Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

The Future of Insurgency

2012; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 36; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/1057610x.2013.739077

1521-0731

Seth G. Jones, Patrick B. Johnston,

Crime, Illicit Activities, and Governance

Abstract What are key historical trends in insurgencies? And what do these finding suggest about the future of insurgency? We examine four aspects: causes of insurgency, outside support, strategies, and tactics. Based on an examination of quantitative and qualitative data, we make several arguments about the future. China could become increasingly involved in supporting insurgencies and counterinsurgencies if its economic and military power continues to increase and its global interest expands. In addition, insurgent groups will likely require less time to achieve high levels of sophistication for improvised explosive devices and other asymmetric tactics, which we expect they will use against more powerful mechanized counterinsurgent forces. We also expect that insurgent groups may take advantage of commercially-available technology to communicate, distribute propaganda, and recruit individuals. In addition, insurgents will likely make further use of encryption, anonymizing services, location-masking tools, and other related technologies to protect their online activities. Notes 1. U.S. Department of Defense, Report on Progress and Stability in Afghanistan (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Defense, October 2011). 2. Amy Belasco, The Cost of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Other Global War on Terror Operations Since 9/11 (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, March 29, 2011). 3. Author interviews with senior military officials, International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), Kabul, Afghanistan, January 2012. 4. Andrew Mack, “Why Big Nations Lose Small Wars: The Politics of Asymmetric Conflict,” World Politics 27(2) (January 1975), pp. 175–200; Gil Merom, How Democracies Lose Small Wars (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003). 5. Central Intelligence Agency, Guide to the Analysis of Insurgency (Washington, DC: Central Intelligence Agency, 2012). 6. Jason Lyall and Isaiah Wilson III, “Rage Against the Machines: Explaining Outcomes in Counterinsurgency Wars,” International Organization 63 (Winter 2009), pp. 67–106. On the end of insurgencies also see Ben Connable and Martin C. Libicki, How Insurgencies End (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2010). 7. On a global counterinsurgency strategy, see John Mackinlay, The Insurgent Archipelago (London: Hurst, 2009); Richard H. Schultz, Global Insurgency Strategy and the Salafi Jihad Movement, INSS Occasional Paper 66 (USAF Academy, Colorado: USAF Institute for National Security Studies, April 2008). Also see Thomas X. Hammes, The Sling and the Stone: On War in the 21st Century (St. Paul, MN: Zenith Press, 2004); T. X. Hammes, “Fourth Generation Warfare Evolves, Fifth Emerges,” Military Review (May–June 2007), pp. 14–23. 8. This perspective is based on what leading economists have labeled the “Machiavelli Theorem”—that no profitable opportunity for violence would go unused. Jack Hirshleifer, The Dark Side of the Force: Economic Foundations of Conflict Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001). For its application to civil conflict, see Paul Collier, “Rebellion as a Quasi-Criminal Activity,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 44(6) (December 2000), pp. 839–853; and Paul Collier, Anke Hoeffler, and Dominic Rohner, “Beyond Greed and Grievance: Feasibility and Civil War,” Oxford Economic Papers 61(1) (January 2009), pp. 3–4. 9. Herschel I. Grossman, “Kleptocracy and Revolutions,” Oxford Economic Papers 51(2) (April 1999), p. 269. See also Herschel I. Grossman, “A General Equilibrium Model of Insurrections,” American Economic Review 81(4) (September 1991), pp. 912–921; and Jack Hirschleifer, “Theorizing about Conflict,” in Keith Hartley and Todd Sandler, eds., Handbook of Defense Economics (Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1995), pp. 165–192. 10. Michael L. Ross, “A Closer Look at Oil, Diamonds, and Civil War,” Annual Review of Political Science 9 (June 2006), pp. 265–300. 11. 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: Evidence and Analysis, Vol. 2: Europe, Central Asia, and Other Regions (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2005), p. 16. 12. Philippe Le Billon, “The Political Ecology of War: Natural Resources and Armed Conflicts,” Political Geography 20(5) (May 2001), pp. 561–584. Indeed, “greed” dynamics may result in conflict through several mechanisms. Young men are thought to be more likely to take up arms when income opportunities are worse for them in agriculture or in the formal labor market, relative to their expected income as a fighter. The outbreak of conflict is also associated with slow income growth, low per capita income, natural resource dependence, low male enrollment in secondary education, and total population. Paul Collier and Anke Hoeffler, “On Economic Causes of Civil War,” Oxford Economic Papers 50(4), pp. 563–573; Collier and Hoeffler, “Greed and Grievance in Civil Wars,” Oxford Economic Papers 56(4) (October 2004), pp. 563–595. 13. Fearon and Laitin, “Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War,” p. 87. 14. Donald L. Horowitz, Ethnic Groups in Conflict (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985); Rui J.P. de Figueiredo Jr. and Barry R. Weingast, “The Rationality of Fear: Political Opportunism and Ethnic Conflict,” in Barbara F. Walter and Jack Snyder, eds., Civil Wars, Insecurity and Intervention (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999), pp. 261–302; Chaim Kaufmann, “Possible and Impossible Solutions to Ethnic Civil Wars,” International Security 20(4) (Spring 1996), pp. 136–175; and David A. Lake and Donald Rothchild, “Containing Fear: The Origins and Management of Ethnic Conflict,” International Security 21(2) (Fall 1996), pp. 41–75. 15. See, for example, Stephen M. Saideman, The Ties That Divide: Ethnic Politics, Foreign Policy, and International Conflict (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001); Stephen M. Saideman, “Explaining the International Relations of Secessionist Conflicts,” International Organization 51(4) (Autumn 1997), pp. 721–753; Tatu Vanhanen, “Domestic Ethnic Conflict and Ethnic Nepotism: A Comparative Analysis,” Journal of Peace Research 36(1) (January 1999), pp. 55–73; and Kaufmann, “Possible and Impossible Solutions to Ethnic Civil Wars.” 16. Kaufmann, “Possible and Impossible Solutions to Ethnic Civil Wars,” pp. 136–175. 17. Ibrahim Elbadawi and Nicholas Sambanis, “How Much War Will We See? Explaining the Prevalence of Civil War,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 46(3) (June 2002), p. 307. 18. Ibid. 19. Fearon and Laitin, “Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War,” pp. 75–76. 20. Ibid. The main indices are from Freedom House and from the Polity IV database. Descriptions and complete data are available, respectively, at http://www.freedomhouse.org/ and http://www.systemicpeace.org/polity/polity4.htm. Anocracies, however, are more susceptible to conflict. See James D. Fearon, “Governance and Civil War Onset,” World Development Report 2011 Background Paper, August 2010. 21. Daniel Kaufmann, Aart Kraay and Massimo Mastruzzi, “Governance Matters VIII: Aggregate and Individual Governance Indicators, 1996–2008,” World Bank Development Research Group, Policy Research Working Paper 4978, 2009. 22. Seth G. Jones, “The Rise of Afghanistan's Insurgency: State Failure and Jihad,” International Security 32(4) (Spring 2008), pp. 22–26. 23. Fearon, “Governance and Civil War Onset,” pp. 3–4. 24. Fearon and Laitin, “Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War,” pp. 75–76. 25. Ibid., pp. 75–76. In addition, Ann Hironaka has argued that governmental capacity is a significant predictor of civil wars, and between 1816 and 1997 increasingly effective bureaucratic and political systems reduced the rate of civil war activity. Weak state institutions also contribute to lengthier insurgencies and civil wars. Ann Hironaka, Neverending Wars: The International Community, Weak States, and the Perpetuation of Civil War (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2005), pp. 45–51. 26. Fearon and Laitin, “Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War,” pp. 75–76. 27. See ibid., p. 75. 28. It is worth noting that Fearon and Laitin's dataset only extends through 1999. Given the extensive multivariate country–year data required for these statistical tests, the dataset was not extended through 2012, unlike the other data sources we draw on. Doing so would be ideal, yet the 1999 cutoff significantly decreases the sample size, which, all else equal, reduces the significance level of the results relative to the full sample. Still, the GDP per capita variable is significant, and the “percentage mountainous” variable just misses statistical significance but has a similar point estimate and sign. 29. Alan Heston, Robert Summers, and Bettina Aten, “Penn World Table Version 7.0,” Center for International Comparisons of Production, Income and Prices at the University of Pennsylvania, May 2011. 30. See, for example, Barry R. Posen, The Sources of Military Doctrine: France, Britain, and Germany Between the World Wars (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1984), p. 13. 31. In addition to an effective strategy, insurgents still need to create an identity, attach this identity to a popular cause, manage relations with rivals, and find or foster a sanctuary. Byman, Understanding Proto-Insurgencies, pp. 11–20. 32. Mao Tse-Tung, On Guerrilla Warfare, trans. Samuel B. Griffith II (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2000); Ivan Arreguín-Toft, How the Weak Win Wars: A Theory of Asymmetric Conflict (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005), pp. 32–33. 33. Ibid., p. 51. Emphasis added. 34. O’Neill, Insurgency and Terrorism, p. 50. 35. Walter Lacquer, Guerrilla Warfare: A Historical and Critical Study (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1998); Arreguín-Toft, How the Weak Win Wars, pp. 30–31; Kalyvas and Balcells, “International System and Technologies of Rebellion,” p. 419. 36. Arreguín-Toft, How the Weak Win Wars, pp. 30–31. 37. O’Neill, Insurgency and Terrorism, pp. 56–57. 38. Data on insurgent strategies comes from Kalyvas and Balcells, “International System and Technologies of Rebellion.” We recode their “Irregular Warfare” category as “Guerrilla Strategy”; cases coded as “Conventional Warfare” are coded here as “Conventional Strategy”; and cases coded as “Symmetric Unconventional Warfare” were assigned to the “Other” category shown in Table 1. To extend the list through 2012, nine cases were added to the Kalyvas and Balcells database: Yemen (Houthis), Somalia (ARS/UIC), Iraq, Somalia (Al-Shabaab), Pakistan, Rwanda, Libya, Syria, Yemen (AQAP). 39. Scholars refer to this class of cases as “symmetric unconventional warfare.” Kalyvas and Balcells, “International System and Technologies of Rebellion,” pp. 415–429. 40. Ibid. 41. Arreguín-Toft, How the Weak Win Wars, pp. 30–31. 42. Lacquer, Guerrilla Warfare; Arreguín-Toft, How the Weak Win Wars, pp. 30–31; Kalyvas and Balcells, “International System and Technologies of Rebellion,” p. 419. 43. See, for example, Schultz, Global Insurgency Strategy and the Salafi Jihad Movement. 44. See, for example, Mackinlay, The Insurgent Archipelago; Mackinlay, Globalisation and Insurgency, Adelphi Paper Volume 42, No. 352 (London: International Institute of Strategic Studies, 2002). 45. Mackinlay, The Insurgent Archipelago, pp. 149–150. 46. Ibid. 47. Stephen D. Krasner, Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999); Jack L. Goldsmith and Eric Posner, The Limits of International Law (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005). 48. Ayman al-Zawahiri, “Onward, Lions of Syria,” video posted in February 2012. 49. Robert Taber, The War of the Flea (New York: L. Stuart, 1965). 50. These codings come from our main data source on insurgencies, Gleditsch, Salehyan, and Ward's Non-State Actor Database. For more information on the data, see David E. Cunningham, Kristian Skrede Gleditsch, and Idean Salehyan, “It Takes Two: A Dyadic Analysis of Civil War Duration and Outcome,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 53(4) (2009), pp. 570–597. 51. Thomas Hegghammer, “The Rise of Muslim Foreign Fighters: Islam and the Globalization of Jihad,” International Security 35(3) (Winter 2010/11), pp. 53–94. 52. Cunningham, Gleditsch, and Saleyah, “It Takes Two.” 53. Byman, Deadly Connections: States That Sponsor Terrorism (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005), pp. 53–78. 54. Ibid. 55. See, for example, National Intelligence Council, Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World (Washington, DC: Office of the Director of National Intelligence, 2008), pp. 28–39; David C. Kang, China Rising: Peace, Power, and Order in East Asia (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007); John J. Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (New York: W.W. Norton, 2001), pp. 360–402; Arvind Subramanian, “The Inevitable Superpower: Why China's Rise Is a Sure Thing,” Foreign Affairs 90(5) (September/October 2011), pp. 66–78; Gideon Rachman, “American Decline: This Time It's for Real,” Foreign Policy No. 184 (January/February 2011), pp. 59–65; Christopher Layne, “The Waning of U.S. Hegemony—Myth or Reality? A Review Essay,” International Security 34(1) (Summer 2009), pp. 147–172; Robert A. Pape, “Empire Falls,” National Interest, No. 99 (January/February 2009). 56. See, for example, Dai Bingguo, “We Must Stick to the Path of Peaceful Development,” Beijing Review, December 2010; Dai Bingguo, “China's Peaceful Development,” White Paper, September 2011. 57. See, for example, Chestnut and Johnston, “Is China Rising?”; Economist Intelligence Unit, “All Country Data Set,” 2009; Robert Fogel, “$123,000,000,000,000,” Foreign Policy, No. 177 (January/February 2010), pp. 71–75; and Jim O’Neil and Anna Stupnytska, “The Long-Term Outlook for the BRICs and N-11,” Post Crisis Global Economics Paper, No. 192 (December 2009). 58. The data is based on U.S. GDP growth of 2.7 percent a year and military spending slowing to 3 percent of GDP, and gradually slowing Chinese GDP growth with military spending of 2.1 percent of GDP. See, for example, “The Dragon's New Teeth,” Economist 403(8779) (7–13 April 2012), p. 27. 59. On great powers and insurgencies see Steven R. David, “Why the Third World Matters,” International Security 14(1) (Summer 1989), pp. 50–85; Mark P. Lagon, “The International System and the Reagan Doctrine: Can Realism Explain Aid to ‘Freedom Fighters’?” British Journal of Political Science 22(1) (January 1992), pp. 39–70; William Rosenau, “The Kennedy Administration, US Foreign Internal Security Assistance and the Challenge of ‘Subterranean War’, 1961–63,” Small Wars and Insurgencies 14(3) (Autumn 2003), pp. 65–99. 60. Daniel Byman, Peter Chalk, Bruce Hoffman, William Rosenau, and David Brannan, Trends in Outside Support for Insurgent Movements (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2001), p. 1. 61. Kerry Dumbaugh, China's Foreign Policy: What Does It Mean for U.S. Global Interests? (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, 2009), p. 7. 62. U.S. Energy Information Administration, China Country Analysis Brief (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Energy, May 2011). 63. “The Dragon's New Teeth,” Economist 403(8779), 7–13 April 2012, p. 28. 64. Samrat, “What Threatens Peace in India's Northeast?” New York Times, 15 March 2012; Anup Kaphle, “Impasse in Wake of Maoist Victory Disrupts Life in Nepal,” Washington Post, 7 July 2010. 65. James Dobbins, David C. Gompert, David A. Shlapak, and Andrew Scobell, Conflict with China: Prospects, Consequences, and Strategies for Deterrence (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2011). 66. Andrew Scobell, David Lai, and Roy Kamphausen, eds., Chinese Lessons from Other Peoples’ Wars (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army College, November 2011). 67. Du Wenlong (杜文), “无人机代真的到来了 “ (“Are We Genuinely Approaching the Age of the Unmanned Vehicle?”)兵器知(Ordnance Knowledge), Issue 5A/2010, No. 292, pp. 64–65; “PLA's UAVs achieve “combat effectiveness,”中国国防 (China Military Online) and 中国日 (China Daily), 11 June 2010, available at eng.chinamil.com.cn/news-channels/china-military-news/2010- 06/11/content_4237629.htm; “New Type China made Unmanned Plane Debuts at Ex­hibition,” China Military Online (Source: Xinhua), 10 June 2010, available at eng.chinamil.com.cn/news-channels/photo-re­ports/2010–06/10/content_4236847.htm; “百花齐放 ___ 异军突起军团中国的UAV军团” (“Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom___ a Different Army Suddenly Appears: the Chinese UAV Army Group”),坦克装甲装 (Tank and Armored Vehicle), Issue 4B1/2011, No. 330, pp. 31–35. 68. Martin I. Wayne, China's War on Terrorism: Counterinsurgency, Politics, and Internal Security (New York: Routledge, 2008). 69. See, for example, “Chinese, Indian Officers Training in Nepal in Jungle Warfare,” BBC, 24 January 2001; “First Ever India, China Military Exercise from 20 December,” BBC, 20 December 2007. 70. On China's military developments see, for example, People's Republic of China, China's National Defense in 2010 (Beijing: Information Office of the State Council of the People's Republic of China, 2011). Office of the Secretary of Defense, Military and Security Developments Involving the People's Republic of China 2011, p. 32. 71. Martin Andrew, “The Influence of U.S. Counterinsurgency Operations in Afghanistan on the People's Liberation Army,” in Scobell et al., Chinese Lessons from Other People's Wars, pp. 237–275. 72. The data is from the Global Terrorism Database at the University of Maryland's National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START). It was accessed 29 March 2012. 73. For a definition of IEDs see Paul Gill, John Horgan, and Jeffrey Lovelace, “Improvised Explosive Device: The Problem of Definition,” Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 34(9) (September 2011), pp. 732–748. 74. On suicide terrorism see Bruce Hoffman, Inside Terrorism, Revised Edition (New York: Columbia University Press, 2006), pp. 131–171; Mia Bloom, Dying to Kill: The Allure of Suicide Terror (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005); Robert A. Pape, Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism (New York: Random House, 2005); Pape and James K. Feldman, Cutting the Fuse: The Explosion of Global Suicide Terrorism and How to Stop It (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010). 75. Pape, Dying to Win, p. 22. 76. Chicago Project on Security and Terrorism, Suicide Attack Database Available at http://cpost.uchicago.edu/search.php (accessed 22 March 2012). 77. We also examined suicide data from two other databases: the Global Terrorism Database at the University of Maryland's National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START); and the Worldwide Incidents Tracking System (WITS) at the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC). Both show similar trends. 78. Adam Dolnik, Understanding Terrorist Innovation: Technology, Tactics and Global Trends (New York: Routledge, 2007); Gill, Horgan, and Lovelace, “Improvised Explosive Device,” pp. 732–748. 79. Alec D. Barker, “Improvised Explosive Devices in Southern Afghanistan and Western Pakistan, 2002–2009,” Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 34(8) (2011), pp. 600–620. 80. Kalyvas and Balcells, “International System and Technologies of Rebellion,” p. 417; Fearon and Laitin, “Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War,” p. 77. 81. This explanation may be partly correlated with counterinsurgent use of mechanized vehicles, since most foreign occupiers are likely to utilize mechanized warfare. 82. Pape, Dying to Win; Pape and Feldman, Cutting the Fuse. 83. The data is from the Worldwide Incidents Tracking System (WITS) at the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC). It was accessed 29 March 2012. 84. Unclassified data from the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization (JIEDDO), U.S. Department of Defense, March 2012. 85. Lyall and Wilson, “Rage Against the Machines,” pp. 67–106. On foraging, see Martin L. Van Creveld, Supplying War: Logistics from Wallenstein to Patton (London: Cambridge University Press, 1977). 86. Kalyvas and Balcells, “International System and Technologies of Rebellion,” p. 419. 87. Michael C. Horowitz, “Nonstate Actors and the Diffusion of Innovations: The Case of Suicide Terrorism,” International Organization 64 (Winter 2010), pp. 33–64; Horowitz, The Diffusion of Military Power: Causes and Consequences for International Politics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010). 88. Major Raymond M. Longabaugh, “Incorporating MRAPs Into the Army Force Structure,” Army Sustainment (September–October 2011), p. 28. 89. Author interview with officials from Special Operations Command Africa (SOCAFRICA), 15 March 2012. 90. Brian A. Jackson et al., Aptitude for Destruction, Volume 1: Organizational Learning in Terrorist Groups and Its Implications for Combating Terrorism (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2005). 91. Alec D. Barker, “Improvised Explosive Devices in Southern Afghanistan and Western Pakistan, 2002–2009,” Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 34(8) (2011), pp. 600–620; Hazard Management Solutions, “Timescale to Develop/Deploy Sophisticated IEDs,” unpublished briefing, November 2004. 92. Barker, “Improvised Explosive Devices in Southern Afghanistan and Western Pakistan, 2002–2009,” pp. 600–620. 93. Thomas Rid and Marc Hecker, War 2.0: Irregular Warfare in the Information Age (Westport, CT: Praeger Security International, 2009). 94. The compound annual growth rate measures the rate of return for an investment over an investment period, such as 5 or 10 years. It is also called a “smoothed” rate of return because it measures the growth of an investment as if it had grown at a steady rate on an annually compounded basis. 95. Cisco Systems, Cisco Visual Networking Index: Forecast and Methodology, 2010–2015 (San Jose, CA: Cisco, 2011); Cisco Systems, Cisco Visual Networking Index: Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast Update, 2011–2016 (San Jose, CA: Cisco, 2011). 96. Eric von Hippel, Democratizing Innovation (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005). 97. Author interview with U.S. Special Operations Forces deployed to southern and eastern Afghanistan, 15 March 15 2012. 98. Jennifer Yang Hui, “The Internet in Indonesia: Development and Impact of Radical Websites,” Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 33 (2010), pp. 171–191. 99. See, for example, www.hide-my-ip-address.com 100. Mao, On Guerrilla Warfare, p. 93. 101. See, for example, Hegghammer, Jihad in Saudi Arabia. 102. John A. Nagl, Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya to Vietnam (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005), p. 207.