{"id":4529,"date":"2011-11-29T05:29:09","date_gmt":"2011-11-29T05:29:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=4529"},"modified":"2011-11-29T13:59:02","modified_gmt":"2011-11-29T13:59:02","slug":"do-oligarchies-create-insurgencies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=4529","title":{"rendered":"Do Oligarchies Create Insurgencies?"},"content":{"rendered":"

“….\u00a0But when the sons of these men received the same position of authority from their fathers-having had no experience of misfortunes, and none at all of civil equality and freedom of speech, but having been bred up from the first under the shadow of their fathers’ authority and lofty position-some of them gave themselves up with passion to avarice and unscrupulous love of money, others to drinking and the boundless debaucheries which accompanies it, and others to the violation of women or the forcible appropriation of boys; and so they turned an aristocracy <\/em>into an oligarchy. <\/em>But it was not long before they roused in the minds of the people the same feelings as before; and their fall therefore was very like the disaster which befell the tyrants.”<\/strong>-Polybius<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

One of the tenets of pop-centric COIN<\/strong> <\/a>is that better governance will deliver the loyalty of the people who are the center of gravity <\/a>over whom the insurgent and state contest. This usually means cajoling the state to reform and remove the worst abuses that serve to politically fuel the insurgency. Occasionally this is successful (El Salvador), frequently it is not (South Vietnam, Afghanistan) and in other cases it may be irrelevant as\u00a0the method is eschewed in favor of indiscriminate brute force and punitive\u00a0expeditions\u00a0(Sri Lanka, Soviet COIN) but it begs the question of:<\/p>\n

“What kind of governance is most likely to create insurgencies in the first place?”<\/strong><\/p>\n

Of insurgencies that are wholly indigenous, what\u00a0form of government spawns them most frequently? A chart of historically recent insurgencies is given below containing\u00a0who fought and who won\u00a0(“negotiated” indicates a political settlemt “tie” of sorts, with some political accomodation and not settlements that are trucial\u00a0“exit agreements” for the defeated belligerent):\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n