Today’s objectives

 

  1. Define: what insurgency and counter-insurgency are
  2. Consider: why counter-insurgency is so difficult
  3. Examine: case studies of Chechnya and Western Ukraine

Conventional war. Clear front lines, combatants easy to identify.

Irregular war. Combatants hide among civilians, hard to identify.

Asymmetric irregular war. One side easier to identify than other.

Introduction to insurgency

Definitions

Irregular war: armed contestation of sovereignty between state and non-state actors, where

  1. there are no front lines
  2. there is uncertainty over who is combatant or civilian

Insurgency: organized political violence by sub-state or non-state groups, directed against agents of incumbent government

  • includes: anti-occupational uprisings, secessionist and revolutionary movements, terrorist groups
  • excludes: unorganized political violence (lone wolves), organized crime, riots and protests

Counter-insurgency: efforts by agents of incumbent government to contain or defeat an insurgency

  • includes: army, police, foreign military forces, pro-government militia, contractors, non-military agencies
  • excludes: deposed regime, mutineers and coup plotters

Frequency of counter-insurgency wars.

Success rate of counter-insurgency wars.

 

Puzzle: Insurgencies becoming more frequent, but harder to defeat. Why?

 

Common explanations: balance of power, structure of international system (polarity, institutions, treaties), regime type, force employment, technology.

Information problems

Irregular war is a collective action problem

  1. sovereignty is contested between two (or more) combatants
    1. government (counter-insurgents)
    2. rebels (insurgents)
  2. victory requires popular support (e.g. taxes, military service)
  3. but support is costly for civilians to provide
  4. combatants use coercion to deter support for rivals
    1. punish suspected collaborators, informants
    2. demonstrate strength, intimidate civilians

Coercion vs. brute force

  1. Coercion: increase costs of unwanted behavior
  2. Brute force: limit opportunities for unwanted behavior

Information problems in counter-insurgency

  1. Indistinguishability of combatants and civilians
  2. Unwillingness of civilians to volunteer information

Discussion:

  • Why do information problems make coercion more difficult?
  • Why do information problems create incentives for brute force?

Selective violence

  • targets chosen individually
  • (e.g. arrests, assassinations)


Indiscriminate violence

  • targets chosen collectively
  • (e.g. artillery, area bombing)

Case Studies

Russian-Chechen War

Background: Caucasus Wars

  1. 1816:
    Aleksey Yermolov becomes viceroy, begins conquest of N. Caucasus
  2. 1817-1864:
    Caucasian Imamate vs. Russia
    \(\to\) mass resettlement, genocide
  3. 1921-1926:
    Akushinskiy insurgency vs. Bolsheviks
    \(\to\) forcible disarmament
  4. 1940-1944:
    Israilov insurgency vs. Soviets
    \(\to\) mass deportation to Central Asia
  5. 1989: Chechens return home


 

Map of Caucasus

 

 

1st Chechen War, 1994-96

  1. Prelude
    • 1991: Chechnya declares independence
    • Yeltsin ignores this at first
    • low-level Chechen civil war
  2. Main phase
    • 1994: troops sent to restore order
    • catastrophic Russian losses
    • poor intelligence, heavy air power, indiscriminate artillery shelling
  3. Settlement
    • 1996: separatists recapture Grozny
    • Russia signs peace agreement
    • Chechnya becomes de facto independent


 

Restoring order

And leaving

 

2nd Chechen War, 1999-2011

  1. Prelude
    • 1997: Chechen leadership splits
    • rise of Salafi-Jihadis
    • 1999: Basayev, Khattab invade Dagestan to create Islamic state
  2. Main phase
    • 1999: Russia invades Chechnya
    • 2000: Russia takes Grozny, cities
    • 2000-2011: guerrilla war in forests, Russian indiscriminate reprisals
  3. No settlement
    • Russia enlists former rebels
      (Akhmat and Ramzan Kadyrov)
    • “Chechenization” of conflict
    • violence becomes more selective
    • Chechnya becomes police state


 

Old friends

New friends

Government and rebel violence over time

Insurgency

Counterinsurgency

 

 

What do the data tell us?

  1. Threshold effect exists
    • government violence alienates at low levels, deters at high levels
  2. Reaching the threshold is hard
    • in most cases, Russian violence was below the threshold level
  3. Threshold level depends on tactics
    • selective tactics: lower threshold
    • indiscriminate: high threshold

What does finding #3 suggest about effectiveness of “Chechenization”?

 

How does corruption complicate this picture?


 

\(\cap\)-shaped curve

\(\wedge\)-shaped curve

Soviet Counter-Insurgency in Western Ukraine

Background: Western Ukraine

  1. 1919-1921:
    Ukraine split between Poland (Galicia, Volhynia), Soviet Union (center, east)
  2. 1929:
    Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) forms in Poland
  3. 1939-1941:
    Soviets occupy West Ukraine,
    OUN splits into moderate (OUN-m) and militant (OUN-b) factions
  4. 1941:
    OUN-b declares Ukraine independence, Germans crack down on OUN-b
  5. 1942:
    OUN-b forms Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) to counter Soviet partisans
  6. 1944-1955:
    Soviets re-occupy Ukraine, start long counter-insurgency vs. UPA


 

Glory to Heroes?

1943

  • Fighting starts when country still under German occupation.
  • UPA launches campaign vs. suspected Soviet collaborators.

1944

  • Campaign reaches peak in 1944-1945, when Soviets return.
  • Soviets, starved of intelligence, rely on indiscriminate violence.

1945

  • NKVD begins campaign of mass population resettlement.
  • Resettlement ostensibly targets families, supporters of UPA members.

1946

  • To keep up with quotas, resettlement becomes more indiscriminate.
  • “Without discrimination, they grab children, women, the elderly…”

1947

  • Suspected rebels’ families represented 32-59% of resettled households in October 1947… Who were the other 41-68%?

1948

  • UPA insurgency goes on, at lower intensity
  • Soviets briefly pause resettlement program.

1949

  • Soviets collectivization of local farms sparks renewed resistance, renewed campaign of resettlement.

1950

  • By 1950, the conflict had become low-intensity.
  • Soviets had mostly established monopoly on use of force.

1943-1955

  • How decisive was forcible resettlement in reducing insurgent violence?
  • Why is this a difficult empirical question to answer?

Did resettlement work?

  1. Yes
    • resettlement had significant suppressive effect on UPA violence
    • expected number of attacks decreased by 47% on average
  2. And
    • removal of local popular base (266,000 resettled, 127,000 killed) changed how UPA fought
    • UPA violence became less selective, more indiscriminate


 

NKVD-VV unit

OUN-UPA cell

Discussion:
Back to the future?

  • why didn’t the Russians (re-)attempt resettlement in Chechnya?
  • but then why has Russia been using these tactics in Ukraine today?
  • is there always a trade-off between reducing government violence and preserving civil liberties?

NEXT MEETING

 

State Security Services (Th, Oct. 5)

  • inside the police state
  • things to consider:
    • why didn’t the secret police care if they were arresting the “right people” under Stalin?
    • is the FSB still capable of state terror on a 1937 scale?