War is War [Archive] - Small Wars Council

Ken White

10-05-2010, 04:26 AM

To some, "war" (and perhaps "armed conflict" - neither defined exactly as I have defined them in two sentences) includes certain basic military principles - whereas warfare (literally, the conduct or journey iinto war) varies over the ages. That is what I glean from Wilf.I agree with Wilf. :D

I also read your two links Michael C.. I believe your intellectual arguments are persuasive. Unfortunately, war tends all to often to discount the intellectual aspect. You provided a Sherman quote. Here are two more:

Every attempt to make war easy and safe will result in humiliation and disaster.

War is cruelty. There is no use trying to reform it. The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over.

And here's one from Thomas Jonathan Jackson:

War means fighting. The business of the soldier is to fight. Armies are not called out to dig trenches, to live in camps, but to find the enemy and strike him; to invade his country, and do him all possible damage in the shortest possible time. This will involve great destruction of life and property while it lasts; but such a war will of necessity be of brief continuance, and so would be an economy of life and property in the end.

That is a historical truth. However, as a more modern General said
If you go to war, to do less than your very best is immoral.

And here's a quote from you:

To be clear, the “war is war” crowd isn’t usually allied on their points. It just happens to be a rhetorical device tons of people use about war. I think your first iteration is what most people mean when they say “war is war.

That was said in reference to this: "Is the statement meant to convey that war is essentially violent and thus death is implyed? (sic)"

Yes. True in my case at least. If you do not want violence, do not start wars, avoid them if at all possible. It isn't really sloppy thinking, it is shorthand, it's purpose is only to remind people that in any war, death and destruction, to include unnecessary and unplanned dollops of both, are BOUND to result. That should never be forgotten. It too often is... :mad:

P.S.

I normally only use the block quote capability to quote the individual(s) to whom I'm responding and use double quote marks for quotes from others, particularly if I have quotes from more than one other. No matter, here, thanks, David.

SJPONeill

10-05-2010, 04:27 AM

Global Scout, hadn't thought of it in terms of nature and character before but like the distinction - could you elaborate/expand on it some more?

Global Scout

10-05-2010, 07:00 AM

There are many who participate in the SWJ discussions more qualified than I to give the "correct" book answer, but in my view and losely paraphrasing Clausewitz the essential nature of war is that it is a large scale duel, where each dualing party uses force/violence to compel the other side to submit to their will.

I think you would find this hard to argue with, this is exactly what is happening in Afghanistan and Iraq, and in many other places in the world today. It is also what happened in the World Wars and any other conflict we choose to examine.

In addition to the dual nature, I think Clausewitz's trinity also falls under the nature of war. It consists of 1. primordial violence, hatred, and enmity, 2. the play of chance and probability, and 3. each opponent is subordinate to a rational policy. In the case of AQ they're subordinate to their interpretation of Islamic doctrine and their political aim of re-establishing the caliphate.

The character of war is the way in which it is waged, whether through terrorism, insurgency, maneuver warfare, nuclear warfare, a bombing campaign (think Kosovo from our view, think something very different from the Serb's view).

In summary, war is war, you can't argue it is a dual where each side uses force to compel the otherside to its will, and I don't think you can argue the trinity aspect that is present in all conflicts.

Every great theorist as allowed for significant differences in the character of war, no general officer would confuse an insurgency with a tank battle. This that the nature of war has changed is misleading and not supported intellectually.

William F. Owen

10-05-2010, 07:15 AM

I agree with Wilf. :D

Funny dat! :)

I use the words to warn folks off disappearing down the dead-end rabbit whole of seeing "new types of war" or assuming there are different kinds of war. There isn't. War is War. Warfare however alters all the time.

There are very many different characters of warfare, but all are essential either a form or blend of regular and irregular.

Bob's World

10-05-2010, 08:53 AM

I too believe that war is war, and that it must be executed in its extremes.

Where I differ from most is that I do not believe that COIN is war, but rather a civil emergency and should be addressed as such; perhaps with equal vigor, but with a very different focus. In COIN one is not defeating some other state to preserve one's own; one is repairing the failures of governance to preserve the populace in the longterm, while protecting them from immediate threats in the near term.

Defeating an opponents military while breaking the will of his populace to continue the fight is victory in war.

Defeating an insurgent organization while breaking the will of ones own populace to make a political challenge through illegal means when legal means have been denied to them is tyranny. Such suppression avoids the enduring problem for some period of time as it fails in large part to address the conditons of insurgency that allowed a violent insurgent movement to arise to begin with; making the rise if a new insurgent challenger inevitable.

So yes. "War is War" But all violence is not war, and certainly approaching COIN as war is a common (and U.S. Doctrine:eek:), but I believe tragic mistake.

So, if COIN is not war, then FID is not war either, as it is the support of another's COIN effort.

Paradoxically perhaps, I believe that Insurgency often rises to the level of war. For the insurgent he must either make the state evolve or make it go away to prevail; while the counterinsurgent can merely address his shortcomings internally to prevail.

So, if insurgency is often war, then Unconventional warfare to support such insurgency can be war as well.

The state has none of the constraints in dealing with the UW actor that he does in dealing with its insurgent populace, so that can be war, which is straight forward when the UW actor is a state, not so straight forward when the UW actor is a non-state as Al Qaeda is for so many states where they are waging UW today.

More important then to "separate the insurgent from the UW actor" (so that one can deal civilly with one, while waging war against the other); than the tired cliché of "separating the insurgent from the populace." This is the largest problem with the current drone campaign in Pakistan; it makes no such separation and wages war in equal parts against both the insurgent and the UW actor as if they were one. (see thread on Conflation I started a couple days ago for more on that).

Dayuhan

10-05-2010, 09:14 AM

the dead-end rabbit whole

As opposed to the open-ended half rabbit?

Sorry, couldn't resist that one...

The utility of any 3-word phrase is obviously going to be limited, but I'd have to say that an occasional reminder that "war is war" is a necessary counterweight to the morbidly obese jargon-laced psuedo-intellectual rambling that has become so pervasive in the modern military discourse... unless of course we propose to beat our antagonists into submission with a super-empowered asymmetric 7G post-positivist heuristic.

I wonder if it would be possible to posit a historical proportion between the number of kilos of equipment a soldier carries into combat and the number of superfluous words used by home-front analysts to describe the nature of that combat...

SteveMetz

10-05-2010, 11:16 AM

In a few weeks the Strategic Studies Institute (http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/)will publish our extended report from our spring conference on the meaning of war. I suggest those interested in this topic take a look at it.

SteveMetz

10-05-2010, 11:19 AM

Tukhachevskii

10-05-2010, 01:27 PM

If I'm not mistaken wasn't the phrase "War is War" originally penned by Colin S Gray? He defiend war and warfare as specific activites or some such. I'll try and find an artile of his as I don't immeidately have the reference to hand(I'm sure it's a Strategic Studies Institute product).

SteveMetz

10-05-2010, 01:30 PM

Colin often makes that point. His SSI monographs are here (http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/people.cfm?authorID=44).

I'm in the "war is war, but not all use of organized violence is war" school.

Rex Brynen

10-05-2010, 01:45 PM

Does it make a difference that the insurgents almost always think of insurgency as war?

SteveMetz

10-05-2010, 01:49 PM

Not to me it doesn't. Defining something as war implies a specific set of actions and permissible responses. I don't want someone else deciding that for my nation. There are probably dozens of organizations in the world today that consider themselves "at war" with the United States. It would be lunacy for us to treat it as such.

Tom Odom

10-05-2010, 01:53 PM

Does it make a difference that the insurgents almost always think of insurgency as war?

Naw we don't let them vote :D

COIN like insurgency is war, especially to those doing the killing or suffering the casualties. Otherwise we do end up in an intellectual rabbit hole

slapout9

10-05-2010, 01:56 PM

What if the fundamental definition of war is wrong or rather only half right? What if we said war is the use of force or fraud to achieve your ends. What if war was viewed as a crime?

SteveMetz

10-05-2010, 01:57 PM

Tom Odom

10-05-2010, 02:00 PM

Disagree Tom (despite the fact that Dan gushed over you when I was in his office a couple of weeks ago). We're talking about something with strategy, policy, and legal implications. We dont define those from the foxhole perspective.

I agree to disagree, Steve, because if you ever try and forget the "foxhole" perspective, your strategy, your policy, and very often your legality go astray. War is not a bloodless exercise; witness the end of "combat operations" in Iraq.

SteveMetz

10-05-2010, 02:06 PM

Not allowing the foxhole perspective to define a policy and strategy issue is not the same as forgetting it. It would be totally unrealistic to say the United States is at war every time a soldier gets shot at.

Bob's World

10-05-2010, 02:09 PM

Disagree Tom (despite the fact that Dan gushed over you when I was in his office a couple of weeks ago). We're talking about something with strategy, policy, and legal implications. We dont define those from the foxhole perspective.

And just as all orgainized violence is not war I would add that everyone helping to deal with an insurgency is not conducting COIN either.

Sadly, confusing other peoples COIN issues for war, and our own assistance to the same for COIN has put a lot of good men in holes indeed, but they weren't rabbit holes.

(But then I also am strongly of the opinion that it is governments who cause insurgency (or at least the conditions of insurgency that others then come in and exploit to their own ends) rather than some malignant internal or external force that comes in and "radicalizes" the populace. Poor Governance is what radicalizes a populace, those malignant forces just take advantage when government lets that happen.)

Eden

10-05-2010, 02:12 PM

I've been thinking lately that what distinguishes "War" from "war" is the alignment between the targets of violence and the objects of the conflict. In conventional wars violence is directed at the warmaking capacity of the enemy regardless of the overall object of the war itself, partly in an effort to insulate civil society from the destructiveness of violence. In less conventional wars, violence is applied directly to the object, and warmaking capacity is often only targeted indirectly.

Examples from opposite ends of the spectrum: The cabinet wars of the eighteenth century, where being placed at a military disadvantage through the loss of a fortress or a battle was often enough reason for one side to give way and settle whatever political, dynastic, or economic dispute led to the military contest; Vietnam, where political opponents of the communists and their supporting populations were targeted directly.

Obviously, because we are speaking of a spectrum here, the examples bleed into each other, and you can always find an exception, but this idea of using violence to directly gain your objectives (rather than indirectly when two militaries clash) seems to me to be a useful analytical tool.

M-A Lagrange

10-05-2010, 02:13 PM

Agree with JMM and wilf: war is war, what changes is warfare :cool:

Then now if war is not war and war cannot be peace then what is war?
Or what is peace so we may assume that war is not that. :D

SteveMetz

10-05-2010, 02:15 PM

My tiny little mind tends to work through metaphors. In this case, I find a biological one useful. There are pathogens floating around all the time. But they are the most successful and do the most damage when the host is weakened by something else.

The American approach to counterinsurgency tends to be bringing the existing infection under control but, because it is very hard and expensive, we seldom eradicate the factors that weakened the host system in the first place. This means that a recurrence of the infection--a "resurgency" (which is something I intend to write about in the future)--is possible or even probable.

Tom Odom

10-05-2010, 02:19 PM

SteveMetz

10-05-2010, 02:27 PM

Again, no one is advocating "forgetting" about the soldier in the foxhole. But being in a state of war has very specific legal, policy, and strategy implications. For instance, it clearly implies that the solution is at least largely military.

It's simply infeasible to inact those whenever anyone is shot at. This would obliterate the distinction between war and not-war.

SteveMetz

10-05-2010, 02:41 PM

If anyone is interested, I discuss some of these issues at length in my forthcoming conference report. It's attached to this post.

slapout9

10-05-2010, 03:05 PM

Being LE minded War is any act of dishonesty that allows you to gain some object or unfair advantage over another person or group of persons. In short it's all about breaking the rules by ANY means, not just force or violence. Trapping yourself into the "thinking box" that it only involves violence usually means you are going to loose.

Tom Odom

10-05-2010, 03:14 PM

Bob's World

10-05-2010, 03:15 PM

Again, Steve, I will agree to disagree. Forgetting that people are getting shot (whether they are soldiers or not) is a recipe for disaster. When you use the term "at war" do you hold to the legalistic terms of a declared war?

Bob,

I will disagree with you as well. The folks who put soldiers and civilians were generally those who did not get that war means killing.

Both of you draw neat lines where none exist. I went through a similar exercise in 1994 when we tried debating genocide versus acts of genocide.

Regards.

Tom

To call COIN "War" is illogical once one appreciates what actually causes insurgency. If one firmly believes that insurgency is caused by the insurgent warring against them, and that by defeating that insurgent they win the insurgency, then yes, COIN is war. But as Dr. Metz points out, this typically just suppresses the effects for some period of time, followed by "resurgency."

When we begin to hold governments accountable for their actions we begin to get in front of the current conditions of insurgency that are being exploited by AQ's UW campaign.

When we stop trying to control outcomes in terms of who or how other states are governed as well, we begin to get in front of those same nationalist insurgents buying into the idea that they need to break the support of the US to their government in order to prevail.

So, the insurgencies being riled up by AQ begin to fade when all of those respective governments realize that they need to get their sh$& all in one sock; and the terrorism levied against the US begins to fade once we stop enabling bad behavior in our allied governments. Currently we are enabling bad behavior to the Nth degree in Afghanistan. We enable it in many other countries in much more subtle ways every day as well.

Some choose to blame Islam, or ideology in general, or evil people who don't like us or any number of bogeymen. I prefer to hold governments to task. But that is just me. I don't think the U.S. should be a victim or a bully either one, but that is current strategy "We are a victim, so we have the right to be a bully." We're better than that. We're smarter than that.

Steve Blair

10-05-2010, 03:26 PM

Personally I think there's a difference between war (the physical act of conflict and killing...Tom's foxhole level) and being at war (which is more of a political/legal position). None of our Indian Wars were declared, and Congress repeatedly refused to allow any sort of recognition (brevets, mainly) for officers involved in those conflicts (at the time the Medal of Honor was restricted to enlisted men...and before anyone argues, look at the award dates for medals given to officers...they are all after 1891 or so). Yet these were clearly wars...low intensity from the POV of the US, but major conflicts from the Native side.

To carry Slap's point out, trade wars provide another example. I also tend to find that the statement "war is war" is often shorthand for intellectual laziness or an unwillingness to examine certain points or areas of discussion. War may indeed be war, but it has shadings and meanings that give it an almost infinite amount of complexity. It may be about killing, but the amount of killing (and those killed) can vary greatly depending on the context and the existence of an "at war" sentiment (or lack thereof). It might also exist in another realm to gain economic advantage, where killing is limited or nonexistent.

Can't say I'm fully in either major "camp" as they have appeared so far in this thread, but I'm probably closer to Tom's position.

Eden

10-05-2010, 04:38 PM

To call COIN "War" is illogical once one appreciates what actually causes insurgency. If one firmly believes that insurgency is caused by the insurgent warring against them, and that by defeating that insurgent they win the insurgency, then yes, COIN is war. But as Dr. Metz points out, this typically just suppresses the effects for some period of time, followed by "resurgency."

But by that measure (i.e., violence settles the issue in dispute once and for all), few armed conflicts would qualify as war.

Global Scout

10-05-2010, 04:59 PM

Posted by Bob,

I too believe that war is war, and that it must be executed in its extremes.

Where I differ from most is that I do not believe that COIN is war, but rather a civil emergency and should be addressed as such; perhaps with equal vigor, but with a very different focus. In COIN one is not defeating some other state to preserve one's own; one is repairing the failures of governance to preserve the populace in the longterm, while protecting them from immediate threats in the near term.

Bob, I understand where you're going with this, but I disagree. If we can agree on the nature of war as an armed dual, I don't even think all the entities need to be States. AQ is a non-state entity with political goals it is attempting to achieve through the use of force. An insurgent is opponent that is using force (it isn't an insurgency otherwise) to over throw the government (or form a separate state). The state is very much under threat of being overthrown by an internal threat in some cases, and attempting to define COIN as something other than war may lead to half efforts resulting in defeat.

Our support to a nation facing an insurgent threat is FID, not COIN, and I agree that FID is not war from our perspective. The nation we're helping can lose, but that doesn't threaten our nation (only our interests). However, the government in Afghanistan is clearly in a state of war fighting for its survival from internal and external threats. The character of the war is unconventional, whichs means using a conventional strategy will probably result in failure. It is largely political and psychological warfare, where violence is mostly messaging instead of taking and holding land, but it is still war, but the character is very different than what our conventional forces have studied.

I think "war is war" is useful for the reason that Dayuhan stated above. Once we recognize that we can develop an appropriate strategy. This type of war is total war, it involves the citizens, not just the belligerents, which is why in COIN the civilian populace is the center of gravity. How you influence that COG depends very much on the variables in each environment.

To win you have to get two things right, your strategy and your tactics. You can have the right strategy, but use the wrong tactics you'll fail. You can do everthing right right tactically, but if you have the wrong strategy you'll fail. If you have the right strategy and use the correct tactics you'll suceed.

Bob's World

10-05-2010, 06:04 PM

The key point is not the presence or absence of violence

The key point is not if one is contested by a state entity or a non-state entity.

The key point in why I don't think it is helpful to consider COIN war (even though I believe that insurgency typically is war for the insurgent); is because COIN is waged against one's own populace. The techniques, tactics and procedures, the very mindset of war are completely counter productive to a government resolving a dispute with an armed rebellion that enjoys a broad base of popular support.

I am looking for just one freakin example? Anyone??

The difference is like the difference between a cop dealing with gang violence vs domestic violence.

The difference is like the difference between your neighbor trying to kick your butt and your son or spouse trying to kick your butt.

Now yes, the majority position is that COIN is war (it even says so in the very first sentence of our COIN manual, so it must be so) and governments have been setting out to crush all who dare oppose them for as long as there have been governments. Bleeding also used to be the cure to all ills and many believed with certainty that the world was flat.

I think Thomas J got it about right when he said: "...that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government and to provide new Guards for their future Security."

Does anyone here believe that the government of Afghanistan today treats the populace not included in the circle of trust of the former Northern Alliance half as well as the American colonists were treated by England?

Does anyone here believe that the average Saudi citizen has under King Abdullah half the opportunity, justice, and respect that the average American colonist had under King George?

Does anyone here think the French had a legitimate right to govern Vietnam or Algeria in the eyes of those populaces?

Does anyone here think that England had a legitimate right to govern over Malaysia? India? Iran? etc? in the eyes of those populaces?

Insurgency is illegal. Insurgents are criminals. That is the law. But as Americans we stand for far more than the mere enforcement of the Rule of Law, we stand for ideals that say when certain conditions of governance exist a right and duty is formed in a populace that trumps the rule of law.

Now, we put that on hold to wage a Cold War and looked the other way in a lot of countries where we justified our actions in the name of Containment and other national interests. That happens in war. But when the war is over you stop compromising your values and get back to normal. The U.S. didn't do that following the end of the Cold War. A whole lot of governments around the world became emboldened by the support of the US and have come to act with impunity toward their own populaces. Many of those places are predominantly Muslim.

Let's get our foreign policy back on track before we set out to get the populaces of others back on track.

Let's put pressure on governments to listen to their people and to govern with a legitimacy that comes from those same people.

Feel free to disagree, I welcome your well-considered arguments to help me understand this better. But we've been drifting off azimuth for about 60 years, and that adds up little by little so that you don't really notice until you realize you aren't where you thought you were. I don't think we're where we think we are. Time to plot a new azimuth and get back on track.

Tom Odom

10-05-2010, 06:31 PM

The key point in why I don't think it is helpful to consider COIN war (even though I believe that insurgency typically is war for the insurgent); is because COIN is waged against one's own populace. The techniques, tactics and procedures, the very mindset of war are completely counter productive to a government resolving a dispute with an armed rebellion that enjoys a broad base of popular support.

Now that is illogical unless you somehow believe that COIN is bloodless.

Name one insurgency that has been "countered" without some use of military force.

You seem bent on equating what I have said with the idea that COIN is purely military. Nothing could be further from the truth.

You also seem intent on believing that our foreign policy should be directed on behavior modification of various governments to match our value system. Good luck with that.

Tom

Bob's World

10-05-2010, 07:19 PM

Now that is illogical unless you somehow believe that COIN is bloodless.

Name one insurgency that has been "countered" without some use of military force.

You seem bent on equating what I have said with the idea that COIN is purely military. Nothing could be further from the truth.

You also seem intent on believing that our foreign policy should be directed on behavior modification of various governments to match our value system. Good luck with that.

Tom

Now Tom, don't put words in my mouth.

No one ever said that when faced with a violent insurgency that it would not require violent reactions, only that such violent reactions are not war because the objectives are different than war because the opponent is your own populace and you're going to have to live with them when its over.

COIN is the business of civil government. Like all emergencies that exceed the control of the civil government the military is brought in as excess capacity to fill that requirement. Last in, First out. Just because the military showed up does not change a civil emergency into war either; though too often when the military shows up the civil government abdicates its responsibilities and the military turns it into war.

The American Civil Rights movement was largely a non-military response with a main effort of addressing the wrongs of government rather than defeating the wronged segment of the society. That was excellent COIN.

The co-opting of a conference to update the articles of Confederation in a young nation sliding into widespread insurgency in the summer of 1787 and re-writing the law of the land to control the damaging effects of raw democracy, but at the same time ensure checks and balances to prevent future abuses of a more powerful central government with a President; rather than simply calling out the Militia in each Colony to suppress the rebellions was also excellent COIN.

It is not the presence of military or the tactic of violence that makes war war. It is the purpose and nature of the conflict. The purpose and nature of COIN is that of civil emergency, and to address it as war typically makes it worse.

I'm not sure why so many are so hard-set that COIN must be war. I'm even more baffled why so many are so hard-set that when we assist a foreign nation with their COIN that we must be doing COIN as well and fighting their war as well. There is no upside from such an approach. It creates inappropriate perspectives and it also creates avoidable strategic risk for our nation.

What was the upside of taking over the role of COIN for the (illegitimate) government of South Vietnam and fighting their war for them?

What is the upside of taking over the role of COIN for the (equally illegitimate) government of Afghanistan and fighting their war for them?

What would the downside have been to the US's strategic interests if we would have not taken such a course in South Vietnam? We knew then as well as we know now that China was never going to suddenly become great friends with a unified Vietnam, regardless of what form of government they employed to wage their campaign to throw off unwanted Western influence.

What would the downside be to having Afghans decide what the government of Afghanistan should be? Does anyone really believe that even if the Taliban did ultimately prevail there that they would be able to revert to their old ways of dark age Islam? Does anyone really believe that AQ trainees would be swinging on the monkey bars at training camps again, unmolested by Western CT capabilities?

This is one of many problems with making something "war." War is like baseball, you keep playing until someone "wins" and someone "loses."

What good comes from a Government making their populace "lose"? No one wins in that scenario.

War is indeed politics. So is insurgency. But COIN is Governance and that is a very different thing indeed.

reed11b

10-05-2010, 10:10 PM

Your Post

I am not sure if I agree with you, but you have succeeded in causing me to pause and reassess my opinion.
Reed

Tom Odom

10-05-2010, 10:58 PM

Now Tom, don't put words in my mouth.

No one ever said that when faced with a violent insurgency that it would not require violent reactions, only that such violent reactions are not war because the objectives are different than war because the opponent is your own populace and you're going to have to live with them when its over.

COIN is the business of civil government. Like all emergencies that exceed the control of the civil government the military is brought in as excess capacity to fill that requirement. Last in, First out. Just because the military showed up does not change a civil emergency into war either; though too often when the military shows up the civil government abdicates its responsibilities and the military turns it into war.

The American Civil Rights movement was largely a non-military response with a main effort of addressing the wrongs of government rather than defeating the wronged segment of the society. That was excellent COIN.

The co-opting of a conference to update the articles of Confederation in a young nation sliding into widespread insurgency in the summer of 1787 and re-writing the law of the land to control the damaging effects of raw democracy, but at the same time ensure checks and balances to prevent future abuses of a more powerful central government with a President; rather than simply calling out the Militia in each Colony to suppress the rebellions was also excellent COIN.

It is not the presence of military or the tactic of violence that makes war war. It is the purpose and nature of the conflict. The purpose and nature of COIN is that of civil emergency, and to address it as war typically makes it worse.

I'm not sure why so many are so hard-set that COIN must be war. I'm even more baffled why so many are so hard-set that when we assist a foreign nation with their COIN that we must be doing COIN as well and fighting their war as well. There is no upside from such an approach. It creates inappropriate perspectives and it also creates avoidable strategic risk for our nation.

What was the upside of taking over the role of COIN for the (illegitimate) government of South Vietnam and fighting their war for them?

What is the upside of taking over the role of COIN for the (equally illegitimate) government of Afghanistan and fighting their war for them?

What would the downside have been to the US's strategic interests if we would have not taken such a course in South Vietnam? We knew then as well as we know now that China was never going to suddenly become great friends with a unified Vietnam, regardless of what form of government they employed to wage their campaign to throw off unwanted Western influence.

What would the downside be to having Afghans decide what the government of Afghanistan should be? Does anyone really believe that even if the Taliban did ultimately prevail there that they would be able to revert to their old ways of dark age Islam? Does anyone really believe that AQ trainees would be swinging on the monkey bars at training camps again, unmolested by Western CT capabilities?

This is one of many problems with making something "war." War is like baseball, you keep playing until someone "wins" and someone "loses."

What good comes from a Government making their populace "lose"? No one wins in that scenario.

War is indeed politics. So is insurgency. But COIN is Governance and that is a very different thing indeed.

An eloquent response but again one that dances past the issues and merely confuses the issues.

As for putting words in your mouth, Bob, I did nothing of the sort. There is no need to. You seem to enjoy asking yourself rhetorical questions and answering them. In the end, I will hold my position and you can have yours.

If you care to understand where mine comes from, pause a moment and grasp that absent an understanding that COIN is war, one is skipping down the primrose path. Enjoy the trip. I will stay where I am at, thank you.

Regards

Tom

slapout9

10-05-2010, 11:06 PM

IMO-War is competition and Peace is cooperation.....the difference between the two is the rules and laws, and whenever one side thinks the other side is manipulating the rules, things go from cooperation to competition. We need to expand the definition of War to match up with the reality of anything and anybody and any situation can be weaponized!

Global Scout

10-05-2010, 11:54 PM

All quotes are from Bob,

No one ever said that when faced with a violent insurgency that it would not require violent reactions, only that such violent reactions are not war because the objectives are different than war because the opponent is your own populace and you're going to have to live with them when its over.

You’re trying to redefine war as strictly an activity between States which in my view is very close minded and worse doesn’t conform to reality. Al Qaeda is an external non-state entity that has declared war on much of the world. The fact that they’re partnering with various surrogates in those countries to conduct their own version of through, by and with operations does not change the equation, it is still war.

The essential nature of war is that it is a large scale duel, where each dualing party uses force/violence to compel the other side to submit to their will, and each opponent is subordinate to a rational policy (political or other higher objectives)

Just because the military showed up does not change a civil emergency into war either; though too often when the military shows up the civil government abdicates its responsibilities and the military turns it into war.

Prior to the military getting involved it was a dual between two armed and organized opponents attempting to compel their will through the use of force (and other means, but the use of violence is what make it an insurgency).

The American Civil Rights movement was largely a non-military response with a main effort of addressing the wrongs of government rather than defeating the wronged segment of the society. That was excellent COIN.

The American Civil Rights movement was NOT an insurgency, it was a social movement. True it could have escalated to an insurgency if preventative measures were not taken, but prevention is not COIN, it is prevention and social movement is not an insurgeny. I don’t think you’ll find much disagreement that prevention is always desired over war, but it not always possible.

It is not the presence of military or the tactic of violence that makes war war. It is the purpose and nature of the conflict. The purpose and nature of COIN is that of civil emergency, and to address it as war typically makes it worse.

Violence is clearly one aspect that makes it a war, if there is no violence then it is something other than war.

This appears to be one of the great myths of the war; however, in fact most Vietnamese supported their government. The insurgents were NOT successful, they didn’t throw out the government in the end; conventional N. Vietnamese forces did. It would be helpful if people would get their history straight when using Vietnam as example, and not simply mimic the uninformed howls of the far left protesters.

What is the upside of taking over the role of COIN for the (equally illegitimate) government of Afghanistan and fighting their war for them?

Don’t see an upside at this time, but the missteps that led us from a punitive operation to destroy AQ in response to 9/11 to nation building are visible for all to see, and understandable when you leap without thinking it through first.

What would the downside be to having Afghans decide what the government of Afghanistan should be? Does anyone really believe that even if the Taliban did ultimately prevail there that they would be able to revert to their old ways of dark age Islam? Does anyone really believe that AQ trainees would be swinging on the monkey bars at training camps again, unmolested by Western CT capabilities?

If the Taliban were allowed to return within the first two to three years of our invasion there was no reason they wouldn’t return to their old ways; however, after fighting us for years now and learning much about how to compete for populace they probably wouldn’t revert to their original form of completely intolerant governance.

War is indeed politics. So is insurgency. But COIN is Governance and that is a very different thing indeed.

The character of the war is very different, so the strategy and tactics used to wage it must be different, but it is still warfare.

Dayuhan

10-06-2010, 12:07 AM

(But then I also am strongly of the opinion that it is governments who cause insurgency (or at least the conditions of insurgency that others then come in and exploit to their own ends) rather than some malignant internal or external force that comes in and "radicalizes" the populace. Poor Governance is what radicalizes a populace, those malignant forces just take advantage when government lets that happen.)

In many cases this is true. In some cases it is not, and the existence of those exceptions is very relevant to our current situation.

We're now fighting in conflicts that we choose to call "insurgencies" in Iraq and Afghanistan. To the extent that we are trying to counter insurgency, we are thus involved in COIN, though we may choose to call it FID if it suits our purposes to do so. In both cases, the conflict existed before the government existed, so in both cases it's hard to say the "insurgency" was caused by the government. We could of course claim that once a government existed it was then the responsibility of that government to generate governance good enough to magically resolve these conflicts, but that is an extremely unrealistic expectation.

We need to face reality, and the reality is that these "insurgencies" do not exist because of the governments they are fighting. They exist because we chose to remove governments we didn't like and replace them with governments that we like. This may mean by your definition that these conflicts are not actually insurgency, but that is neither here not there: whatever we call these conflicts, we caused them.

The nice thing about that realization is that if our choices result in unfavorable outcomes, we can make different choices in the future. We are in no way condemned to a future of COIN: we may be stuck in the fights we're in now, but we won't be there forever and there is absolutely nothing requiring us to make similar choices in the future. The COIN community, which is heavily invested in the assumption that COIN is an unavoidable feature of our future, may not want to face up to this, but it is nonetheless true. If we don't want COIN to be our future, all we have to do is stop creating insurgencies.

Certainly there are many insurgencies on the planet that we did not create, but these are for the most part not our problem, and none of them require anything beyond a limited FID presence on our part. The only "insurgencies" existing where we are actually doing the fighting are the ones we created.

A whole lot of governments around the world became emboldened by the support of the US and have come to act with impunity toward their own populaces. Many of those places are predominantly Muslim.

I think you're imposing a causative relationship here that is not really supportable. The way that governments relate to their populaces in these countries is not a consequence of US support, it's just the way it's always been in that part of the world. I think you vastly overestimate the extent of our support and the degree to which it has enabled the status quo.

In any event these countries are not really a problem for us, since AQ's attempts to generate insurgency in these environments have generally been abject failures. AQ flourishes when they fight foreign intervention that can be pitched as infidel aggression against the lands of Islam. They draw their support from the "expel the infidel from the land of the faithful" narrative. When they oppose Muslim governments they generally fail. That's something we need to remember.

jmm99

10-06-2010, 12:53 AM

This post got clobbered - hitting submit by accident. See two posts down.

Cheers

Mike

Bob's World

10-06-2010, 12:56 AM

global scout-

I stand by all of the positions I put up, and frankly none of your counters disprove any, they just show that you disagree. That's fine, you're entitled to your beliefs. But to be clear, I am not trying to "redefine war" I am simply trying to point out that COIN does not actually fit within the context of war; and that forcing it into that context for superficial reasons of violence, armed competitors, etc but ignoring the critical difference of the purpose of COIN and the relationship of the parties leads to long, inefficient, ineffective engagements, that may well suppress the symptoms of an insurgency, only to flash back up once those suppressive efforts let up.

I think we see insurgency more clearly when we see it as a condition that comes to exist in a populace that has come to see (in the words of our forefathers) their government as despotic. It is that condition that must be resolved to resolve the insurgency, and the causation is in the actions of the government and it is assessed in the perceptions of populace. Fact has little to do with such perceptions (Dayuhan likes to argue facts as he sees them, I merely point out that how others perceive us is often very different and it is those perceptions that drive this kind of violence, not fact). Quite often the government sees the insurgent populaces perceptions as irrational. That may be true, but it is also moot.

How the populace decides to act out when these conditions of insurgency exist varies based on culture, what leader steps up, outside UW efforts, etc. It may be violent or it may be non-violent. All of that is tactics. You have to deal with the tactics, but you have to solve the problem, and the problem is a government that has lost its way with some segment of the populace it is responsible for. If the conditions of insurgency are not addressed, if the COIN force is distracted by the tactics, if the COIN force becomes too focused on defeating the insurgent, if he COIN force thinks it is fighting a war, it detracts from the real mission. The real mission is to address the conditions of insurgency, and that requires a government to understand what the concerns of the populace are and then working to address them. The US Civil Rights movement is every bit as much an insurgency as the Taliban in Afghanistan is. They just chose different tactics. The government recognized it was wrong and made concessions it did not have to make. Such is not appeasement, such is government doing its job. We need to be focused on making GIROA do its job. If we're not willing to do that we need to go home.

Tom says I hold others to American values when I cite the Declaration of Independence. No, I hold OURSELVES to American values when I cite the Declaration of Independence. We've set that document aside in many ways, written it off as outdated now that we find the shoe on the other foot. I think we would do well to go back to our roots and hold ourselves to our own values.

The National Security Strategy proclaims that US values are "universal values." I disagree strongly. I think the principles in our founding documents may be fairly universal, but believe that a value is a principle with a judgment applied to it, and values change within cultures over time and are certainly different between cultures. A great example of this is the principle that "all men are created equal." I agree with that principle, but I also understand that Americans valued it very differently in 1776 than they do today, and that similarly other cultures we engage with around the world today will value it differently than we do today. We need to stand on our principles, we need to hold ourselves to our stated values, but we need to withhold judgment of others.

Dayuhan says we invaded Afghanistan and started the insurgency there. No. We conducted UW to assist the Northern Alliance insurgency to prevail. The current insurgency is because we then set about making a new, illegitimate government out of the Northern Alliance, and enabling their bad behavior by protecting them from the segment of their populace that they chose to exclude from participation in opportunity and governance. There was an insurgency when we got there, there is an insurgency now, we just changed the roles. If we shifted our focus to forcing GIROA to evolve rather than enabling them to stay the same we would get on a faster track to helping stabilize the country.

jmm99

10-06-2010, 01:19 AM

Clearly, the existence of "war" and "armed conflict" must be determined for legal purposes (triggering of Conventions and various statutes) and for many derivative purposes (e.g., ROEs, RUFs, etc.).

The question is: for what purposes, other than legal and legal derivatives, do we need to define war (armed conflict); and how do those definitions differ from the legal construct ?

This question is generated by Steve Metz's Conference Brief (post on p.2).

For legal purposes in the US, the existence of "war" and "armed conflict" can be determined easily if we have either a formal declaration of war or an AUMF. Some uncertainly can exist if Congress has not yet acted and the Executive is acting under interim CinC authority. See below under line.

Except for legal definitions and practices, this and other discussions here about "war" seem to go around in circles. Discussions of "warfare", however, seem to be much more focused, even though they may be marked by intense disageements as to strategy, tactics, etc.

--------------------------
Declarations of War & AUMFs

Formal declarations of war were going out of style when the Constitution was drafted. James Kent (a noted NY judge, as well as a scholar), in Kent's Commentaries (http://www.constitution.org/jk/jk_000.htm) from 1826, made it perfectly clear (http://www.constitution.org/jk/jk_003.htm) that the Constitution did not require a formal declaration of war; but it did require a joint act of Congress:

LECTURE III. OF THE DECLARATION, AND OTHER ABLY MEASURES OF A STATE OF WAR.
....
2. Declaration of War.
....
But though a solemn declaration, or previous notice to the enemy, be now laid aside, it is essential that some formal public act, proceeding directly from the competent source, should announce to the people at home their new relations and duties growing out of a state of war, and which should equally apprise neutral nations of the fact, to enable them to conform their conduct to the rights belonging to the new state of things. War, says Vattel, is at present published and declared by manifestoes. Such an official act operates from its date to legalize all hostile acts, in like manner as a treaty of peace operates from its date to annul them. As war cannot lawfully be commenced on the part of the United States without an act of Congress, such an act is, of course, a formal official notice to all the world, and equivalent to the most solemn declaration.

Thus, there must be at least an AUMF act by Congress, which may be short of a formal declaration of war.

Kent illustrates that by examples from the times before and after the Constitution was adopted (footnotes omitted below - see full text at link above for context):

Since the time of Bynkershoek, it has become settled by the practice of Europe that war may lawfully exist by a declaration which is unilateral only, or without a declaration on either side. It may begin with mutual hostilities. After the peace of Versailles, in 1763, formal declarations of war of any kind seem to have been discontinued, and all the necessary and legitimate consequences of war flow at once from a state of public hostilities, duly recognized and explicitly announced by a domestic manifesto or state paper.

In the war between England and France, in 1T78, the first public act on the part of the English government was recalling its minister; and that single act was considered by France as a breach of the peace between the two countries. There was no other declaration of war, though each government afterwards published a manifesto in vindication of its claims and conduct. The same thing may be said of the war which broke out in 1793, and again in 1803; and, indeed, in the war of 1756, though a solemn and formal declaration of war, in the ancient style, was made in June, 1756, vigorous hostilities had been carried on between England and France for a year preceding.

In the war declared by the United States against England, in 1812, hostilities were immediately commenced on our part as soon as the act of Congress was passed, without waiting to communicate to the English government any notice of our intentions.

Formal declarations of war were somewhat revived by the Hague Conventions; but again fell into disuse after WWII.

Drawing the "Armed Conflict" Line

Some problems exist in the legal arena where the President acts unilaterally. It illustrates an instance from Kosovo where the lawyer-politicians at the "highest levels" did not measure their statements according to the legal norm.

From CLAMO's, LL Kosovo (pp. 61-62 pdf) (link here (http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showpost.php?p=107404&postcount=83)):

Both prior to and during the early days of the air campaign, disagreement existed within U.S. and NATO political and legal circles over whether or not LOAC applied to Operation Allied Force.[5] Because LOAC applies to international armed conflicts,[6] the precise legal issue was whether Operation Allied Force constituted an international armed conflict. It also seems apparent that political concerns entered the calculation.[7]

The debate proved more than academic when Yugoslav forces captured three U.S. soldiers conducting a security patrol along the border between the FRY and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) on 31 March 1999, one week after NATO forces had dropped the first bombs of Allied Force.[8] At issue was the soldiers' legal status: were they prisoners of war entitled to full Geneva Convention[9] protections (as would be the case if LOAC applied); were they "detainees" entitled to some lesser status;[10] were they common criminals under host nation law; or were they something else?

The immediate U.S. political response was that the soldiers had been "illegally abducted."[11] This position quickly evolved into a curious amalgam of prisoner of war language mixed in with demands for immediate return of the soldiers (although prisoner of war status affords protections under international law, it also allows the detaining power to hold the prisoner until the end of the conflict).[12]

The ultimate U.S. position was that LOAC applied to Operation Allied Force and, accordingly, that the soldiers were prisoners of war.[13] However, by not presenting an early, united front on the status of the captured soldiers, equivocation within U.S. policy channels potentially placed the soldiers in harm's way. For example, the Serbs might have agreed with early U.S. statements that made no mention of prisoner of war status, thereby concluded that the soldiers did not have combatant immunity, and then tried the soldiers for domestic crimes.[14]

5. [JMM: very long footnote on jus ad bellum omitted; cited in note 5 and below, Major Geoffrey S. Corn & Major Michael L. Smidt, "To Be or Not to Be, That is the Question:" Contemporary Military Operations and the Status of Captured Personnel, ARMY LAW., June 1999, p.1 et seq.]

6 Common Article 2 of the Four Geneva Conventions of 1949 states that "the present Convention shall apply to all cases of declared war or of any other armed conflict which may arise between two or more of the High Contracting Parties." Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armed Forces in the Field, Aug. 12, 1949, art. 2-3; Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of Wounded, Sick, and Shipwrecked Members at Sea, Aug. 12, 1949, art. 2-3; Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, Aug. 12, 1949, art. 2-3; Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Civilian Persons in Time of War, Aug. 12, 1949, art. 2-3.

7 See Kosovo AAR, supra note 5, at 257, 261.

8 For a detailed discussion of this incident and an analysis of the status of captured personnel in modern military operations, see Corn & Smidt, supra note 5, at 1.

9 Specifically, the Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, supra note 6.

10 The initial NATO guidance was that "detainee" would be the appropriate term for a captured member of NATO forces. See Kosovo AAR [CLAMO, Kosovo After Action Review Conference (12-14 June 2000); Transcript, note 5 of LL Kosovo] at 265.

11 The phrase was used by both President Clinton and Secretary of Defense Cohen. See Guy Dinmore & Joan Biskupic, Yugoslavia Opens Case Against 3 American Soldiers, WASH. POST, Apr. 3, 1999, at A11.

12 Department of State Spokesman James Rubin, at a press briefing held the day after the soldiers' capture, used a confusing mixture of terms, asserting that the soldiers were at once prisoners of war entitled to Geneva protections and "illegal detainees" who should be immediately released. James P. Rubin, U.S. Dep't of State Daily Press Briefing (Apr. 1, 1999).

13 On the same day that Mr. Rubin made his confusing comments, Department of Defense Spokesman Kenneth Bacon articulated what soon became the official U.S. government position: "We consider them to be [prisoners of war]. . . . By international law the Geneva Convention applies to all periods of hostilities . . . . [T]he government has decided that the Geneva Convention applies." Kenneth H. Bacon, Off. of the Ass't Sec'y of Defense (Public Affairs), Dep't of Defense News Briefing (Apr. 1, 1999). Interestingly, despite the conclusion that the soldiers were prisoners of war and thus could be kept until repatriated at the end of the conflict, the Reverend Jesse Jackson was widely credited with securing the soldiers' 2 May 1999 release as a result of the private religious delegation that he led to Serbia. ....

14 See Corn & Smidt, supra note 5, at 14-18.

An educational trip into why politicians should often shut up.

Regards

Mike

slapout9

10-06-2010, 03:22 AM

The question is: for what purposes, other than legal and legal derivatives, do we need to define war (armed conflict); and how do those definitions differ from the legal construct ?

Mike

So that we can recognize when we need to change the rules/laws in order to survive. Especially when an attack that threatens are very survival as a nation may not have anything to do with a kinetic attack. Like an Oil Embargo which is/was the Moral equivalent of War.

jmm99

10-06-2010, 04:00 AM

but again the purpose you state ("need to change the rules/laws in order to survive") deals with legal and legal derivatives. So, we have rules and laws dealing with embargo and blockade, where the existence of "war (armed conflict)" in a legal sense is determinative of whether we apply Laws of War or Rule of Law.

What I was trying to get at is whether there are definitions for the existence of war which not dependent on the legal rules and which exist for independent purposes.

Regards

Mike

William F. Owen

10-06-2010, 07:26 AM

a.) - Nice to the see the re-emergence of a high standard of discussion/debate.

b.) Searching my soul, I have come to realise that I do not really ever use the term "War" except in a theoretical form. Bridging the gap between necessary theory and practice is my schtick, but I find almost no "practical" use for the term "War." - other than to acknowledge that there is a human activity which seems to have an unchanging nature but a widely varied character.

c.) Thus there is regular and irregular Warfare, not regular and irregular "War."

Make sense? Help any?

SJPONeill

10-06-2010, 08:49 AM

The key point in why I don't think it is helpful to consider COIN war (even though I believe that insurgency typically is war for the insurgent); is because COIN is waged against one's own populace. The techniques, tactics and procedures, the very mindset of war are completely counter productive to a government resolving a dispute with an armed rebellion that enjoys a broad base of popular support.

I don't that one flies...an insurgency may generally be conducted against one's one populace but COUNTER-insurgency is often (more often than not?) conducted by a foreign force agaisnt a population e.g. France in Algerie and Indo-Chine, England in the US, the US et al in Vietnam, NATO in AFG, the Commonwealth in Malaya...

Also a broad popular base of support may not necessarily exist in an insurgency, often the insurgent will NOT be representative of the broader population e.g. the CT in Malaya, Taliban in AFG, AQ in Iraq, Republicans in Northern Ireland, militia in Timor Leste, Mau Mau in Kenya, Red Brigade?Baaader-Meinhof etc in Europe (I don't think they actually count but they probably thought they did)...

SJPONeill

10-06-2010, 08:52 AM

Bob's World

10-06-2010, 10:55 AM

I don't that one flies...an insurgency may generally be conducted against one's one populace but COUNTER-insurgency is often (more often than not?) conducted by a foreign force against a population e.g. France in Algerie and Indo-Chine, England in the US, the US et al in Vietnam, NATO in AFG, the Commonwealth in Malaya...

Also a broad popular base of support may not necessarily exist in an insurgency, often the insurgent will NOT be representative of the broader population e.g. the CT in Malaya, Taliban in AFG, AQ in Iraq, Republicans in Northern Ireland, militia in Timor Leste, Mau Mau in Kenya, Red Brigade?Baaader-Meinhof etc in Europe (I don't think they actually count but they probably thought they did)...

If it is something "waged against ones own populace": This sounds like you are describing the acts of a foreign body coming in to engage one's populace and stir it to insurgency? this is unconventional warfare.

Unconventional Warfare (UW): Efforts of any state or non-state actor to incite, lead, or facilitate insurgency among any populace of which they are not a member. UW is typically used to serve organizational interests within some populace or region illegally through a segment of its populace when unable to achieve the same ends legally through the governance of the same. UW can also be employed to wage a form of surrogate warfare to create difficulties for an opponent who currently enjoys a legal relationship with the governance of the affected populace or region. Recent examples of UW are Pakistan with the Taliban in Afghanistan; al Qaeda with nationalist insurgent groups across Northern Africa, the Middle East and South Asia; and the U.S. with the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan.

It is an operation "conducted by a foreign force against a population" as in the examples you describe, certainly that is commonly called COIN, but in reality it is FID, as the roles, missions, status, objectives, etc are very different between the HN governance and some intervening foreign body. The HN governance is looking for dominion over the people to serve them. The intervening foreign body is looking for dominion over the HN government to serve its own interests. When these very different things get lumped under one title and merged together, bad things happen.

Counterinsurgency (COIN): Efforts by any governing body to prevent, mitigate or resolve conditions of insurgency within any significant segment of the society they govern. The primary focus of COIN is on efforts to understand and address critical perceptions of poor governance. If such conditions of insurgency are allowed to grow unchecked, organizations will grow within the populace to assert illegal challenges to the government. At such point, preemptive COIN has failed creating a civil emergency that may require military assistance or even external aid in the form of Foreign Internal Defense to allow the reestablishment of good governance and the mitigation of the conditions of insurgency back to benign levels. External challengers to the state will also exploit the conditions of insurgency through UW. When it occurs it creates the need for a broader, more comprehensive CUW campaign by the governing body.

And lastly, as I indicated earlier, I think it is best to think of insurgency not as some illegal violent challenger to the government that must be defeated, but rather as a condition that comes to exist within a populace that makes it vulnerable to the rise of such groups. Consider:

Conditions of Insurgency: A state of mind. The conditions of insurgency arguably exist to some degree within every populace. In most cases such conditions are benign in that they are not strong enough to support the rise of a significant insurgent organization, even if manipulated by outside actors conducting UW or by ideological themes designed for this audience. As perceptions of poor governance increase so does the degree of the conditions of insurgency. Left unchecked these conditions are apt to be exploited by internal and/or external parties for purposes of their own that may or may not have the welfare of the affected populace in mind. Conditions of insurgency are caused by the government and assessed through the perspective of the populace.

As to your short list of examples. I would argue that conditions of insurgency existed in all.

"France in Algerie and Indo-Chine, England in the US, the US et al in Vietnam, NATO in AFG, the Commonwealth in Malaya..."

- All of these are classically thought of as "COIN", yet in fact none of these, as you point out, were the HN government. These are all examples of FID.

"CT in Malaya, Taliban in AFG, AQ in Iraq, Republicans in Northern Ireland, militia in Timor Leste, Mau Mau in Kenya, Red Brigade?Baaader-Meinhof etc in Europe "

This is a bit of mixed bag.

-CT in Malaya: Not sure who the "CT" are/were. The MNLA were citizens of Malaysia of ethnic Chinese decent, and had broad support within the that populace base. This was a resistance insurgency against British Colonialism, with the primary causal factor to the Conditions of Insurgency being the Illegitimacy of the British and the governing structures they established to govern. I suspect that with the Japanese Army running the British colonials off, and then with the subsequent defeat of the Japanese, the populace got a whiff of hope for independence. Once the liberating force turned back into a colonial force the conditions of insurgency likely spiked considerably. This was true with most of the genre of post-WWII insurgencies. The end of that war was a catalyst of hope and opportunity. When colonial powers moved back in to reestablish control, insurgencies were inevitable. Communist ideology was merely the convenient tool to tap into and leverage the success and TTPs that Mao had recently employed. It worked for those populaces, in that time, and that place, nothing more.

Taliban in AFG: Insurgents. Even those that come from Pakistan, because as was the case in Vietnam, the border drawn by Westerners means little to how the local populace see themselves. These borders serve more to cause us to confuse roles, as we take them so seriously even when the locals do not.

AQ in Iraq: UW. AQ went to Iraq to wage UW to still up the Sunni insurgency. They also saw it as an opportunity to strike a blow for their primary purpose of reducing Western influence over the Middle East, so they developed their own group of foreign fighters and joined the fray. They were still a UW force. Any Iraqi insurgents who called themselves AQ were still insurgents. It does not matter what T-shirt you wear, or what tattoo you put on your arm. These roles are cast by where you come from and what your purpose is.

Republicans in Northern Ireland: Insurgents. A revolutionary nationalist movement to remove the illegitimate (in the eyes of the populace...) British government

militia in Timor Leste: Not super familiar, if they were locals they were insurgents.

Mau Mau in Kenya: Insurgents.

It is important to remember that no populace is a monolith. Conditions of Poor Governance radiate out from the government, it is how they are received by these diverse pockets of the populace that creates a mosaic of levels of conditions of insurgency across any country. It is only when it reaches a dangerous level within one or more of these pockets of populace that groups will begin to organize to challenge the government. Typically they try legal means first, and then are forced to resort to illegal means. At this point they have a broad choice of tactics from non-violent to violent; they also attract or seek the attention of foreign allies who either already have a grudge themselves with the government they are rising up to challenge, or that merely see an opportunity to expand their own agenda or establish interests where they currently have none on the backs of the insurgency.

Dayuhan

10-06-2010, 11:41 AM

Dayuhan says we invaded Afghanistan and started the insurgency there. No. We conducted UW to assist the Northern Alliance insurgency to prevail.

What I actually said was this:

We need to face reality, and the reality is that these "insurgencies" do not exist because of the governments they are fighting. They exist because we chose to remove governments we didn't like and replace them with governments that we like.

Whether we removed the government we didn't like through UW or through invasion is really quite irrelevant. What matter is that we removed a government an installed one that was shaped and designed by us to suit our purposes. That government now faces an insurgency, and we are deluding ourselves if we pretend that today's insurgent/government conflict is not a consequence of our intervention. If we hadn't intervened there would still be conflict, but the government that exists today would not exist and the conflict would be fundamentally different: we wouldn't be in it and the Northern Alliance would not have prevailed.

That realization is important because it underscore the reality that we do not necessarily have to be involved in insurgencies, or in COIN. We are involved now because of our choices, choices that were in no way necessary. If we do not wish to be so involved in the future, we can make different choices. The COIN role is not something thrust on us by circumstances beyond our control. We chose it.

If we shifted our focus to forcing GIROA to evolve rather than enabling them to stay the same we would get on a faster track to helping stabilize the country.

One could argue that the belief in our capacity to force other governments to evolve is what got us into today's mess in the first place. I'm not at all convinced that we can, or that we should try. The evolution of other people's governments is generally not our business.

slapout9

10-06-2010, 01:00 PM

slapout9

10-06-2010, 01:05 PM

b.) Searching my soul, I have come to realise that I do not really ever use the term "War" except in a theoretical form. Bridging the gap between necessary theory and practice is my schtick, but I find almost no "practical" use for the term "War." - other than to acknowledge that there is a human activity which seems to have an unchanging nature but a widely varied character.

Might be on to something there!

Bob's World

10-06-2010, 01:33 PM

I guess to nutshell my ramblings,

A. What one calls a problem should suggest a category of solution to that problem.

B. War is war in that wars suggest (with many variants) a category of solution to the problem; I.e. Warfare.

C. COIN does not fit with the category of war as the category of solution for a government faced with a COIN mission fits more appropriately under Civil Emergency.

D. The majority of the conflicts we are dealing with now are some mix of UW and Insurgency, COIN and FID. Our tendency to ignore fine points of distinction between roles, to focus on tactics such at Terrorism or CT, and to lump all under a broad title of WAR is counter productive to our ends.

Bob's World

10-06-2010, 02:19 PM

What I actually said was this:

Whether we removed the government we didn't like through UW or through invasion is really quite irrelevant. What matter is that we removed a government an installed one that was shaped and designed by us to suit our purposes. That government now faces an insurgency, and we are deluding ourselves if we pretend that today's insurgent/government conflict is not a consequence of our intervention. If we hadn't intervened there would still be conflict, but the government that exists today would not exist and the conflict would be fundamentally different: we wouldn't be in it and the Northern Alliance would not have prevailed.

That realization is important because it underscore the reality that we do not necessarily have to be involved in insurgencies, or in COIN. We are involved now because of our choices, choices that were in no way necessary. If we do not wish to be so involved in the future, we can make different choices. The COIN role is not something thrust on us by circumstances beyond our control. We chose it.

One could argue that the belief in our capacity to force other governments to evolve is what got us into today's mess in the first place. I'm not at all convinced that we can, or that we should try. The evolution of other people's governments is generally not our business.

Actually there is a huge difference between invasion and UW. With invasion one is unlikely to have much legitimate local force they are supporting and the invader is also clearly the lead; with UW one has greater legitmacy, and that legitmate force is the lead. (legitimacy comes from the populace, not some legal status. There can only be one official government, but there may be several legitimate ones that may or may not be official). The reason we got got into the current fix we are in is because we wanted to use Afghanistan as a base of operations to continure our pursuit of AQ, so we stayed, manipulated the form, nature, and leadership of the government, then commited ourselves to keeping it in power. Those were choices, and bad ones.

We also choose where we believe we have national interests that require a certain degree of access or influence to manage. We have gotten into a (bad) habit of manipulating governments so that we have a friendly government in power, and overlooking how in many cases those relationships are distancing those same governments from their own populaces, enabling them to trim civil rights and act with impunity. We still have places where we have national interests to service that require access or influence. Instead of sustaining poor governance in power we are better served in "forcing" (coercing, influencing, threating to take our ball and go home, theatening to support their insurgent populace rather than them if they persist in their oppressive ways, etc. It is a range of options. Giving those governments a choice. Basically saying "we won't save you from your own populace, and as we have vital interests here to service we will work with whoever is in power to do so. If you want that to be you, clean up your act.") I think this is far more appropriate in today's environment than to continue sustaining "friendly dictators" or executing regime change operations and taking over management of an already insurgent populace.

I think we actually see things very simiarly, but just from different perspectives.

jmm99

10-06-2010, 04:00 PM

from Wilf

a.) - Nice to the see the re-emergence of a high standard of discussion/debate.

b.) Searching my soul, I have come to realise that I do not really ever use the term "War" except in a theoretical form. Bridging the gap between necessary theory and practice is my schtick, but I find almost no "practical" use for the term "War." - other than to acknowledge that there is a human activity which seems to have an unchanging nature but a widely varied character.

c.) Thus there is regular and irregular Warfare, not regular and irregular "War."

I didn't want to search my soul (for good reasons), but I suspect that the legal side may not have a real good definition of "war" or "armed conflict" in the abstract. I'll look and find out, sirs. :D Our laws and rules definitely do deal with "warfare".

-----------------------

from Slap
I say yes. The Moral level of war is the first question(s) to be defined. What makes it right or wrong to go to War, because warfare usually comes down to which rules/laws will you break in order to win.

Well stated. I'm no expert on Just War theories (which I see more as Moral Theology than law) or on other philosophical systems dealing with war. Their definitions and "rules" could be quite different from what we accept as "law".

Regards

Mike

jmm99

10-06-2010, 06:51 PM

The oldest definition of "war" in the ICRC Treaties and Documents (http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/INTRO?OpenView) listing.

Given the context of the Lieber Code (http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/FULL/110?OpenDocument), its definition of "public war" may be as much military as legal (emphasis added):

Instructions for the Government of Armies of the United States in the Field (Lieber Code). 24 April 1863
.....
Art. 20. Public war is a state of armed hostility between sovereign nations or governments. It is a law and requisite of civilized existence that men live in political, continuous societies, forming organized units, called states or nations, whose constituents bear, enjoy, suffer, advance and retrograde together, in peace and in war.

This roughly corresponds to what Geneva terms "international armed conflicts", Geneva adding (Common Article 2) that a non-state "Power" to an "armed conflict" may accept and apply the Conventions and be treated as a state party.

Lieber's philosophy is reflected in these two sections (emphasis added):

Art. 29. Modern times are distinguished from earlier ages by the existence, at one and the same time, of many nations and great governments related to one another in close intercourse. Peace is their normal condition; war is the exception. The ultimate object of all modern war is a renewed state of peace. The more vigorously wars are pursued, the better it is for humanity. Sharp wars are brief.

Art. 30. Ever since the formation and coexistence of modern nations, and ever since wars have become great national wars, war has come to be acknowledged not to be its own end, but the means to obtain great ends of state, or to consist in defense against wrong; and no conventional restriction of the modes adopted to injure the enemy is any longer admitted; but the law of war imposes many limitations and restrictions on principles of justice, faith, and honor.

A bit Wilfian in Art. 29 and some CvC + humanitarianism in Art. 30 - non ?

Regards

Mike

jmm99

10-06-2010, 07:55 PM

After the Lieber Code and up to WWII, none of the texts in the ICRC Treaties & Documents series defines "war" (or "public war", or "private war").

In fact, the Kellogg–Briand Pact (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kellogg%E2%80%93Briand_Pact), General Treaty for the Renunciation of War (text at Avalon here (http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/kbpact.asp)), did not define what was being renunciated. :D

So, among the key ICRC texts before WWII, the Lieber Code contains the only definition of "war", and that limited to "public war".

To be complete, 1907 Hague imposed formal notice requirements (declaration or ultimatem), which if met evidenced the exisitence of a state of war, on state parties before commencing "hostilities" against another state party. The term "war" was not in itself defined, but use of "hostilities" as the trigger suggests a mindset the same or similar to the Lieber definition.

Cheers

Mike

SJPONeill

10-06-2010, 10:02 PM

Presley Cannady

10-06-2010, 10:17 PM

I will continue posting on this topic, but I am interested in other opinions. My question is, who on this forum thinks "war is war"? And if you do, what does that mean? And how does that help the current soldiers?

By simple reflexive property, "war is war." If you're asking (as your posts suggest) whether or not the phrase captures a view that violence is central in war, then yes...violence is central--by definition. If you and your adversary somehow agree to turn off the spigot, you're no longer in a war. You're in something else. Call it a rivalry, or a marriage. If you're ambitious, you might take a shot at predicting to what extent you can dial back the violence and still win, but you'll have to account for at least two things largely outside of your control:

1) Your enemy's stomach for gore.
2) The war zone population's natural sympathy one way or the other.

This assumes, of course, you want to win. Given all this postmodern yakking about people not even knowing what "winning" means anymore...well, you know.

Dayuhan

10-06-2010, 11:12 PM

Actually there is a huge difference between invasion and UW.

In the wider sense yes, in terms of taking responsibility for the consequences of our actions, less so.

I've said myself many times that there's a huge difference between a government falling to an invasion and a government falling to a revolution. if a revolutionary force is organized and capable enough to successfully remove an existing government there will be someone able to govern in the aftermath. They may not govern well, but they will be able to govern.

When we chose to intervene, the Northern Alliance controlled less than 5% of the country, essentially just the Panjshir Valley and an isolated enclave in the NE. Their most effective leader was dead. Their ethnic composition made it difficult for them to form lasting alliances with groups elsewhere in the country. They were not a rising force. Quite the opposite; without our intervention they would probably not have lasted much longer.

Our intervention took this marginal, fading group to Kabul. This would not have happened without our intervention, and the consequences of that decision are on us, whatever strategy we used to execute it.

The reason we got got into the current fix we are in is because we wanted to use Afghanistan as a base of operations to continure our pursuit of AQ, so we stayed, manipulated the form, nature, and leadership of the government, then commited ourselves to keeping it in power. Those were choices, and bad ones.

That's one of the reasons. We also had the idea that if we could create a functioning Afghan government we could, in the long run, prevent any future AQ resurgence. There were also politics involved: we felt compelled to dfemonstrate our benevolent goals by bringing democracy, women's rights, development, and all that other good stuff. In part this was political show, but we do also suffer the occasional missionary impulse. American foreign policy is often an off and frequently unreconciled blend of the mercenary and the missionary, and we are often most dangerous, to ourselves and others, when in the grip of the missionary impulse.

I certainly agree that our decision to try to install a government that suited us in Afghanistan was a mistake.

The point of all this to me (at least the point that's relevant to this thread) is that I believe that the oft-pronounced dictum that COIN is our future, and the belief that our wars of the near and medium future will closely resemble the ones we're in now, is not necessarily true. There's no inherent reason why we have to be involved in COIN as these conflicts wind down. Other than these insurgencies that our choices created, there are few if any insurgencies, anywhere, that require anything more that a limited FID role from us. Many don't even require that. If we want to back away from COIN, we can do it by backing away from this bizarre impulse to remove and replace governments. It's not something we need to do, and based on assessment of efforts to date I'd have to say it hasn't worked out well for us. We should be thinking hard and well before we try it again.

We have gotten into a (bad) habit of manipulating governments so that we have a friendly government in power, and overlooking how in many cases those relationships are distancing those same governments from their own populaces, enabling them to trim civil rights and act with impunity.

I think you're vastly overestimating the impact of our relationships with these governments on their relationships with their populaces. Our influence just isn't that great. These governments are relating to their populaces in the manner that is traditional and habitual in these parts of the world. That may and probably will change over time, but the degree to which we can influence it - and the degree to which we enable it - is very limited.

Instead of sustaining poor governance in power we are better served in "forcing" (coercing, influencing, threating to take our ball and go home, theatening to support their insurgent populace rather than them if they persist in their oppressive ways, etc. It is a range of options.

I think, again, that you vastly overstate the degree to which we sustain these governments. Our aid is just not that large or significant, and many of these governments don't get aid from us at all. There are a few that do rely on us (Afghanistan and Yemen come to mind) but these haven't the capacity to reform, or even to govern, in any event. If we try to reform them, they'll put on as much of a show as they can but do very little, because that's all they can do. If we walk away they'll collapse. They may eventually be able to reform themselves, but it's likely to take decades.

The idea that we have the duty, right, or capacity to coerce or influence other governments to do what we think they should is to me an example of the missionary impulse I referred to above. I realize that the intentions are good, but I doubt very much that the outcome will be.

Bob's World

10-06-2010, 11:29 PM

Bob,

The CT were how the Commonwealth forces in Malaya referred to the insurgents as part of their IO campaign to deny them legitimacy. They may have been supported by the ethnic Chinese community and that is debatable but even if they were, that Chinese community was only a small proportion of the actual population of Malaya so you can not claim that the CT/MNLA had broad popular support.

The Taliban in AFG are insurgents - so....? We're discussing their level of popular support and I'd argue that it isn't that high in AFG either - if it were, then that campaign would probably be all done and dusted in their favour by now.

AQ in Iraq - ditto.

Republicans in Northern Ireland: Insurgents. "...A revolutionary nationalist movement to remove the illegitimate (in the eyes of the populace...) British government..." Which portion of the populace? Unless you're going back to the 1920s, I think you'll find that the majority of the populace there didn't actually hold that belief.

Militia in Timor Leste: "...Not super familiar, if they were locals they were insurgents..." Once again, that's irrelevant - the question is how much popular support did they have and the answer is not much. Some good books on this campaigns now and David Kilcullen also covers his part in it as a company commander in Accidental Guerrilla...

Mau Mau in Kenya: "...Insurgents...." So....? Their level of popular support was low...

Under your FID model, most of WW2 consisted of a series of FID campaigns. The 2010 version of JP 3.22 FID (http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/new_pubs/jp3_22.pdf) defines it as:

That's fine up to the point where the intervention is supporting the host nation's programmes but once intervention operations cross beyond that point into the situations of Vietnam, Iraq and AFG, or Malaya, Indochine and Algerie where the line between host nation and intervening nation are blurred, then you are into something that is other than, and bigger than, FID....

Simon

A lot of people get fixated on percentages, as if the segment of the populace experiencing conditions of insurgency and therefore generally supportive of the insurgent cause is less than a majority it doesn't matter.

Fact is that these are populaces that were denied legal, effective means to affect change of government in every case listed; so they were forced to take illegal approaches to advance their concerns. Is 5% of the populace enough? 10%? Depends by case, but arguing percentages is the type of moot rationalization that the Counterinsurgent often wallows in. Just as they wallow in "facts" in regards to the insurgents stated rationale for mounting an illegal opposition. Small percentages of the total populace, with perhaps broader support within some distinct segment is enough. Facts as assessed by others are moot as it is all about how this segment of the populace feels about their governance. I think more often than not, what is sufficient causation for such a segment of populace is considered irrational by the government (usually to their ultimate chagrin).

That is why COIN really just very very rarely would ever fall into a category where one would approach it with best effect through warfare. Good governments identify and address such concerns as a matter of course, or have established trusted and certain processes for the populace to at least vent legally, whether they get their way or not. When such outlets (hope) are denied, small things become what we call here "small wars." Most are tragically avoidable by governments simply being less arrogant and self-serving and more wiling to represent and answer to the will of the populace they are supposed to serve.

SJPONeill

10-07-2010, 12:11 AM

an armed rebellion that enjoys a broad base of popular support.

Bob, those are the words that YOU used and I don't think that you can credibly argue that 5% or even 10% = a "...broad base of popular support..." In fact, in Malaya, the lack of the broad base was one of the key reasons that the COIN campaign was so successful and why perhaps so many derived so many false lessons from that campaign.

Fact is that these are populaces that were denied legal, effective means to affect change of government in every case listed; so they were forced to take illegal approaches to advance their concerns.

Popular myth does not equal fact: your statement above is not correct other than in that there are always disaffected elements in every society who seek to circumvent the due processes...in each of the examples i gave they DID exists workables means for affecting change: the 'insurgents' were only forced into the methods they adopted because they DID NOT enjoy the level of popular support that would have made legitimate means feasible for them...Hungary 56 and Prague 68 would be better examples to support your 'argument'...

That is why COIN really just very very rarely would ever fall into a category where one would approach it with best effect through warfare.

Correct but only in that a fundamental aspect of COIN is the need for a comprehensive approach (UK/Commonwealth) or unified action (US) that harnesses broader instruments of national power to achieve national strategic objectives. ONE of this is military force: if there was no need in a specific scenario for the application, or threat, of force to achieve those objectives then it wouldn't (yet) be a COIN campaign - it would be law enforcement or perhaps internal security...at most, perhaps, FID...

Bob's World

10-07-2010, 12:43 AM

Bob, those are the words that YOU used and I don't think that you can credibly argue that 5% or even 10% = a "...broad base of popular support..." In fact, in Malaya, the lack of the broad base was one of the key reasons that the COIN campaign was so successful and why perhaps so many derived so many false lessons from that campaign.

Popular myth does not equal fact: your statement above is not correct other than in that there are always disaffected elements in every society who seek to circumvent the due processes...in each of the examples i gave they DID exists workable means for affecting change: the 'insurgents' were only forced into the methods they adopted because they DID NOT enjoy the level of popular support that would have made legitimate means feasible for them...Hungary 56 and Prague 68 would be better examples to support your 'argument'...

Correct but only in that a fundamental aspect of COIN is the need for a comprehensive approach (UK/Commonwealth) or unified action (US) that harnesses broader instruments of national power to achieve national strategic objectives. ONE of this is military force: if there was no need in a specific scenario for the application, or threat, of force to achieve those objectives then it wouldn't (yet) be a COIN campaign - it would be law enforcement or perhaps internal security...at most, perhaps, FID...

1. "Broad" is within some segment of the populace, not the populace as a whole.

2. I suspect the reason COIN was so successful in Malaysia was due primarily to the replacement of a government "broadly" seen as illegitimate (drawing its legitimacy from Great Britain) with one more broadly seen as drawing its legitimacy from the people of Malaysia.

We often do things that work or don't work and we never really know why, so we attribute that success or failure to things that had little to really do with it. This is why so much of what is drawn from the study of COIN without also drilling into the realm of insurgency, comes up just a shade off.

Like the whole "separate the insurgent from the populace". Well, the insurgent is part of the populace, what one really needs to do is separate the UW actor from the segment of the populace where conditions of insurgency exist. This was one of the great truisms from Malaysia. But again, I suspect the largely understated and misunderstood changes to governance were the real reason that the COIN campaign had enduring effects.

Another truism that is driving much of our rationale for staying in AFPAK in such a large way is the belief that sanctuary comes from "ungoverned spaces." I think far more accurately sanctuary comes from a mix of legal status (hiding behind a sovereign border, being outside the law, being a non-state actor, etc), the support of a poorly governed populace (a populace experiencing conditions of insurgency), and some mix of favorable terrain, veg, etc that allows one to hide from ISR. An apartment in NYC works.

We need to study insurgency more to better understand WHY certain approaches work or don't. Once we do that we can design better approaches for dealing with similar problems in the future. This is what I try to do, and why I remain convinced that "COIN is not war."

Presley Cannady

10-07-2010, 01:58 AM

2. I suspect the reason COIN was so successful in Malaysia was due primarily to the replacement of a government "broadly" seen as illegitimate (drawing its legitimacy from Great Britain) with one more broadly seen as drawing its legitimacy from the people of Malaysia.

Broadly seen by who?

SJPONeill

10-07-2010, 02:29 AM

1. "Broad" is within some segment of the populace, not the populace as a whole.

So not broad then...

2. I suspect the reason COIN was so successful in Malaysia was due primarily to the replacement of a government "broadly" seen as illegitimate (drawing its legitimacy from Great Britain) with one more broadly seen as drawing its legitimacy from the people of Malaysia.

A little less suspecting and a little more researching necessary, I think...Malaysia and Malaya and not quite the same thing for starters. Apart from a small ethnically-distinct group, who saw the immediately post-WW2 administration in Malaya as illegitimate? Malaya was not India with all its attendant issues. The secret to most successful COIN campaigns is actually addressing the core/root issues while not openly appearing to do so...

We often do things that work or don't work and we never really know why, so we attribute that success or failure to things that had little to really do with it. This is why so much of what is drawn from the study of COIN without also drilling into the realm of insurgency, comes up just a shade off.

Like the whole "separate the insurgent from the populace". Well, the insurgent is part of the populace, what one really needs to do is separate the UW actor from the segment of the populace where conditions of insurgency exist. This was one of the great truisms from Malaysia. But again, I suspect the largely understated and misunderstood changes to governance were the real reason that the COIN campaign had enduring effects.

No truism but fact - the campaign in Malaya was won in a large part by the fact that the CT/MNLA were likely ethnic Chinese, a minority and visually different part of the population that was easy to isolate from the larger population. Malaya was also a peninsula that made it difficult for any offshore support (assuming such even existed closer than China) to get the insurgents and which removed an chance of external sanctuaries. The campaign was pretty much over before there were any legislative changes in Malaya and it becoming Malaysia. The more enduring problem it has had to work through has been its relationship with Singapore.

Another truism that is driving much of our rationale for staying in AFPAK in such a large way is the belief that sanctuary comes from "ungoverned spaces." I think far more accurately sanctuary comes from a mix of legal status (hiding behind a sovereign border, being outside the law, being a non-state actor, etc), the support of a poorly governed populace (a populace experiencing conditions of insurgency), and some mix of favorable terrain, veg, etc that allows one to hide from ISR. An apartment in NYC works.

Agree

We need to study insurgency more to better understand WHY certain approaches work or don't. Once we do that we can design better approaches for dealing with similar problems in the future.

Agree again...aren't we all...

This is what I try to do, and why I remain convinced that "COIN is not war."

While a true COIN campaign must have a comprehensive approach/unified action, there is often little to distinguish the military aspects of it from war...ask a company commander in Kandahar or Helmand provinces how his job differs from that of his granddad marching across WW2 Europe or up around the Chosin Reservoir...

Bob's World

10-07-2010, 03:12 AM

Every form of maneuver is a frontal assault for the lead squad. All combat similarly is very war-like for the troops on the ground. True, and so what?

What does that have to do with the nature of the event as a whole?

If one leaps out of an airplane they are essentially flying all the way until they impact with the ground. Best not to confuse falling with flying just because on so many levels it appears the same. Combat does not equal war. What makes it war is if it is a problem that can be resolved through warfare. Combat opns are a supporting aspect of COIN. The problem is that we say COIN is war, we make the military the lead, and then they set out to defeat the insurgent. Often they succeed in that task. Over, and over, and over again in many cases. This is the "resurgency" that Dr. Metz spoke to.

To actually resolve an insurgency one must address the conditions of insurgency within the populace. These conditions are caused by the government, and they must be resolved by the government, typically by changing itself, not merely crushing that segment of the populace that dare to complain.

As to Malaya, we tend to focus on the military tactics rather than the much more significant movements at the political level to remove the illegitimate colonial government, grant the ethnic chinese populace the right to vote, conduct reconciliation and generally address the conditions of insurgency. Once the conditions were addressed the insurgents simply faded away for lack of relevance. the military operations merely helped shape the conditions. Insurgencies are fought in the countryside, and that violence is very warlike. They are won or lost, however, in the capital, and that is typically much more simply ensuring the people have good governance.

Oh, and as you requested, here is 3 minutes of wiki research to back my position:

"Resolving the Emergency

On October 6, 1951 the MNLA ambushed and killed the British High Commissioner, Sir Henry Gurney. The killing has been described as a major factor in causing the Malayan population to roundly reject the MNLA campaign, and also as leading to widespread fear due to the perception that "if even the High Commissioner was no longer safe, there was little hope of protection and safety for the man-in-the-street in Malaya."[11] More recently, MNLA leader Chin Peng stated that the killing had little effect, and that the communists anyway radically altered their strategy that month in their "October Resolutions".[12] The October Resolutions, a response to the Briggs Plan, involved a change of tactics by reducing attacks on economic targets and civilians, increasing efforts to go into political organisation and subversion, and bolstering the supply network from the Min Yuen as well as jungle farming.

Gurney's successor, Lieutenant General Gerald Templer, was instructed by the British government to push for immediate measures to give Chinese ethnic residents the right to vote. He also pursued the Briggs Plan, and sped up the formation of a Malayan army. At the same time he made it clear that the Emergency itself was the main impediment to accelerating decolonisation. He also increased financial rewards for detecting guerrillas by any civilians and expanded the intelligence network (Special Branch).

[edit] Government's Declaration of Amnesty
On September 8, 1955, the Government of the Federation of Malaya issued a declaration of amnesty to the Communists.[13] The Government of Singapore issued an identical offer at the same time. Tunku Abdul Rahman, as Chief Minister, made good the offer of an amnesty but promised there would be no negotiations with the MNLA. The terms of the amnesty were:

Those of you who come in and surrender will not be prosecuted for any offense connected with the Emergency, which you have committed under Communist direction, either before this date or in ignorance of this declaration.
You may surrender now and to whom you like including to members of the public.
There will be no general "ceasefire" but the security forces will be on alert to help those who wish to accept this offer and for this purpose local "ceasefire" will be arranged.
The Government will conduct investigations on those who surrender. Those who show that they are genuinely intent to be loyal to the Government of Malaya and to give up their Communist activities will be helped to regain their normal position in society and be reunited with their families. As regards the remainder, restrictions will have to be placed on their liberty but if any of them wish to go to China, their request will be given due consideration.[14]
Following the declaration, an intensive publicity campaign on a hitherto unprecedented scale was launched by the Government. Alliance Ministers in the Federal Government travelled extensively up and down the country exhorting the people to call upon the Communists to lay down their arms and take advantage of the amnesty. The response from the public was good. Public demonstrations and processions were held in towns and villages. Despite the campaign, few Communists surrendered to the authorities. It was evident that the Communists, having had ample warning of its declaration, conducted intensive anti-amnesty propaganda in their ranks and among the mass organizations, tightened discipline and warned that defection would be severely punished. Some critics in the political circles commented that the amnesty was too restrictive and little more than a restatement of the surrender terms which have been in force for a long period. The critics advocated a more realistic and liberal approach of direct negotiations with the MCP to work out a settlement of the issue. Leading officials of the Labour Party had, as part of the settlement, not exclude the possibility of recognition of the MCP as a political organization. Within the Alliance itself, influential elements in both the MCA and UMNO were endeavouring to persuade the Chief Minister, Tunku Abdul Rahman to hold negotiations with the MCP.[14]

[edit] The Baling Talks
Main article: The Baling Talks
Realizing that his conflict had not come to any fruition, Chin Peng sought a referendum with the ruling British government alongside many Malayan officials in 1955. The talk took place in the Government English School at Baling on December 28. The MCP was represented by Chin Peng, the Secretary-General, Rashid Maidin and Chen Tien, head of the MCP's Central Propaganda Department; on the other side were three elected national representatives, Tunku Abdul Rahman, Dato's Tan Cheng-Lock and David Saul Marshall, the Chief Minister of Singapore. The meeting was intended to pursue a mutual end to the conflict but the Malayan government representatives, led by Tunku Abdul Rahman, dismissed all of Chin Peng's demands. As a result, the conflict heightened and, in response, New Zealand sent NZSAS soldiers, No. 14 Squadron RNZAF No.41(Bristol Freighter)Squadron and later No. 75 Squadron RNZAF, and other Commonwealth members also sent troops to aid the British.

Following the failure of the talks, Tunku decided to withdraw the amnesty on 8 February 1956, five months after it had been offered, stating that he would not be willing to meet the Communists again unless they indicated beforehand their desire to see him with a view to making "a complete surrender".[15] Despite the failure of the talks, the MCP made every effort to resume peace talks with Malayan Government, without success. Instead, discussions began in the new Emergency Operations Council to intensify the "People's War" against the guerillas. In July 1957, a few weeks before Independence, the MCP made another attempt at peace talks, suggesting the following conditions for a negotiated peace:

its members should be given privileges enjoyed by citizens
a guarantee that political as well as armed members of the MCP would not be punished.
Tunku Abdul Rahman, however, did not respond to the MCP's proposals.

With the independence of Malaya under Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman on 31 August 1957, the insurrection lost its rationale as a war of colonial liberation. The last serious resistance from MRLA guerrillas ended with a surrender in the Telok Anson marsh area in 1958. The remaining MRLA forces fled to the Thai border and further east.

Dayuhan

10-07-2010, 03:38 AM

We need to study insurgency more to better understand WHY certain approaches work or don't. Once we do that we can design better approaches for dealing with similar problems in the future. This is what I try to do, and why I remain convinced that "COIN is not war."

Would it be reasonable to say that COIN typically requires a military component (war) and a non-military component (not war) and is unlikely to succeed if both components are not effectively managed?

It seems to me that our problems in COIN scenarios stem largely from a tendency to vastly overestimate our ability to manage the non-military aspect of COIN ("creating good governance" for someone else is easy to say, very hard to do) and a tendency to use military forces to try to manage the non-military aspects of COIN, a role that they are not trained or equipped to fill.

In general I'd agree that good governance is the best prevention and the best cure to insurgency. In some cases, though, the formula does fall down, especially when faced with niche groups that feature extreme devotion to a cause that the rest of the population is ambivalent about or opposed to... or in cases where different portions of a populace have mutually exclusive and irreconcilable demands or expectations from government.

Backwards Observer

10-07-2010, 04:21 AM

MPAJA's Chin Peng receives Burma Star and 1939/45 Star from Admiral Mountbatten, January 6, 1946. (small photo)

Malayan People's Anti-Japanese Army - Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malayan_Peoples'_Anti-Japanese_Army)

Chin Peng - 2009 Article in Malaysia Star (http://thestar.com.my/lifestyle/story.asp?file=/2009/11/22/lifefocus/5085891&sec=lifefocus)

"40 Commando RM" with heads published in The Daily Worker, May 10, 1952. (large photo)

"War in the jungle is not a nice thing but we cannot forego the necessity for exact identification of communist dead." (Field Marshall Templer in a telegram to Colonial Secretary Lyttleton in response to the publication of the photo in the Daily Worker) (photo and quote from alias Chin Peng, pp.302-304)

alias Chin Peng - amazon UK (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Alias-Chin-Peng-Side-History/dp/9810486936)

Global Scout

10-07-2010, 04:44 AM

Fact is that these are populaces that were denied legal, effective means to affect change of government in every case listed; so they were forced to take illegal approaches to advance their concerns.

this is only true in some cases, in others you're damn right there is no legal means for a minority to establish a communist form of government or implement Shari'a law. In your view the government is always the villian, and the insurgent always has a just cause. That is baloney.

SJPONeill

10-07-2010, 05:08 AM

On September 8, 1955, the Government of the Federation of Malaya issued a declaration of amnesty to the Communists.[13] The Government of Singapore issued an identical offer at the same time.

Pretty 'good' considering that Singapore wasn't created as a state until 1964...there are a number of other errors in that extract as well...The Emergency was not officially declared over until 1960. Commonwealth combat operations continued up til that point, and the last CT did not surrender until 1988...I remember that because it was the cue for us to no longer carry live ammunition when working in Malaysia...

I might have a bit of an unfair advantage because i have spent a lot of time in that region but wikipedia...?

M-A Lagrange

10-07-2010, 05:58 AM

Would it be reasonable to say that COIN typically requires a military component (war) and a non-military component (not war) and is unlikely to succeed if both components are not effectively managed?

It seems to me that our problems in COIN scenarios stem largely from a tendency to vastly overestimate our ability to manage the non-military aspect of COIN ("creating good governance" for someone else is easy to say, very hard to do) and a tendency to use military forces to try to manage the non-military aspects of COIN, a role that they are not trained or equipped to fill.

Dayuhan,

You are taking the words out of my mouth.
The problem is that too many believe that it would need a huge amount of money and everybody will be willing especially the host government. They just forget that they are part of the military component (the host nation) and therefore are not playing the game in a naive way. Especially as host government is also trying (This at all times) to do the things their own way and screew or use/abuse the efforts of external friendly powers (Every body dreams to be independant).
Forgetting that the civil apparatus of the host government is taking part to the general military effort and sometimes (most of the times) has a different understanding of the civil/military cooperation and sharing of responsability and hierarchy undermines a lot the civil component in the COIN effort.

Backwards Observer

10-07-2010, 06:23 AM

Pretty 'good' considering that Singapore wasn't created as a state until 1964...

After a period of friction between Singapore and the central government in Kuala Lumpur, Singapore separated from Malaysia on August 9, 1965, and became an independent republic. (U.S. State Dept.)

Singapore - Background entry at U.S. Dept. of State (http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/2798.htm)

In 1963, the British declared Singapore, the Malay states and Sabah and Sarawak as one independent nation -- Malaysia. But Singapore's membership in this union lasted only two years. In 1965, it was booted out of the federation, owing to disagreements on several fronts including racial issues. (singapore.com)

Singapore History at singapore.com (http://www-singapore.com/singaporehistory.htm)

Singapore: Independence - 9 August 1965 (from Malaysian Federation) (CIA World Factbook)

Singapore - Background at CIA World Factbook (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/sn.html)

Singapore officially gained sovereignty on 9 August 1965. (Wikipedia entry)

Singapore - Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singapore)

Still, who is to say what really happened?

SJPONeill

10-07-2010, 09:01 AM

It seems to me that our problems in COIN scenarios stem largely from a tendency to vastly overestimate our ability to manage the non-military aspect of COIN ("creating good governance" for someone else is easy to say, very hard to do) and a tendency to use military forces to try to manage the non-military aspects of COIN, a role that they are not trained or equipped to fill.

Or take it one step further and make that tendency our ability to step up to the plate when no one else will...really what should have happened in places like Iraq and Timor Leste when no one else (a fairly generic group) would step up and provide a security envrionment in which those forces of governance, which includes physical and societal reconstruction, could operate, is that the military should have taken a hike and just left the place to unravel...unfortunately we don't work like that and as part of this whole ethos and values things, we feel bound to step up and do the right thing...Military forces aren't doing those non-military aspects of COIN because they want to but because no one else will...

Dayuhan

10-07-2010, 11:42 AM

as part of this whole ethos and values things, we feel bound to step up and do the right thing...Military forces aren't doing those non-military aspects of COIN because they want to but because no one else will

True enough, and I certainly don't hold the military at fault for the decision of the civilian government to assign tasks to the military that the military is not trained or equipped to accomplish. I would like to see our government think a bit more carefully before assuming that any of their components, military or otherwise, have the capacity to install a functioning government in another country. We would also do well to think twice before meddling in the way other governments deal with their populaces, or before assuming that we know what any given populace wants.

Bob's World

10-07-2010, 11:47 AM

Well, I said 3 minute of research, but even if the dates were inaccurate the key points were not. The conflict was shaped by terrific military operations (all combat is not war even though all war requires combat); favorable terrain (no legal borders with poorly governed populaces next door to dash across and take sanctuary within); but was resolved when the political thorn (British colonialism) was taken out of the Lion's paw (the Malayan populace).

When I talk to Brits they see their colonial period as a largely economic venture that did little harm and brought a lot of good to a wide area. Very benign, and very differently than how Americans see that same era and activities; and I suspect other former colonies not made up of British immigrants see it in a harsher light still. They say they rolled it back country by country of their own accord and not due to any outside pressure. Just good business. This struck me, as many Americans I speak to about our operations about the globe, manipulating governments to enable economic and security activities are seen as being far different and far less abusive that what people suffered under the British Empire. Americans pride themselves in being so clever and good as to reap all of the benefits of an Empire without actually being Imperialists. This is our vision of ourselves. I suspect others share different images of America.

What is my point? My point is that the conditions of insurgency are determined from the perspectives of the affected populaces. The Brits then (and other European Colonial powers) did not fully appreciate how those people felt about that experience as they assessed if from their own perspective. Hell, leaders in England could not even empathize with the leaders in the American Colonies, and they shared the same ancestors, heritage, language, religion and King. Similarly, America today does not fully appreciate how our post-WWII actions are perceived; so when there is push back we write it off to a hand full of radicalized bad actors rather than assessing it as a clear metric that we may be off track and need to redesign our program of engagement.

Most histories on COIN dwell on the military operations that took place, the various programs with the populaces, the ideology, tactics and leadership of the insurgent organizations involved, etc. One has to read between the lines to extract clues as to WHY did this really happen, HOW did these people feel, What were the early signs of brewing trouble and HOW could these conflicts have been avoided; and so on.

But, it is only after policy and government has failed that such situations call for military assistance, and once that assistance is applied it dominates all thought. The military helps the civilian leadership more by taking less of this upon themselves. We enable civil leadership to simply throw up their hands and say "oh my, some evil men have radicalized part of the populace and they are waging illegal acts of terror and war against the state, please go defeat them so that we can get back to business as usual."

We've (the military of various countries) done this in most of these insurgencies around the global as they pop up; and on a larger scale we have done it with Al Qaeda as well with their efforts to employ UW to leverage several such movements to serve their goals and agendas.

If we keep doing the same thing, we will keep getting the same result. The only insurgencies that we have ever truly resolved are the ones where we ultimately (aside from the military action) actually fixed the governmental issues that were causing the problem. Many times I suspect that was as much accident as planned, or seen as minor supporting effort to the military "war". Now there will always be those like Mr Global Scout within the military community who act like someone just stole his football and ran off with it when they propose that COIN is not war, and that combat operations cannot resolve an insurgency. There will also always be those like Mr. Dayuhan who say (reasonably) that we have no more right demand adjustments of governance than we do to invade with our armies. That's fair, but it does not change the fact that the status quo strategic approach to insurgency is not very effective, and the "new" tactics of nation building do little to address that fact. In fact, nation-building approaches in many ways make the issues of causation even worse, and are certainly even more onerous and expensive on the intervening power.

I'll try to lay out a few short steps that I think the military community should do to begin turning this corner:

1. Hold Civilian Leadership accountable.
- Do not declare that COIN is war, but rather that it is a civil emergency
- Demand the retention of civilian leadership throughout that emergency and apply military resources through the same processes that we would for any other civil emergency.
- Hold Host Nations accountable as well. Clearly state that they are the COIN force and that the intervening forces are the FID force. Then stay in your lanes.
- Make it clear that the military is not required because some radicalized threat appeared of its own volition; but that the slow failures of civilian leadership over years have led us to this sad place, and those failures must be understood and addressed as the main effort, while the military wages a supporting effort to allow that to occur. Be hard on civilian leadership, god knows they're being hard on us.

2. Rewrite military doctrine to capture this change, shifting COIN and FID from the "War" section over to the section of military doctrine where military support to civil authorities for domestic emergencies, and that for security assistance activities.

3. Point out to the White House and Congress that the military is being called upon with ever greater frequency and intensity to manage the friction coming off of our foreign policy. Tell our senior leaders to stop sitting back and worrying about when the military is going to finally end the war so that they can get back to business as usual, but rather when are they going produce the body of new policy and law that goes after addressing these root causes more effectively so that the military can get back to the business of deterring war and preparing to wage the same. This is not the fault of any one administration or Congress; these conditions grew from 45-89, and have been producing violent product with greater frequency and intensity ever since. It is, however, the responsibility of the current administration and congress to fix it. We may be able to pass the bill for these conflicts to future generations, but we should not pass them the problem as well with just a military band-aid slapped on it.

3. Stop allowing the Intel community and the Ideology experts to lead our understanding of these problems around by the nose. These are issues of governance; threat groups and the ideologies they apply are mere symptoms of how the problems are currently manifesting. Rely more heavily on political and social scientists and historians.

4. Make a critical planning assumption that however we assess the problem is likely to be heavily biased to making our own actions far more benign than they are perceived to be by the populaces these conflicts are emerging from. Do not write that all off to radicalization.

5. Make the following four areas the focus of our assessments and activities:
A. Ensuring that we are not somehow disrupting or co-opting the populaces of other lands control over their governments in such a way that they come to believe that those governments no longer draw legitimacy from sources they recognize and accept.

B. Worry less about the rule of law and more about justice under the law. Ensure our own actions are not merely legal (particularly when we are perceived to shape the laws that apply, and ignore the ones we don't like) but that we are also perceived by those on the receiving end as just. To those in the wings as well, as they are the ones whose support we will need, or who will wonder if they are next.

C. Take a strong stance on status-based discrimination. Be it race, religion, ethnic, political or regional. Understand where such discrimination exists and be doubly cautious in our engagements in those places as they have ready-made populace bases for insurgency.

D. Encourage off-ramps. Work with governments to establish and employ procedures and processes tailored for their respective cultures that guard against abuses of government and identify and protect individual rights. Ensure mechanisms for voicing concerns to governance are perceived by the populace as trusted, certain and legal. Again, be doubly cautious in working with any government that refuses to create such off ramps, as their populace has no choice but insurgency to effect change.

6. Recognize AQ for what it is; a political group that employs terrorist tactics and the tools of globalization to conduct a UW campaign to seek their goals. Do not conflate all of those separate insurgent/dissident groups into a monolithic "global insurgency." Break the problem down to its components, and then focus on the issues above, rather than a simple threat-based approach aimed at the groups that participate.

Dayuhan

10-07-2010, 10:48 PM

Americans pride themselves in being so clever and good as to reap all of the benefits of an Empire without actually being Imperialists.

Anyone who thinks that is suffering under a monumental delusion. We don't get the benefits of empire. The benefit of empire was that you got to buy dirt cheap raw material from the colonies and the colonies were forced to consume manufactured goods from you. Anyone who's looked at our trade balance knows we are not reaping the benefits of empire. What good is an empire if it doesn't turn a profit? Isn't that the point? What benefit do we reap from our alleged pseudo-empire?

when there is push back we write it off to a hand full of radicalized bad actors rather than assessing it as a clear metric that we may be off track and need to redesign our program of engagement.

AQ is often described as a "push back" against provocation from the West, but I'm not at all sure that's accurate and I suspect that we may be trying to toss AQ into the same basket as Cold War resistance to western-sponsored dictators. That basket doesn't entirely fit: AQ is less a backlash than an proactive effort to pursue a specific agenda.

One has to read between the lines to extract clues as to WHY did this really happen, HOW did these people feel, What were the early signs of brewing trouble and HOW could these conflicts have been avoided; and so on.

With this I agree, but we also have to be very careful about imposing our own assumptions about what people feel and think. We often don't know what any given populace thinks. In any given populace there will be wide variations of interests and opinions, and these are often largely hidden from us. We sometimes assume that people think what we think we would think if we were in their place; a serious mistake.

We enable civil leadership to simply throw up their hands and say "oh my, some evil men have radicalized part of the populace and they are waging illegal acts of terror and war against the state, please go defeat them so that we can get back to business as usual."

That's a concise and accurate description of a type of intervention we've seen many times before: an allied government is threatened by growing insurgency, and we finally intervene to rescue it. That is not the position we are in now: in both Afghanistan and Iraq we did not intervene to rescue a threatened government, we intervened before the government existed. We cannot apply the former paradigm to the latter situation. It doesn't fit.

Is there any allied government today asking the US to send combat troops to rescue it from insurgency? I'd submit that while this framework applied to many of our cold war engagements, it's largely obsolete now. Which of our allies is now threatened by an insurgency that calls for more than limited FID - if even that - from us? If we want to get out of the COIN business, all we need to do is get out of the regime change business.

The only insurgencies that we have ever truly resolved are the ones where we ultimately (aside from the military action) actually fixed the governmental issues that were causing the problem.

Where have we ever actually succeeded in "fixing" another government?

There will also always be those like Mr. Dayuhan who say (reasonably) that we have no more right demand adjustments of governance than we do to invade with our armies.

The "right" is an abstraction, and infinitely arguable. The capacity is more important and easier to assess. It's all very well to talk about fixing other governments, pressuring them to govern better, forcing them to "listen to their populace", etc, but this assumes that they have the capacity to do what we want, and that we have the capacity to make them do what we want them to do. If one or both of these capacities is absent, we will not be able to translate that talk into effective action. I suspect that you consistently overestimate both capacities.

M-A Lagrange

10-08-2010, 06:06 AM

The "right" is an abstraction, and infinitely arguable. The capacity is more important and easier to assess. It's all very well to talk about fixing other governments, pressuring them to govern better, forcing them to "listen to their populace", etc, but this assumes that they have the capacity to do what we want, and that we have the capacity to make them do what we want them to do. If one or both of these capacities is absent, we will not be able to translate that talk into effective action. I suspect that you consistently overestimate both capacities.

Dayuhan, Bob,
With all my respect for both of you, the point is not do the US have the capacity to make them do what we want but rather do the US have the capacity to understand what they want to be done for them.
As in so many partnership like this there is the expressed need: what the demander believe he can reasonably ask for. AND what the demander really wants but believe he cannot ask because he also has an analyse and understanding of what his partner is ready to provide so he adapts his demands (what is called the unexpressed need).
All the difficulty is to accurately identify what is the unexpressed need. A difficult exercise because that need is purposely hidden because it can, sometimes, be in contradiction with the partner (the US) objectives.
And then evaluate how the expressed need will allow the US to reach its objective in responding to it and not aggrave the situation by not responding to the unexpressed need.

Dayuhan

10-08-2010, 06:37 AM

Dayuhan, Bob,
With all my respect for both of you, the point is not do the US have the capacity to make them do what we want but rather do the US have the capacity to understand what they want to be done for them.

I agree, absolutely, and I think all too often we simply assume that others want what we think we'd want in their place, or that what we want is so self-evidently righteous that everybody else must want it as well. This is why I think we need to back off on installing governments, trying to change governments, or trying to insert ourselves as self-appointed champions of any other populace. These actions might, in very rare cases, be necessary or desirable, but if we go around pushing our presence where it is neither needed nor wanted we are likely to accomplish little and create a lot of trouble.

Bob's World

10-08-2010, 08:55 AM

The government we succeeded best in fixing is our own. Our interests were more pure, so our efforts less biased. The Constitution is a miracle of "government fixing"; and the Civil Rights Act an equal miracle of government fixing as well.

When we go to other's countries though, we always apply a double standard of what is good for the people, and cant all efforts at shaping government to build and sustain something that is good for the US and US interests first. We'll stand for principles of Democracy and Self-Determination all the way up to the point that it might put some interest at risk, then we start compromising.

We would sell out the people so long as we got what WE wanted from their governments. This is where we need to adjust how we do business. These people had no real power, no real way to affect us before. NOW they do. AQ is leveraging this as well for their ends.

We're already elbow deep in all of these governments. I'm just saying we need to change what we think is important and how we go about servicing those interests to be more sensitive to how it affects the people. Otherwise we will just keep running from problem to problem trying to prop it all up.

COIN is not war, it is governance working through a civil emergency for the HN.
FID is not war either, it is an action arm of foreign policy to prevent/repair problems that are threatening our interests.

Once we get the context right, the rest will fall in place.

Dayuhan

10-08-2010, 10:06 AM

The government we succeeded best in fixing is our own. Our interests were more pure, so our efforts less biased.

Our interests were more restricted, not necessarily more pure. The property-owning elite that ran the show in those days looked after their own interests quite effectively.

When we go to other people's countries though, we always apply a double standard of what is good for the people, and cant all efforts at shaping government to build and sustain something that is good for the US and US interests first. We'll stand for principles of Democracy and Self-Determination all the way up to the point that it might put some interest at risk, then we start compromising.

Who are we to say that Democracy = self-determination, or that democracy is best for everyone? There are people in the world who fear democracy, which they equate with chaos and western domination, more than they fear authoritarian government. Are we going to intervene to give them what they don't want?

We would sell out the people so long as we got what WE wanted from their governments. This is where we need to adjust how we do business. These people had no real power, no real way to affect us before. NOW they do. AQ is leveraging this as well for their ends.

AQ has not leveraged this very effectively, despite prodigious effort. The only thing AQ has managed to leverage effectively is widespread resentment of and opposition to foreign military intrusion in Muslim lands.

We generally (well, not always) know what we want. We can determine the extent to which we wish to pursue what we want. We do not know what other populaces want, and if we try to intervene on behalf of another populace we will not be pursuing what they want, but what we think they ought to want. I don't see this working very well.

We're already elbow deep in all of these governments. I'm just saying we need to change what we think is important and how we go about servicing those interests to be more sensitive to how it affects the people.

Which governments, other than those of Iraq and Afghanistan? I think you consistently overrate our involvement in foreign governments, our support for other governments, the degree to which other governments rely on us, and our capacity to influence other governments... all very critical factors if we propose to go out and try to position ourselves as self-appointed champions of other countries populaces.

COIN is not war, it is governance working through a civil emergency for the HN. FID is not war either, it is an action arm of foreign policy to prevent/repair problems that are threatening our interests. Once we get the context right, the rest will fall in place.

We can decide to stop calling what we're doing in Afghanistan "war". I suspect that will not have any impact on how the Afghans see it: they will still see an occupying foreign power and a puppet government. What will change if we "get the context right"?

We still have the same choice. At the extremes, that choice is between continuing to support Karzai in the (probably vain) hope that his government will improve, and dropping Karzai and presumably leaving a civil war, which will be won not by the party the Afghans see as legitimate but by whoever can field the most effective armed force. Or we can try to cobble together a middle ground, possibly combining the worst features of both. Not a pretty picture, but it's where we led ourselves with the decision to try to design and install a government for another country.

We meddle at our peril, and good intentions don't always achieve good results. We need to remember that before we go messing in the affairs of other countries, and that includes any attempt to interpose ourselves uninvited into the relationship between any other government and its populaces.

Bob's World

10-08-2010, 10:54 AM

D,

Realizing that if I say "black" you'll say "white" even if I am describing coal, I will offer a couple of points.

The U.S. has one of the oldest governments in the world. Yes, the rich, landed white guys were protecting themselves from the ravages of pure democracy, but what they produced is a marvel of good governance and COIN (note: not a marvel of effective governance, as effective governments tend to be quite despotic). They opted to change the government rather than just oppress the populace, and they did so in a manner that guarded their own interests, but also the rights of every citizen from the abuses of government or majority rule both.

And the US is and will remain engaged in the world. There is no changing that fact. HOW we engage is however completely (currently) within our control. Containment worked for the Cold War, it has not worked well since. A Clinton patch of "intervention" was a half-measure as was Bush's "preemption." It is time to retire containment or at least subjugate it to a supporting role. We cannot "contain" AQ and to run about attempting to Pre-empt their UW efforts is a fool's errand.

It is time for a new Grand Strategy, and actually, I think President Obama is offering one. I don't believe it is being operationalized very well, because we have so much damn containment inertia at play.

So, engage we must, and engage we will. Shaking off the inertia of Cold War containment and devising and defining new ways to move forward are the keys to our success. Whatever those ways are, they, IMO, must be built around the fact that people are more impowered than ever before, and we can either work with them or against them; and with our clinging to containment, we are currently working against them.

Dayuhan

10-08-2010, 11:26 AM

The U.S. has one of the oldest governments in the world. Yes, the rich, landed white guys were protecting themselves from the ravages of pure democracy, but what they produced is a marvel of good governance and COIN (note: not a marvel of effective governance, as effective governments tend to be quite despotic). They opted to change the government rather than just oppress the populace, and they did so in a manner that guarded their own interests, but also the rights of every citizen from the abuses of government or majority rule both.

We shouldn't confuse what was made with what it grew into. The US has seen government oppression of the citizenry, it's been involved in genocide, it's made war on other nations under dubious pretenses, it's witnessed corruption on an enormous scale. It grew through all of these. While the capacity to grow was a remarkable achievement, we shouldn't pretend that the US Government rolled off the printing press in its current form. It didn't. We can't replicate it in other countries, and we shouldn't try: they need to find their own ways and in many cases those ways may bear little resemblance to our way.

It is time for a new Grand Strategy, and actually, I think President Obama is offering one. I don't believe it is being operationalized very well, because we have so much damn containment inertia at play.

So, engage we must, and engage we will. Shaking off the inertia of Cold War containment and devising and defining new ways to move forward are the keys to our success. Whatever those ways are, they, IMO, must be built around the fact that people are more impowered than ever before, and we can either work with them or against them; and with our clinging to containment, we are currently working against them.

I don't disagree. I just don't think that aggressively inserting our presence into the internal affairs of other countries is a viable way to this end. We may be able to provide assistance in some cases, to some extent, if and only if we are asked to do so. Trying to leap into other people's frays as the self-appointed champion of populaces who have not asked for our help, and whose desires and motivations we do not understand... well, that seems to me a recipe for disaster. The answer to bad intervention is not something we imagine to be "good intervention". The answer to bad intervention is less intervention, and intervention that is more subtle, less direct, and more multilateral whenever possible.

jmm99

10-08-2010, 04:34 PM

as used here and in many of your recent posts:

from BW
COIN is not war, it is governance working through a civil emergency for the HN.

1. Could you tell me what a "civil emergency" looks like, and also provide some examples where that concept has been used.

2. Your concept of a "civil emergency" must include some sort of law or proclamation that makes it so. Do you have any examples ?

3. Finally, let's take the simplest situation - no foreign power intervening, no FID, etc. Just the incumbant government and one insurgent group confined within the borders of the country. The incumbant government declares a "civil emergency" as you define it.

Is that "civil emergency" a 1949 Common Article 3 situation, a 1977 Additional Protocol I situation (if the insurgents call themselves "freedom fighters", "national liberation movement", etc.) and/or a 1977 Additional Protocol II situation (the options range from CA 3 to all three); or do none of the Generva Conventions apply ?

Your choice of law may severely restrict whatever military options (if any) that you want to undertake.

Regards

Mike

jmm99

10-08-2010, 05:03 PM

Starting with this:

from D
The answer to bad intervention is not something we imagine to be "good intervention". The answer to bad intervention is less intervention, and intervention that is more subtle, less direct, and more multilateral whenever possible.

we have to pick a country - so, the USA.

1. Do you set geographical limits to US intervention, realizing that is a "Never Again, but ..." default - or, is the World a US oyster ?

2. If multilateralism is involved, is the preferred US default to work through regional organizations, or ad hoc coalitions of the "willing", or bilateral alliances ?

3. Does "more subtle, less direct" foreclose or limit US military options; and if so, what are the "rules to engage" ?

Regards

Mike

Bob's World

10-08-2010, 05:33 PM

as used here and in many of your recent posts:

1. Could you tell me what a "civil emergency" looks like, and also provide some examples where that concept has been used.

2. Your concept of a "civil emergency" must include some sort of law or proclamation that makes it so. Do you have any examples ?

3. Finally, let's take the simplest situation - no foreign power intervening, no FID, etc. Just the incumbant government and one insurgent group confined within the borders of the country. The incumbant government declares a "civil emergency" as you define it.

Is that "civil emergency" a 1949 Common Article 3 situation, a 1977 Additional Protocol I situation (if the insurgents call themselves "freedom fighters", "national liberation movement", etc.) and/or a 1977 Additional Protocol II situation (the options range from CA 3 to all three); or do none of the Generva Conventions apply ?

Your choice of law may severely restrict whatever military options (if any) that you want to undertake.

Regards

Mike

Mike,

Historians are as sloppy as any when it comes to pinning names on things. Sometimes politics demands something is played up as "war" that is not, or played down that is. I do believe the Brits called Malaya an "Emergency."

I think the key distinction is not what terms to historians like to use, or what terms do politicians like to use, or what terms military commanders like to use. For me the key distinction is the nature of the problem and how it is caused and best resolved.

As I said earlier, war is an extension of politics, but COIN is an extension of governance.

Certainly when the insurgent is strong enough and inclined to violence there can be a lot of combat involved in efforts to govern; but most of that is exacerbated by the fact that COIN is typically tossed to the "war" pile when it gets that violent.

Just as I don't think degree of violence is a good measure of when insurgency becomes civil war; I similarly do not think degree of violence is a good measure to determine when an illegal effort to change governance shifts somehow from a subversion to a civil emergency to a war.

I just can't find any examples where waging war on insurgency has resolved insurgency. In Malaya they waged war on insurgency and that draws the focus of analysis, but parallel to that they also addressed the conditions of poor governance that really fueled the insurgency to begin with. Compare that to Vietnam where we also waged war against the insurgency, but did nothing to address the conditions of poor govenance. Instead we focus on effectiveness, but that is not what causes insurgency.

I really encourage people to read the short account on Malaya here in this product:

Casebook on insurgency and Revolutionary Warfare: 23 Summary Accounts; Special Operations Research Office, The American University, Washington, DC. December 1962.
http://www.usgcoin.org/library/USGDocuments/AD416553.pdf

Read this with an eye to the causal conditions of Legitimacy, Justice, Respect and Hope as I define them in my model and then look at how the British treated the ethnic chinese citizens. Look at how the kept the 'High Commissioner as the final say on all governance; how they denied the Chinese the vote and how they outlawed the MCP after the MCP had worked wtih them to defeat the Japanese. Abuse after abuse, disrespect as a matter of status; denial of legal hope and a total usurpation of legitimate government to a major segment of the populace (38.6%) who really felt that they had earned independence in defeating the Japanese, only to be marginalized and pushed aside.

So much is placed on Communism. That is just the tool they used to stand up to Tyranny; causation rested firmly in British hands.

But that said, give the Brits credit for recognizing and addressing the conditions of poor governance, and shame of the U.S. for flagrantly ignoring them in Vietnam, and now again in Afghanistan. We're too busy fighting a "war" as the "COIN" force to notice that we're barking up the wrong tree.

As to the law, if the law does not allow government what government needs to do to protect and serve the populace, change the law. Similarly if the law does not allow a populace to legally challenge poor governance, change the law. After all, the law works for us, not the other way around. When it becomes an obstacle to doing the right thing, then it is the law that is wrong. When it enables government to do the wrong thing, it again is the law that is wrong. Afghanistan's constitution is the worse kind of law, and I frankly cannot believe that more people are not screaming for change. Besides me and the Taliban, I mean. :)

jmm99

10-08-2010, 06:57 PM

you've been proposing in seemingly megabyte quantity, a theoretical approach to "COIN" which is neither fish nor fowl - i.e., it is not "war (armed conflict)" in its pure form; but it does not seem to me to be a pure political-LE effort either (an example of that being the US Civil Rights Struggle).

You have been using the term "civil emergency"; for which, I posited that you have a framework for its presentation, including its fit legally - since you are a lawyer; and also deal with the national security-strategy interface, which requires reference to both diplomacy and international law.

Instead, I get this:

from BW
Historians are as sloppy as any when it comes to pinning names on things. Sometimes politics demands something is played up as "war" that is not, or played down that is. I do believe the Brits called Malaya an "Emergency."

Both of us know that the British construct in Malaya was not the same as what you are presenting; and I know what the Brits called it.

My first question was the meaning of what Robert Jones, JD, COL USA, calls a "civil emergency", followed by two more questions basic to that concept - if it really exists other than as nice-sounding words. You've answered none of them. Like the gal said: no mon; no fun.

BTW: Your Malaya link (to SORO pub) didn't work for me.

For Malaya, I like Riley Sunderland's 5 part monograph set:

1964 01 Army Operations in Malaya, 1947-1960.pdf
1964 02 Organizing Counterinsurgency in Malaya, 1947-1960.pdf
1964 03 Antiguerrilla Intelligence in Malaya, 1948-1960.pdf
1964 04 Resettlement and Food Control in Malaya.pdf
1964 05 Winning the Hearts and Minds of the People in Malaya, 1948-1960.pdf

and Bob Komer's 1972, The Malayan Emergency in Retrospect.pdf - all online pubs available for free at RAND (http://www.rand.org/pubs/). And the Brit books (e.g., Thompson and Kitson).

Regards (but disappointed at the non-answer)

Mike

Dayuhan

10-08-2010, 10:25 PM

1. Do you set geographical limits to US intervention, realizing that is a "Never Again, but ..." default - or, is the World a US oyster ?

I wouldn't set a geographical limit; the world isn't our oyster but it isn't that big a place either. Wherever we go, though, we need to have clear, achievable, limited goals that are consistent with our interests and capacities, and we need to pay a lot more attention to the possibility (probability, in many cases) of unintended consequences.

If we're intervening to assist another party, whether conventionally or unconventionally, we need to keep those same requirements in mind, and also to have a very clear view of the goals, interests, and position of the party we are assisting.

Our default approach to messing in the internal affairs of others should be, simply, don't. If that default comes under question, the next two questions are "must we" and "can we". Both must be assessed with a degree of realism that approaches cynicism. If we must and we can, we intervene to the least possible extent consistent with goals.

One hopes we have learned enough that we will never again hear "install a government" proposed as a step in an intervention process. Kind of like those home improvement instructions that begin with "remove roof and temporarily set aside".

2. If multilateralism is involved, is the preferred US default to work through regional organizations, or ad hoc coalitions of the "willing", or bilateral alliances ?

No preferred default. Each situation is its own case and we do what we can and what we must, with as much restraint as possible, in each. In general, I'd say rules, preferred models, default choices are all to be avoided: they make it too easy to react without thinking.

. Does "more subtle, less direct" foreclose or limit US military options; and if so, what are the "rules to engage" ?

Foreclose, no; limit, yes. Certainly there are situations where force is the only option, but we need a very clear, level-headed assessment to determine whether any given situation actually requires it. Again we come back to clear, limited, and achievable goals. We need to be sure that military force is used to achieve goals suitable to achievement with force: you use military force to kill someone who is trying to kill you, you don't use it to install a government or generate "development".

There's a lot of common sense in this to me... think before you act, know what you're trying to accomplish, use the right tool for the job, don't stick your equipment where it doesn't belong. Of course life is seldom simple or clear, but the guiding principles need to emphasize restraint and recognize from the start that we are neither global cop nor global saviour.

I don't really disagree with RCJ's assessment of the origins of insurgency. I think he's a bit too absolutist about it, and that his model needs the flexibility to recognize the exceptions and variations that are inevitable when models meet the real world. I also think his occasional proposal of conducting UW in other nations as self-appointed champion of the populace is, despite the best of intentions, a recipe for disaster.

That's off the top of my head at 6:30AM, and not meant as a formal prescription for grand strategy... not as if anyone listens anyway!

jmm99

10-08-2010, 11:15 PM

You wanna speak up a little bit - I think I missed about half of what you said. :D

I'll stick your answers (thanks) in the file cabinet with the rest of my thoughts.

Cheers

Mike

Ken White

10-08-2010, 11:29 PM

There's a lot of common sense in this to me... think before you act, know what you're trying to accomplish, use the right tool for the job, don't stick your equipment where it doesn't belong. Of course life is seldom simple or clear, but the guiding principles need to emphasize restraint and recognize from the start that we are neither global cop nor global saviour.I agree with all you wrote. This paragraph, in particular leads to the next:
I don't really disagree with RCJ's assessment of the origins of insurgency. I think he's a bit too absolutist about it, and that his model needs the flexibility to recognize the exceptions and variations that are inevitable when models meet the real world. I also think his occasional proposal of conducting UW in other nations as self-appointed champion of the populace is, despite the best of intentions, a recipe for disaster.Totally agree. RCJ has some excellent idea that merit deep consideration. However, he does -- and too many in the US policy arena do -- indeed suffer from excess absolutism (for examples, read any political speech by most senior Politicians from both US parties over the last 40 year...). RCJ himself is an exemplar; he often advocates not sticking our nose in the business of others and in the same posts sometimes advocates "helping" other nations with their problems.

Your 'take each case on it own merits' is the correct course, logically few will disagree yet that absolutist tendency takes over, egos overrule common sense and off we go again being the champion of the oppressed. :rolleyes: De Opresso Liber is a bad motto because it encourages such adventures...
That's off the top of my head at 6:30AM, and not meant as a formal prescription for grand strategy... not as if anyone listens anyway!Well, you're doing better than a slew of Think Tanklets, Prating Pundits and Pandering Politicians... :wry:

slapout9

10-08-2010, 11:52 PM

I don't disagree. I just don't think that aggressively inserting our presence into the internal affairs of other countries is a viable way to this end. We may be able to provide assistance in some cases, to some extent, if and only if we are asked to do so. Trying to leap into other people's frays as the self-appointed champion of populaces who have not asked for our help, and whose desires and motivations we do not understand... well, that seems to me a recipe for disaster. The answer to bad intervention is not something we imagine to be "good intervention". The answer to bad intervention is less intervention, and intervention that is more subtle, less direct, and more multilateral whenever possible.

I think this a good description of the Moral Level of War. Something that the US seems to struggle with.

Bob's World

10-09-2010, 12:08 AM

Mike,

I gave you a quick answer as I was dashing out the door for an appointment. I owe you a better answer. Look at the definitions I posted on Steve Metz's thread in the mean time and I'll put something up tomorrow morning.

As to being a bit "absolutist," guilty, but no more so than CvC's trinity is "absolutist." Of course he got little respect until he was long dead, so I have something to look forward to...

I'm fighting an inertia of focusing on symptoms and blaming insurgents, so sometimes I push too hard, I know. Its just damn tough to get politicians to take responsibility for anything, but I am committed to pinning insurgency on them yet!

(More importantly I owe it to the men. We keep throwing our brave young men and women at the symptoms of the problem. Having spent much of the last year in southern Afghanistan as Marjah and the run up to Kandahar went down; then going up to the Embassy and working it at that level for a month prior to having a silly physical problem personally that put me into the medevac pipeline and spending several days with great Americans who were broken in body, but strong in spirit, as we worked our way back to CONUS, I take this personal. I know we can get smarter. And if I can make politicians sweat instead of allowing soldiers to bleed, I will consider it a win.)

Dayuhan

10-09-2010, 01:32 AM

I take it a bit personally too, having lived in the middle of it... well, ok, in the middle of the fringe of it... for something over 30 years of the Commie threat, the Islamic threat, etc. After all that, the only thing that scares me more than mercenary Americans coming to advance their own interests is missionary Americans coming to rescue the populace.

If we're talking about Afghanistan, though, we must always remember that we didn't go there to rescue a bad government from its populace, we chose to impose a government on a populace that didn't want to be governed. For that choice we have paid a high price, and unfortunately those who made the choice aren't the ones paying the price. This is why I say we must be a whole lot more careful and restrained before we go out and decide what's good for anyone else.

I think this a good description of the Moral Level of War. Something that the US seems to struggle with.

"Moral" and "struggle" go together, do they not? If we're not struggling with our definition of morality it's time to be very afraid, because that means we've declared it absolute and ceased to question it.

jmm99

10-09-2010, 01:46 AM

this:

from BW
(More importantly I owe it to the men. We keep throwing our brave young men and women at the symptoms of the problem. Having spent much of the last year in southern Afghanistan as Marjah and the run up to Kandahar went down; then going up to the Embassy and working it at that level for a month prior to having a silly physical problem personally that put me into the medevac pipeline and spending several days with great Americans who were broken in body, but strong in spirit, as we worked our way back to CONUS, I take this personal. I know we can get smarter. And if I can make politicians sweat instead of allowing soldiers to bleed, I will consider it a win.)

Because my distrust of lawyer-politicians is nearly absolute, I endorse some bright line limitations, which Dayuhan would prefer not to have.

Thus, my "Never Again, but ..." as the default. That doesn't mean that one has to retreat into some form of pre-1854 Japanese isolationism, or that I'm seeking a retreat into the past. My non-interventionist types are those mixed Guardians-Heroes (in Brian Linn's jargon) such as post-WWI Jack Pershing and Billy Mitchell, who were both very forward looking.

All of that (my rant) is moving off the point of "War is War"; and much more to the point of "Should we be having this war ?".

I have read the "Metzian" and "Jonesian" constructs. His "Insurgency is a strategy ....... " is followed by 9 subpoints. Your "[Insurgency is] a Condition ....." is followed by 8 subpoints. Copied both to a desktop note so I could follow your discussion. What you two seem to be dealing with is a strategic definition of "insurgency" - for what purpose (military, political, both) ?

Anyway, that's not my bag. The terms "insurgent" and "belligerent" have historical legal meanings, but they (like the term "war") have been largely supplanted in legal practice by the existence or not of an "armed conflict"; and, if so, whether that "armed conflict" is international or non-international. Violent Non-State Actors, whether Transnational or Domestic, can be handled without great legal difficulties within those confines. Of course, lawyer-politicians and/or knuckleheads can screw up anything.

My narrow, legal difficulties with what you say are with what seems a mix of military and civil actions; military ruled by Laws of War and civilian by Rule of Law is the usual division. Transition between Laws of War and Rule of Law is not that easy and fraught with problems, as someone like Polarbear could attest.

Regards

Mike

Bob's World

10-09-2010, 02:36 AM

It requires multi-discipline approaches to crack this nut. Mono-cultures will tend to make the problem fit within their capabilities. Toss insurgency to the military and what do you get? COIN=War. I understand why the status quo position exists, but I still believe better answers exist.

Dayuhan

10-09-2010, 05:06 AM

All of that (my rant) is moving off the point of "War is War"; and much more to the point of "Should we be having this war ?".

A very valid point. We can refer to any given situation as war, civil emergency, police action, whatever. We still have to decide, for each unique case, whether and to what extent we need to be involved.

jmm99

10-09-2010, 05:34 AM

For Bob's edification or embarassment, his points 2-8 (as I've numbered them - point 1 is his definition of insurgency):

2. Conditions of Insurgency: A state of mind. The conditions of insurgency arguably exist to some degree within every populace. In most cases such conditions are benign in that they are not strong enough to support the rise of a significant insurgent organization, even if manipulated by outside actors conducting UW or by ideological themes designed for this audience. As perceptions of poor governance increase so does the degree of the conditions of insurgency. Left unchecked these conditions are apt to be exploited by internal and/or external parties for purposes of their own that may or may not have the welfare of the affected populace in mind. Conditions of insurgency are caused by the government and assessed through the perspective of the populace.

3. Poor Governance: Actions or inactions on the part of governance that contribute to create conditions of insurgency within one or more significant segments of the society they govern. Poor Governance is assessed through the perceptions of each significant segment of society separately as well as collectively. Objective metrics of effectiveness of governance are immaterial to assessments of goodness.

4. Good Governance: Governance, that may be either effective or ineffective, that through the nature of its performance prevents the growth of conditions of insurgency. Subjective, and measured as assessed by each significant segment of a populace, perceptions of good governance will typically vary across a state. Where good governance exists insurgency is unlikely. Where good governance is lacking the conditions of insurgency will grow, creating vulnerability for exploitation by internal or external actors pursuing agendas that may, or may not represent the best interests of the populace. The most critical perceptions that contribute to good governance appear to be those of Legitimacy, Justice, Respect and Hope.

5. Perception of Legitimacy: The most critical causal perception contributing to the conditions of insurgency in a society. Legitimate is not synonymous with Official. It is a recognition and acceptance on the part of any significant segment of a society of the rights and duties of governance to govern. This is independent of any official or legal status of governance or any recognition of this governance by others. Historically insurgent movements will ultimately fail when this condition exists, and prevail when it is absent. The absence of legitimacy is the cornerstone of despotism.

6. Perception of Justice: A critical causal perception that contributes to the conditions of insurgency in a society as shaped by good or poor performance of governance. Justice is not synonymous Rule of Law. Perceptions of justice are based in how the populace feels about the rule of law as it is applied to them. Enforcing the Rule of Law upon a populace that perceives the law as unjust is tyranny and will make the conditions of insurgency worse.

7. Perception of Respect: A critical causal perception that contributes to the conditions of insurgency in a society as shaped by good or poor performance of governance. Measured through the eyes of the populace, the widely help perception within any significant segment of a society that they are not excluded from full participation in governance and opportunity as a matter of status. Assessments by those outside the affected populace, to include by the government, are immaterial.

8. Perception of Hope: A critical causal perception that contributes to the conditions of insurgency in a society as shaped by good or poor performance of governance. Hope resides in the absolute confidence within any significant segment of a society that they have available to them trusted, certain and legal means to change their governance. Hope is the great off-ramp for insurgency, as the presence of hope keeps politics within the established and accepted legal parameters.

are all factors that I'd take into account (possibly using different words) in mounting a purely political effort (struggle) vice a violent or a non-violent opposition group. So, is this stuff "war" or not ??

What that paradigm does not take into account are situations (say in different parts of the country) where the purely political effort must be mixed with some violence (as in Vietnamese Pacification), or where the political effort has to be deferred until military control can be established. Those situations seem to me to be the tough ones to resolve as to who should be doing what.

My own view is that the US should avoid getting involved in these messes, unless the mess is directly affecting us in a very substantial way where the costs of not getting involved will be materially greater than the costs of involvement.

Regards

Mike

Dayuhan

10-09-2010, 07:27 AM

So, is this stuff "war" or not ??

If the people involved are killing each other and calling it war, that's probably what it is. Whether or not it is or should be our war is another question altogether.

My own view is that the US should avoid getting involved in these messes, unless the mess is directly affecting us in a very substantial way where the costs of not getting involved will be materially greater than the costs of involvement.

I would only add that the calculation of relative cost must be realistic to the point of harshness and that the full range of possible (and probable) unintended consequences must be included in that evaluation. Basing cost/benefit analyses on overly optimistic assumptions has got us into trouble in the past.

Bob's World

10-09-2010, 01:09 PM

Not sure if this helps, but another excerpt from a piece I am working on on "Perspectives on Insurgency":

Traditional Perspective: “Insurgency and counterinsurgency (COIN) are complex subsets of warfare.”

Updated: Insurgency is an illegal political challenge to a governing body that may be either violent or non-violent in terms of tactics employed and campaign design. COIN is the action of that governing body working to prevent or resolve the civil emergency.

• Explained: Insurgency may at times rise to the point of warfare against a state, but is typically best seen as a civil emergency by the government, thereby retaining civilian control over COIN. Insurgency is best thought of as a condition that comes to exist in a society based on perceptions of key aspects of governance by distinct segments of the populace. The presence of the conditions of insurgency makes a populace ripe for exploitation by actors either internal or external to the state for their own purposes. Success in COIN is in understanding and addressing these conditions, which often requires significant changes of governance.

• Direct Application to Afghanistan: General McChrystal struggled to get Coalition forces to fully embrace the tactical directives his headquarters published. The problem with the directives was not their lack of war-like nature that so many complained of. The problem was that the forces receiving them were trained for war, sent to war, and directed to win the war. The horse was out of the barn. This problem is resolved by declaring an end to the war in Afghanistan, and then training and tasking the coalition forces sent to Afghanistan to conduct less war-like operations, such as Military Support to Civil Authorities. By then placing operations under some civilian leadership structure tasked to support the Government of Afghanistan, one would set a proper context for General McChrystal’s directives. Not all violence is war, and while Afghanistan will remain a dangerous place for some time to come, properly framing the mission is the first step to getting responders to act properly.

(The paper lays out a family of definitions refined to support my theory and nested so as to address the gaps and overlaps in current COIN definitions created over time and jumbled together. I then drill into a variety of standard COIN soundbites such as this one. This is the Sentence one, Paragraph one, Chapter one of our current COIN manual. For me, this is like starting a landnav course with your start point plotted a gridsqaure off, armed with a compass that is 10 degrees off true. You may get where you're going if you're smart enough and work hard enough; but its going to be a lot harder and take a lot longer than it really needed to.)

There is a BCT from the 101st having a very tough summer in Zari, just west of Kandahar on the road to Helmand. They are waging war there. Like hamburger hill in Vietnam, where also we waged war. The question one must ask, is "to what effect?" Insurgency in Afghanistan radiates out from the Karzai government in Kabul. The constitution of Afghanistan virtually ensures there will be insurgency as it codifes the very aspects of poor governance that lend the most to creating conditions of insurgency among the people. Who is waging COIN to fix GIROA? Instead of senior diplomats and officials getting very rough with the government, we send our young soldiers and marines out to get very rough with the populace.

I don't think we should have bailed out GM; and I sure as hell don't think we should be bailing out the government Karzai formed. Both are failed models and need to either reform or be replaced. But just as we propped up failed structures and put the burden on the populace at home, we do the same with our war-approach to COIN. We prop up failed structures and place the burden on the poplace.

COIN as War is the worst kind of COIN; as it protects the problem rather than addressing it.