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Insurgency and Terrorism: From Revolution to Apocalypse, Second Edition, Revised

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Terrorism and Insurgency by Bard E. O'Neill, is an invaluable resource for those interested in understanding insurgency and the relevant factors that lead to its success or failure.

This book appears to be written for a classroom audience (the author in fact provides a proposed semester-length class schedule complete with lesson plans and assigned reading). However, O'Neill also has government analysts and policy makers in mind. Throughout the book, and especially in chapters covering government response and the conclusion, he stresses the value of providing as complete a picture as possible while keeping in mind objectivity and maintaining an unbiased approach to analysis.

O'Neill begins his book by looking at insurgencies and the related fields of terrorism and guerilla warfare. His framework for analysis includes understanding the nature of the insurgency, insurgent strategies, both political and military, understanding the physical as well as human environment, organization, and the role of external support.

In the final chapter, O'Neill lays out a comprehensive lense through which a government analyst could view its adversary and policy makers can create successful counterinsurgency operations. Urging the avoidance of polemics and shortsightedness, O'Neill provides a credible and realistic lense through which to create effective countermeasures.

O'Neill helps to settle many unhelpful arguments and issues for analysts. For example, he rejects the false dichotomy of freedom fighter versus terrorist, as one deals with ends (freedom fighter) and one is a means to get their (terrorism). As such, a freedom fighter can use terrorist tactics to achieve his ends.

Also, a driving factor that many insurgencies use to determine their strategies are the physical and human environment around them and the perceived and real government response. Understanding this is invaluable both for insurgents and counterinsurgency operations.

The ideology, or political campaign, the insurgent group promotes, serves the valuable function of differentiating friend from foe. Providing an alternative to this ideology is integral to separating insurgents from the majority population (assuming the insurgents are a minority).

Many insurgencies survive through external support from other states or insurgent groups. One method students and analysts can use to find weaknesses to exploit is by knowing which insurgent groups do and do not receive external support and the motives for the disparity.

Finally, many responses to insurgency fail because of inflexibility, sloppiness, ignorance, bias, anger, bureaucratic imperative or psychological aversion. These failings create often flawed and fatally mistaken counterinsurgency strategies. Avoiding this should be of primary concern.

I had never thought of insurgency and terrorism as having enough material to justify having a textbook on the subject. Then again I didn't realize just how many different insurgencies are going on at any one time. In fact, he concentrates on the contemporary world, only mentioning in passing that Roman Armies also fought insurgents.

Part of a scientific analysis is to classify them into types based on common attributes. By assigning names to these classes, we make it so that we can use these names and immediately know what kinds of programs have worked against them in the past, and of course what have not.

Dr. O'Neill has looked into the Types of Insurgencies, Politics and forms of Warfare, Insurgent Strategies, the Physical Environment, the Human Environment, Types of Popular Support, Organizational Structure, External Support, and Government Response.

Through these classifications, he is, for the first time beginning to draw together a consistent approach to the study of terroism. Perhaps this is the start of a Terrorism Science to go along with Naval Science or Military Science.

This is an excellent book. The author is a well known and respected expert of the field. The book begins with an introduction that attempts to level set and baseline definitions and meanings. Although this may appear to be semantics, the differences both subtle and great is important. The book is well organized it is easy to refer to a specific chapter or section in the event you need a quick refresher and or reference. The book is well written, concise and offers a large quantity of foot notes at the end of each chapter. This book is for both the expert and the novice.

Terry Tucker, Adjunct Professor, Military Studies/History University of Maryland and Senior Doctrine Developer SANGMP, Vinnell Arabia

I have read the first edition of this book and I found it very useful to understand insurgency and terrorism. Moreover I wish I had read this book when I was in Colombia or in Haiti where we had to deal with insurgencies. In my opinion the book is an important tool for the intelligence analyst because it shows a framework to analyze the complex phenomenon of guerilla and insurgency. It was very valuable for me to learn about the four strategic approaches (conspiratorial - military focus - protracted popular war - and urban warfare)

As I wrote above, I read the first edition, so I don't know if the ideas that I'm going to write about are been included or not. The first one is about the "Legal Warfare" that was developed by the Insurgencies in Colombia and Argentina. It consists in accused soldiers of violations of human's rights. On almost every occasion they were false accusations. Therefore, they were judged and condemned by the civil authorities. However, nobody accused the terrorists of human right violations. The last one is about the insurgency that is developed from a defeated army. This is the case of what Col Volckmann said in his book "We remained" about the resistance in Philippines in World War II.

In conclusion, the book is brilliantly written and is very useful to understand and defeat insurgencies.

Everyone, at some time or another, looks for a magic wand, for that perfect solution to a problem. In the last few years, since the end of the cold war and of our comfortable belief that conflict was something that happened between two superpowers, by proxy in far, distant lands, we have had to wake up to the reality of a transnational insurgency that has the power to affect us wherever we are, be it in a commercial building in New York, a hotel in Jakarta, a train station in Madrid or a bus in London.

Since Francis Fukuyama's optimistic "The end of history" (as premature a title as ever has been written), a number of books have been published that analyze small wars, as these are now at the forefront of the news. Reading these books one hopes to find an answer to the new phenomenon of an apparently religiously driven discontent that is spanning two continents (Africa and Asia) and has actively engaged proponents in another two (America and Europe).

Bard O'Neill's "Insurgency and Terrorism", published by Potomac Books in 2005, is a well-written analysis of how and why insurgencies develop. Does it give readers an immediate understanding of how to deal with the Al Qaeda's new threat of an international Islamic insurgency? Does it give us the magic wand we are seeking in a flash of inspiration? Unfortunately no. But the problem is that there are no easy solutions to the incidents of terrorism we are facing today. It is disingenuous and fallacious of Governments to propose and believe in easy solutions to this problem, as "Mission Accomplished" all to painfully has shown.

It does however pay to analyze carefully the situation we are dealing with in it proper (and several) contexts. And this O'Neill does reasonably well. Insurgencies have been fought against invading armies, or against unpopular regimes that use established armies to impose their governance. In the first seven chapters of the book, O'Neill offers a structured analysis of the socio-economical motivations for insurgencies, the environments in they are fought and the strategies used to fight them, the importance of gaining and using popular support (through conviction, propaganda and coercion) as well as manipulating external support (outside the areas directly affected by conflict), and the organization and hierarchy of an insurgent operation. Through this structured categorization O'Neill examines how insurgencies develop and succeed. Also through this analysis we discover how different Al Qaeda's operations are today from past guerilla engagements.

Indeed, in this revised second edition of the book, O'Neill does keep the discussion current with references to how he believes the insurgency Al Qaeda is leading fits (or otherwise) in to his analyses. One would assume that Al Qaeda might deserve a chapter of its own but that is unfortunately missing; as O'Neill observes, the group's strategies and objectives don't fit particularly well in to any past or present insurgency. For instance, Mao's strategies are reasonable well described, particularly the requirement of support from the masses, and their mobilization in support a protracted popular war strategy, that seems to be one of Al Qaeda's aims. But, as the author points out, the closed cell organizational structure, loosely independent of a central authority, "is not conducive to mass mobilization." It is interesting to contrast Mao's doctrines on insurgency with Al Qaeda's today. O'Neill might have juxtaposed the two types of insurgency more strongly; in the section describing Mao's approach to coercion (as one of the tools used by insurgents to gain popular support) the author recalls Mao's "Eight Points of Attention" used to ensure his troops did the following:

* Speak politely.
* Pay fairly for what you buy.
* Return everything you borrow.
* Pay for anything you damage.
* Do not hit or swear at people.
* Do not damage crops.
* Do not take liberties with women.
* Do not ill-treat captives.

How different from the tactics being used by Al Qaeda today! Particularly the last two points! Mao led what arguably must be history's most successful insurgency and his tactics and strategies were successfully used in another war that began as an insurrection: the conflict that Vo Nguyen Giap conducted first against the French and then against the Americans. However Al Qaeda's protracted war doesn't seem to be modeled on any previous engagement.

Indeed O'Neill doesn't specify any example in history on which the Al Qaeda led insurgency is based. But it is in evaluating historical context that the book is quite weak. The approach O'Neill takes is structural rather than historical. He defines categories, and then finds insurgencies that fit them. The historical background of each insurgency is barely sketched out in most cases. And this leads to some omissions. For instance, there are references to the 1948-1960 Malayan Emergency throughout the text. But the context within which the British were eventually successful has been completely ignored: Gerald Templer's plan to set the country on the path to Independence, thereby voiding the political appeal of the insurgents, is not mentioned. Indeed neither there is a mention of Templer himself, who arguably was the architect of the most successful counterinsurgency effort ever staged by Britain. Of even more relevance today, and even though Afghanistan is mentioned throughout the book, no reference is made to the failed colonizing efforts made by the British in three disastrous wars conducted by them against Pashtun warriors, whose descendants also routed the Russians, and, in spite of all the recent American, Coalition and NATO efforts, are still causing seemingly endless trouble today. One might reasonably assume that a more detailed analysis of these two events would have been useful in the final chapter in which O'Neill evaluates possible Government responses to the threats presented by insurgencies. A far more detailed historical perspective of insurgencies, beginning with how the Romans fought successfully against insurgents in the lands they conquered, can be found in Walter Laqueur's "Guerrilla Warfare" published by transaction in 1998.

Even though the historical contexts of the various insurgencies O'Neill describes aren't presented as thoroughly as one might expect, the structured categorization of insurgents' operations allows the author to define a number of possible counterinsurgency strategies in the final chapter of the book. It is in this chapter that we find out that there are no easy solutions to be expected. Indeed a single definition of "victory" is not given. O'Neill observes that one of the most important factors in the success of a response is to be able to anticipate insurgents' plans and counter them effectively. However anticipation can only come from an administration that has a clear understanding of the opposing forces' strategies, tactics and goals. Without a clear comprehension of these, responses can be misdirected at best or play directly in to the goals of the insurgents at worse. In limited, national engagements, insurgent forces' strategies can be understood, but historically there has been a steep learning curve Government have had to face, and the learning has been (and obviously still is) faulty. This learning curve is much steeper for insurgencies that span beyond a single country's borders, as international cooperation is needed in the fight against them, and politics provide a huge barrier against this.

In conclusion, the book gives the reader some very good insights on how recent past insurgencies have developed and been handled. In today's context what the book misses out on is a strong thread that might give more specific insights in to how we might tackle the problem of a transnational insurgency that is driven through the very modern tools of communication (such as the Internet) by a group of people whose ideals are very firmly rooted in the medieval past. This lack of a thread is probably due to the fact that O'Neill wrote the first edition of the book in 1990, well before the rise of Islamic extremism. In keeping with the original structure of the book, the second revision shows that the Al Qaeda revolution is in a category of its own. It become implicit that we will need to develop new tools to fight it, and not much of our previous knowledge and experience on insurgencies can be called upon successfully.

This book give types of Insurgencies that history has show us and the definitions that make them different to each other.