This is what victory looks like

[ali_ababa]

A LITTLE after 2am, in the small town of ad-Dawr, south of Tikrit, Captain Ahmed of the Iraqi army is leading his troops on one of their regular arrest raids.

Half a dozen men from one particular house are dragged out, hands bound with plastic flexi-cuffs, and lined up. But the man they'd come for isn't there.
"Listen, donkey-f..ker,", says Ahmed, addressing the head of the household, "I know your eldest son is with the terrorists because he keeps sniping at my men."

Pointing his Kalashnikov at the abject row of detainees, he continues: "And if you don't bring him down to the JSC (joint staff college), I'll be back here tomorrow night and I'll shoot every last one of you."
....


http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22926331-15084,00.html

[Ron Humphrey]

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22926331-15084,00.html

During the last 20 years or so what would that same situation have looked like in comparison?

[Gian P Gentile]

I am dazed and confused over this one; the title lead-in to the post and the article itself. Maybe somebody smart like Rob Thornton or Ken White or RTK can help me understand it.

Is this how they are teaching to define victory at the Coin Academy in Taji nowadays??

gian

[Jedburgh]

I am dazed and confused over this one; the title lead-in to the post and the article itself. Maybe somebody smart like Rob Thornton or Ken White or RTK can help me understand it.

Is this how they are teaching to define victory at the Coin Academy in Taji nowadays??

gian
It has nothing to do with the COIN Academy and everything to do with wry Aussie humor and the intended spin of the author. The last paragraph of the article locks it in:

.....For the first time in a long time, the coalition can credibly claim that things are moving in the right direction. The Sunni vigilantes, the divided police force and Rambo-style Iraqi army officers, along with the kidnapping, the crime and the tribal fighting: this is what victory looks like in Iraq. Next year, the Americans will declare it so and some will start to go home.

[Rank amateur]

If anyone is interested, it is a Murdoch paper:

News Corporation is the umbrella company for an empire that also includes the Fox News Channel, the New York Post newspaper, the Fox Hollywood film studios and television network and the rapidly growing Internet social networking site MySpace.

Other holdings include The Australian newspaper and the US-based book publishing giant HarperCollins. (http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5g--VMBWABjxMf0M5qTHH1ic280oQ)

[Gian P Gentile]

Still confused;

Is it Aussie humor or neo-con speak from a Murdoch paper?

gian

[Ken White]

Still confused;

Is it Aussie humor or neo-con speak from a Murdoch paper?

gian

who has no great love for the US, regardless of his employer, I suspect. I hit several of their papers every day; get some pretty scathing comments every now and then. :D

Good news is they'll still buy you a beer while telling you your wool import restrictions are bonkers...

[Uboat509]

Ad Dawr is a rats nest of hardcore former Ba'athists and could hardly be considered typical of Iraq or even Salah ad Din province. Because of it's location it has never gotten the attention it deserved.

SFC W

[carl]

I think if that is what it will look like, it will be a victory, sort of like Mexico in the 20's and 30's. It wouldn't look like Malaysia, but you take what you can get.

Capt. Ahmed reminds me of the way the Mexican Army was portrayed in the book "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre", which was a very good book by the way.

[Ron Humphrey]

Ad Dawr is a rats nest of hardcore former Ba'athists and could hardly be considered typical of Iraq or even Salah ad Din province. Because of it's location it has never gotten the attention it deserved.

SFC W

So in this case how would this same case have looked just a few years back when they were still in charge.

Would there have been a knock on the door, or simply a door knocked down

Would there have been zipties or no more family ties

Would the opportunity to turn him in without someone else dying to leave a message as well.

Or considering what the sectarian mix was should it be in a different area might there have even been a chance to turn in the perpatrator or would something much larger scale

Just on the face of it if I look at it in comparison to that rather than what I might think would be acceptable here; then it doesn't seem to be evidence of anything but change in a better direction than might have been.

[Uboat509]

My point was simply that I can cherry pick incidents like this and say that we are failing over there but this is not typical of how things are run in Salah ad Din province.

SFC W

[SteveMetz]

I am dazed and confused over this one; the title lead-in to the post and the article itself. Maybe somebody smart like Rob Thornton or Ken White or RTK can help me understand it.

Is this how they are teaching to define victory at the Coin Academy in Taji nowadays??

gian

My reading is that it made the same point I did in my Rethinking Insurgency monograph (albeit in a much better way). Our doctrine defines success as the national government in full control of its territory, i.e. no "ungoverned spaces" or areas controlled by other armed groups. I contend that's simply unrealistic in the modern world, and that the best we can hope for is a functioning peace among the various armed groups--the national government and whatever else there is.

By identifying an unattainable goal, I believe our doctrine sets us up for failure.

[Gian P Gentile]

My reading is that it made the same point I did in my Rethinking Insurgency monograph (albeit in a much better way). Our doctrine defines success as the national government in full control of its territory, i.e. no "ungoverned spaces" or areas controlled by other armed groups. I contend that's simply unrealistic in the modern world, and that the best we can hope for is a functioning peace among the various armed groups--the national government and whatever else there is.

By identifying an unattainable goal, I believe our doctrine sets us up for failure.

When you say "our doctrine" do you specifically American Coin Doctrine? If that is the case then the conditions on the ground as described by this article are a radical departure from our doctrine and the results it is supposed to produce; correct? Further, if these things are true then why do we need substantial number of troops on the ground to follow it through?

gian

[SteveMetz]

When you say "our doctrine" do you specifically American Coin Doctrine? If that is the case then the conditions on the ground as described by this article are a radical departure from our doctrine and the results it is supposed to produce; correct? Further, if these things are true then why do we need substantial number of troops on the ground to follow it through?

gian


Yep, I was thinking 3-24. One of the points I made during its development was that defining victory as creating miniature Americas where the government has a monopoly over the provision of security is unrealistic. The reply I got basically was "You're right but that's American strategy." Now I see that the interagency manual includes the same point.

If you buy my notion that success is a tolerable level of conflict rather than the absence of it (which is unattainable), then, in fact, we may not need a substantial number of troops on the ground. The reason we feel compelled to have a substantial number of troops on the ground is because we cling to this infeasible idea that the ultimate objective is the absence of conflict and the government as the only provider of security.

[Rank amateur]

This may prove to be extremely damaging to Steve's career but I'm surprised by how often his articles and comments reflect my thinking. If I learned the lingo and plugged his book more often, some people might even get confused.

I haven't read the manual, but if I understand Kilcullen's theory the end result of a successful COIN effort is a political agreement between the locals that we have almost no influence over.

[SteveMetz]

This may prove to be extremely damaging to Steve's career but I'm surprised by how often his articles and comments reflect my thinking. If I learned the lingo and plugged his book more often, some people might even get confused.

LOL! You'd also need to shave your head.

[Rank amateur]

LOL! You'd also need to shave your head.

Already done that, but I don't think I could duplicate the bad jokes. ;)

[Gian P Gentile]

...If you buy my notion that success is a tolerable level of conflict rather than the absence of it (which is unattainable), then, in fact, we may not need a substantial number of troops on the ground. The reason we feel compelled to have a substantial number of troops on the ground is because we cling to this infeasible idea that the ultimate objective is the absence of conflict and the government as the only provider of security.

I agree with this statement; it makes sense. But it clearly is not the path we are headed on Iraq. It seems to me that the lowered violence is not being used to make substantial reductions in force size but instead to prepare for a much longer haul with large numbers of american troops as part of it to establish control, or, in FM 3-24 speak--clear, hold, and build.

[carl]

Our doctrine defines success as the national government in full control of its territory, i.e. no "ungoverned spaces" or areas controlled by other armed groups. I contend that's simply unrealistic in the modern world, and that the best we can hope for is a functioning peace among the various armed groups--the national government and whatever else there is.

Steve: do you think a component of success would be to put the national gov. in a position to extend its span of control over the course of 10-20 years, or would that be a bit too ambitious?

this was the type of thing i was thinking about when i mentioned Mexico.

[Ken White]

...prepare for a much longer haul with large numbers of american troops as part of it to establish control, or, in FM 3-24 speak--clear, hold, and build.

more to keep the whole neighborhood relatively quiet?

[SteveMetz]

Steve: do you think a component of success would be to put the national gov. in a position to extend its span of control over the course of 10-20 years, or would that be a bit too ambitious?

this was the type of thing i was thinking about when i mentioned Mexico.

I don't know. Seems to me that global trends are in the other direction--more and more sub-state or supra-state groups providing security because national governments can't.

[Gian P Gentile]

more to keep the whole neighborhood relatively quiet?

Ken:

Right, that would be the intent of it I imagine. But if Steve is right and the most we can do in these things is just slightly nudge the sides in certain directions and not control, then the question that Steve's premise imposes on us is are we on the right tack in Iraq with the long haul and large number of troops?

gian

[Ken White]

Ken:

Right, that would be the intent of it I imagine. But if Steve is right and the most we can do in these things is just slightly nudge the sides in certain directions and not control, then the question that Steve's premise imposes on us is are we on the right tack in Iraq with the long haul and large number of troops?

gian

is totally clear yet. My gut feel based on all I've read, been told and seen is that it is working for the broader neighborhood but at reduced effectiveness due to the perception in the other nations that we didn't handle it well.

No question to me that all have been a little pushy and more so than I expect they would've been had 2003-04 gone more smoothly for us. Still, all are broadly behaving and that behavior seems to be gradually improving. The perception that we're nuts probably helps with that... :wry:

That and the fact pretty well now known all over the ME that any confrontation with US Troops is likely to result in a ten or more adverse kill ratio. Those folks aren't dumb, they may not like us but they're pragmatic (and patient...) and they know that our Army and Marine Corps are now the most combat experienced in the world and that the Navy and Air Force are really looking for work.

The key to departure is the turnover of materiel to the Iraqis and their possession of an Army capable of handling external threats -- I don't see that for many years. My belief is that we're, at the highest US level, more concerned with external than internal threats to Iraq (and more concerned with an uninterrupted oil flow from the entire region). Callous but that's geo-politcs...

As J Jackson forgets, Lord Palmerston famously said: "We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow." Seems to still be the case with most nations -- among which we are no worse than most and far better than many. Including the folks that drew all those dumb lines on maps...

I've always contended that Iraq offered geographic centrality with reasonably good access by sea and air plus an (apparently) easy defeat of its Army. Those two factors and the probable least disruption to world oil were, in my view, the drivers. All the rest, Saddam, WMD, democracy, all that, was ancillary and synergistic. Friend of mine went to Carlisle in 1984 and when he returned he told me the one recurring lament was that we had no suitable base area in the ME. My Boss in '93 had just graduated and he said there was still concern about that lack. Methinks we have now rectified that...

Which leaves out Iraq internals -- my bet is that Arab pragmatism will trump the sectarian divide and they'll play nicely together * and let us stay for a while for whopping lease payments, investment and aid plus the stuff and super bases they'll inherit when we do leave. Then they'll get on with unfinished business; as I said and you know, they can be patient.

Yet, I've been wrong before. That however is the way I see it now with the fairly limited access to what's going on. We'll see, I guess.

* That is the ME, not the western version of nice; two very different states of nice. :D