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| Terror Networks | ||
| Things Fall Apart: the endgame dynamics of internal wars | ||
| 2007-11-01 | ||
| A long paper on the different rates at which states win or lose against insurgencies, and vice versa. Horton is an Army COL who teaches at West Point. McCormick heads the department of Defense Analysis at the Naval Postgraduate School and Harrison is with the Center on Terrorism and Irregular Warfare there. While the last part of the paper is mathematical, the first part is of broader interest. An excerpt: There have been almost 300 internal wars initiated since 1945. At this writing 250 of these have come and gone. The human and material costs of these conflicts have been incalculable, much greater than the combined costs of the inter-state wars fought over the same period. Despite the cost and frequency of internal wars, however, we still do not have a close understanding of how they are resolved. What research has been conducted on this subject has focused almost exclusively on the subject of negotiated outcomes. Very little attention, by contrast, has addressed the complementary question of how organized internal conflicts end in the absence of a meaningful negotiated settlement, which is to say, how they are concluded on the battlefield. More than 80% of these wars, it turns out, were resolved by force. This stands in contrast to inter-state conflicts since 1945 which, according to one recent estimate, have had a better than 50% chance of ending in a negotiated compromise....
The result, as illustrated in Figure 1A, is a parabolic trajectory of decay that approaches and crosses the stateÂ’s breakpoint at a fairly high angle of attack. The end, in such cases, is typically decisive, sudden and often violent. Examples include the defeat and downfall of the Nationalist government in China (1949), the collapse of the Batista regime in Cuba (1959), the collapse of the Lon Nol regime in Cambodia (1975), the end of the Somoza government in Nicaragua (1979), the collapse of the Mengistu regime in Ethiopia (1991), and the downfall of the Siad Barre regime in Somalia (1991). Even when, in retrospect, it may be easy to see that the conflict was drawing to a rapid end, many witnesses to the event at the time did not see the point of collapse coming until it was upon them.
The result, as illustrated in Figure 1B, is an asymptotic trajectory of decline that crosses the insurgents breakpoint at a low angle of attack. The size and associated operational tempo of the insurgency continues to deteriorate at a declining rate until the group finally reaches the point that it can no longer pose an organized military challenge. Because most insurgencies fail, examples of these endgames are quite numerous, ranging from such well known cases as the Hukbalahop in the Philippines (1954), the so-called Mau Mau insurgency in British Kenya (1956), the Malaya National Liberation Army (1960), the Tupamaros in Uruguay (1972), the Polasario Front in Morocco (1989), and the Shining Path in Peru (1993), to such obscure cases as the North Kalimantan Liberation Army in Brunei (1962), and the Eritrean Islamic Jihad Movement in Ethiopia (2003). The end, in such cases, is almost always indecisive, in the sense that there is seldom a climactic engagement that marks the terminal point of the insurgency. The insurgency that comes in like a lion, as the saying goes, may go out like a lamb. Indeed, by the time the end comes, many observers will have assumed it has already come and gone. The different way in which states and insurgencies fall apart is due to the basic information asymmetry that characterizes insurgent-counterinsurgent conflicts .... | ||
| Posted by:lotp |
| #6 Just for the record, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front has been around a LOT longer than the "Mothers..." video series. |
| Posted by: Scooter McGruder 2007-11-01 17:04 |
| #5 So: of the clear insurgency defeats, 74% of the time that came about by open military defeat. Only 26% of the time did it come about by "negotiations". |
| Posted by: lotp 2007-11-01 16:47 |
| #4 What is of interest is what portion of the time when the insurgents LOSE is it military, versus political. I presume the answer is somewhere in the article. Yes, it is. A germane quote: d: A state loss is recorded when an insurgent group defeats or displaces the state. e: An insurgent loss is recorded when an insurgent group is defeated or displaced by the state, i.e., it is no longer an effective fighting force. This is said to occur when the conflict it is engaged in falls below the 25 battle-death threshold. f: A nominal settlement (state loss) is recorded when the insurgent group defeats or displaces the state (or occupier), assumes control of the government, and this win is codified in "negotiations" with the state. In this case, the insurgent group has won by force. Negotiations are a formality that do not result in a meaningful compromise between the political objectives of the state and the insurgency. g: A nominal settlement (insurgent loss) is recorded when the regime defeats or displaces the insurgent group, retains control of the state, and this win is codified in "negotiations" with the insurgent group. In this case, the state has won by force. h: A real negotiated settlement is recorded when both the insurgent group and the state negotiate a meaningful compromise to end the conflict, despite competing objectives. In the data they examine, insurgents lost openly (militarily) 44.44% of the time vs. open state losses 7.67% of the time. Nominal settlements that were really insurgent losses occurred 11.54% of the time vs. nominal settlements that were state losses 6.84% of the time. True negotiated settlements occurred in only 20.09% of the conflicts. |
| Posted by: lotp 2007-11-01 16:39 |
| #3 I understand why the poster considers the key result (80% resolved by military means) to be timely, and presumably controversial, and germain to the approach of this site. It would seem to stand in contrast to the conventional wisdom that states that insurgencies are only resolved by political settlement, and in particular that there is "no military solution in Iraq". While I agree that the conventional wisdom is typically stated with no empirical evidence, Im not sure how compelling the implied takeaway from this paper is. Here are my concerns, questions, etc. 1. The conflicts in questions included BOTH ones where the insurgents won, and where they lost. The 80% appears to apply to the total. Surely the fact that insurgents often win through purely military means is of no particular help, and little interest, to the formulation of US (or Israeli, or Russian, etc) policy. What is of interest is what portion of the time when the insurgents LOSE is it military, versus political. I presume the answer is somewhere in the article. 2. My own personal gripe against the "theres no military solution" school is that it assumes a binary - a solution is EITHER political OR military. The Kagan-Kristol strategy for Iraq, and, IIUC, much USMC small wars doctrine, is based on the need for intergrated political and military strategies. It seems from the quoted section that the author accepts the binary distinction, though obviously going in a different direction with it. 3. At least with regard to the case of Iraq, it seems to me that a desirable outcome for the US can only be achieved by a combination of political and military means. While it is quite possible that a Shiite-Kurdish govt could (eventually) completely militarily defeat the Sunni insurgency, that outcome would be on the whole negative for the US for the following reasons A. The resulting state, largely dominated by uncompromising Shiites (including many Shiite fundamentalists) would likely be friendly to Iran b. It would be a poor democratic model (or any other sort of model) for the region c. It would be an embarassment to the US hearts and minds effort in the Sunni world D. It would take too long to accomplish By contrast, an outcome that involves substantial compromise with large portions of the Sunni Arab community (which does not, IMO,exclude an important military component of strategy)would be much more beneficial to the US in the larger WOT. Whether that latter outcome is still possible, I cannot say. |
| Posted by: Liberalhawk 2007-11-01 16:03 |
| #2 ;-) |
| Posted by: lotp 2007-11-01 15:30 |
| #1 such well known cases as the Hukbalahop in the Philippines (1954), the so-called Mau Mau insurgency in British Kenya (1956), the Malaya National Liberation Army (1960), the Tupamaros in Uruguay (1972), the Polasario Front in Morocco (1989), and the Shining Path in Peru (1993), to such obscure cases as the North Kalimantan Liberation Army in Brunei (1962), and the Eritrean Islamic Jihad Movement in Ethiopia (2003) And for gawd sake, let the record show to get a better acronym than MILF. I don't want historians a hundred years from now trying to figure it all out. The civilization could do without some grad student doing a paper at the Al Gore International University on why a squalid guerrilla war in the Philippines that was conducted upon the behest of older ladies. That's a fight conducted elsewhere. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2007-11-01 15:27 |