Quebec Liberation Front (FLQ) as an Insurgency

This monograph demonstrates that the FLQ was an insurgency through the verification of four characteristics common to five insurgency definitions. The Canadian government's initiatives and actions simply kept the FLQ insurgency from moving past the proto-insurgency stage. Theorists like Bard E. O'Neill argue that governments hold the advantage while an insurgency remains only in the making. However, O'Neill also states that governments show complacency judging an insurgency at the proto-insurgency stage too small to warrant any immediate action. The Canadian government avoided that road and chose a more proactive approach to the FLQ. The FLQ insurgency failed to grow pass the proto-insurgency stage. Conditions created and actions taken by the government made organizing, self-sustainment, and growing, impossible for the FLQ. As a result, the FLQ insurgency failed. Studying insurgencies at the proto-insurgency level reveals a lot about what an insurgency is and how a government can influence its growth. A study case like the FLQ further highlights how the odds of a government defeating an insurgency become higher, when the insurgency's identification and understanding happen early. However, the government must apply proactive actions and show the willingness to take some risks, including the consideration of an appropriate use of coercive countermeasures, to improve the odds in its favor.