Urban_and_Rural_Insurgencies

Disclaimer The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author. They do not reflect the official position of the US Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force, or Air University. Abstract With global urbanization on the rise, especially in the developing world, it is reasonable to conclude that urban insurgencies will become more prevalent in the future. The new Army and Marine Corps counterinsurgency manual devotes only a single paragraph to this environmental change, noting that urban insurgencies are “difficult to counter because they require little or no popular support.” This admission implies a need to study the dynamics of urban-based insurgencies in greater depth and suggests that the time has come for a systematic comparison between urban and rural-based insurgencies. This thesis historically analyzed two rural insurgencies and two urban insurgencies to determine the underlying similarities and differences between the two types of insurgencies. The two rural examples are the counterinsurgency campaigns in the Philippines from 1946 to 1954 and in Afghanistan from 2001 to 2008. The two urban examples are the Battle of Algiers in 1957 and the insurgency in Baghdad from May 2003 to February 2006. In the Philippines and Afghanistan, the difficult rural terrain proved to be a significant asset in the expansion of both insurgencies. These insurgencies were able to operate from relatively secure base areas to build strength, recruit forces, establish support networks, and exploit government missteps. In both insurgencies, concentrating on the support of the rural population proved critical for both insurgents and counterinsurgents. In the Algiers and Baghdad examples, the urban environment provided many advantages to the insurgent. It gave them access to soft targets that could be attacked by small cells. It also gave the insurgents sanctuaries in which they could, for varying times, survive and thrive. But these advantages could be offset by adequate numbers of culturally aware military forces, competent police, and effective intelligence. A systematic analysis of these four cases revealed two similar dynamics and two divergent dynamics between rural and urban insurgencies. The first similarity is that insurgents must be able to hide in order to expand in the beginning and middle stages of an insurgency. The second is that this ability to hide and grow depends on the relative capabilities between the insurgents and counterinsurgents to operate in insurgent base areas. The divergent dynamics are that the criticality of popular support to the insurgent and the density of high-impact targets for insurgents to strike vary between urban and rural insurgency. Although the underlying dynamics of rural and urban insurgencies are very similar, there are also some important differences. These differences do not require diverse conceptual approaches. They may, however, require modifications in technique that current doctrine fails to address adequately. Therefore, the insights developed in this thesis should be carefully considered by doctrine writers to validate, refute, or amend existing COIN doctrines. vi CONTENTS Chapter Page DISCLAIMER ...................................................................................................ii ABOUT THE AUTHOR ....................................................................................iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ..................................................................................iv ABSTRACT .........................................................................................................v INTRODUCTION ...............................................................................................1 1 CONTEMPORARY COUNTERINSURGENCY DOCTRINE..........................7 2 RURAL INSURGENCIES ..................................................................................20 3 URBAN INSURGENCIES ..................................................................................51 4 CONCLUSIONS..................................................................................................79 BIBLIOGRAPHY ...............................................................................................85 1 Introduction In the fall of 2005, the U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps undertook a joint effort to create a new counterinsurgency doctrine in response to the war in Iraq.1 It had been a full two years since President George W. Bush had declared an end to major combat in Iraq; and casualties since that declaration, both civilian and military, had long dwarfed those of the conventional campaign.2 Lieutenant General David Patraeus, then commander of the U.S. Army Combined Arms Center, said this manual was designed to fill a doctrinal gap that resulted from a twenty-year lull in updating the Army’s approach to counterinsurgency operations.3 Military officers, academics, and experts from private institutions either participated in the writing process or were solicited for contributions. According to one of the manual’s authors, LTC John A. Nagl, the writing team was “codifying the best practices of previous counterinsurgency campaigns.”4 When the new Army/Marine counterinsurgency (COIN) field manual, FM 3-24, was released in December 2006, it was apparent that it had relied heavily on the classic texts of counterinsurgency by the likes of Sir Robert Thompson and David Galula. According to General Patreaus, the new manual was to be grounded in historical examples, while at the same time being informed by contemporary experience.5 Background and Significance The 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review states that the United States (U.S.) should “prepare for wider asymmetric challenges to hedge against uncertainty over the next 20 years.”6 According to the review, the most likely challenges the United States will face in the near future will come from within weak states. These poorly governed areas are “breeding grounds for sectarian violence, radical religious or ideological movements, 1Michael R. Gordon, "Military Hones a New Strategy on Insurgency," New York Times, October 5 2006, 2. 2 T.X. Hammes, "Insurgency: Modern Warfare Evolves into Fourth Generation," Strategic Forum, no. 214 (2005): 4. 3 Department of the Army., Counterinsurgency, FM 3-24 (Washington, D.C.: Headquarters Department of the Army, 2006), i. 4 Gordon, "Military Hones a New Strategy on Insurgency," 2. 5 Department of the Army., Counterinsurgency, i. 6 Deparment of Defense., "Quadrennial Defense Review Report," (Washington, D.C.: Dept. of Defense, 2006), 9. 2 genocide, and criminal or terrorist organizations.” 7 Furthermore, the overwhelming conventional capability of the American armed forces has led enemies to seek other means to defeat us. In fact, since World War II, the only defeats suffered by western military forces by non-western enemies have been at the hands of insurgent movements.8 Thus, it is not unreasonable to anticipate that warfare in areas where the U.S. has strategic interests will become increasingly irregular. The new Army/Marine Corps counterinsurgency manual represents an important response to the anticipated national security environment. Despite this positive achievement, current demographic trends could significantly shift the conduct of these irregular conflicts from those of classic tradition.9 The term “classical counterinsurgency” refers to the theory of counterrevolutionary warfare developed in response to wars of national liberation from 1944-1980. This era produced a plethora of works now regarded as classics that form the lens through which we view modern insurgency. Classical theory treats insurgency as being primary rural, with insurgent groups operating from difficult terrain such as mountains, deserts, forests, swamps, and jungles where they possess superior local. Urban insurgency was treated as a secondary or tertiary phenomenon. However, during the last two decades of the twentieth century, insurgents have tended to engage in a more successful combination of urban and rural action. With global urbanization on the rise, especially in the developing world, it is reasonable to conclude that urban insurgencies will become more prevalent in the future.10 From 1950 to 2006, the world’s urban population increased nearly four-fold, from 732 million in 1950 to more than 3.2 billion.11 By the end of 2008, over half the world’s population is expected to be urban. Parallel to this overall rise in urban growth is the rise of “megacities” with populations of over ten million inhabitants. In 1975 there were 3 of 7 Dwight D. Eisenhower National Security Series, "Irregular Warfare: Counterinsurgency Challenges and Perspectives" (Washington DC, 2006), 1. 8 Dwight D. Eisenhower National Security Series, "Irregular Warfare: Counterinsurgency Challenges and Perspectives", 1-2. 9 Thomas P. M. Barnett, The Pentagon's New Map : War and Peace in the Twenty-First Century (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2004), 121 10 Ian Beckett, "The Future of Insurgency," Small Wars and Insurgencies 16, no. 1 (2005): 25. 11 Worldwatch Institute, State of the World 2007: Our Urban Future (New York: W.W. Norton, 2007), 7. 3 these “megacities”; today there are over 20, 15 of which are in the developing world.12 The Worldwatch Institute estimates that between the year 2000 and 2030, 88 percent of the growth of the world’s population will come from urban dwellers in low and middleincome countries.13 The urban population of the lesser-developed regions of the world is projected to from 40.3 percent to 56.1 percent during this period.14 Asia and Africa are expected to double their urban populations to roughly 3.4 billion by 2030.15 The demographic trend of urbanization in the lesser-developed regions of the world increases the likelihood of America’s becoming involved urban insurgencies. Despite this trend, the new COIN manual devotes only a single paragraph to the urban environment, merely noting that urban insurgencies are “difficult to counter because they require little or no popular support.”16 Thus there is a need to study the dynamics and techniques of urban-based insurgencies and a systematic comparison between urban and rural-based insurgencies. This thesis will examine the effect of physical environment on insurgencies to determine the extent to which current COIN doctrine should be modified to account for the differences between urban and rural insurgencies. Although there have been some attempts to develop “lessons-learned” about the physical environment’s effects on COIN operations, there have been few detailed studies that link these lessons with current doctrine. This study will explore the linkages between urban and rural insurgent strategies to determine if the varying physical environments require either diverse conceptual approaches or modifications in technique. The ultimate purpose of the research is to develop insights that can be used by US Army and Marine Corps doctrine writers to validate, refute, or modify current and emerging US COIN doctrine and practice. 12 Population Reference Bureau, "2007 World Population Data Sheet," (Washington DC: Population Reference Bureau, 2007). 13 Worldwatch Institute, State of the World 2007: Our Urban Future, 7. 14 Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs United Nations Secretariat, "World Population Prospects: The 2006 Revision and World Urbanization Prospects: The 2005 Revision," http://esa.un.org/unpp/p2k0data.asp (accessed Saturday, January 26 1:34:33 PM. 2008). 15 Worldwatch Institute, State of the World 2007: Our Urban Future, 7. 16 Department of the Army., Counterinsurgency, 16. 4 Defining Insurgency Before examining the various physical environments in which insurgencies take place, the term “insurgency” must be defined. The cloud of ambiguity that surrounds this term requires a careful analysis of extant definitions. David Galula defines insurgency as “a protracted struggle concluded methodically, step by step in order to attain specific intermediate objectives leading finally to the overthrow of the existing order.”17 But Galula’s formulation, while useful in many respects, fails to discriminate adequately between insurgency and a conventional civil war. Another Frenchmen, Roger Trinquier, who refers to insurgency as “modern warfare,” defines it as “an interlocking system of actions – political, economic, physiological, and military – that aims at the overthrow of the established authority in a country and its replacement by another regime.”18 This definition requires that the insurgent’s objective is replacement of the existing regime, excluding insurgencies with other aims. Bard O’Neill defines insurgency as a “struggle between a nonruling group and the ruling authorities in which the nonruling group consciously uses political resources and violence to destroy, reformulate, or sustain the basis of legitimacy of one or more aspects of politics.”19 In contrast to Trinquier’s definition, O’Neill’s is overly broad. Steven Metz offers a definition similar to O’Neill’s, but further refined. He defines insurgency as a “strategy adopted by groups which cannot attain their political objectives through conventional means or by a quick seizure of power.” He further qualifies it by stating that it is characterized by “protracted, asymmetric violence, ambiguity, the use of complex terrain, psychological warfare, and political mobilization.” 20 This definition is simple and provides contemporary context. But none of the above definitions captures both the common methods of insurgencies and their diverse aims. 17 David Galula, Counterinsurgency Warfare; Theory and Practice, ed. Harvard University. Center for International Affairs. (New York,: Praeger, 1964), 4. 18 Roger Trinquier, Modern Warfare : A French View of Counterinsurgency (Fort Leavenworth, Kan.: U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, Combat Studies Institute.,, 1985), 4. 19 Bard E. O'Neill, Insurgency & Terrorism : From Revolution to Apocalypse, 2nd ed. (Washington, D.C.: Potomac Books, 2005), 15. 20 Steven Metz, Raymond A. Millen et al., Insurgency and Counterinsurgency in the 21st Century : Reconceptualizing Threat and Response, Insurgency and counterinsurgency in the 21st century (Carlisle Barracks, PA: Strategic Studies Institute U.S. Army War College, 2004), 2. 5 Surprisingly, the one definition that does so is that of the Department of Defense (DoD). DoD defines an insurgency as “an organized resistance movement that uses subversion, sabotage, and armed conflict to achieve its aims. Insurgencies normally seek to overthrow the existing social order and reallocate power within the country. They may also seek to (1) Overthrow an established government without a follow-on social revolution. (2) Establish an autonomous national territory within the borders of a state. (3) Cause the withdrawal of an occupying power. (4) Extract political concessions that are unattainable through less violent means.” 21 This combination of comprehensiveness and precision entitles the DoD definition to be used as the basis for this thesis. Evidence This study is based on a variety of sources. Primary sources include extant military doctrine and publications, memoirs, oral histories, unit records, and interviews of individuals who have participated in counterinsurgency campaigns. Much of the background, political context, and general information for the historical examples will originate in secondary-source historical studies and provide a framework for analysis of effects of the physical environment on insurgency. Reports, news articles, and government studies will flesh out the secondary sources. Road Map of the Argument This investigation begins with an overview of the underpinnings of insurgent strategy and theory as well as counterinsurgency strategy and theory. It then reviews existing Army/Marine Corps and Air Force counterinsurgency doctrines, paying specific attention to what they say about the effects of terrain. This review is followed by historical analysis of two rural insurgencies and two urban insurgencies. The two rural examples study the counterinsurgency campaigns in the Philippines against the Hukbalahaps and in Afghanistan against Al Qaeda and the Taliban. The two urban examples assess the Battle of Algiers against the National Liberation Front (FLN) and the American counterinsurgency campaign in Baghdad from June 2004 to February 2006. A systematic analysis of these cases will determine the similarities and differences between rural and urban insurgencies and the reasons for these similarities and differences. The 21 United States. Joint Chiefs of Staff., "Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms," (Washington,: The Joint Chiefs of Staff for sale by the Supt. of Docs. U.S. Govt. Print. Off.), 267. 6 concluding chapter will also summarize salient findings from the historical examples, compare these findings with current doctrine and practice, and suggest where amendments may be required. Rationale for Selection of Historical Examples The Hukbalahap Rebellion and Afghan examples were chosen to provide the reader a comparison of two rural insurgencies, one from the classical era and one more contemporary. The Battle of Algiers and the Baghdad Insurgency (2003-2006) were chosen to provide a similar comparison of urban insurgencies. To focus the study, the Baghdad Insurgency begins after the fall of Baghdad in May 2003 and ends immediately before the bombing of the al-Askari Mosque in the Iraqi city of Samarra in February 2006, an event that fundamentally changed the nature of the conflict. These examples were also chosen because there exists an adequate body of English-language evidence for all four, thought the evidence for the Hukbalahap and Algiers studies is significantly more robust than the evidence for the more recent Afghanistan and Baghdad studies. Summary In order to be successful at countering insurgency, it is imperative that our doctrine recognizes and accounts for both the similarities and differences between urban and rural insurgencies. Countering urban insurgency may require a distinct combination of doctrine, training, and equipment. But before investigating the specifics of the diverse environments, we should look at the major concepts and strategies of insurgencies and counterinsurgencies and the contemporary provisions of counterinsurgency doctrines promulgated in Army/Marine Corps and Air Force publications. 7 Chapter 1 Rural and Urban Insurgencies in Theory and Doctrine A general uprising, as we see it, should be nebulous and elusive; its resistance should never materialize as a concrete body, otherwise the enemy can direct sufficient force at its core, crush it, and take many prisoners. - Carl von Clausewitz In Insurgency & Terrorism: From Revolution to Apocalypse, Bard O’Neill describes four broad strategic approaches that guide insurgent leaders. They are conspiratorial, military-focused, protracted popular, and urban.1 FM 3-24 adds two more contemporary approaches: identity-focused and composite and coalition.2 Of theses six types, Mao Tse-Tung’s protracted people’s war represented the most successful form of irregular warfare up until the late 1970s. Practitioners of urban warfare, such as Carlos Marighella, had only limited success during that period. Because of this disparity, most COIN writings and doctrine from that era disproportionably focused on Maoist insurgency. These are the principle references that inform existing U.S. doctrine. Before examining current COIN doctrine, it is important to have an understanding of the insurgent theory that it is focused on combating. Bard O’Neil said of the environment that “in many cases, success or failure can be traced to the way insurgent and government strategies, plans, and polices are related to the environment.”3 This chapter will first examine the two insurgent theories most affected by the physical environment: Mao Tse-Tung’s rural protracted people’s war and Latin American urban insurgency. It will then describe how current U.S. COIN doctrine considers the effect of urban and rural environments on insurgencies. Mao Tse-Tung and Protracted People’s War Mao Tse-Tung emerged as the leader of the largest and most famous insurgency in modern history. He was born in 1893 in Hunan Province in central China to relatively 1 O'Neill, Insurgency & Terrorism, 45-62. 2 United States. Dept. of the Army., Counterinsurgency, MCWP : 3-33.5 (Washington, D.C.: Headquarters Department of the Army, 2006), 1-5. 3 O'Neill, Insurgency & Terrorism, 71. 8 affluent peasants.4 His strict father provided Mao with an education that only a small number of Chinese youths were then able to enjoy. In addition to history and political science, which appealed to Mao greatly, he studied Chinese philosophy and poetry as well as translations of western histories and biographies. As a university student, Mao became involved in radical politics and joined the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) when it was founded in 1921. Quickly becoming a leader in the CCP, Mao was initially committed to the idea of creating a new China according to the doctrines of Marx and Lenin.5 Future events would alter this commitment. Mao’s initial experience as a revolutionary convinced him that cities were very dangerous places for insurgents. In 1927, the alliance between the CCP and the ruling Kuomintang (KMT) broke down. In response, the KMT’s leader, Chiang Kai-Shek, used his secret police to capture and execute radical members of the CCP in Shanghai, who were easily found.6 Concurrently, the CCP staged a series of urban uprisings that failed miserably. With the CCP on the brink of extinction, Mao retreated to the rural southern borderlands to revive his movement and build an army. In 1930, Mao received a directive from the CCP central committee to take the offensive against cities held by the nationalists. The campaign failed, providing a significant communist defeat at Changsha.7 From these experiences, Mao concluded that fighting in cities had almost ended his communist movement on two occasions by ceding every advantage to the stronger KMT. When he gained control of CCP strategy, Mao decided to abandon the revolutionary line laid down by Moscow, which was based on mobilizing and radicalizing the industrial proletariat. He correctly gauged that in China the urban proletariat were too few in number and too apathetic to mount a successful revolution. Given the overwhelmingly agricultural nature of Chinese society, the communist movement would instead focus on the rural peasants for its base.8 This change presented Mao a challenge because it required a long time to succeed. Before Mao had could fully 4 Richard Holmes, Hew Strachan et al., The Oxford Companion to Military History (Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 545. 5 Mao Zedong, On Guerrilla Warfare (Baltimore, Md.: Nautical & Aviation Pub. Co. of America, 1992), 12-13. 6 Zedong, On Guerrilla Warfare, 17. 7 Zedong, On Guerrilla Warfare, 16. 8 Zedong, On Guerrilla Warfare, 17. 9 develop the concept of protracted war to underpin his peasant-based strategy, the CCP was almost completely destroyed by the stronger KMT. To escape the grip of the KMT and to trade space for time, the CCP forces undertook a retreat of some 8,000 miles known as the “Long March.”9 After completing the “Long March,” Mao fully developed the protracted warfare strategy by analyzing China’s historical development, socio-economic situation, and physical environment. Mao said of his native country: China is a country half colonial and half feudal; it is a country that is politically, militarily, and economically backward. This is an inescapable conclusion. It is a vast country with great resources and tremendous population, a country in which the terrain is complicated and the facilities for communication are poor. All theses factors favor a protracted war; they all favor the application of mobile warfare and guerrilla operations.10 His protracted strategy used time as an ally to mobilize the population and gradually build the insurgency’s strength while, wearing down the strength of the government and its security apparatus.11 Mao recognized that the population was the decisive factor in revolutionary war, provided the conflict lasted long enough to build insurgent strength.12 In On Protracted War Mao describes the three phases of a protracted insurgency. Phase I, “strategic defense,” occurs when the government has stronger forces and insurgents must concentrate on survival and building support. During this phase, insurgent leaders develop the movement by focusing their action on gaining or cementing the peoples’ support.13 The primary objective is to “persuade as many people as possible to commit themselves to the movement, so that it gradually acquires the quality of mass.”14 Phase II, “strategic stalemate,” occurs when forces are evenly matched and open guerrilla warfare is the most important activity. During this phase, insurgents undermine the peoples’ support for the government.15 A key ingredient for success in this phase is ensuring that “guerrillas fight only when the chances of victory are weighed heavily in 9 John Ellis, A Short History of Guerrilla Warfare (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1976), 155. 10 Mao Zedong and Samuel B. Griffin, On Guerrilla Warfare (Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Press, 1978), 68. 11 O'Neill, Insurgency & Terrorism, 49. 12 Mao Zedong, "The Three Stages of the Protracted War," in The Guerilla Reader: A Historical Anthology, ed. Walter Laqueur (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1977), 196. 13 Ibid., 189-93 14 Zedong and Griffin, On Guerrilla Warfare, 21. 15 Zedong, "The Three Stages of the Protracted War," 189-93. 10 their favor; if the tide of battle unexpectedly flows against them, they withdraw.”16 Phase III, “strategic counteroffensive,” occurs when insurgents have superior strength and guerrilla forces are transformed into regular formations that conduct conventional military operations to destroy the government’s military forces. During this phase, Mao called for a conventional defeat of the government’s forces occurring in rural areas where maneuver and guerrilla warfare could both be applied.17 The urban areas, or cities, would be the final objective of this phase. Effectively applying Maoist strategy does not require continuous success. If unsuccessful at a later stage, insurgents can fall back to an earlier phase to rebuild.18 Regardless of the stage, the protracted nature of the struggle is what ultimately brings about victory. Because insurgency is largely a battle of wills, Mao believed that if given enough time, the insurgency would ultimately prevail. 19 The success of Mao’s protracted movement depends on sanctuaries that he believed could only be found in the countryside. For Mao, a sanctuary or guerrilla base is “defined as an area, strategically located, in which the guerrillas can carry out their duties of training, self preservation and development.”20 In protracted warfare, self preservation is the basis of all military principles and a relatively safe geographical base area would help ensure that. 21 In Problems of Strategy in Guerilla War against Japan, Mao details the advantages of establishing bases in the mountains or river-lake estuary regions, or in the degree the plains areas if left with no other choice.22 Locating the base in an area that counterinsurgent forces could not effectively reach, or would not attempt to occupy, is a cardinal principle. Such bases provide guerrillas with areas in which to train and indoctrinate new recruits, care for the sick and wounded, and stockpile supplies. From the bases, insurgents can gain sufficient strength and control of the countryside to allow them ultimately to move on to the cities. 16 Zedong and Griffin, On Guerrilla Warfare, 23. 17 Zedong, "The Three Stages of the Protracted War," 189-93. 18 United States. Dept. of the Army., Counterinsurgency, 1-7. 19 Zedong and Griffin, On Guerrilla Warfare, 93. 20 Zedong and Griffin, On Guerrilla Warfare, 107. 21 Mao Zedong, Problems of Strategy in Guerrilla War Against Japan, 4th. ed. (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1966), 5. 22 Zedong, Problems of Strategy in Guerrilla War Against Japan, 24-26. 11 Mao believed that world-wide revolution could be brought about by insurgent action in the Third World.23 Between 1950 and 1970, at least ten major insurgencies employed Mao’s model with slight modifications.24 For example, the Vietnamese version involved more obvious intimidation of the population in the early stages.25 Lin Piao, one of Mao’s generals, felt that Mao’s “theory of establishing a revolutionary base area in the rural districts and encircling the cities from the countryside” was exportable to the less-developed rural areas of the world.26 Virtually all of these insurgencies attempted to follow that model. However, by the 1970s, Mao’s model was becoming less effective, primarily because many lessons had been learned by those who opposed it. The Maoist model also offered little to states that were moving toward democracy. Moreover, the development of urban insurgency suggested that a theory developed for an underdeveloped rural environment might not be relevant to an increasingly urbanized world.27 Latin America and the rise of Urban Insurgency The success of the Cuban Revolution in 1959 led some to believe that Mao’s strategy of protracted popular war might be inappropriate in Latin America.28 “Che” Guevara became one of the biggest advocates of Cuba’s focoist model of insurgency. Ernesto “Che” Guevara was an Argentinean-born Cuban revolutionary who fought with Fidel Castro between 1956 and 1959. Initially believing that the Cuban model was applicable only to “Caribbean-type” dictatorships, Guevara modified this position in 1961, arguing that “all of Latin America had the objective conditions for revolution.” This model rejected Mao’s emphasis on a lengthy period of political preparation of the population prior to the revolution, but it maintained Mao’s rural emphasis. In Guerrilla Warfare, Guevara states that 23 Lin Piao, "Encircling the Cities of the World," in The Guerilla Reader: A Historical Anthology, ed. Walter Laquer (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1977), 200. 24 Mao’s model inspired, among others, the Malayan Emergency (1948-1960), the Hukbalahap Insurrection in the Philippines (1946-1954), Portuguese Guinea (1961-73), Vietnam (1946-1975), Thailand (1960s and 1970s) 25 I. F. W. Beckett, Modern Counter-insurgency, International library of essays on military history (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), 81. 26 Piao, "Encircling the Cities of the World," 200. 27 Beckett, Modern Counter-insurgency, 81. 28 O'Neill, Insurgency & Terrorism, 60. 12 We consider that the Cuban Revolution contributed three fundamental lessons to the conduct of revolutionary movement in America. They are: 1. Popular forces can win a war against the army. 2. It is not necessary to wait until all conditions for making revolution exist; the insurrection can create them. 3. In underdeveloped America the countryside is the basic area for armed fighting.29 Guevara’s belief that Cuba’s rural-based focoist revolution could be exported to Bolivia led to his death in that country. His failure, along with the recognition that the Cuban experience was distinct, forced Latin American insurgents to seek a different approach to insurgency in the form of urban warfare.30 The urban warfare strategy employs the systematic application of terror tactics within an urban environment that seeks to erode the government’s authority, will, legitimacy, ability to resist, and ultimately existence. This approach has two variations: the insurgency eventually moves to include a rural component, or it remains urbancentric. 31 The Latin American theorists of urban warfare strategy shifted their focus to the city for a number of reasons, to include growing urbanization, the accompanying economic and social changes it brought, and the apparent failure of rural focoism. By 1967, at least 50 percent of the population of every state in Latin America, except Peru, was urbanized.32 Recognizing the shift in demographics, Carlos Marighella and Abraham Guillén became the most well-known Latin American theorists to conceptualize urban insurgency in the late 1960s. Carlos Marighella was a long-time Brazilian communist who rose to lead the party’s committee in Sao Paulo. He believed that overthrowing the government required adapting the revolutionary model of Che Guevara to suit the existing conditions in Brazil. Rapid urbanization had exposed several vulnerabilities within Brazilian society, manifested by the burgeoning shantytowns with soaring unemployment and few prospects for upward mobility.33 Marighella believed that the city would be the primary 29 Ernesto Guevara, Brian Loveman et al., Guerrilla Warfare (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1985), 50. 30 O'Neill, Insurgency & Terrorism, 60. 31 O'Neill, Insurgency & Terrorism, 61. 32 Beckett, "The Future of Insurgency," 174. 33 Beckett, "The Future of Insurgency," 174-75. 13 battleground in which his revolutionary concepts would take hold.34 In 1969, shortly before his death in a police ambush, he published the Minimanual of the Urban Guerrilla to articulate his theory of urban guerrilla warfare.35 Marighella, unlike Mao, believed that insurgents could not only survive in cities, but also thrive there. He held that cities offered safe havens among a large heterogeneous population, provided an insurgent could successfully blend in.36 He also believed that the disenfranchised segments of a city’s population, including students, slum dwellers, intellectuals, and clergy, provided an endless pool of recruits.37 Another advantage of the urban environment was a small logistics tail because guerrillas could also have jobs to support themselves and others.38 Marighella also held that the physical terrain of the urban environment provided advantages to the guerrilla. Analogous to the rural peasant, the urban guerrilla was familiar with the “ins and outs” of neighborhoods and streets. The guerrilla knew where to hide and how to move about the city, which frustrated government forces trying to catch him.39 The city also enabled development of a cellular organization with a flat structure that was difficult for the government forces to dismantle. In trying to combat the urban guerrilla, the dense population of the city would make the use assets such as aircraft, artillery, mortars, and other heavy equipment, both difficult and potentially dysfunctional.40 Finally, the city offered the opportunity to influence public opinion with a much smaller force than would be required in rural areas.41 Marighella’s revolutionary philosophy used targeted violence in cities to generate a disproportionate and counterproductive government response. Spectacular insurgent actions targeted not only Brazilian authorities, but also multi-national corporations. Marighella expected that Brazilian authorities would find it difficult to combat such 34 Carlos Marighella, "Minimanual of the Urban Guerrilla," in The Guerrilla Reader: A Historical Anthology, ed. Walter Laquer (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1977), 219. 35 Beckett, "The Future of Insurgency," 174-76. 36 Carlos Marighella, "Minimanual of the Urban Guerrilla," in Terror and urban guerrillas; a study of tactics and documents, ed. Jay Mallin (Coral Gables, Fla.,: University of Miami Press, 1971), 73. 37 Marighella, "Minimanual of the Urban Guerrilla," 70. 38 Marighella, "Minimanual of the Urban Guerrilla," 85. 39 Marighella, "Minimanual of the Urban Guerrilla," 85. 40 O'Neill, Insurgency & Terrorism, 61. 41 Marighella, "Minimanual of the Urban Guerrilla," 111. 14 actions and simultaneously manage the perception of not giving in to insurgent demands. Marighella said As soon as a reasonable section of the population begins to take seriously the action of the urban guerrilla, his success is guaranteed…The government has no alternative except to intensify repression. The police networks, house searches, arrests of innocent people and suspects, closing off streets, make life in the city unbearable. The military dictatorship embarks on massive political persecution. Political assassinations and police terror become routine. In spite of all this, the police systematically fail…The people refuse to collaborate with the authorities, and the general sentiment is that the government is unjust, incapable of solving problems, and resorts purely and simply to the physical liquidation of its opponents.42 But Marighella’s theory of insurgency also had a rural component. He argued that the decisive battles of a revolution would eventually be fought in the rural areas of a country and that fighting in the city was only complementary and tactical.43 This statement though, is inconsistent with both the major tenets of his concept and with his actions. Marighella focused all his attention on the urban actions and never really developed a concept for spreading the insurgency to the countryside, where the decisive battles would supposedly take place.44 Marighella’s theory proved to be invalid because the government’s response, while oppressive, did not actually alienate the population. Nor was the insurgency strong enough to survive the backlash of government response it generated.45 Furthermore, the public was ambivalent about the insurgency’s claims and increasingly rejected its violent tactics. Ultimately, the insurgents failed to link their urban tactics to a wider strategy, and their attacks never threatened the government’s hold on power. 46 Although less well known than Marighella, Abraham Guillén agreed that cities were better suited to the guerrilla than the countryside. However, he criticized Marighella for confusing “tactics and strategy.”47 Marighella thought that tactical urban 42 Marighella, "Minimanual of the Urban Guerrilla," 227. 43 Walter Laquer, Guerrilla Warfare: A Historical and Critical Study (New Brunswick, New Jersery: Transaction Publishers, 1998), 347. 44 Laquer, Guerilla Warfare, 350. 45 Laquer, Guerilla Warfare, 350. 46 Beckett, "The Future of Insurgency," 175. 47 Abraham Guillén, Philosophy of the Urban Guerrilla; The Revolutionary Writings of Abraham Guillén (New York,: Morrow, 1973), 257. 15 action was always strategically subordinate to a larger rural movement. Unlike Marighella, Guillén saw urban insurgency as the best means by which to achieve the revolution’s objectives.48 He said, If 70 percent of a country’s population is urban, the demography and the economy must dictate the specific rules of the strategy of revolutionary combat. The center of operations should never be in the mountains or villages, but in the largest cities where the population suffices to form the army of the revolution.49 He did not exclude cooperation with a rural segment of an insurgency if it existed, but he believed that it should support the urban strategy; rather than vice versa50 Guillén was a prolific author, publishing more than twenty works; but until the mid-1960s he was known principally as an economic and political analyst. He was of Spanish origin, having fought against General Franco in the Spanish Civil War, and worked in Argentina for many years before settling in Uruguay. Beginning in 1965, he published four noteworthy works addressing urban insurgency: The Theory of Violence (1965), Strategy of the Urban Guerrilla (1966), The Challenge to the Pentagon (1969), and The People in Arms: Revolutionary Strategy (1972). Guillén’s work reflected a strong influence by Mao and a general repudiation of Guevara. Like Mao, he stressed the importance of strategically employing the factors of time and space, the protracted nature of the conflict, and the support of the population.51 He disagreed, however, with both Mao and Guevara on the locus of the main effort. He also thought that Guevara’s estimate of the importance guerrilla focos was inflated.52 In The People in Arms: Revolutionary, Strategy, he blamed a belief in the rural foco for undoing the initial success of the Tupamaros of Uruguay.53 Guillén is acknowledged to be the intellectual mentor of the Tupamoros, and his influence on their insurgency was considerable in the early years of the struggle. The Tupamaros were a Uruguayan urban guerrilla group in the 1960s and 1970s. In an effort to redress social injustice in Uruguay, they conducted a campaign of stealing from the 48 Abraham Guillen, "Urban Guerrilla Strategy," in The Guerilla Reader: A Historical Anthology, ed. Walter Laquer (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1977), 229. 49 Guillen, "Urban Guerrilla Strategy." 50 Laquer, Guerilla Warfare, 345. 51 Guillén, Philosophy of the Urban Guerrilla, 232-33. 52 Guillén, Philosophy of the Urban Guerrilla, 269. 53 Guillén, Philosophy of the Urban Guerrilla, 269-71. 16 rich and giving to the poor. As part of the continent-wide insurgent escalation orchestrated by Cuba, they shed their ‘Robin Hood’ image.54 Guillén became increasingly more critical of their mistakes. He believed they made a critical error when they tried to broaden their ranks. Guillén also believed that urban guerrilla organizations should remain small, light, and mobile and concentrate on successive minor actions. He reasoned that flat, cellular organization would be difficult for security forces to infiltrate or defeat. When they broadened their ranks, however, the Tupamoros presented a relatively easy target for security organizations to attack. They congregated large groups in rented safe houses that where easily located by police. Furthermore, their large-scale operations took time to plan and were more difficult to execute than Guillén’s hit-and-run attacks. Guillén also opposed unnecessary violence, thinking it self-defeating. He correctly predicted that unnecessary violence, to include kidnapping and robbery, would eventually appear hypocritical to the population.55 Guillén’s writings had significant influence on urban insurgencies in Argentina and Brazil, as well as on organizations such as the Quebec National Liberation Front, the Black Panthers, and the Weathermen. To these movements, he stressed small clandestine operations; hit and run tactics; and, most importantly, a decentralized organization and command structure. In a line very reminiscent of Mao, he said “the side that knows how to or can endure the longest will ultimately win.”56 Contemporary COIN Doctrine Lieutenant David General Patraeus, who oversaw drafting the new COIN manual said that its doctrine “strives to provide those conducting counterinsurgency campaigns with a solid foundation for understanding and addressing specific insurgencies.”57 The manual presents eight principles, five contemporary imperatives, ten paradoxes, and a dozen best practices. It explicitly states that the “principles are derived from past insurgencies.”58 The reference page in the back of the manual lists the French officer David Galula and British expert Robert Thompson as sources of these principles. Galula was a serious student of COIN, having spent the majority of his career exploring 54 Holmes, Strachan et al., The Oxford Companion to Military History, 926. 55 Laquer, Guerilla Warfare, 345-47. 56 Guillén, Philosophy of the Urban Guerrilla, 233. 57 United States. Dept. of the Army., Counterinsurgency, i. 58 United States. Dept. of the Army., Counterinsurgency, 1-20. 17 revolutionary wars from China to Vietnam.59 Robert Thompson had COIN experience in Malaya and Vietnam. Both their experiences were primarily rooted in defeating Maoisttype rural insurgencies. While a principle that states “legitimacy is the main objective” has nearly universal COIN application, others are potentially less applicable to urban insurgencies.60 FM 3-24, the new counterinsurgency manual, devotes merely a single paragraph to effects of an urban environment on insurgents. In its discussion of the different types of insurgent strategies, the manual states, Protracted urban terrorism waged by small, independent cells requires little or no popular support. It is difficult to counter. Historically, such activities have not generated much success without wider rural support. However, as societies have become more urbanized and insurgent networks more sophisticated, this approach has become more effective. When facing adequately run internal security forces, urban insurgencies typically assume a conspiratorial cellular structure recruited along lines of close association—family, religious affiliation, political party, or social group.61 Parts of the above text are restated in several other places in the manual along with a few useful axioms such as “insurgencies in urban environments present different planning considerations from insurgencies in rural environments”62 and “urban insurgents…are especially difficult to isolate from their cause and sources of support.”63 Other than that, most of the discussions on the urban environment highlight tactical considerations such as its effects on weapons and reconnaissance.64 FM 3-24 posits five overarching requirements for successful COIN operations: 1. U.S. and HN military commanders and the HN government together must devise the plan for attacking the insurgents’ strategy and focusing the collective effort to bolster or restore government legitimacy. 2. HN forces and other counterinsurgents must establish control of one or more areas from which to operate. HN forces must secure the people continuously within these areas. 3. Operations should be initiated from the HN government’s areas of strength against areas under insurgent control. The host nation must 59 David Galula, Pacification in Algeria, 1956-1958 (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2006), ix. 60 United States. Dept. of the Army., Counterinsurgency, 1-21 - 1-22. 61 United States. Dept. of the Army., Counterinsurgency, 1-6. 62 United States. Dept. of the Army., Counterinsurgency, 1-16. 63 United States. Dept. of the Army., Counterinsurgency. 1-17 64 United States. Dept. of the Army., Counterinsurgency, 3-28. 18 retain or regain control of the major population centers to stabilize the situation, secure the government’s support base, and maintain the government’s legitimacy. 4. Regaining control of insurgent areas requires the HN government to expand operations to secure and support the population. If the insurgents have established firm control of a region, their military apparatus there must be eliminated and their politico-administrative apparatus rooted out. 5. Information operations (IO) must be aggressively employed65 At least three of these requirements appear to assume that the insurgency will be based in rural areas. Air Force Doctrine Document (AFDD), 2-3, Irregular Warfare, in a similar fashion to FM 3-24, dedicates only a paragraph to urban insurgency. Although the manual uses distinct verbiage, it highlights many of the same key points that FM 3-24 does. It accurately recognizes that “urban focused insurgencies may become more prevalent and effective as societies become more and more urbanized.” FM 3-24, however, fails to explain what this trend implies for COIN operations. Instead, it confines its analysis to how urban environments degrade airpower’s effects.66 Both doctrinal manuals describe counterinsurgency campaigns as a mix of offensive, defensive, and stability operations conducted along multiple lines of operation. They also highlight the need to balance combat tasks with skills more often associated with nonmilitary agencies/functions. Historically, achieving this balance has not been easy. The next two chapters will examine two rural-based and two urban-based insurgencies to determine if there are significant differences that doctrine fails to account for. Both AFDD 2-3 and FM 3-24, accept urban insurgency as a growing phenomenon. However, neither document states whether insurgent strategies that employ varying physical environments require either diverse conceptual approaches or modifications in technique. The study of the upcoming historical examples will attempt to develop insights that can be applied to validate, refute, or modify current and emerging US COIN doctrine. 65United States. Dept. of the Army., Counterinsurgency, 3-28. 66 Department of the Air Force., Irregular Warfare, Air Force Doctrine Document 2-3 (Washington, D.C.: Headquarters Department of the Air Force, 2007), 66. 19 Chapter 2 Rural Insurgencies They will win or lose Afghanistan in the rural villages and districts of the country, not in the capital city of Kabul. - Seth Jones, RAND Analyst In 1950 the newly formed government of the Philippines, threatened by the ruralbased communist Hukbalahap insurgency, was on the verge of collapse. The roots of the insurgency can be traced to government policies and actions at the end of World War II. But by 1952, the situation was stable. The government had successfully implemented significant reforms, contained the insurgency, and rooted out its leaders. In the autumn of 2001, the U.S. forcibly removed from power Afghanistan’s Taliban Regime, which had allowed the terrorist group Al Qaeda to operate freely within its country. The new Afghan government quickly gained control over Kabul, but it has been battling a rural Taliban/Al Qaeda insurgency ever since. This chapter will analyze the critical elements of the Hukbalahap and Afghanistan insurgencies. It will examine the interaction of the insurgents, the government, and the people in concert with the effects of the physical environment. The chapter concludes with an analysis of the effects of the rural environments on the nature and the dynamics of these insurgencies. The Hukbalahap Rebellion Nature of the Physical Environment The Philippines comprise over 115, 000 square miles of territory located on roughly 7,000 islands, most of which are less than a square mile in size. Over 90 percent of its land area is concentrated on the eleven largest islands. Luzon in the north, with over 40,000 square miles and comparable in size to Kentucky, and Mindanao in the south, with over 36,000 square miles, are the two most prominent. The climate is tropical, with both rainy and dry seasons. Rainfall during the rainy season, from July to October, can be substantial and is affected by terrain, prevailing winds, and monsoons. 20 Central Luzon, where the Huks primarily operated, is dominated by flat rice paddies and rolling grasslands that rise to the foothills of the Sierra Madres. The Sierra Madres are covered with dense tropical rainforests.1 Figure 1: Map of Philippines Source: Central Intelligence Agency World Fact book2 Background and Overview of the Huk Insurgency The Hukbalahap movement began in 1942 in response to the Japanese occupation of the Philippines, however its underpinnings date back to early dissident movements during the country’s colonial period. One of these movements, the Communist Party of the Philippines (CCP), was losing strength after a government crackdown in the early 1930s and merged with the more popular Socialist Party in 1938. This merger eventually caused differences in opinions, petty quarrels, and internal splits. However, before any of these differences could play out, the Philippines were invaded by Japan. 3 The CCP, 1 Ronald E. Dolan, Library of Congress. Federal Research Division. et al., Philippines, A Country Study, 4th ed., Area handbook series, (Washington, D.C.: U.S. G.P.O., 1993), 15-25. 2 Central Intelligence Agency, "CIA World Fact Book," US Government, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/rp.html (accessed 5 May 2008). 3 Eduardo Lachica, The Huks: Philippine agrarian society in revolt (New York,: Praeger, 1971), 101. 21 realizing this was a battle of national survival, formed a military wing called the Hukbo ng Bayan Laban sa mga Hapon (Army of Resistance Against Japan) and chose Luis Taruc as its commander-in-chief. Throughout the conflict, relations between the Huks and the US-backed guerrillas were tense because of the former’s communist affiliation. During the war, the CCP expanded its influence by gaining broad popular support, obtaining access to weapons and supplies, and establishing local shadow governments where the Japanese had no authority.4 Near the end of the war, the Huks had intended to disband as a military force because they correctly believed the Philippine people to be weary of conflict. The devastated Philippine economy and infrastructure also required substantial help. But corrupt officials mismanaged American aid, and little of it reached rural populations. Nevertheless, the Huks still planned to use legitimate political means to achieve their goals.5 But three dramatic developments in 1946 convinced the Huks to mount an antigovernment insurgency. The first was the treatment of the Huk movement and its veterans by American military forces who considered them a danger to a free and democratic Philippine government. The Huks were ordered to disarm, disband, and return home. The second was the return to the countryside of central Luzon landowners who had sought refuge in Manila during the war. These landowners sought to reestablish their authority and receive back rents. The third came after the 1946 congressional election, in which six CCP-affiliated candidates, including war hero Taruc, won seats in the national legislature. The government, alleging corruption, overturned the elections of these six candidates. Taruc and his political allies were convinced they had been wronged by a corrupt government and decided to rebel using the still intact Huk organization as their military instrument.6 The government initially underestimated the threat from the Huk insurgency; when it did realize the gravity of the threat, it mismanaged the response. By 1949, the 4 Ismael D. Lapus, "The Communist HUK Enemy," in Counter-Guerilla Seminar (Fort Bragg, NC: 1961), 1,3. 5 Lawrence M. Greenberg, The Hukbalahap Insurrection : A Case Study of a Successful Anti-insurgency Operation in the Philippines - 1946-1955 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History Analysis Branch, 1986), 33. 6 William Chapman, Inside the Philippine revolution, 1st ed. (New York: W.W. Norton, 1987), 60-62. 22 country was all but paralyzed. But the Huks erred, too. Misreading the situation, the CCP decided it was time to expand the Huk movement from a guerrilla force to a conventional army.7 At the same time, the government changed strategies and appointed Ramon Magsaysay secretary of defense. The Huk movement started to lose momentum rapidly in 1951 due to government action, its own overextension, and a shift in the mood of the Philippine people. Just when Magsaysay was reforming the armed forces, the Huks’ decision to expand and fight in larger groups made it easier for the Philippine security forces to destroy them. The support of the people also helped the army find and eliminate Huk insurgents. Realizing their mistake, Huk guerrilla leaders tried to return to guerrilla warfare; but the shift in momentum proved insurmountable.8 In 1954, Taruc realized the chances for a Huk victory were hopeless and surrendered to the Philippine government. The CCP continued to fight for a few more years until it was completely dismantled by the Philippine government.9 Philippine Government Leadership The Philippines first became independent in July 1946 and, committed to democratic ideals, held their first general election in November of that year. Manuel Roxas campaigned against Sergio Osema, the interim president. By promising to eliminate the Huk resistance within sixty days of taking office, Roxas won the election at the national level; but he lost heavily in rural Luzon.10 Roxas was a politician and an army brigadier general prior to the war, but he had collaborated with the Japanese during the occupation. Roxas was briefly imprisoned for his collaboration after the Philippines were liberated, and his past continued to weigh on him heavily during his presidency. 11 Roxas attempted to put down the rebellion without addressing its root causes. Using military and constabulary forces, he directed a violent anti-Huk offensive throughout Luzon that forced the local population to provide supplies, food, and 7James S. Corum and Wray R. Johnson, Airpower in Small Wars : Fighting Insurgents and Terrorists, Modern war studies (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2003), 123-24. 8 Corum and Johnson, Airpower in Small Wars 9Lachica, The Huks: Philippine agrarian society in revolt, 88,135. 10 Greenberg, The Hukbalahap insurrection, 44. 11 Greenberg, The Hukbalahap insurrection, 38-39. 23 information to government forces.12 In the first ninety days of Roxas’ presidency, the Constabulary ruthlessly intimidated local peasants through torture and brutality, killing nearly five hundred tenant farmers.13 Roxas also granted amnesty to all Filipinos who had cooperated with the Japanese, lowered the sharecroppers’ portion of the harvest by ten percent, and proposed lowering it even further.14 These policies strengthened the popular perception that the government did not have the peoples’ best interests at heart and existed primarily to protect a privileged few.15 Roxas attempted to negotiate with the Huks in 1946 and again in 1948, but both times “promises of agrarian reforms in exchange for the surrender of weapons were broken and negotiations ceased.”16 After the breakdown of a brief truce in 1948, Roxas put his “mailed fist” policy into effect and began another brutal crackdown in Huk-held territories. This effort located few Huks and alienated almost the entire population of the region. When President Roxas unexpectedly died in April 1948, he was succeeded by his vice president, Eplido Quirino. Unlike Roxas, Quirino understood that the insurgency was more than a criminal problem; but he was unsure as to how to proceed. Initially departing from Roxas’ heavy-handed tactics, Quirino attempted to undermine the insurgency through conciliation and amnesty, with promises of land reform. This policy was briefly successful; but when negotiations stalled, Quirino reverted to his predecessor’s tactics and ordered government forces to conduct a series of raids throughout central Luzon. As the situation continued to deteriorate, he placed the Philippine Constabulary (PC) under control of the army and ordered the armed forces to assume responsibility for defeating the insurgency. In 1949, Quirino was re-elected in a campaign marked by violence, intimidation, and corruption.17 This election all but paralyzed the government and helped the Huks broaden their base of support. To help turn the tide, President Quirino appointed Ramon Magsaysay as secretary of defense. Magsaysay was a forty-three-year-old congressman from central Luzon with no formal military training. He was not politically active prior to the war but did have an 12Greenberg, The Hukbalahap insurrection, 45. 13 Edward Geary Lansdale, In The Midst of Wars; An American's Mission to Southeast Asia, 1st ed. (New York,: Harper & Row, 1972), 28. 14 Luis Taruc, Born of the People (New York: International Publishers, 1973), 227. 15 Lansdale, In The Midst of Wars; An American's Mission to Southeast Asia, 28. 16Greenberg, The Hukbalahap insurrection, 68-69. 17 Corum and Johnson, Airpower in Small Wars 118-19. 24 extensive background in guerrilla warfare from fighting the Japanese. During the war, his American commander had found him highly capable and placed him in positions of increasing responsibility. During this period, he also developed a deep commitment to democratic principles.18 After his appointment, he quickly took charge of the counterinsurgency effort and began to reorganize Philippine security forces.19 Two years later, Magsaysay had re-shaped the armed forces into an effective fighting force, handpicking many of it leaders and ousting many others who were less efficient. Magsaysay was eventually elected president and unseated Quirino in 1953.20 By then, the Huk insurgency was in serious decline, due largely to the reforms that Magsaysay implemented as secretary of defense. Philippine Security Forces By 1946, the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) had been reduced from 132,000 to 25,000 poorly trained, armed, and led troops scattered throughout the islands. There was a similar number in the Philippine Military Police Corps (MPC), which had been established by General Douglas MacArthur at the end of the war to maintain internal peace and order.21 The MPC operated under the department of the interior as a quasi-military organization with a national constabulary mission. In addition to being poorly led and equipped, the MPC used heavy-handed tactics that alienated many from the government.22 In hopes of improving on its performance against the Huks, the MPC was reorganized as the Philippine Constabulary (PC) in 1948. The PC proved to be equally inept, even admitting to it ranks former Japanese collaborators and bandits. The troops employed a tactic known as zona, which had been used by the Japanese for gathering intelligence. It involved sealing off villages to interrogate inhabitants and inhibit Huk support. Due to the maltreatment of villagers, this tactic had the opposite effect and actually increased Huk support.23 18 Parker W. Borg, The United States, the Huk movement, and Ramon Magsaysay (1965), 10-13. 19 Greenberg, The Hukbalahap insurrection, 88. 20 Corum and Johnson, Airpower in Small Wars 123-25. 21 Greenberg, The Hukbalahap insurrection, 68. 22 Corum and Johnson, Airpower in Small Wars 117. 23 L. Grant Bridgewater, "Philippine Information Operations During The Hukbalahap Counterinsurgency Campaign," IO Sphere I, no. Spring (2006): 37. 25 Shortly before Magsaysay was named secretary of defense, the PC was merged with the armed forces and placed under the secretary’s control. The army was also assigned responsibility for the counterinsurgency mission, for which it was demonstrably ill-prepared. In the initial stages of their anti-Huk campaign, the security forces saturated Huk strongholds with combat troops to defeat the rebels and gain information from the people. These large-scale operations proved unsuccessful and were plagued by abuses of the local population. Because the rural population had little confidence in the ability of the armed forces to provide security, many abandoned the rural areas of the country for the relative safety of urban areas. As the situation worsened, the security forces reacted with further ruthlessness. Poor intelligence and a lack of basic military skills brought increasing deterioration. The AFP’s adherence to US Army organization and doctrine for conventional warfare constituted another shortcoming. With several consecutive years of shrinking budgets, the AFP failed to make the hard choices about the structure that would best suit it to protect the country against both external and internal threats.24 Magsaysay transformed the Philippine army into an effective counterinsurgent force. He hand-picked officers for key billets and suppressed brutal tactics and corruption. Pay and benefits for enlisted men were also increased. The effect of his reforms was immediate, and field operations quickly improved. To reinforce these trends, Magsaysay made unannounced visits to units in the field, where he relieved those who demonstrated incompetence and rewarded those he found doing well.25 The army was increased to 56,000 men and organized into twenty-six battalion combat teams. Training focused on small-unit tactics, with an emphasis on scouting, patrolling, and night operations. Commando-type units were also established for special operations and long-range patrols, raids, and ambushes.26 American economic and military assistance also increased after Magsaysay became secretary of defense. Philippine spending on national defense rose from $55 million in 1949 to $93 million in 1952. With American aid, this increase did not adversely affect civil programs. American aid also allowed Magsaysay to provide the 24 Romelino R. Gojo, "The Hukbalahap Movement," (Philippines Command and Staff College, 1984), 5-6. 25 Corum and Johnson, Airpower in Small Wars 121-22. 26 Gojo, "The Hukbalahap Movement," 7. 26 AFP with better equipment.27 As part of its aid package, the US also established an advisory mission.28 Philippine Government Counterinsurgency Strategy Presidents Roxas and Quirino employed different strategies for developing government legitimacy. Roxas used a policy of brute force. He was unwilling to address any of the root causes of the rebellion, viewing it simply as a criminal matter. President Quirino initially changed the strong-arm policy to one of conciliation. However, the Huks used this time to build strength, believing Quirino to be as corrupt as Roxas. When talks stalled between the two sides, Quirino resorted to the tactics of his predecessor. Until the appointment of Magsaysay, Quirino made incremental adjustments to his policy for dealing with the Huks, but none helped the situation.29 When Magsaysay was appointed secretary of defense, he instilled in the military the concept that winning the insurgency called for an integrated military, social, and political solution. Prior to 1950, most Filipinos believed that the army existed mainly to protect the elite. Magsaysay set about to change this perception by reforming the security forces and bringing them closer to the people. He required civil affairs training that instilled in the soldiers principles of equality and justice.30 This training also emphasized the protection of civilian lives and property. Magsasysay reinforced this training by issuing specific directives based on the aforementioned principles. AFP members who failed to follow these instructions were prosecuted in both military and civilian courts. Magsaysay also established a Civil Affairs Office (CAO) to build trust between the population and the AFP. The CAO coordinated medical teams, engineering projects, and a strategic communications effort.31 But Magsaysay recognized that reform of armed forces, while necessary, was insufficient. Broader socio-economic initiatives were also required. He began adjusting the national counterinsurgency strategy. He encouraged the government to address the issue of land reform. In December 1950, President Quirino authorized the distribution of 27 Corum and Johnson, Airpower in Small Wars 122. 28 Gojo, "The Hukbalahap Movement," 7. 29 Lapus, "The Communist HUK Enemy." 30 Uldarico S. Baclagon, Lessons from the Huk campaign in the Philippines (Manila,: M. Colcol, 1960), 187-91. 31 Gojo, "The Hukbalahap Movement," 7. 27 public lands to displaced peasants or surrendered Huks. Other reform-minded programs followed. Monetary rewards were given in exchange for actionable information or weapons. CCP organizations in urban areas were aggressively broken up, and the party’s members were arrested.32 These actions, along with military reform, attracted public support to the government and drove it away from the Huks. Hukbalahap Insurgent Leadership Taruc was the animating spirit of the Huk movement. He was born to peasant parents in Santa Monica, a barrio of San Luis, Pampanga, close to the seasonally flooded Candaba swamps. The experience of growing up in poverty and observing his father’s service in the Philippine Insurrection led him to become a reformer and later a revolutionary. He became a titular communist when the Socialist party merged with the CCP, but he never fully accepted its doctrine. His religious convictions and peasant sensibilities clashed with Marxist doctrine.33 After the war, Taruc, Jose Lava, and four others with communist affiliations were elected to the Philippine Senate. When President Roxas refused to allow them to participate in the government, Lava and Turac decided to rebel.34 Turac and Lava were fighting for different goals, but this did not become apparent until 1950. Jose Lava, a committed communist, dominated the political leadership of the CPP. His family descended from moderately rich land owners from a town close to Manila. The Lavas were known for producing intellectuals of the highest caliber, and they permeated the CCP leadership. Lava graduated cum laude from the University of the Philippines College of Law shortly before the war. According to Eduardo Lachia, he ruled the party leadership by his “sheer, irresistible dialectical materialism.”35 He also demonstrated an encyclopedic knowledge of communist doctrine. However, his blind faith in the teachings of Marx and Engels eventually led to his downfall. He misread the strategic situation in 1950 when he felt the time had come to expand the insurgency to an open revolution. When the Huks’ fortunes had changed by 1952, he failed to see the 32 Gojo, "The Hukbalahap Movement." 33 Lachica, The Huks: Philippine agrarian society in revolt, 88-89. 34 Lapus, "The Communist HUK Enemy," 5. 35 Lachica, The Huks: Philippine agrarian society in revolt, 125. 28 writing on the wall. With so many of his family members in the leadership of the CCP, Jose did not have a devil’s advocate to challenge his ideas. 36 Insurgent Forces Huk veterans from World War II were the first to re-join the fight in 1946. The organization was made up of three types of people: communists and socialists, veteran guerrilla fighters, and a small criminal element of thieves and bandits. Although Taruc would have preferred not to associate with the last group, necessity dictated that he take recruits from any available source. This diversity would hurt the organization after 1950. The Huks were also divided along functional lines consisting of fighters, supporters, and a mass civilian base that peaked at around one million people in 1950. To control their activities, Taruc developed an extensive, well-organized structure built around the wartime organization that had been integrated with the political faction of the CCP. Although estimates of Huk strength vary, Taruc stated that there were 10,000 Huk fighters in 1948 and as many as 15,000 by 1950.37 Based on the range of estimates, 15,000 is a plausible claim for the height of the insurgency. Huk tactics included raids on army and police bases, ambushes of government forces, murder and kidnapping of government officials, and robberies. Huks easily infiltrated local villages prior to operations to blend in with the population. They favored hilly terrain with natural cover to conduct ambushes. Operating from mountain bases in central Luzon, the Huks performed combat, foraging, recruiting, and subversion missions in squad-sized units. Due to their wartime experience, they were familiar with the terrain and proficient in military tactics.38 In 1950 the Huks made plans to expand their army to 150,000 by 1954. Up to this point in the conflict, the government’s performance had been poor. Thus, the central committee of the CCP, led by Lava, decided that the time was ripe to take up conventional warfare. Lava believed that this decision was also supported by the country’s economic conditions. This growth would also allow the Huk guerrillas to 36 Lachica, The Huks: Philippine agrarian society in revolt. 37 Taruc, Born of the People, 64. The Philippine government believed that 15,000 was an exaggerated number, but most estimates do place the number between 10,000 and 15,000 although some have been as high as 20,000. 38 Rodney S. Azama, "The Huks and the New People's Army: Comparing Two Postwar Filipino Insurgencies" (Marine Corps Command and Staff College, 1985), 135-40. 29 transition into a conventional army, incorrectly believed to be capable of defeating government forces. To support this growth, units were sent to neighboring provinces to recruit additional troops and prepare for an assault on Manila.39 Insurgent Ideology The ultimate objective of the CPP was the overthrow of the Philippine government. The CCP leadership was firmly committed to Marxist doctrine. The organization followed a standard concept of international revolutionary communism, whose activities were directed by a thirty-one member executive committee. Below the executive committee, the organization was designed to provide firm control of the revolution by the top leadership. 40 It was run from the urban areas of Manila. The military wing of the CCP, the Huks, operated from the rural countryside.41 The Huk leadership, while opposed to the government, was not as committed to the ideas of communist doctrine as was the central committee of the CCP. The Huks were against government corruption and for land reform. When the Huks began to lose momentum in 1952, this Huk-CCP “seam” would contribute to the dissolution of the insurgency.42 Strategy for Gaining Legitimacy The Huk movement initially exploited the issues of government corruption and land reform to gain popular support from both rural and urban populations. The issue of land reform appealed greatly to the agrarian peasants of central Luzon. Luis Taruc correctly gauged that “the peasant’s hunger for land has been our nation’s most pressing problem.”43 The issue of Philippine government corruption had wide appeal in both urban and rural populations. After the election of 1946, President Roxas failed to deliver on several of his election promises. His background as a Japanese collaborator added to the perception of government corruption. Furthermore, the repressive measures used in combating the Huk insurgency alienated the rural peasants. After Roxas’s death, the 39 Corum and Johnson, Airpower in Small Wars 124. 40 Gojo, "The Hukbalahap Movement," 6. 41 Lachica, The Huks: Philippine agrarian society in revolt, 131. 42 Lachica, The Huks: Philippine agrarian society in revolt, 88. 43 Luis Taruc, He who rides the tiger; the story of an Asian guerrilla leader (New York,: Praeger, 1967), 12. 30 election of 1949 was wracked with violence and corruption, which resulted in many of the people’s complete loss of faith in the government.44 The CCP pursued a classic Maoist style insurgency from 1946 until 1950, when they misread the conditions of the revolution. During the early period of the insurgency, the Huks generally confined their operations to small hit-and-run raids in order to build strength and ensure military survival.45 The CCP used legal means to challenge the government, while simultaneously infiltrating executive and military organizations.46 But in 1949, the central committee of the CCP elected to initiate a strategic offensive designed to overthrow the government. The CCP ordered the Huks to begin an aggressive countrywide expansion program. Taruc was also ordered to increase attacks against government forces.47 People The Huk movement’s strength stemmed from its base, the agrarian peasants of central Luzon. In 1946, the country’s population was just over eighteen million. Less than one-fifth of the population lived in cities, with Manila being the largest. Half the Philippine population lived on the island of Luzon. Ethnically homogeneous, most Filipinos are of Indonesian and Malayan decent.48 Tagalog is the nominal national language and is spoken dominantly on Luzon. In 1945, eighty-five percent of the population was Roman Catholic, which was incompatible with communist atheism.49 The Huks spent from 1946 until 1950 building their support base from 250,000 to over one million. In Huk controlled areas, the local populace was provided with food, services, and education. During this period, several government missteps aided the Huks in gaining further support of the population. Beyond the Huk’s support base, a significant additional portion of the population had lost faith in the government because it was failing to provide protection against the Huks. 44 Stephen Rosskamm Shalom, The United States and the Philippines : a study of neocolonialism (Philadelphia: Institute for the Study of Human Issues, 1981), 68-70. 45 Taruc, He who rides the tiger; the story of an Asian guerrilla leader, 7. 46 A.H. Peterson, "Symposium on the role of airpower in counterinsurgency and unconventional warfare : The Philippine Huk campaign," ed. A.H Peterson (Santa Monica, Calif.: Rand Corporation, 1963), 7. 47 Corum and Johnson, Airpower in Small Wars 123. 48 Corum and Johnson, Airpower in Small Wars 112. 49 Azama, "The Huks and the New People's Army: Comparing Two Postwar Filipino Insurgencies", 8. 31 In 1950, both the Huks and the Philippine government changed strategies. For the first time, the government focused on the people and on building public support. At the same time, the Huks attempted to expand the pace of military operations and focused less on building public support. The Huks were largely unsuccessful in their attempt at country-wide expansion and found that their message failed to appeal to the people beyond Luzon.50 Change in Dynamics of the Insurgency over Time The Huk movement had developed relatively unimpeded from 1946 until Magsaysay’s appointment as secretary of defense in 1950. The Huks built support in the rural areas of Luzon.51 They eventually established regional commands that maintained active elements, known as the Huk home guard, to protect rural base areas where expansion was taking place. At the same time, the fledgling Philippine government was overwhelmed with repairing a nation devastated by World War II. Trying at first to ignore the Huks, the government eventually resorted to an ineffective counterinsurgency campaign that had the unintended effect of further alienating the population. By 1949, the government had lost control of rural Luzon, allowing the Huks to operate almost unmolested. The Huks took advantage of the situation and increased their attacks. The former first lady of the Philippines, Mrs. Aurora Quezon, was killed in an ambush. Mrs. Quezon was very popular, and her murder received wide condemnation and a general call for government action. At the same time, Manila’s population had swelled by hundreds of thousands of peasants fleeing the rural areas where the government could no longer provide protection.52 With the appointment of Magsaysay as secretary of defense in 1950, the Philippine government began correcting its previous mistakes at the same time the Huks were overextending themselves. Luis Taruc disagreed with the CCP central committee’s decision to commence conventional warfare but carried out his orders. Meanwhile, the AFP was quickly reformed. Its actions in the field focused on killing and capturing Huk guerrillas, while at the same time building popular support. Magsaysay also worked to break up the leadership of the CCP that had been allowed to operate unchallenged in 50 Lapus, "The Communist HUK Enemy," 12. 51 Taruc, He who rides the tiger; the story of an Asian guerrilla leader, 7. 52 Corum and Johnson, Airpower in Small Wars 113-21. 32 urban Manila. This isolated the Huk guerrillas from their political leadership. At exactly the same time that the government was adopting a successful counterinsurgency strategy, the Huks’ expansion activities had two negative consequences. First, they drained limited resources and personnel from other important Huk activities. Second, they made the Huk guerrillas easier to kill or capture as they began to operate in larger organizations in unfamiliar terrain.53 By 1951 government forces had reduced the number of active Huk guerrillas from 15,000 to 8,000 and killed 1,363 insurgents.54 The Huk leaders attempted to return to guerrilla warfare in 1951, but they were too weak to do so effectively. Magsaysay and the government had taken the appropriate actions to combat the Huk message. With popular support in central Luzon dwindling, the Huks were forced to resort to more coercive actions to acquire needed supplies, thus accelerating their decline. In 1954, Taruc, confronted by the reality of an inevitable defeat, surrendered to the Philippine government. Lava and other CCP diehards continued to struggle for two more years, but they were more a nuisance than a serious threat.55 Effect of the Environment The rural environment provided several advantages to the Huks from 1946 to 1950. Principally, the central plains of Luzon offered a secure base from which they were able pursue and expand their Maoist insurgency. The Huk leadership correctly understood that the center of gravity was popular support. Because the new Philippine government was incapable of exerting effective control outside of urban areas, the Huks seized on this opportunity to expand their support. They provided their own protogovernmental services such as education, welfare, and security to the rural population. They attempted to bring about de facto land reform by limiting the control of rich landowners. They slowly eroded government legitimacy by using the familiar jungle terrain to employ hit-and-run tactics against Philippine security forces. The rural terrain not only gave the Huks an area in which they could survive and even thrive, it also masked the severity of the insurgency. 53 Lapus, "The Communist HUK Enemy," 5-8. 54 Greenberg, The Hukbalahap insurrection, 137. 55 Corum and Johnson, Airpower in Small Wars 125. 33 The Philippine government did not perceive the Huk insurgency as its most pressing issue until after the election of 1949. Before the election, it was heavily engaged in building government institutions. The Huks were able to expand their support gradually by keeping the ‘noise level’ to a point the government perceived as manageable. Huk activity remained out of sight of the government in Manila. By the time the government realized the seriousness of the situation, it was on the brink of collapse. Furthermore, the government initially had little understanding of either the Huk organization or its support. With limited intelligence in central Luzon, the government incorrectly identified the Huks as a criminal organization. Not understanding the threat caused the Philippine government initially to employ the wrong counterinsurgency strategy. But this miscalculation was based largely on the Huks’ ability to hide their work in the inaccessible reaches of rural central Luzon. The government initially employed an enemy-focused strategy. The tactics used by government security forces, which focused on killing or capturing Huk insurgents, helped to drive the support of the population from the government to the insurgents. By being centered on enemy rather than the population, the security forces left villages vulnerable while they chased Huk insurgents through the countryside. The Huks took advantage of this lack of security to punish collaborators and reassure supporters. In 1950, when the Huks and the Philippine government both changed strategies, the momentum of the insurgency was reversed. Under Magsaysay, the government focused on winning the “hearts and minds” of the rural population by providing security, aid, services, and addressing legitimate grievances. The Huks mistakenly set about to defeat the Philippine security forces and neglected the imperative to maintain and build popular support. Under Magsaysay, the AFP also developed tactics and techniques that allowed them to operate in the rural areas efficiently. Government security forces now isolated the Huks both from their leadership in urban Manila and from their rural support. They trapped the insurgents in their base areas and slowly starved them of support. The reorganization of the AFP ensured the right mix of forces was fielded to secure the population, conduct civil affairs, and attack the Huk insurgents. By 1954, the insurgency had all but dissipated. Summary 34 In sum, the anti-Huk campaign in the Philippines demonstrated that the juxtaposition of competing strategies was the most critical determinant of this counterinsurgency campaign. What doomed the Huk movement to defeat was the CCP’s direction for it to expand and begin to transform itself into a conventional force at precisely the moment Magsaysay’s reforms of the Philippine security forces and the broader socio-economic programs he convinced President Quirino to implement made the AFP effective counterinsurgent formations. But the rural environment played several pivotal roles. First, it gave the Huks a secure base from which to grow into a serious threat. Second, it masked the true effects of the Huk expansion, lulling the government into a false sense of security and prompting President Roxas to pursue a flawed strategy. Third, it compelled Magsaysay to adopt small-unit tactics and legitimacy-winning measures that would separate the Huks from their support. Only when the AFP developed the capacity to operate successfully in the reaches of previously inaccessible central Luzon, were the Huks put seriously at risk. Thus, although strategy was fundamental, the environment strongly influenced how that strategy played out by defining its operational characteristics. The Afghanistan Insurgency Nature of the Physical Environment Afghanistan, approximately the size of Texas, is a landlocked country. It is bordered on the north by Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan; on the extreme northeast by China; on the east and south by Pakistan; and on the west by Iran. Its terrain is dominated by rugged mountain ranges, which generally run from the northeast to the southwest. Mountains occupy all but the north-central and southwestern regions of the country. The climate is generally arid or semi-arid with cold winters and dry, hot summers. With the exception of a semi-modern system of main roads, Afghanistan had a very rudimentary transportation system prior to the 1979 Soviet invasion. After two 35 decades of war, this road system has fallen into noticeable disrepair. In 2003, the country only had 8,300 kilometers of paved road.56 Figure 2: Map of Afghanistan Source: Central Intelligence Agency World Fact book57 Background of Insurgency After almost twenty years of war, the Taliban, an Islamic fundamentalist group, gained control of most of Afghanistan in 1996. The Taliban used an extreme interpretation of Islam to assert repressive control over Afghan society. With the Taliban in control, the economy remained in ruins; and most government services came to a halt. During this period, Osama bin Laden and other members of al-Qaeda began living in Afghanistan, operating terrorist training camps in a loose alliance with the Taliban.58 Following the September 11, 2001 attacks on the USA, the Taliban rejected international pressure to surrender bin-Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders. The United States and the United Kingdom launched Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) on October 56 Library of Congress, "Country Profile: Afghanistan, May 2006," ed. Library of Congress - Federal Research Division (Unpublished, 2006), 4,5,12. 57 Central Intelligence Agency, "CIA World Fact Book." 58 Library of Congress, "Country Profile: Afghanistan, May 2006," 3. 36 7, 2001. The US and the UK led an aerial bombing campaign, with ground forces supplied primarily by the Afghan Northern Alliance. The Taliban government quickly collapsed, but both its and al-Qaeda’s leaders dispersed to sanctuaries in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Reduced to remnants, the objective of both became to oppose the establishment of a free and democratic government through subversion and terrorism.59 From 2002 to 2004, the international community worked to stabilize Afghanistan, while at the same time staving off insurgent attempts to interfere with the process. Since 2005, the insurgency has undergone a metamorphosis. Afghanistan is now subject to increasing threats to its stability from revived and reorganized Taliban-led insurgent activity, growing illegal drug production, and a fragile government with limited control beyond Kabul. Insurgents have severely challenged the Afghan government’s control of the southern provinces. 60 Afghanistan Government’s Political Leadership Before becoming Afghanistan’s first democratically elected president in 2004, Hamid Karzai was chosen by delegates of the Bonn Conference in late 2001 to head an interim government. Karzai was born in 1957 as the youngest of eight children to an educated and prominent family in Kandahar Province. His family was comfortable but not wealthy, its prominence came from a long history of close ties to other ruling families.61 Karzai was educated in India and fought with the Mujahideen in the war against the Soviets in the 1980s.62 After being placed in power, Karzai’s authority beyond Kabul was extremely limited. The United States and the United Nations helped to organize a presidential election in October 2004 that Karzai won with fifty-five percent of the vote. But the way the election was conducted virtually assured Karzai’s victory.63 59 Adrian T. Bogart and Joint Special Operations University (U.S.), One valley at a time, JSOU report ; 06- 6 (Hurlburt Field, FL.: JSOU Press, 2006), 16. 60 Sean M. Maloney, "Conceptualizing the War in Afghanistan: Perceptions from the Front, 2001-2006," Small Wars and Insurgencies 18, no. 1 (2006): 28. 61 Nick Mills, Karzai : The Failing American Intervention and The Struggle for Afghanistan (Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley, 2007). 62 Mills, Failing American Intervention, 40,49. 63 Abdulkader H. Sinno, Organizations at war in Afghanistan and beyond (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2008), 256-60. 37 Karzai is widely seen by Afghans as being a figurehead for American influence and a centralizing ruler attempting to limit regional authority. He has a narrow base of support and to Afghans does not appear to be particularly charismatic. And his military experience, while relevant, is limited. He depends heavily on the American and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) presence for his safety and ability to maintain security in Kabul. His strongest asset is the broad perception that his government is capable of attracting international financial aid.64 Afghanistan Security Forces Under President Karzai, there has been significant, though slow, progress toward revitalization of the national armed forces. The Afghan National Army (ANA) and Afghan Air Force (AAF) are under control of the Afghan Ministry of Defense. A variety of strong militias are active around the country, most of which are hostile to the government and NATO forces.65 The ANA, primarily trained by the American armed forces, is presently organized into 31 battalions, 28 of which are considered combat ready. Five regional corps headquarters exist, but at present most battalions operate under American or NATO supervision. Built from the ground up, the ANA’s total manpower is around 57,000; but it is expected to reach the 70,000 target established by the Bonn Agreement in mid-2008. This number is far short of the 200,000 the minister of defense believes necessary to win the insurgency.66 The ANA has been faced with daunting problems including high desertion rates, mediocre training, nepotism, and ethnic tensions within the force. Inflated salaries, ten times those of the national police, have failed to stem defectors. 67 Some critics have argued that the US bears some of the responsibility for the ANA’s poor performance in the field. They say that the ANA organization is based on an American light infantry model, suitable for presence patrols and clearance operations but not for counterinsurgency. Because of an inadequate national air force, the ANA lacks the 64 Sinno, Organizations at war in Afghanistan and beyond, 260. 65 "Afghan Military Forces," GlobalSecurity.Org, http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/afghanistan/amf.htm (accessed 23 April 2008). 66 Hamid Shalizi, "Afghanistan Army to Reach Targeted Strength by March," Reuters, Dec 2, 2007, http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSISL5175520071202. 67 Sinno, Organizations at war in Afghanistan and beyond, 256-57. 38 capability to function without American forces.68 The ANA takes its orders directly from Americans. There is evidence that initially the US saw the ANA as an auxiliary force, rather than an army capable of autonomous operations. As disengagement became an American political issue in 2006, this effort has shifted; but progress remains slow.69 The AAF is largely inoperative; however some progress has been made in rebuilding it. Its manpower is around 3,600, including 450 pilots, most of whom were trained during the communist era. It operates a small number of Mi-17 and Mi-24 helicopters and AN-24 cargo planes. Maintenance crews are currently being trained.70 The Afghan National Police (ANP) is in the worst shape of any of the nation’s security forces. It has been involved in the counterinsurgency effort since 2002. Unlike the ANA, the ANP was created out of factional militias. Militia commanders became police chiefs, and their men became untrained and unskilled policemen. Because of their militia backgrounds, ANP units habitually act in accordance with tribal loyalties that hamper their effectiveness. The first police training mission, led by Germany, was slow to produce meaningful results. 71 The training mission is now led by the USA, and there are currently 70,000 police with various levels of training. But the ANP continues to be plagued with corruption and has been largely ineffective in combating Taliban influence.72 The ANP’s indiscipline and corruption may, in fact, be a contributing factor to the Taliban’s resurgence. The 2001 Bonn agreement called for a limited non-UN, non-US force that would deploy to stabilize the capital, Kabul. The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), initially led by the UK, deployed in mid-2002 with 1,500 combat troops and 3,000 support troops. ISAF’s was initially symbolic, intended to obtain international participation in Afghan reconstruction and protect the central government. ISAF confined itself to administering disarmament plans, force protection, and other minor 68 Antonio Giustozzi, Koran, Kalashnikov, and Laptop : the neo-Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008), 189-90. 69 Giustozzi, Koran, Kalashnikov, and Laptop, 181. 70 "Afghan Military Forces." 71 Giustozzi, Koran, Kalashnikov, and Laptop, 173-74. 72 Major General Robert Cone, "DoD Press Briefing" (Pentagon, Arlington, VA, October 18, 2008 2008). 39 operations within Kabul. The coordination of ANA planning was in some disarray at this point.73 Initially, the degree of control exercised by US and ISAF forces throughout the country was localized. With ISAF in Kabul, the Americans controlled the southern portion of the country from its bases in Kandahar Province. The concept of counterinsurgency operations in the south during 2003 featured the deployment of special operations forces to a network of forward operating bases. Civil affairs units then operated in uncontrolled areas between those bases to alert special operations and light infantry forces when enemy forces were located.74 Increasing unease in European circles over the leadership of ISAF drove the command to convert to NATO oversight by mid-2003. An increased American involvement in Iraq in 2004 led to NATO’s progressively taking control over certain parts of Afghanistan. 75 In late 2006, NATO assumed command of all military operations in Afghanistan.76 Troop levels have slowly increased from 15,000 in 2002 to 47,000 in 2007, almost 30,000 of which are American troops. Air support is available from A-10s, F-16s, and AH-64s based in Bagram, Kandahar, and Kabul, as well as on-call B-52s and B-1s flying from distant bases and circling over Afghanistan. The heavy reliance on air support by ground troops has come under criticism from Afghan government officials as being counterproductive to COIN operations. 77 This dependence has also created a perception among Afghans that American troops lacked conviction and were reluctant to fight without overwhelming air support. This perception emboldened Taliban resistance and lowered Afghani estimates of American resolve. Furthermore, the reliance on airpower has produced an increase in civilian casualties and frequent accusations of the excessive use of force.78 Afghanistan Government Ideology 73 Maloney, "Conceptualizing the War in Afghanistan: Perceptions from the Front, 2001-2006," 31. 74 Maloney, "Conceptualizing the War in Afghanistan: Perceptions from the Front, 2001-2006," 31-33. 75 Maloney, "Conceptualizing the War in Afghanistan: Perceptions from the Front, 2001-2006," 33. 76 United States. Congress. House. Committee on House Foreign Affairs., Statement by LTG (Ret) David Barno at hearings of the Subcommittee on Middle East and South Asia, House Foreign Affairs Committee, April 8, 2008 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. G.P.O., 1993), 4. 77 Giustozzi, Koran, Kalashnikov, and Laptop, 163. 78 Giustozzi, Koran, Kalashnikov, and Laptop, 163. 40 Afghani expectations were high after the removal of the Taliban from power in 2001. Promises of democracy, economic development, and a permanent end to conflicts generated almost euphoric goodwill among the Afghan population. In the Bonn Agreement, the international community agreed to the creation of an interim authority with Hamid Karzai as its president. Karzai was charged with taking care of the day-today affairs of the state and building the central government’s institutions. Benchmarks such as holding presidential elections, adopting a constitution, and holding parliamentary elections were also established. These benchmarks failed to take into account the local realities in Afghanistan, particularly the power and relevance of decentralized tribalbased power. Although limited achievements related to classic western post-conflict desiderata have been made in the past seven years, President Karzai’s government has encountered serious difficulty extending its mandate beyond Kabul into the country’s rural regions.79 Afghanis are increasingly incensed at what they perceive to be the continued failure of the US, NATO, and the Afghan government to deliver meaningful results. There is desperate need for food, health care, and other essential services in the countryside. Most people there have never seen any representatives of the central government or international community.80 There are also too few competent Afghan forces to provide security to the population in the rural areas. Villagers who openly support or collaborate with the government put themselves in significant danger. The Afghan government’s inability to deliver services or provide security detracts from its already weak legitimacy.81 The Karzai government’s strategy to build central government institutions is further undermined by corruption. Afghanis have become increasingly frustrated with national and local officials who are viewed as corrupt and self serving. This perception persists in both urban and rural areas.82 79 SENLIS, "Afghanistan Five Years Later: The Return of the Taliban," (London: The Senlis Council, 2006), 5-6. 80 SENLIS, "Afghanistan Five Years Later: The Return of the Taliban," 11. 81 Canada. Congress. Senate. Standing Committe on National Security and Defense., Statement by Dr. Seth Jones at hearings of the Standing Commitee on National Security and Defense, December 10, 2007, The State of the Afghan Insurgency (Georgetown University: RAND, 2007), 4. 82 Canada. Congress. Senate. Standing Committe on National Security and Defense., Statement by Dr. Seth Jones at hearings of the Standing Commitee on National Security and Defense, December 10, 2007, 5. 41 Afghanistan Government Strategy for Obtaining Legitimacy The central government in Kabul initially planned to rely on foreign aid from the U.S. and NATO to fight the counterinsurgency against the Taliban while it concentrated on forming a working democratic government. In the beginning, neither the US nor the Afghan government took the Taliban insurgency seriously. The US was focused on Iraq, while the Afghans mistakenly believed that the Americans’ overwhelming combat power would rid them of insurgents in the remote countryside. The Karzai government focused on building political power without paying sufficient attention to the conditions that made the spread of insurgency possible. High initial ratings in opinion polls convinced Karzai that his government was making the right decisions.83 But these ratings were bolstered by the hope of the Afghan people, rather than by government action per se. The military COIN effort in Afghanistan was the work of several different components from the US and NATO. Until 2006, the US ranked at the top of combat potential and decision power of the forces assigned to Afghanistan. It also was burdened with the entire combat load, with NATO only providing support troops. With the transfer of military command to NATO, British, Canadian, Australian, and Dutch troops have been involved actively in combat. The overwhelming criticism of the foreign contingents by the Afghanis is that they are overly reliant on firepower and pay insufficient attention to developing local knowledge and familiarity. These criticisms have been compounded by the frequent rotations of personnel who fail to pass whatever knowledge is accumulated to their successors.84 The absence of close relations between the local population and American forces has also hampered the Afghan government’s quest for legitimacy. Complaints of behavior by American forces have ranged from a lack of respect for local customs to arbitrary arrest and killings. The NATO forces were not welcome either, partly because of the rural population’s inability to distinguish among troops from various countries.85 The Karzai government planned to extend control gradually from its major cities to the rural areas of the country. But it still has too few competent Afghan forces to provide security to the population in rural areas of the country, and NATO forces have 83Giustozzi, Koran, Kalashnikov, and Laptop, 161. 84 Giustozzi, Koran, Kalashnikov, and Laptop, 163. 85 Giustozzi, Koran, Kalashnikov, and Laptop, 165. 42 been unable to provide adequate security in the south or along the Pakistani border.86 On two occasions, the government has unsuccessfully attempted to undermine the Taliban’s strength by co-opting some of its leaders to participate in the democratic process. All this has occurred while the Taliban continues to get stronger.87 Taliban Leadership Since the Taliban’s retreat into the Pakistani border region after the US invasion of 2001, few details of the organization’s command structure are available. The nature of Taliban operations suggests that its organization is based on small units that can move with relative safety throughout an assigned region. These units are loosely coordinated by regional commanders who appear to act with considerable autonomy. This loose command structure has apparently given rise to friction within the group when decisions are made by senior Taliban leadership.88 Mullah Muhammad Omar is the Taliban leader. In 1994, Omar, who was then a nonentity in the Taliban movement, removed a sacred garment believed to belong to the Prophet Mohammed from its sanctuary in Kandahar. Possession of this garment gave him a reputation for having mystical power among the mostly illiterate Pashtun people and earned him the name the “leader of the faithful.”89 Little is known about the reclusive Omar, who rarely appears on camera. He was born in 1959 in Kandahar Province to an impoverished family. Omar received his basic education from his great uncle and subsequently attended a number of Islamic schools, known as madrassahs. He participated in the anti-Soviet jihad, during which he was wounded four times and lost his right eye. He spent much of the 1990s studying in madrassahs in Pakistan.90 Under Omar is a 10-man leadership council. When the Taliban ruled Afghanistan, Omar made all the decisions; and no one dared to act without his orders. 86 Canada. Congress. Senate. Standing Committe on National Security and Defense., Statement by Dr. Seth Jones at hearings of the Standing Commitee on National Security and Defense, December 10, 2007, 5. 87 STRATFOR, "Afghsnistan, U.K.: London's 'New' Taliban Strategy," STRATFOR Strategic Forecasting, Inc., http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/afghanistan. 88 Jane's World Insurgency And Terrorism, "Taliban," (Jane's Information Group, 2008). 89 Thomas H. Johnson and M. Chris Mason, "Understanding the Taliban and Insurgency in Afghanistan," Orbis 51, no. 1 (2007): 80. 90 Terrorism, "Taliban." 43 Today, he issues statements of encouragement, rather than operational orders, to his field commanders.91 Al-Qaeda is inextricably linked to Afghanistan as its origins can be traced back to the struggle against the Soviet occupation between 1979 and 1989. Defeating the organization has become central in the American war on terror. After the 2001 US-led invasion, many al-Qaeda members retreated to the Pakistani border. A less homogenous and structured movement than the Taliban, al-Qaeda has served as an ideological reference point for ad hoc terrorist cells and recruiting.92 Its leadership however, is not directly involved in the conflict. Taliban Forces The current Taliban insurgents can be divided into two groups. The first consists of the core Taliban leaders and their followers, who are connected directly or indirectly to the old Taliban regime of the 1990s and, in some cases, to al-Qaeda. They share a common faith in a strict interpretation of Islamic law and view the insurgency as a fight against Western infidels.93 This group also consists of a small but growing number of foreign fighters who have gravitated to the region to fight alongside the Taliban. Afghan officials warn that “they are more violent, uncontrollable and extreme than even their locally bred allies.”94 These foreign fighters have come from Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Chechnya, and other Arab countries. They not only serve as mid-level commanders, but also bring training and financial support.95 The second faction includes the thousands of local fighters and their support networks. These are primarily young men from rural villages who are paid to set up roadside bombs, launch rockets and mortars, or pick up a gun every few days. Most are not ideologically committed to jihad or radical Islam but are motivated because they are unemployed, disenchanted with government corruption, or angry at civilian deaths caused by American bombing.96 The Taliban is gaining strength. Prior to 2006, the Taliban were very active but did not have the ability to control and hold terrain. They are now thought to have at least 91 Mason, "Understanding the Taliban and Insurgency in Afghanistan," 80. 92SENLIS, "Stumbling into Chaos:Afghanistan on the Brink," (London: The Senlis Council, 2007), 40-43. 93 Jane's, "Taliban," (Jane's Information Group, 2008). 94 David Rohde, "Foreign Fighters of Harsher Bent Bolster Taliban," (New York: New York Times, 2007). 95 Rohde, "Foreign Fighters of Harsher Bent Bolster Taliban." 96 SENLIS, "Stumbling into Chaos:Afghanistan on the Brink," 31. 44 12,000 fighters controlling areas in the provinces of Oruzgan, Helmand, Zabol, and Kandahar. Of that number, only about 2,000 to 3,000 are the highly motivated, full-time insurgents in the first category. Five-to-ten percent of the full-time insurgents are believed to be foreigners.97 The Taliban have assessed the political and military situation throughout the insurgency and have adjusted their tactics accordingly. For example, during 2006 there was a dramatic rise in the use of small-unit ambushes. In 2007, the Taliban conducted a number of assaults on remote outposts held by Afghan security forces. The standard hitand- run tactics employed early in the insurgency have now been supplemented by the use of roadside bombs and suicide attacks. The Taliban have also moved to high-impact terror attacks that indiscriminately kill civilians. This suggests a cross-fertilization of ideas from insurgent operations in Iraq.98 The Taliban embrace differing approaches to rural and urban operations. When an attack is planned in a rural area, villages are warned in advance. However, in the cities under government control, attacks occur without warning. The Taliban have also adopted selective targeting aimed at intimidating government officials and their supporters. In rural villages, the Taliban return after government forces leave and attack collaborators. The Taliban have also been able to concentrate a relatively large number (100-400) of fighters for attacks in southern Afghanistan. While these larger formations have had little tactical success, they have furthered the Taliban message and call to jihad.99 Taliban Ideology The common view of the Taliban as being simply a radical Afghan Islamist movement is overly simple. They have been able to build on tribal networks and charismatic mullahs to mobilize a rural base of support. The ideology of the present Taliban is not easy to define, but it is clearly grounded in the movement’s past. It can best be described as a mixture of the most conservative portions of Islam, with emphasis on the importance of ritual and modes of behavior. When in power, the Taliban reduced penal and criminal laws to a very narrow version of Sharia. Thus, they also reject contacts with the outside world and have an oppressive attitude toward women. The 97 Rohde, "Foreign Fighters of Harsher Bent Bolster Taliban." 98 Jane's, "Taliban." 99 Mason, "Understanding the Taliban and Insurgency in Afghanistan," 86-88. 45 Taliban’s grievances can be seen as an expression of the rural-urban conflict in Afghanistan. Since 2001, the Taliban have absorbed some of the culture of their foreign jihadist allies and are now more flexible and somewhat less orthodox then they were previously. They have become more integrated with the internationalist jihad movement. Most importantly, the Taliban have a substantial base of true believers who are committed to expelling foreigners and eventually overthrowing the central government in Kabul.100 Taliban Strategy for Gaining Legitimacy The Taliban quickly seized upon the Karzai government’s failure to gain rural Pashtun support. Unlike NATO and the Afghan government, the Taliban identified the Afghan people as their center of gravity. They have successfully exploited the Afghan people’s anger and impatience with the central government. In several provinces, the Taliban now provide services such as justice and economic opportunity. They also provide physical security by fighting the forces that come to destroy the poppy crops that represent many farmers’ livelihoods.101 They have deployed low-level fighters to intimidate non-governmental organizations (NGO) and international relief agencies into withdrawing to the protected cities. By night, Taliban mullahs travel in the rural areas, speaking directly to village elders to deliver their message.102 The Taliban have focused their information campaign on southern Afghanistan. They regularly visit and distribute pamphlets throughout southern Afghanistan’s most remote areas. Taliban communications have also embraced modern technology. Taliban media spokespersons frequently report their claims of victories and enemy casualties. Although the effectiveness of Taliban propaganda is often disputed, it is clear that the credibility of the insurgency’s political messages has definitely been strengthened by the movement’s ability to maintain and increase its presence in key areas. The overarching message of Taliban propaganda is that the West is waging a war in Afghanistan against Islam. It is articulated in themes that are easy for the average person in Afghanistan to understand and with which to identify. One of the most effective themes is highlighting 100 Giustozzi, Koran, Kalashnikov, and Laptop, 12-15. 101 SENLIS, "Afghanistan Five Years Later: The Return of the Taliban," 6. 102 Mason, "Understanding the Taliban and Insurgency in Afghanistan," 87. 46 the West’s insistence on a counter-narcotics policy that leaves few viable alternatives for Afghan farmers.103 The Taliban’s strategy is to fight the “war of the flea,” i.e., to wear down American and NATO forces.104 They use tactics such as fighting in villages to provoke air strikes that cause collateral damage. They readily trade the lives of a few dozen guerrilla fighters to cost NATO forces a village’s permanent loyalty. Based on tribal beliefs, the killing of one guerrilla is an act of insurgent multiplication, not subtraction.105 They bait American forces to chase an insignificant few unemployed and illiterate Afghanis with guns. The Taliban know they cannot win militarily, but they believe they can out-last the West.106 When and if Western forces leave Afghanistan, the Taliban feel they could easily overwhelm the Afghan security forces. This strategy has some potential for success because the Taliban have a sufficiently strong base of support to replace their current losses indefinitely. Furthermore, they are well financed by the narcotics trade and donations from the Arab world.107 Afghan People Population assessment is difficult because many Afghans do not have fixed residences. In 2006 the estimated population was 31.1 million, with a growth of 2.7 percent per year. The population is 75 percent rural, with the six most populous cities accounting for less than 10 percent of the population. The main ethnic groups are Pashtun, 42 percent; Tajik, 27 percent; Hazara, 9 percent; and Uzbeck, 9 percent. More than thirty languages are spoken in Afghanistan, but the vast majority speak Pashtu or Dari. Virtually the entire population is Muslim. In 2003, an estimated 57 percent of men and 86 percent of women were illiterate. An estimated quarter of the population has no access to health care. In rural areas, one in five children dies before reaching the age of five. In 2004, the World Bank estimated that 50-to-60 percent of the population was on the verge of severe poverty. Since the 2001 invasion, the majority of the rural Afghan 103 SENLIS, "Stumbling into Chaos:Afghanistan on the Brink," 35-36. 104 See Robert Taber, The War of the Flea : A study of Guerrilla Warfare Theory and Practise (New York: L. Stuart, 1965). 105 Mason, "Understanding the Taliban and Insurgency in Afghanistan," 88. 106 United States. Congress. House. Committee on House Foreign Affairs., Statement by LTG (Ret) David Barno at hearings of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, February 15, 2008 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. G.P.O., 2007), 4. 107 Mason, "Understanding the Taliban and Insurgency in Afghanistan." 47 population has yet to see improvement in their lives that can be attributed to the central government.108 Even though Afghanis are frustrated, most opinion polls suggest that the Taliban are not well liked in Afghanistan. The population’s appetite for more conflict has been depressed by more than two decades of war.109 However, legitimate grievances triggered by the international community’s own policies and the general lack of governance and security are increasingly causing people to turn their backs on the Karzai government.110 Change in Dynamics of the Insurgency over Time After the 2001 invasion, the Taliban were on the brink of extinction. The hunt for al-Qaeda and leaders of the Taliban regime lasted through 2002. A shift in focus to Iraq in 2003 by the US and the failure of the Karzai government to connect with the people produced a Taliban resurgence. The Taliban initially reverted to a relatively disorganized resistance initially, aided by a relatively uncoordinated international opposition. Since then, the Taliban have been slowly building strength, while the central government in Kabul has struggled. In April 2008 testimony before the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee, former US commander in Afghanistan, retired Lieutenant General David Barno highlighted some disturbing trends. He said I’d like to draw a few comparisons between the mid-point year of my tour, 2004, and last year, 2007. Security incidents – defined as reported acts of violence nation-wide -- totaled 900 in 2004; last year, in 2007 they totaled 8,950 across Afghanistan. Roadside bombs amounted to 325 attacks in 2004; last year, 1,469. Suicide bombings – decidedly a non-Afghan phenomenon – totaled 3 in 2004; last year they exceeded 130, a deadly new tactic being imported from Iraq. Total bombs dropped by Coalition air forces in 2004 were 86; last year, NATO dropped 3,572 bombs in Afghanistan – noteworthy in a war all now commonly define as a complex counter-insurgency fight. Finally, poppy production in 2004 totaled 131K 108 Library of Congress, "Country Profile: Afghanistan, May 2006," 5-7. 109 Peter Bergen, "The Taliban, Regrouped and Rearmed," The Washington Post 2006. 110 SENLIS, "Afghanistan Five Years Later: The Return of the Taliban," 11. 48 hectares, and while dropping to 104K in 2005, ballooned in 2007 to a new record of 193K hectares.111 These statistics are particularly alarming because several NATO countries are considering reducing their commitment and the Afghan government is potentially a decade or more away from building institutions capable of fighting an insurgency. To sum up the situation, the government and the Taliban seem to have fought to a stalemate, which may favor the insurgent’s strategy over the long haul. Effect of the Environment In the Afghan insurgency, the physical environment has aided the Taliban’s strategy and hindered the central government’s. After 2001, the Taliban retreated to the rugged mountainous terrain along the Pakistani border to regroup. The terrain and lack of infrastructure in those parts of Afghanistan provided a safe base in which the Taliban could operate and gain strength. The Taliban have also exploited the availability of Pakistan as a sanctuary. Because of its inaccessibility, the border between the two countries is porous. The Taliban are able to move between the two countries with relative impunity, and domestic support within Pakistan prevents the government there from taking effective action or sanctioning NATO cross-border activities.112 The Taliban have also effectively used the terrain to engage limited NATO assets. By sporadically challenging NATO forces across a wide front, they successfully occupy counterinsurgents, then retreat into the rugged terrain. When NATO forces depart to fight the Taliban in another area, operatives return to the first area to demonstrate that they have prevailed. The rugged terrain also has enabled the use of hit-and-run tactics. And, while NATO focuses on using its limited resources to fight the insurgents, the Taliban are focused instead on winning hearts and minds. The Karzai government was compelled to focus on governance in urban areas before expanding to the rural areas, where most of the population lives. Given the almost non-existent transportation system and vast rugged terrain of the country, the government did not have the resources to do anything else. But the disadvantage of this strategy was 111 United States. Congress. House. Committee on House Foreign Affairs., Statement by LTG (Ret) David Barno at hearings of the Subcommittee on Middle East and South Asia, House Foreign Affairs Committee, April 8, 2008 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. G.P.O., 2008), 4. 112 STRATFOR, "Afghsnistan, U.K.: London's 'New' Taliban Strategy." 49 that rural Afghan populations are not concerned with a working central government, but rather with the basics of life. By not failing to address the needs of the majority of Afghani people, the government contributed to the population’s acceptance of a Taliban return. NGOs attempted to help but were intimidated by the lack of security. American and NATO forces had the assets to provide a modest amount of security, but they focused primarily on counter-force operations. The US and NATO forces fighting the Taliban in the rural areas of the country are not sufficiently familiar with either the terrain or the people. Furthermore, with small numbers, they are not able to be everywhere at once. In fact, they are only able to be in a very small portion of the country at one time. The Taliban control large portions of the country not because they have won them from the government, but rather because there are too few adversaries to contest them for it. Summary In sum, the Afghan counterinsurgency has so far demonstrated the negative consequences of not directly attacking the insurgent’s strategy. To survive in the rural areas of the country, the Taliban realize their need for support, if only tacit, of the population. The US and NATO have focused on defeating the insurgents on the battlefield, while the government has focused on building institutions in the capital. The unintended consequence of this counterinsurgency strategy is that it has allowed the Taliban to increase their support in the rural areas. The Taliban realize that the Afghan people that populate the rural areas of the country have simple demands and have exploited this to their advantage. The rural environment has aided this insurgency in several pivotal ways. First, it gave the Taliban a secure area to build and reorganize into a serious threat. Second, it forced the government to focus its limited resources, leaving large areas unprotected. This allowed the Taliban to create the perception that they are in control of villages because the foreign counterinsurgent forces will eventually have to leave. 50 Observations of Rural-Based Insurgency and COIN in the Philippines and Afghanistan The difficult rural terrain proved to be a significant asset in the expansion of both insurgencies. These insurgencies were able to operate from relatively secure base areas to build strength, recruit forces, establish support networks, and exploit government missteps. In both insurgencies, concentrating on the support of the rural population proved critical. The Huks brought the Philippine government to the edge of collapse by building their rural base. The Taliban are doing the same thing in Afghanistan. The government was unable to secure the population adequately either because it did not perceive the threat, as in the case of the Philippines, or because it simply could not, as in the case of Afghanistan. There are also several important differences between these two insurgencies. First, unlike the anti-Huk campaign, the counterinsurgency in Afghanistan is being largely fought by foreign forces. Second, there are physical differences in the terrain in which both these insurgencies occurred. The jungle terrain that initially hid the Huk guerrillas was eventually used to isolate it. Because the Huks were unable to expand their movement outside the island of Luzon, Philippine security forces were able to concentrate their effort at geographically important points. The terrain in which the Taliban operate in is much vaster than Luzon and is in close proximity to support in Pakistan. Afghan and Western forces have been unable to isolate Taliban insurgents who have taken advantage of the government’s inability to extend its mandate throughout the rural parts of the country. Finally, the progression of insurgent strategies was different. Huks, at the CCP’s urging, prematurely attempted to transition to conventional operations. So far, the Taliban have not made that mistake. These two historical examples highlight the importance of the population’s support in a rural-based insurgency. The insurgent needs this support to survive and expand. The counterinsurgent needs it to isolate the insurgents. The tendency of most armed forces is to focus on the enemy; but as both cases demonstrate, this can be counterproductive to building popular support. What builds support in one country, 51 might not work elsewhere, but the common thread in both cases was the primacy of security. Security, however, was significantly influenced by terrain. In both the Philippines and Afghanistan, difficult, rural terrain allowed the insurgents to hide from the government’s security forces. What can not be found cannot be neutralized. Furthermore, the insurgents’ wariness and vulnerability, particularly in the early and middle stages of their movement compels them to find concealment. Both the Huks and the Taliban used rural settings for their sanctuaries. The question thus arises, do similar dynamics play out in urban insurgencies' 52 Chapter 3 Urban Insurgency The goal of modern warfare is control of the populace, and terrorism is a particularly appropriate weapon, since it aims directly at the inhabitant. - Roger Trinquier In 1954, the Front de Liberation National (FLN), started an anti-colonial struggle against the French in Algeria. Two years later, with the FLN quickly losing momentum in the countryside, the conflict was shifted into urban Algiers. The subsequent French response crushed the FLN’s urban terror network. Although the Battle of Algiers was a significant tactical defeat for the FLN, it set the conditions that eventually led to Algerian independence. In May 2003, two months after the US invasion, President George W. Bush declared an end to major combat operations in Iraq. Between that time and the bombing of the Al-Askari Mosque in February 2006, which transformed the nature of the conflict, US forces were unable to defeat a growing urban insurgency in the capital city of Baghdad. This chapter will analyze the factors behind the urban based Algerian and Baghdad insurgencies. It will focus on the interaction of the insurgents, the government, and the people in concert with the effect of the physical environment. The chapter will conclude with an analysis of the effect of the urban environment on the nature and the dynamics of these insurgencies. The Battle of Algiers Nature of the Physical Environment Algeria is situated in Northern Africa, along the south coast of the Mediterranean Sea. It is bordered on the West by Morocco and on the east by Tunisia and Libya. At 2,381,741 square kilometers, the country is nearly four times the size of Texas. More than four-fifths of the land is desert. The Sahara desert region in the south, which makes up a significant portion of the country, is largely uninhabited. The northern part of the 53 country is relatively fertile with coastal lowlands topographically fragmented by mountains. This area has a Mediterranean climate with mild winters and moderate rainfall.1 Algiers, Algeria’s capital is the economic and administrative center of the country, making its control strategically important to both the French and to the insurgents. During the FLN insurgency, the population consisted of 600,000 French and 300,000 Arabs. One-third of the Arab population lived within the Casbah, forty-five acres of twisting alleyways and cramped quarters. During the Battle of Algiers, the Casbah represented one of the most densely populated areas on earth.2 Background of Insurgency The French began the occupation of Algeria in 1830 but continued to face active resistance until 1881. In 1848, Algeria became the only of France’s North African colonies to be incorporated into metropolitan France.3 Algerian nationals were given the right to become French citizens, provided they abdicated their legal rights and obligations under Islamic law. France developed deep ties to Algeria, with one million settlers of European origin eventually living there. These French settlers, known as colons or pied noirs, dominated the politics and business of Algeria, with the Arab residents having little voice in the affairs of their country.4 After the fall of France in 1940, Algeria was ruled by the Vichy government. Following the Allied invasion of North Africa in 1942, the Free French movement actively sought the Arab population’s support. In exchange for their support, Arab leaders demanded governmental and agrarian reforms with the potential for self determination. Although General Charles De Gaulle, leader of the Free French, made no specific promises, he appeared sympathetic to the plight of Algeria’s Muslim residents.5 The colons enjoyed a high standard of living compared to their Arab neighbors. They sought to maintain the status quo and blocked virtually all reform efforts. Arab 1 Helen Chapman Metz, ed., Algeria: A Country Study (Washington DC: Library of Congress - Federal Research Division 1993), 2. 2 Ted Morgan, My battle of Algiers : a memoir, 1st Smithsonian Books ed. (New York: Smithsonian Books/Collins, 2005), 1,105. 3 Metz, ed., Algeria: A Country Study, 28. 4 Corum and Johnson, Airpower in Small Wars 161. 5 Corum and Johnson, Airpower in Small Wars 162-63. 54 frustration became violent during a V-E Day celebration in the market town of Setif on 8 May 1945. The riots by native Algerians led to a brutal massacre of over one hundred colons. The French military and police retaliated with even greater brutality. Estimates of the Arab dead ranged from 1,500 to 20,000.6 The Setif massacre alarmed the French government and the colons. Reforms were instituted to address Arab grievances. These reforms, however, did little to satisfy native Algerians because they failed to put them on equal footing with the colons. For example, the reforms called for the election on an Algerian assembly, with half of its delegates elected by the colons and the other half by native Algerians. Seeing little recourse, Algerian nationalists began to plan an uprising to secure independence.7 In early 1954, a group of nine young nationalists met to organize the FLN as party to fight the French for full independence. They initiated a national military offensive on 1 November 1954 to coincide with the celebration of All Saints Day, a religious holiday for the heavily Roman Catholic colons. The offensive was intended to have a dramatic impact, but it instead inflicted few casualties and degenerated into a series of disjointed terrorist attacks. The French government, sensing this to be minor uprising, refused to negotiate with the FLN and opted for a military remedy.8 The insurgency spread rapidly, and the French responded with a build-up that would double its military presence in Algeria to 100,000 by 1955. 9 The FLN, realizing its military weakness, carried out its war by employing large-scale terrorist attacks against the colons. The French responded to terror attacks with reprisals against the Algerians. These actions helped to bolster native support for the FLN. Because the French government considered Algeria to be a part of metropolitan France, it was prepared to do whatever was necessary to bring the country under control. By April 1956, French troop strength had grown to 250,000 and would reach 400,000 six months later. In addition to large numbers of ground forces, the French deployed a significant number of aircraft that made it difficult for the FLN to operate in rural areas. 6 Robert B. Asprey, War in the shadows; the guerrilla in history, 1st ed. (Garden City, N.Y.,: Doubleday, 1975), 906. 7 I. F. W. Beckett, Modern insurgencies and counter-insurgencies : guerrillas and their opponents since 1750, Warfare and history (London ; New York: Routledge, 2001), 160-61. 8 Corum and Johnson, Airpower in Small Wars 164-65. 9 Asprey, War in the shadows, 916. 55 With losses mounting and a shift of momentum toward the French, the FLN leadership decided to conduct an urban campaign in the city of Algiers.10 The attempt to carry the war to Algiers ended in a FLN debacle. The 10th Colonial Parachute Division (DP) won the Battle of Algiers by wiping out the FLN infrastructure, albeit at a price that diminished France’s standing in the world and the army’s standing in French society.11 The FLN never regained the initiative after the Battle of Algiers. Even though FLN morale was low, the morale of the French people was even lower. They did not have the will to fight this war indefinitely, and they realized the army was incapable of facilitating a political solution. Feeling sold out by the French public, the army eventually turned on France itself. This action in April 1961 caused General De Gaulle, who became president of the French Republic, to grant Algeria its independence on 3 July 1962.12 Thus, in Algeria the French army won militarily but lost politically. French Government’s Political Leadership The Fourth Republic ruled France from the end of end of World War II until 1958. During those twelve years, the prime minister changed twenty-one times. A major reason for the frequent turnover was France’s struggle over whether and how hard to fight to maintain its colonial empire.13 In 1955, Premier Pierre Mendès-France appointed Jacques Soustelle as governorgeneral of Algeria. Initially viewed with suspicion by the Algerian French community, Soustelle soon came to be regarded as its principal spokesman, favoring the economic and political integration of Algeria with France. He was recalled in February 1956 by the Guy Mollet government before anything but the superficial portions of his reform could be implemented.14 The socialist government of Guy Mollet was prepared to go further than any previous government, even risking international condemnation, in order to win the Algerian war. Mollet demanded that the war be won with an unconditional surrender of 10 Anthony James Joes, Urban Guerrilla Warfare (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2007), 55. 11 Holmes, Strachan et al., The Oxford Companion to Military History, 32. 12 Laquer, Guerilla Warfare, 298-99. 13 Encyclopedia Britanica Online, "France," http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-40470/France (accessed 5 May 2008). Accessed 5 May 2008 14 Alistair Horne, A Savage War of Peace : Algeria, 1954-1962 (New York: Viking Press, 1978), 124-27. 56 the FLN. Political reforms would come second. On 9 February 1956, Mollet appointed Robert Lacoste to the post of governor-general in Algeria.15 Lacoste was a veteran of World War I imbued with a deep pride in the French army. He had distinguished himself during World War II by serving with the resistance. Alistair Horne described him as “tough, quick-tempered, vigorous, stubborn and courageous, with an acute political nose.”16 Lacoste was committed to France’s remaining in Algeria at whatever the cost. Mollet’s priority of winning the war first also limited Lacoste’s options. Although Lacoste attempted to bring about some social reform, these actions were relegated to a place behind the war effort.17 During January 1957, he ordered control of the city passed to the 10th DP.18 General Jacques Massu was the commander of the 10th DP, which was given the mission to restore order in the Algerian capital. He was a graduate of France’s military academy at St. Cyr. Massu joined the Gaullists in World War II and entered Paris during the liberation with General Jacques-Phillipe Leclerc’s 2nd Armored Division. After the war, he pioneered one of France’s first parachute units and also spent time in Indochina. He was promoted to the rank of general at the relatively young age of forty-seven. Alistair Horne said Massu’s “pride in his profession, in the army itself, was quite singleminded and, as a stern disciplinarian, he distrusted anything that was not of it.”19 Massu’s superior was General Raoul Salan, the military commander-in-chief in Algeria. He was the most decorated man in the French army and had seen combat during most of his career. He was also the military commander at the time of the French withdrawal from Indochina. Like Massu, Salan distrusted politicians.20 French Security Forces The 10th DP consisted of four regiments drawn from other units and representing some of the best soldiers in the French army. The 3rd Regiment de Chasseurs Parachutistes Coloniaux (RPC), commanded by Colonel Marcel Biegard, was in charge of the Casbah. The 1st RPC, commanded by Colonel Albert Fossey-Francois was in 15 Horne, A Savage War of Peace, 154. 16 Horne, A Savage War of Peace, 154. 17 Horne, A Savage War of Peace, 155. 18 Horne, A Savage War of Peace, 188. 19 Horne, A Savage War of Peace, 189. 20 Horne, A Savage War of Peace, 178-79. 57 charge of downtown Algiers. Colonel Emile Meyer of the 1st Regiment de Chasseurs Parachutistes (RCP) and Colonel Maurice Jeanpierre of the 1st Regiment Entranger Parachutiste (REP), or foreign legion, divided the suburbs. All four commanders were Indochina veterans. Biegard had achieved a legendary reputation there. Each regiment was relatively autonomous, with its own intelligence officers and interrogation centers. Massu had about 6,000 men under his command after adding the colonial forces and 1,500 police already implanted in the Casbah.21 Massu established an intelligence unit with two trusted deputies. He placed Major Paul Aussaresses in charge of action implementation and Lieutenant Colonel Roger Trinquier in charge of intelligence. Both officers were advocates of acting on intelligence quickly and seamlessly. Aussaresses formed a counterinsurgency team of approximately 20 personnel consisting of a mix of paratroop officers and Service de Documentation Exterieure et de Contre-Espionnage (SDECE) action service personnel, the French equivalent to the CIA. The Action Service would be quickly used to exploit any information gathered by the Intelligence Service. Aussaresses’ team operated on a 24 hour basis and conducted the majority of its raids and sweeps during the middle of the night, when the curfew was in effect so as to minimize population movement.22 Upon their arrival in Algiers on 27 January 1957, Massu and the 10th DP were confronted by an FLN-declared general strike that brought the city to a standstill. Massu broke up the strike by applying the full force of his division to make Muslim shopkeepers keep their stores open. He also dispatched fleets of trucks to collect striking workers from their homes and bring them to work. In the face of such brutal determination, many of the strikers waned in their support of the FLN, and the strike was effectively broken in a matter of days.23 To aid his intelligence effort, Massu demanded that all police files on suspected terrorists be handed over to him. From these files, he created lists of persons to 21 Morgan, My battle of Algiers, 116. 22 Paul Aussaresses and Robert L. Miller, The battle of the Casbah : terrorism and counter-terrorism in Algeria, 1955-1957, 1st English language ed. (New York: Enigma, 2002), 70-93. 23 Horne, A Savage War of Peace, 191-92. 58 apprehend for questioning. He then used the 3rd RPC to cordon the entire Casbah and establish checkpoints at all exits.24 By day and night, French dragnets systematically searched the Casbah house-byhouse looking for persons whose names appeared on Massu’s lists. During this campaign, Massu’s men placed nearly a third of the male population of the Casbah in custody. A network of agents and informants was quickly built from former FLN members and Casbah residents who wavered in their support of the terrorist organization. John Talbot said the army “expected to piece together thousands of bits of information to reveal the structure of the clandestine organization.”25 Those strongly suspected were apprehended and questioned by Trinquer’s and Aussaresses’ intelligence organization. In 2002, Aussaresses wrote “some prisoners talked very easily. Others only needed some roughing up. It was only when a prisoner refused to talk or denied the obvious that torture was used.”26 Although Aussaresses claimed that torture was not used often, both he and Trinquier believed it was necessary. By constructing a web of information and following the trail of FLN money, the French were methodically able to determine the identities of the FLN leadership in the Casbah. The French also effectively used double agents to spread distrust within the FLN.27 Population control was another aspect of the military campaign in the Casbah. A census resulted in issuing identification cards to every resident in Algiers. Theses cards bore each resident’s photograph and the location and neighborhood of his home. The cards were also used to establish records of resident’s activities and affiliations. At the checkpoints around the Casbah, people without identity cards and those without justification for their movements were arrested for questioning.28 Massu’s tactics worked. By late February, the French discovered the main FLN bomb factory in Algiers. On 24 September 1957, the Casbah terrorist chief Yacef Saadi surrendered. One month later, the urban terror campaign in Algiers effectively ended.29 French Government Ideology 24 Joes, Urban Guerrilla Warfare, 58. 25 John E. Talbott, The War Without a Name : France in Algeria, 1954-1962, 1st ed. (New York: Knopf : distributed by Random House, 1980), 85. 26 Aussaresses and Miller, The battle of the Casbah, 128. 27 Joes, Urban Guerrilla Warfare, 59. 28 Trinquier, Modern Warfare, 30-33. 29 Joes, Urban Guerrilla Warfare, 59. 59 Early on in the Algerian war, de Gaulle realized that France could not continue to control Algeria against the overwhelming wishes of its inhabitants. He believed that the situation would be different if France had remained a world power. To him, even though France could carry on the war for years, there could be no complete solution but total independence. But de Gaulle did not come into power until 1958, after the FLN had been crushed in the Battle of Algiers.30 Either directly or by its actions, the French government had been sending mixed messages to the FLN. Tunisia and Morocco had been granted independence, and the French withdrew from Indochina after the defeat at Dienbienphu. But because it was part of metropolitan France, successive governments considered Algeria too different than the other portions of its empire. 31 The distance from Algiers to Marseille is no greater than from Marseille to Lille. Initially, there was strong support for the war in France; but it began to wane as the war drug on. Just prior to the Battle of Algiers, the Mollet government had secretly signaled to the FLN that compromise was possible. Publicly, however, the government message was a commitment to the insurgent’s unconditional surrender.32 French Government’s Strategy for Retaining Legitimacy The French government did not have a good strategy for retaining legitimacy in Algeria. Its objective was to maintain French sovereignty over Algeria. The method to reach this objective was the ruthless military suppression of the insurgency coupled with accurate intelligence gained through a wide variety of measures including coercion and torture. The colonial government’s authority was backed up by a heavy density of forces, particularly in Algiers. In 1956, Prime Minister Mollet convinced the parliament to approve the Special Powers Law, which conferred “virtually unlimited powers” on the executive branch to prosecute the war.33 Under the auspices of the Special Powers Law, Lacoste ordered General Massu’s 10th DP into Algiers in January 1957 with orders to put an end to the terrorism that gripped the city. Massu was told to use whatever means necessary to get the situation 30 Laquer, Guerilla Warfare, 294. 31 Laquer, Guerilla Warfare, 295. 32 Horne, A Savage War of Peace, 155. 33 Joes, Urban Guerrilla Warfare, 63. 60 under control. This order gave Massu full responsibility for maintenance and order in the city.34 Massu did what he was told and effectively destroyed the FLN in Algiers, but several of the extreme methods he and his subordinates employed would eventually cost France the war. FLN Political Leadership In August 1956, in a secret congress at Soummam in the Kabyle region, the FLN reorganized its leadership into political, military, and administrative bodies. Its fivemember Committee for Coordination and Execution (CCE) served as its general staff and decided to peruse an urban campaign in Algiers. The chief architect of the FLN’s terror strategy was Ramdane Abane, the organization’s top theoretician. An autodidact, Abane was ruthless in his unalterable faith in the utility of civilian violence. Many of his views reflected those of Carlos Marighella: that the use of terror tactics would provoke an overreaction by the French that would, in turn, alienate the population. He believed the best place to employ this strategy was in Algiers.35 Larbi Ben M’Hidi, age thirty-three and a member of the CCE, was appointed FLN political leader in Algiers. He came from a family of well-to-do farmers and had studied the theater before joining the FLN. Ben M’Hidi, like Abane, wanted to accelerate terrorism to a level that would compel France to abandon Algeria. He expected an increasingly tough response from the French authorities but thought the organization capable of withstanding the backlash.36 He was captured on 25 February 1957 and died while in custody nine days later.37 Saadi Yacef was the operational deputy, or military commander, to Ben M’Hidi. He was the twenty-nine year old son of a Casbah banker. The seventh of fourteen children, he was daring and inventive. Familiar with every inch of the Casbah, he was responsible for convincing key FLN leaders to fortify the area. By the end of 1956, Yacef had assembled a meticulously organized hierarchy of some 1,400 operators. He 34Horne, A Savage War of Peace, 188. 35 Angel Rabasa, United States. Dept. of Defense. Office of the Secretary of Defense. et al., Money in the bank : lessons learned from past counterinsurgency (COIN) operations, Rand counterinsurgency study ; paper 4 (Santa Monica, CA: Rand Corp., 2007), 20-21. 36 Aussaresses and Miller, The battle of the Casbah, 64. 37 Horne, A Savage War of Peace, 195. 61 assumed command in Algiers after Ben M’Hidi’s capture and the flight of other CCE Members.38 Ali la Pointe was Yacef’s primary lieutenant. He assassinated Amedee Froger, the mayor of Algiers. La Pointe was an underworld figure in the Casbah who had been won over to the FLN cause while serving a jail term for resisting arrest. His death on 8 October 1957, as the last significant FLN leader in Algiers, marked the end of the Battle of Algiers.39 FLN Forces Algiers was a FLN autonomous zone. At the beginning of the battle, Yacef’s 1,400 operatives were backed up by Ben M’Hidi’s 4,500 active supporters. The city FLN council was composed of Ben M’Hidi, Yacef, an intelligence operative, and an external liaison member. Algiers was broken into three regions. Each region was further divided into sectors, which were subdivided into districts. The Algiers zone had ten sectors and thirty-four districts.40 Within this larger construct, the FLN employed a cellular structure. Each political cell consisted of a chief, a tax collector, and a propagandist. The intermediate level between the cell and the district was the group. The FLN used armed commandos at the group level to maintain discipline among the Muslim population by carrying out sentences passed by the FLN judiciary.41 Functional cells were also established by the military operatives, with the basic cell comprising three armed men. A bomb network, however, could consist of cells for bomb makers, explosive experts, transportation teams, and bomb placers.42 FLN Ideology Many of the FLN’s original organizers had a long history of nationalist political activity. Their goal was full Algerian Independence. The ideology was a mixture of nationalism and Islamic fundamentalism. The long-term strategy was to build an organization and military force throughout the country that could win an offensive war 38 Horne, A Savage War of Peace, 184. 39 Aussaresses and Miller, The battle of the Casbah, 173. 40 Trinquier, Modern Warfare, 10-12. 41 Alf Andrew Heggoy and Indiana University., Insurgency and counterinsurgency in Algeria (Bloomington,: Indiana University Press, 1972), 127. 42 Trinquier, Modern Warfare, 10-12. 62 against the French. The FLN put considerable hope in receiving political and military support from other Arab nations.43 FLN Strategy for Gaining Legitimacy The main thrust of the FLN’s strategy during the initial stages of the war was to create resistance groups and cells to recruit new members and instill a pro-independence mindset among the native Algerian community. When the French army responded in strength, the FLN resorted to terror attacks against colons, the French political and military machinery, and even attacks on unsympathetic Algerian nationals to force the Algerians to choose between supporting independence or continued French rule. Many of the war’s casualties were Algerians killed by the FLN.44 The FLN moved to an urban terror strategy for two reasons. They were losing the insurgency in the rural portions of the country to the French army, and they wanted to gain international publicity and support. The FLN leadership correctly believed that an urban terror strategy in Algiers would provoke a French overreaction that could be exploited to highlight the Algerian struggle for independence. The FLN leadership further believed that a terror campaign would drive a wedge between the local population and the colonial government based on the latter’s inability to provide adequate security.45 The terror campaign in Algiers killed and maimed many innocent civilians of every age, race, and sex. Bombs were placed in mailboxes, next to bus stops, and in crowded businesses. The most horrific attack took place at the Algiers Milk-Bar, a restaurant popular with European mothers and their school-aged children. Not only did these actions elicit the antagonism of the French 10th DP, but they also contributed to the distrust of the Muslim population by Europeans.46 People The bulk of the one million colons in Algeria settled along the fertile coast. In the cities of Algiers and Oran the colons outnumbered the Arab inhabitants, although these 43 Corum and Johnson, Airpower in Small Wars 165. 44 Corum and Johnson, Airpower in Small Wars 165. 45 Rabasa, United States. Dept. of Defense. Office of the Secretary of Defense. et al., Money in the Bank, 18-19. 46 Joes, Urban Guerrilla Warfare, 57. 63 were the only parts of the country where this occurred. There was a wide cultural, religious, and economic gulf between these two communities. 47 By the 1950s there were not enough colons in Algeria to maintain their long-term survival as the dominant class. Alistair Horne said that the sentiments of the colons toward metropolitan France consisted of resentment, love, disdain, and “an inferiority complex with undertones of superiority that so often accompany it.”48 Many French officers saw the colons as being unduly privileged, but enlisted paratroopers serving in Algiers discovered that most of them were working class like themselves.49 Native Algerians were divided by tribes and ethnic groups as well as by rural and urban populations. The only things uniting them were that they were universally despised by the colons and were treated as second-class citizens. During the 1930s the French had debated whether to grant citizenship to the 173,000 Algerians who had fought in World War I. The colons used their political influence to block this initiative. Algerians were not allowed to pursue higher education and were barred from most professions. They were only allowed to live in certain places, and their movements were controlled. Unable to improve their conditions, many Algerians sought refuge in their religion.50 The FLN assumed that their rebellion would be actively supported by the Algerian population because it was deprived of almost all political rights. Furthermore, the FLN felt that Algerians resented that almost the entire country was in the hands of either the colons or the French government. While the majority of Algerians were not opposed to independence, they were not radicalized in their desire to attain it. The French had provided some modest benefits such as schools and medicine, and Algerian culture was beginning to become assimilated with French culture.51 The FLN’s misreading of the Algerians’ support for independence and losses on the battlefield caused the organization to adopt terror tactics. Through violence or the 47 Horne, A Savage War of Peace, 53. 48 Horne, A Savage War of Peace, 53. 49 I. F. W. Beckett, Modern Insurgencies and Counterinsurgencies : Guerrillas and their Opponents since 1750, Warfare and history (London ; New York: Routledge, 2001), 166. 50 William Roe Polk, Violent politics : a history of insurgency, terrorism & guerrilla war, from the American Revolution to Iraq, 1st ed. (New York: Harper, 2007), 132-33. 51 Rabasa, United States. Dept. of Defense. Office of the Secretary of Defense. et al., Money in the Bank, 22. 64 threat of violence, they forced the Algerians to choose between their movement and the French. In reality, most Algerians supported the side that could offer them the most protection from violence. By the end of the Battle of Algiers, that was the French government.52 Change in Dynamics of the Insurgency over Time Prior to the Battle of Algiers, the city had been left relatively untouched by the FLN. But the failure of the FLN’s rural insurgency led the organization to adopt an urban terror strategy. Although the FLN had been using terror tactics since 1954, the Battle of Algiers represented the first concerted effort to seek international publicity and strike at the seat of French rule in Algeria. While urban terrorism in Algiers garnered international attention, it was the draconian French reaction that would ultimately achieve FLN victory.53 Effect of the Environment The FLN’s rural guerrilla movement was unable to survive the large French ground troop commitment. Algiers, and more specifically the Casbah, was thought to provide insurgents an urban base in which they could both survive and plan future operations. The city was also the center of government and a place where insurgents could easily garner publicity, which the FLN did to great effect. For the French army, the environment led them to focus on population control and intelligence to root out the insurgents. Severe actions had to be taken to control the population and gather intelligence. These activities infringed on liberty, but much of the population willingly traded these liberties for security. And, unlike the rural environment where patrols could root out insurgents, in the cities, insurgents had to be discovered through systematic investigation. Summary The Battle of Algiers demonstrated that insurgents will operate where they believe they can survive and have an impact. The French army, with over 400,000 soldiers, and accompanying airpower, was on the verge of defeating the FLN’s rural insurgency. Additionally, the FLN failed to attract any widespread popular support for 52 Rabasa, United States. Dept. of Defense. Office of the Secretary of Defense. et al., Money in the Bank, 18-19. 53 Joes, Urban Guerrilla Warfare, 54-57. 65 its struggle. Consequently, the movement’s leadership decided to shift to an urban campaign in Algiers, where they believed they could successfully carry out operations there with minimal popular support and publicize the predictably harsh French response. While the widespread, sanctioned use of torture in the Battle of Algiers contributed to the ultimate loss of the war, other actions enabled tactical, and perhaps even operational, success. The chain of command with one final and ultimate decision maker provided for unity of effort. Governor-General Lacoste placed General Massu in charge of Algiers and told him to take whatever action necessary to control the situation. General Massu’s intelligence unit fell in neatly upon an already well developed police intelligence network that had intimate knowledge of the people and the terrain. The Arab population of the Casbah was physically isolated by the army’s checkpoints. Paratroopers throughout the city provided security, gained intelligence, and built relationships. Finally, the population’s movements where tracked through the use of ID cards and checkpoints. Under these circumstances, suspicious activity was easily identified. The urban environment played a pivotal role in the Battle of Algiers. Initially, the densely populated Casbah provided an area in which the FLN could hide and grow in strength. However, this initial advantage was turned into a disadvantage by the French response. The French striped away the urban terrain’s concealment by concentrating a high density of troops that isolated the insurgents in a containable portion of the city. The counterinsurgent forces also used effective police and population-control tactics and a robust intelligence network to dismantle the FLN in Algiers. The Baghdad Insurgency Nature of the Physical Environment Iraq is located at the northern end of the Persian Gulf and borders Iran in the east, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia in the south, Jordan and Syria in the West, and Turkey in the north. The total area of the country is 437,072 square kilometers, slightly more than twice the size of Idaho. Iraq has four main topographical regions. The desert zone of Iraq’s west and southwest is dominated by wide, flat, sandy expanses. The uplands 66 region occupies most of Iraq’s northern territory and is primarily desert marred by deep river valleys. The northern highlands along the border with Turkey consist of a series of elevation rises that give way to mountains as high as 4,000 meters. An alluvial plain extends from Baghdad south to the Persian Gulf. With the exception of the northern highlands, most of Iraq has a desert climate with mild winters and dry, hot summers.54 In 2006 Iraq’s population was estimated at 26,783,000, mostly concentrated along the southern alluvial plain and in the northeast. The southern and the western deserts are sparsely populated. Ninety-seven percent of the population is Muslim, with sixty to sixty-five percent Shia, the rest Sunni. Urbanization has been a strong demographic trend in the country, increasing to seventy-nine percent in the last twenty years. The country’s transportation system, mostly road and railroad, emanates from Baghdad, making the capital the hub of the country in almost every respect.55 Baghdad is home to six million people. The city boasts religious many shrines, historical sites, and cultural artifacts. It is divided into nine districts and eighty-nine neighborhoods. For decades, Sunni and Shiite Muslims, Kurds, and Christians coexisted there, making it Iraq’s most diverse and cosmopolitan city. Baghdad’s residential areas range from posh neighborhoods to slums. It also has bustling business districts and industrial areas. The major business district is in central Baghdad, and most residents commute into work from areas around the city. Under Saddam Hussein, some neighborhoods were segregated by religion and ethnicity, but most remained mixed.56 Background of Insurgency Saddam Hussein seized power in 1979 after a succession of military coups. His dictatorship was dominated by the Ba’ath Party. The Ba’athist regime perpetuated Sunni dominance and ultimately degenerated into a gangster organization narrowly led by members of Saddam’s extended family. Under Saddam, Iraq was plunged into two 54 Helen Chapin Metz, Library of Congress. Federal Research Division. et al., Iraq, a country study, 4th ed., Area handbook series (Washington, D.C.: The Division : For sale by the Supt. of Docs. U.S. G.P.O., 2006), 4-5. 55 Metz, Library of Congress. Federal Research Division. et al., Iraq, a country study, 6-14. 56 The Online NewsHour, "Iraq in Transition," PBS, http://www.pbs.org/newshour/indepth_coverage/middle_east/iraq/map/map_baghdad_flash.html (accessed May 2 2008). 67 disastrous wars, and internal revolts were repressed with extreme brutality. These actions left a legacy of fear and resentment among the Shiite and Kurdish populations.57 In 2002, the Bush Administration announced its determination to prevent Saddam from developing weapons of mass destruction. After months of Iraqi refusal to cooperate with United Nations (UN) weapons inspectors, the US invaded Iraq on 18 March 2002. American forces encountered little resistance from the Iraqi army. The most significant resistance came from the several paramilitary organizations, such as the Fedeyeen and Al-Quds Army that Saddam had recently established. While these organizations had negligible military value, their members fought fiercely and would later feed the insurgency.58 The Ba’athist regime collapsed quickly, leaving the country ungoverned and lacking even the most basic services. The situation rapidly deteriorated with the presence of tens of thousands of prisoners that Saddam had released in front of the invading forces. In the absence of a security apparatus, Iraqi civilians looted government facilities and installations of virtually everything removable, to include electrical wiring and plumbing.59 Resistance to the occupation was tolerable through the summer of 2003. The main sources of this resistance were the remnants of the Ba’athist regime and Islamic extremists from other countries around the Middle East. This resistance became an increasing problem after the autumn of 2003, when more foreign fighters arrived in Baghdad.60 During this period, US military forces hunted down former regime leaders based on the mistaken judgment that they were leading the growing insurgency. This misapprehension was aided by a short lull in attacks after Saddam’s 13 December 2003 capture. 61 In hindsight, it became apparent from the conditions in which Saddam was living that he was not leading the insurgency. Ambassador Paul Bremer worked to establish a government in the mistaken belief that such an entity would inhibit the resistance. On 16 July 2003, Bremer 57 Bruce Pirnie, Edward O'Connell et al., Counterinsurgency in Iraq (2003-2006), Rand counterinsurgency study ; volume 2 (Santa Monica, CA: Rand, 2008), 2-4. 58 Pirnie, O'Connell et al., Counterinsurgency in Iraq (2003-2006), 5-7. 59 Robert Perito and United States Institute of Peace., Establishing the rule of law in Iraq (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace, 2003), 137. 60 Pirnie, O'Connell et al., Counterinsurgency in Iraq (2003-2006), 8. 61 Pirnie, O'Connell et al., Counterinsurgency in Iraq (2003-2006), 10. 68 announced the formation of an interim government. Shortly thereafter, an interim constitution was approved that established a sovereign Iraqi Interim Government that would come into office on 30 June 2004.62 The June 2004 transfer of political authority to the Iraqis failed to stop the resistance. Militarily, there was not an overarching COIN strategy to complement the political strategy. Instead, coalition forces focused on achieving tactical results. Most units conducted large sweep operations that often netted few insurgents and increasingly disaffected the population. Civilians began to become convinced that American forces could not protect them because insurgents quickly returned after cleared areas were vacated. Security that should have been focused on protecting the population was instead focused on force protection and key supply routes.63 The population resented the fact that American forces focused a great deal on self protection, at the perceived expense of the public.64 Because there were inadequate numbers of American forces in Baghdad, the population was never effectively secured. After a sweep or a patrol would pass through an area, control would revert to whomever previously displayed the greatest strength in that neighborhood. Furthermore, American military planners struggled with the linkage, articulated by the Bush Administration, between the campaign in Iraq and a global war on terror.65 US/Iraqi Government’s Political Leadership Two months after the invasion, Ambassador Bremer arrived in Bagdad to lead the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA). The CPA absorbed the initial Iraqi reconstruction effort that was led by Lieutenant General Jay Garner, USA, Retired, and the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA) under DoD leadership. ORHA was understaffed and under-resourced and had not been included in the military planning for the invasion. The lack of security after the invasion kept ORHA 62 Pirnie, O'Connell et al., Counterinsurgency in Iraq (2003-2006), 12. 63 Thomas E. Ricks, Fiasco : The American Military Adventure in Iraq (New York: Penguin Press, 2006), 252-58. 64 Pirnie, O'Connell et al., Counterinsurgency in Iraq (2003-2006), 70. 65 Pirnie, O'Connell et al., Counterinsurgency in Iraq (2003-2006), 70. 69 from effectively accomplishing its mission. Because General Garner was never given authority over military commanders, he was unable to influence the security situation.66 Bremer was a career diplomat who had left the State Department to work as a consultant for Henry Kissinger. He graduated from Yale University in 1963 and went on to earn an MBA from Harvard University in 1966. Although Bremer was a State Department official, he reported to the Secretary of Defense.67 After less than a month in Iraq, Bremer made three moves that radically altered the dynamics of the occupation and fueled the insurgency. First, he disestablished the Ba’ath party, stating that 20,000 ‘senior’ members of the party “are hereby removed from their positions and banned from future employment in public service.”68 That order left a gaping hole in the future Iraqi government. He also dissolved the Iraqi security forces. Now there were 400,000 soldiers and police without employment. Finally, he canceled plans for an elected provisional government to appoint an interim government. Many Iraqis now felt excluded from the fledgling democratic process.69 The US 3rd Army, in charge of planning and executing the ground war, redeployed in May 2003. This left V Corps, with a smaller and less experienced staff, in charge of military operations. Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, the Army’s newest three-star general, was placed in command of V Corps in June 2003. Sanchez was a career army officer with experience in Operation Desert Storm as a brigade commander.70 According to Thomas Ricks “there was a general agreement on both the civilian and military sides that their leaders in Iraq, Bremer and Sanchez, were profoundly unhappy with each other.”71 Consequently the CPA and the US Army were too busy fighting each other to notice the growing insurgency. Both Bremer and Sanchez departed from Iraq at the end of June 2004 and were replaced by Ambassador John Negroponte and General George Casey respectively.72 66 Ricks, Fiasco, 105,54-55. 67 White House Press Secretary, "President Names Envoy to Iraq," http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/05/20030506-5.html (accessed May 2 2008). 68 Ricks, Fiasco, 159. 69 Ricks, Fiasco, 158-61. 70 Ricks, Fiasco, 157-58. 71 Ricks, Fiasco, 324. 72 Ricks, Fiasco, 391. 70 Negroponte was a career diplomat who had been ambassador to the U.N. Unlike his predecessor, he worked for the State Department and not DoD. Under Negroponte, the Department of State took a much more active role in supporting Iraqi governance. Casey, while having no combat experience, was knowledgeable in political-military affairs. Casey and Negroponte formed a close working relationship and encouraged greater coordination between their two organizations. While command relationships improved under their tenure, the insurgency continued to get worse.73 Negroponte was replaced by Ambassador Zalmay Khalizad in June 2005, who also continued to work well with Casey. 74 Prior to Casey’s arrival, the army had focused almost entirely on killing or capturing insurgents. Casey worked to reverse this trend by issuing a campaign plan. The plan called for containing Iraqi violence, building up Iraqi security forces, rebuilding Iraq economically and reaching out to the Sunni community through a blend of coercion and cooption.75 With a limited number of troops, Casey decided to focus on one area of the country at a time. His concept was that US forces would clear an area and the new Iraqi security forces would then hold it. They started with Baghdad, and insurgent activity quickly dropped. However, when American forces moved on to another city, the insurgents returned to Baghdad to find Iraqi security forces that had been pushed into the fight before they had been properly trained. Despite three major elections held during Casey’s tenure, the insurgency continued to intensify. Furthermore, the Iraqi government continued to be divided along sectarian lines, plagued by corruption, and absorbed with internal power struggles.76 US/Iraqi Security Forces Planning for the post-invasion period was done entirely within the DoD and used the “best case scenario” for all its assumptions. Planners structured American forces for the invasion, rather than the subsequent occupation; consequently, the occupying forces were much too small and improperly equipped.77 At its peak in January 2005, the coalition had 184,500 troops in Iraq, of which 160,000 were U.S. troops. There were also 73 Ricks, Fiasco, 392-94. 74 Pirnie, O'Connell et al., Counterinsurgency in Iraq (2003-2006), 66. 75 Ricks, Fiasco, 394. 76 Ricks, Fiasco, 413. 77 Pirnie, O'Connell et al., Counterinsurgency in Iraq (2003-2006), 62-63. 71 58,000 contracted personnel performing support functions and another 20,000 providing security for private employers. American troop numbers stabilized in 2004 at around 130,000, but they dipped as low as 117,000.78 Throughout the insurgency, the US attempted to secure Baghdad with only one combat division. Initially, the 3rd Infantry Division occupied Baghdad, but the mission transferred to the 1st Armored Division in the fall of 2003. Both units had an unclear understanding of their mission and were primarily concerned with mopping up the insurgency and force protection. In the summer of 2004, the 1st Cavalry Division assumed responsibility for the city. The division’s commander, Major General Peter Chiarelli, realized that military confrontations between American forces and insurgents were benefiting the insurgency, not the coalition. He began to emphasize providing economic works as a method of fostering goodwill and improving the lives of Baghdad residents. 79 He stated that “infrastructure improvement was absolutely critical to our campaign plan.”80 In his view, it was vital to give Iraqi citizens a sense that they would benefit from a peaceful society. He put the division to work restoring basic services such as electricity, running water, and a functioning sewer system. The division also labored to combat unemployment, which had reached sixty-one percent in Sadr City, a strongly Shia district of Baghdad.81 The message to soldiers in the division was to focus on building relations within the community and not to do anything that created more insurgents. This message was, however, confusing to soldiers and may have inhibited aggressive security measures.82 Despite these initiatives, the situation in the city continued to deteriorate and in 2005 Casey decided to focus on clearing Baghdad of insurgents. After this operation, the city was largely turned over to Iraqi police and army troops. The security situation in the city then deteriorated for the remaining period of this study. Attacks, murder, kidnapping, rape, robbery, and bombing became commonplace occurrences.83 78 Pirnie, O'Connell et al., Counterinsurgency in Iraq (2003-2006), 38. 79 Pirnie, O'Connell et al., Counterinsurgency in Iraq (2003-2006), 42-43. 80 JO1(SW/AW) Chris Hoffpauir, "First Cavalry’s Chiarelli Shares Iraq Experiences with NDIA Symposium," USJFCOM Public Affairs, 8 May 2008, http://www.jfcom.mil/newslink/storyarchive/2005/pa040705.htm. 81 Hoffpauir, "First Cavalry’s Chiarelli Shares Iraq Experiences with NDIA Symposium." 82 Pirnie, O'Connell et al., Counterinsurgency in Iraq (2003-2006), 42-43. 83 Ricks, Fiasco, 428-29. 72 Ambassador Bremer was initially opposed to the idea of having the US Army train Iraqi police because he doubted its ability to train them properly. In October 2003, Bremer was briefed that 54,000 police were then trained and on duty. Finding that number hard to believe, he inquired about their training and learned that the army was sweeping unemployed people off the streets and sending them through a three-week training course. Bremer ordered Sanchez to stop recruiting and training police, but the damage had already been done. The police force was full of untrained, undisciplined, and unmotivated individuals. The US Army eventually assumed full responsibility for training the police. However, it focused substantially more effort on the Iraqi army. Because of this focus and the initial influx of questionable recruits, the police were ineffective and easily infiltrated by insurgents.84 After the dissolution of the Iraqi army, the organization had to be rebuilt from the ground up. In the fall of 2003, the plan was to create a 60,000-man force for internal security. By 2006, the number had reached 138,000, but the organization displayed serious weaknesses. First, it was lightly armed, creating a large disparity between Iraqi and American units working to accomplish similar missions. Second, the army mirrored the sectarian and ethnic divisions that divide the country. Progress was understandably slow in developing the army, and many of its shortcomings could be attributed to its being employed before it had been properly trained.85 In fall of 2005, Iraqi army units were employed in Baghdad to secure the city as US forces concentrated elsewhere in the country. Within six months, the situation in Baghdad had gone from bad to worse.86 US/Iraqi Government Strategy for Obtaining Legitimacy The US strategy was to establish a functional Iraqi government as rapidly as possible in order to facilitate early American withdrawal from the country. As the insurgency gathered momentum, the strategy shifted to defeating the insurgency, while at the same time enabling a democratic government process. Securing the population was never the primary objective.87 84 Pirnie, O'Connell et al., Counterinsurgency in Iraq (2003-2006), 50. 85 Pirnie, O'Connell et al., Counterinsurgency in Iraq (2003-2006), 51-52. 86 Ricks, Fiasco, 426-28. 87 Steven Metz and Army War College (U.S.). Strategic Studies Institute., Learning from Iraq : counterinsurgency in American strategy (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute U.S. Army War College, 2007), 70. 73 Several missteps undermined US legitimacy. First, the war was confusingly linked to the larger global war on terror. This linkage emboldened al Qaeda, split our allies, and confused military planners.88 Bremer’s May 2003 decisions to abolish the military and the Ba’ath party and suspend national elections also decreased US legitimacy within Iraq. The prisoner abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib prison and several other incidents of American mistreatment of Iraqi civilians not only inflamed the Iraqi people, but also stirred up much of the Arab world.89 According to Steven Metz, the US could have approached the situation in one of three ways: “as a liberated nation, quickly creating a transnational Iraqi government and giving it sovereignty; as a defeated nation which would have required a long-term occupation like that of Germany and Japan after World War II; or as a failed state which could have been addressed by passing control of to the United Nations.” Metz further argued that the US failed to make the hard choice and by splitting the difference between the three strategies, failed to give any direction at all.90 The American effort in Iraq was also hindered by a strategy that did not approach security and Iraqi governance sequentially. Insurgent Political Leadership The insurgency in Baghdad has was and relatively leaderless. Two individuals who have received most of the press exemplify the tendency to use the insurgency for personal gain. Both Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and Muqtada al-Sadr are classified as insurgent leaders. But their organizations are different, serve different interests, and desire a different outcome from this insurgency. As divided as they are, they do share one goal, to draw the Americans from Iraq. On 17 October 2004, Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi announced his allegiance to Osama bin Laden. Prior to this declaration, foreign fighters lacked a formal link to al Qaeda. Two months later, bin Laden named Zarqawi the leader of al Qaeda in 88 Metz and Army War College (U.S.). Strategic Studies Institute., Learning from Iraq : counterinsurgency in American strategy, 88. 89 Metz and Army War College (U.S.). Strategic Studies Institute., Learning from Iraq : counterinsurgency in American strategy, 290-97, Ricks, Fiasco. 90 Metz and Army War College (U.S.). Strategic Studies Institute., Learning from Iraq : counterinsurgency in American strategy, 83. 74 Iraq. Zarqawi was born in Jordan in 1966 and fought alongside the Mujahadeen against the Soviets in Afghanistan. He had attended training camps in post-war Afghanistan and escaped there sometime before or shortly after the American invasion in October 2001. Until his death in 2006, Zarqawi was the most wanted man in Iraq.91 The other figure was Muqtada al-Sadr, whose Mahdi Army came to the fore after the American invasion. Al-Sadr is the youngest son of an ayatollah assassinated by the Ba’ath Party in 1999. He is fervently Islamic, strongly nationalistic, and bitterly opposed to the American presence. Under his leadership, his organization has become comparable to Hezbollah, in that it has a formidable militia and also provides social services and security to his followers.92 Insurgent Forces There is no evidence that Saddam developed a guerrilla strategy in anticipation of military defeat. Although senior Ba’ath party members and army officers faced an uncertain future, preoccupied with personal survival, they initially appeared willing to give the Americans a chance. As security in Baghdad deteriorated, elements of the former regime, some Shiites included, began to establish small cells of resistance fighters. These cells developed gradually from individuals who either had dim prospects for a future or were resentful of the occupation. Initially foreign fighters played a negligible role. Former Ba’athist Party operatives and army personnel created what were initially both amorphous and autonomous cells.93 Starting in May 2003, multiple groups, generally small and highly localized, made uncoordinated attacks to vie for recognition, attract recruits, and obtain financial backing. For publicity, they made low-quality videos of attacks that were made available at local video stores and eventually on the Internet. As a result of fierce competition, smaller and less effective groups merged with more successful and prestigious organizations. By 2005, the assortment of isolated cells had become transformed into far wider and sophisticated networks.94 91Ricks, Fiasco, 99. 92 Pirnie, O'Connell et al., Counterinsurgency in Iraq (2003-2006), 30-31. 93 International Crisis Group., In their own words : reading the Iraqi insurgency (Amman ; Brussels: International Crisis Group, 2006), 6. 94 International Crisis Group., In their own words : reading the Iraqi insurgency, 6-7. 75 The larger insurgent networks began to communicate with each other, and an informal division of labor took shape. Some groups attacked infrastructure, others struck American forces, while others hit Iraqi security forces and so called ‘collaborators.’ This process was far from smooth, and the groups periodically displayed deep tensions among themselves.95 As the insurgency moved into its third year, the insurgents’ perspective underwent a remarkable evolution. Initially, they perceived the American presence to be enduring and their resistance to be a long-term, open-ended jihad, whose success was measured by its mere existence. Gradually, however, they started to see the prospect of victory and the relatively swift withdrawal of foreign forces. This was based on the perceived loss of American legitimacy, announcements of troop redeployments, and a decline in domestic support. The insurgents were confident that if the Americans left, they could quickly overwhelm Iraq’s security forces and institutions. This perception emboldened their actions, and the war’s character changed yet again with the bombing of the al-Askari Mosque in Samarra in February 2006. 96 Insurgent groups used a highly effective and almost impenetrable cell structure of four-to-six men based around family, tribal, or ideological loyalties. These cells employed a combination of attacks that increased in sophistication. The insurgents increasingly came to rely on three general methods of attack: direct fire in the forms of ambushes, drive-by shootings, and assassinations; indirect fire from mortars and rockets; and improvised explosive devices (IED). As insurgent organizations vied for power and international media attention, the audacity of these attacks increased.97 They also sought to influence American public opinion, recruit insurgents, raise finances, and align their efforts with radical interpretations of Islam.98 95 International Crisis Group., In their own words : reading the Iraqi insurgency, 8. 96 International Crisis Group., In their own words : reading the Iraqi insurgency, 13-14. 97 Amatzia Baram and United States Institute of Peace., Who are the insurgents' : Sunni Arab rebels in Iraq (Washington, DC: U.S. Institute of Peace, 2005). 98 National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States., Thomas H. Kean et al., The 9/11 Commission report final report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, Official government ed. (Washington, D.C.: National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States : for sale by the Supt. of Docs. U.S. G.P.O., 2004), Preface. 76 Insurgent Ideology The insurgency was a heterogeneous network of clans, families, tribes, and other affiliations, each with its own ideology and political goals. Insurgent groups normally did not articulate their ultimate political goals; limiting their stated objectives to expelling the ‘occupier.’ Thus, the insurgency concentrated on the more operational, immediate aspects of the conflict.99 Insurgent Strategy for Gaining Legitimacy Insurgent legitimacy was closely intertwined with creating the perception of the Americans as occupiers. They viewed the American occupation as unjust and invoked the Islamic percept that whatever stems from an illicit act is itself illicit. While insurgents never put forward a long-term vision for Iraq, they did demonstrate an acute awareness of public opinion.100 Practically from the outset, these insurgent groups emphasized the need for legitimacy. Their messages targeted specific audiences predisposed to favor them and sought to criminalize the US and its Iraqi “collaborators.”101 People Most Baghdad residents, including former Ba’athists, were initially willing to support the Americans. However, as government services were slow to resume and the quality of life in the city continued to deteriorate, the population became increasingly willing to support the insurgents. While they did not support all the insurgents’ agendas, many Baghdad residents began to believe that life would probably improve after an American departure. In sum, from the end of the invasion until the bombing of the al- Askari Mosque, every metric of progress went in the wrong direction. Security was down, crime was up, and essential services had not returned to prewar levels. Change in Dynamics of the Insurgency over Time Static explanations of the insurgency tend to misjudge its dynamic, evolving nature. The insurgency can be divided into three phases. The first phase, consisting of competition among insurgent groups, started after the invasion and lasted until roughly 99 Pirnie, O'Connell et al., Counterinsurgency in Iraq (2003-2006), 21-22. 100 Baram and United States Institute of Peace., Who are the insurgents' : Sunni Arab rebels in Iraq, 1. 101 Baram and United States Institute of Peace., Who are the insurgents' : Sunni Arab rebels in Iraq, 20-21. 77 mid-2004. During this phase, the creation of insurgents cells was aided by several US missteps, e.g., such as disbanding the Ba’ath party and the armed forces. The second phase lasted from mid-2004 to mid-2005, when several insurgent groups began coordinating and consolidating. The final phase was from mid-2005 until mid-2006, when insurgent groups sought to destabilize the new Iraqi government and influence American public opinion.102 Effect of the Environment The size and complexity of Baghdad made it difficult for American forces to secure the population. The extensive slums, road network, and diverse neighborhoods made it virtually impossible for security forces to control or prevent access to the entire city and enabled insurgents to dominate significant areas and populations. Insurgents moved from one neighborhood to the next with impunity, on roads, through buildings and in sewers. Combat between security forces and insurgents took place at close ranges that negated many weapons systems’ effects and created significant collateral damage. Baghdad also provided a plethora of soft targets, including power and water plants, bridges, banks, government offices, police stations, and oil infrastructure.103 Summary In sum, the urban counterinsurgency in Baghdad demonstrated the importance of securing the population before setting out to “win hearts and minds” or combating the insurgents. Although there were insufficient security forces in Baghdad, those that were there were never effectively used. Neighborhoods were cleared of insurgents but never held as security forces moved from one neighborhood to the next. These clearing operations used forces and weapons systems designed for conventional combat that created too much collateral damage. Eventually, Baghdad residents began to fear American security forces and gravitate toward the militias and insurgent organizations for protection. These tendencies were exacerbated by the too-early deployment of untrained and inept Iraqi security forces. The urban environment played a pivotal role. First, it provided the outgunned and outnumbered insurgents a place to hide, plan, and conduct operations. Second, it gave 102 International Crisis Group., In their own words : reading the Iraqi insurgency, 6-12. 103 Joes, Urban Guerrilla Warfare, 159-60. 78 them a rich tapestry of vulnerable targets to strike almost at will. Third, it provided access to local, national, regional, and international media whose instantaneous reporting of their gruesome attacks significantly magnified the effects of their actions. Observations of Rural-Based Insurgency and COIN in Algiers and Baghdad In both the Algiers and Baghdad examples, the urban environment provided many advantages to insurgents. It provided the insurgents with many soft targets that could be attacked with small cells. It also gave the insurgents a location in which they could survive and thrive. Finally, it made it very difficult to effectively use many modern weapon systems that were designed for conventional force on force applications. Both the FLN and the insurgents in Baghdad focused their efforts on tactical operations and publicity. They also exploited missteps by counterinsurgents to further their cause. In the case of Algiers, it was the torture and abuse of civilians. In Baghdad, it was Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse. Such actions decreased the legitimacy of both counterinsurgent forces. Brutality by government troops has traditionally been one of the most fruitful sources of recruits for an insurgency. In France’s case, it ignited public and international opinion against the war. The Americans lost the strategic communications struggle in Baghdad through a combination of inadequate forces, inappropriate tactics, and misguided political actions. The French were able to secure the Algiers population quickly while the Americans in Baghdad were unable to do so. Unlike the Americans in Baghdad, the French were intimately familiar with the terrain and culture. In addition, there was in the city an already functioning government and a security apparatus with a developed intelligence network. The French also isolated the FLN stronghold in the Casbah and used checkpoints and identification cards to control the population. French paratroopers patrolled the city both day and night. No such single locus of the insurgency existed in Baghdad. The deployment of an entire division to Algiers, complemented by an adequately established police force, gave the French the necessary density of forces. The Americans had no such luxury. A single division was inadequate for all of Baghdad, and the Iraqi police were inadequately trained. The French also used police tactics to 79 dismantle the insurgency, while the Americans fought the insurgents with conventional military tactics. Finally the French, had a single decision maker in Algeria, while in Baghdad; the Americans initially struggled to determine a workable command relationship between the military and political efforts. To summarize, the urban environment provides many advantages to the insurgent. But these advantages can be offset by adequate numbers of military forces, cultural awareness, competent police, and effective intelligence. In the absence of such counterbalances, the insurgents may both hide and flourish. 80 Chapter 4 Conclusions A victory is not [just] the destruction in a given area of the insurgent’s forces and his political organization. It is that, plus the permanent isolation of the insurgent from the population, isolation not enforced upon the population but maintained by and with the population. - David Galula The four historical examples studied in this paper display many of the traits commonly associated with insurgent warfare. Winning requires a political solution, not simply a military one. These struggles are protracted in nature. The ultimate goal of the insurgency is replacing the existing government. And both the insurgents and counterinsurgents battled for legitimacy throughout the various conflicts. Both the Anti- Huk campaign and the Battle of Algiers can be viewed as government victories. While important, France’s political defeat in Algeria came about by factors beyond the scope of this study. The Afghan insurgency is at a stalemate, which favors the insurgency. The Baghdad insurgency was tipping steeply toward an insurgent victory during the period studied. Based on this bag of mixed results, we will now review the most essential aspects of the four insurgencies here studied, to determine the similarities and differences of the underlying dynamics of urban and rural insurgencies. The Huk Rebellion Until 1950, the Huks effectively used the rural environment of central Luzon to mask the growth of their movement. Philippine security forces lacked the numbers, training, and force structure to fight the insurgency effectively. When Ramon Magsaysay reformed the Philippine security forces and linked good military tactics with effective political programs, the fortunes of war were reversed. With the proper density of security forces in central Luzon to combat the Huks and secure the population, the rural environment that had previously allowed the insurgency to thrive then confined it to extinction. Governmental reforms also attracted popular support away from the Huks toward the government. In the Philippines, the counterinsurgents eventually developed 81 the right mix of troop density and techniques for fighting insurgents. This capability stripped away the security previously offered by rural inaccessibility. The Afghan Insurgency After the American invasion in 2001, the Taliban retreated to the isolated border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan to rearm and regroup. With few resources, the newly formed Karzai government in Kabul was forced to rely on outside assistance from the US and NATO to fight the Taliban remnants. However, when life in rural Afghanistan failed to improve, the Taliban began steadily growing in strength, regaining control over some portions of the country. In addition to the central government’s perceived ineffectiveness, the tactics employed by NATO and US forces have worked to fuel support for the insurgents. While these tactics have recently been adapted to focus on winning hearts and minds and securing the population, there has never been an adequate density of troops committed to counterinsurgency effort. As the central government continues to struggle to expand its mandate beyond Kabul, the Taliban continue to grow in strength. While tactically the Taliban can never defeat Western forces, operationally and strategically they have fought them to a stalemate. In Afghanistan, the counterinsurgents never achieved the proper density of troops with which to combat the Taliban and secure gains in the rural portions of the country. Thus, the Taliban insurgency resembles the status of the Huk insurgency in the early phases of the Philippine experience. In Afghanistan, as in central Luzon, the rural environment provides a sanctuary in which the insurgents can move from weakness to strength. The Battle of Algiers Unable to survive in the rural areas of Algeria, the FLN based its operations in the Casbah of Algiers. Confronted with an urban terror campaign and general strike, the French government deployed the 10th DP into Algiers, transferring control of the city from the municipal government to the unit’s commander. Benefiting from an existing security apparatus, the paratroopers of the 10th DP quickly isolated the insurgents in the Casbah. They also co-opted or coerced the complicit portions of the population into turning against the FLN and providing information to French security forces. By using a combination of police tactics and intelligence exploitation, they defeated the FLN’s military arm in a matter of weeks and dismantled the organization in the Casbah in a 82 matter of months. In Algiers, the counterinsurgents had the correct mix of troop density and techniques for fighting urban insurgents. Thus, they stripped away their adversary’s ability to hide, which for a short time had given it the security to carry out terror attacks with virtual impunity. The Baghdad Insurgency During the period examined in this study, Baghdad never had sufficient security forces to deal with the growing insurgency. Neighborhoods were cleared of insurgents, and then neglected when security forces moved to the next neighborhood. The insurgents were then able to return to these neighborhoods to ensure the no one cooperated with American and Iraqi security forces. Each time the insurgents re-emerged, the population became more complicit and even cooperative. In some cases, support for the insurgents grew as Bagdad residents began to believe that the withdrawal of American forces from Iraq was becoming increasingly likely. The security situation was worsened and the insurgent message furthered by the government’s prematurely deploying untrained Iraqi security forces into Baghdad. In Baghdad, the counterinsurgents never had the right mix of troop density and techniques with which to fight the insurgents. Here, again, as in the early phases of the Battle of Algiers, the urban environment offered a sanctuary in which the insurgents could wreak havoc upon their adversary’s. Similarities in General Dynamics between Rural and Urban Insurgencies From these four historical examples, one can deduce two similar conclusions about rural and urban insurgencies. The first similarity emerging is that in the beginning and middle stages of an insurgency, insurgents must be able to hide. During this period, the insurgency can be easily overwhelmed by a focused counterinsurgency effort. However, if the insurgents are able to act from an area in which the government cannot operate effectively, they can not only survive but grow. In the Philippines, this area was central Luzon for the Huks, in Algiers it was the Casbah for the FLN. The second similarity is that being able to hide and grow in either urban or rural sanctuaries depends on the balance of relative capabilities between the insurgents and government security forces to operate in the insurgents’ base areas. In the two successful counterinsurgency efforts here studied, the Philippine and the French security forces were able to hunt down insurgents in central Luzon and in the Casbah respectively. In the case 83 of the Philippines, the AFP were unable to combat the Huks in central Luzon before Magsaysay implemented his far-reaching reforms. Until that happened, the movement grew to a level almost capable of overthrowing the government. When this balance began to favor the government security forces, the Huks began to lose. In Algiers, the French brought about a similar result in the Casbah with the deployment of the 10th DP. Both these counterinsurgency efforts also demonstrate that in addition to having the right mix of forces using the right techniques, an adequate density of troops is necessary for success. In Baghdad and Afghanistan, counterinsurgents did not have sufficient forces to operate effectively across a broad front in insurgent strongholds. These examples also demonstrate that areas cleared of insurgents must be secured, not abandoned. Differences in General Dynamics between Rural and Urban Insurgencies The criticality of popular support for insurgents differs between urban and rural environments. In a rural insurgency, the insurgent relies on the active support of much of the population to provide people, subsistence, arms, and information. When counterinsurgent forces are able to cut off the rural insurgent from his support, the defeat of the insurgency soon follows. The urban insurgent requires the active support of only a minority and merely the complicity of the majority. The denial of active support only makes the insurgent’s life somewhat more difficult, but it does not threaten his existence. He is usually able to obtain supplies and information on his own. The severing of an urban insurgency from support contributes to defeat but does not guarantee it. The urban insurgent does, however, require at least a complicit population that will not provide information to government security forces. If more than a token portion of the population provides information about the insurgency to counterinsurgent forces, the movement will quickly deteriorate. This finding implies that government forces must focus their efforts and messages differently in rural and urban environments. In a rural environment, counterinsurgent forces must focus on winning hearts and minds in order to draw support away from the insurgency. In an urban environment, counterinsurgent forces must instead quickly force the complicit portions population to choose sides. This is not the same thing as winning hearts and minds and could include elements of coercion and cooption. When an area is cleared of insurgents, the coercion can be transformed into winning hearts and minds. 84 Police forces also play slightly different roles in rural and urban insurgencies. In a rural environment there must be some cooperation between police and military forces. In an urban environment, however, seamless cooperation is essential. Combating an urban insurgency is actually much closer to police work than it is to combat. Police investigations require patience; attention to detail; and most importantly information. As demonstrated by the French in Algiers, dismantling an urban insurgent organization requires a balance of police and military tactics. If the complicit portion of the urban population is not convinced in the government’s ability to root out insurgents, it is less likely to change stances. The second divergence is that while rural areas provide relatively few high-impact targets for the insurgent to strike, urban areas provide a high density of such targets. Examples of high-impact targets in a rural area include radio relay towers, dams, rural government security forces; but the density of these target sets is low. A city, however, offers an urban insurgent a plethora of targets that can yield substantial political rewards for relatively little effort. Targets include an almost endless list of government offices, communications facilities, financial and industrial centers, and transportation infrastructure. The proximity of media outlets magnifies the effects of such attacks. This disparity affects force structure requirements for counterinsurgent forces. In a rural insurgency, the low density of high-impact targets means that a relatively small proportion of troops is required for point defense. In an urban area, however, very large proportions of forces are required for point defense. While it is common knowledge among military professionals that urban operations require more troops then traditional operations, this finding suggests that estimates should be adjusted upward to account for point security in this environment. This consideration is especially critical in view of the previously mentioned necessity of an already high troop density in counterinsurgency efforts. This thesis historically analyzed two rural insurgencies and two urban insurgencies to determine the underlying similarities and differences between the two types of insurgencies. A systematic analysis of these four cases revealed two similar dynamics and two divergent dynamics. The first similarity is that insurgents must be able to hide in order to expand in the beginning and middle stages of an insurgency. The 85 second similarity is that the ability to hide and grow depends on the relative capabilities between the insurgents and counterinsurgents to operate in insurgent base areas. The divergent dynamics are that the criticality of popular support to the insurgent and the density of high-impact targets for insurgents to strike vary between urban and rural insurgency. 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