Dave Vs Popular Myths

The Myth of The Successful Insurgency

Today begins the long awaited withdrawal from Iraq by the United States of America.  It seems to beginning with a whimper and low media coverage, when it was the center of much controversy only a few short years ago.  Though it was once considered a quagmire with no end was in sight, a hopeless mess, where the Greatest Military Force in history was defeated by a great insurgency, the United States is not withdrawing due to casualties of that terrible insurgency but by a lack of political will amongst the ruling elite. 

There has become a myth that no western democracy or power can possibly withstand the financial and casualty drain to defeat a determined insurgency, like that of Vietnam or Iraq.  This is clearly a fable created by those who have never studied the history of actual insurgencies during the 20^th century or those who for their own reasons seek to create such a myth.

The 20^th century is replete with forgotten stories of insurgencies fought and sponsored by countries fighting from sanctuary states that were completely defeated by determined and aggressive forces, and by those who decided to win.  These conflicts are often forgotten now but at the time were potent reminders of the true results of fighting such a battle. 

Many of the great colonial powers began to give up their holdings during the 1950 and 60s.  Countries like France, Great Britain and Portugal.  Those governments were still determined to make sure that friendly governments held control of those countries instead of them being swallowed up by their often rapacious neighbors or Communist rebels.  The British were the most successful of these great powers fighting three insurgencies that they won by defeating them through a combination of judicious military power and through hearts and minds campaigns.  The three wars conflicts that they fought were in Malaya, The Indonesian Confrontation and the Mau Mau Rebellion.

These conflicts were all defeated not just by brute force, but by a combination of hearts and minds campaign and reforms of the political and economic systems of the countries involved.  In both Malaya and the Mau Mau rebellion, the insurgencies were not being driven purely by ideology, but by the fact that the insurgents were oppressed minorities (Chinese in Malaya) or Majorities (Kikuyu).  The British governments to work with these groups to improve their living and economic conditions, to raise the people out of the third world conditions and to ignore the colonial elite that had been oppressing them led to the creation of not just friendly governments but to stable democratic partners. 

In the case of Indonesian Confrontation, after easily defeated a small rebellion in Borneo to a direct confrontation with Indonesia who was seeking to puppet and conquer its neighbors.  A combination of military support, secret insertions into the Indonesian rear areas, and the continual drain on Indonesian resources led to the direct overthrow of the Sukarno government.  Which helps prove that insurgencies can also throw out the much more powerful and supposedly superior ‘Tyranny’ government model.

The most famous of ‘successful’ insurgencies is supposedly that of the Viet Cong insurgency which fought in Viet Nam.  This insurgency portrayed in such movies as Platoon and Apocalypse Now, as well as television shows like Tour of Duty, single handedly defeated the United States of America and proved the superiority of insurgency against the US Military.  However South Vietnam was not defeated by an insurgency repeatedly defeated first in the Mekong Delta, by a concerted effort of the US Navy and Army commands, and then later during the infamous Tet Offensive.  It was defeated by a North Vietnamese army supplied by the Soviet Union consisting of a tank force larger than that fought at Kursk in World War 2.  It was defeated by the OPEC embargo which had dropped its cash reserves to such a low it could not afford to buy the military equipment it desperately needed to fight the war, and finally by a corrupt government structure more interested in lining its own pockets than serving the needs of either its military or civilian populace. 

Insurgencies by themselves do not win wars and in fact have almost never won wars without significant intervention by other foreign powers.  Whether it was the American Revolutionaries assisted by the French and Spanish (the later contributing substantial and early support often forgotten today), the Afghans who defeated the Soviets with US support, or the Yugoslavs against the Nazis with British and American support. 

The United States can now look back upon the work they did in Iraq and indeed Vietnam that despite a myth being written by those who benefit by it that they succeeded in what they attempted to do.   They defeated and beat the insurgency.  Whether or not Iraq goes on and remains a democracy, falls to internal civil war or invasion by a foreign power, the soldiers who fought and died in that country did not do so in vain, they won.  Whether or not there victory is thrown away by others, it will not be they who are to blame.