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Differences between Terrorism and Insurgency
Definition of Insurgency in the Definitions.net dictionary. Meaning of Insurgency. What does Insurgency mean? Information and translations of Insurgency in the most comprehensive dictionary definitions resource on the web.
If no single definition of terrorism produces a precise, unambiguous description, we can approach the question by eliminating similar activities that are not terrorism, but that appear to overlap. For the U.S. military, two such related concepts probably lead to more confusion than others. Guerilla warfare and insurgencies are often assumed to be synonymous with terrorism. One reason for this is that insurgencies and terrorism often have similar goals. However, if we examine insurgency and guerilla warfare, specific differences emerge.
A key difference is that an insurgency is a movement - a political effort with a specific aim. This sets it apart from both guerilla warfare and terrorism, as they are both methods available to pursue the goals of the political movement.
Another difference is the intent of the component activities and operations of insurgencies versus terrorism. There is nothing inherent in either insurgency or guerilla warfare that requires the use of terror. While some of the more successful insurgencies and guerilla campaigns employed terrorism and terror tactics, and some developed into conflicts where terror tactics and terrorism became predominant; there have been others that effectively renounced the use of terrorism. The deliberate choice to use terrorism considers its effectiveness in inspiring further resistance, destroying government efficiency, and mobilizing support. Although there are places where terrorism, guerilla warfare, and criminal behavior all overlap, groups that are exclusively terrorist, or subordinate 'wings' of insurgencies formed to specifically employ terror tactics, demonstrate clear differences in their objectives and operations. Disagreement on the costs of using terror tactics, or whether terror operations are to be given primacy within the insurgency campaign, have frequently led to the 'urban guerilla' or terrorist wings of an insurgency splintering off to pursue the revolutionary goal by their own methods. A key difference is that an insurgency is a movement - a political effort with a specific aim. This sets it apart from both guerilla warfare and terrorism, as they are both methods available to pursue the goals of the political movement.
The ultimate goal of an insurgency is to challenge the existing government for control of all or a portion of its territory, or force political concessions in sharing political power. Insurgencies require the active or tacit support of some portion of the population involved. External support, recognition or approval from other countries or political entities can be useful to insurgents, but is not required. A terror group does not require and rarely has the active support or even the sympathy of a large fraction of the population. While insurgents will frequently describe themselves as 'insurgents' or 'guerillas', terrorists will not refer to themselves as 'terrorists' but describe themselves using military or political terminology ('freedom fighters', 'soldiers', 'activists'). Terrorism relies on public impact, and is therefore conscious of the advantage of avoiding the negative connotations of the term 'terrorists' in identifying themselves.
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Insurgency need not require the targeting of non-combatants, although many insurgencies expand the accepted legal definition of combatants to include police and security personnel in addition to the military. Terrorists do not discriminate between combatants and non-combatants, or if they do, they broaden the category of 'combatants' so much as to render it meaningless. Defining all members of a nation or ethnic group, plus any citizen of any nation that supports that nation as 'combatants' is simply a justification for frightfulness. Deliberate de-humanization and criminalization of the enemy in the terrorists' mind justifies extreme measures against anyone identified as hostile. Terrorists often expand their groups of acceptable targets, and conduct operations against new targets without any warning or notice of hostilities.
Ultimately, the difference between insurgency and terrorism comes down to the intent of the actor. Insurgency movements and guerilla forces can adhere to international norms regarding the law of war in achieving their goals, but terrorists are by definition conducting crimes under both civil and military legal codes. Terrorists routinely claim that were they to adhere to any 'law of war' or accept any constraints on the scope of their violence, it would place them at a disadvantage vis-à-vis the establishment. Since the nature of the terrorist mindset is absolutist, their goals are of paramount importance, and any limitations on a terrorist's means to prosecute the struggle are unacceptable.
Get exclusive access to content from our 1768 First Edition with your subscription.After the emergence of a number of states and of new nations in and changed the established international legal doctrine on insurgency. Communist states claimed the right to support insurgents engaged in “just wars of national liberation.” The new nations resulting from in Asia and Africa after World War II supported in most cases insurgents who the principle of “national self-determination.” The and other Western countries in turn rejected such intervention as “indirect aggression” or “subversion.” International legal regarding insurgency thus broke down as the result of regional and ideological pressures. At the same time, humanitarian considerations prompted the international to extend protection to persons involved in any “armed conflict” regardless of its formal legal status. This was done through the Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, one of four agreements drafted in 1949. Members of “organized resistance movements” are protected if in conducting their operations they have acted in military fashion, whereas insurgents lacking formal status were not protected under traditional international law.In the era, insurgency was treated as synonymous with a system of politico-military techniques that aimed at fomenting revolution, overthrowing a government, or resisting foreign invasion. Those who rejected the use of violence as an instrument of social and political change used the term insurgency synonymously with revolutionary war, resistance war, war of national liberation, people’s war, protracted war, partisan war, or guerrilla war, without special concern for either the objectives or the methods of the insurgents.
Insurgency referred no longer only to acts of violence on a limited scale but to operations that extended to a whole country and lasted for a considerable period of time. The insurgents attempted to win popular support for the rebel cause, while the threatened government sought to counter the efforts of the rebels. In such contests military operations were closely connected with political, social, and means, more so than either in conventional warfare or in insurgencies of an earlier period.Modern insurgency tries to create conditions that will destroy the existing government and make an revolutionary government acceptable to the population. While armed violence always plays a major role in such operations, usually initiated by a small activist minority, acts of are only the most obvious means used by the rebels.
Rumours to discredit the government and its supporters, exacerbation of existing social conflicts and creation of new ones between racial, ethnic, religious, and other groups, political intrigue and manipulation to induce clashes between class or regional interests, economic disruption and dislocation, and any other means likely to destroy the existing social order and to deprive the government of its power base, all play a role in fomenting insurgency. A man holds the body of his son, who was killed in a suicide bombing in October 2012, in Aleppo, Syria, during the Syrian Civil War. Manu Brabo/APAlthough no insurgency can attain significant proportions without a measure of domestic popular support, the importance of external aid has been documented repeatedly.
Without such aid insurgencies tend to fail, whereas an assured flow of foreign supplies and especially a sanctuary beyond national borders for training, regroupment, and recuperation allows insurgents who have only limited popular support to continue their activities for a long time, thus imposing enormous strain and ruinous costs on the country. This makes support of insurgencies a powerful for countries that want to exert pressure on other countries.
As the covert support given by a foreign government to an insurgency is very difficult to prove, the temptation to use it as an instrument of is great and externally supported insurgency, an indirect form of aggression, has become a major problem in.
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