Counter insurgency Ops in the 3I

[Matt123]

I was looking for info on how far a battalion can be spread out in various combat/non-combat roles & got sidetracked on counter insurgency operations.

Has anyone put thought into how Counter Insurgency ops may be carried out in the 3I? The need must be pretty frequent, but I would doubt Imperial Forces would see fit to take part, prefering to leave it to planetary governments professing loyalty to the Imperium.

The articles online seem pretty pessimistic, a common theme being that insurgents are merely playing for time, engaging in pin-prick attacks, goading extreme responses and waiting for the occupiers home population to lose will. Whilst the occupiers are under time pressure to get a result before they lose home suppport and/or funding. Also against the occupiers is the need for a well trained professional occupying force to win over the population (ie avoid occupier atrocities & mistakes) vs the huge manpower requirements that through neccesity demand use of conscripts or militia (whom are more prone to mistakes and 'venting thier frustration'). An example of each might be the British Professional Army in Northern Ireland, which still made plenty of mistakes and the Russian Conscript Army in Afghanistan.

Examples of successful strategies include Hearts & Minds campaigns, aiming to deny the insurgents popular support and Shock, an example given being Syria's destruction of an entire city killing 10-25,000 citizens without apology and instead a promise to do it again if the need arose. But this approach may get Imperial attention!

How would the worlds of the 3I deal with insurgents? They must be pretty common, especially in boarder regions like the Marches.

 

[Peter Schutze]

How much a unit spreads out depends on its structure

A TL9+ unit probably operates in 3-4 man teams who would operate within say half visual range of eachother to rermain mutually supporting.
Seperation between teams would depend on weapon and comms ranges

It is a basic military principle of counter-insurgency operations is that the solution must be political. The military's job then becomes primarily to seperate the insurgents from the rest of the population.

Shock only works if the enemy wants to co-operate .... Aceh in Indonesia is a less bloodthirsty example .... they stopped fighting after the boxing day tsunami a few years ago because of the widespread devastation. Shock usually fails .... Nazi germany and imperial japan kept fighting (conventionally) even after dozens of cities were destroyed. If their government had insisted Im sure they would have fought on either conventionally or via guerilla warfare just as viciously as the Russian partisans

Most foreign interventions / counterinsurgencies ignore one important manpower pool .... relatively stable areas can be kept pacified by police for example in both East Timor and the Solomon Islands where foreign police have always outnumbered the total military force (including locals) once initial occupation was established.

 

[Starviking]

How much a unit spreads out depends on its structure

A TL9+ unit probably operates in 3-4 man teams who would operate within say half visual range of eachother to rermain mutually supporting.
Seperation between teams would depend on weapon and comms ranges

It also depends on the terrain. In urban settings you're likely to need to be at maximum 100 meters separation. Having a 3 man team means that you'll have only one person on one side of the street - so if they're hit you'll lose a lot of tactical awareness. I think 8 men would be best - as you've enough people to keep up the situational awareness that's needed in urban terrain and also be sufficient in number to prevent a trap or ambush from taking out the whole patrol.

It is a basic military principle of counter-insurgency operations is that the solution must be political. The military's job then becomes primarily to seperate the insurgents from the rest of the population.

Not sure what you mean by that last sentence. In Northern Ireland support for terrorism in the sections of the community that supported it was waning - the terrorists knew that they could not achieve their aims and joined the ongoing peace process. They didn't have to be separated from the population because they'd become militarily irrelevant. Nowadays those dissidents who are still fighting for the 'struggle' are countered by the police.

 

[Matt123]

It is a basic military principle of counter-insurgency operations is that the solution must be political. The military's job then becomes primarily to seperate the insurgents from the rest of the population.

Not sure what you mean by that last sentence. In Northern Ireland support for terrorism in the sections of the community that supported it was waning - the terrorists knew that they could not achieve their aims and joined the ongoing peace process. They didn't have to be separated from the population because they'd become militarily irrelevant. Nowadays those dissidents who are still fighting for the 'struggle' are countered by the police.

I think he was referring to both politically and physically seperated. You describe the political seperation that came about in Northern Ireland where the population lost faith in the insurgents to achieve thier goals and tired of the bloodshed.

If the insurgents are the only ones killing civilians, arguably the occupiers will achieve political seperation much sooner. But that involves relentless pursuit of your own troops when mistakes happen and a very high level of troop training/expectations. I think the use of Police mentioned fits this role admirably, but they can only be used once the full blown guerilla war has collapsed, as Peter mentioned once the situation is stabilised.

Still begs the question of how to get the insurgency stabilised. I imagine at TL10+ it gets progresively easier to lock down a regions borders, preventing infiltration of arms, supplies and recruits. Perhaps focus on stopping the arms & explosives and put genetic markers in all the component parts to explosives. The occupiers through normal cordan & search operations and using attached police investigators should be able to whittle away at the arms dumps & supply chains.

 

[Icosahedron]

As I understand it (armchair thinking only) it comes down to manpower.
I read somewhere that a 'serious' occupation force can have a ratio in the region of one soldier/policeman/community spy for every 20 head of population.
At that ratio, the occupiers 'know' the troublemakers like a teacher knows his pupils, and can weed them out.

Another thought is that today's insurgencies occur because the insurgents know that 'public feeling' is an achilles heel. A monolithic, non-democratic empire would be harder to fight. Depends on the nature of the Imperium in YTU.

Also, insurgents (like anyone else) will only fight so long as they believe that they can win. If resistance really is shown to be futile, they will give up and go back to tilling the fields. When was the last time you heard of Tibetan resistance fighters? or Taiwanese resistance fighters?

 

[Matt123]

As I understand it (armchair thinking only) it comes down to manpower.
I read somewhere that a 'serious' occupation force can have a ratio in the region of one soldier/policeman/community spy for every 20 head of population.
At that ratio, the occupiers 'know' the troublemakers like a teacher knows his pupils, and can weed them out.

One of the articles I read mentioned the in the aftermath of the ACW the North occupied the South in substantial numbers for an extended period and noted it as an example of a successful counter insurgency/occupation force. The article also noted that "in todays computerised army" the manpower is lacking to achieve the same result, I imagine this would get worse as tech increases.

I'm interested in the "per 20 head of population" if you can recall the referance.

I'm dabling with the idea of Police Battalions being dropped into a Brigade structure, on a one to one ratio with Light Infantry Battalions. The Police, with personal weapons (pistols etc) and light body armour, occupying and policing the urban areas whilst the Infantry occupy & patrol the rural surrounds. The Infantry can also provide a quick response unit for the Police units. As the area gets more & more pacified, the Infantry Battalions get transferred out. It still needs some thought & I'm pondering on how to incorporate local Police into a standard structure whilst minimising corruption.

 

[Icosahedron]

Sorry, I can't recall the reference, but it may have been to do with WW2 German occupation in Europe or American occupation of Japan. It may not have been a specific reference, but just an inference of my own from troop numbers and population figures.

Long time ago, I just recall the figure...

I think the whole point is that you forget 'local' police altogether for at least a few decades, maybe throughout living memory. Sure, let them do their jobs, but monitor them - like the Russians and the Chinese, having at least one 'party rep' in every unit.
If you have one or two of your own in every unit, there's no 'corruption'.

Today's western governments are not a good model for counter-insurgency - policy is too ephemeral and responsive to fickle public opinion. I could see Vilani-inspired policy being more like the Chinese - if you decide to act against a planet, you go in with overwhelming force and a 500 year plan...

 

[Garyius2003]

The only one I ever played out was in a dark 3I. The Imperial Army followed up as the meat of an intervention, and they used Soviet style tactics. That ended up being hub and forward post, with high tech observation and use of arty and orbital arty. When the forces came, they came heavy and were getting blood and wrecking buildings before they went home.

The players walked the line and moved on, so I didn't get to game it very far.

 

[Major B]

Matt, just a couple of thoughts here.

It is very difficult to draw any generalitites about counterinsurgency from terran examples as every situation is different, as is every insurgency and every couunter-insurgent force.

To build a plausible situation within a 3I setting, a couple of ideas may help:

I think you need to have a detailed understanding of the planet's makeup in nearly every particular, such things as physical makeup (weather, gravity, terrain) plus the population makeup, tech level, political terrain, level of infrastructure development, economic situation, and more.

Then look wider to understand how this planet fits into the system and how the system fits into the immedaite stellar area.

This will allow you to figure out what is causing a grievance to the group or groups that will comprise the insurgency as well as those who will lead it (the leaders or instigators may be completely different groups than the insurgents and may have different goals). This will lead you to determining who will oppose the insurgency and why as well as who will support it and why. Don't assume that the 3I is monolithic - I can see different branches of the governemnt and/or nobility supporting both or either side in some situations.

Now, the counter-insurgent forces have to come from somewhere and they could be from off-planet, but in this case the popular will of the force supplier may or may not be as important as financial considerations. The counter-insurgent force may not be able to gain the troop density necessary for everything the force commander thinks he needs to accomplish, due to economic or political constraints, and this will constrain his strategy and the tactics he will be likely to use.

I'm rambling now, because as I said there are so many variables that it is hard to describe how a particular situation will look. Hope these thoughts help though.

 

[Major B]

A idea I forgot to include

One more thing to consider: think about how often the 3I will be preventing a counterinsurgency (current US Army doctrine would call this Foreign Internal Defense of FID) versus FIGHTING a counterinsurgency and then add in the difficulty in determining when to draw the transition line between the two plus add in the time lag difference that is characteristic in the 3I setting and you've added another wrinkle.

And one more: where, when, and how would the 3I be prosecuting support to an insurgency? Certainly they would in systems outside the 3I such as in the consulate or the Sword Worlds given the constraints of maintaining deniability needed for continuing diplomatic access. But, I can think of a number of convoluted situation where the 3I or elements thereof would support an insurgency on a planet within the 3I for the gain of the 3I or a particular noble. Yet more wrinkles.

 

[Starviking]

I think he was referring to both politically and physically seperated. You describe the political seperation that came about in Northern Ireland where the population lost faith in the insurgents to achieve thier goals and tired of the bloodshed.

Makes sense - cheers.

If the insurgents are the only ones killing civilians, arguably the occupiers will achieve political seperation much sooner. But that involves relentless pursuit of your own troops when mistakes happen and a very high level of troop training/expectations. I think the use of Police mentioned fits this role admirably, but they can only be used once the full blown guerilla war has collapsed, as Peter mentioned once the situation is stabilised.

Well incidents and accidents did happen in NI, civilians died - and in most cases, if there were troops involved, there was either not much punishment - or punishment much lighter than a civilian would have received for the same acts. That said, these were incidents and accidents - not direct consequences of official operating procedures or doctrine.

IMHO Police can still be used for normal police work and patrolling - but in general you wouldn't want them going toe-to-toe with the insurgents, as it's not the kind of work they are trained for.

Still begs the question of how to get the insurgency stabilised. I imagine at TL10+ it gets progresively easier to lock down a regions borders, preventing infiltration of arms, supplies and recruits. Perhaps focus on stopping the arms & explosives and put genetic markers in all the component parts to explosives. The occupiers through normal cordan & search operations and using attached police investigators should be able to whittle away at the arms dumps & supply chains.

As MajorB said - every insurgency is different. Also, whilst tech increases bring better sensors for the occupying force - they also bring new ways of getting around them to the insurgents.

Case in point: the Security Forces in Northern Ireland started using jammers to prevent terrorists detonating explosives remotely. The workaround was something very civilian - a camera with a flash and a photodetector on the explosives. Short range, but effective in urban areas.

 

[Matt123]

Ta for the replies. I'm still reading on-line articles on the subject, very interesting & I'm glad I'm not living through an insurgency. The solutions are as unpaletable as the problem.

IMHO the Imperium would avoid dealing with insurgencies, except for perhaps providing a few advisors or academics on the subject and the distilled Imperial wisdom/manual on how to deal with insurgencies. The two major needs of a counter insurgency operation are manpower and time, both in great numbers and combined creating a large expence that will not justify itself when measured against "controlling the space between the stars".

I'm not suggesting tho' that the Imperium would completely ignore the insurgency, nor refrain from sending in the Marines if it felt appropriate. However a Marine raid or three will not "cure" an insurgency.

I agree Police don't want to go toe-to-toe with insurgents, but there is a significant period before the insurgency is crushed where a Police presence is preferable, with army back-up when needed. Normalization is the intermediate goal and part of winning public support away from the insurgents. Obviously its a dangerous job being a Policeman in an insurgency.

Whilst every insurgency will be differant, the similarities are striking. An insurgency by definition is seeking regime change. It needs to organise, secure public support, operate from safe areas, raise funds, feed train & house militia, import weapons & munitions and ultimately defeat or make irelevant the existing regime.

The articles I am reading on counter insurgency tend to focus on these similarities.

The 3I would also add the insurgents desire to avoid direct Imperial intervention and the counter insurgents desire to drag in Imperial intervention. I suspect the hard bitten Imperial Marine Captain however pretty much ignores most requests from tin pot world governments obviously looking for a high tech army supplement. The claim that the insurgents have nukes will be almost universal & therefore pretty much meaningless to the Imperium. Even 'hard' evidence would be looked at sceptically.

The most interesting read so far, but its fairly heavy going, is
MODERN WARFARE, A French View of Counterinsurgency by Roger Trinquier
http://www-cgsc.army.mil/carl/resources/csi/trinquier/trinquier.asp
written in 1961 by a French Brigadier with experience in Indochina (Vietnam whilst it was still French owned) and Algeria (also now ex-French). Obviously its a bit dated now, but its serving as a good primer and many of the concepts have obviously cemented themselves into counter insurgency doctrine. He also refers to two successful counter insurgency operations by the US in Korea at the end of the Korean war which sound interesting.

 

[BlackBat242]

Try this:

The Small Wars Manual is a United States Marine Corps manual on tactics and strategies for engaging in certain types of military operations.

The Marine Corps' role in small wars has a long and complex history. During the early years of the 20th century, the Corps was widely viewed as the nation's overseas police and initial response force. Moreover, the actual execution of these roles were a natural adjunct of the Corps' officially directed mission of sea-based power projection, in turn buttressed by its fundamental expeditionary operational character; i.e., the availability for "sudden and immediate call".

As a result of this "natural fit" and the experience of a series of guerrilla wars and military interventions in Central America and the Caribbean from the late 1890s through the early 1930s, loosely known as The Banana Wars, the Marine Corps began to systematically analyze the character and requirements of operations short of war proper, or "Small Wars". Major S.M. Harrington of the Marine Corps Schools delivered a formal report The Strategy and Tactics of Small Wars in 1921. In addition, Major C. J. Miller wrote an 154 page report on the 2nd Marine Brigade's operations in the Dominican Republic titled Diplomacy and Spurs in the Dominican Republic in 1923. Versions of these and other reports were serialized in The Marine Corps Gazette and additional articles on the subject appeared in The Marine Corps Gazette and the Proceedings of the U.S. Naval Institute.

The results of these efforts were encapsulated in the manual Small Wars Operations in 1935. For the 1940 revision, it was renamed The Small Wars Manual (SWM). A classic of military science, it remains relevant today as the foundation of much current thinking and doctrine.

After being nearly forgotten during the late 1950s-early 1980s, it has been reprinted nearly continuously since the mid-late 1980s, and is available from Amazon & other sellers.

Or you can download it here (35+meg PDF):
http://www.smallwars.quantico.usmc.mil/sw_manual.asp

Available in chapters (easier download) here:
http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/swm/index.htm

 

[Icosahedron]

The most interesting read so far, but its fairly heavy going, is
MODERN WARFARE, A French View of Counterinsurgency by Roger Trinquier
http://www-cgsc.army.mil/carl/resources/csi/trinquier/trinquier.asp
written in 1961 by a French Brigadier with experience in Indochina (Vietnam whilst it was still French owned) and Algeria (also now ex-French). Obviously its a bit dated now, but its serving as a good primer and many of the concepts have obviously cemented themselves into counter insurgency doctrine. He also refers to two successful counter insurgency operations by the US in Korea at the end of the Korean war which sound interesting.

Sorry, but I just gotta ask...

Is it worth reading a counter insurgency book written by a nation that has lost both disputed territories?...

 

[Matt123]

Sorry, but I just gotta ask...

Is it worth reading a counter insurgency book written by a nation that has lost both disputed territories?...

lol! The thought has crossed my mind. It was interesting tho', a number of other works referenced it and it appears to be formative to later thinking on the subject.

I found the referance to 20 troops/police per 1000 population. It relates to an '03 paper (which in turn refers to a '95 paper I'll be reading next) relating insurgencies to occupation force size, noting that successful counter-insurgencies have ratio's over 20:1000. For example Northern Ireland, Bosnia & Kosovo. Un-succesful counter insurgencies it mentions are Somalia 4.5:1000, Haiti 3.5:1000, Iraq 6.1:1000 & Afghanistan 0.5:1000. Obviously the figures are now dated for the last two.

The article concludes that whilst troop numbers are independent of strategy, no one has yet found a strategy that works without the large 20:1000 ratio. Interestingly Iraq (pop 25mil) theoretically would require 500,000 foreign troops. The population of Afghanistan is slightly higher at almost 28mil.
Ref:
http://www.rand.org/publications/randreview/issues/summer2003/burden.html

The movie "The Battle for Algiers" is apparently required watching for any counter insurgent. Guess what I'll be doing this weekend

Thanks for the Small Wars referance, I'll follow that up as well.

 

[Major B]

The movie "The Battle for Algiers" is apparently required watching for any counter insurgent. Guess what I'll be doing this weekend

Matt, if you're going to watch that movie, try tracking down a copy of The Centurions by Jean Larteguy (my spelling of the name may be off - going from memory).

And if you're getting into the theoretical reading, I recommend Galula's Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice. There are some faults in the text, but most of it is good.

Also, Andrew Birtle has two volumes on US Counterinsurgency doctrine, one covering 1860-1941 and another covering 1942-1976. Both are published by the Center for Military History.

 

[mbrinkhues]

Counter-Insurgency in the Traveller-setting depends a bit on the lens you use. If using the MT/TNE lens then

• It happened relatively regular in the border reqions
• The Imperial Marines did it
• As Peacemakers! not as Peacekeepers
• The Marines are quite nuke happy, using nuclear tipped missiles on their IFVs
• The MegaCorps did pull more than a few "proxy" wars, supporting a pro-Mega Government to topple others

As for doing it the Imperial Tech gives quite a few benefits:

• Grav-Vehicles combine the agility/flexibility of a helicopter with the armor of a Battletank and the speed of a ground attack plane. It takes serious firepower to kill a TL13+ gravtank. And that firepower needs reactors etc.
• Space! No more mortar attacks on your barracks. Again while Surface to Orbit missiles exist they are huge and take time to reach orbit. Ample warning for a base to activate defences or simply move.
• Space! Unlike todays satellites the "something for nothing" thruster plates allow you to be where you want when you want it. And carry a nice big stick like a Meson bay or some bombardment missiles. Unlike a classical firebase the enemy can't get at you
• Densiometers and Neutrino Sensors are in most games (TNE doesn't) so if the enemy has a big base you can likely track it and use that Thorhammer. And given the huge sensor ranges doable in space combat your normal passives will have a very good resolution as well
• Robots. While Traveller bots are "stupid" (non AI) they are smart enough to act as grunts at TL12 (Solomanie use of Infantry bots) and personal Servants at TL13 (Rashush series) So you can scatter small garrisons all over the place and expect them to stay alert.
• Expert systems. The robots can "act" smart so you should be able to use computers for auto searching through camera pictures, analysing movement patterns etc. Make RFID-style ID-badges a must, have computers compare badge position and people positions and raise an alarm when they find people without badges, duplicate badges etc.
• Ration everything. Tag everything. Track everything. You can enforce a perfect blockade of a planet (or come very close to it) if necessary. Make it highly problematic for the enemy to get supplies
• Media! An insurgency without media does not happen. Take a look at the Herero Uprising, the Boxer Rebellion or the Spanish-American War. When they happened no one in the West asked "Are we doing the right thing?" The media shared one voice and the people cheered

So in the long run it depends on

• How much violence are you willing to use.
  • Germany WWII style counter-insurgency including the occassional Warshaw WILL work. I suggest you keep the Imperial Barons residence in orbit/on a moon but otherwise you'll win.
  • If you want more restrained responses it becomes more difficult but still technology goes a long way. Push the enemy out of the cities using cameras, computers, robots and mandatory, maschine-readable papers. Add curfews and travel restrictions (Basically pull an East Block meets 1984 on them)
• Who rebels? An entire planet is actually easier than a single nation on a balcanized world
• What do you want from the planet. Industrial worlds are more difficult to pacify
• Where are the Rebels? Out in the woods is easier to kill

 

[Matt123]

Matt, if you're going to watch that movie, try tracking down a copy of The Centurions by Jean Larteguy (my spelling of the name may be off - going from memory).

And if you're getting into the theoretical reading, I recommend Galula's Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice. There are some faults in the text, but most of it is good.

Also, Andrew Birtle has two volumes on US Counterinsurgency doctrine, one covering 1860-1941 and another covering 1942-1976. Both are published by the Center for Military History.

Will do on the movie, ta. I've seen quite a few referances to Galula, but chose Trinquier's Modern Warfare as an an earlier text to read in the first instance. Galula is on my to do list tho. I'll look up Birtle as well. Thanks.

 

[Matt123]

Current thinking (US military) on counter insurgency seems to be steering to treating insurgency as a political problem, not a military one, but needing military help to secure the safety of the public. Securing public safety using the minimal force possible. A key commanders consideration is whether the proposed action will create more insurgents than it eliminates.

Another finding is that the insurgents organisational structure is very resilient, meaning the loss of high ranking individuals is not a crippling blow.

Together just these two elements alone mean Imperial Marines laying waste with nukes will merely cause more insurgency problems than they solve.

Marines vs an established Government would be very effective however, nothing like nuking regular Army formations to generate an attitude adjustment. But combating insurgents requires a long haul approach that is better suited for a large Army & Police presence.

Tech IMHO will make a significant differance and may assist in reducing numbers below the 20:1000 occupation ratio I mentioned earlier. I haven't really delved into tech considerations yet, I've been a little overwhelmed by the amount of quality reading material to get through first.

 

[Icosahedron]

Just out of curiosity, anyone know the occupation ratio after the American Civil War?