The Insurgent's Response to the Defense of Cities

A significant and recurring feature of most, if not all, counterinsurgency campaigns is that the forces of counterinsurgency begin their efforts in the major cities of a contested country. Ideally, once effective control within these urban centers is achieved, the forces of the counterinsurgency then work outward from these islands of geographic isolation in an effort to establish political and administrative control over the rural countryside. During America's involvement in Vietnam, for example, the so-called "pacification campaigns" started in the provincial capitals and were expected to spread out into the remainder of the rural areas. (1) In the late 1950s, at the time of the French counterinsurgency in Algeria, the counterinsurgents placed a predominant emphasis on the control and administration of cities, largely ignoring the hot, arid, and inhospitable regions of eastern and southern Algeria. (2) Similarly, during the Soviet war in Afghanistan, counterinsurgency forces were positioned in the major cities of Herat, Kabul, and Kandahar to protect the "useful" portions of Afghanistan. (3) More recently, during the latter portion of Canada's counterinsurgency in Kandahar province, Afghanistan, there was a similar operational bias toward the immediate vicinity of Kandahar city. (4) The frequent recurrence of this tendency effectively answers an often implicit question with regard to a counterinsurgency's conduct: where, in geographical terms, does a counterinsurgency begin its campaign? The motivation for beginning a counterinsurgency campaign within the cities is rarely highlighted, and the effect of this decision on the conduct and ending of an insurgency is rarely given adequate treatment or consideration. The absence of deliberation on this subject is particularly puzzling because the retrenchment of counterinsurgent forces in urban areas actually favors the conduct of insurgency. It is, in fact, a response to insurgent activity that is sought by strategically mindful guerrilla leaders. As T. E. Lawrence noted during the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Turks, the Arab guerrillas "must not take Medina [a major city in Saudi Arabia]. The Turk was harmless there.... We wanted him to stay at Medina, and every other distant place, in the largest numbers." The Turkish counterinsurgency was welcome in the major cities and transit lines "just so long as he gave us [the insurgency] the other nine hundred and ninety-nine thousandths of the Arab world." (5) Similarly, as Mao Tse-tung argued in his lectures, On Protracted War, "The enemy [the counterinsurgents] can actually hold only the big cities, ... which may rank first in importance, but will probably constitute only the smaller part of the occupied territory in size and population, while the greater part [of the national territory] will be taken up by the guerrilla areas that will grow up everywhere." (6) In Mao's assessment, with access to the greater proportions of the countryside secured through the counterinsurgency's own urban beginnings, the insurgency could, with relative safety, mobilize the material and human resources of the countryside. Thus, as Mao further noted, the purpose of a rural insurgency's strategic plan in response to an urban-biased counterinsurgency was "to encircle the cities from the countryside." (7) Put otherwise, successful rural insurgencies often besiege counterinsurgency forces within their urban bastions. Under most conditions, it would be exceedingly rare to find one party to a conflict acting in a way that is explicitly desirable to its opponent. Yet this is precisely what an urban bias in counterinsurgency campaign planning and strategy entails. This raises two questions that this article will address* Why do counterinsurgencies begin their campaigns in cities? And, how does an insurgency react to this decision? Rationale for Beginning a Counterinsurgency within Urban Centers There are numerous reasons why a counterinsurgency might be initially compelled to emphasize the control of urban areas and use of urban-biased strategies. …