Counterinsurgency and atrocities

The following passage from Martin van Creveld's far-sighted The Transformation of War (Free Press, 1991) seems timely in view of the Haditha allegations.

In a situation like Vietnam, where regular forces are employed against guerrillas and terrorists, the distinction between combatants and noncombatants will probably break down. Unable to go by the ordinary war convention as expressed in the "rules of engagement," all but the most disciplined troops will find themselves violating those rules. Having, by the force of circumstances, killed noncombatants and tortured prisoners, they will go in fear of the consequences if caught. If caught, they are certain to blame their commanders for putting them into a situation where they are damned if they do and damned if they don't. The commanders, in turn, will hasten to wash their hands of the whole affair, claiming that they never told their subordinates to break the rules. There will be atrocities, as happened at My Lai, and attempts to cover them up. Where the cover-up fails a few low-ranking members of the military establishment may be turned into scapegoats, as Lieutenant Calley was, whereas their superiors will deny responsibility. With the men unable to trust each other, or their commanders, disintegration occurs. When this happened in Vietnam, tens of thousands went AWOL, and an estimated 30 percent of the forces were on hard drugs. Soon such an army will cease to fight, each man seeking only to save his conscience and his skin. (pp 92–93.)

Meanwhile, here is Creveld on the beginnings of insurgencies:

. . . in the recent past, [a Clausewitzian] view has often prevented low-intensity conflict from being taken seriously until it was too late. In both Algeria and Vietnam, to say nothing of the West Bank, the first limited uprisings were at first dismissed as simple banditry that "the forces of order" would suppress easily enough. (p. 57.)

How serious is the military threat posed by an insurgency? Creveld notes that the only Third-World insurgency successfully quashed by a European colonial power was that in Malaya—and this was probably only because, first, the insurgency was supported only by the Chinese minority, and, second, Britain had promised to get out of Malaya once the insurgency had been defeated (pp 22–23).