Why Defeating Insurgencies Is Hard: The Effect of Intelligence in Counterinsurgency Operations—A Best-Case Scenario

Abstract

In insurgency situations, the government-organized force is confronted by a small guerrilla group that is dispersed in the general population with no or a very small signature. Effective counterinsurgency operations require good intelligence. Absent intelligence, not only might the insurgents escape unharmed and continue their violent actions, but collateral damage caused to the general population from poor targeting may generate adverse response against the government and create popular support for the insurgents, which may result in higher recruitment to the insurgency. We model the dynamic relations among intelligence, collateral casualties in the population, attrition, recruitment to the insurgency, and reinforcement to the government force. Even under best-case assumptions, we show that the government cannot totally eradicate the insurgency by force. The best it can do is contain it at a certain fixed level.

Bits or shots in combat? The generalized Deitchman model of guerrilla warfare

“…In contrast to other recent dynamical-systems models of insurgent war (e.g. [7,12]), we included no psychological variables, parameters or feedbacks, no dynamics of popular opinion, no game theory. This was a purely attritional model, with all the acknowledged deficiencies of these, in which the question was posed only at its simplest: which, for various parameter regimes, is more likely to lead to a state victory, 'bits'-better intelligence-or 'shots'-increased firepower?…”

“…Descriptive models have addressed the effect of civilian collateral casualties generated by the state [7] and by the insurgents [8] on public response and, consequently, on the fate of the insurgency, the impact of collective memory on popular behavior towards the state and the insurgents [9], and the spatial dynamics of such conflicts [10]. Berman et al model COIN as a threeway contest between violent insurgents, a state seeking to minimize violence, and civilians deciding whether to share information with the state [11].…”

“…In Epstein's categorization of reasons to model [18], ours is to illustrate the core dynamics of the trade-off in combat attrition between two parameters: rate of fire, and intelligence. Important questions such as how popular opinion shifts over time, and how it impacts upon the evolution and outcome of a conflict, are dealt with in [7,8,9,10,11,12].…”

Governments' and Terrorists' Defense and Attack in a T-Period Game

“…One example is the U.S. president Reagan's attack on Tripoli and Benghazi April 14, 1986, after which Libya disappeared from media attention as a sponsor of terrorist attacks. One example of a contradictory anecdote for Case 1 is when attacking a terrorist with scarce resources causes hatred (Glaeser 2005, Kress andSzechtman 2009 6 ) to emerge within this terrorist, which draws resources so that this terrorist becomes a larger future threat. (This possibility is handled in §6.3 where the terrorist's resources are allowed to increase for a variety of reasons.)…”

When do armed revolts succeed: lessons from Lanchester theory

“…McCormick and Giordano (2002) considered only two state variables but introduced terms that allow the government and insurgents to increase in strength on the basis of popular support. Kress and Szechtman (2009) analysed the impact of the population by focusing on how collateral damage and intelligence alter the dynamics. Blank et al (2008) used Lanchester techniques to study Operation Iraqi Freedom.…”