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Taking Guns to a Knife Fight: An Empirical Study of Effective Counterinsurgency
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this level, characteristics and demonstrated capacities of small units and individuals matter more than state resources. A comprehensive understanding of rebellion demands an appreciation of what drives the performance of the combatants and how variation in the qualities of state internal security forces impacts on the conflict. This paper describes the challenges confronting government sponsored efforts to combat insurgent threats and presents a theory and set of hypotheses of the characteristics and structures of security forces that are best able to overcome these challenges. These hypotheses are tested using new micro-conflict data from recent government counterinsurgency experiences in the Philippines. The data demonstrates that operational initiative at the small unit level predicts more discriminate and effective support to counterinsurgency assessed in terms of effective and discriminate use of force. The data also shows that operational pairing of highly trained and professionally led security forces with locally recruited militias results in especially effective military support to counterinsurgency.
COIN Challenges and Hypotheses of Effective Military Support
There are stark contrasts between employing military force against conventional foreign based threats and those posed by internal enemies of the state. U.S. and Coalition Forces combating insurgent and terrorist threats in Iraq and Afghanistan certainly appreciate that centers of gravity in the unconventional environment of insurgency and civil war are rarely, if ever, defined in the comparatively discrete and measurable terms applicable to interstate conflict. In broad terms, the center of gravity for both the government and the rebels is establishing legitimacy in the eyes of the population. Superior combat power and ability to exert control relative to insurgents turns less on material advantages and more on subjectively measured variables such as the support and cooperation of the local population.
While every insurgency is unique and requires a carefully tailored strategy to defeat it, a number of imperatives can be generalized that broadly define the priorities for the forces involved in combating insurgency.
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First, insurgents must be denied sanctuaries
and refuge from government initiatives to interdict them. This is normally quite difficult based on the presence of rough terrain such as mountains, jungles, and other areas that impede government mobility. Even in urban environments such Baghdad and other Iraqi cities, rebels may find protection in rough “human terrain” in the form of a sympathetic or intimidated local population. Second, the COIN force is obliged to limit the rebels freedom of movement which, like denying her sanctuary, is made difficult by challenging physical as well as demographic considerations. A third general imperative for successful COIN is to deny the insurgent active and/or passive support from the population. This too is an exceptionally difficult task for the COIN force to accomplish given the range of support options available to rebel supporters (Petersen 1991). The final, and most difficult, task for the COIN force to conduct builds on the successful accomplishment of the first three imperatives and culminates with the separation of the rebels from the population where they can be apprehended or discriminately engaged by the COIN forces. A fundamental challenge faced by COIN forces when accomplishing these tasks is employing indirect and direct COIN methods that leverage the advantages and mitigate
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this level, characteristics and demonstrated capacities of small units and individuals
matter more than state resources. A comprehensive understanding of rebellion demands
an appreciation of what drives the performance of the combatants and how variation in
the qualities of state internal security forces impacts on the conflict.
This paper describes the challenges confronting government sponsored efforts to
combat insurgent threats and presents a theory and set of hypotheses of the characteristics
and structures of security forces that are best able to overcome these challenges. These
hypotheses are tested using new micro-conflict data from recent government
counterinsurgency experiences in the Philippines. The data demonstrates that operational
initiative at the small unit level predicts more discriminate and effective support to
counterinsurgency assessed in terms of effective and discriminate use of force. The data
also shows that operational pairing of highly trained and professionally led security
forces with locally recruited militias results in especially effective military support to
counterinsurgency.
COIN Challenges and Hypotheses of Effective Military Support
There are stark contrasts between employing military force against conventional
foreign based threats and those posed by internal enemies of the state. U.S. and Coalition
Forces combating insurgent and terrorist threats in Iraq and Afghanistan certainly
appreciate that centers of gravity in the unconventional environment of insurgency and
civil war are rarely, if ever, defined in the comparatively discrete and measurable terms
applicable to interstate conflict. In broad terms, the center of gravity for both the
government and the rebels is establishing legitimacy in the eyes of the population.
Superior combat power and ability to exert control relative to insurgents turns less on
material advantages and more on subjectively measured variables such as the support and
cooperation of the local population.
While every insurgency is unique and requires a carefully tailored strategy to defeat it,
a number of imperatives can be generalized that broadly define the priorities for the
forces involved in combating insurgency.
First, insurgents must be denied sanctuaries
and refuge from government initiatives to interdict them. This is normally quite difficult
based on the presence of rough terrain such as mountains, jungles, and other areas that
impede government mobility. Even in urban environments such Baghdad and other Iraqi
cities, rebels may find protection in rough “human terrain” in the form of a sympathetic
or intimidated local population. Second, the COIN force is obliged to limit the rebels
freedom of movement which, like denying her sanctuary, is made difficult by challenging
physical as well as demographic considerations. A third general imperative for successful
COIN is to deny the insurgent active and/or passive support from the population. This too
is an exceptionally difficult task for the COIN force to accomplish given the range of
support options available to rebel supporters (Petersen 1991). The final, and most
difficult, task for the COIN force to conduct builds on the successful accomplishment of
the first three imperatives and culminates with the separation of the rebels from the
population where they can be apprehended or discriminately engaged by the COIN
forces.
A fundamental challenge faced by COIN forces when accomplishing these tasks is
employing indirect and direct COIN methods that leverage the advantages and mitigate
3
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