Strategic Narrative [Archive] - Small Wars Council

Amy Zalman

03-13-2012, 03:29 AM

Bill,

Thanks for having noticed Strategic Narrative (http://strategic-narrative.net). I have been checking in at and learning from the contributors at Small Wars Journal for years. I used the site a few years ago to do an informal survey of the ways that “narrative” was being used in the defense community (the results are in "Narrative as an Influence Factor in Information Operations," in the 3rd quarter 2010 IO Journal)

Your kind words, and your remarks on “going with trends” got me to sign up and actually show my face here. From my vantage (not as a member of the military but as a close observer of the role of communication in it for the last decade), this point you and others are making about “going with” instead of “forcing against” is crucially important in the information realm as well. I have said in a number of venues that the concept of “counter-narrative” is counter-productive—it simply produces potentially lethal versions of shouting matches. The beauty (and challenge) of information contained in narrative form is that it is porous.

Narratives are composite, shifting things and they will inevitably reveal open areas, points of vulnerability, or internal contradictions—gaps between what others say and what they do--into which new information that directs a story in a more favorable way can be inserted. I thought that the language of “counter-narrative” may have begun to wither but someone who works at NSC recently told me that there, at least, the concept of “counter narrative” is alive and well as a communication strategy.

selil

03-14-2012, 03:32 PM

Amy is to shy. She has talked extensively to my NDU students. Simply put she knows her stuff.

Bob's World

03-14-2012, 04:18 PM

On narratives, I have long believed it is much more effective to think about "competing" narratives, rather than developing "counter" narratives.

To counter tends to lead one to taking opposing positions, whereas in my experience and study one is most likely to find best success by agreeing with much of one's opponent's narrative, and taking it out of their context and placing it into one's own.

As an example, AQ narrative had three main platforms:
Remove Western influence over the politics of the Middle East,
Remove "apostate" governments from power in the Middle East,
Unify the nations of the Middle East as a Caliphate.

We have been "countering" that narrative for 10 years with little effect, because each of those platforms contains a great deal of logic, albeit wrapped in crazy and violence.

The West could, however, compete a much more effective narrative built around the key concepts of the AQ platform:
1. Concede the point that yes, the Cold War led to an excessive degree of Western meddling over the governance of the Middle East, and that at the request of the governments of the region has remained in place long past the expiration date of the Cold War necessities. It is indeed time to re-evaluate and re-assess the role of Western Powers in the region and how they best pursue their vital interests in the region as it exists today.

2. Clarify that "apostate" governments are not the issue, but certainly there are many governments that are out of step with large segments of their populaces. Arab Spring is grim testament to this fact. The West should encourage greater dialog between the leaders of the region and their people, and the necessity of exploring appropriate vehicles to satisfy the people's evolving need for a legal voice on governance.

3. While an ideologically extreme Caliphate is inappropriate for helping the nations and people of the Middle East to engage on more equal and effective terms with other regions of the World, certainly some construct along the lines of the European Union may well be worth exploring and we support such efforts.

Once one steals the logic from their opponent's position, it often only leaves them with crazy and robs them of their influence as well.

Dayuhan

03-15-2012, 01:01 AM

Recognizing the risk of rekindling an old argument, and recognizing as well that my qualifications on the subject of narratives are limited to several decades of observation, I'll say that for me, Bob's post above encapsulates some of the problems we have with comprehending narratives and their impact.

First, we tend to pay too much attention to the narratives proposed by various political groups, and too little to those actually adopted by audiences. Think of the US: Democrats, Republicans, candidates and factions within those groups, and a plethora of others, from the Tea Party to the radical left, all propose and set forth various narratives. Outside of a very small cluster of true believers, very few ever adopt those narratives as a whole. The actual competing narratives that prevail in society are more likely to blend elements of several of these proposed narratives.

Second, we tend to see narratives a fixed elements. They aren't. They grow and they change in response to different stimuli. The idea that we can conduct "information operations" to impose a narrative of our choice, whether competing or opposing, is hopelessly clumsy: we're better off trying to influence the inevitable evolution of the prevailing narratives in any given place. People aren't going to drop the narrative we don't like and accept the one we do. With subtle and well selected moves based primarily on actions, not words, we may be able to help a narrative evolve in a preferred direction.

Look at the steps proposed above for negation of AQ's preferred narrative:

1. Concede the point that yes, the Cold War led to an excessive degree of Western meddling over the governance of the Middle East, and that at the request of the governments of the region has remained in place long past the expiration date of the Cold War necessities. It is indeed time to re-evaluate and re-assess the role of Western Powers in the region and how they best pursue their vital interests in the region as it exists today.

2. Clarify that "apostate" governments are not the issue, but certainly there are many governments that are out of step with large segments of their populaces. Arab Spring is grim testament to this fact. The West should encourage greater dialog between the leaders of the region and their people, and the necessity of exploring appropriate vehicles to satisfy the people's evolving need for a legal voice on governance.

3. While an ideologically extreme Caliphate is inappropriate for helping the nations and people of the Middle East to engage on more equal and effective terms with other regions of the World, certainly some construct along the lines of the European Union may well be worth exploring and we support such efforts.

Everything here revolves around statements and positions, and as such will be ineffective: very few people anywhere, including our own people, notice what we say, and even fewer believe it. Worse, much of what's said here can easily be construed as presenting a desire to interfere in governance issues in Muslim nations, which directly reinforces AQ's narrative. Of course the intention is to present a desire to unravel the pattern of Cold War meddling, but who - even in the US - will believe that?

Furthermore, in focusing on the narrative AQ presents, rather than that which has been adopted, we lead ourselves to efforts we don't need to make. We don't need to counter, or even address, the desire for a Caliphate, because it's never been taken seriously among the intended audience anyway.

AQ and its predecessor groups have presented the narrative above, certainly. The only narrative that's ever actually worked for them, though, is "expel the infidel from the land of the faithful". AQ may have wanted and tried to build influence around the campaign against "apostate" governments or the campaign for a Caliphate, but they've never succeeded in gaining traction beyond a miniscule circle with those campaigns. In actual practice, AQ has gained support and credibility only when they've opposed military forces that intervene in Muslim lands. Without that circumstance, their support and credibility withers rapidly.

We can best subvert AQ's effective narrative (as opposed to their proposed narrative) simply by not intervening in Muslim countries. If intervention is necessary it should be short, sharp, and not involve occupation or "nation building", static enterprises that provide easy fodder for attacks both violent and ideological. AQ will try to force us to intervene, as they did on 9/11, but we need to recognize those moves for what they are and resist being manipulated into counterproductive moves.

Narrative and perception are intertwined, and we have to recognize that we cannot quickly or neatly unravel patterns of perception that have evolved over decades. The West in general and the US in particular have a bad rap in the Middle East, largely deserved. There is absolutely nothing we can do to change that in any immediate sense. The effects of bad meddling cannot be undone with good meddling, no matter how well intentioned. If we take a long-term view, though, we may be able to unravel those perceptions, over a span of time. That needs to be done with actions, not words. Not intervening in support of a Mubarak or a Ben Ali was a good start. Withdrawing from Iraq and Afghanistan and eschewing further attempts at occupation or "nation-building" will help. Not intervening in the internal politics of Muslim nations will help. Treating Muslim governments, even those we dislike, as equals will help: that doesn't mean we have to do whatever they want, it means that we have to treat them with respect, even when we pursue different perceived interests. We have to remember that even citizens who despise their government will rally behind it if they see it being dissed by foreigners, especially of the West. Even well-intentioned attempts to influence a government toward "getting in touch with its populace" can and will be perceived as self-interested meddling.

Unfortunately, subtlety has never been among our strong points. I don't suppose that's about to change.

Bill Moore

03-15-2012, 06:27 AM

Posted by Amy,

Thanks for having noticed Strategic Narrative. I have been checking in at and learning from the contributors at Small Wars Journal for years. I used the site a few years ago to do an informal survey of the ways that “narrative” was being used in the defense community (the results are in "Narrative as an Influence Factor in Information Operations," in the 3rd quarter 2010 IO Journal)

Amy I hope you stick around and post often to help some of us with your insights. SWJ is a good community, but without new voices it tends to get stagnant, because the same people continue to push their pet peeve into forums where it doesn't even fit. Not sure if that qualifies as a counter narrative, or just talking over everyone :D

Narratives are composite, shifting things and they will inevitably reveal open areas, points of vulnerability, or internal contradictions—gaps between what others say and what they do--into which new information that directs a story in a more favorable way can be inserted. I thought that the language of “counter-narrative” may have begun to wither but someone who works at NSC recently told me that there, at least, the concept of “counter narrative” is alive and well as a communication strategy.

Where I'm at we call it a competing narrative, but even that has the same connotation. I like your idea about finding internatal contradictions, etc., but wonder if there is a risk to doing this over time? For example, are we giving them the opportunity to evolve their message over time making it harder to undermine and therefore more dangerous?

Bob's World

03-15-2012, 11:36 AM

Key to remember is that narratives do not create instability. Narratives do not create stability either.

Narratives must be in step with actions to be effective, and are used to facilitate efforts to exploit unstable situations, or to help sustain stable situations.

I think Dayuhan misses the point in my comments above. WE believe the AQ narrative for some bizarre reason, even if the populaces of the region it directly applies to all place it into a context that works for them. God knows how many times I've driven a virtual icepick into my forehead listening to some intel "expert" drone on about one threat narrative or another as if it were carved in stone tablets by the very hand of God. Flashing up big maps showing the boundaries of historic Caliphates with expanding ink blots of where AQ nodes are currently engaging with dissatisfied segments of various populaces. They make it look like maps of WWII and how the German army is advancing across France or Russia, coupled with grim analysis of the dangers of the advancing hordes. Pure theatrical, clueless, yet very dangerous, rhetoric from an intel community that refuses to evolve in their thinking about the type of political instability that gives rise to these populace-based threats.

We need to not just learn how to co-opt and compete more effective narratives of our own, but we must also learn what the actual roles of narratives are in the first place.

Governments need to stop trying to "counter" those who are competing with them for the support of the people. Governments need to stop seeing these competitors as "threats" to simply defeat, as if that solves the problems that give rise to such groups to begin with. Governments need to get off their hands and COMPETE for the support of larger percentages of their total populaces. Too many have relied too long on the support of some small base of populace and either ignored or exploited the rest. Governments need to start playing to the entire house, and not just the front row and the box seats.

Dayuhan

03-19-2012, 02:02 AM

Key to remember is that narratives do not create instability. Narratives do not create stability either.

This is true, but they may give some indication of what is causing instability, and what's needed to create stability. Whether the US or any other outside power is in a position to provide what's needed is another question altogether.

There are always many narratives out there, and one danger of basing decisions on interpretation of narratives is that we all too easily choose to interpret the narratives that allow us to arrive at a preferred interpretation.

Governments need to start playing to the entire house, and not just the front row and the box seats.

Probably true, but not something we can do anything about, except to the extent that our government and our populaces are involved.

When "the entire house" is sufficiently divided, "playing to the entire house" may be all but impossible, especially when each side of the house wants control.

Bob's World

03-19-2012, 09:49 AM

This is true, but they may give some indication of what is causing instability, and what's needed to create stability. Whether the US or any other outside power is in a position to provide what's needed is another question altogether.

There are always many narratives out there, and one danger of basing decisions on interpretation of narratives is that we all too easily choose to interpret the narratives that allow us to arrive at a preferred interpretation.

Probably true, but not something we can do anything about, except to the extent that our government and our populaces are involved.

When "the entire house" is sufficiently divided, "playing to the entire house" may be all but impossible, especially when each side of the house wants control.

Just like in the US? Stability does not mean government must make everyone happy, it just means that everyone must feel that they have a fair opportunity given their relative capabilities to acheive their potential in life and to express their concerns with /shape their governance IAW the expectations of their culture.

I do not think it is a healthy trend that American politics have become so very polarized in recent years, and that politicians feel the need to cater to their polar base rather than to the populace as a whole. When I look at the broad areas of "good governance" that tend to be the primary drivers of stability and instability depending on the perceptions of significant populace groups I see where there are major problems in each category even in a country as stable as the US. Every category except the last one of "Trust", with that being the perception of having "trusted, certain and legal means to influence government when one perceives problems in any of the other categories" (Sovereignty, Legitimacy, Justice, Respect). But even in the US such trust was hard-earned and far more fragile than many probably realize. In many countries in has never existed. In many of those there is a growing expectation among evolving populaces for greater influence over governance than they have perhaps ever possessed.

The narratives of the current US President and the current Republican contenders are all dangerously divisive IMO. We need a leader who is dedicated to unifying the country, rather than dividing it. One who speaks to our commonalities rather than to our differences. We too need a new narrative.

But at least we have a system, for now, where the populace sustains adequate control, to overcome the shortfalls of governance. This is the genius contained within the inefficiencies of the American system of governance. Other nations have populaces clamoring for greater control as well, and lack such adaptive mechanisms. If I had one message to share in my own personal narrative it would be:

"Listen to your people, ALL of your people. They are evolving and their expectations of governance are evolving too. Focus on the commonalities of human nature that run through your entire populace rather than on the cultural quirks of your base of power, and find the mechanisms that make sense for your country and your people, not those that make sense to the US or any other external power. Do not give the populace total control or there will be anarchy, but find that balance point and protect it. You will know when you find it, as there will be a general stability that does not rely upon the capacity of ones internal security forces to sustain it, just as you will know when one is missing the mark by the converse of that same metric."

Most countries share a common problem. Governments are made up of politicians and bureaucrats. As a rule, politicians don't take responsibility for the negative effects of their actions, and bureaucrats are dedicated to preserving the status quo of their process. We live in times where process must evolve and where politicians must stand up and admit that it is their own actions and not external factors of ideology or natural fluctuations in economic cycles that drives political instability.

Tukhachevskii

03-19-2012, 11:27 AM

...at putting things into words

Western vs Islamic World View conflict (http://www.stanford.edu/~rhorn/a/policy/StrggleOfNrrtvs/3.SLDWorldViewConflicts.pdf)

Via the Nautilus Institute (http://www.nautilus.org/gps/tools/visualisation-tools/#the-struggle) website which features a number of tools

Bob's World

03-19-2012, 01:01 PM

Interesting slide, but to me it reads like a Western perspective of what the conflicting perspectives are.

For instance, where is the flanking attacking arrow coming out of the Western Cloud? Why does it capture the political unrest in the Middle East totally in the context of "Jihad"? In fact, this looks like a product that other directorates at the HQ where I work might have produced...

Dayuhan

03-19-2012, 10:45 PM

Just like in the US?

No, not like the US. Even in its most polarized form the US demonstrates a basic consensus on political process and form of government. That's markedly absent in most conflict environments. What you're not accepting is the existence of factionalized environments where absolute power and the ability to suppress rivals with coercive force is the only acceptable outcome for each faction.

If I had one message to share in my own personal narrative it would be:

"Listen to your people, ALL of your people. They are evolving and their expectations of governance are evolving too..."

How would you apply this in an environment where multiple factions have minimal irreducible demands over which they are willing to fight, and those demands are completely incompatible?

Not all problems emerge from people evolving faster than government. Often populaces are not showing any particular inclination to evolve, and remain stuck in the us/them win/lose paradigm that's kept societies conflicted for generations.

Of course our own personal narratives are fascinating to us, but no matter what their virtues they are hardly relevant to others, and we've no way of persuading or compelling others to adopt them.

KingJaja

03-20-2012, 12:45 AM

I am not an expert on this matter, but the appeal of AQ or Boko Haram has less to do with lofty rhetoric but the promise of better government, social services, just laws etc.

The US usually finds itself aligned with corrupt and incompetent politicians - TFG in Somalia, Karzai in Afghanistan, Saleh in Yemen and the Nigerian bunch. This association and the unalloyed support for Israel is what usually has Muslim youth up in arms against the US, not AQ. AQ merely capitalises on that.

But even if we understand this, is there anything we can do about it? The answer is no.

Bill Moore

03-20-2012, 05:32 AM

Posted by KingJaja

I am not an expert on this matter, but the appeal of AQ or Boko Haram has less to do with lofty rhetoric but the promise of better government, social services, just laws etc.

I agree that poor governance contributes, but also believe it is grossly over simplistic to narrow down problems to one underlying cause. There are many locations where there are poor governance and no insurgency. In the case of AQ it requires an underlying condition (normally poor governance, or a foreign occupation) and a Muslim population, because their exploiting religion as much as poor governance.

The US usually finds itself aligned with corrupt and incompetent politicians

I don't disagree, and this is definitely a topic worth exploring in more depth, because it is often the reason we fail in our interventions, even though our intentions are good, and we clearly have overwhelming military and economic might. Sort of, kind of indicates the moral issues are more decisive than might, and narratives that attempt to justify an inept and corrupt government are almost guarunteed to fail.

We choose these relationships because they are convenient, and of course a corrupt politician can be bought and influenced by us and others. Unconventional warfare of the years has been successful in the shortrun, but often fails in the long run based on convenient relations, much like the U.S. putting Mafia members in charge of key positions of Italy to help "stabilize" it as they "liberated" Italy. To avoid this we would have to slow the train down and seek to understand before we engage, and we would also have to dump those that supported us if they turned out to be corrupt. I suspect neither will happen.

On the other hand, you need to also add to your comment that the government the U.S. ousted was just as corrupt, or that the insurgent force attempting to take over the government are just as corrupt.

KingJaja

03-20-2012, 10:42 AM

Bill,

I agree that folks like Saddam and Gaddafi were corrupt, but at least they could keep the peace. When the US comes into situations like this, it usually empowers a set of corrupt but weak leaders - leaders who are just as corrupt but are unable to maintain security.

Was Saddam less competent than Malaki? Was Gaddafi less competent than whoever is running Libya?

Most people tend to worry more about feeding their kids, getting them ahead in life and ensuring that justice is served. Lofty ideals like democracy never meant much to my grandmother.

It is these kinds of gaps that Al Qaeda or their imitators love to exploit.

As you know, I come from Nigeria. Actually Nigeria has two insurgencies raging on - Niger Delta and Boko Haram. Both are partly attributable to poor governance.

What you might not know (as Western news media tends to focus on one story at a time) is that there is an epidemic of kidnappings in the South East (outside the Niger Delta). There is also an organisation MASSOB - Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (does that sound familiar?) that is growing in prominence in that part of Nigeria.

For example, MASSOB was/is heavily involved in transporting and resettling South-Easterners who were displaced by the Boko Haram crisis. They are doing the social welfare bit now, they'll get to other bits in future.

Bill, I have lived in Nigeria/Africa long enough to know that poor governance leads to insurgencies over time. As recently as 1993, I went to Port Harcourt (the heart of the Niger Delta) with my dad. It was a peaceful town, but the behaviour of the police and the glaring differences between the living standards of Oil and Gas company employees and the locals pointed to trouble in future - and it came.

Someone said that COIN in Afghanistan is all about out-governing the Taliban. That should seem easy enough, but when Mullah Omar controlled large swathes of Afghanistan, his word was law. There was a judicial process that led to predictable results, crime was at a minimum and Afghanistan was a much safer place.

The same applies to Al Shabab and the Islamic courts system. For the brief period they held sway, they managed to create order out of chaos.

It is these popular memories - i.e. our local/ethnic/religious militia/organisation can provide social services, avenge wrong doing by heavy-handed security services (and the US military) and give us a sense of self-worth after decades of real or percieved marginalisation/intimidation that make these organisations so difficult to fight.

If you square this up with America's reputation for creating even more chaos out of chaos when the US Military is involved, immediately you realise there is a very SERIOUS problem.

Tukhachevskii

03-20-2012, 10:58 AM

The Language of Jihad: Narratives and Strategies of Al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula (http://www.rusi.org/publications/whitehallreports/ref:N4F06F4FDD26D6/)

Bob's World

03-20-2012, 12:55 PM

There is nothing "simplistic" about the nature of the relationship between any government and all of the many diverse and distinct popualces such organizaitons seek to govern. But it is a simple fact that insurgency is about discontent within such relationships between those who govern, and those who are governed. If it is about criminal profits or some other non-political goal, then it is not insurgency, no matter how much it might grow to threaten government.

I am not sure why that concept scares the holy hell out of so many. Perhaps because it drops the primary onus for the existance of insurgency, for the causation of insurgency, squarely in the lap governments everywhere. So much more convenient to blame external factors beyond one's control, like "malign actors" or "ideology" or some other "not my fault" bogey man. Or to blame local powerbrokers

Certainly when conditions of insurgency exist between some populace group and their government, all of these things emerge. Leaders will certainly emerge who are willing to break the law to seek change. Some will be truly selfless and for positive change, most will be selfish exploiters who see and opportunity to advance their own personal cause or agenda. Smart leaders will craft a narrative that speaks to their target populace, and they will craft it in terms that the state is unlikely to feel it can adopt or co-opt; with the result being the state resorting to the poor strategies of "competing" less effective messages that reinforce an approach to governance already deemed unacceptable by their target audiance.

"Poor Governance" is a very broad family of complex human emotions. At the end of the day, it is not the type of government, the state of the economy or any of a thousand other possible drivers that move a populace to insurgency. It is how that populace feels about those things and who they blame. When they feel strongly and blame government, one has the conditions for insurgency. Once one has those conditions it only takes some spark to set things in motion. It may build slowly or explode all at once, it might be very violent and look a lot like warfare, or it may be very non-violent and look like civil unrest. The key is to appreciate and treat the causation and not simply throw blame at various sticky problems and attack the symptoms. Sadly that is the approach most governments take. That is why most governments suck at COIN, because good governments generally don't have to deal with insurgency to begin with.

KingJaja

03-20-2012, 02:08 PM

Bob's World,

Poor governance is much easier than good governance - and that is why poorly governed spaces abound.

Good governance means institutions, taxes, law enforcement etc. All of these institutions are very difficult to build and maintain, so elites tend to choose the easy way out.

A trade off is usually made between the costs of good governance and the benefit of leaving things the way are. In many cases the costs outweigh the benefits (I am speaking from the POV of a Karzai or a Kabila).

How do we make good governance less costly for the likes of Karzai and Kabila?

Bob's World

03-20-2012, 02:36 PM

We don't solve this. This is a question for the people of Afghanistan to work out with their own government. When effective legal means are available to work these things out we call it "politics"; when such means are not available we call it a wide range of things depending on who one asks, but I call it "insurgency."

What is adequate varies widely by country, by culture and over time. Those societies which develop trusted and certain systems to legally make necessary adjustments create the flexibility and populace control necesary for stability. Those systems that become overly rigid and inflexible hold strong until they break, and when they break they break hard. Most societies that have flexible systems now had to act out illegally and typically violently, to break some pre-existing inflexible system. Too often one has to tear down the old to build new, and too often what is built looks far too much like what was there previously, only to have to tear it all down yet again.

This is all very natural. It has undoubtedly happened since man first organized into social groups. It will continue to happen.

But the better we understand it, the better we can mitigate the negative aspects and effects. But step one is getting governments to step up and take responsibility, and that is more often than not the hardest step of all.

jmm99

03-20-2012, 03:04 PM

I like Western-Islamic World View Conflicts (http://www.stanford.edu/~rhorn/a/policy/StrggleOfNrrtvs/3.SLDWorldViewConflicts.pdf) as a starting point (HT to T). The applicable project, The Struggle of Narratives-Attempting to Visualize It (http://www.stanford.edu/~rhorn/a/policy/StrggleOfNrrtvs/tocStrggleOfNrrtvs_Intro.html) (11 pdfs):

Project Description

Background

However else we characterize the current world situation, we must acknowledge that we are involved in a struggle of worldviews (or as some have called it, a "struggle of narratives"). It may not be a Huntington's "clash of civilizations" but it is most certainly a struggle of ideas. Among the topics we considered in this project are:

What do we mean by struggle of narratives as a context within which diplomacy, politics and the use of force takes place?

How is this more than simply the old battle for the "hearts and minds" of the populace?

Can the pitched battle of the media be thought of as the "New Fog of War" quite different from that described by Clausewitz?

How might a picture of this struggle look from the point of view of our visualization of public policy?

Are there new ways to portray the ideological conflict that might help us understand this process more deeply?
...
Wicked problems

Our view is complex public policy issues constitute what Horst Rittel has called "wicked problems." We sometimes call them ill-structured problems and more informally "social messes."

Wicked problems are situations that have these properties:

complicated, complex, and ambiguous

uncertainty even as to what the problems are, let alone what the solutions might be

great constraints

tightly interconnected, economically, socially, politically, technologically

seen differently from different points of view, and quite different worldviews

contain many value conflicts

are often a-logical or illogical
... (much more)

JMM Comments on the Western-Islamic World View Conflicts chart.

I'd suggest that someone more qualified than myself check out the bullet points for the Traditional Islamic View and for the Militant Islamic Beliefs (the latter appear to be based on Maududi). Whoever does that should be a firm Muslim Traditionalist. I'd also suggest that the Islamic World is not so simple; e.g., the basic division between Sunni and Shia.

Western Constitutional / Democratic / Capitalistic Ideology is scarcely a monolith with huge differences in Worldview between various blocks. I'm drawing out in my head at least a half-dozen blocks - and they are not all "Western". So, the Western Constitutional / Democratic / Capitalistic Ideology as stated is an idealized set of bullet points.

Taking the "Western Constitutional / Democratic / Capitalistic Ideology" as a given, solely for purposes of discussion, one should add a "Western" Left Hook (POW !, as the cartoons say) entitled "Western Attack". That to match the Islamic Left Hook entitled "Militant Counterattack" (POW !). Of course, that immediately leads to an argument as to who attacked first - ah, yes, competing narratives.

The parent webpage, R. Horn Home (http://www.stanford.edu/~rhorn/index.html), leads to his Bio (http://www.stanford.edu/~rhorn/a/site/HornBriefBio.html):

Robert E. Horn is a political scientist with a special interest in policy communication, social learning, and knowledge management (especially in biotechnology and national security affairs). For the past 7 years, he has been a visiting scholar at Stanford University's Center for the Study of Language and Information. His career has been widely interdisciplinary, leading a team (in the 1960s) that developed an information system covering 400 federal programs on education and training, editing a standard reference work that evaluated over 1,500 educational simulations in 35 academic disciplines (in the 1970s), and creating, while he was a research associate at Columbia University, a widely used methodology for the analysis of any complex subject matter. He turned this research into an international consulting company, specializing in knowledge management, called Information Mapping, Inc., (in the 1980s) which he founded and was CEO of for 15 years. He has taught at Harvard, Columbia, and Sheffield (U.K.) universities

His recent development of visual argumentation mapping has resulted in the publication of the Mapping Great Debates series, which, in the past year and a half, has received a full-page review in Nature, as well as being hung in a national museum in The Hague as part of an exhibit on information design as a fine art.

Horn is also Vice President of the Meridian International Institute on Governance, Leadership Learning and the Future, which is a policy think tank. For the past several years, he has been leading a project exploring the possibilities for using highly visual cognitive maps to aid the policy making process (especially science and security matters). His most recently published book is Visual Language: Global Communication for the 21st Century (www.macrovu.com). At Stanford he continues his research work in knowledge management and information design. His consulting clients have included Boeing, Lucent Technologies, Principal Financial, AT&T, HP, and other Global 1000 companies.

This year he was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award for the work on the Information Mapping method from the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM). He is a fellow of the World Academy of Art and Science and a member of its nominations committee. He is a Woodrow Wilson Fellow and a recipient of the Outstanding Research Award from the National Society for Performance and Instruction (NSPI).

Lots of "stuff" - too much "stuff" ? (you judge).

Regards

Mike

Dayuhan

03-20-2012, 11:03 PM

How do we make good governance less costly for the likes of Karzai and Kabila?

Who exactly is "we" in this picture? May I be excused?

I don't think there is any "we" that can "fix" these situations... and in all honesty, even with the best will possible, I doubt that a Karzai or a Kabila could. Institutions and systems aren't built or installed, and the societies in question have to grow with them. Sometimes that means they have to break into less incompatible parts.

We don't solve this. This is a question for the people of Afghanistan to work out with their own government. When effective legal means are available to work these things out we call it "politics"; when such means are not available we call it a wide range of things depending on who one asks, but I call it "insurgency."

What is adequate varies widely by country, by culture and over time. Those societies which develop trusted and certain systems to legally make necessary adjustments create the flexibility and populace control necesary for stability. Those systems that become overly rigid and inflexible hold strong until they break, and when they break they break hard. Most societies that have flexible systems now had to act out illegally and typically violently, to break some pre-existing inflexible system. Too often one has to tear down the old to build new, and too often what is built looks far too much like what was there previously, only to have to tear it all down yet again.

This is all very natural. It has undoubtedly happened since man first organized into social groups. It will continue to happen.

But the better we understand it, the better we can mitigate the negative aspects and effects. But step one is getting governments to step up and take responsibility, and that is more often than not the hardest step of all.

In the language of the thread, I suspect that you may be imposing your personal narrative on situations where it doesn't necessarily apply. No narrative is universal.

Insurgency is not necessarily about "a populace" and "a government". It can be about two or more subsets of a populace fighting for power. When one of those subsets happens to be the government we call it "insurgency", but the root conflict is populace vs populace, not populace vs government. Put the Taliban back in power and you still have insurgency, just with different parties wearing different hats. Of course we can imagine a unified government representing all the populaces involved, but we can imagine lots of stuff. Imagining it won't make it happen.

Imagining "a society" with an inflexible "system" that needs to become flexible overlooks the reality that in many conflict areas there are multiple societies with irreconcilable expectations, lumped together in arbitrarily designated "nations" based on little more than the whims of colonial cartography. I don't know how realistic it is to expect systems to grow that will accommodate those parts, and it's definitely unrealistic to think any outside power can make that happen.

The idea of "getting governments to step up and take responsibility" seems to assume that the government is something separate from the societies and populaces it governs, and does not necessarily reflect their divisions. Again, not realistic. We are not going to persuade any government, anywhere, to do what we want it to do if it sees that action as opposed to its own interests. They may fake it in exchange for concessions (we make that easy), but not much more.

KingJaja

03-21-2012, 12:44 AM

Who exactly is "we" in this picture? May I be excused?

I don't think there is any "we" that can "fix" these situations... and in all honesty, even with the best will possible, I doubt that a Karzai or a Kabila could. Institutions and systems aren't built or installed, and the societies in question have to grow with them. Sometimes that means they have to break into less incompatible parts.

By we I meant the global community.

Bill Moore

03-21-2012, 06:17 AM

Posted by Dayuhan,

Insurgency is not necessarily about "a populace" and "a government". It can be about two or more subsets of a populace fighting for power. When one of those subsets happens to be the government we call it "insurgency", but the root conflict is populace vs populace, not populace vs government. Put the Taliban back in power and you still have insurgency, just with different parties wearing different hats. Of course we can imagine a unified government representing all the populaces involved, but we can imagine lots of stuff. Imagining it won't make it happen.

This is a fair point, and the bottom line is there is no universal cause or solution to insurgency. The narratives vary widely among different groups, and we as an interloper will not effectively counter any narrative.

Imagining "a society" with an inflexible "system" that needs to become flexible overlooks the reality that in many conflict areas there are multiple societies with irreconcilable expectations, lumped together in arbitrarily designated "nations" based on little more than the whims of colonial cartography. I don't know how realistic it is to expect systems to grow that will accommodate those parts, and it's definitely unrealistic to think any outside power can make that happen.

I know Bob appreciates this, but what seems to be overlooked by his theory is that violence actually serves a purpose, no matter how unpleasant it may be. If a peaceful solution was first desired, and second feasible, then the parties would have pursued a peaceful solution.

The idea of "getting governments to step up and take responsibility" seems to assume that the government is something separate from the societies and populaces it governs, and does not necessarily reflect their divisions. Again, not realistic. We are not going to persuade any government, anywhere, to do what we want it to do if it sees that action as opposed to its own interests. They may fake it in exchange for concessions (we make that easy), but not much more.

I don't governments reject responsibility in most cases, but on the other hand they don't care about the insurgent's views or objectives. If the insurgents are effective enough militarily they can force the government to care. Governments and insurgents have to reach a point where they desire a political versus military solution. It isn't a matter of taking responsibility, because they already know why there is an insurgency.

Bob's World

03-21-2012, 09:48 AM

A few items worth considering and discussing.

1. what is it when one segment of a populace battles another within some state. Neither battling, presumably against or to change the state, but rather simply to sort out some issue of localized power, wealth, grievance, etc?

In the US we have called such things "feuds" as in the Hatfield's and the McCoys; also "Range Wars" or "Water Wars" as parties in an expanding West battled for control of critical grazing, or more often, water resources. More modernly "turf wars" between rival gangs of various criminal nature. But we don't call them insurgencies. Which such activities often cause challenges to the local authorities and impact the local populace, they are not politically motivated and are not driven from some base of political grievance within some segment of a populace, so IMO, are not insurgency.

We must learn to classify such illegal violence among the people by the nature of its roots, not by the nature of the form or tactics that it ultimately adopts. When we do this we shift from setting out to defeat the symptoms of such problems to one of setting out to actually resolve them in a relatively enduring manner.

2. "...they (governments) already know why there is an insurgency." Certainly sometimes this is true. I am sure there are many times government officials privately admit that actions within their control or that are directly or indirectly the cause of government action or policy are at the roots of the insurgency they face; while officially they blame ideology, religion, economy, foreign agents, internal malign actors, etc, etc etc and set out to defeat the symptoms. And yes, where no legal means are available to force such governments to make changes, illegal and violent means will often be taken up by such populaces in efforts to force the government to change. Bill actually validates my position with his counter position.

But do we think that some populaces prefer to fight and die and bring state violence down upon their self, their families and their communities when effective, trusted, and certain legal means that make sense within the context of their culture exist to address their grievances with that same government??? I need a couple of examples, because I can't think of any. I mean real examples, not ones like Afghanistan where sham elections of certain officials in Kabul exist, but where people have no true means to address the Northern Alliance monopoly of governance, and certainly no means that is rooted in the traditional processes of their culture and history.

3. "No one root cause." Totally agree. "Poor Governance" as I define and apply it is a broad family of critical perceptions between a populace and their governance. Insurgency is political and is about illegal popular challenges levied against a government by a segment of its populace. Other types of violence are not insurgency. It does us no good to lump such violence by the very character of the violence, but we must focus on who the conflict is between and what the essence of the movement is. Far too many types of conflict are lumped under insurgency these days. The most glaring example is the rise of criminal drug cartels in Mexico. Certainly they challenge government, but their primary purpose is profit and power by individuals and small business/family organization. That is not insurgency and requires a very different solution set to be applied against it.

Another example is AQ. What Kilcullen calls "global insurgency" conflates what are dozens of separate nationalist movements and localized grievances, that are indeed in most part each a unique insurgency against some government or another, all under the common banner of AQ who conducts UW to leverage those diverse pools of insurgent energy to their common cause, while applying a common unifying ideology. That is UW, that is not "global insurgency" any more than the efforts of the US and the Soviets to leverage the insurgent energy of various populaces to their larger Cold War goals in that era were "global insurgency."

We need to clean up our lexicon and how we group and define these things.

I know with great certainty that Bill Moore, Dayuhan and Bob Jones all are in about 90% agreement on these matters, yet we flog each other over the 10%. Yes, the 10% is important, but much of it is because the lexicon of this field of conflict is such a muddy mess.

Dayuhan

03-21-2012, 01:31 PM

In the US we have called such things "feuds" as in the Hatfield's and the McCoys; also "Range Wars" or "Water Wars" as parties in an expanding West battled for control of critical grazing, or more often, water resources. More modernly "turf wars" between rival gangs of various criminal nature. But we don't call them insurgencies.

I don't know that you can reasonably compare the Hatfields and the McCoys to, say, the Muslim/Christian tensions in the southern Philippines or Nigeria, or the Israeli/Palestinian issues, or the Shi'a/Sunni violence in so many places, or... well, the list goes on. There are divisions in many places that vastly exceed anything the US has known since the civil war.

But do we think that some populaces prefer to fight and die and bring state violence down upon their self, their families and their communities when effective, trusted, and certain legal means that make sense within the context of their culture exist to address their grievances with that same government???

Again, I think you're assuming a grievance with the government, and not considering the possibility that some people just plain want power. If the grievance is that they have the power and we want it, there are certain problems with trying to supply avenues for resolution, especially when nobody's interested in sharing.

"Poor Governance" as I define and apply it is a broad family of critical perceptions between a populace and their governance.

I realize that. I just think that in many cases those involved in the conflict may not be defining and applying the term as you do.

Another example is AQ. What Kilcullen calls "global insurgency" conflates what are dozens of separate nationalist movements and localized grievances, that are indeed in most part each a unique insurgency against some government or another, all under the common banner of AQ who conducts UW to leverage those diverse pools of insurgent energy to their common cause, while applying a common unifying ideology. That is UW, that is not "global insurgency" any more than the efforts of the US and the Soviets to leverage the insurgent energy of various populaces to their larger Cold War goals in that era were "global insurgency."

No argument from me there; I never bought into the "global insurgency" construct.

I know with great certainty that Bill Moore, Dayuhan and Bob Jones all are in about 90% agreement on these matters, yet we flog each other over the 10%. Yes, the 10% is important, but much of it is because the lexicon of this field of conflict is such a muddy mess.

Probably true on the 90%, but I suspect that we argue over the 10% less because its important than because we are a contentious bunch by nature.

Bob's World

03-21-2012, 04:15 PM

Big religious divides are very real. Sometimes it is just religous difference for the sake of religion.

They are also very much exploited by those with agendas to gain political power, or can be a source of political causation when a government favors those of one religion and creates perceptions of unfairness or oppression of those of another religion.

So long as Israel is dedicated to the concept of a "Jewish State" they will have conflict with those citizens who are not jewish, and by extention, with their non-Jewish neighbors as well. That may not seem fair, when one has a "Muslim State" next door in Saudi Arabia, but one must recall that the Saudis established their state long before CNN, BBC and others started putting the play by play of religious genocide and oppression on the 24-hour news.

Israel occupied by force, and then forced a system onto those who lived there. The fact that they did so with so much help from others robs them of the legitimacy they would have had if they did it all on their own. Now it creates perpetual friction for them and for those who help them. I understand why Jewish people want a state to call their own, and I understand why they want it where it is. I also understand why those who live there will never willingly accept such a concept as it forces them into a subjugated role. Religion is the issue, but the forum is one of politics. This is insurgency with regards to the Muslims of Israel. If one is merely looking at Jews and Muslims hating or fighting each other in general around the globe, or similar between Shia and Sunni, that is not insurgency.

We must make critical distinctions along the lines that matter. Too often we focus on what is obvious rather than on what is important. Or as often, the government places the focus on what is obvious because it wants to shift attention from what is important.

Israel will happily discuss the evils of Muslim terrorists attacking the Jewish state. They are unlikely to spend much time discussing the inherent unacceptablity of forcing a Jewish state onto Muslim people.

Ken White

03-21-2012, 08:45 PM

It's too much an emotional as opposed to a rational subject for too many on both sides of the issue. FWIW, I'll say up front that I believe both sides have erred and badly so; both have much for which to atone -- and neither is likely to do much atoning...

However, this from Bob's World is too simplistic to not comment:
Israel occupied by force, and then forced a system onto those who lived there...IIRC, the Jews also were willing at the time (Dec 1947) to accept the UN General Assembly 'Plan of Partition with Economic Union' -- the Palestinans and the Arab League refused to do that and attacked. All that falls in 'shooting oneself in the foot' territory...:wry:
The fact that they did so with so much help from others robs them of the legitimacy they would have had if they did it all on their own...That means our assistance from France in the 18th Century robs us of legitimacy, right? :D
Israel will happily discuss the evils of Muslim terrorists attacking the Jewish state. They are unlikely to spend much time discussing the inherent unacceptablity of forcing a Jewish state onto Muslim people.Nor will their opponents spend much time discussing (in English or for foreign consumption...) the disappearance of the State of Israel from the ground -- they've already done it on the maps... :rolleyes:

It's okay to have a view on things but to shade the truth to make a point can badly undercut important messages. ;)

Bob's World

03-21-2012, 10:19 PM

I can say with considerable certainty, that while I at times mix my metaphors or get my facts wrong, I have never intentionally "shaded" any facts to make a point.

That said, yes, France's support to the Colonies absolutely undermined the legitimacy of our movement. Consider the subsequent decades of British harassment of American shipping and their burning of our capital as exhibit one. Ultimately we EARNED our legitimacy on our own right, but it took time. While I doubt the British government had come to that conclusion by the time they agreed to the Monroe Doctrine, they were always pragmatic enough to recognize the value of forming convenient allies to meet shared interests...

As to the 1947 UN Plan of Partition, I don't know the details of what that entailed or why any of the affected parties made any of the decisions they made based upon the contents of the same.

But I do know that if China helped create a "Spanish State" in California based upon some historical claim of Spanish right and a residual populace that Americans everywhere would fight that decision to the bitter end, regardless of what the UN might declare. And that is without any religious undertone. Sometimes religion is a big factor, sometimes it's just a big smokescreen to the real issues.

These are not black and white issues, obviously, but the human dynamic cannot be discounted. Human nature is a constant that provides a solid point of departure for attempting to understand these things. Certainly more reliable than official government statements, insurgent narratives, or post facto histories of unknown agenda.

Ken White

03-21-2012, 11:03 PM

I can say with considerable certainty, that while I at times mix my metaphors or get my facts wrong, I have never intentionally "shaded" any facts to make a point.Cherry picking? Selective quoting better? Down Bob, just kidding. :D

We all mix metaphors and get twisted on facts; I'm as guilty of that as anyone. I also sometimes inadvertently, truly unintentionally, cherry pick -- don't realize I've done it until later... :o
...These are not black and white issues, obviously, but the human dynamic cannot be discounted. Human nature is a constant that provides a solid point of departure for attempting to understand these things. Certainly more reliable than official government statements, insurgent narratives, or post facto histories of unknown agenda.True dat. Very much so...

Bob's World

03-22-2012, 10:20 AM

Not to worry, no offense assumed or taken.

I do think, however it is very important that we separate in our thinking how populaces perceive and respond to certain politically driven situations that affect their lives, and how government perceive and respond to those same situations.

To the example cited, the response and perception of the nations of the Arab league are one thing; the response and perceptions of Muslim Arabs finding themselves suddenly living in a Jewish state another; and the perceptions of Muslims everywhere else many other things yet again.

Personally I wish all of the affected parties the best, and mostly just wish the US could come to a more workable perspective and approach to the situation. We get ourselves "fixed" to impossible situations; and then dedicate ourselves to all manner of ass-pain to attempt to force everything else to conform to the "impossible dream." The creation of Israel; the creation of South Vietnam and our support not just to it, but to the Diem government as well; the creation of GIRoA out of the Northern Alliance and our dedication to preserving their centralized monopoly on Afghan governance; etc.

We seem to think that if we want something, if we think something is good and proper for our interests as we perceive them; then because we are so good and proper ourselves (in our own self-image, flawed as that may be) that everyone else will want and think the same in regard to their own interests. Words like "pragmatic" and "values" and "democracy" get used so often in high-level political/policy realm in DC they must start to lose their meaning. Just saying them isn't enough, just thinking of them in terms of our perspective and interests is not enough. It seems we still think it is. We make the rules, so what we do is "legal." Then we define "legitimate" to essentially mean the same as legal, so we delude ourselves into believing that whatever we do or create is then in turn "legitimate" as well. We don't separate how people think and feel from how governments think and act. We don't get it, but we think we do. And we think we are both right and in the right, so therefore justified to overcome any opposition to our efforts. That is a dangerous combination.

Amy Zalman

03-22-2012, 04:10 PM

I have been following the twists and turns of this thread with interest, not only for its content but for the way that the concept of narrative is being used. It strikes that “narrative” is being discussed primarily like an object that we posses, a thing we can “drop” or “adopt” and something that political leaders tell.

I might suggest that in addition to a consciously adopted story that leaders—of states or groups—tell, “narrative” as it is intended in the conversation on this thread has a meaning more closely related to identity, stories we live in more than those we tell (like messages or novels). Say peoples’ and groups’ and states’ senses of self are all constructed of multiple narratives; we’re born into family histories, religions, regions, cultures, sets of particular expectations that our lives will go this way or that, and we have organizational and professional narratives, &c. &c. that change over the course of a life.

An Afghan citizen, or American voter, or jihadist, has an identity made up of multiple narratives that preceded them and which flow through them, and which they also, in turn retell in a different way to others (think of nodes in a network, each node like a kind of clearinghouse through which ideas and stories and practices flow. Or like a prism—we refract the narratives we inherit according to our particular positioning).

So while there are broad differences in belief between Islamic societies and Western ones that are worth drawing out for some purposes, there is no person or group that holds or purveys all of those views, or only those views, in a pure way, nor do members of cultures simply decide to adopt or drop elements of their cultural identity, unless they become so existentially distressing that they have to be thrown off (like being told that one is an American, but also only 3/5ths of a person). In this sense, narratives do play an important, if not causal, role in maintaining stable societies.

It is somewhat odd to me that much mainstream analysis of highly vocal salafists and self-declared jihadists has so readily accepted their rhetoric on its face. We interrogate the symbolism and coding and rhetoric of our own political figures, and see that it is complex and maneuvers various cultural symbols to achieve political ends. I have never understood why we aren’t as sophisticated about our approach to extremist rhetoric. We (the institutional U.S.) are extremely poor at grasping the degree to which various actors in the Middle East manipulate and reconstruct tradition and religion in what are by all definitions modern states. Think of the Jumeirah malls in Dubai as an overt symbol of this process– what self-conscious Disneyification of an Arab Bedouin identity -- and for local consumption. That is just an easy visual symbol of more complex politics, though.

KingJaja

03-22-2012, 09:05 PM

It is somewhat odd to me that much mainstream analysis of highly vocal salafists and self-declared jihadists has so readily accepted their rhetoric on its face. We interrogate the symbolism and coding and rhetoric of our own political figures, and see that it is complex and maneuvers various cultural symbols to achieve political ends. I have never understood why we aren’t as sophisticated about our approach to extremist rhetoric. We (the institutional U.S.) are extremely poor at grasping the degree to which various actors in the Middle East manipulate and reconstruct tradition and religion in what are by all definitions modern states. Think of the Jumeirah malls in Dubai as an overt symbol of this process– what self-conscious Disneyification of an Arab Bedouin identity -- and for local consumption. That is just an easy visual symbol of more complex politics, though.

Doing that requires much more effort than sending a few graduate students to study those societies, it requires an ongoing communication with those societies. Sadly, the US and the West neither has the patience nor the inclination for that kind of conversation.

I am an African, I live in Africa and I also know that the West narrative about Africa hasn't changed significantly since the 1600's. The same applies to the Arab nations.

Why is it so? Slavery could be justified if Africans were deemed inferior. The Arab/Muslim World was branded an enemy, all enemies lose their humanity. It is easier to tell the Western people that "they hate us for our freedoms" than to initiate a useful conversation about where the hatred actually stems from.

What is of interest to scholars is of little use to politicians. Politicians want a simple line, a simple story to sell to the populace. Complexity is frowned at. The present state of affairs will continue.