“Roger Trinquier”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Trinquier was an French army officer that ran counterinsurgency campaigns in Indochina and Algeria. His short book _Modern Warfare: A French View of Counterinsurgency_ had early influence on the field of COIN, and is “available online”:http://www-cgsc.army.mil/carl/resources/csi/trinquier/trinquier.asp at the US Army’s Command & General Staff College library.
Highly influenced by Mao’s views on revolutionary warfare, Trinquier argues that the age of conventional warfare has passed, and proposes a new definition of _modern warfare_:
bq. We still persist in studying a type of warfare that no longer exists and that we shall never fight again [...] Warfare is now an interlocking system of actions-political, economic, psychological, military-that aims at the _overthrow of the established authority in a country and its replacement by another regime._ [...] In seeking a solution, it is essential to realize that in _modern warfare_ we are not up against just a few armed bands spread across a given territory, but rather against an _armed clandestine organization_ whose essential role is to impose its will upon the population. Victory will be obtained only through the complete destruction of that organization.
Trinquier’s more controversial views are on terrorism. He stesses over and over again that terrorism is a “weapon of warfare” and defines the terrorist as a soldier, “like the aviator or the infantryman.”
bq. The terrorist should not be considered an ordinary criminal. Actually, he fights within the framework of his organization, without personal interest, for a cause he considers noble and for a respectable ideal, the same as the soldiers in the armies confronting him. On the command of his superiors, he kills without hatred individuals unknown to him, with the same indifference as the soldier on the battlefield. His victims are often women and children, almost always defenseless individuals taken by surprise. But during a period of history when the bombing of open cities is permitted, and when two Japanese cities were razed to hasten the end of the war in the Pacific, one cannot with good cause reproach him.
Influenced by the lack of effectiveness of the under-manned Algiers police force, Trinquier thinks the army is the group to handle terrorists on the loose. Trinquier categorizes terrorists as non-criminal, but refuses them the protections of a regular soldier upon capture. He imposes another set of rules, specifically for terrorists, allowing torture to extract information, but only about the prisoner’s position in the organization. Once the captured terrorist reveals the names and locations of his cell-members and superior contacts in the organization, “the terrorist can take his place among soldiers” and is considered a regular POW. Trinquier thinks it useless and unjust to charge a terrorist for an attack carried out, likening such a procedure to holding regular soldiers accountable for deaths caused by the weapons they use. In the 60′s this was a truism, but not so much today, where we see much tighter restrictions on “collateral damage.”
By Trinquier’s logic, terrorism is an act of war, and since _modern war_ is not declared as in the past, terrorists strive to maintain the “fiction of peace” in order to circumvent peacetime legal frameworks to carry out attacks. Trinquier recommends declaring a state of war as soon as possible to combat terrorist groups and allow the governement to indict those that abet terrorists as traitors to the state. Under the threat of terrorism, we are in a constant state of war. This is hard for the public to understand and accept, particularly since the popular experience of war is WWI and WWII. They cannot comprehend that there is no such thing as absolute peace, just lower intensity conflict. We are no different than our tribal ancestors that fought for survival on the plains of Africa. I am rambling now… some kind of Clausewitzian fervor… anyways…
The topics Trinquier discusses in _Modern Warfare_ are evident in the current public debate over Gitmo and whether to treat terrorist acts as crimes or acts of warfare. Does Trinquier’s argument still hold water after 50 years? Has the international system changed enough to countermand his reasoning?
There is a lot in this post, feel free to tear apart any section you like.
Some background, from memory. Trinquier’s biography was published as “Le Temps Perdu”. He attended St. Maxent, the course for reserve officers, and thereafter was commissioned into the Colonial Infantry. His first tour just prior to WWII was Indochina, up on the Chinese border. WWII found him in China, where he continued to serve in a force that was largely Vietnamese. Returned to Saigon at the end of WWII, he volunteered for Commando Ponchardier, a multi-service unit that was the first paracommando unit in Indochina. He commanded a company of mostly colonials in that unit, conducting operations to reestablish order and French sovereignty. Returned to France, he managed to stay in the Army and in 1948(?) returned as deputy commander of the 5th/2nd Colonial Para Bn (the designation changed after they deployed to Indochina). After the early death of the commander on a combat jump, Trinquier took command. The unit operated mostly in South Vietnam. One of his operations, which essentially turned the battalion into a guerrilla unit, was copied by LTC Hackworth when the latter commanded a battalion in the U.S. 9th Division. (Hackworth never credited Trinquier’s example.) Trinquier’s two year stint with the 5th BCP ended, he departed Indochina, only to return to command one of the sub-units of the GCMA, and by war’s end, the GCMA itself. The GCMA was the French equivalent of the Second Indochina War’s MAC-V-SOG. In Algeria, he initially served on the staff of the 10th arachute Division, but after the Battle of Algiers he followed Marcel Bigeard into command of the legendary 3rd Colonial Paras, later 3rd Marine Paras when the French dropped the term “colonial” in 1958. Of note, the 3rd RPIMa recruited among captured POWs to form a 5th parachute rifle company within the 4 parachute rifle company regiment. After Algeria, Trinquier worked for a while in support of Moise Tchombe in the Congo’s Katanga province.
I really enjoyed reading Trinquier’s book – a friend loaned it to me. I think there’s a lot of good points in his book, but the loose rules on how to handle terrorists shook me up. There was one important qualifier though – Trinquier was very careful to note that there was no value in torturing a low-level suspect to get information on things that were obviously way above his pay grade. You get what you can, and you throw the fish back out into the sea.
I suggest that’s one major point that the US interrogators have not learned, trying to find out where the WMDs were from people who could barely understand the concept and submitting these low-level suspects – even questionable if many were even active insurgents – to grueling physical punishments. Maybe if the US interrogators were more selective, their overall mission might be more successfull.
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