The editors of the Journal of Strategic Studies kindly made some articles in the current issue available for free. One of these texts, “The Nineteenth Century Origins of Counterinsurgency Doctrine,” asks, Where does the theory of counterinsurgency come from?
Four things are remarkable here. A few thoughts that are a bit more daring and go beyond what’s outlined in the article. So readers with an interest in the history of modern armed conflict – which is to say: probably you – are encouraged to have a look at the full text.
First, “counterinsurgency” is a relatively new word that only took off in the 1960s. But the history of ideas in that discipline doesn’t begin with the publication of David Galula’s slim 1964 book. Nor with the British experience in Malaya. And neither with the American war in the Philippines – all popular reference points in the ongoing debate. At closer view, that now-famous French lieutenant colonel was not nearly as innovative as his American colleagues at the Rand Corporation initially thought, although Galula certainly had some fresh ideas. Yet he mostly said in English what seems to have been more or less common wisdom at the time among French officers with an intellectual and historical interest. In short: the real roots of today’s counterinsurgency thinking reach back to proper colonial campaigns in the 19th century, not merely to decolonization in the 20th century. Bugeaud, Gallieni, and Lyautey should be studied as much as Galula. Or more.
Second, countering insurrections long had a harsh as well as a soft edge. In Bugeaud’s day, the punishment was the razzia and the reward the work of the bureau arabe. 170 years later much has changed. But a balance still has to be struck: between special operations raids and drone strikes on the honed side and provincial reconstruction and protecting the rural population on the gentle side. Perhaps armies and organizations geared more to fighting than farming needed overstating the significance of the latter for its effect to trickle down. And then politicians and politically shrewd officers saw the need to understate the former, to keep indignation down. Both came with the risk of confusing those who took arguments at face value. But the coin, we see then and now, usually had two sides.
Third, counterinsurgency found one of its major inspirations in Muslim lands. Not because the doctrine rose again in Iraq and Afghanistan in the 2000s. And not because Algeria, be it in Galula’s late 1950s or in Bugeaud’s early 1840s, was a predominantly Muslim country. The “razzia,” the French punishment tactic, goes back in name and example to an old, pre-Islamic Bedouin raiding practice, the ghazya, apparently also a historic precursor to the prophet’s jihad. The French modification, in turn, may be seen as one historical antecedent and enabler of the later evolution in counterinsurgency thinking, as the article outlines. In fact “razzia” entered the French and other European languages through transliteration from the Arabic after the invasion of Algeria in the mid-19th century.
Lastly, a note of humility: your academic blogger here is not trained as a historian (what I sometimes regret). Real historians might abhor drawing long daring lines, from Bugeaud all the way to Petraeus. Indeed that can be problematic. But it can also be highly insightful. And it may spark an interest in reading more history.
Those curious about the past of colonial campaigns may already be familiar with Douglas Porch’s seminal works. For them another must-read is in the works: a careful historical book on the “Gallieni-Lyautey method” by Michael Finch, of the University of Oxford’s Pembroke College. Finch’s focus is on Tonkin and Madagascar between 1885 and the turn of the century.