Insurgent Meaning Movie

[Georgeanna Abson]

An insurgency is a violent, armed rebellion by small, lightly armed bands who practice guerrilla warfare against a larger authority.[1][2][3] The key descriptive feature of insurgency is its asymmetric nature: small irregular forces face a large, well-equipped, regular military force state adversary.[4] Due to this asymmetry, insurgents avoid large-scale direct battles, opting instead to blend in with the civilian population (often in rural areas) where they gradually expand territorial control and military forces.[4] Insurgency frequently hinges on control of and collaboration with local populations.[4][5]

An insurgency can be fought via counter-insurgency warfare, as well as other political, economic and social actions of various kinds.[6] Due to the blending of insurgents with the civilian population, insurgencies tend to involve considerable violence against civilians (by the state and the insurgents).[4] State attempts to quell insurgencies frequently lead to the infliction of indiscriminate violence, whereas rebel control of territory frequently involves violence against the civilian population.[5] Insurgency sets itself apart from terrorism by aiming for political control rather than resorting to indiscriminate violence,[7] however, it may incorporate terrorist tactics.[citation needed]

Where a revolt takes the form of armed rebellion, it may not be viewed as an insurgency if a state of belligerency exists between one or more sovereign states and rebel forces. For example, during the American Civil War, the Confederate States of America was not recognized as a sovereign state, but it was recognized as a belligerent power, and thus Confederate warships were given the same rights as United States warships in foreign ports.[8][9][10]

Sometimes there may be two or more simultaneous insurgencies (multipolar) occurring in a country. The Iraq insurgency is one example of a recognized government[a] versus multiple groups of insurgents. Other historic insurgencies, such as the Russian Civil War, have been multipolar rather than a straightforward model made up of two sides. During the Angolan Civil War there were two main sides: MPLA and UNITA. At the same time, there was another separatist movement for the independence of the Cabinda region headed up by FLEC. Multipolarity extends the definition of insurgency to situations where there is no recognized authority, as in the Somali Civil War, especially the period from 1998 to 2006, where it broke into quasi-autonomous smaller states, fighting among one another in changing alliances.

James Fearon and David Laitin define insurgency as "a technology of military conflict characterized by small, lightly armed bands practicing guerrilla warfare from rural base areas."[1][11] Austin Long defines insurgency as "the use of political and military means by irregular forces to change an existing political order. These forces typically mingle with civilians in order to hide from the forces defending the political order."[12] According to Matthew Adam Kocher, Thomas Pepinsky and Stathis Kalyvas, a central objective in insurgencies is to achieve control over civilians.[4] To exercise control armed groups apply a variety of practices, including different types of violence, dispute resolution, taxation, regulation of movement, access to aid and services, and social strictures.[13]

According to James D. Fearon, wars have a rationalist explanation behind them, which explains why leaders prefer to gamble in wars and avoid peaceful bargains.[14] Fearon states that intermediate bargains can be a problem because countries cannot easily trade territories with the spread of nationalism.[14] Furthermore, wars can take the form of civil wars. In her article Why Bad Governance Leads to Civil Wars, Barbara F. Walter has presented a theory that explains the role of strong institutions in preventing insurgencies that can result in civil wars. Walter believes that institutions can contribute to four goals.[15]

Institutions are responsible for checking the government, creating multiple peaceful routes to help the government solve problems, making the government committed to political terms that entails preserving peace, and creating an atmosphere where rebels do not need to form militias.[15] Furthermore, Walter adds that if there is a conflict between the government and the insurgents in the form of a civil war, that can bring about a new government that is accountable to a wider range of people, who have to commit to a compromise in political bargains. According to Walter, the presence of strong influential institutions can be beneficial to prevent the repetition of civil wars, but autocratic governments are less likely to accept the emergence of strong institutions because of their resulting constraint of governmental corruption and privileges.

In her book, Insurgent Collective Action and Civil War in Salvador, Elisabeth Jean Wood explains that participants in high-risk activism are very aware of the costs and benefits of engaging in civil wars.[16] Wood suggests that "participants in the 1964 Freedom Summer campaign in the US South ran high risks of bodily harm in challenging the long-standing practices of racial exclusion in Mississippi." There are many selective incentives that encourage insurgency and violent movements against autocratic political regimes. For example, the supply of safety as a material good can be provided by the insurgents, which abolishes the exploitation of the government and thus forms one of the main incentives. The revolutionary power can help manifest a social-political network that in return provides access to political opportunities to diverse candidates, who share a collective identity and cultural homogeneity. Also, civil wars and insurgencies can provide employment and access to services and resources that were once taken over by the autocratic regimes.[16]

Tomes' is an example of a definition that does not cover all insurgencies. For example, the French Revolution had no cell system, and in the American Revolution, little to no attempt was made to terrorize civilians.[citation needed] In consecutive coups in 1977 and 1999 in Pakistan, the initial actions focused internally on the government rather than on seeking broad support. While Tomes' definition fits well with Mao's Phase I,[18] it does not deal well with larger civil wars. Mao does assume terrorism is usually part of the early phases, but it is not always present in revolutionary insurgency.

Steven Metz[20] observes that past models of insurgency do not perfectly fit modern insurgency, in that current instances are far more likely to have a multinational or transnational character than those of the past. Several insurgencies may belong to more complex conflicts, involving "third forces (armed groups which affect the outcome, such as militias) and fourth forces (unarmed groups which affect the outcome, such as international media), who may be distinct from the core insurgents and the recognized government. While overt state sponsorship becomes less common, sponsorship by transnational groups is more common. "The nesting of insurgency within complex conflicts associated with state weakness or failure..." (See the discussion of failed states below.) Metz suggests that contemporary insurgencies have far more complex and shifting participation than traditional wars, where discrete belligerents seek a clear strategic victory.

Many insurgencies include terrorism. While there is no accepted definition of terrorism in international law, United Nations-sponsored working definitions include one drafted by Alex P. Schmid for the Policy Working Group on the United Nations and Terrorism. Reporting to the Secretary-General in 2002, the Working Group stated the following:

Without attempting a comprehensive definition of terrorism, it would be useful to delineate some broad characteristics of the phenomenon. Terrorism is, in most cases, essentially a political act. It is meant to inflict dramatic and deadly injury on civilians and to create an atmosphere of fear, generally for a political or ideological (whether secular or religious) purpose. Terrorism is a criminal act, but it is more than mere criminality. To overcome the problem of terrorism it is necessary to understand its political nature as well as its basic criminality and psychology. The United Nations needs to address both sides of this equation.[21]

Yet another conflict of definitions involves insurgency versus terrorism. The winning essay of the 24th Annual United States Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Strategic Essay Contest, by Michael F. Morris, said [A pure terrorist group] "may pursue political, even revolutionary, goals, but their violence replaces rather than complements a political program."[22] Morris made the point that the use, or non-use, of terrorism does not define insurgency, "but that organizational traits have traditionally provided another means to tell the two apart. Insurgencies normally field fighting forces orders of magnitude larger than those of terrorist organizations." Insurgencies have a political purpose, and may provide social services and have an overt, even legal, political wing. Their covert wing carries out attacks on military forces with tactics such as raids and ambushes, as well as acts of terror such as attacks that cause deliberate civilian casualties.

Mao considered terrorism a basic part of his first part of the three phases of revolutionary warfare.[18] Several insurgency models recognize that completed acts of terrorism widen the security gap; the Marxist guerrilla theoretician Carlos Marighella specifically recommended acts of terror, as a means of accomplishing something that fits the concept of opening the security gap.[23] Mao considered terrorism to be part of forming a guerrilla movement.

While not every insurgency involves terror, most involve an equally hard to define tactic, subversion. "When a country is being subverted it is not being outfought; it is being out-administered. Subversion is literally administration with a minus sign in front."[24] The exceptional cases of insurgency without subversion are those where there is no accepted government that is providing administrative services.

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