People's War Research Articles

The State-Society Relationship and Political Conflicts in Nepal (1768-2005)

For nearly a decade, from the declaration of Maoist ‘people's war’ in January 1996 to the formation of new alliance for the restoration of democracy in December 2005, Nepal has experienced a three-way power struggle between Maoist insurgents who want a republic based on egalitarian principles, elected politicians who want an unfettered role in policy making and a monarch bent upon a return to pre-democratic Nepal. This article attempts to explain this crisis from a structural-historical perspective and argues that fundamental to the understanding of this crisis is the state-society relationship. The article contends that the complex use of the constructed Hindu identity to provide cultural legitimacy to the monarchical political order, that has existed since the inception of the state in the 18th century to the democratic revolution in 1990, has contributed to the political alienation of substantial segment of ethnically, socially and economically marginalized population from the Nepalese state. By examining complex interactions among political and economic factors, this article further contends that the unrepresentative process of state formation and the tradition of governance have contributed to the alienation of the citizens from the state and created a political space for violent rebellion and state terrorism undermining fragile but emerging democratic institutions.

Structural Vulnerabilities of Networked Insurgencies: Adapting to the New Adversary

The ongoing conflict in Iraq has sparked a renewed interest in the study of counterinsurgency, leading many to comb the wars of the twentieth century, the golden age of insurgencies, for lessons that can be applied to today. (1) Much of this recent analysis has focused on the knowledge gained from fighting Marxist revolutionaries. The insurgent of today, however, is not the Maoist of yesterday. His organization and methods are strikingly different from his twentieth century predecessors. The modern insurgent aims to defeat his opponent by psychological warfare and terrorism instead of military action. (2) He draws his support from criminal networks as opposed to popular mobilization. He fights a netwar not a People's War. These dissimilarities raise the question of just how much of twentieth century counterinsurgency thought can be applied to twenty-first century conflicts. Methods from past wars are put forth as guiding principles with only a nod towards these differences. (3) Applying these principles without examination could lead, at best, to wasted effort, at worst, to defeat. Sun Tzu said, Know your enemy. (4) The structure of a movement, meaning its organization and methods, is the key to understanding it. Modern and Maoist insurgencies are structurally different. In order to be effective, those conducting counterinsurgencies must take into consideration these differences and adapt their methods to the structure of modern adversaries. This article examines the distinction between Maoist and modern insurgencies and the implications for counterinsurgency methods. First, it contrasts the two types of insurgencies in terms of their organizations and strategies. Building on that information, it analyzes the vulnerabilities of Maoist and modern insurgencies in their organization, political cohesion, support base, and use of information technology. From this analysis, it draws conclusions about how to modify twentieth century methods to combat the modern insurgent. The purpose of this article is not to propose a comprehensive strategy for a modern counterinsurgency. Instead, it examines one component of such a plan--understanding and exploiting the insurgent's structural vulnerabilities. It does not exhaust this analysis; the conclusions drawn here are demonstrative of the possibilities inherent in this methodology. Throughout this article, the conflict in Iraq is used as an illustrative example of a modern insurgency. The Iraqi insurgency is thus far the most advanced embodiment of netwar, where small groups coordinate, communicate, and conduct their campaigns in an internetted manner, without a precise central command. (5) As such, this conflict is a powerful predictor of the future of insurgency. Structure of the Maoist and Iraqi Insurgencies The first step in learning to defeat this new netwar adversary is to understand how its structure differs from past movements. The following contrasts the organization and strategy of the Maoist and Iraqi insurgencies. Organization The last half of the twentieth century witnessed the appearance of several effective revolutionary movements based on Mao's strategy of the People's War. (6) Examples include the Hukbalahap in the Philippines, the Malaya Races Liberation Army (MRLA) in Malaya, and the Viet Cong in Vietnam. These groups were all organized in similar hierarchies. (7) For example, at the head of the Viet Cong was the Central Office for South Vietnam (COSVN), a committee composed of the top political and military leaders. Below the COSVN were six regional committees, each of which oversaw several provincial and district offices. At the district level was an extensive support organization including medical personnel, weapon manufacturers, training teams, and fiscal auditors. At the lowest level, the cadres organized the entire population to support the movement. Armed bodies consisted of main force units, local guerrillas, and village militias. …

Child Witnesses: The Cases of World War I and Darfur

Why, the war is for children.—Angelo PatriAs the First “Total” War of the Twentieth century, World War I marked a turning point in the understanding of what Goya had called the disasters of war. The years 1914–18 witnessed a difficult struggle to recognize and defend civilian rights in wartime, rights that had primarily been defined as those of soldiers and prisoners of war, under the Taws and Customs of War on Tand, established at The Hague in 1899 and 1907. Wartime conditions that blurred lines between civilian and combatant unleashed violations of civilians' human rights that the conventions had not anticipated. The ensuing debate during the Great War exemplified the growing complexity of disputes about human rights. In particular, it revealed that competing claims of victimization could exacerbate reprisals in the confusion of combat. In a duel of countercharges, states published documentation carrying titles that denounced enemy indifference to the “law of nations,” such as Die volkerrechtswidrige Fuhrung des belgischen Volkskriegs (“The Conduct of the Belgian People's War in Violation of the Taw of Nations” [1915]) and Rapports… en vue de constater les actes commis par l'ennemi en violation du droit des gens (“Reports … to Record Enemy Actions in Violation of the Taw of Nations” [1915]). A “war of words” raged, as well as a war of dumdum bullets that spread on impact, poison gas, and aerial bombardment—all instruments of war that had been explicitly banned by the conventions of the preceding years.

The Uncivil War: Irregular Warfare in the Upper South, 1861-1865 (review)

Reviewed by: The Uncivil War: Irregular Warfare in the Upper South, 1861-1865 Lesley J. Gordon The Uncivil War: Irregular Warfare in the Upper South, 1861-1865. By Robert R. Mackey. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2004. Pp. 288. $34.85.) One of the ongoing debates among Civil War historians revolves around the question of whether Confederates could have effectively waged guerrilla warfare after their conventional forces surrendered in the spring of 1865. Some contend that if Southerners heeded President Jefferson Davis's call for guerrilla war, the Confederacy would have triumphed. Others insist that this plan was doomed to failure. Robert E. Lee himself rejected the idea, believing surrender was the only honorable option. Robert R. Mackey's fascinating new study examines this controversial issue and comes to some surprising conclusions. Mackey is particularly concerned with accurately defining the term "guerrilla warfare." He notes that the term had a different meaning in the mid-nineteenth century than it has today. Citing the writings of influential nineteenth-century European military theorists Antoine Henri Jomini and Carl von Clausowitz, Mackey contends that Civil War commanders did not conceive of guerrilla warfare as a pure, ideologically driven "people's war." He explains that guerrilla fighters in Civil War terms best match Francis Lieber's definition of disorganized, unpaid, undisciplined marauders who fought sporadically in the most brutal manner. Such men had no formal designation in the organized Confederate [End Page 214] army and preyed mercilessly on civilians. Partisans, however, were formally organized units within the Confederate army. Partisans fought with unconventional tactics, including ambushes and raids, but they were legitimate soldiers with a clear organization and purpose. Mackey's final type of irregular fighters, cavalry raiders, were also legitimate soldiers, but with a generally closer alliance to and tighter restraint from the rebel high command. Mackey contends that the Confederacy tried all three forms of this "irregular warfare" throughout the conflict (6). He draws the most dramatic examples from the upper Southern states of Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Arkansas. Arkansas, Mackey argues, came the closest to an all-out guerrilla fight. Geographically and politically remote from the rest of the Confederacy, Arkansas was ideally suited for this kind of irregular warfare. When conventional forces abandoned Arkansas in 1862, district commander Maj. Gen. Thomas R. Hindman called for fighters to organize themselves into independent companies and operate against the Union army without any formal orders. By 1863, the Confederacy had lost complete control of these guerrillas and attempted to force them into regular service. Federals also sought to disband the roving marauders by developing an innovative counter-insurgency plan that created "fortified colonies"—essentially safe havens for Unionists, guarded by the residents themselves (66). These colonies also provided supplies and base stations for Federal troops. Eventually, the Union army isolated and weakened the guerrillas, turning Arkansans against the Confederacy, convincing them that the Federal government ensured law and order rather than the rebels. In Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee, the story differed. In Virginia, the Confederate government sanctioned John Mosby as a partisan fighter to harass Northern troops, destroy property, and gather intelligence. Mackey insists that Mosby and his men were not guerrillas, despite the fact that the Union reacted to them as if they were. Instead, as disciplined and specially selected volunteers, Mosby and his men practiced unconventional warfare in a very controlled, deliberate manner. Federals overreacted, seeking revenge for Mosby's exploits. Phil Sheridan developed his 1864 Shenandoah Valley Campaign partly as a response to Mosby. This destructive campaign only cemented Mosby's mythic stature. Nonetheless, Mackey judges Mosby's strategic effect on the war limited. The Virginian's operations were just too small, and the Federal forces he faced were too large. The remainder of Mackey's book concentrates on famed Confederate cavalry commanders John Hunt Morgan, Joe Wheeler, and Nathan Bedford Forrest. Conducting mounted raids in Tennessee and Kentucky, these three men wreaked havoc on Union operations. Unlike Mosby, though, these were regular cavalry officers, operating in an acceptable manner against the enemy. Morgan and Forrest, whom Mackey names "two of the greatest cavalry leaders of the Civil War," [End Page 215] had dramatic success as raiders in 1862 (125...

"Kill One, he becomes one hundred": Martyrdom as Generative Sacrifice in the Nepal People's War

In Nepal, war is a sacrifice. The warrior maintains a direct and unique relationship with the divine, since in warfare he makes a sacrificial gift of his own person, the bali dân—a gift that results in a 'noble death'. The warrior can offer the sacrifice or be offered in sacrifice. In Maoist ideology, death loses its character of reciprocity since the inter-changeability of victims who die honorably on either side of the battle has been eliminated. The asymmetry of death, the one-sided sacrificial nature of the war, is one of the features that distinguishes the People's War from those that preceded it. Through Maoist poetry and Maoist warriors' diaries, this article explores the shift introduced by the People's War from the figure of the 'hero', traditionally attached to the warlike realm, to the new figure of the 'martyr', and shows the apocalyptic nature of the Maoist cultural production.

Seeing Baghdad, Thinking Saigon

CONTENTIOUS AS the current debate over Iraq is, all sides seem to make the crucial assumption that to succeed there the United States must fight the Vietnam War again-but this time the right way. The Bush administration is relying on an updated playbook from the Nixon administration. Pro-war commentators argue that Washington should switch to a defensive approach to counterinsurgency, which they feel might have worked wonders a generation ago. According to the antiwar movement, the struggle is already over, because, as it did in Vietnam, Washington has lost hearts and minds in Iraq, and so the United States should withdraw. But if the debate in Washington is Vietnam redux, the in Iraq is not. The current struggle is not a Maoist people's war of national liberation; it is a communal civil with very different dynamics. Although it is being fought at low intensity for now, it could easily escalate if Americans and Iraqis make the wrong choices. Unfortunately, many of the policies dominating the debate are ill adapted to the being fought. Turning over the responsibility for fighting the insurgents to local forces, in particular, is likely to make matters worse. Such a policy might have made sense in Vietnam, but in Iraq it threatens to exacerbate the communal tensions that underlie the conflict and undermine the power-sharing negotiations needed to end it. Washington must stop shifting the responsibility for the

English Detective Fiction and the “People's War”

English Detective Fiction and the “People's War”

People's Power in Nepal

While communications about the military successes of the People's War in Nepal have been regularly disseminated, little information has been made available at the international level about the achievements of people's power in the country. This article aims to rectify this situation somewhat by highlighting the emergence of people's power side-by-side with the progressive dissolution of the old monarchical state (ruling since 1769), with particular reference to achievements made in the Central Command area, which includes the main base area, RolpaThis article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

Radical Maoist Insurgents and Terrorist Tactics: Comparing Peru and Nepal1

Terrorism is not insurgency, though the latter invariably incorporates the former in its campaign to form a counter-state. Maoist ‘people's war’ has proved such a challenge to state response precisely because it incorporates terror as a tactic within the larger voluntarist effort ‘to make a revolution’. Examining this dynamic in two cases of Maoist insurgency, Peru and Nepal, produces two conclusions of particular relevance for states and policymakers: in anticipating internal violence, voluntarism is as critical a component as objective circumstances, with deliberate action actually able to shape those circumstances in a weak state setting. Further, inappropriate state response is itself a key factor in contributing to this dynamic. The implications are sobering in an era when states worldwide are attempting the difficult transition to democracy even as they are challenged by development demands exacerbated by heightened popular expectations. In such settings, terror is able to tip the scales in situations which otherwise would hang in the balance, thus allowing voluntarist actors to engage in activity not unlike that envisaged in foco theory, where Ché Guevara posited that guerrilla action itself could produce the conditions for the revolution.

The Maoist people's war and conservation in Nepal

Civil wars are frequent in lesser-developed nations, wherein is harbored a disproportionate share of the world's biodiversity. These wars have had serious detrimental effects, direct and indirect, on conservation programs. From 2001 to 2005, we conducted site visits, personal interviews, and document searches bearing upon this problem as exemplified by Nepal's ongoing Maoist insurgency. Cases of insurgents usurping full control of several protected areas have come to light, as has a rapid increase in poaching and illicit wildlife trade nation-wide. Staff and infrastructure of conservation agencies and non-governmental organizations have been attacked. The Nepalese situation invites reassessment of traditional “fortresses-and-fines” conservation strategies as well as more modern “community-based” approaches that require local governmental offices to remain functional. Also called into question is the role of military force in the protection of parks and reserves. In times of civil strife, we conclude, robust conservation may most likely be achieved by nongovernmental organizations that are politically neutral and financially independent.

Neil Rattigan, This Is England: British Film and the People's War, 1939–1945

Neil Rattigan, <i>This Is England: British Film and the People's War, 1939–1945</i>

The Political Economy of Civil Conflict in Nepal

Nepal, the poorest country in South Asia with a high incidence of income poverty and markedly low levels of human development, has experienced violent civil conflict over the past 7 years. The “People's war” launched by Maoist guerrillas against the state has led to widespread loss of lives and livelihoods and has had serious negative effects on the country's development prospects. This paper examines the economic causes of the civil conflict in Nepal. We show that relative deprivation and related economic grievances are key causal factors of the conflict. However, our analysis also goes beyond demonstrating the links between economic deprivation and conflict and attempts to locate the conflict within the political economy of the country. We, therefore, show deprivation and conflict to have been the outcome of an uneven process of development that led to the social and economic exclusion of large segments of the population. Given that the conflict in Nepal began during a period of economic liberalization, we also examine the links between economic reform and conflict and argue that reform is likely to have had some negative distributional effects that may have intensified the conditions for violent insurrection against the state.

The Maoist people's war and conservation in Nepal

Civil wars are frequent in lesser-developed nations, wherein is harbored a disproportionate share of the world's biodiversity. These wars have had serious detrimental effects, direct and indirect, on conservation programs. From 2001 to 2005, we conducted site visits, personal interviews, and document searches bearing upon this problem as exemplified by Nepal's ongoing Maoist insurgency. Cases of insurgents usurping full control of several protected areas have come to light, as has a rapid increase in poaching and illicit wildlife trade nation-wide. Staff and infrastructure of conservation agencies and non-governmental organizations have been attacked. The Nepalese situation invites reassessment of traditional ''fortresses-and-fines'' conservation strategies as well as more modern ''community-based'' approaches that require local governmental offices to remain functional. Also called into question is the role of military force in the protection of parks and reserves. In times of civil strife, we conclude, robust conservation may most likely be achieved by nongovernmental organizations that are politically neutral and financially independent.

The Korean War in World History (review)

Reviewed by: The Korean War in World History Lester H. Brune (bio) The Korean War in World History. Edited by William Stueck. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 2004. 216 pages. $35.00 cloth. In this book's introduction, William Stueck reviews each author's topic as first presented during a symposium on the Korean War at Texas A & M University. The introduction should make it clear the book is meant for scholars, not for those unfamiliar with the Korean War. My brief review of each essay begins with Allan R. Millett's essay on the [End Page 172] "Korean People: Missing in Action in the Misunderstood War." Millett starts with an explanation of the Russo-Japanese War, which began in 1904 and concluded after U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt mediated the Portsmouth (New Hampshire) Peace Treaty between the two warring parties. Millett gives details about various Korean resistance movements against Japan after the 1904 war that were too weak to succeed until World War II ended. Late in 1945, the Koreans began what Millett calls the "People's War" with U.S. army forces backing Syngman Rhee's nationalist militants while Moscow and Beijing helped Kim Il Sung's communist forces advance south to the 38th parallel. Finally, in June 1950, North Korean forces aided by the Soviet Union's aircraft attacked South Korea. Immediately, President Harry Truman obtained United Nations support before ordering U.S.-led United Nations forces to help South Koreans defend their homes. The conflict was further internationalized when Chinese "volunteers" entered the war on October 24, 1950. Following China's intervention, the war became a strategic stalemate that led to a cease-fire and demilitarized zone in July 1953. Kathryn Weathersby's essay describes the "Soviet Role in the Korean War." She uses data from Soviet archives that became available after the Cold War ended in December 1991. The new material from Russian archives and the works of other scholars gave Weathersby essential information for scholars to analyze relations between Moscow, Beijing, and Pyongyang. She explains many important Soviet matters such as Stalin's "requesting Chinese intervention" (p. 74) soon after U.S. Marines landed at Inchon to recapture Seoul. Weathersby also found Russian documents to confirm that Stalin's death in March 1953 was a major reason for the Communists to accept an armistice. Chen Jian's essay on "China's Road to the Korean War Revisited" demonstrates that China had three major reasons for intervening in the Korean War. First was the Chinese Communist Party's belief in revolutionary nationalism. Second was China's sense of responsibility for Asia-wide or world-wide revolution that included Indochina (Vietnam) as well as Korea. Third was Mao Zedong's desire "to maintain the inner dynamics of the Chinese revolution after its nationwide victory" (p. 94) in 1949. Chen uses Chinese and Russian sources to verify that Mao and Stalin formed their Sino-Soviet alliance of friendship and security during Mao's visit to Moscow from December 1949 to February 1950. Previously, Mao had made an agreement to help North Korean troops because Kim II Sung helped Mao win the civil war against Chiang Kai-Shek in early 1948. When the Korean war ended in 1953, Chen finds that all organized Chinese resistance to Mao ended, the landlord class was destroyed, Communists controlled the nationalist middle class, and Chinese intellectuals had experienced their first round of reeducation. This enabled China to emerge "as a revolutionary country in East Asia and the world" (p. 115). Lloyd Gardner's article on "Korean Borderlands: Imaginary Frontiers of [End Page 173] the Cold War" deals with borders that U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson and President Harry Truman hoped to secure for Japan, Korea, and Taiwan (Formosa). Gardner refers to the Truman administration's problems with Mc-Carthyism at home, with the Soviet Union in Berlin and Austria, and the Soviets' making an atomic bomb in 1949. Referring to Acheson's January 1950 National Press Club speech, Gardner believes that, unlike critics who saw the speech as bypassing the security of South Korea, Acheson "spoke directly to American concerns about preserving American influence there and elsewhere" (p. 134). In...

Himalayan People's War: Nepal's Maoist Rebellion

The outside world still understands Nepal imperfectly. The emergence of a violent Maoist insurgency there during the late 1990s met with bewilderment even among many of those who claimed to know the country well. Nepal's so-called people's war was launched in 1996 by the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) in an attempt to overthrow the political establishment, including the monarchy, and establish a Maoist regime. This work covers its historical depth and socio-cultural background. Using brutal tactics similar to those of Peru's Shining Path in the 1980s, guerrillas have murdered many civil servants and supporters of the government and other political parties. Initially, the rebels numbered a few hundred, mainly poor peasants, former soldiers and unemployed youths, drawn to the movement by Nepal's poverty and disenchantment with its corrupt politicians, but have since grown to more than 25,000, with training camps in the remote rhododendron forests of western Nepal.

Marking Time: The British Danseur and the Second World War

Few Britons could resist the powerful rhetoric of Winston Churchill, whose words to the House of Commons in June 1940 (Churchill 1989) called upon all men, women, and children to do their utmost to serve the war effort. During the worst of the bombings, from 1940 to 1941, in what came to be known as “the blitz,” London and its populace were transformed. J. B. Priestly noted that “for once, [we] felt free, companionable, even—except while waiting for the explosions—lighthearted.” Fear, anxiety, the sense of struggle, or so the story goes, pulled Londoners together and united them in a sense of camaraderie that broke down centuries-old class barriers (Ziegler 1995, 165–166).Among the commonly accepted myths of the British participation in the Second World War was this one—perpetuated by British authorities and some later historians—that all classes and all people were united in common cause against the enemy. While true on some levels, the picture of an island nation joined in communal sacrifice during the “People's War” masks the underlying societal anxieties that muffled differences of opinion and threatened those who did not adopt accepted notions of patriotism. Vera Brittain, writing at a key point during the world conflict, noted that the Nazi invasions of Europe “produced a rising clamour against unpopular minorities throughout England,” and that “both government and people are temporarily seized by a panic of suspicion” (Brittain 1941, 33). In his examination of the twentieth-century manifestations of British nationalism, Patrick Wright, for one, noted that exclusionary impulses, emerging under the threat of foreign invasion, were linked to subtle but prevalent patterns of anti-Semitism prior to and during the war years (Wright 1985).

Reviews of Books:Which People's War? National Identity and Citizenship in Britain 1939-1945 Sonya O. Rose

Reviews of Books:Which People's War? National Identity and Citizenship in Britain 1939-1945 Sonya O. Rose

Review: Which People's War? National Identity and Citizenship in Wartime Britain, 1939-1945 * Review: Half the Battle: Civilian Morale in Britain during the Second World War

Review: Which People's War? National Identity and Citizenship in Wartime Britain, 1939-1945 * Review: Half the Battle: Civilian Morale in Britain during the Second World War

Women, War and Citizenship

involved in the last century had such different meanings for the Britons involved that it is hardly surprising to find it attracting serious attention from feminist scholars. In Nicoletta Gullace's The Blood of Our Sons: Men, Women and the Rene gotiation of British Citizenship during the Great War and Sonya Rose's Which People's War? National Identity and Citizenship in Wartime Britain 1939-1945, we have two new studies of how the idea and practice of being a British citizen was changed by war-time conditions. Citizenship has always and only been highly valued in war-time; at other times citizen-makers have to borrow the urgent exhortations of war conditions, and are derided for their false talk. For Gullace, the First World War delivered citizenship for women, and the roles which women and leading feminist organizations played during the war shaped the cultural and legal defi nitions of British citizenship. For Rose, the Second World War exacerbated social and cultural differences in British society at a time when the government was working flat-out to create an image of a united nation and empire an enterprise which still engages establishment historians. 'The British were a united people, with a quite extraordinary, illogical patriotism', Sir John Keegan said recently of World War Two. These eloquent books have escaped the left's traditional reluctance to situate its history in the field of violence; they also add to the as-yet underdeveloped historical analysis of civic identity.1 Nicoletta Gullace focuses on the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) which from the start of World War One positioned itself as a distinctively female belligerent in the war effort. The WSPU's 'unabashed enthusiasm' for recruiting men to fight 'was unique'. She explores the ways in which WSPU activists used feminist speeches and campaigns to press women's case for citizenship, heaping contumely on male 'traitors', strikers and pacifists, even rejecting Prime Minister Asquith's 1916 offer of the vote for women because soldiers away from home could not vote (an example of what she describes sharply as Mrs Pankhurst's 'theatrics of patriotism'). When, by 1916, the role of the army had changed from heroic fighters to stoical sufferers, the feminist case for women's equality was immeasurably strengthened now, in total war, all were equal in sacrifice. The steadfast pacifism

Sonya O. Rose, Which people's war? National identity and citizenship in Britain, 1939–1945. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.) Pages xiii+328. £30.00.

Sonya O. Rose, <i>Which people's war? National identity and citizenship in Britain, 1939–1945</i>. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.) Pages xiii+328. £30.00.