A Half Century of Insurgency: The Ongoing Efforts of the Philippines to Quell the Insurgency in the South - Comparative Study of Russia's Counterinsurgency in Chechnya, Moro Isla

The Southern Philippines has remained embroiled in insurgency for nearly 50 years. This study traces the insurgency through three distinct phases: the first two phases represent an ethno-nationalist insurgency, and the latest phase results from a qualitative shift toward a Pan-Islamic insurgency. While the Philippine government successfully ended the first two phases, the third phase of insurgency is composed of disparate groups that are linked to global jihadist organizations. Using a comparative study of Russia's counterinsurgency efforts in Chechnya, this study examines why the Philippine government has not yet successfully ended the decades-long insurgency. The Philippine and Chechen cases have numerous similarities, showing a comparable pattern of insurgency. However, the two countries waged drastically different counterinsurgency campaigns, and the two cases have divergent outcomes. This study finds that Russia's "Chechenization" strategy, which decentralized the counterinsurgency and pushed counterinsurgency functions down to the local level, was the cornerstone of its success. In the Philippines, counterinsurgency efforts have remained mostly centralized under the armed forces of the Philippines, with no serious effort made to localize them. This suggests that the Philippines may need to consider employing a localization strategy in order to defeat the current insurgency. As a strategic ally of the United States, the security and stability of the Philippines align closely with U.S. national interests. The most recent National Security Strategy document describes the importance to U.S. strategy of the Asian region in general and the Philippines in particular. In 2016, then-U.S. Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter further cemented the status of the Philippines as a strategic U.S. partner, announcing the "need to further enhance [the] security partnership" between the two countries. Counterinsurgency has been the focus of U.S. combat operations for the last 14 years, with massive counterinsurgency operations in Iraq and Afghanistan highlighting the importance of this role in the U.S. military and the importance of counterinsurgency expertise within the U.S. government. Today, counterinsurgency remains one of the military's core missions. However, the relevance of counterinsurgency study is not limited to the military. The U.S. "whole of government" approach to counterinsurgency recognizes the subordinate role of the military and the criticality of cooperative efforts between civilian and military entities. The U.S. has provided support to the Philippines for their counterinsurgency efforts and maintained a troop presence within the Philippines since 2001. The U.S.'s active involvement, albeit in a support role, in the Philippine counterinsurgency makes this study a relevant and useful study. The proposed research question deals with both a location of strategic interest-the Philippines-and a subject of national security and military relevance-counterinsurgency.