WRITER; BAAMSAR BALOCH
PART-1
In the beginning, we have to be clear about what an insurgency actually is. Then we will go to the other parts of our discussions.
An insurgency, by its root causes, is, overall, the outcome of a political ideology. It may be the political pillars where an insurgency continues, or the armed or violent pillars where, from the past until today, most insurgencies take place. The best recent examples are the Kurdish and Baloch insurgencies.
In actual words, an insurgency is a conflict in which a non-state actor fights a state actor. By state actors, I mean a state or a government (regime change) within a state, and most of the time it is an occupying power/force which is resisted by the insurgents. These are the causes of the beginning of most insurgencies that occurred in the past and are occurring today globally.
An insurgency uses two ways to gain its objectives: the use of political force and the use of violence. To gain objectives (which are mostly the aims to gain control over a territory or influence the population), in current periods of time, insurgencies are mostly violent-based, and that is perhaps the most accurate way to gain objectives from state actors in current situations.
How an insurgency gets its aims and objectives or is vanished by the tactics of counter-insurgency of the opposite actors.
As we glance at the insurgencies that occurred or are continuing, they are not just a violent force; rather, they are deeply rooted in political, social, and psychological grievances. Therefore, it becomes too hard for any actor to vanish an insurgency, and that is the cause of why they are prolonged. They take a lot of time to be completely cut from the roots.
As they are so prolonged, to bring an insurgency to an end, there are three pathways: military victory, negotiated settlements, or a protracted stalemate.
These three are the pathways most used to bring an insurgency to an end in past centuries, and the end of recent insurgencies in different parts of the world were subjected to an end through these pathways as well.
It should be clear that using these tactics brings the insurgency to an end once, but the chances of refueling are always there. This means after years, the insurgency may again rise. The world has already witnessed such cases, like the fourth phase of the Baloch insurgency before and now its fifth phase, or different phases of the Kurdish insurgency, and many other examples we can discuss which vanished once but emerged after a period of time.
1: Outright Military Victory
In this way of ending, one side wins victory, either the insurgents or the state actors. Victory isn’t defined by how many military facilities you have or how many tanks and machines you own; rather, in the case of insurgency warfare, victory is considered by how much destruction you cause to your opponents. That destruction is surely breaking the bridge of moral support of your opponents with the public, bringing the opponent’s organizational structure into a complete structural collapse, and achieving territorial control of those areas which once were in the control of the opponent forces.
Here, the military point of view isn’t subtracted; rather, the complete end comes when an organizational structure is destroyed from the roots and the masses’ support is gained. But it should be noticed: here the military role is too vital to counter the opposite group, but it isn’t the only helper to bring your opponent to their knees.
State Victory
State victory is mostly the “crushing model” to end an insurgency from its very deep roots. To crush the insurgency, the state uses some tactics, and those tactics become a helping hand for the state to cut the roots slowly until a time comes when there will be no influence of the insurgents; that is when the insurgency becomes crushed.
Among those tactics, the most important is “to decouple the insurgents from the masses.” Simply, the state tries to make a communication barrier (of any type) between the masses and the insurgents, which is done through creating fear among the masses, increasing surveillance, and using excessive force on the masses which is nothing less than psychological torture. Over time, this creates a fear of the state forces in the minds of the masses, and then the masses get distanced from the rebellion.
From here, the rebels’ supplies of food, weapons, intelligence, and recruits become affected. these become the worst losses for the insurgents and become helping hands for the state to counter the insurgency. Propaganda in such situations, when insurgents and masses are distanced, becomes a help for the state to build a narrative to throw down the morale of the insurgents, make the cost of being an insurgent too high, and propagate its desirable narratives.
This propaganda tool supports the state to increase the buffer between the rebellion and the masses while creating a kind of attachment of the masses with the state. All these tactics come under the category of what we call counter-insurgency.
Example: The Greek Civil War
The Greek Civil War stands as a highlight case in the 20th century where a counter-insurgency operation meets its success. In making this war successful for the Greek National Army (GNA), the backbone supporter was the United States. The US provided decisive military and economic support (which converted the GNA from a defensive position into an aggressive position) to fight the rebels of the Democratic Army of Greece (DSE), which was the military wing of the Communist Party and at a time controlled the northern mountainous regions.
The state played strategic games; the government relocated at least 700,000 people from village areas (where there was a lot of support for the DSE) to isolated regions (where the government hold was strong and out of reach for the DSE). This fits Mao’s words as the “fish” (rebellion) was separated from the “water” (the population).
This created a buffer between the DSE and its past supporting masses, which affected the DSE too much and became the cause of success for the GNA to vanish the DSE.
The buffer affected the survival of the DSE in many ways, as it cut its food and instrument supplies, intelligence, and the most hurting loss the isolation of its recruitment source. In 1948, the DSE relied mostly on Yugoslavia for shelter and supplies; then the state closed Yugoslav borders in 1949. That was an act which became the victory factor for the state to abandon the mobility of the DSE that had once made them dangerous. Without a cross-border sanctuary, the insurgency lost its ability to refit and retreat. By controlling the mobility of the insurgents, the guerrilla tactics (hit-and-run or safe haven) were neutralized, and the state gained control of all the territories which once were out of its control.
At last, in August 1949, the Greek National Army launched “Operation Torch.” It was the last operation in the conflict, conducted with massive air strikes in the mountains of Grammos and Vitsi, clearing the final refuges of the DSE insurgents. Overall, the Greek state countered this insurgency by systematically demolishing the insurgents’ physical and social infrastructure.
Insurgent Victory
The victory for any insurgent group is when the opponent’s complete collapse occurs and the insurgents gain all control over the areas which once were under the opponent. In such situations, there occurs a complete collapse of the opponent’s military capability and its political structures. The complete structure of the opponent state is replaced by the insurgents.
The victory of the insurgents often occurs through a long-term process in which the insurgency evolves through three stages:
- Strategic Defense: At the beginning, the insurgents are too weak and aren’t in a position for large-scale operations. They use the tactics of guerrilla warfare, hit-and-run attacks, and sabotage. These tactics help the insurgents to defend themselves, get a position among the masses, and make their position stronger.
- Strategic Stalemate:The insurgents reach a position where they have a reachable hold on areas. Their main strategy is to dig in among the population to build trust and get moral support. At this stage, none of the two sides (insurgents or state) are strong enough to push the other back, but neither side is tired enough to let its opponent go. This is mostly a long-term stage.
- Strategic Offense: The insurgents reach a position where they are completely dominating. They are in a position like a regular army. They have control over most regions. At this stage, the insurgents launch massive coordinated attacks, including large-scale operations to control cities and the opponent’s military bases. The objective becomes total seizure of the area and the complete collapse of the opponent. Example: The Chinese Civil War
The best example of an insurgent victory is the Chinese Civil War, which runs completely according to Mao’s three-stage theory. The small and weak group of rebels of the Communist Party of China (CPC) transformed into a massive regular force.
In the beginning years, the CPC was not given enough space to survive easily. They did the Long March, during which they lost many men, and the remaining ones knew that survival was only possible in remote areas of the countryside, far away from the KMT’s strongholds.
The invasion of Japan into China in 1937 distracted the KMT, and they put their entire energy into frontline fights with the Japanese. Meanwhile, the CPC benefited from this conflict and started gaining its position in rural areas where the KMT once had a strong grip. The CPC, instead of just fighting, focused on the governance of the region. It redistributed land to poor farmers, established schools, and provided security. By the end of WWII, the CPC had already built trust among the population and formed a “deep state” in the region. The KMT was running the formal government, but the CPC had gained the loyalty and resources of the rural population.
By 1946, the CPC armed units had been organized into the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and moved away from guerrilla hit-and-run tactics to start large-scale operations. Over time, the space for the KMT became smaller as they suffered economically and morally. In 1948–49, the PLA moved to the offense and started launching massive operations that captured cities. The KMT started fracturing and became weaker, and the CPC took over. The KMT leadership was forced to flee from the mainland entirely to Taiwan.
At the end, the CPC didn’t just win a war; it succeeded in seizing a state and replacing the existing political order with its own.
In this part we have covered military victory of insurgents or state. In the next part we will discuss how insurgents and state actors eventually find themselves on the table rather than being on the battlefield.
