UK Counter Insurgency Operations Doctrine 2007

From WikiLeaks:

29. Written Material and Rhetoric. Where an insurgency does produce material, or
provide speakers whose views are reported, these can be analysed. However this is
normally only appropriate when the insurgency is large and seeks a wider audience for its
views. Smaller, more clandestine groupings, generally avoid this option, but are then
probably less of a real threat to the established authorities. Furthermore such material if
produced can often be misleading and obscure. N17 the small terrorist organisation which
operated in Greece from 1973 to 1998 published many articles in the newspapers after
terrorist incidents attempting to justify their actions. Taken as a whole these publications
show that the organisation seems to have a small middle class/intellectual support, very
little appeal to any non committed group, and no particular programme to speak of. It has


Issue 2.0: Mar 07 A -2-6
[�] remained a small terrorist group outside the political arena, but yet an embarrassing left
wing thorn in the side of the government which had to spend valuable resources to counter
its terrorist activities.

30. The Implications of Analysis. While the roots of some insurgencies are more
difficult to identify - partly because of their own internal arrangements, most insurgencies
can be identified once their aims are reasonably clear and comprehensible. The process
of identifying the basis of an insurgency can also lead to the implications that normally
follow such analysis. These could be that:

a. Different aims put different demands on insurgents, - particularly with respect
to resources. If an insurgent's aim is not amenable to compromise then it normally
results in much stiffer opposition from the established authorities. In turn this
implies that insurgencies should go for greater support, more funding and a longer
term commitment to have any chance of success. Those whose aims are not the
collapse of the established authority, such as reformists and preservationist types of
insurgency, may be able to convince the authorities that concession is possible
without recourse to a protracted insurgency.

b. A clear analysis of an insurgency can also help to discover the roles of
outside or external parties to the insurgency. In the 1960s the tendency of the
United States to intervene in insurrections was in part the result of thinking to equate
insurgency with the revolutionary aspirations of egalitarian movements and the
connotation of external support from China or the USSR. Calculations about
intervention that gloss over the ultimate aims of an insurgency can be ill-informed
and costly.

31. To help such analysis Figure 1 describes in diagrammatic form how an insurgency
could develop. From this it may be possible to work out the aims, objectives and courses of
action for an insurgency.


[ ... ]

37. Ethnic Cleansing is an insidious form of terror which has been operated in various
forms over many centuries. Both in Europe and the Middle East there are many examples
of this type of activity throughout history when a majority of the surrounding population wish
to frighten and intimidate people into leaving their homes and territory and moving
elsewhere. In terms of creating human misery, ethnic cleansing is one of the most
loathsome of all forms of terrorism and is normally the basis for future unrest and potential
insurgency in the area. The roots of the Civil War in Greece and the growth of communism
in the region grew out of the deliberate shift of populations between Greece and Turkey in
the aftermath of the First World War. Furthermore the usual lack of any subsequent
administration to provide long term accommodation and work for the uprooted refugees
causes discontent and anger. Palestinian refugees fall into the same category as well as
refugees from Iraq and in the Darfur region of the Sudan.