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IRREGULAR WARFARE
Key Points
- Irregular warfare is primarily about politics and organization. Violence plays a role in irregular warfare, as in all forms of war, for political purposes. The immediate purpose of violence is to demonstrate the political ineptitude of the ruling government and as a tool to intimidate and coerce populations. The ultimate goal of irregular warfare is political power for the purpose of political, social, economic, and /or religious change.
- The character of irregular warfare is dynamic, but its nature, outlined above, is not. This character is shaped by social, environmental and technological factors. Insurgents, terrorists and revolutionaries have adopted irregular warfare methods for a key pragmatic reason: to offset their military and organizational weaknesses.
- Irregular warfare is a complex phenomenon as different types of violence can be used individually or simultaneously. This can lead to confusing the method or tactics of irregular warfare for its strategy or its purpose. Fixating on the tactics of violence, as opposed to its organization and rationale, can lead only to misunderstanding irregular warfare.
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Defining irregular warfare, much less its component elements, is no easy task. In some cases, authors are inclined to lump everything together under a concept to the point where a term describes everything but explains nothing. Examples include ‘insurgency’ and ‘asymmetric warfare’. At the other end of the spectrum are scholars and soldiers who create categorical definitions as they try to separate the terminology of irregular warfare with mechanical precision. Such definitions suit the purposes of specialised disciplines but have little recognition or application outside their individual communities. In addition, new terms are created or revived in an attempt to capture the realities of the most recent manifestations of violence.
According to U.S. doctrine, the preferred term has changed from ‘counter-guerrilla operations’ through to ‘counter-insurgency’ and ‘foreign internal defence.’
A word about the term doctrine: What is doctrine? Scholars agree on the purpose of doctrine but not on its form. The purpose of doctrine is to transmit and share ‘best practices’ or ‘lessons learned’ about the conduct of warfare. But how are these practices and lessons codified, understood and transmitted? Andrew Birtle suggest that U.S. Army counter-insurgency doctrine does not have to be published but can consist instead of ‘custom, tradition, and accumulated experience that was transmitted form one generation of soldiers to the next through a combination of official and unofficial writings, curricula materials, conversations, and individual memories. Others argue that a doctrine must be written down and published to be considered such.
Now back to terminology. On the surface there appears to be little that distinguishes the terms mention above. The term ‘foreign internal defence’, however, was coined in the wake of Vietnam, and it captures two essential realities associated with U.S. involvement in dealing with insurgencies: military operations play a secondary role in countering insurgents, and U.S. actions were restricted, in the beginning of the Vietnam war, largely to training, advising and equipping host nation forces; and U.S. freedom of action and ability to direct the course of operations are not only subject to domestic political considerations but are likely to be subordinated to those of the leaders of the nation trying to defeat the insurgents.
Language, and in particular specific terms, presents other challenges in attempting to define irregular warfare. The two most daunting obstacles are the changing connotations of specific terms and the subjective and often emotional qualities associated with them. For example, Bruce Hoffman has chartered the evolution in meaning behind the term ‘terrorism’ from ‘state violence against the population’ to ‘violence used by sub-state groups for political purposes.’ The term ‘insurgency’ was first used to describe insurrections or violence with limited aims and duration, but the term now conveys motivation, organization and the degree of popular support.
Ultimately, irregular warfare has at its core a cause based on grievances. The range of potential grievances and the motivations behind them is wide and can include ethnic and religious persecution, foreign occupation or domination, economic disparity and other forms of injustice that are real or merely perceived.
The key distinction between irregular and other forms of warfare, and different types of irregular warfare, rests on resources and ability to translate them into effective capabilities. Groups conducting irregular warfare are attempting to defeat or overcome adversaries that possess significantly more powerful and numerous resources. Most often, sub-state groups are fighting against a state that not only possesses superior resources but also has a legitimate monopoly on violence within its borders. In order to have a reasonable chance of success sin any type of irregular warfare, groups mush keep their activities hidden from their adversary as long as possible, so as not to be detected, tracked and destroyed. Those who conduct irregular warfare rarely do so as a mater of preference or because they find a semi-clandestine and potentially dangerous lifestyle appealing. Most groups adopt irregular warfare because other, more decisive, forms of political violence are unavailable to them.
To sum up, irregular warfare is defined as the use of violence by sub-state actors or groups within state for political purposes of achieving power, control and legitimacy, using unorthodox or unconventional approaches to warfare owning to a fundamental weakness in resources or capabilities.
Types of Irregular Warfare
The types of irregular warfare dictated by resources can be broken down into five main categories or forms: coup d’état; terrorism; revolution; insurgency, and civil war.
Coup d’état
As a form of irregular warfare, coups d’état are For these reasons, conducting a coup d’état requires nerve, timing, planning and luck, but little in the way of additional resources. Often the instigators of coups d’état come form the officer corps, as the military is the one government institution that can quickly crush such acts of rebellion. Those who conduct coups seek to gain power in order to change national policies or correct ethnic or religious exclusion – and gain wealth in the process.
Terrorism
Terrorism also involves small numbers of individuals, operating in cells and groups, with relatively few resources needed in order to function. Groups of cells face resource constrains for a number of reasons, including effective security services which constrain group member’s freedom of action. Terrorism deliberately targets the non-combatant civilian population and other symbols associated with the state (military and police forces, government buildings, monuments, etc.) or the ruling government’s power base in order to spread fear disproportionate to the damage that causes. Groups chose terrorism as a means of using the severely limited resources at their disposal in unorthodox and dramatic attacks, which are often reported by media outlets, in order to compel or persuade one or more target audiences. Against adversaries, terrorism, in its various forms can convince a target population and its leadership that the stakes of a conflict are not worth the current and potential future costs. For domestic audiences, sympathizers and supporters, including states, acts of terrorism demonstrate a group’s power, reach and competence, and can facilitate access to resources or even ownership of a particular cause between competing terrorist groups.
Revolution
Revolution bears many similarities to a coup d’état, in that it requires an intellectual elite or ‘vanguard’ to succeed, but it also possesses a number of crucial differences. The primary goal of a revolution is to paralyze and collapse or overthrow and existing government, in order to redistribute power and resources. There are two critical components to a revolution: a cadre of political organizers who work within a population; and a population that is oppressed, exploited and frustrated enough that they might just turn to protest or violence if the right spark is provided. The cadre of organizers, under the direction of the vanguard, seeks to demonstrate the incompetence of the existing regime, conduct political agitation overtly and covertly, and elevate the consciousness of the oppressed population. At the appropriate time, or perhaps as a result of an action either by the revolutionaries or the regime in response, a critical mass of the population will rise up, overpower the control elements of the regime and allow the vanguard to assume power. Without the mass of the population behind it, revolutions are doomed to fail.
Insurgency
Insurgency has been the subject of recent scrutiny and revision largely as a result of the “Global War on Terror’ and confusion surrounding the character of the violence in Iraq. Some authors suggest that our concept of this type of irregular warfare requires substantial revision and rethinking, given the change in context in which insurgencies now occur. Insurgency shares a number of characteristics in common with other forms of irregular warfare. Successful revolutions place primary emphasis on organizing, educating and proselytising among the population to prepare them for the inevitable uprising against the system. Maoist and other agrarian-based insurgencies, for example, also stress the need to develop a ‘shadow government,’ or parallel political structure, which controls the rural population and extracts resources without alienating its crucial support base. The level of support required for insurgencies to sink roots and operate successfully is context-specific, as in the case of clan or tribal-based societies, in which these social units can be self-supporting. Insurgency of this type may not require the support of the general population, but rather the spreading of enough instability, uncertainty and fear to prevent the population from assisting the insurgent’s adversaries. While theorists agree that the centre of gravity for an insurgency is popular support, a fundamental difference between revolutions and insurgencies is how resources gained from the population or from other sources are utilised. Insurgencies harness resources in order to conduct attacks using guerrilla tactics that are designed to inflict ever-increasing loses on government or occupying forces and tip the balance of forces in the insurgent’s favour. Such tactics include hit-and-run raids, ambushes, and more recently, remote attacks using mortars, rocket launchers and improvised explosive devices. Success for insurgent groups allows them to translate support into larger militias and battalions, regiments and divisions of guerrillas with which to conduct ever more attacks. Insurgency is also one of the most forgiving and flexible form of irregular warfare in terms of defeat. Local and even regional defeat of guerrilla forces does not spell the end of most insurgencies. The insurgent shadow network structures embedded within the population mean that even if government or other forces return, the insurgent threat and presence remain. Given the time it takes to weaken their adversaries to the point of collapse, or to tip the balance of forces and translate resources into meaningful capabilities, insurgencies are almost always prolonged in nature.
Civil War
Civil wars differ from other forms of irregular warfare in that they occupy a space between the boundary of conventional and irregular warfare. Within civil wars the struggle is between competing and roughly matched factions within a territory for a control, recognition and legitimacy to govern a state. What makes these wars difficult to categorise is their wildly varying causes, scope and scale. The key distinguishing aspect of civil wars is geographic in nature; such wars exist within identifiable territories between two or more factions that may or may not employ civilian militias, paramilitaries or unorthodox tactics.
Historicizing Irregular Warfare (19th & 20th centuries)
I addition to significance advances in term of lethality of military weapons, the 19 and early 20 centuries were characterised by the race by European powers to secure overseas colonies at the expense of local populations throughout Asia and Africa. Although the sheer range of campaigns makes generalizations about them difficult, they all shared one thing in common. Nationalism, combined with feelings of divine purpose and the sense of racial or ethnic superiority, led military commanders from a number of nations to consider that they were fighting opponents who were mere ‘savages’ and therefore undeserving of courtesies and treatments due their civilised opponents. In South West Africa, for example, German general, Lothar von Trotha waged a vicious campaign over three years (1904-1907) that sought to destroy the Heraro tribe.
Occasionally, ‘savages’ inflicted significant defeats on imperial armies, as occurred during the disastrous First Afghan War (1839-1842) fought by the British, or at Little Big Horn in 1876, but defeats on this scale were a rarity. A more common scenario involved small numbers, relative to the local population, of European or American forces conducting operations against the natives and replying on a combination of discipline, firepower, pluck and superior will to turn the tide of the campaign. More often than not “savage” armies obliged them by making mass charges against Western forces armed with rifles, artillery and, in some cases, machine guns.
Perhaps the defining incident of this type of warfare was a battle near the town of Omdurman in Sudan on 2 September 1989. British forces and auxiliaries under the command of Sir Herbert Kichener, numbering no more that 25.000, were confronted by an Ansar, or dervish, army of some 50.000 men. The Ansar army believed that their spiritual leader, Abdullah al Taashi, was the Mahdi or imam prophesised to return and restore justice and greatness according to the Shi’ite interpretation of Islam. The results of the battle confirmed that religious zeal and courage. Combined with primitive weapons and tactics, were no match for modern firepower in a set-piece battle. Almost half of the Ansar army was killed or wounded, while the British and their auxiliaries suffered just over 400 casualties.
The Second Boer War (1899-1902), in common with other irregular wars, contained numerous different forms of war in different phases. The pretext for war was a failed coup d’état in 1895 backed by British immigrants and mine owners, including the prime minister of the Cape Colony, Cecil Rhodes. The goal of the failed coup was the overthrow of the Boer governor in the Transvaal. After four years of uneasy truce, during which time Boer governments in the Transvaal and the Orange Free State made preparations for war, British demands and ambitions, and the rejection of Boer concessions, led to the issuing of ultimatums. The war officially began on 11 October, 1899, with mixed results. The initial Boer offensive got bogged down with the siege of Kimberley, Mafikeng, and Ladysmith, but nevertheless the Boers to inflict significant defeats on British forces, especially during he `Black Week`(10 – 15 December, 1899) at the battles of Stormberg, and Colenso. The arrival of British reinforcements resulted in the relief of the besieged towns. Faced with the defeat of their army, Boer leaders shifted to a mobile guerrilla warfare phase. Operating in independent commandos, small numbers of Boer farmers used horses for mobility and relied on accurate fire using the latest magazine-fed Mauzer rifles to conduct hit-and-run raids against isolated British detachments. The British, eventually, managed to defeat the Boers. This conflict is remembered for another reason as well. The Second Boer War was one of the first irregular wars that featured the prominent impact of timely media reporting and battlefield photography. The reporting on aspects of war related to moral issues, augmented by photographs of dead British soldiers and emaciated Boer civilians, left the British public shocked and outraged at how the war had been handled.
Boer War:
The Boer War lasted from October 12, 1899, to May 31, 1902. The conflict was between Great Britain and the settlers of Dutch descent, known as Boers or Afrikaners, in South Africa. British forces won important battles but faced guerrilla resistance from the Boers. The British prevailed with severe tactics and the Boer regions of South Africa became part of the British Empire under the Treaty of Vereeniging in 1902.
The close of the 19th century until the start of the First World War saw a number of developments in the field of irregular warfare but little in the way if theory or doctrine development. Having quickly and decisively defeated Spanish forces in Cuba and the Philippines for the ostensible reasons of freeing the local population from Spanish oppression, the United States found itself engaged in struggles against local insurgents in the Philippines instead. Led by Emilio Aguinaldo, the Philippine insurgents fought a guerrilla campaign with the goal of prolonging the conflict long enough to influence the peace lobby in the United States. Instead of achieving this goal, guerrilla tactics led to the deployment of more troops and the adoption by the U.S. forces of harsh tactics and policies very similar to those adopted by the British in South Africa during the Boer War. The U. S. declared the war over with the capture of Philippine General Miguel Malvar in 1902. As in Greta Britain, the harsh conduct of military forces against the civilian population, including charges of wartime atrocities, was reported in the press. Such reports led Congress to form the Lodge Committee in January 1902 to investigate the charges although little came of the proceedings. Throughout Europe, the socialist revolutionary movement saw numerous debates, disagreements and schisms between rival claimants over when to take action, the form that action should take and who should be allowed to join each specific national democrat political party. The more radical elements, dubbed anarchists, believed in `propaganda by the deed` against the state and its supporting elements. Although some of the tactics used by such groups in Great Britain, France and Russia were already well established, such as kidnapping and assassination, anarchists were among the first to conduct bombings using stable, high-yield explosive for their attacks. The successful assassination of Russian Tsar Alexander in 1881 by Russian anarchists prompted other groups to imitate their success, a pattern that would be repeated among various Marxist-Leninist groups throughout the 20th century.