More recently, US occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan have served as inspiration. This was true of a number of anti-colonial struggles such as in Vietnam, Malaya, and Algeria.
#Iraqi insurgency free#
Insurgents may be seeking to free the country from foreign occupation. Because imperialism was delegitimized in the second half of the twentieth century, minor errors of judgment or practice have provoked armed opposition against rule by outsiders."
The margin of error is narrower for an outside occupying power than for an inept or repressive national regime as people tend to find the mistakes or bad behavior by one of their own more tolerable than that of outsiders. "n insurgency is born when a governing power fails to address social or regional polarization, sectarianism, endemic corruption, crime, various forms of radicalism, or rising expectations.
The feeling of insecurity that insurgencies foment contributes to instability and inhibits efforts to move conflict in more constructive directions.īroadly speaking, insurgency is a strategy to overthrow the established order. Many issues, both old and new, threaten the fragile peace and motivate insurgents to try to disrupt the nascent peace process. Any peacebuilding situation is a delicate one. In particular, security, power, and jobs are typically crucial in stabilization operations. In fragile post-conflict situations, stabilization involves "he process by which underlying tensions that might lead to resurgence in violence and a break-down in law and order are managed and reduced, while efforts are made to support preconditions for successful longer-term development." In the immediate post-conflict period, there are people to be fed, basic services to be established, refugees and internally displaced persons to be reintegrated, to say nothing of advancing a political transition and addressing the root causes of the conflict. In some cases, state building or nation building may also be necessary. Reconstruction and economic development, for example, are needed to create opportunity as an alternative to fighting.
There are a number of factors that contribute to whether conditions become stabilized and peace realized or conflict reemerges perhaps in altered form.