Defining Counterinsurgency, Insurgency, Guerrilla Warfare, and Terrorism

Most contemporary discussions of irregular warfare concentrate on three core concepts – counterinsurgency, insurgency, and guerrilla warfare – and this book proceeds in that convention. Let’s begin by setting out definitions of each of these concepts. A counterinsurgency, quite simply, is defined as all measures adopted to suppress an insurgency. When we say a state is engaged in counterinsurgency, we generally mean that it is attempting to use some combination of political, administrative, military, psychological, and civic actions to maintain the status quo against an insurgent force that is trying to upend that order. To cite a well-known example, Fulgencio Batista’s regime in late-1950s Cuba waged a counterinsurgency to maintain its ascendancy while confronted with Fidel Castro’s ragtag rebel band in the Sierra Maestra mountains. Counterinsurgent forces can usually count on superior armies and overall might; however, they are not always able to count on the support of the civilian population – often a crucial factor in the outcome of this class of conflicts. In both political and military terms, counterinsurgencies tend to adapt to the nature of the insurgent threat. That is, the insurgents tend to determine the “rules of the game” and the style of fighting. Or, as one military theorist has surmised, “[as] insurrection changes, so does counterinsurgency.” Almost by definition, then, one must first understand an insurgency before understanding its counterinsurgent response.