How to fix the academics of COIN

David Betz just finished writing a history of the academic study of insurgency, and has posted the "post card" version over at King of War. In the piece he identifies several lingering holes in the literature, and talks a bit about where to go from here. Before I put in my two sense, I should probably note that much more of my experience is in studying issues that are linked to insurgencies (ethnic violence, extremist opposition political and social movements and terrorism) then insurgency proper, which I'm sure biases my view.

Betz points to a few major flaws in the current literature

1. that academic studies focus on when insurgencies succeeded and ignore the failure, biasing the sample set
2. the continued lack of clarity about what makes an insurgency different from a conventional fight
3. the assumption that a counter insurgency is less able to utilize propaganda, because they are held to a higher level of truth
   

While i admit the third point is completely valid, it also just isnt my baby in the same why that it is for Betz.. Like wise, I find the current work being done on the 'virtual dimension' interesting and relevant, but not as thrilling as he does. However, the first two holes, and the second area of advancement he mentions, Social Network Theory, are all big things for me.

His first point, that academics bias their sample to successful insurgencies, isnt a new problem. The studies of revolutions that were so popular 30 years ago had a similar issue. In fact, i think insurgencies studies is actually doing a better job here then scholars of the 1980's did, because for every person studying insurgents, theres someone studying counterinsurgency as an issue, so both sides are getting a fairer shake.

That being said, its still a gap in the literature, and I suspect that it's going to remain one. First of all, theres usually much more data to work from in cases where an insurgency is successful (or at least high profile and long-running). Theres more news stories written, more members to talk to, and more battles to analysis in these cases. There's also just an undeniable bias in the public's (even the academic public) interest, creating publishing incentives to work on cases that are recognizable, rather then more obscure failed cases.

One way to get around this problem to at least some degree that Betz doesnt mention is for scholars to pull from a wider range on political science writing. The literature on ethnic violence and social movements often looks at cases that dont fall into the traditional COIN cannon, but are good examples of resistance movements that fail to form successful insurgencies (for example S. Wilkinson has written extensively on ethnic riots in India, where violence was common, but never at the level that would trigger the interest of most insurgency scholars). Expanding our understanding of what the relivant literature is may help correct such bias.

In my opinion, the one way that we can distinguish between 'conventional wars' and 'insurgencies' is actually suggesting in the new literature on social movement theory that Betz points to as the next step forward. Scholars like Wiktorowicz (who he mentions) as well as Janine Clark, Diane Singerman, and Carrie Wickham all look at ways that opposition groups in the Middle East utilize non-traditional means of networking supporters. Examples include the use of mosque sermons, work in social service institutions, neighborhood groups, and kin units. To me, it is the ways in which insurgencies are reliant on such mechanisms to rally support and form operational units that makes them distinct from more conventional wars, and our growing understanding of how such interpersonal networks operate is critical to expanding our understanding how to fight them. Furthermore, this literature tends to place a much greater stress on local factors that allow particular networks to be more or less powerful (see Roger Petersen for a good example of how this stuff applies to insurgent recruitment and mobilization), which seems like a good reminder for everyone, given the difficulties in transforming our Iraq policy to fit Afghan society.

h/t to abu m