Andrew J. Enterline and Joseph Magagnoli: Counterinsurgency Wars do succeed
The United States and its NATO allies cultivated a democratic regime in postwar Afghanistan, and of this writing (August 27, 2009) are presently engaged in defending this regime against Taliban and Al-Quaeda insurgents. We reason that the American- led military effort in contemporary Afghanistan reflects a specific, but generalizable class of insurgencies in which a foreign power seeks to establish and defend the central authority in a political unit against an insurgency. This general class of events manifests itself in the historical record in two forms: (1) insurgencies within sovereign states; and (2) insurgencies within colonial territories. We discuss each manifestation in turn.
In terms of insurgencies occurring within sovereign states, foreign powers seek to (a) defend a regime installed by the foreign power against an insurgency, or (b) is invited by a central government to assist in the central government’s quest to defeat an insurgency. In terms of insurgencies within colonial territories, a foreign power, often referred to as a metropole, seeks to establish and maintain its centralized administration and in doing so is confronted by an anti-colonial insurgency. Thus, in general we remain uninterested in insurgencies that occur within a sovereign state and are in turn fought by a central government without the significant involvement by a foreign power (e.g., the Peruvian counterinsurgency against the Shining Path group during the 1980s and 90s.)
The American-led fight against anti-government insurgents in Afghanistan reflects an important quality with respect to the foreign power’s mode of intervention: Foreign powers commit significant military forces in the fight against the insurgents and engage in combat operations. While it is sometimes difficult to differentiate intervention by foreign powers that are advisory from those in which the military forces of the foreign power are overtly engaged in fighting the insurgents (an issue that we take up at greater length below), we are are not interested in cases of foreign power intervention that are either purely diplomatic or financial in nature, as we are most interested in matching the general character of the American-led intervention in contemporary Afghanistan.
One final issue concerns the identification of insurgencies. In general insurgencies reflect the presence of conflict-capable groups that are willing, or do, employ forces against a central authority. Therefore, insurgencies are qualitatively different from instances of “uprisings,” “rebellions,” and “mass unrest.” That said, as with our identification of insurgencies fought by foreign powers and the distinction between overt military versus advisory intervention, we employ an inclusive coding procedure when toeing the sometimes nebulous line separating insurgencies from other classes of intra- state conflict, due to the fact that uprisings and rebellions can evolve into insurgencies. Indeed, it is arguably the case that the strategy that foreign powers employ against uprisings and rebellions can serve as a selection mechanism that in turn conditions the set of insurgencies that are subsequently observable in the historical record. As such, a focus solely on insurgencies that achieved “maturity” might mask the role of strategy in moderating conflict before the insurgency phase. We plan to investigate this process of insurgency formation at a later date, but herein we seek to include those cases of uprising, for example, that are near-insurgencies.
Guided by these two criteria of insurgencies fought by foreign powers and overt military intervention, we identified a sample of 66 insurgencies fought by foreign powers during the twentieth-century. These cases are reported in Table 1. The sample of cases are evenly distributed across the century, with 33, or 50%, of the sample commencing pre-1946, and the remainder thereafter....
Here, we set aside the broader political goals and related success of foreign powers’ interventions abroad, focusing instead solely on foreign powers’ achievement of military success against insurgents. This decision is reasonable, we argue, because much of the contemporary discussion concerning Afghanistan focuses on whether the insurgents can be defeated. Relying on various histories and monographs, we determined whether a foreign power achieved military success against insurgent forces in the our sample of 66 cases, and our coding decisions regarding outcome are reported in Table 1.
In the full sample of 66 cases, 40 cases, or 60%, manifest military victory by a foreign power.
Furthermore, if we employ the conventional breakpoint of WWII, we find 24 cases, or 72%, of counterinsurgent military success in the pre-1946 period, while only 16 cases, or 48%, of counterinsurgent military success in the post-WWII sub- sample. Given this breakdown, the historical odds of success by foreign powers against insurgents witnessed a marked decline after WWII. The trend of decreasing success in counterinsurgency is consistent with the trend noted by Arreguin-Toft (2001) and Lyall and Wilson (2009)....
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In terms of insurgencies occurring within sovereign states, foreign powers seek to (a) defend a regime installed by the foreign power against an insurgency, or (b) is invited by a central government to assist in the central government’s quest to defeat an insurgency. In terms of insurgencies within colonial territories, a foreign power, often referred to as a metropole, seeks to establish and maintain its centralized administration and in doing so is confronted by an anti-colonial insurgency. Thus, in general we remain uninterested in insurgencies that occur within a sovereign state and are in turn fought by a central government without the significant involvement by a foreign power (e.g., the Peruvian counterinsurgency against the Shining Path group during the 1980s and 90s.)
The American-led fight against anti-government insurgents in Afghanistan reflects an important quality with respect to the foreign power’s mode of intervention: Foreign powers commit significant military forces in the fight against the insurgents and engage in combat operations. While it is sometimes difficult to differentiate intervention by foreign powers that are advisory from those in which the military forces of the foreign power are overtly engaged in fighting the insurgents (an issue that we take up at greater length below), we are are not interested in cases of foreign power intervention that are either purely diplomatic or financial in nature, as we are most interested in matching the general character of the American-led intervention in contemporary Afghanistan.
One final issue concerns the identification of insurgencies. In general insurgencies reflect the presence of conflict-capable groups that are willing, or do, employ forces against a central authority. Therefore, insurgencies are qualitatively different from instances of “uprisings,” “rebellions,” and “mass unrest.” That said, as with our identification of insurgencies fought by foreign powers and the distinction between overt military versus advisory intervention, we employ an inclusive coding procedure when toeing the sometimes nebulous line separating insurgencies from other classes of intra- state conflict, due to the fact that uprisings and rebellions can evolve into insurgencies. Indeed, it is arguably the case that the strategy that foreign powers employ against uprisings and rebellions can serve as a selection mechanism that in turn conditions the set of insurgencies that are subsequently observable in the historical record. As such, a focus solely on insurgencies that achieved “maturity” might mask the role of strategy in moderating conflict before the insurgency phase. We plan to investigate this process of insurgency formation at a later date, but herein we seek to include those cases of uprising, for example, that are near-insurgencies.
Guided by these two criteria of insurgencies fought by foreign powers and overt military intervention, we identified a sample of 66 insurgencies fought by foreign powers during the twentieth-century. These cases are reported in Table 1. The sample of cases are evenly distributed across the century, with 33, or 50%, of the sample commencing pre-1946, and the remainder thereafter....
Here, we set aside the broader political goals and related success of foreign powers’ interventions abroad, focusing instead solely on foreign powers’ achievement of military success against insurgents. This decision is reasonable, we argue, because much of the contemporary discussion concerning Afghanistan focuses on whether the insurgents can be defeated. Relying on various histories and monographs, we determined whether a foreign power achieved military success against insurgent forces in the our sample of 66 cases, and our coding decisions regarding outcome are reported in Table 1.
In the full sample of 66 cases, 40 cases, or 60%, manifest military victory by a foreign power.
Furthermore, if we employ the conventional breakpoint of WWII, we find 24 cases, or 72%, of counterinsurgent military success in the pre-1946 period, while only 16 cases, or 48%, of counterinsurgent military success in the post-WWII sub- sample. Given this breakdown, the historical odds of success by foreign powers against insurgents witnessed a marked decline after WWII. The trend of decreasing success in counterinsurgency is consistent with the trend noted by Arreguin-Toft (2001) and Lyall and Wilson (2009)....