Wars of national liberation

• 1. Defining Liberation Wars

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  The term wars of national liberation describes conflicts fought by nations to gain independence from foreign powers. These struggles establish separate sovereign states for the rebelling nationality. From another perspective, such wars are called insurgencies or rebellions. The phrase is most commonly used for those fought during the decolonization movement against Western powers and their economic influence. Since these were primarily in the third world, the phrase has often been applied selectively to criticize the foreign power involved. International law generally holds that a people with a legal right to self-determination are entitled to wage these wars. While Western states tend to view these wars as civil wars, Third World and communist states tend to view them as international wars. This difference in classification leads to varying perceptions of which laws of war apply in such situations. However, there is general agreement among all states today in principle that the use of force to frustrate a people's legal right to self-determination is unlawful.

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• 2. Decolonization Era Conflicts

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  The Haitian Revolution between 1791 and 1804 can be considered one of the first wars of national liberation. It pitted self-liberated slaves against Imperial France during a period where interconnected movements caused a rise of national consciousness in the Atlantic world. At the same time during the Spanish American wars of independence from 1808 to 1833, patriots launched complex wars against royalists. These conflicts resulted in the formation of new Latin American states. The Siege of Patras in 1821 led to the Greek War of Independence ending Ottoman domination. Discontent with British company rule in India led to the Sepoy Mutiny between 1857 and 1858. The Easter Rising in Dublin in 1916 eventually led to the Irish War of Independence from 1919 to 1921. Following World War I, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland gained independence after fighting Bolshevik forces. The Turkish National Movement fought campaigns from 1919 to 1922 resulting in the establishment of the Republic of Turkey. The Indonesian War of Independence occurred between 1945 and 1949.

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• 3. Cold War Proxy Dynamics

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  In January 1961 Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev pledged support for wars of national liberation throughout the world. Some of these wars were either vocally or materially supported by the Soviet Union which claimed to be an anti-imperialist power. They aimed to replace Western-backed governments with local Communist or other non pro-Western parties. On the other hand, Soviet involvement was often viewed as a way to increase the size and influence of the Soviet Bloc. Thus it became a form of imperialism itself. The People's Republic of China criticized the Soviet Union as being social imperialist. In turn, China presented themselves as models of independent nationalist development outside of Western influence. Using their resources they politically, economically and militarily assisted movements such as in Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh founded the Viet-Minh in 1941 and declared the independence of Vietnam on the 2nd of September 1945. He was also a founding member of the French Communist Party in 1921. Cuba led by Fidel Castro would support national liberation movements in Angola and Mozambique during that same decade.

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• 4. Guerrilla Tactics And Strategy

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  Wars of national liberation are usually fought using guerrilla warfare. The main purpose of these tactics is to increase the cost of the anti-guerrilla forces past the point where such forces are willing to bear. These strategies explain why they are quite successful against foreign regimes and quite unsuccessful against indigenous regimes. Foreign regimes usually have a threshold beyond which they would prefer to go home rather than fight the war. By contrast an indigenous regime has no place to which they can retreat and will fight much harder because of the lack of alternatives. Moreover foreign regimes usually have fewer active supporters in the theater. Those that exist can often be easily identified making it possible for guerrilla armies to identify their targets. By contrast indigenous regimes often have much more popular support and their supporters are often not easily recognized as such. This makes it much harder to conduct operations against them without also causing harm to neutral parties. Wars of national liberation generally depend on widespread public support with ordinary civilians providing crucial support.

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• 5. International Law And Self Determination

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  Malanczuk wrote in 1997 that international law holds that a people with a legal right to self-determination are entitled to wage wars of national liberation. While Western states tend to view these wars as civil wars, Third World and communist states tend to view them as international wars. This difference in classification leads to varying perceptions of which laws of war apply in such situations. However there is general agreement among all states today in principle that the use of force to frustrate a people's legal right to self-determination is unlawful. The concept of imperialism itself had been theorized in Lenin's 1916 book Imperialism the Highest Stage of Capitalism. Since the Russian Revolution the revolutionary objectives of communism and socialism were shared by many anticolonialist leaders. Thus explaining the objective alliance between anticolonialist forces and Marxism. The United Nations General Assembly granted permanent observer status to the Palestine Liberation Organization pursuant to a 1974 resolution. Since 1988 it has represented the Palestinian people at the UN under the name Palestine.

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• 6. Ongoing Liberation Struggles

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  The Polisario Front has sought the independence of Western Sahara since 1973 and considers its war against Morocco as a national liberation war. Many foreign observers countries and the African Union agree with this designation. The hostilities were frozen after a 1991 cease-fire and settlement plan agreement that called for a referendum on self-determination. However the referendum was never held and hostilities resumed in 2020. Many Chechens and foreign observers consider the First and Second Chechen Wars to be wars of national liberation against Russia. Some Iraqi insurgent groups believe that the Iraq War was a war of national liberation against the US-led coalition. Many Kurds believe the Kurdish-Turkish conflict to be a war of national liberation of Kurdish people in Turkey. The South Sudanese wars of independence culminated in the 2011 independence of South Sudan from Sudan. The first phase ran from 1955 to 1972 and the second from 1983 to 2005. In the first Libyan Civil War in 2011 an uprising developed into a rebellion toppling the regime of Muammar Gaddafi.

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