Insurgencies Rarely Win – And Iraq Won’t Be Any Different (Maybe)

By Donald Stoker Page 1 of 1


Posted January 2007

Vietnam taught many Americans the wrong lesson: that determined guerrilla fighters are invincible. But history shows that insurgents rarely win, and Iraq should be no different. Now that it finally has a winning strategy, the Bush administration is in a race against time to beat the insurgency before the public’s patience finally wears out.

The cold, hard truth about the Bush administration’s strategy of “surging” additional U.S. forces into Iraq is that it could work. Insurgencies are rarely as strong or successful as the public has come to believe. Iraq’s various insurgent groups have succeeded in creating a lot of chaos. But they’re likely not strong enough to succeed in the long term. Sending more American troops into Iraq with the aim of pacifying Baghdad could provide a foundation for their ultimate defeat, but only if the United States does not repeat its previous mistakes.

Myths about invincible guerrillas and insurgents are a direct result of America’s collective misunderstanding of its defeat in South Vietnam. This loss is generally credited to the brilliance and military virtues of the pajama-clad Vietcong. The Vietnamese may have been tough and persistent, but they were not brilliant. Rather, they were lucky—they faced an opponent with leaders unwilling to learn from their failures: the United States. When the Vietcong went toe-to-toe with U.S. forces in the 1968 Tet Offensive, they were decimated. When South Vietnam finally fell in 1975, it did so not to the Vietcong, but to regular units of the invading North Vietnamese Army. The Vietcong insurgency contributed greatly to the erosion of the American public’s will to fight, but so did the way that President Lyndon Johnson and the American military waged the war. It was North Vietnam’s will and American failure, not skillful use of an insurgency, that were the keys to Hanoi’s victory.

Similar misunderstandings persist over the Soviet Union’s defeat in Afghanistan, the other supposed example of guerrilla invincibility. But it was not the mujahidin’s strength that forced the Soviets to leave; it was the Soviet Union’s own economic and political weakness at home. In fact, the regime the Soviets established in Afghanistan was so formidable that it managed to survive for three years after the Red Army left.

Of course, history is not without genuine insurgent successes. Fidel Castro’s victory in Cuba is probably the best known, and there was the IRA’s partial triumph in 1922, as well as Algeria’s defeat of the French between 1954 and 1962. But the list of failed insurgencies is longer: Malayan Communists, Greek Communists, Filipino Huks, Nicaraguan Contras, Communists in El Salvador, Che Guevara in Bolivia, the Boers in South Africa (twice), Savimbi in Angola, and Sindero Luminoso in Peru, to name just a few. If the current U.S. administration maintains its will, establishes security in Baghdad, and succeeds in building a functioning government and army, there is no reason that the Iraqi insurgency cannot be similarly destroyed, or at least reduced to the level of terrorist thugs

Insurgencies generally fail if all they are able to do is fight an irregular war. Successful practitioners of the guerrilla art from Nathanael Greene in the American Revolution to Mao Zedong in the Chinese Civil War have insisted upon having a regular army for which their guerrilla forces served mainly as an adjunct. Insurgencies also have inherent weaknesses and disadvantages vis-à-vis an established state. They lack governmental authority, established training areas, and secure supply lines. The danger is that insurgents can create these things, if given the time to do so. And, once they have them, they are well on their way to establishing themselves as a functioning and powerful alternative to the government. If they reach this point, they can very well succeed.

That’s why the real question in Iraq is not whether the insurgency can be defeated—it can be. The real question is whether the United States might have already missed its chance to snuff it out. The United States has failed to provide internal security for the Iraqi populace. The result is a climate of fear and insecurity in areas of the country overrun by insurgents, particularly in Baghdad. This undermines confidence in the elected Iraqi government and makes it difficult for it to assert its authority over insurgent-dominated areas. Clearing out the insurgents and reestablishing security will take time and a lot of manpower. Sectarian violence adds a bloody wrinkle. The United States and the Iraqi government have to deal with Sunni and Shia insurgencies, as well as the added complication of al Qaeda guerrillas.

But the strategy of “surging” troops could offer a rare chance for success—if the Pentagon and the White House learn from their past mistakes. Previously, the U.S. military cleared areas such as Baghdad’s notorious Haifa Street, but then failed to follow up with security. So the insurgents simply returned to create havoc. As for the White House, it has so far failed to convince the Iraqi government to remove elements that undermine its authority, such as the Mahdi Army. Bush’s recent speech on Iraq included admissions of these failures, providing some hope that they might not be repeated.

That’s welcome news, because one thing is certain: time is running out. Combating an insurgency typically requires 8 to 11 years. But the administration has done such a poor job of managing U.S. public opinion, to say nothing of the war itself, that it has exhausted many of its reservoirs of support. One tragedy of the Iraq war may be that the administration’s new strategy came too late to avert a rare, decisive insurgent victory.



Donald Stoker is professor of strategy and policy for the U.S. Naval War College’s Monterey Program. His opinions are his own. He is the author or editor of a number of works, including the forthcoming From Mercenaries to Privatization: The Evolution of Military Advising, 1815-2007 (London: Routledge, 2007).

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php...rc=ealert070129

Good article but the author missed a very important point. Insurgencies result from a weak war effort. If one does not go into a region or country with the intent and ability to totally subjugate the populace an insurgency will develop and flourish. Further the longer a half assed war effort lasts the stronger the insurgency will become. This happened in Vietnam and is now happening in Iraq. In Iraq a troop surge could work, however I have misgivings here since this war has been badly choreographed since day one. If these new surge troops are to be used to hunt and kill these insurgents without regard for civilian casualities success is guaranteed. If we do more of the same no number of additional troops will make any difference.

The author makes many candid presumptions about the status of the war prior to this new surge. Bush and his team have mishandled the war, repeating the mistakes of prior wars and presidents. Time is short, and may have already missed the chance. The situation on the battlefield is not only desperate, but populated with civilians. There are too many if's in his analysis to realistically think that this war will be won in 2007 or 2008, and the electorate will not wait after the summer of 2008. It is absurd to imagine an Iraq war fought by the US and its allies with disregard to civilian casualties.

In my prejudiced opinion, it's already too late and doomed. Save our troops by bringing them home now.

Zooky and Fits, you both have valid points. I would add there are but two words in the authors post that incorporate suttlely much of what you both have said into his analysis. They are RARELY and MAYBE in his heading.

The complexity of Iraq is far from any simplistic incorporation of insurgency though it is a part of what is going on in Iraq, but I would add, we have not but one insurgency but, in my estimation, many.

For example, we have Al-queda against the Coalition, Shia/Iranians coalitions against the Coalition, Sunni Batthist against the Coalition. Then, we have, Shia-Iranian coalitions against Shia-Iraqi coalitions, Shia-Iranian coalitions against Sunni Iraqi coalitions, Sunni Iraqis against Shia-Iranians and Shia-Iraqis and even Sunni Iraqis and Al Queda coalitions against unified Sunni and Shia coalitions. Yet to be added to this mix in any large degree are the Kurds who perhaps in coalition with the American Coalition or separately, take it on against perhaps the Shia-Iranians and Shia Iraqi as well as Sunnia Iraqis or all.

In my humble estimation this more than just even a simplistic view of a Civil War. For if it is a Civil war, it as multi-layered, in many facets of who is friend and foe as the Insurgency scenario I laid out.

On top of that, we have this game of Israeli - Iranian Nukes wink, wink, blink, blink, in the most Volatile deadly region on earth that has been on the verge of a religious war for final domination of Islam and Muslims for sometime irregardless of the US involvement with Iraq.

Who is naive and or so foolishly blinded enough to think and not imagine that even with Saddam still in iron fisted power in Iraq. He and the majority in the region and in Islam, who are Sunni, would not standup to the potential of a nuclear Iran as it moved as it has with or without the US in Iraq, towards bringing as equal colossal madness to this table irregardless of the US intervention in Iraq.

Surely one must recognize why the world rushed to the Gulf in the 1990’s when Saddam tried to unbalance the status quo of power and domination of the worlds life blood oil. Is Iran's future plans and ambitions as it has stated and acted within the region not as threatening now?

Who could not imagine if Saddam was still in power in Iraq and Iranians still moving as they have, irregardless of the US interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan, towards exactly where it is headed now, that all of Sunni Islam and even Israel would not be threatened as equally as we see the threats today from Iran post Iraq. Add to this volatile mix, even without the US in Iraq and Afghanistan, with I might add a vast ability to quickly inflict great damage to anyone one who would attempt to dominate or change the status quo of this absolutely can not do without it oil region.

Who does not get why the world rushed to the Gulf when they saw Saddam’s effort to dominate the regions oil and political landscape. Is Iran’s potential with 4 times the military and a nuke program as equal if not more so a threat to the entire region and the world as was Saddam’s far lesser, but seriously attempted efforts in the 1990’s?

Now inthis altered reality of no US in Iraq, we still all have building, no matter the US intervention in Iraq as most miss assumed is at the root of it all, this regional religious face off for dominance of Islam, oil and the region. Plus we will nukes as was our worst fear Saddam did in 1990.

Then we gave to the world this PC "I want out but I know, though I don’t want to know, cowardly western and worldly addicted ambiguity, vacillating, in between a staying or going colic knowing full well Iran's moving potential to dominate the region Islam and the oil.

Whereby we all know, as in Saddam’s 1990's threat, we are, as then, at the mercy of some who would die and risk being obliterated, merely so that we would die or some of us would die, and, those who did not, would suffer the worst of economic torments. Offering nothing but pain for the survivors from one end of this planet to the other with little positive hope for the near future perhaps 10 or more years afterwards.

Vae victis! (Woe to the conquered!)