Roger Trinquier (March 20, 1908 - 1986) was a French army officer with an immense impact on the development of Counter-insurgency theory. March 20 is the 79th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (80th in leap years). ... 1908 (MCMVIII) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar). ... 1986 (MCMLXXXVI) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Counter-insurgency is the combating of insurgency, by the government (or allies) of the territory in which the insurgency takes place. ...

Biography

Trinquier was posted to China in the 1930s where he learned Chinese. Trinquier served in the French Shanghai concession between 1940 and 1946. When the Japanese occupied China during World War II the Vichy French forces were left armed and unmolested until March of 1945 and then imprisoned. Unlike many Vichy officers, Trinquier was kept in service after the war due to the attention of General Raoul Salan. Trinquier was posted alternately to Indochina and to the Commando Training Center. In 1951 he became commander of all anti-communist guerrillas in north Indochina and his teams were successful until the Battle of Dien Bien Phu caused the withdrawal of the French army from Indochina. Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tōjō Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000... Motto: Travail, famille, patrie (Work, family, country) unoccupied zone of Vichy France (until November 1942) Capital Vichy Language(s) French Religion Roman Catholicism Government Republic President of the Council  - 1940 - 1944 Philippe Pétain Legislature National Assembly Historical era World War II  - Battle of France June 16, 1940  - Battle of... French Indochina (French: LIndochine française, Vietnamese: Đông DÆ°Æ¡ng thuá»™c Pháp) was the part of the French colonial empire in Indochina in southeast Asia, consisting of a federation of protectorates (Tonkin and Annam, which now form Vietnam, as well as Cambodia and Laos) and one directly... Look up guerrilla in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Combatants France, Vietnam (loyalist), Hmong mercenaries Vietnam (Viet Minh), Chinese consultants Commanders Christian de Castries, Pierre Langlais # Vo Nguyen Giap Strength As of March 13: 10,800[1] As of March 13: 48,000 combat personnel, 15,000 logistical support personnel[2] Casualties 2,293 dead, 5,195 wounded, 11...

He was posted in 1957 to Algiers during the Algerian War of Independence. In Algiers he was at the origin of the Dispositif de Protection Urbain. A member of the Catholic fundamentalist group Cité catholique, created as an off-shoot from the monarchist Action française, Trinquier retired in 1961 and went to the Congo to support the Katanga rebellion of Moïse Tschombé. “Alger” redirects here. ... Combatants FLN (1954-62) MNA (1954-62) France (1954-62) FAF (1960-61) OAS (1961-62) Commanders Mostefa Benboulaïd Ferhat Abbas Hocine Aït Ahmed Ahmed Ben Bella Krim Belkacem Larbi Ben MHidi Rabah Bitat Mohamed Boudiaf Messali Hadj General Jacques Massu General Maurice Challe Bachaga Said Boualam... La Cité Catholique is a Catholic fundamentalist group created in 1946 by Jean Ousset, private secretary of Charles Maurras, who himself had founded the monarchist Action française in 1899. ... The Action Française is a French Monarchist movement and periodical founded by Maurice Pujo and Henri Vaugeois and whose principal ideologist was Charles Maurras. ... Country Democratic Republic of the Congo Capital Lubumbashi Largest city Lubumbashi National language Swahili, Tshiluba Land area¹ 496. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ...

Modern Warfare

Trinquier is a major theorist in the style of warfare he called Modern Warfare, an "interlocking system of actions - political, economic, psychological, military - that aims at the overthrow of the established authority in a country and its replacement by another regime." (Modern Warfare, Ch. 2). He was critical of the traditional army's inability to adapt to this new warfare. These tactics included the use of small and mobile commando teams, torture, the setting-up of self-defense forces recruited in the local population, and their forced relocation in camps, as well as psychological and educational operations.

Perhaps his most original contribution was his study and application of terrorism and torture as it related to this Modern Warfare. He argued that it was immoral to treat terrorists as criminals, and to hold them criminally liable for their acts. In his view terrorists should be treated as soldiers, albeit with the qualification that while they may attack civilian targets and wear no uniform, they also must be tortured for the very specific purpose of betraying their organization. Trinquier's criteria for torture was that the terrorist was to be asked only questions that related to the organization of his movement, that the interrogators must know what to ask, and that once the information is obtained the torture must stop and the terrorist is then treated as any other prisoner of war. (See Chapter 4 of Modern Warfare). Terrorist redirects here. ... Torture is defined by the United Nations Convention Against Torture as any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he...

The French army applied Trinquier's tactics during the Algerian War of Independence. In the short run these tactics resulted in a decisive victory in the Battle of Algiers Template:E. Behr 'The Algerian Problem'. These tactics were exposed by the press, which had little or no effect at the time, as they were generally regarded as a necessary evil. in the longer term the debate on the tactics used, particularly torture, would re-emerge in the french press for decades to come. (see trials of Ausseresses and Papon)

Influence

In the 1960s, Trinquier's book on modern warfare rapidly became a bible of anti-guerilla warfare and internal repression, first in South America. He became well known for his designation of political adversaries as 'internal enemies' in a Total War. French journalist Roger Faligot noted in Guerre spéciale en Europe (1980) that Frank Kitson's 1971 book, Low Intensity Operations: Subversion, Insurgency and Peacekeeping, considered as the "Bible" used by the British Army during The Troubles in Northern Ireland heavily quoted Roger Trinquier. Roger Faligot is a French journalist, who started working in Ireland in 1973 before working as freelance investigative journalist for Britton, Parisian or foreign newspapers and magazines (Ireland, England, Japan). ... General Sir Frank Edward Kitson. ... The British Army is the land armed forces branch of the British Armed Forces. ... For the UK post-rock band, see Troubles (band) The Troubles is a term used to describe the latest installment of periodic communal violence involving Republican and Loyalist paramilitary organisations, the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), the British Army and others in Northern Ireland from the late 1960s until the late... Anthem: UK: God Save the Queen Regional: (de facto) Londonderry Air Capital Belfast Largest city Belfast Official languages English (de facto), Irish, Ulster Scots 3, BSL, NISL, ISL Government Constitutional monarchy  - Queen Queen Elizabeth II  - Prime Minister of the UK Tony Blair MP  - First Minister Ian Paisley  - Deputy First Minister...

The US Army showed a strong interest in his experiences and theories when preparing the counterinsurgency warfare by the US Green Berets in South Vietnam in the early 1960s and again in today's Iraq. The United States Army is one of the armed forces of the United States and has primary responsibility for land-based military operations. ... The United States Army Special Forces—or simply Special Forces (capitalized)—is an elite Special Operations Force of the United States Army trained for unconventional warfare and special operations. ... There have been comparisons in public debate comparing the Iraq War to the Algerian War of Independence[1]. Henry Kissinger advised President George W. Bush read A Savage War of Peace about the Algerian War of Independence for advice on how to handle the war in Iraq. ...

Bibliography

Writings of Trinquier:

• Modern Warfare: A French View of Counterinsurgency (1961)

Available online at the US Command and General Staff College

• Roger Trinquier, La Guerre moderne, Paris: La Table ronde, 1961.
• Roger Trinquier, Le coup d’état du 13 mai. Esprit Nouveau, 1962. Trinquier denounces the foundation of the French Fifth Republic as a coup d'etat.
• Roger Trinquier, Jacques Duchemin, and Jacques Le Bailley, Notre guerre au Katanga. Paris: La Pensée Moderne, 1963. Trinquier relates his implication in Katanga.
• Roger Trinquier, L’Etat Nouveau. Nouvelles Editions Latines, 1964.
• Roger Trinquier, Modern Warfare: A French View of Counterinsurgency, trans. Daniel Lee (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1964).
• Roger Trinquier, La Bataille pour l’élection du président de la république. L’Indépendant, 1965
• Roger Trinquier, Guerre, subversion, révolution. Paris: Robert Laffont, 1968.
• Roger Trinquier, Les Maquis d’Indochine. Les missions spéciales du service action. Paris: Albatros, 1976.
• Roger Trinquier, Le premier bataillon des Bérets rouges: Indochine 1947-1949. Paris: Plon, 1984.
• Roger Trinquier, La Guerre. Paris: Albin Michel.

External links

• Maurice Lemoine, De la guerre coloniale au terrorisme d’Etat in Le Monde diplomatique novembre 2004, p.32
• Michael McClintock, Instruments of Statecraft. U.S. Guerrilla Warfare, Counterinsurgency and Counterterrorism, 1940 - 1990. http://www.statecraft.org/index.html
• Biography of Trinquier (in French) http://www.salan.asso.fr/Biographies/trinquier.htm
• link page on Trinquier: http://www.factbites.com/topics/Roger-Trinquier