Defining insurgency

and
types of insurgencies
Insurgency and Terrorism
Defining insurgency
• Defining insurgency in the modern context is as difficult, if
not more so, as defining terrorism, due to the fact that we
understand that terrorism can exist both as a mode of warfare
and as a strategy of insurgency.
• How then do we separate the two phenomena and isolate
insurgency in order to create a working definition?
• Firstly, it is essential to understand the context of the violence
and how it is used.
Defining insurgency
• Insurgent violence takes many forms, including
revolution, coup d’état, guerrilla tactics, terrorism, and
riot.
• At their most basic level, insurgencies can be
understood as being grassroots uprisings that emerge
with the aim of overthrowing an established government
or set of societal norms that they feel threatened by.
Defining insurgency
• In doing so, they employ a range of tactics, including, but not limited to,
subversion, guerrilla tactics, and terrorism, and then use these tactics
against the established power of states or against the conventional
military as a way of exerting their own power and influence.
• Essentially, it can be argued that an insurgency is not random violence: it
is a campaign of violence that is directed and focused with the aim of
achieving a specific political outcome or objective.
• It must be noted here, however, that not all insurgent organisations or
groups use guerrilla tactics or terrorism as a method of action.
Features of insurgency
When defining insurgency, there are a number of common features that tie together the
numerous insurgent groups that are most active today, including the following:
1. Their desire to control a specific area or territory
2. Limit ability of government and enhance capability of insurgents
3. Obtain support of critical segments of society
4. Isolate government from international diplomatic and material support and increase
support for insurgents
5. Increase domestic and international legitimacy of insurgent organisations at the expense
of government
6. Reduce or neutralise government coercive power
Defining insurgency
• An insurgency can also be defined as an organised movement
aimed at the overthrow of a constituted government through
the use of subversion or armed conflict.
• Insurgencies tend to be understood as being protracted
conflicts where the insurgents involved use their limited
assets, grassroots support, and general political will against the
target government, which usually has superior resources and
outside support.
Defining insurgency
• Rather than conventional force-on-force operations, opponents in
insurgencies fight for the support of the populace, and this is one of
the considerations that need be applied when defining insurgency.
• Modern insurgencies can take various forms, and can be divided
according to their ends, ways and means.
• In Afghanistan, for example, the Taliban can be characterised as a
reactionary–traditionalist insurgency, fighting to regain political
power, oust foreign occupiers, and restore its version of Sharia law.
Defining insurgency
• Insurgents desire to control a particular area and/or group of people
with motivations include political, economic, ethnic, and religious.
• Once an insurgency reaches a certain size, the insurgency has a fair
chance of winning.
• Most insurgent groups employ terrorism as a tactic.
• Terrorists in insurgencies are usually small, but fanatical. Little
likelihood that they can achieve major political goals but hey are
capable of acts of violence.
Goals of insurgencies
• Goals of the majority of insurgent groups can be classified into the following
categories:
1. Revolutionary: seek to replace the existing political order with a different
system
2. Reformist: do not aim to change existing political order but seek to compel
government to alter policies or implement reforms
3. Separatist: seek independence for a specific region
4. Resistance: seek to compel an occupying power to withdraw from a given
territory
5. Commercialist: motivated by acquisition of wealth or material resources
Types of insurgencies
• In the majority of cases, an insurgency falls into one of
the following categories:
1. Political
2. Military
3. Traditional
4. Urban-cellular
1. Political
• A politically organised insurgency is one that has developed through a
complex political structure before or at the same time understanding
military operations against government.
• This type of insurgency uses a shadow government rather than military
control approach when active.
• In this context, the military unit should always be subordinate to the
political structure.
• Within this type of insurgency there exist extensive and complex political
structures that are developed before military operations are initiated.
1. Political
• This shadow government type structure is created to
undermine the authority of the existing regime, thus
giving political consolidation to the group, which then
precedes the military consolidation of contested areas.
• This essentially provides the group with more
legitimacy in the eyes of its members and its target
audience.
1. Political

• These types of insurgent group are vulnerable to

any real concerted effort by the government in
power that is aimed at neutralising their
infrastructure.
• This means that it is seen as being the weakest
form of insurgent structure to adopt.
2. Military
• The emphasis is placed on the use of military action against
government over the selection of political mobilisation.
• These types of insurgencies usually have quite weak and ill-
defined political structures, and are often dominated by
extremely powerful military leaders.
• They are, in the majority of cases, decentralised in structure,
with the armed insurgents serving essentially as the catalyst
for mobilising opposition.
2. Military

• Their overall aim is to become the focus for their target

segment of a specific disaffected population.

• Once their base of support has been established, they then aim
to destroy the regime in power in terms of both challenging its
legitimacy and using aggressive military action to gain power
and influence.
3. Traditional
• A traditionally organised insurgency draws on any pre-existing
tribal, clan, ethnic, or religious affiliations that may be present in
a specific region or area.
• They try to establish a set of social hierarchies which they then
aim to put in place as a substitute to the existing political and
military structures.
• This sets a challenge to the existing government in terms of their
legitimacy, power, and influence over said element of the
population.
3. Traditional

• This type of insurgency rarely exists on its own accord as it has

a limited capacity for absorbing economic and military
punishment.

• It is often affected by high levels of leadership conflict, and

therefore it is usually found in conjunction with another type of
insurgency.
4. Urban-cellular
• This type of insurgency is usually centred on and
developed in urban areas within a specific town.
• In terms of organisational structure, it is generally
organised around small, semi-autonomous cells.
• This has a negative impact on the success of these types of
insurgency, however, as they often lack hierarchical
political and military leadership structures, making them
highly unstable.
4. Urban-cellular
• These types of insurgent groups tend to rely more heavily
on terrorism as a tactic to counter their inherent weakness,
which has a negative consequence in terms of limiting
their ability to mobilise popular support.
• In terms of their range of operations, they are usually
restricted to being active in small areas where there is
more chance of them being captured or targeted by the
government or military.