Arms of Little Value

The Challenge of Insurgency and Global Instability in the Twenty-First Century

G. L. Lamborn

• Publisher: Casemate
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781612001166
• Topic: Histoire
• Subtopic: Histoire du 21ème siècle

In a dangerous era, a former soldier and CIA officer proposes smarter ways to keep the US safe from the effects of insurgencies around the world. What we've been seeing in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, Yemen, and elsewhere in recent years is merely the beginning. We are entering an extremely dangerous period in our history. The author, with over a quarter century of intelligence experience, has been a student, an observer—and sometimes a participant—in various insurgencies since his "initiation" in Vietnam in 1969. This book offers an understanding of the true nature of insurgency and a glimpse at the reasons why we have not always dealt with it effectively. Drawing from his service in various Third World nations, as well as several successor republics of the former Soviet Union, G.L. Lamborn provides a crucial understanding of what ignites and sustains these movements—and what can prevent them from spreading and spiraling out of control. "Through case studies and analysis, Lamborn, a former Army and Central Intelligence Agency officer, seeks to explicate the importance of political action to insurgencies and explain how military power is successful only to the extent it delegitimizes an insurgency... If readers accept the premise of honest, critical evaluation of military power's limits, there is much to be gained from Arms of Little Value." — Military Review

CHAPTER 1

HOW THE OTHER HALF LIVES

The sixteenth century French literary genius Francois Rabelais observed “that it is very true which is commonly said, that the one half of the world knoweth not how the other half liveth.”¹

Although this witticism is most often repeated in jest, for the great majority of Americans, unfortunately including a surprising number of policymakers and professional military members, the statement is quite true. We really do not know the realities of daily life for virtually half of the world's population.

A WORLD OF PAINFUL CHANGE

The political world has grown increasingly complex over the past hundred years, especially following the retreat of European colonialism in the 1960s and 1970s. In bygone days, when the maps of Africa and Asia were painted in red to identify British territories, purple for French colonies, green for Portuguese, and so on, understanding the politics of the so-called Third World was fairly simple. Colonial administrations sat on top of their colonies, and no intercolonial struggles between European powers had taken place since the World War I ouster of the Germans from their colonies in Africa and Asia.² Capitals in Europe decided politics in the colonies.

But the departure of the Europeans from Asia and Africa in the three decades after 1945 unleashed strong internal pressures in their former colonies that had been partially or wholly suppressed until independence. Ethnic politics emerged in many areas; nationalist or Marxist politics in others; militarism in some; irredentist ambitions in yet others. “State” structures, or at least the post-colonial administrative structures, tended to bend or sag in some newly independent countries. In others, such as the Belgian Congo or the Portuguese colonies in Africa that inherited little or no indigenous political expertise, the administrative structures set up by the Europeans disappeared entirely.

Especially since the collapse of the great European empires that covered a period of thirty years following World War II, we have seen the emergence of tough military dictatorships in places like Myanmar (Burma) and Nigeria, Marxist or quasi-Marxist regimes in the successor states of French Indochina and Portuguese Africa, Islamist governments in some African and Asian lands, and a bewildering array of hybrid regimes from Marrakesh to Manila. Even the successor republics of the former Soviet Union have evolved from their authoritarian Communist roots into many shades of still authoritarian political models, each of which is in some way influenced by its distinct cultural heritage. Kyrgyzstan obviously is not Armenia, and neither resembles Moldova.³

In addition to pent up nationalist, ethnic, or religious forces in the successor states of the European empires, since about 1970 the world has seen the emergence on three continents of significant non-state actors with political agendas. Because non-state entities do not fit the mold of modern European diplomatic practice established by the Treaty of Vienna of 1815, these groups are effectively outside conventional diplomacy. Many non-state actors have ideologies of various sorts and are motivated in some cases by visionary or transcendental beliefs. Some of these entities are transnational and seek to influence the politics of entire regions, and several such groups are highly capable of spreading their ideology across languages and cultures, thereby extending their power. Dr. John J. LeBeau, a professor at the George C. Marshall Institute, and a specialist on terrorism, observed that some insurgencies are trans-national:

Indeed, a case can be made that a number of these insurgencies do not see themselves as discrete armed movements operating against a single nation-state or regime to right local grievances and install alternate policies, but rather as part of a broadly international, religiously-based war against those they identify as anti-Islamic. The sheer number of these Koranically-inspired groups suggests that they are likely to dominate the insurgent stage for the next several years and possibly decades.⁴

And yet, apart from daily coverage of Afghanistan and up until recently Iraq, the American public, including our professional military, is generally unaware of what major forces are shaping and reshaping the Third World. These include rapid and in some cases fundamental social change, urbanization at an accelerating pace, population growth that for many lands is exponential, mixed progress in education and economic development, soil exhaustion, the telecommunications revolution, and much else. In some regions the changes are taking place so rapidly, and with so much dislocation of long-established social and economic patterns, that it is creating serious instability.

Instability fosters social disorder and political violence. These in turn open the door to zealotry and hatred, often exploited by transnational groups. While an insurgency may flare up and then appear to quietly peter out, we should be aware that so long as the underlying social and political conditions are unchanged, the potential for renewed violence remains. Where smoldering embers exist a fire is always possible.

Let's take a quick walk around the planet to see what's going on.

ASIA

Starting with Asia we note that the continent's two largest countries, both in terms of population and territory as well as the world's second and twelfth largest economies, respectively, are the People's Republic of China and the Republic of India.⁵ Both of these countries, despite their relative prosperity, have ongoing insurgencies. The Chinese grappled with a fifteen-year ethnically based insurgency in Tibet and, although quiescent for the moment, a resurgence of separatist violence in Tibet at some point cannot be ruled out. In China's far western Xinjiang province, the Uighurs—an Islamic people of Turkic origin—have opened a low level war against Han Chinese rule, perhaps with some quiet help from their Turkic kinsmen in Central Asia.⁶

India has for years battled the Naxalites, a Marxist group operating in Bengal and other parts of northern India. A recent press report indicates that the Naxalites now operate in sixteen of India's states. India also faces continuing resistance from Kashmiri separatist groups that may receive covert backing from Pakistani elements. In addition to these internal challenges, India must also keep a concerned watch on the stability of its neighbors: Bangladesh, formerly East Pakistan, and Nepal. To the south is Sri Lanka, formerly Ceylon, which only recently concluded a successful counterinsurgency campaign against the Tamil Tiger movement whose insurgency lasted thirty years.

So much has been written about unhappy Afghanistan that we need not say more here. With only a brief respite between 1996 and 2001, Afghanistan has been at war for over thirty years. Pakistan, however, also suffers from ongoing and incipient insurgencies that, if not checked, could become threats to the secular regime in Islamabad. The mineral rich Baluchistan province has had a sputtering ethnically-based insurgency. A witches’ brew of fanatical Islamist insurgent groups hold sway in Pakistan's frontier area with Afghanistan and even control or influence districts just north of the capital city, Islamabad.⁷

Neither is formerly Soviet Central Asia immune from insurgency. Kyrgyzstan has seen politically inspired violence that is likely to recur in the future. Both Tajikistan and Uzbekistan also have incipient or active insurgencies. The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), though presently more active in Afghanistan and western Pakistan, could return to the mountainous eastern part of its native land. The IMU would seek to replace the secular, post-Communist regime in Tashkent with an Islamist government.

Indonesia had its share of troubles with Timor-Leste, commonly known as East Timor, the former Portuguese colony that it forcibly absorbed in 1975. Inhabitants of Timor-Leste, many of whom are Catholic and Portuguese-speaking, refused to be absorbed into the predominantly Muslim, Bahasa-speaking Indonesian republic. After a bloody insurgency and international intervention on its behalf, Timor-Leste gained its independence from Indonesia in May 2002.

Elsewhere in Indonesia, Islamist extremism and agitation could, at some point, transform instability into a true insurgency in Java, Sumatra, and other main islands. Organizations such as Jemaah Islamiyeh have carried out attacks aimed at foreign tourists and native Christians. This group desires that an Islamic state take power in Indonesia.

French Indochina (Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia) has seen nearly constant upheaval since the end of World War II in 1945. The tough military regime in Yanggon (Rangoon) appears to have suppressed the ethnic rebels in northern Myanmar (Burma) for now. As a betting man, I believe we will see the reappearance in some form of these tribal resistance fighters. The separatist insurgency in southern Thailand between ethnically Malay Muslims and their Thai Buddhist overseers has been expertly described by David Kilcullen in his excellent book, The Accidental Guerrilla.

Western Asia also has its share of insurgencies. The Iraqi insurgency, caused in significant part by ill-considered political moves following the defeat of Saddam Hussein's Baathist regime by the American-led coalition forces, has been well documented. Also, we should not fail to note that Israel had its hands full in occupied Lebanon with insurgent groups like Hizbollah. In Israel itself, the Palestinian Intifada has been a significant challenge to Israeli predominance. T.X. Hammes has covered this political challenge in great detail in his well-researched book, The Sling and the Stone.⁸

Robert D. Kaplan, presently a Senior Fellow with the Center for a New American Security, forecasts fundamental change in the Arab world in coming decades:

Much of the Arab world, however, will undergo alteration, as Islam spreads across artificial frontiers, fueled by mass migrations into the cities and a soaring birth rate of more than 3.2 percent. Seventy percent of the Arab population has been born since 1970—youths with little historical memory of anti-colonial independence struggles, post-colonial attempts at nation-building, or any of the Arab-Israeli wars. The most distant recollection of these youths will be the West's humiliation of colonially invented Iraq in 1991. Today seventeen out of twenty-two Arab states have a declining national product; in the next twenty years, at current growth rates, the population of many Arab countries will double. These states, like most African ones, will be ungovernable through conventional secular ideologies.⁹

In this context it should also be noted that millions of young males throughout the Muslim world are coming of working age in countries where the economies are stagnant, governmental administrative ineptitude and nepotism are commonplace, and corruption is widespread. Many young men cannot find jobs, cannot marry, and cannot establish “normal” lives. They are therefore easy prey for firebrands with extremist messages.

Although Oman's successful counterinsurgency against Dhofari rebels aided from Aden is now a quarter century in the past, there is continued instability in the southern part of the Arabian Peninsula. Recent press reports indicate an incipient insurgency in Yemen. Whether or not a renewal of violence in Yemen and Aden will affect the stability of the Sultanate of Oman or the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is an open question.

Yet another sputtering West Asian insurgency that is likely to persist for decades, like a skin disease, is the ethnic struggle of the Kurds against all three of their rulers: Turkey, Iraq, and Iran. Although the Turks could claim victory in their battle with the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) insurgents, especially with the capture of PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, thousands of Kurdish people still live in Turkey and feel themselves second- or third-class citizens, and view their language and culture as threatened. Kurdish relations with governments in Baghdad and Tehran have not been the best, and Kurdish memory of past genocide under Saddam Hussein is still fresh. Making matters all the more difficult is the dispute over who owns the rights to Kirkuk oil deposits—fully 40 percent of Iraq's total oil reserves are found in Kurdistan.¹⁰

AFRICA

Moving on to Africa we see nearly the entire continent grappling with insurgencies, or at least the political and social instability that leads to incipient insurgency.

Eastern Africa has witnessed insurgencies in Sudan, Uganda, and our old favorite, Somalia. Sudan is divided between a Muslim north and a Christian south. The spoils of war include control over oil resources in southern Sudan. Complicating matters is the continuing turbulence in the Darfur region of western Sudan, a rich recruiting ground for extremist Islamist groups. Shaky ceasefires exist in southern and western Sudan, but the permanence of these agreements is open to question.¹¹ Tribally based insurgents, some of whom profess a bizarre Christian ideology, afflict Uganda. Somalia, with virtually no central government, is beset by a potpourri of warlords, criminal elements, tribal militias, and armed groups, such as al-Shabaab, that are aligned with al-Qaida.¹²

Central and southern Africa has witnessed insurgencies of various stripes in Mozambique and Angola, both former Portuguese colonies, in Zimbabwe (the former Rhodesia), South Africa itself, and Namibia. Although most of this region is quiescent, political instability in Zimbabwe, disputed elections, as well as beatings and murders of opposition members by the Mugabe regime, provide ripe conditions for insurgency there. The former Belgian Congo, once upon a time Zaire and now the Democratic Republic of Congo, is legendary for insurgencies and rebels of every color of the political rainbow. Rebel Laurent Kabila, the would-be savior of the Congo, ousted longtime dictator of Zaire Mobutu Sese-Seko and ...