by Hilary Parker

Armed with academic theories and writings on guerrilla warfare by Mao Tse-Tung and Lawrence of Arabia, 15 Princeton undergraduates enrolled in a course on violence and civil war spent an afternoon in late September battling difficult questions.

“How did Mao and Lawrence manage to build their insurgencies and become successful?” asked Jason Lyall, an Assistant Professor of Politics and International Affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School, as he kicked off the session.  “Would they even recognize themselves in our theoretical frameworks? It’s an open question whether our current theories of warfare are anywhere near what they thought was important.  There’s an argument to be made that they aren’t.”

The conversation flourished, more and more students chiming in as the discussion turned toward questions of why people join violent uprisings and which conditions prompt guerrilla fighters, particularly those who use mobile tactics like ambushes and raids, to form conventional armies.

“… You need to gain the full popular support of the people,” said Elizabeth Denniston, a senior majoring in politics.  “You may lose it if you stay within the guerrilla phase.  You can maintain that support when you become organized and visible, meeting the enemy on the ground.”

Jacob Bornstein, a senior in the Woodrow Wilson School, offered another viewpoint.

“Guerrilla operations are definitionally dependent on the existence of an opposition,” he said. “If there’s no opposition, you’re just guys in the woods. But once that opposition is gone, your reason to exist ceases to be. You either disperse or assume power yourself, and the way to do that is with a conventional force.”

The disconnect between theories of war and its actual practice motivated Lyall to design and teach the first-time seminar, WWS 477: The Dynamics of Violence in Civil War.  Rather than studying the causes of conflict, the seminar focuses on the violence that takes place during war, analyzing historical cases and modern-day conflicts in Afghanistan, Chechnya, and Iraq.

“Historically, 90 percent of what we taught students was on the origin of conflict, and then we stopped,” Lyall said.  “There was no blood in our theories. We still don’t understand why insurgents are indiscriminate in some areas and civil in others.  Right now, there’s a major move afoot to look at the dynamics of conflict. ”
 

Lyall, who joined WWS’s faculty in 2005, focuses on a number of related topics in his own research, including patterns of insurgency in Chechnya and rebel recruitment in Chechnya, Afghanistan, and Iraq.

He doesn’t shy away from difficult subjects in the seminar. Future sessions will explore satellite images from Darfur and Kenya and discuss child soldiers and rape as tools of war.  Lyall also will bring in representatives of non-governmental organizations and army officers to offer first-hand accounts of war.

Lyall is seemingly effortless as he relates theories and historic texts, including Mao Tse-Tung’s “On Guerrilla Warfare” and Lawrence of Arabia’s “Seven Pillars of Wisdom” to current conflict situations.  As a result, he broadens students’ understanding of violence and civil war.

At one point, a question arose as to whether fighters in Iraq are familiar with the warfare manuals written by Mao and Lawrence.  Immediately, Lyall launched into a story about an army unit’s discovery of Arabic translation of the two books in the underground hideout where Saddam Hussein was found.

Later, the students analyzed theorist Mark Lichbach’s theory about the incentives that inspire peasants to become revolutionary.

“It’s a club model of insurgency,” Lyall said.  “The clubs generate selective benefits that only accrue to members of the club.  That’s the crux.”  He tied this model to current events in Africa, where members of competing insurgencies often go village-to-village in recruitment drives.

As to the selective incentives in these situations?

“Many people don’t have job prospects outside of warfare,” Lyall told the students. “The insurgents give them a gun and food and an opportunity to make money.  And they can offer people protection.  In a war zone, that’s a private good.”

Lyall’s ability to weave together past and present, theory and reality, is lauded by the students in the course.  They include juniors and seniors with a variety of experiences and aspirations, who are majoring in the Woodrow Wilson School, politics, Near Eastern studies, and history.

“Professor Lyall does a great job carefully considering all of our comments, summarizing them by connecting them to broader issues, and trying to push us to think beyond the initial scope of our comment or question,” said Danielle Devlin, a senior majoring in the Woodrow Wilson School who is interested in authoritarian regimes. The course supplements the six months she has spent in China, including time as an intern for the State Department at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing.

For the two future military officers in the course, insights gained in Lyall’s seminar may even be carried with them to battlefields in the not-too-distant future.

“There is a strong possibility I will participate in a counterinsurgency operation,” said Brendan Reilly, a senior majoring in politics and a Marine Corps officer candidate.  “Professor Lyall’s expertise enables him to teach things I need to know about possible situations I might find myself in, where I will be making decisions with serious ramifications.”