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Historically Speaking Sanctuary and Irregular Warfare U.S. Army M intercepted before they breached the limuch has appeared in the news lately By Brig. Gen. John S. Brown its of the civilized world. Executions were concerning insurgents—Taliban and U.S. Army retired not always perfect; those who offered otherwise—operating from sanctuaries available to them in Pakistan. Some months ago there was sanctuary to the enemies of Rome, however, were themconcern over whether or not Sunni insurgents operating in selves the enemies of Rome, and the enemies of Rome selIraq enjoyed sanctuary in Syria, or Shia insurgents enjoyed dom died in their beds. Our own founding fathers were impressed with the Rosanctuary in Iran. How much should we be concerned with this issue of sanctuary? Historically speaking, great or mans and with the notion that peace and prosperity should middling powers have almost never brought irregular extend all the way to the borders of their country. Much early wars to a satisfactory conclusion while their adversaries American military history is best understood in the context enjoyed geographical sanctuary. Knowingly harboring such of denying sanctuary to those who threatened its citizens. adversaries has traditionally, with good reason, been con- Throughout the Colonial era, regional causi belli generally included the depredations of privateers, adventurers or subsisidered an act of war. dized American Indians acting under the encouragement of some other colonial power. The Declaration of Independence included weighty charges that the king of Great Britain had “excited domestic insurrections” and “endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages” among the reasons that we should be free of him. Revolutionary War expeditions into western New York and Pennsylvania, Tennessee and the Ohio Valley—most notably those of George Rogers Clark—denied safe haven to the “merciless Indian savages” King George III had aligned against us. The results were incomplete, and British complicity with Indian marauders, imagined and real, At a vehicle checkpoint in Afghanistan, a soldier stands watch as members of his platoon search the interior of a local transport truck set America on the path to the War of for enemy fighters and munitions on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. 1812. Indeed, the notable Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794 was fought The earliest systematic record we have of a great power within sight of a British garrison illegally built on American dealing with issues of sanctuary is that of the Romans. soil. The Anglo-Indian threat to the frontiers finally ended When the Romans were at the top of their game, their with American victories at the Thames (1813) and Horseshoe limes—their defended borders—were not the point at which Bend (1814) and with the subsequent Treaty of Ghent. Shortly thereafter, Gen. Andrew Jackson conquered they intended to encounter their adversaries. Indeed, the limes were unimpressive physical defenses even by the Florida (1818) to snuff out a haven from which Seminole Instandards of the time, in most places presenting but a few dians had been raiding U.S. territories. From that point, alleditches, berms and wooden palisades. The limes did com- gations that Indians were raiding Americans from territories municate a powerful psychological message, separating the they controlled were almost inevitably among the pretexts good order and prosperity of the Roman world from the un- for advancing the frontier. At times the allegations were true. certainty outside. Beyond the limes, Roman governors and The Mexican War came to a satisfactory conclusion in part generals conducted diplomacy, played one tribe or polity because Hispanic citizens of Texas, California and New Mexagainst the other, gathered intelligence and conducted puni- ico generally accepted that incorporation into the United tive expeditions when they caught a whiff of trouble. States was the best available option. Their logic recognized Friends were rewarded, enemies destroyed and marauders that, unlike Santa Anna’s Mexican armies, the U.S. Army 116 ARMY ■ September 2008 was able and willing to run such crossborder marauders as the Comanches, Apaches and bandits to ground. As late as 1916, Gen. John (Black Jack) Pershing’s expedition into Mexico to apprehend Francisco (Pancho) Villa was yet another manifestation of the belief that enemies of the United States should be allowed no sanctuary. (The expedition did not capture Pancho Villa, but it did ruin him.) During the 20th century, the irregular wars of the United States migrated overseas, and the populations at risk were peoples for whom Americans felt responsible, rather than Americans themselves. The Philippines had been unevenly governed prior to the American arrival during the SpanishAmerican War, with territories beyond the reach of the law preying on those within it. American soldiers determined to impose uniform governance. In the short run, this provoked a fierce war with the Moro. In the long run, it laid the basis for an independent Philippine nation. Following World War II, the communist group Hukbalahap again brought insurrection to the Philippines. The communists, cut off from external support, were denied sanctuary and crushed. About the same time, Gen. James Van Fleet took charge of the Military Advisory Group, which was assisting Greece with battling communist insurgents aided and abetted by nearby communist powers. The war came to a satisfactory conclusion only after Josip Broz Tito’s Yugoslavia shook off Soviet control, cut a deal with the West and closed its borders to the insurgents. Similarly, a communist insurgency bubbled along in South Korea from 1945–1953 and only dissipated when the imposition of the DMZ effectively closed the borders. In Vietnam, the United States and its allies never actually denied their adversaries sanctuary in Cambodia, Laos and North Vietnam. The results were catastrophic. I rregulars are overmatched on the battlefield by armies as good as that of the United States and cannot survive unless they determine the times and circumstances of engagements. Sanctuary allows them to pick and choose their battles and to retain the initiative. It also allows them to heal their wounds, reorganize, reconstitute and husband the means for further mischief. The human material irregulars draw upon BRIG. GEN. JOHN S. BROWN, USA Ret., was chief of military history at the U.S. Army Center of Military History from December 1998 to October 2005. He commanded the 2nd Battalion, 66th Armor, in Iraq and Kuwait during the Gulf War and returned to Kuwait as commander of the 2nd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, in 1995. He has a doctorate in history from Indiana University. 118 ARMY ■ September 2008 U.S. Army Afghan border police and the 173rd Airborne’s Special Troops Battalion paratroopers cooperate to patrol a bridge between Afghanistan and Pakistan. is generally uneven in quality and prone to crack under unrelenting pressure. Sanctuary takes the pressure off. Conversely, the human material available to insurgents can be abundant given poverty, ignorance and disaffection. This raw supply is not much affected by attrition—short of genocide. Sanctuary leaves insurgents free to recruit or coerce unmolested. Insurgents do not have to win in the conventional sense to succeed; they can succeed by not losing long enough. Sanctuary permits them to avoid losing. The German tribes who were for so long adversaries of Rome adopted a different technique than the limes to protect themselves from the Romans and each other. They gave over vast stretches of territory to howling wilderness, separating themselves from potential adversaries. Within these no-man’s lands, any intruder was considered hostile and killed without remorse. Such deserted stretches provided ample warning time and denied sustenance to anyone trying to move through them. Applying the metaphors to Afghanistan, the Roman solution would be to deny our adversaries sanctuary in Pakistan by force or diplomacy, crush them in Afghanistan and push the limits of visible good order and prosperity to the border itself. Alternatively, the ancient German solution would be to depopulate border regions on the Afghan side to sufficient depth that those passing through them could be readily detected and destroyed—to create a desert and call it a peace. A solution that has never worked is to allow adversaries sanctuary and to leave them with ready access to populations from which to base an insurgency. ✭ Recommended Reading: Luttwak, Edward N., The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire: From the First Century A.D. to the Third (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979) Stewart, Richard W., General Editor, American Military History, Volumes I and II (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 2005) Weigley, Russell F., History of the United States Army (New York: Macmillan, 1967)