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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.
- ^ Fearon, James D.; Laitin, David D. (2003). "Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War". American Political Science Review. 97 (1): 75–90. doi:10.1017/S0003055403000534. ISSN 1537-5943. S2CID 8303905.
- ^ Lewis, Janet I. (2020). How Insurgency Begins: Rebel Group Formation in Uganda and Beyond. Cambridge University Press. pp. 17–18. doi:10.1017/9781108855969. ISBN 978-1-108-47966-0. S2CID 225014676.
- ^ Kalyvas, Stathis N.; Balcells, Laia (2010). "International System and Technologies of Rebellion: How the End of the Cold War Shaped Internal Conflict". The American Political Science Review. 104 (3): 415–429. doi:10.1017/S0003055410000286. hdl:10261/45454. ISSN 0003-0554. JSTOR 40863761. S2CID 17605053.
- ^ a b c d Kocher, Matthew Adam; Pepinsky, Thomas B.; Kalyvas, Stathis N. (2011). "Aerial Bombing and Counterinsurgency in the Vietnam War". American Journal of Political Science. 55 (2): 201–218. doi:10.1111/j.1540-5907.2010.00498.x. ISSN 1540-5907.
- ^ a b Kalyvas, Stathis N. (2006). The Logic of Violence in Civil War. Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/cbo9780511818462. ISBN 978-0-521-85409-2. S2CID 14897960.
- ^ These points are emphasized in many works on insurgency, including Peter Paret, French Revolutionary Warfare from Indochina to Algeria: The Analysis of a Political and Military Doctrine, Pall Mall Press, London, 1964.
- ^ "The A to Z of military terms". The Economist. Retrieved 2023-12-18.
- ^ Hall, Kermit L. The Oxford Guide to United States Supreme Court Decisions, Oxford University Press US, 2001, ISBN 978-0-19-513924-2 p. 246 "In supporting Lincoln on this issue, the Supreme Court upheld his theory of the Civil War as an insurrection against the United States government that could be suppressed according to the rules of war. In this way the United States was able to fight the war as if it were an international war, without actually having to recognize the de jure existence of the Confederate government."
- ^ Staff. Bureau of Public Affairs: Office of the Historian -> Timeline of U.S. Diplomatic History -> 1861–1865:The Blockade of Confederate Ports, 1861–1865, U.S. State Department. "Following the U.S. announcement of its intention to establish an official blockade of Confederate ports, foreign governments began to recognize the Confederacy as a belligerent in the Civil War. Great Britain granted belligerent status on May 13, 1861, Spain on June 17, and Brazil on August 1. Other foreign governments issued statements of neutrality."
- ^ Goldstein, Erik; McKercher, B. J. C. Power and stability: British foreign policy, 1865–1965, Routledge, 2003, ISBN 978-0-7146-8442-0. p. 63
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