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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
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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.
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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)