgency have not always been effective in the next’.

31. See e.g. James A. Bates, The War on Terrorism: Countering Global Insurgency in the 21st Century (Hurlburt Field, FL: Joint Special Operations University, 22 April 2005); also Robert M. Cassidy, ‘Feeding Bread to the Luddites: The Radical Fundamentalist Islamic Revolution in Guerrilla Warfare’, Small Wars and Insurgencies, Vol. 16, No. 3 (December 2005), pp. 334–59.

32. For details, see Ch. 4 in my Maoist Insurgency Since Vietnam (London: Frank Cass, 1996); more recently, ‘Ch 14. Sri Lanka and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam’, in an upcoming volume from US Institute for Peace (chapter available upon request).

33. Text may be accessed at: < www.peacebrigades.org/lanka/slppta1979.html>.

34. This occurred perhaps serendipitously. ‘Strategy’ (as with ‘Counterinsurgency’) was an elective at West Point during the Vietnam War era (I attended USMA, 1968–72), and our seminal text was not Clausewitz but the likes of Graham Allison, The Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis, now released in a 2nd edn (New York: Longman, 1999); or the original edition of Edward Mead Earle, Makers of Modern Strategy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1942/1971), which I have found superior for internal war purposes to the present 2nd edn (1986) because of the more comprehensive treatment given to revolutionary (i.e. Marxist) thought in the original. ‘Operational Art’ as a term was unknown, and it was the Soviets who were considered mired in doctrinal rigidity (as they proved later in Afghanistan). The result was that we simply did not engage in complexity beyond a certain level.

35. See Michel Wieviorka, ‘Terrorism in the Context of Academic Research’, in Martha Crenshaw (ed.), Terrorism in Context (University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995), pp. 597–606. For Wieviorka's seminal work, see The Making of Terrorism, trans. David Gordon White (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1993).

36. Often referred to by the term ‘clandestine infrastructure’, the concept of the counter-state apparently entered into the literature of internal war in the 1960s. See e.g. Luis Mercier Vega, Guerrillas in Latin America: The Technique of the Counter-State (New York: Praeger, 1969). More recently, the concept has been used by Arthur Mitchell, Revolutionary Government in Ireland: Dail Eireann 1919–22 (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1995), as well as by Gordon McCormick, Naval Postgraduate School (NPS), Monterey, California, in published and unpublished work.

37. This insightful definition was coined by Larry Cable; see his ‘Reinventing the Round Wheel: Insurgency, Counter-Insurgency, and Peacekeeping Post Cold War’, Small Wars and Insurgencies, Vol. 4. No. 2 (Autumn 1993), pp. 228–62.

38. Definitions such as those discussed here are well within the mainstream of revolutionary studies, though they do not always mesh completely with official US government definitions. The essence of what is provided in this Appendix was included in my submission for Chap.1, ‘Overview’, in the US Army's Interim Field Manual, FMI 3-07.22 Counterinsurgency Operations (October 2004). Necessarily, what was issued differed in many particulars from the draft. As per US military ‘rules of the game’, the doctrine of subordinate organizations cannot contradict the published doctrine of superior organizations, which led to even the definition of insurgency being incomplete compared to that stated here. That such ‘rules’ make reform or even accuracy not always possible hardly needs emphasis. Best single look at the doctrinal process with respect to insurgency is Wray R. Johnson, Vietnam and American Doctrine for Small Wars (Bangkok: White Lotus, 2001). Equally well done, for the US Marines, is Keith B. Bickel, Mars Learning: The Marine Corps' Development of Small Wars Doctrine, 1915–1940 (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2001). Useful background to the material in both of these books is Andrew J. Birtle, U.S. Army Counterinsurgency and Contingency Operations Doctrine 1860–1941 (Washington, DC: Center of Military History, US Army, 1998).

39. Poverty alone is rarely, if ever, sufficient to sustain an insurgency. An effort to explore significant quantitative efforts to relate insurgency to variables is Tom Marks, ‘Insurgency by the Numbers II: The Search for a Quantitative Relationship Between Agrarian Revolution and Land Tenure in South and Southeast Asia’, Small Wars and Insurgencies, Vol. 5, No. 2 (Autumn 1994), pp. 218–91. Content was not as narrow as implied by the title, which simply provided a means to examine the numerous studies that sought to explain quantitatively insurgency. At the end of the day, what emerged was that the universe of studies had been unable to establish relationships that would explain even as great a percentage of the variance as could be achieved by flipping a coin. Thus qualitative measures were clearly key. This I discuss further in Thomas A. Marks, ‘Evaluating Insurgent/Counterinsurgent Performance’, Small Wars and Insurgencies, Vol. 11, No. 3 (Winter 2000), pp. 21–46.

40. Certainly the best known work examining a specific example is Douglas Pike, Viet Cong: The Organization and Techniques of the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1966). For post-Vietnam insurgencies of similar nature (as the Viet Cong), see Thomas A. Marks, Maoist Insurgency Since Vietnam (London: Frank Cass, 1996).

41. For the Chinese case, see Monte R. Bullard, The Soldier and the Citizen: Taiwan's Military and Allegiance Warfare, 1950–1970 (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1997); and Thomas A. Marks, Counterrevolution in China: Wang Sheng and the Kuomintang (London: Frank Cass, 1998). For the Vietnamese case, see Pike, op. cit., as well as his PAVN: People's Army of Vietnam (Novato, CA: Presidio, 1986).

42. See James H. Billington, Fire in the Minds of Men: Origins of the Revolutionary Faith (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 2004).

43. Specifics may be found by examining the cases (Thailand, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, and Peru) in my Maoist Insurgency Since Vietnam.

44. Indispensable reading on this subject, though she is discussing ‘pure terrorism’, is Donatella della Porta, Social Movements, Political Violence, and the State (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995). Her research finds the interaction between social movements and the state, later violent splinters and the state, the most salient variable in determining the trajectory of those who choose to challenge the state through violent means. A masterful summary of her thought is Donatella della Porta, ‘Left-Wing Terrorism in Italy’, in Crenshaw, pp. 105–59. This may be usefully augmented by examining Donatella della Porta and Herbert Reiter (eds), Policing Protest: The Control of Mass Demonstrations in Western Democracies (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1998).

45. Bard E. O'Neill, Insurgency and Terrorism: Inside Modern Revolutionary Warfare (Herndon, VA: Brassey's 1990), divides insurgency into seven ‘types’ – anarchist, egalitarian, traditionalist, pluralist, secessionist, reformist, and preservationist – a division Cable (p. 229) usefully simplifies in observing: ‘While insurgency exists in two forms, offensive and defensive, with the distinction being drawn upon the basis of the overarching political goal, a radical restructuring of the social-political matrix in the case of the former or the assertion of autonomy by a distinct social, cultural linguistic group with respect to the latter, the process which produces the end result of armed conflict is the same’.

46. Benchmark work on this subject is James C. Scott, ‘Revolution in the Revolution: Peasants and Commissars’, Theory and Society, Vol. 7, Nos.1 & 2 (January–March 1979), pp. 97–134.

47. For a single source that deals cogently with the Vietnamese examples used here, see Rod Paschall, ‘Low-Intensity Conflict Doctrine: Who Needs It?’, Parameters, Vol. XV, No. 3 (Autumn 1985), pp. 33–45. This may be usefully supplemented by Merle L. Pribbenow, ‘North Vietnam's Master Plan’, Vietnam (August 1999), pp. 30–36.

48. See David Spencer and Jose Angel Moroni Bracamonte, Strategy and Tactics of the Salvadoran Guerrillas (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1995).

49. For details, see Tom Marks, ‘Colombian Army Counterinsurgency’, Crime, Law & Social Change, 40 (2003), pp. 77–105.

50. See Thomas A. Marks, Insurgency in Nepal (Carlisle, PA: Army War College, 2003).

51. For two excellent works, see Richard English, Armed Struggle: The History of the IRA (New York: Oxford, 2003); and J. Bowyer Bell, The Secret Army: The IRA, 3rd edn (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1997).

52. It is significant that there apparently are no articles or books (on either of these cases) that have yet emerged as accomplishing our purposes of illustration.

53. Quick reference may be made to David Rooney, Guerrilla: Insurgents, Patriots and Terrorists From Sun Tzu to Bin Laden (London: Brassey's, 2004), pp. 199–220 (chapter entitled ‘Che Guevara and Guerrilla War’). See also Paul J. Dosal, Commandante Che: Guerrilla Soildier, Commander, and Strategist, 1956–1967 (University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2003), passim. For Che's benchmark work, Che Guevara, Guerrilla Warfare, Brian Loveman and Thomas M. Davies (eds), 3rd edn (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 1997). On approach, see Matt D. Childs, ‘An Historical Critique of the Emergence and Evolution of Ernesto Che Guevara's Foco Theory’, Journal of Latin American Studies, Vol. 27, Part 3 (October 1995), pp. 593–614; for the death, Henry Butterfield, The Fall of Che Guevara: A Story of Soldiers, Spies, and Diplomats (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998). For the relationship between the urban and rural guerrilla components: Roman L. Bonachea and Marta San Martin, The Cuban Insurrection 1952–1959 (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1974); and Julia E. Sweig, Inside the Cuban Revolution: Fidel Castro and the Urban Underground (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002).

54. Complete discussion may be found in Thomas A. Marks, Maoist People's War in Post-Vietnam Asia (Bangkok: White Lotus, forthcoming).

55. For further details, see Marks, Insurgency in Nepal, passim.

56. See e.g. William Reno, ‘The Failure of Peacekeeping in Sierra Leone’, Current History (May 2001), pp. 219–25. Therein, Reno makes the challenging assertion, ‘Conflict in collapsed states is fundamentally different from wars between ideological rivals who mobilize mass followings and build "liberated zones" to practice their ideas of governance’.

57. See Thomas A. Marks, ‘Urban Insurgency’, Small Wars and Insurgencies, Vol, 14, No. 3 (Autumn 2003), pp. 100–57. See esp. n. 56 for sources.

58. Excellent illustration of a national planning approach and implementation to counterinsurgency is that presently being used by the Alvaro Uribe administration in Colombia. For details see Thomas A. Marks, Sustainability of Colombian Military/Strategic Support for ‘Democratic Security’ (Carlisle, PA: Army War College, 2005). Details of the successful Peruvian approach may be found in David Scott Palmer and Thomas A. Marks, ‘Radical Maoist Insurgents and Terrorist Tactics: Comparing Peru and Nepal’, LIC and Law Enforcement, forthcoming.

59. This formulation was outlined for me by the legendary Sir Robert Thompson shortly before his death. For transcript of interview, see Tom Marks, ‘The Counter-Revolutionary: Sir Robert Thompson – Grand Master of Unconventional Warfare’, Soldier of Fortune, Vol. 14, No. 10 (October 1989), pp. 58–65/77–80. Thompson's seminal text remains as useful today as when it was written, regardless of the precise ideology adopted by the insurgents: Defeating Communist Insurgency (New York: Praeger, 1966).

60. My introduction to this reality I also owe to Thompson.

61. For details on this particular case, see Hassan Abbas, Pakistan's Drift Into Extremism: Allah, the Army, and America's War on Terror (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2005).

62. Useful for details is I. William Zartman, Collapsed States: The Disintegration and Restoration of Legitimate Authority (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1995).

63. Carl von Clausewitz, On War (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976), pp. 88–89.

♠ I understand this to include: the President; the Minister of Defence (these two presently held simultaneously); the Minister of National Security (presently Deputy Minister of Defence); the Defence Ministry Secretary; the Director of Intelligence and Security; the Military Advisor to the President; and the three Service Chiefs and the JOC-Cdr.