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War on the Rocks is a great website that posts nuanced policy papers and military analysis. They recently published an article about Syria describing the decay of Bashar Al Assad’s regime. This post briefly highlights how that article’s main points underscore what I’ve been arguing about the Gadianton Insurgency. The current disintegration of the regime in the real world highlights and supports my subtle and nuanced reading of the Book of Mormon.
Thesis Statement: Robbers Both a Cause and Collapse
As I wrote in my first book, “The various historical uses of
the term robber when applied to the Book
of Mormon suggest that the Gadianton Robbers contributed to and resulted
from the weakening control of the central government over its territories and
armed forces.”[1]
War on the Rocks: Today, where briefing maps now show solid red across Syria’s
western governorates, they ought to distinguish dozens and perhaps even
hundreds of small fiefdoms only nominally loyal to Assad. Indeed, in much of
the country, loyalist security forces function like a grand racketeering
scheme: simultaneously a cause and
consequence of state collapse at the local level.
The State’s Reliance on Bandits:
I wrote on my blog here about a really
cool letter I written by the Communists insurgents in China to a secret
society. In assessing its significant I offered these words:
Thus the line between bandits, militia of a hated rival,
private bodyguards, deputized law enforcement officers, or insurgents, became
incredibly blurred….On the local level that meant there were competing groups
vying for power. Labels are very powerful, and labels like bandit were used to
stigmatize. Yet early Communist forces
had large components of bandits, including the entire forces of the two largest
bandit groups nearest the Jinggangshan mountain base. So when Chiang Kai-Shek labelled his campaign
as bandit suppression and encirclement, it reflected an overt political attack
on Communists, but it also reflected the way a political military fight can
blur the boundaries with and reflect lawless banditry.
Both ancient historian Susan Mattern and Sinologist Stephen
Averill talked about the way that bandits could be adopted into government
forces or created as allies.[2]
Mao Zedong incorporated bandits into his army but then warned against “banditry”
within Communist forces.[3] Indeed, even the United States saw this
during the Anbar Awakening. We managed to convince many of the most ardent
Sunni supporters of the insurgency to join our side. This is because they knew
how to fight the insurgents. We worked with the Iraqi government to legitimize
them as militia.
War on the Rocks: The real story of the Tiger Forces is…instructive to those
trying to understand the regime. During the early days of the uprising against
Assad, Hassan coordinated the suppression of protests in Hama, an effort that
relied on a collection of ordinary thugs, air force officers, and area tribal
leaders… in due time, this early network of enforcers would evolve into the
so-called Tiger Forces. While the unit has since developed a more stable core of
permanent quasi-soldiers, Tiger loyalists
today still hail from a vast web of militias, criminals, and smugglers
stretching across Syria’s central and arguably most strategic province of Hama.
Weak Government Incorporates them:
I discussed many great things in my FAIR
presentation it included the point that a weak government tried to co-opt
and control local bandit leaders in order to bolster their power. This is
related to the above concept about the very blurry line between bandit force
and legitimate government militia or army:[4]
Historically, the chaos that resulted from political
weakness resulted in actors that can be divided into three camps. The first
group is the predatory bandits that fit the typical image associated with robbers.
Yet the second two, local elites that assume power, and former officials that
take advantage of the power vacuum, can assist in our understanding of Nephite
society.
The Roman sources called many groups ‘robbers,’ but it seems probable that they were actually the private forces of local magnates maintaining order and control outside of Roman public authority. [Even the great warlords such as Childeric, Clovis, and Alaric..held official offices in the Roman Empire.] Historian David Graff adds a similar point from Chinese history:
To protect themselves
and their communities against the [predators], local elites organized their
kinsmen and neighbors into militia forces. Many also followed the time honored
response to trouble times and relocated to forts built on hilltops or in other
easily defensible locations. One leader of protective forces was Lu Zushang….
He was the son of a [dynasty] general, and his family was wealthy and locally
influential. Though still a teenager Lu recruited ‘stalwart warriors’ and
pursued the bandits, with the result that they no longer dared to enter his
district. [The remaining weakened government] eventually established him as governor of [the province].
War on the Rocks: Apparently too weak
to coerce and too broke to bribe those who fight under its banner, Assad has made efforts to tie his
subordinates closer to his Damascus by political means instead. This
April’s parliamentary “elections” further indicated the structural
transformation of the regime from a centralized state to a loose hodgepodge of
warlord. A number of long-serving Ba’athist rubberstamp bureaucrats and local
dignitaries, pillars of the regime’s traditional rentier system, lost their
seats in favor of upstart smugglers, militia leaders, and tribal chiefs.
Self-interested Soldiers:
In my new book (still forthcoming), I wrote about the decline
of soldiers and how they likely became a parasitic cast, which would only fuel
unrest and an insurgency against the government:[5]
The prophets in the book of Helaman continually lambasted
the need to “get gain” (Helaman 6:8, 17) as the chief sin of Gadianton robbers,
and the major prophetic discourses of Nephi and Samuel the Lamanite attack the
materialism of Nephite society (Helaman 7:5, 21, 26; 13: 19-23, 32-36). In describing the impotence of Moronihah’s
army, Mormon said this about Nephite society, which might apply even more to
the increasingly self-interested soldiers:
And it was because of the pride of their hearts, because of
their exceeding riches, yea, it was because of their oppression to the poor,
withholding their food from the hungry, withholding their clothing from the
naked, and smiting their humble brethren
upon the cheek, making a mock of that which was sacred, denying the spirit
of prophecy and of revelation, murdering, plundering,
lying, stealing, committing
adultery, rising up in great contentions, and deserting away into the land of
Nephi, among the Lamanites (Helaman 4:12).
…Considering the cost of equipping for war, and how
plundering was the best pay day in the ancient world the soldiers would be
rich, or at least the elites that used force to enrich themselves would be
“exceeding[ly] rich.” They would also find that
“desert[ing] unto the Lamanites” with their war like policies (Mormon
8:8) promised a more lucrative
environment. And it could easily refer to the soldiers of fortune and large
bands of soldiers who thought the same. Moreover, the victims of this
aggrandizement from out of control soldiers, or armies of elites would see it
as “oppression, “smiting their...brethren upon the cheek,” stealing food from
the hungry (remember the connection between famine and war in Helaman 11:1-5),
could easily refer to the abuse of power by the military against
civilians.
In fact, the second half of Helaman 4:12 explicitly referred
to murder, stealing, plunder, and great contentions. Nephite military forces were led by prophets
during times of righteous leadership (3 Nephi 3:19) so “denying the spirit of
prophecy” could refer to rejecting righteous military leaders. On top of this, in the next chapter when the
prophets Nephi and Lehi were preaching, they were seized by an army and thrown
in prison (Helaman 5:21). Yet the
Nephite record doesn’t mention a current war, which suggests the army was doing
something else. This could be private aggrandizement, a war against “others”
only hinted at by the text, or general plunder by a free booting company.
Whatever their activity, it strengthens the suggestion that Helaman 4: 12 referred to a rapacious and predatory military that
is not controlled by a righteous central government.
War on the Rocks: Rather than attempt to capture resource monopolies, certain
armed groups have taken to making a profit by exploiting the suffering
population directly… Despite guarantees by the government, local loyalist
militias tasked with manning the checkpoints in the area have recently begun
levying a tax of 100 Syrian Pounds per kilogram on all incoming food products. Even a conservative estimate would put the
monthly revenue of such a levy into the millions of U.S. dollars. This is enough to feed and supply the
thousands of fighters manning the cordon, as well as their families. The
watchdog group “Siege Watch” has put the number of civilians encircled by
regime forces at an additional 850,000 across Syria. In these stricken areas,
the cost of living has multiplied, with the difference syphoned off by those
manning the bottlenecks. Put
differently, with Damascus nowhere near able to finance and feed the families
of loyalist militiamen, the encircling and taxation of civilians has an
economic necessity for the regime to keep many of its most important frontline
troops supplied and happy.
Conclusion:
I’m becoming more and more convinced that regardless of the
time period, geography, and culture, there are a set of specific principles
that govern the course of an insurgency and the composition of their army. It is incredibly rewarding to see the
arguments I’ve made about the Book of
Mormon referenced in secular academic literature. The Book of Mormon clearly shows the Gadianton Robbers as an insurgency
that features nuanced relationships and power brokering between the government,
local leaders, the people, and military groups.
The government weakness was a cause of and results from the robbers,
they alternatively relied upon and tried to co-opt them. The soldiers enriched themselves upon the population
and justified their looting as taxes.
[Thanks for reading. I write as a free lance author, if you found value in this work please consider making a small monthly subscription or lump sum donation using the pay pal buttons at the bottom of the page.]
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[1] Morgan
Deane, Bleached Bones and Wicked
Serpents: Ancient Warfare in the Book of Mormon, (Ebookit, 2014), 37.
[2] Susan
Mattern, “Counterinsurgency and the Enemies of Rome,” in Makers of Ancient Strategy: From the Persian Wars to the Fall of Rome,
Victor Davis Hanson eds (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010), 169
(163-184). Stephen Averill, Revolution in the Highlands: The Jinggangshan Base
Area 1927-1929. (New York, Rowan and Littlefield, 2007), 57.
[3] Mao
Zedong, “Problems of War and Strategy, Part 4”, Selected Military Writings of Mao Zedong, (Bejing: Foreign Language
Press, 1971,) 112.
[4]
Morgan Deane, “ Climbing a Tree to Find a Fish: Insurgency in the Book of
Mormon”, FAIR Mormon Conference, Provo,
Utah. August 2016.
[5]
Morgan Deane, Evil Gangs and Starving
Widows: Reassessing the Book of Mormon, (Forthcoming.), 149-151.
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