Counter Insurgency Warfare Theory And Practice
prerequisites for a successful insurgency
* group of leaders who proceeded to organize insurgencies
Galula' Prerequisites:
* Cause
* Geography
* Outside Support
the insurgent's cause
* should be sound enough that the COIN can not adopt it
* should be long term not easily achievable through minor concessions
* cause distinguishes insurgents from criminals
* provides something the population can rally behind
* strategic criteria of a cause
* a cause contains muliple interests that must be appeased
* different groups will prioritize parts of an insurgent platform differently
* effort must be made on all aspects of the platform to achieve popular support
* nothing obliges the insurgency to maintain the same cause - cause depends on whatever is popular and politically expedient
what makes a body politic resistant to insurgents
strengths
* absence of problems
* national consensus
* resolute leadership
* 4 elements of population control: government structure, military, police, and administrative bureaucracy
Communist Population control
* no privacy
* parents afraid to talk to children
* every unusual move is reported
* contact cannot be made
* ideas cannot be spread
* recruitment is impossible
however
* terrorism only requires concerted action by one individual
* but terrorism is far less valuable than the publicity it garners
* thus is you don't publicize it, it is ineffectual
* there are a wide array of political structure between this extreme
diminishing importance of the cause
* as insurgent gain strength the war becomes the main priority
* citizens are preoccupied with taking sides
weakness of the counterinsurgent
* since insurgency has a bottom up structure a political vacumn strengthens their position
* exploitation of crisis
The Border Doctrine
geographical conditions
* location mountains and deserts, oh my!
* size the size, disciplines and moral of the military
* configuration the more diverse the groups the more difficult to control
* international borders the longer the borders the more difficult to control
* terrain the more land the more difficult it is to control
* climate the more inhabitants the more difficult it is to control
* population
* economy
Outside Support
* moral
* poliical
* technical
* financial
* military
communist insurgents vs. colonial insurgents
communist insurgents
* working class
summary
the conditions for a successful insurgency
* cause
* police and administrative weakness in the COIN camp
* not to hostile geogrpahical environment
* outside support
* in he middle and late stages of an insurgency
