Insurgency Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

Insurgency is a form of intrasocietal conflict within a state, in which a no ruling group attempts to destroy, reform, or degrade the legitimacy and popular support of the state’s ruling group to effect political change. Insurgencies are primarily political movements rather than conventional military conflicts, as insurgent groups attempt to defeat a stronger military power with political activism, subversion, propaganda, and intimidation through terror and assassination tactics. An underlying feature linking many insurgencies—historic and current—is the gross disproportion between the grand political aims of an insurgency and the insurgency’s meager military capability to achieve such political aims.

Insurgencies often attempt to redress their military weaknesses by exploiting their personal knowledge and understanding of their local environments. Past insurgencies have originated in trackless deserts, dense jungles, or urban settings, typically less familiar to opposing state or international forces and providing a strategic advantage to local insurgent elements. Third, and most important, insurgencies rely on their popular support to leverage the local population for the additional recruits, funding, shelter, sustenance, and intelligence needed to prevail. In his classic work On War, military philosopher Carl Von Clausewitz described “people’s war” as “a kind of nebulous vapory essence, nowhere condense into a solid body.” This, combined with support of the people for a passionate cause, is the most basic precept of insurgency.

History Of Insurgency

Most insurgencies are labeled “failed revolutions, ”“rebellions,” or “crimes” by history, in large part due to their inability to effectively combat a state or international superior military force or sustain resources to participate in prolonged battles. Consequently, insurgents have been known to lose local support should the population blame the insurgency for increasing civilian casualties or infrastructure damages. These insurgencies are eventually suppressed or often forced to negotiate ceasefires while they regroup and refurbish.

That said, there have been several successful insurgencies in the twentieth century. These include the Chinese Civil War (1927–1949), which some scholars refer to as the “archetype of modern insurgency.” Other notable successful insurgencies were the Cuban Revolution (1953–1959), which concluded by placing communist rebel Fidel Castro in power for fifty-one years, as well as the anticolonial wars against the French in Vietnam from 1946 to 1954 and Algeria from 1954 to 1962, in which French forces were expelled by nationalist movements. In addition, North Vietnamese guerilla forces eventually defeated the United States and Allied nations during the Vietnam War (1959–1975); inflicting large numbers of casualties on both sides and concluding with the communist guerillas’ unifying North and South Vietnam under a Communist takeover.

Due to the many insurgencies preoccupying the western European powers during the post–World War II era of decolonization, the concept of insurgency did not emerge in the modern military lexicon until this time period. The aforementioned failed French campaigns in Algeria and Vietnam significantly contributed to the emerging theories and discussion of insurgency and counterinsurgency, along with the myriad of British campaigns marking the eventual British withdrawal from Asia, Africa, and the Middle East from 1945 to the 1990s. However, despite insurgencies’ accounting for the most prevalent forms of armed conflict since 1945, the study of counterinsurgency is still evolving as most regular armed forces have historically regarded the study as a niche area. Two historical and influential theorists of insurgency, British army officer T. E. Lawrence (commonly known as Lawrence of Arabia) and Chinese communist revolutionary and leader Mao Zedong, both wrote of the nature of insurgency during the first half of the twentieth century. Lawrence’s characterization stated, “Armies were like plants, immobile as a whole, firm-rooted, and nourished through long stems to the head. We might be a vapor, blowing where they listed.” He also described insurgency as a moral contest, not a physical one, and recognized that insurgent strength derived from strategy.

Maoist Influence On Insurgency

The same logic often credited to Mao Zedong under pins insurgency as 80 percent political and 20 percent military. Of note, Mao established and led the People’s Republic of China from 1949 until his death in 1976. When analysts speak of classical insurgency, generally they are refer ring to the Maoist insurgency as “propaganda for guns, subversion for air power, men for machines, space for mechanization, political for industrial mobilization.” Mao’s goal was to convince the peasantry that his Red Army’s soldiers were different, not just the enforcers of the latest warlord, but an end to the cycle of depredation and impoverishment that had plagued Chinese peasants for so long. By doing so, Mao could harness an immense source of potential energy and resources to sustain his insurgent efforts.

Essentially, Maoist insurgency emphasized the critical relationship between the guerilla forces and the people to achieve a political goal. Since according to studies, there are three strategic phases—the defensive, stalemate, and offensive—between the insurgent and government, who will ultimately meet in conventional battle, the insurgent leaders must be guaranteed of the support of the population prior to engaging in conventional operations, to secure their victory. In an insurgency, the consent of the population as to how they seek to be governed is the underlying debate. The insurgent aims to detach the population’s loyalty from the state and to demonstrate a greater capacity for governance. This is accomplished by the establishment of parallel governance structures and intimidation.

Classical Insurgencies Versus Emerging Global Insurgencies

Most recent scholarship on insurgency, in particular that of J. Mackinlay, detects an evolution of classical insurgency to a new, even more virulent, post-Maoist form often referred to as “global insurgency” (Mackinlay, An Insurgent Archipelago, 2009). At the moment there is a strong association between global insurgency and the global Islamist movement dominated by the transnational terrorist organization al-Qaida, headed by Saudi Arabian Osama bin Laden. Most experts believe the techniques of post-Maoism may be adopted by any global movement and are not specific to Muslims. Radical Islamic movements have gained considerable popularity, media attention, and widespread psychological fear in the twenty-first century through the use of their mass-casualty civilian attacks and tech-savvy Internet propaganda. Therefore, while radical Islamic terror groups have gained the most international attention, this alone does not qualify such terror groups as the only version of a post-Maoist/global insurgency.

Whereas Maoist insurgent objectives were national, post Maoist objectives are global, transcending national geographic boundaries and identities. The population involved in the Maoist/classical insurgency is confined to a single state (and possibly that of an intervening state), which is described as manageable. However, the populations involved in post-Maoist/global insurgencies are varied and dispersed, interconnected via mass communications and the Internet and often considered unmanageable. Unlike the center of gravity in a classical insurgency, which is the hearts and minds of the local or national population, global insurgencies attempt to unify their cause by appealing to global communities under the banner of ethnicity, religion, shared oppression, or shared economic status. For some global insurgents, requiring a great degree of local support is less relevant because insurgents operate in anonymity and have external sources of funding, sponsorship, and recruitment from their theater of operations.

Another difference between the evolved global insurgency and the classical version is that the all-important subversion process in Maoist insurgency was top down, whereas in postMaoist insurgency, it is bottom up, characterized increasingly by propaganda of the terror operations that is conceived, planned, and executed by individuals and small groups without major central direction. National, classic insurgent organizations are vertical and structured, whereas in a global form, they exist as unstructured networks, often taking direction from regional leaders rather than a single entity.

Notably, many modern insurgencies taking place in countries such as Sudan, Iraq, and Afghanistan fall under the classic category of a Maoist national insurgency movement, with indigenous rebel groups seeking to overthrow the current government and expelling any intervening international force. However, what makes these insurgencies unique and reflects a common emerging twenty-first-century trend is that global insurgencies, such as the transnational terrorist organization al-Qaida, manipulate these national insurgencies as venues to proliferate their own ideologies and elicit recruits. Many of these countries become safe operating havens for transnational terrorist networks. Al-Qaida operatives reach out to insurgents, playing on their mutual anti-Western objectives and objective to expel international forces. Although al-Qaida networks may not seek the same nationalist goals as the indigenous insurgents, they provide the insurgents with another source of funding, arms, and training needed to combat the state and international intervention and therefore build partnerships of convenience.

Insurgencies have become one of the most hotly debated and intensely studied aspects of contemporary war studies. With the post-9/11 wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, which have drawn in international forces to quell the national insurgencies in both countries, major world powers have grown increasingly interested in learning to adapt their military structures and doctrines to meet the challenge. More generally, however, the study of insurgency and counterinsurgency has been thrust into the limelight because the once norm of regular conflict now looks decidedly irregular, a trend likely to continue as human society adapts to a radically more interconnected future and war along with it.

Bibliography:

Asprey, R. War in the Shadows: The Guerrilla in History. 2 vols. Lincoln, Neb.: iUniverse, 2002.
Callwell, C. E. Small Wars: Their Principles and Practice. London: HMSO, 1906.
von Clausewitz, K. On War, translated by O. J. Matthijs Jolles. New York: Random House, 1943.
Galula, D. Counterinsurgency Warfare:Theory and Practice. New York: Praeger, 1964.
Holsti, K. J. The State,War and the State of War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
Katzenbach, E., and G. Hanrahan. “The Revolutionary Strategy of Mao Tse-tung.” Political Science Quarterly 70 (1955): 321–340.
Kilcullen, D. The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One. London: Hurst, 2009.
Lawrence,T. E. “The Science of Guerrilla Warfare.” In Encyclopedia Britannica. 14th ed. New York: Encyclopedia Britannica, 1929.
The Seven Pillars of Wisdom. London:Wordsworth, 1926. Reprint, 1997.
Mackinlay, J. An Insurgent Archipelago. London: Hurst, 2009.
Mackinlay, J., and A. Al-Baddawy. Rethinking Counterinsurgency. Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND, 2008.
Metz, S. Rethinking Insurgency. Carlisle, Pa.: US Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute, 2007.
O’Neill, B. Insurgency and Terrorism from Revolution to Apocalypse. Washington D.C.: Potomac Books, 2005.
Taber, R. War of the Flea:The Classic Study of Guerrilla Warfare. New York: Brassey’s, 2002.
Van Creveld, M. The Transformation of War. New York: Free Press, 1991.
Zarrow, P. China in War and Revolution, 1895–1949. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2005.

This example Insurgency Essay is published for educational and informational purposes only. If you need a custom essay or research paper on this topic please use our writing services. EssayEmpire.com offers reliable custom essay writing services that can help you to receive high grades and impress your professors with the quality of each essay or research paper you hand in.