(C-I)(C-III)(C-IV)(C-V)
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Secret Intelligence Service
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Unit
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Seminars. Harrogate
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updated : 30 09 2020
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Counterinsurgency
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COUNTERINSURGENCY (I) DEFINITION
Counterinsurgency : The military, paramilitary, political, economic, psychological, and civic actions taken by government to defeat insurgency
Counterinsurgency is an offensive approach involving all elements of national power, it can take place across the range of operations and spectrum of conflict.
Counterinsurgency includes :
strategic and operational planning
intelligence development and analysis
training
material
technical organisational assistance
advice
infrastructure development
tactical-level operations
many elements of Psyop
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Counter-state – a movement that explicitly aims to destroy nation-state boundaries
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INSURGENCY
Insurgency – an occasion when a group of people attempt to take control of their country by force
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Secret Intelligence Service
(C-I) UNIT. London
Seminar 03 08 2018. Harrogate
Topic : On the Dynamics of INSURGENCY
Note : As stated, this will be a long series and is intended to coincide with what we have gone through prior, regarding clandestine hybrid war – 4th generation war.
** In addition and obvious but will state it; the series involves our examination of insurgency and requisite counterinsurgency.
There are at least seven dynamics common to most insurgencies.
The following dynamics provide a framework for our analysis that can reveal the insurgency’s strengths and also weaknesses. Although we can examine the following separately, we must study their interaction to fully understand any insurgency.
The seven identifiable dynamics are :
Leadership (below)
Ideology
Objectives
Environment and geography
External support
Phasing and timing
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Leadership :
Note > Leadership is critical to any insurgency. <
Insurgency is not simply random political violence. It is directed and focused political violence. It requires leadership to provide vision, direction so to establish and set the long-term way ahead, short-term guidance, coordination, and organisational coherence.
Insurgent leaders make their cause known to the people and gain popular support. Although, theoretically, the insurgent leader desires to gain popular support for the cause, that desire is often accompanied by a terror campaign against those who do not support the insurgents’ goals. Their key tasks are to break and supplant the ties between the people and the government, and to establish legitimacy for their movement. Their education, family, social and religious connections, and positions may contribute to their ability to think clearly, communicate, organise, and lead an insurgency; or their lack of education and connections may delay or impair their access to positions where they are able to exercise leadership.
Insurgencies are dynamic political movements, resulting from real or perceived grievance or neglect that leads to alienation from an established government. Alienated elite members advance alternatives to existing conditions. (Culture defines elites; example, in most countries, educators and teachers/mentors are members of the elite.
In Islamic and many Catholic countries, religious leaders are elite members.) As their movement grows, leaders decide which body of doctrine to adopt. In the ‘mass mobilisation approach’ *can regard it that way), leaders recruit, indoctrinate and deploy the corps/teams/factions required to carry out the actions of the movement.
In the armed action approach, there is often a much more decentralised mode of operations, but this is usually guided by a central organisation. Extreme decentralisation results in a movement that rarely functions as a coherent body but is nevertheless capable of inflicting substantial casualties and damage.
The power base of some insurgencies is collective and does not depend upon specific leaders or personalities to be effective. Such insurgencies are easier to penetrate but recover rapidly when they lose key figures/personnel. Other organisations depend on a charismatic personality to provide cohesion, motivation, and a focal point for the movement. Organisations led in this manner can make decisions and initiate new actions rapidly, but they are vulnerable to disruptions if key personalities are removed, or re- designated.
Objectives :
Effective analysis of an insurgency requires interpreting strategic, operational, and tactical objectives. Understanding the root causes of the insurgency is essential to analysing the insurgents’ objectives.
The ‘strategic objective’ is the insurgents’ desired end state :
the seizure of political power and the overthrow of an existing government.
‘Operational objectives’ refer to the decisive points (military, political, and ideological) along lines of operation toward the strategic objective, and these are the means to link tactical goals with strategic end-states.
One of the political decisive points is the total destruction of government legitimacy.
Tactical Objectives next – to be continued
Secret Intelligence Service
(C-I) UNIT. London
Seminar 03 08 2018. Harrogate
Topic : On the Dynamics of Insurgency
Secret Intelligence Service
(C-I) UNIT
Notes for Seminar. 08 08 2018. Harrogate.
ORIGINS OF INSURGENCY – NOTES PARTIAL
(From remit on Hybrid 4th Generation Clandestine War)
Rising up against constituted authority has been present throughout history. The causes for such uprisings have been as numerous as human conditions. Uprisings against indigenous regimes have normally been termed rebellions. Uprisings against an external occupying power have normally been termed resistance movements. Historical particulars can at times combine the two.
Rebellions and resistance movements are transformed into an insurgency by their incorporation into an armed political campaign. A popular desire to resist is used by an insurgent movement to accomplish the insurgents’ political goal. The insurgency thus mounts a political challenge to the state through the formation of, or desire to, create a counter-state.
The desire to form a counter-state grows from the same causes that galvanise any political campaign.These causes can range from the desire for greater equity in the distribution of resources (poverty alone is rarely, if ever, sufficient to sustain an insurgency) to a demand that foreign occupation end. Increasingly, religious ideology has become a catalyst for insurgent movements.
The support of the people, then, is the centre of gravity. It must be gained in whatever proportion is necessary to sustain the insurgent movement (or, contrariwise, to defeat it). As in any political campaign, all levels of support are relative. The goal is mobilisation such that the enemy may be defeated. This necessarily will depend as much upon the campaign approach (that is, operational art) and tactics adopted as upon more strategic concerns of support.
Operational and tactical use of violence as an insurgent strategy has become increasingly commonplace.
Objects of violence can be anything the insurgents deem to be obstructions to their cause.
Violence is the most potent weapon available to insurgents. Nonetheless, violence can alienate when not linked to a vision of a better life. Violence is often accompanied by a variety of nonviolent means that act as a powerful weapon in an external propaganda war and assist recruiting. Historically, astute movements have recognised the efficacy of both means to the extent they have fielded discrete units charged with nonviolent action (for example, strikes in the transport and/or energy sector) to supplement violent action.
Secret Intelligence Service
(C-I) UNIT
Notes for Seminar. 08 08 2018. Harrogate.
ORIGINS OF INSURGENCY – NOTES PARTIAL
(From remit on Hybrid 4th Generation Clandestine War)
(C-I)
Violence is the most powerful weapon available to insurgents. However as we’ve discussed, violence can alienate when not linked to a vision of a ‘better life’. Violence is often accompanied by a variety of non-violent means that act as a powerful weapon in an external propaganda war and assist recruiting. Historically, astute movements have recognised the usefulness of both means to the extent they have fielded discrete units charged with non-violent action to supplement violent action.
Insurgent movements begin as compulsion Insurgent leaders commit themselves to building a new world. They construct the organisation to carry through this desire. Generally, popular grievances become insurgent causes when interpreted and shaped by the insurgent leadership. The insurgency grows if the faction that is local insurgent leaders and representatives can establish a link between the insurgent movement and the desire for solutions to grievances sought by the local population. This link does not always exist. Self-serving insurgent leaders with no regard for local conditions may launch an insurgency, even if the population has few grievances. This can occur when the government is weak or even non-existent because of other factors.
If the faction is able to indoctrinate and control the mobilised local manpower, often by creating a climate of fear, and the faction respond to higher commands with independent tactical action, the insurgency will be operationally and strategically unified. If the opposite is true, the insurgency will remain uncoordinated and decentralised.
Insurgent leaders will exploit opportunities created by government security force actions. The behaviour of security forces is critical. Lack of security force discipline leads to alienation, and security force abuse of the populace is a very effective insurgent recruiting tool. Consequently, specific insurgent tactical actions are often planned to frequently elicit overreaction from security force individuals and units.
Overreaction can result from operational planning that encourages brutalising a disobedient population. Such can create a perception of foreign military forces as oppressors rather than as liberators.
INSURGENT DOCTRINE
Insurgent doctrine determines how insurgents actually implement the two types of insurgency. A defensive insurgency has much in common with a resistance movement, since the counter-state already exists and will normally adopt overt techniques necessary for self-defense. An offensive insurgency, on the other hand, is faced with the task of creating the counter-state from scratch.
To do this, there are two basic approaches.
Mass mobilisation
A first approach is to emphasise mobilisation of the masses. This course places a premium upon political action by the faction in local areas, with strategic and operational directives coming from above. Emphasising mass mobilisation results in a hierarchical, tightly controlled, coordinated movement. The insurgent movement that results will resemble a pyramidal structure in its manpower distribution, with the combatants the smallest part of the movement at the top.
Armed action
A second approach emphasises armed action. This course favours violence as opposed to mass mobilisation and normally results in an ‘inverted pyramidal structure’, with the combatants themselves the bulk of the movement.
MOBILISATION
The base sustains the first approach. The second approach has a much smaller support base. The support base will not have the numbers of the base generated by the mobilisation approach.
If emphasis is upon mass mobilisation, the combatants exist to facilitate the accomplishment of the political goals of the insurgent movement. In local areas, terror and guerrilla action are used to eliminate resistance, either from individuals who are opposed to the movement or from the local armed representatives of the state, initially the police and militia, but later the armed forces. Main force units, which are guerrilla units – rough copies of government units are usually more mobile and lightly armed, are used to deal with the state’s inevitable deployment of the military. The purpose of main forces is to engage in mobile warfare. The intent is force upon force action to destroy government main force units. Tactics may include major battles as well as ambushes and small-scale engagements.
These battles and engagements result in the securing and expansion of the counter-state (which may be clandestine in all or part), but are not designed to seize and hold positions as in conventional warfare.
This occurs only in positional warfare.
ARMED ACTION
If emphasis is on the second approach, armed action, the political goal is to be accomplished primarily by violence rather than mass mobilisation. The insurgents attempt to inflict such a level of casualties and destruction the state is incapable or unwilling to continue counterinsurgency actions.
Both approaches emphasise inflicting casualties. The distinction is whether mobilization or armed insurrection is the initial emphasis. Insurgents may also employ terrorist tactics if they lack a mass base, do not have the time needed to create such a base, or have objectives that do not require such a base. In this approach, the combatant force rarely moves beyond terrorist and guerrilla actions. Units are small and specialised, frequently no more than squad or platoon sized. Sympathisers provide recruits for the support base, but these sympathisers are actively involved only occasionally, though they are often central to the information warfare component of the insurgent campaign.
>> Effective analysis of an insurgency requires interpreting strategic, operational, and tactical objectives. Understanding the root causes of the insurgency is essential to analysing the insurgents’ objectives. <<
The strategic objective is the insurgents’ desired end state – the seizure of political power and the overthrow of an existing government.
Operational objectives are the decisive points (military, political, and ideological) along lines of operation toward the strategic objective, and they are the means to link tactical goals with strategic end states.
One of the political decisive points is the total destruction of government legitimacy.
Tactical Objectives – to be continued
Tactical objectives are the immediate aims of insurgent acts.
Tactical objectives can be psychological and physical in nature. Some examples include the dissemination of Psyop / information warfare materials, intimidation (a psychological intervention), and the attack and seizure of a key facility (a physical intervention).
IDEOLOGY
In its ideology an insurgency sets forth a political alternative to the existing state. Both theoretically and actually, it offers a vision of an alternative / counterstate.
The most powerful ideologies tap latent, emotive concerns of the populace, such as the desire for justice,the creation of an idealised religious state, or liberation from foreign occupation. Ideology influences the insurgents’ perception of the environment by providing the prism, to include vocabulary and analytical categories, through which the situation is assessed. The result is that ideology shapes the movement’s organisation and operational methods.
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Secret Intelligence Service
(C-I) UNIT
Seminar (i) Origins of Insurgency (III) and (ii) To discuss the methodology for the Future State Project. 2030.
Harrogate. 25 08 2018
(i) Origins of Insurgency (No. III)
NOTES
Tactical objectives :
These are the immediate aims of insurgent acts.
Tactical objectives can be and are usually both psychological and physical in nature concurrent.
Some examples include; disseminating psyop materials, intimidation and the attack and seizing of a key facility (the latter obviously a physical objective).
Ideology :
In its ideology, an insurgency puts out a political alternative to the existing state, offering a vision of an alternative / counterstate.
The most powerful ideologies tap into latent, emotive concerns of the population concerned, for example; a desire for ‘justice’, the creation of an idealised religious state, or the liberation from foreign occupation.
Ideology influences the insurgents’ perception of the world by
including vocabulary and analytical categories / types, through which the situation can be assessed.
The result is that ideology shapes the movement’s organisation and its operational methods.
NOTES :
(ii) Methodology for the Future State Project – Transformational Change
THE FUTURE STATE project will engage the Unit off and on until year 2030. Yes! Quite something. Thereby it presents us with extremely complex / multifarious / systemic and dynamic issues – throughout what is the evolution into (morphing toward) the future state (the United Kingdom). It is no less than a fascinating challenge, given the duration.
Consider :
The ongoing application of computer-aided, question-assisted brainstorming.
Interconnectedness – identifying the influences that hold together structures, and so on.
This provides a rich picture of where we are at a given time.
If we discuss (though not confined to); the implications for law and order, defence / military / intelligence – the means of protecting the most important economic, political and other public relations – if we briefly consider these as they present during the present time, > how will these change given the form of a completely different future state – the United Kingdom. 2030? <
The point being that as we move ahead, where we are at will have to change so to accommodate the emergence and application of the completely new. The methodology will assist us in incorporating the emerging tech (e.g., the Internet of Things), the novel architectural forms, the social systems (people change when things around them change) and so on…. (C-I)
Secret Intelligence Service
(C-I) UNIT
Seminar (i) Origins of Insurgency (III) and (ii) To discuss the methodology for the Future State Project. 2030.
Harrogate. 25 08 2018
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Secret Intelligence Service
(C-I). Unit. London
from the SIS archive. History relating to foreign intelligence services. KGB – USSR.
In the years during which the cold war was in progress, any means were used for the application. Sports victories were a pride for the country. Sport was given special attention. In the arenas there were different games, politics was very closely intertwined with the sport. Passions were boiling during competitions.
There are many accounts regarding celebrities who did reach Olympic heights in Soviet sports. The public adored their idols, but sports fans remained unaware that Olympic venues, medals and records – all this was a political means for a vision of espionage. Athletes were recruited by special services so to perform tasks of absolute secrecy. Many were forced to lead a double life, so as not to advertise their work in the KGB.
Secret Intelligence Service
(C-I). Unit. London
from the SIS archive. History relating to foreign intelligence services. KGB
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Addendum II
Strength can be misrepresented by concealing the location and type of one’s forces, headquarters, and logistic elements. Such deception could create either an exaggerated or reduced evaluation of friendly capabilities. The perception of inflated strength can be reinforced through a mix of real and fictitious forces or by inventing a completely notional order of battle in a locale an enemy considers critical, to include bogus headquarters and forces, communications networks and radio traffic, supply depots and other logistic elements, water facilities, pipelines, telephone and telegraph lines, and railroads and railheads. Dummy guns, tanks, trucks, and heavy engineering equipment can be concentrated, and practice target ranges and tank maneuver areas can be built. Troops or naval and air forces can be moved into attacking positions under the pretext of large-scale maneuvers. Operational security can be enhanced by denying information on the true purposes of such movements even to friendly forces.
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objective, but how deception fits into the overall military, political, and diplomatic scheme. When both a primary and alternate plan are considered, they must be separated geographically to increase plausibility and decrease susceptibility to counterdeception. Allied strategic deception plan Fortitude encompassed two theatres, actions must appear normal to enemy intelligence agencies northern and western Europe. Likewise, the operational deception plan for the invasion of Sicily in July 1943 involved the central and western Mediterranean. In contrast, the plan for the Normandy landing encompassed only the sea and coastal area from Pas de Calais in the north to Brest in the south. Time must be available not only for planning but for evidence to be manufactured and received, processed, and evaluated by the target and for a hostile operational commander to make a decision and take the desired actions, especially when a deception envisage enemy forces changing location. Measures that cannot be concealed should be sequenced to generate an estimate of friendly capabilities and intentions that coincide with those in the deception plan.
Not complete – Note that much of the content cannot be put on here but the title of each seminar can be
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Secret Intelligence Service
UNIT
Seminars – Counterinsurgency
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