The thing with insurgents inside a country is that more often than not, it involves sneaky guerrilla warfare tactics which involve civilians, with them being caught in the crossfire. And of the insurgents who do get neutralized, the punishment dished out to said insurgents overcompensate. Examples such as Russian government against the Chechens, the Sri Lankan army against the LTTE and the PRC government in Xinjiang are galore and obvious. This doesn’t mean counterinsurgency should stop altogether, because insurgents do threaten the internal security and integrity of legitimate state power (key word-legitimate) and doubtlessly require neutralization. However, I argue that counterinsurgency efforts should be humane, as in, the retribution received should not exceed Geneva Convention laid punishments.

Counterinsurgency is a kind of irregular warfare, such that there is no conventional military standoff but nor a nuclear war. However, most states fail to master irregular warfare combat, though this varies, and thus leads to somewhat higher casualties than usual. The assymetrical warfare which ensues, as the governments which clearly have much greater resources than insurgents yet do not vanquish the insurgents quickly and instead leading to a long drawn out war, is frustrating and clearly, the animosity towards such insurgents is higher. Moreover, there is also the element of taking civilian hostages, collateral damage to their life and property, and also in the case of localised insurgency, a lack of complete information being provided to the citizens of the rest of the nations, which makes it very easy for sections of the population to be very polarized about such movements.

Often, insurgents attract civilians to their cause, in large numbers, too. Retribution from governments cause a boomerang effect, as when excessive, it only makes the problem worse and inspire another regiment of civilians to join the fray. This might sound cliché but most counterinsurgency efforts by government fall flat or are much more costly, both on lives and finances, as they do not uproot the causes of insurgency yet merely quash their symptoms. Counterinsurgency efforts must thus focus on developing cultural understanding of the troubled regions and empathy with the prevailing social conditions. This should come off as obvious, yet this is rarely implemented, and I cant observe any obstacle which prevents this basic measure apart from a lack of will.

Given that insurgents engage in violence in very unconventional ways (irregular warfare, as previously mentioned), it is very easy to enforce extrajudicial penalties on insurgents and those aiding them. Incentivizing them to engage in conventional warfare which does not involve civilians, not cause collateral damage and conduct themselves according to the “rules of war” as set by the international community can help highlight extrajudicial penalties, and encourage civilized forms of punishments. In fact, Francis Lieber through his General Order no.100 or the “Lieber Code” had a great influence in the international community at The Hague and Geneva in incentivizing the regularization of insurgents and guerrilla militias, by codifying the laws of war. Of course, merely codification is far from implementation, and history has proven us so. But also it is substantial in considering that codification laid the groundwork for a new and more civilized approach to the conduct of the war, and hopefully will continue to do so, hence changing popular attitudes to how war should be conducted.

As for the state’s role in its conduct in counterinsurgency, one of the other identifiable reason for the usually brutal nature of required counterinsurgency is the line of thinking, wherein when the insurgent engages in morally reprehensible practices such as using civilians as human shield from attacks,  the obligation for the counterinsurgent to abide by morally acceptable conduct of war is discounted and excused. Court marshals against these practices may be strengthened, along with the previously explored broadcasting of complete information to the rest of the country regarding the situations in these insurgency affected areas.

In order to ensure that states too engage in conventional warfare, there needs to a requirement for the intrinsic nature of the state- to be legitimate and have a moral dimension to its security policy, but not necessarily pacifist. Even with the example of the USA, the bogeyman of radical theorists, anti-neoliberals, anti-colonial theorists and so on and so forth, it is undeniable that the socio-political foundation of the country has led to its foreign policy having a moral policy, with of course very notable exceptions, but again, with undeniable examples such as its post war efforts in restructuring the economies of its opponents of the second world war, its current anti war stance on the Israel-Hamas conflict, and more. As long as the basic structure of a nation is moral and democratic, and as long as it derives its legitimacy from these values, we may not be amiss in assuming that self restraint in counter insurgency operations would be present.

Thus, I feel, the fulfilling of basic conditions of moral and democratic legitimacy from the state’s side and successful incentivizing of insurgent to engage in conventional warfare has the best chance at achieving humane and effective counterinsurgency.