Understanding Proto-Insurgencies

Abstract

Why do some small terrorist and guerrilla groups succeed in becoming full-blown insurgencies while many others fail? Proto-insurgencies face many difficulties in creating an insurgent movement: they must create a politically salient identity, harness a compelling cause, create an effective sanctuary, and defeat both violent and peaceful organizational rivals, all while evading the police and security services of the much more powerful state. Outside support is a mixed blessing for proto-insurgents. Often, the ultimate success of the proto-insurgency in becoming a full-blown insurgency depends on the mistakes of the government it opposes.

Key Words:

• Terrorism
• Insurgency
• Guerrilla

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Peter Chalk, Brian Jenkins, David Gompert, John Gordon, Seth Jones, Martin Libicki, William Rosenau, Jeremy Shapiro, Lesley Warner, and Sarah Yerkes for their comments on previous versions of this work.

Notes

¹J. Bowyer Bell, ‘The Armed Struggle and Underground Intelligence: An Overview’, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 17 (1994), 115.

²Bell, ‘The Armed Struggle and Underground Intelligence’, 115.

³Bruce Hoffman, ‘The Modern Terrorist Mindset’, in Russell D. Howard and Reid L. Sawyer (eds.), Terrorism and Counterterrorism: Understanding the New Security Environment (Gilford, CT: McGraw-Hill 2002), 84.

⁴Bruce Hoffman, ‘Insurgency and Counterinsurgency in Iraq’, RAND Occasional Paper (June 2004) 2–4. This failure was particularly pronounced on the policy side, but much of the senior military leadership was blind to the possibility of, and then the emergence of, and full-blown insurgency (see Thomas Ricks, Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq (New York: Penguin Press 2006).

⁵‘Iraqi Insurgency could last 12 years’, Rumsfeld warns. CBC News, 26 June 2005. Available at <www.cbc.ca/world/story/2005/06/26/rumsfeld-iraq050626.html>.

⁶This article draws heavily on my longer work on the subject; Daniel Byman, Understanding Proto-Insurgencies (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2007).

⁷David Kilcullen, ‘Countering Global Insurgency’, Journal of Strategic Studies 28 (2005), 597–617; Anonymous, Through Our Enemies’ Eyes: Osama Bin Laden, Radical Islam and the Future of America (Washington DC: Brassey's 2003), xviii. The author of this source, revealed after its publication to be Michael Scheuer, contends that bin Laden is promoting (and at times directing) a ‘worldwide, religiously inspired, and professionally guided Islamist insurgency.’ Much of Al-Qa'eda's activities are also designed to establish new or bolster existing insurgencies by providing them with money, supplies, inspiration, and training.

⁸The pamphlet was published in the 1980s. This definition is more comprehensive than others, but they too emphasize the importance of guerrilla warfare. Fearon and Laitin see insurgency as involving ‘small, lightly armed bands practicing guerrilla warfare from rural base areas.’ James Fearon and David D. Laitin, ‘Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War’, American Political Science Review 97/1 (Feb. 2003), 75–90.

⁹Central Intelligence Agency, Guide to the Analysis of Insurgency (Washington, DC nd), 2.

¹⁰Hoffman notes that terrorism is ‘designed to have far-reaching psychological repercussions beyond the immediate victim or target’, Bruce Hoffman, Inside Terrorism (New York: Columbia UP 2006), 40.

¹¹Conceptually, a proto-insurgency is what exists before Mao's ‘Phase I’: the strategic defensive. The ‘party’ that Mao and others sought to expand is largely nonexistent for proto-insurgencies, and they cannot spare the cadre to infiltrate into other social movements. See Ian F. W. Beckett, Modern Insurgencies and Counter-Insurgencies: Guerrillas and Their Opponents Since 1750 (New York: Routledge 2003), 73–5 for a discussion of Mao's views.

¹²Hoffman, Inside Terrorism, 43.

¹³David Galula, Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice (New York: Praeger 1964, reprinted in 2005), 22.

¹⁴For valuable accounts of the collapse of Lebanon into civil war, see Dilip Hiro, Lebanon: Fire and Embers (New York: St. Martin's Press 1992) and Michael Hudson, ‘The Breakdown of Democracy in Lebanon’, Journal of International Affairs 38/2 (Winter 1985), 277–82. The best account of the role of the Palestinians can be found in Rex Brynen, Sanctuary and Survival: The PLO in Lebanon (Boulder, CO: Westview 1990). The steady politicization of the Shia is described in Augustus Richard Norton, Amal and the Shia (Austin: Univ. of Texas Press 1987).

¹⁵Fouad Ajami, The Vanished Imam (Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP 1986), 200; Hala Jaber, Hezbollah: Born with a Vengeance (New York: Columbia UP 1997), 14.

¹⁶Magnus Ranstorp, Hizb'allah in Lebanon: The Politics of the Western Hostage Crisis (New York: St. Martin's Press 1997); Shimon Shapira, ‘The Origins of Hizballah’, Jerusalem Quarterly 46 (Spring 1988), 124; Carl Anthony Wege, ‘Hizbollah Organization’, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 17/2 (1994), 154; Sami G. Hajjar, ‘Hizballah: Terrorism, National Liberation, or Menace?’ Strategic Studies Institute (Aug. 2002), 6–9.

¹⁷Jaber, Hezbollah, 16–27. Many of the early attacks were carried out by south Lebanese affiliates of Amal, but over time these affiliates either joined or were overshadowed by Hizballah. See Ian Black and Benny Morris, Israel's Secret Wars (New York: Grove Press 1991), 451.

¹⁸Hizballah has admitted that these organizations are not separate entities (Ranstorp, Hizb'allah in Lebanon, 53. (See also A. Nizar Hamzeh, ‘Islamism in Lebanon: A Guide’, Middle East Review of International Affairs 1/3 (Spring 1997). Other experts report that Hizballah had 5,000 fighters and 5,000 more reservists by the end of the 1980s (Wege, ‘Hizbollah Organization’, 155).

¹⁹Jaber, Hezbollah, 37–42; David Eshel, ‘Counterguerrilla Warfare in South Lebanon’, Marine Corps Gazette 81/7 (July 1997), 40–5.

²⁰For a review of Israeli methods, see Daniel Byman, ‘Israel and the Lebanese Hizballah’ in Robert J. Art and Louise Richardson (eds.), Democracy and Counterterrorism: Lessons from the Past (Washington DC: USIP Press 2007), 305–42.

²¹Black and Morris, Israel's Secret Wars, 395–7.

²²Human Rights Watch, Civilian Pawns: Laws of War Violations and the Use of Weapons on the Israel-Lebanon Border (New York: Human Rights Watch 1996), 22. The recent Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon weakens Damascus’ political position considerably. Even though its intelligence remains superb, its on-the-ground presence is diminished, and it now relies more on Hizballah to represent its interests than it did in the past, increasing the movement's leverage. See Emile el-Hokayyem, ‘Hizballah and Syria: Outgrowing the Proxy Relationship’, Washington Quarterly 30/2 (Spring 2007), 35–52.

²³Shapira, ‘The Origins of Hizballah’, 123. for a broader overview, see Augustus Richard Norton, Hezbollah (Princeton UP 2007).

²⁴An important distinction between EIJ and the IG is in their attitudes toward popular revolution. EIJ's strategy was to have a small vanguard of militants that would mount a coup and, from the top, Islamicize society. The IG, in contrast, believed more in da'wa (proselytizing and education) as a way of creating a more Islamic society and from there creating an Islamic state (see International Crisis Group, Middle East/North Africa Briefing 13, ‘Islamism in North Africa II: Egypt's Opportunity’ (20 April 2004), 6.

²⁵Fouad Ajami, The Dream Palace of the Arabs (New York: Pantheon Books 1998), 200–4; Gilles Kepel, Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press 2002), 275–89.

²⁶Kepel, Jihad, 276.

²⁷Geneive Abdo, No God but God: Egypt and the Triumph of Islam (New York: OUP 2000), 4–6.

²⁸Abdo, No God but God, 14.

²⁹Kepel, Jihad, 289.

³⁰Abdo, No God but God, 14–22, 78; International Crisis Group, ‘Islamism in North Africa II’, 13.

³¹International Crisis Group, ‘Islamism in North Africa II: Egypt's Opportunity’, 1.

³²As quoted in Andrew Higgins, and Alan Cullison, ‘Terrorist's Odyssey’, Wall Street Journal (2 July 2002), A1.

³³Lawrence Wright, The Looming Tower (New York: Knopf 2006).

³⁴Imad Mugniyeh, who later became Hizballah's chief terrorist operative, began his career as a Fatah operative (Jaber, Hezbollah, 115).

³⁵Daniel Byman, ‘The Logic of Ethnic Terrorism’, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 21/2 (Spring 1998), 154–5.

³⁶James Fearon and David D. Laitin, ‘Explaining Interethnic Cooperation’, American Political Science Review 90/4 (1996), 715–35.

³⁷Fearon and Laitin, ‘Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War’, 75–8.

³⁸Ibid. See also Paul Collier, Anke Hoeffler, and Nicholas Sambanis, ‘The Collier-Hoeffler Model of Civil War Onset and the Case Study Project Research Design’, in Paul Collier and Nicholas Sambanis, (eds.), Understanding Civil War Volume II: Europe, Central Asia, and Other Regions (Washington DC: The World Bank 2005).

³⁹See in particular Paul Collier, ‘Rebellion as a Quasi-Criminal Activity’, Journal of Conflict Resolution 44 (2000), 839–53 and Paul Collier and Anke Hoeffler, ‘Greed and Grievance in Civil War’, Oxford Economic Papers 56 (2004).

⁴⁰Collier, Hoeffler, and Sambanis, ‘The Collier-Hoeffler Model of Civil War Onset and the Case Study Project Research Design’, 7–20.

⁴¹Eric Wolf, Peasant Wars of the Twentieth Century (New York: Harper & Row 1969).

⁴²Hoffman, Inside Terrorism, 43.

⁴³Many claim that at least some of this slaughter was carried out by the government of Algeria (see Mohammad Samraoui, Chronique des années de Sang (Paris: Denoel, 2003). I would like to thank Jeremy Shapiro for bringing this to my attention.

⁴⁴Galula, Counterinsurgency Warfare, 20–2.

⁴⁵ The literature on nationalism is vast. For a sample, see Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso 1983); Liah Greenfeld Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP 2003); Walker Connor, Ethnonationalism: The Quest for Understanding (Princeton UP 1994); and Stephen Van Evera, ‘Hypotheses on Nationalism and War’, International Security 18/4 (Spring 1994), 5–39.

⁴⁶Graham Fuller, The Future of Political Islam (New York: Palgrave Macmillan 2004), 126.

⁴⁷Fearon and Laitin, ‘Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War’, 75–90.

⁴⁸For an argument on the importance of such stress, see Hoffman, ‘The Modern Terrorist Mindset’, 88.

⁴⁹Fearon and Laitin, ‘Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War’, 75–90.

⁵⁰At times, neighboring states provide insurgents or terrorists with a haven simply because they are unable or incapable of ousting the rebels themselves. The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) has enjoyed a de facto haven in the Ferghana Valley, where the borders of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan meet, because none of these regimes can police this area well.

⁵¹For more on the link between fundraising techniques and the use of violence, see Jeremy W. Weinstein, Inside Rebellion: The Politics of Insurgent Violence (Cambridge: CUP 2007).

⁵²Bruce Hoffman, ‘Rethinking Terrorism and Counterterrorism Since 9/11’, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 25/5 (2002), 311.

⁵³Barry Rubin, Revolution Until Victory? The Politics and History of the PLO (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP 1994), 128.

⁵⁴Wilfried Buchta, Who Rules Iran? (Washington DC: Washington Institute for Near East Policy 2000), 116.

⁵⁵Barry Rubin, Revolution Until Victory? The Politics and History of the PLO (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP 1994), 124.

⁵⁶An excellent review of divisions within the religious communities in Saudi Arabia can be found in International Crisis Group, Middle East Report 31, ‘Saudi Arabia Backgrounder: Who Are the Islamists?’ (21 Sept. 2005).

⁵⁷Ian Lustick, ‘Stability in Deeply Divided Societies: Consociationalism Versus Control’, World Politics 31/3 (April 1979), 325–44; Ian Lustick, Arabs in the Jewish State: Israel's Control of a National Minority (Austin: Univ. of Texas Press 1980). For an excellent discussion of the use of violence during a civil war (for this article's purposes, after a proto-insurgency becomes an insurgency) see Stathis N. Kalyvas, The Logic of Violence in Civil War (New York: Cambridge UP 2006).

⁵⁸J. Bowyer Bell, The Secret Army: The IRA (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction 2003), 375–81.

⁵⁹The International Crisis Group points out that salafis in general are highly skeptical of the legitimacy of rebellion against a Muslim government, even if the government does not follow salafi teachings: ‘Most salafists, if forced to choose between the Saudi government and Osama bin Laden, would choose the former’ (International Crisis Group, Asia Report 83, ‘Indonesia Backgrounder: Why Salafism and Terrorism Mostly Don't Mix’ (13 Sept. 2004).

⁶⁰Also, their violence often reflects a lack of grassroots support or organization. Kepel, Jihad, 320.

⁶¹Gordon H. McCormick and Guillermo Owen, ‘Security and Coordination in a Clandestine Organization’, Mathematical and Computer Modeling 31/6 (March 2000), 176.

⁶²For more on this change, see Hoffman Inside Terrorism, 197–228.

⁶³McCormick, ‘Terrorist Decision Making’, 490.

⁶⁴This recommendation derives from Fearon, and Laitin, ‘Explaining Interethnic Cooperation’, 715–35.

⁶⁵International Crisis Group, Middle East Report 49, ‘Enter Hamas: The Challenge of Political Integration’ (18 Jan. 2006).

⁶⁶Galula, Counterinsurgency Warfare, 31.

⁶⁷Galula, Counterinsurgency Warfare, 31.

⁶⁸William Rosenau, ‘The Kennedy Administration, US Foreign Internal Security Assistance and the Challenge of “Subterranean War”’, Small Wars and Insurgencies 14/3 (Autumn 2003), 65–99.

⁶⁹The United States has trained the constabulary in the Philippines and various forces in Vietnam (with mixed success). In general, however, these programs have not been robust or sustained.