Playing for the Breaks: Insurgent Mistakes

Abstract

Insurgent leaders commit strategic mistakes that can significantly retard their efforts, and if properly leveraged by counterinsurgent forces, may lead to the insurgents' defeat. Despite the pivotal role these mistakes play in the trajectory of internal conflicts, they have been afforded little attention in academic and practitioner literature. This article seeks to fill that void by establishing a typology of insurgent strategic errors, outlining a framework for understanding when certain mistakes are made, and offering a brief case study to help illustrate the typology and timing framework. In a 1989 interview, the iconic counterinsurgent Robert Thompson outlined an optimum, three-part counterinsurgency strategy consisting of emplacing programs to address the root causes of an insurgency, ensuring the programs are sustainable, and playing for the breaks. (1) Breaks, according to Thompson, entail changes in the situation on the international, national, and local levels, and these changes--especially those at the national and local levels--are often generated by critical errors made by an insurgency's leaders. (2) An insurgency is a risky and highly complex human activity susceptible to a range of mistakes by its protagonists. It is safe to say there has never been a mistake-free insurgency. The defeat of insurgents in Greece in the 1940s, Oman in the 1970s, and Egypt in the 1990s, along with other historical examples, demonstrate the criticality of strategic mistakes on the outcome of internal conflicts. Indeed, the 2007 turnaround in the Sunni Arab insurgency in Iraq was propelled by insurgent mistakes that were deftly leveraged by US forces. Despite the pivotal role played by insurgent mistakes in the trajectory of internal conflicts, academics and practitioners tend to concentrate their analyses on the government's role in combating and defeating insurgencies. Oceans of ink have been expended on analyzing errors of counterinsurgents. Yet, virtually no attention has been given in academic and practitioner literature to the incidence and function of insurgent mistakes. This article examines the following implications for counterinsurgency strategists with regard to such errors: * Insurgents make strategic mistakes that may retard their efforts, and if properly leveraged by counterinsurgent forces, may lead to their defeat. * These mistakes are often made at strategic junctures in a conflict. * Through an understanding of possible insurgent mistakes and when mistakes manifest themselves, a counterinsurgent force will be better prepared to exploit these errors or weaknesses. * The role of insurgent mistakes and the criticality of leveraging them requires that the concept be incorporated in doctrinal updates. A Typology of Insurgent Mistakes Insurgent strategic mistakes, those that can dramatically retard or doom a movement, come in two basic forms: original and Original sins are fundamental errors in the initial design of an insurgency. These mistakes, which handicap a movement from its start, include failing to adopt a viable cause, poor selection of operational terrain, restricting mobilization to a narrow ethnic or sectarian group, and adopting a strategy unsuited to goals, terrain, or opponent. (3) This article, however, is concerned with situational miscalculations. These are mistakes that are made by insurgent leaders during the course of an insurgency and principally involve decisions regarding intermediate objectives and tactics to be employed. Most mistakes in this category have a common root in overreach. Simply put, insurgent leaders overestimate their own capacity with respect to the level of popular support for the movement and the government's capacity and willingness to respond in a forceful and effective manner. These mistakes often stem from impatience or are driven by hubris built from initial success. …