Indirect and Direct components to strategy for the Long War

[Rob Thornton]

Some time ago I began to consider how our various efforts in the Long War are linked. Many on the SWC have slogged through this with me on threads such as the “Stability Operations vs. IW”, and many other threads in which we try to establish the linkages between Strategy to Operations to Tactics, or in which we consider policy.

Part of what a “strategist” (and I use the term loosely!) tries to do is to understand and relate the writing, speeches and statements of our elected and appointed officials to our efforts – or how our policy objectives get implemented into some type of action to realize them. Army strategists are taught the Ends, Ways & Means formula, but they are also taught to consider other perspectives on strategy such as if a strategy is complete, feasible, acceptable, and suitable. This is important, because the strategist must consider if the actions or “ways” to achieve the “ends” are within the bounds of our strategic culture, if they do more harm then good, if they are suitable in terms of balancing our foreign policy goals with our ability to sustain domestic will, are the ways supported by the means, etc.? These are all important questions when it comes to devising strategy. A SWC member who has written a great deal about this is Dr. Steve Metz.

At the last SWC get together her at Leavenworth, SWC member “Hacksaw” brought up an interesting point. He posited we were on the “Strategic Defensive” (and you guys thought all we did at the non-virtual get togethers was drink beer!). I chewed on that yesterday, as I thought it provided me an angle I had not considered. He’d also referenced Clausewitz as having stated that the “Defense is the stronger form of warfare” – which also was worth chewing on. While after thinking and talking about it some more, I don't agree with Hacksaw in total, but I do think there is there is merit to the notion of the rationale for pursuing aspects of an indirect approach which coincide with the scale of our policy objectives, and the means available to pursue them . A related discussion was why one goes on the defensive – e.g. because they have momentarily culminated, or in order to be decisive in other theaters or Lines of Operation. This is probably where I disagree with the idea of a strategic defensive – I think a case can be made that BPC (Building Partner Capacity) as an indirect approach is more suitable to the nature of countering instability and insurgencies which take root there, then a direct approach, put more simply, BPC may be more suitable to the nature of the larger war, and offer more opportunity to seize and retain the initiative then a direct, and purely military approach. BPC has some warts when we start to look at against the criteria I’d mentioned for evaluating ways, e.g. it takes time, and sustained political commitment (commitment which is effected by domestic will among other things) - but it may be a more feasible COA given the nature of the enemy and the conditions which he may advantage himself to.

This is not to say we are not capable of, nor should we have elements of "direct" strategy where possible, and where suitable, just that we don't have the resources to be decisive everywhere. Nor does the subjective nature of this war and the nature of our objectives support a purely military strategy. The challenge I’ve been working through is trying to work through the inter-relationships between a “direct approach” and an “Indirect Approach”, and frame the scope of BPC, so I can get an idea of some of the contingent ideas, and the interdependencies which effect the operationalization of these ideas. This is related to another project I’m working on which is a Case Study on SFA (Security Force Assistance) to show the complexity and friction of conducting BPC activities while conducting simultaneous combat operations (incidentally this also gets to the highlighted change in U.S. Army Doctrine as articulated by FM 3-0). However, this idea of grand strategy that employs all the elements of national power in the Long War, and across the breadth of the places where stability is challenged is tough to get our arms around, particularly when it comes to synchronizing and deconflicting efforts on the ground to achieve unity of effort. That is part of the challenge, but so is framing the context in which they might be employed to achieve a purpose beyond just saying we need more of "X" and less of "Y".

Here is the link to the 5 slides (http://www.smallwarsjournal.com/documents/scopeofsfa.ppt) I’m using as a framework. Slide 1 speaks specifically to SFA Scope. Slide 2 considers the “Indirect” component of a larger strategy. Slide 3 is about operationalizing an Indirect Strategy. Slide 4 shows how an Indirect component works with a Direct component to achieve the greater political end. Slide 5 talks about why we might have an Indirect component. Caution, these ends, ways and means are not directly drawn from existing documents, and are not policy – they are theory, that reflects some of our actions and efforts, discussions and dialogue – and most importantly they are up for debate!

My reason for posting here is as usual not to present something as complete and final, but to foster intelligent discussion abut the way forward and what are the implications associated with ideas and actions. We’ve got an intelligent CoP here on the SWJ and SWC, it is diverse and articulate, and we should always leverage its strength to inform the greater community and benefit from the experiences and ideas of the community. I’d encourage our community to interact.

Best Regards, Rob

[slapout9]

Hi Rob, I think there is something wrong with slide 3...it's like it's not all there or something.:confused:

[Rob Thornton]

Slap, you have to run it in presentation form, or change the scale - just the way I did it up. Regards, Rob

[marct]

Rob, interesting set of slides and I'm going to have to think about it for a bit.

Just off the top of my head, however, I think that while the defensive may be the stronger position in physical combat, I don't think it is in symbolic conflict. I think that it is imperative to say what "we" (broadly construed) stand for, not just what "we" stand against. And, speaking as a Canadian, for me that doesn't really include U.S. interests as a core component (Canadian interests are another matter :D). The point I am trying to make is that the ideology / symbology - what we stand for - must transcend any individual national interest.

I'm not trying to say that national interest should be totally abrogated - it will clearly, and should clearly, play a role but, on the other hand, it strikes me that it cannot be the core of those values. This core has to be something that transcends individual national interests or there will always be a leverage point for our enemies to attack us. By way of example, why should Canada trust US interests? At one point in time, the US owned over 70% of our businesses, systematically manipulated our economy and directly manipulated our political process (if anyone wants the references, I can supply them).

This, BTW, is the main argument of the anti-globalization movement - in a nutshell, the argument is that US corporations are systematically engaged in economic warfare against the rest of the planet, and their own population, and they have taken control of the US federal government. There is enough historical data regarding the actions of US corporations to make this appear valid and, I'll note, having Tom Barnett saying that the conflicts in the next century will center on bringing the 3rd world into the global system don't really reduce the paranoia when globalization is being preached as in the US National Interest :wry:!

Please note that I am not saying that I agree with this argument. What I am saying is that it is plausible and is a weak point in any international coalition that has been exploited again and again. That's why I am saying that a set of statements about what we stand for must transcend national interest.

Marc

[Rob Thornton]

Hi Marc,
I think you bring up some important points that must be considered in regards to devising ends. I've been thinking some lately about the effects of globalization. I'd agree with the point many have made about globalization having been a process that has been around for awhile, and one in which its influence has been pushed or retarded at times by events such as war, pestilence, commercial interests, etc. I think when we see it at its high marks is when multiple factors come into play - technology, politics, economics, culture, etc. When these factors converge in different ways it creates instability. Some of it is present on the scene, some of it is imported (or exported from elsewhere to the scene). Technology is a big enabler for importation and exportation. Global communications of ideas, people, services, goods, emotions etc. at the speeds we have achieved has made it possible to combine more of the factors, faster and with greater weight then we've seen before. State governments responsible for maintaining some form of order have a hard time keeping up - the commercial, public and private capabilities have out paced the capabilities of many governments to keep up. This is perhaps (and I'm intellectually wandering here:D) because their political systems were never able to accommodate such rapid change. Even in our system, arguably a pretty flexible and accommodating one by most standards, capability gaps might be emerging, and certainly capacity gaps are emerging just based on the sheer volume and public access we build into our own systems as part of our culture and political system.

I think your point about International "buy-in" is also important and brings up a kind of paradox that strategists must work through. On the one hand, the means being allocated toward FP ends must be translated into something that accommodates domestic concern in our system (or it must be of such a scale that flys below the radar), on the other given the nature of Friedman's and other's "inter-conectedness", the ends must also make some accommodation for the needs and concerns of partners. This I think is a tough balance, and may well explain why identifying vital interests, and devising political ends with regard to grand strategy is so tough. I think every state realizes that, and is certainly rationale for why Diplomacy and Information are so key at both the level where states discuss policy, but also increasingly at the level where groups and individuals who effect domestic policy interact. Even the conversations we have here have elements of the "D" and the "I" - considering the diversity and connectedness of the SWC and the larger number of folks who "tune in".
I'll come back to this later, but need to go for morning run.
Best, Rob

[Eden]

Will Rogers was asked how he would defeat the Nazi U-boat menace. "Simple", he said, "just raise the temperature of the Atlantic Ocean to the boiling point." The reporter agreed this would destroy all the enemy submarines, but wondered how Will would heat up the ocean. With his famous self-deprecating grin, Will replied, "I'm a concept man, not a detail guy."

It is hard to find anything objectionable in your indirect approach. In some ways it is a larger version of classic COIN strategy - dry up the sea that the insurgent fish swim in and they will be, at the least, inconvenienced. And while we have been doing some version of this for decades, our modern system of combatant commands should facilitate a measured, consistent, long-term approach to applying such a strategy. Finally, world-wide stability in the most basic sense - i.e., the absence of violence in normal civil society - is a goal only various lunatic fringes would oppose.

A couple of questions arise.

First, I wonder if there is a direct link between failed or vulnerable states and terrorism. Taking a long view, some of the most persistent, dangerous terrorist movements arise from stable, powerful, even enlightened states. Japan, Spain, Germany, and the UK have all generated significant home-grown terrorist threats. No one can accuse Saudi Arabia of being enlightened or, in most senses, modern, but it does have a pervasive and stable security apparatus. Yet as a society it supplied money, leadership, organization, motivation, and recruits to our current set of foes. I guess there is some harm done and mischief generated in places like the Horn of Africa and parts of Central Asia, but it seems to me that their importance as training bases and sanctuaries are overblown. Terrorists (as opposed to your garden-variety insurgents) have access to sufficient training, money, and weapons within modern stable states; they don't need secret bases in some God-forsaken hellhole. In fact, I suppose, one could argue that terrorism is a peculiarly modern product of increasing stability. It is a tactic of last resort when you have no other outlet, or when your cause is so unpopular you can never gain support for it through legitimate means. Is it possible to imagine that, were Saudi Arabia a participatory democracy, Osama would be running for office rather than running for his life?

Secondly, in your slides you show SFA as nested within larger political and economic efforts. One could argue that it would, in many areas of the developing world, be working at cross-purposes rather than supporting the other elements of national power. In essence, as presented we would be strengthening security forces in societies that are otherwise undergoing radical political, cultural, and economic changes. It seems to be a Metternichian approach to preserving order.

[Rob Thornton]

Hey Marc,
One more thought occurred as I was running - with regards to an indirect component, how do you better leverage existing, and naturally occurring "means" that result from some of the factors I mentioned in the post above? For example, if technology and interconnectedness are more frequent, is it possible to apply the same philosophical tenets of "by", "with", "through" to people engaged in inter-communications? I think one of the things we miss with regard to our conception of strategic communications is that somehow all you need is to do it once, put something out there, or post a single blog, make one public appearance, etc. I think the people who engage in this medium and increasingly others as a result of access to this medium and having been affected by it, are more sophisticated - they want interaction. Being engaged, does not mean firing a few shots across the bow, the guidance should be more akin to "gain and maintain contact", or inter-act. The other part I'd go back to is what Kilcullen pitched as "matching the narrative and the action". Which I think means you more often do what you say, vs. explain what you've done after the fact. Certainly there will be times when the latter has to occur, sometimes things go very different from the expectation, and as such must be explained, sometimes the opportunity presented may be of such value it seemingly contrary action must be held against the impact on public perception(s) - but by and large I think there is room to create a narrative or policy in which our actions fall within the narrative - we just need to be very clear about our narrative, and we need to be engaged in strategic (inter) communications.

In my view this can occur by more leaders (uniformed, government civilian, religious, academic and private sector) being more engaged with both each other, and the general public. Understanding and articulating where their interests coincide, and how there activities can be synchronized is important; convincing them that they have keen interests in promoting greater stability that coincide with their understanding of their existing interests would be a key enabler for leveraging their participation toward a level of "by, with , through" that rivals those promoting instability. Certainly there are also the more accepted and very important components of "by, with, through" as they relate to BPC, but to build capacity (and in some cases capability ) in our available means commensurate to the scale and scope of the "end", and means that help us put into action our desired, or optimal "ways", we need to explore how the enemy is leveraging existing means, and in some cases tempting us to use our own weight/strengths against ourselves (I've heard it described as "cultural judo"). Does that make sense?

Best, Rob

[Rob Thornton]

Hi Eden,

Secondly, in your slides you show SFA as nested within larger political and economic efforts. One could argue that it would, in many areas of the developing world, be working at cross-purposes rather than supporting the other elements of national power. In essence, as presented we would be strengthening security forces in societies that are otherwise undergoing radical political, cultural, and economic changes. It seems to be a Metternichian approach to preserving order

Quick post then I have to go to work. I think the challenge you outline is real, and one that must be considered - communication and coordination are key to est. unity of effort. Also, there is no set ratio - it must be "operationalized" in view of both the "end" not only as it applies to us, but what is sustainable with regard to conditions present in the HN, the long term health of the region, and the greater context of the International scene and our place within it. I think this is one reason why you can't rely wholly on an "Indirect" or "Direct" component of themselves - they both have applicability, and conditions may dictate that they shift or create preference of one over another - wholly or partially. I know I put the slides together, but I think it'd be wrong for me to lay claim to it as something original - its more about describing what we are already doing, and synthesizing it into something that might help synchronize or coordinate effort. Certainly in Iraq, Afghanistan and other places we are doing both and the weight of effort has shifted and continues to shift with the conditions - you could also take the perspective that this is occurring from one region to another.

There are certainly lots of points in your post that need to be discussed, which is the value of coming here. I promise I'll come back to it this evening, but hopefully others will also weigh in, lots of folks I'd hope to hear from who can bring up good points from the excellent things you raise.

Best, Rob

[John T. Fishel]

my computer is not bringing up the link to the slides.:confused:

That said, you might find the case study CHDS published last year through NDU Press/Potomac Press, CAPACITY BUILDING FOR PEACEKEEPING: THE CASE OF HAITI, edited by John T. Fishel (yeah, that's me:o) and Andres Saenz (now Deputy Director of Colombia's DAS - intel service) - a project of the Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies. The book is a compendium of papers from a workshop we held in late 2004. Most of them are from countries other than the US that participated in the Haiti mission and the majority are translated from Spanish and one from Portuguese. Unfortunately, the book is not available online, however, the original papers were published in a special issue of CHDS' online journal, SECURITY & DEFENSE STUDIES REVIEW (Spring 2005) in the original languages with abstracts in the other two. If you are an official USG user, you should be able to get a copy of the book either from NDU Press or CHDS. This should also apply to any of the countries that participate in CHDS programs. Marc, Canada is a special case and I'm not sure the above applies to you but since all Canadian universities are public institutions... nothing ventured, nothing gained. New hardcopies can be ordered at Amazon among other places and cheaper used copies are available online.

Sorry for so shamelessly promoting my own work - not really, as this is a USG product and I get NO royalties:(

Cheers

JohnT

[marct]

Hi Rob,


I think you bring up some important points that must be considered in regards to devising ends.

Thanks ;). One of the things that your posts in many of the recent threads has done is to make me think more heavily about the concept of "convention" (as in "conventional warfare", "Geneva convention", etc.). It has struck me that one of the key endstates we are aiming for is the acceptance, at an international level, of a series of political conventions that can be generally accepted rather than imposed. I'm still working that one through, but I have a feeling that if we want and state of lack of general conflict in the open warfare sense, that will be one of the keys.


I've been thinking some lately about the effects of globalization. I'd agree with the point many have made about globalization having been a process that has been around for awhile, and one in which its influence has been pushed or retarded at times by events such as war, pestilence, commercial interests, etc. I think when we see it at its high marks is when multiple factors come into play - technology, politics, economics, culture, etc. When these factors converge in different ways it creates instability.

Yeah - I tracked about 300 years of that in my dissertation looking at the interplay between technology, technique, and social forms. What I was looking at was a fairly simple question of what constellation of factors encouraged the development of bureaucratic organizations and what led to their downfall. From what I could see, it seemed to be tied into a number of different factors, but the one, crucial one was the maturation curve on productive and communicative technologies and its effects on the most satisficing format for resource distribution inside a society.


State governments responsible for maintaining some form of order have a hard time keeping up - the commercial, public and private capabilities have out paced the capabilities of many governments to keep up. This is perhaps (and I'm intellectually wandering here:D) because their political systems were never able to accommodate such rapid change. Even in our system, arguably a pretty flexible and accommodating one by most standards, capability gaps might be emerging, and certainly capacity gaps are emerging just based on the sheer volume and public access we build into our own systems as part of our culture and political system.

I think that is a key observation, Rob. All of our present political systems, at least the ones based on state power, are predicated on the concept of scarcity. But what happens when production outstrips demand? First, there is a distribution question (Marx's classic mistake that Polanyi got right). Is there a "mature" distribution system available to get the produced goods and services to where the demand is. We can already see some of the effects when the answer is yes in the service / information industry (think call centres in India and China, along with data processing, data input, etc.). If the answer is no, then you still have local scarcities and overabundances that produce a differential that allows for a classic market exchange economy to boom.

The second observation is more political. When you have an abundance of resources and a fairly good distribution system then, in order for the classic economy to boom, you need to either open up new markets (think NAFTA, GATT, etc.) or you need to create artificial markets (e.g. monopolies and oligopolies - think about the prescription drug situation in the US) or you need to destroy some of the production to drive up prices (think about the slew of litigation regarding patent infringements, etc.). BTW, this is assuming that the "classic economy" is based on fairly short term maximizing strategies.

On the political level, we tend to find "private" corporations acting as strong lobbyists to the political elites. You can see that in Washington today, but the same thing happened in the UK in the 1820's and 30's with the development of long distance steamboats (Headrick's The Tools of Empire (http://www.amazon.com/Tools-Empire-Technology-Imperialism-Nineteenth/dp/0195028325) does a great job of tracking this). Inevitably, "national interest" leads to an intertwining of corporate and political interests that ends up on a war footing (think about the Opium Wars with China).

Still on the political level, we start to see some of the problems with "lag" showing up. The Brits did a really great job of dealing with their political problems in the early industrial revolution by, in part, co-opting the "best" of the rising industrialists into their class system with all the political power that implied in the 19th century. At the same time, they widened the franchise and allowed pretty much anyone to run for parliament, which co-opted most of the potential revolutionaries or, at least, established a good system for forcing them "out of the water" in COIN terms.

In the US, your political system developed in an agrarian society with a fairly long transit time (it's why you have that wonky College of Electors system). At the time, it made perfect sense but, with the rise of railroads and the telegraph, it actually became technologically redundant. The rise of the party system, and especially its hardening into two supra-parties, made sense in the post WW I system with broadcast communications technologies. Nowadays, when interactive technologies are the norm, it just makes for a bad French bedroom farce as we see politician after politician falling to scandals. BTW, we have the same problem in parliamentary democracies but, because of the way they tend to be structured, it is more likely that you will have more than two parties which allows for the system to survive even as parties are destroyed and new ones are generated (the Social Credit Party and the Bloc Quebecoise in Canada are examples of that).

In many ways, the political systems lead to not only the capability gap you point to but, also, a credibility gap. In many ways, democracies (and republics :D), are purposefully inefficient. I suspect that parliamentary democracies are less efficient than republics as a governmental form. In part, this is because the systems were designed that way on purpose - to limit the power of the State in reference to the population; certainly that was the case in the Anglo-culture complex. Our ancestors didn't want an "efficient" government, because and "efficient" government would be able to dominate and control the populace, so our trade-off was inefficiency for individual freedom in some areas.


I think your point about International "buy-in" is also important and brings up a kind of paradox that strategists must work through. On the one hand, the means being allocated toward FP ends must be translated into something that accommodates domestic concern in our system (or it must be of such a scale that flys below the radar), on the other given the nature of Friedman's and other's "inter-conectedness", the ends must also make some accommodation for the needs and concerns of partners. This I think is a tough balance, and may well explain why identifying vital interests, and devising political ends with regard to grand strategy is so tough.

I totally agree with that! It is much easier for a nation to say "I want this - give it to me or else!" than to say something like "How can we [multiple nations] build a system that allows all of us to get at least some of what we want?". It's one of the reasons why it is so simple to start a revitalization or apocalyptic movement - it's simpler to destroy than create (call that the Principle of Social Entropy :D).


I'll come back to this later, but need to go for morning run.

Personally, I'm for more coffee - have fun on your run!

Marc

[Steve Blair]

First, I wonder if there is a direct link between failed or vulnerable states and terrorism. Taking a long view, some of the most persistent, dangerous terrorist movements arise from stable, powerful, even enlightened states. Japan, Spain, Germany, and the UK have all generated significant home-grown terrorist threats. No one can accuse Saudi Arabia of being enlightened or, in most senses, modern, but it does have a pervasive and stable security apparatus. Yet as a society it supplied money, leadership, organization, motivation, and recruits to our current set of foes. I guess there is some harm done and mischief generated in places like the Horn of Africa and parts of Central Asia, but it seems to me that their importance as training bases and sanctuaries are overblown. Terrorists (as opposed to your garden-variety insurgents) have access to sufficient training, money, and weapons within modern stable states; they don't need secret bases in some God-forsaken hellhole. In fact, I suppose, one could argue that terrorism is a peculiarly modern product of increasing stability. It is a tactic of last resort when you have no other outlet, or when your cause is so unpopular you can never gain support for it through legitimate means. Is it possible to imagine that, were Saudi Arabia a participatory democracy, Osama would be running for office rather than running for his life?

Gotta agree with the terrorist argument here. You also need to consider the changing face of many of those organizations (after all, the anti-globalization folks were the first true trans-national terrorist group, and the majority of them come from pretty settled and stable regions). Failed and failing states provide a fertile recruiting ground or a cause around which the terrorists can initially rally, but I do think they're much more likely to originate in societies that are relatively stable and there's an intellectual (or would-be intellectual) class with time on its hands and an ax (or two) to grind. It's also more likely in societies (IMO) that are more based on traditional cultural ideas. This can help explain why the West Germans produced so many terrorist groups in the 1970s and into the 1980s, and also why they seem to be a constant (if small) feature in Japanese society (going back to at least the 1920s).

There are, as always, exceptions to this framework...which points out the danger in any "one size fits all" framework.

[marct]

Hi Rob,


how do you better leverage existing, and naturally occurring "means" that result from some of the factors I mentioned in the post above? For example, if technology and interconnectedness are more frequent, is it possible to apply the same philosophical tenets of "by", "with", "through" to people engaged in inter-communications?

The short answer is yes and no, the long answer is much longer.

Basically, the form of the modern bureaucratic state is predicated on two things: control over access to scarce resources and control over information. Given the radical changes in productive and distributive technologies, the states have been loosing control over the access to resources part of their power base for years. The deployment of interactive communicative media exemplified by the 'Net, cell phones, IM systems, etc. has pretty much smashed their second power base.

This leaves them with a "brute force" approach to maintaining power, and that can be economic (e.g. government spending and manipulation of markets), ideological (i.e. trying to control the symbol system rather than the means of communication), or overt force. The problem is both perceptual and ideological. On the perceptual level, how many people actually "trust" politicians and bureaucrats to be working for them? On the ideological level, what individual "good" does the state provide to its citizens and how much actual power does it have to do so?

Let me toss some of his in an historical context. 100 years ago, most people in Canada and the US were pretty blase about their governments - they didn't "get in your face" too much and, I suspect, that Joe Public was quite happy with a minimalist government were most social services were provided by "intermediate organizations" (ref to Durkheim's Division of Labour in Society, 2nd edition in the preface). Governments were, on the whole, viewed as a necessary component of maintaining general order and keeping the social system running by making sure people "played by the rules" (hooray for the Scottish Enlightenment ;)).

After the Collapse in '29, the state moved more and more to replace these intermediate structures in the provision of social services - basically, they were "buying" public support while, at the same time, creating public dependencies (think Rome in the late Republic). Increasingly, the State in the West as a whole worked its way more and more into the lives of individuals gaining power and control by appearing to be a "fair broker" for scarce resources and, also, by indirectly (or directly) controlling information media. In part, actually a large part, this was because of a shift towards centralized broadcast media technologies (Paul Levinson's The Soft Edge (http://www.amazon.com/Soft-Edge-Natural-Information-Revolution/dp/0415197724) does a great job of detailing this shift). And, as long as things were generally perceived as "okay", people accepted that.

Now, what does this have to do with "by", "with" and "through"? Simple, the modern bureaucratic state is based on a very specific form of social relation: it's a modification of the Authority Ranking form (cf Alap P. Fiske on Human Sociality (http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/anthro/faculty/fiske/relmodov.htm)). The "social contract" or, rather, the structure of the social contract for this social form is based on the right to "command" held by the State and the right to receive "benefits" held by the people - in its extreme form, we get the "Nanny State". Part of the effect of this is a sub-conscious assumption about technique - the "by", "with" and "through" that you talk about. In its simplest form, it frequently takes the expression of "The Government needs to DO something!" (often said in a whiny voice :D). When enough people say things like that, politicians listen and the pressure to "DO" something is immense, even if what they do is idiotic.

The problem with "doing" something is that it's form is predicated on the assumed technique, so when a modern bureaucratic state "does" something, it is always in a manner that follows that technique. Before about 1985 or so, that technique mandated some new government regulation or agency, while after that it could be either an new regulation or agency or hiring private organizations to fulfill the perceived need (it was actually a rather slow shift in frequency distribution between the two options from about the end of 1968 when the bubble burst to today).

Now, both of these assumed techniques are "adaptive" for bureaucratic organizations: the first extends the bureaucracy, while the second extends their resource base while, at the same time, giving them a whipping boy if the effort fails. What is not adaptive for bureaucratic organizations is the technique that underlies and informs the primary social relationship inherent in highly interactive technologies: reciprocity.

Let me expand on this a bit. If we look at the job search situation in North America for the past 40 years, we can see that organizations used the techniques of bureaucracy to hire people (i.e. increasing regulation and standardization and outsourcing of hirings). There are very good reasons why this happened, but I won't get into them here (I've written them up elsewhere). What happened was that individuals got increasingly frustrated with these two techniques and learned how to bypass them using a third technique - "networking" (BTW, the same thing happened on the other side). As a technique, networking is based on information reciprocity and information sharing. "Power" in this technique derives from the provision of information and the provision of a community "space" for information exchange. You can imagine how this was speeded up with the deployment of the interactive 'Net technologies :cool:.

Once we move into the current world of high interactivity, we have a real problem for many bureaucrats as bureaucrats (not as individuals): "power" as information, flows freely between members of the populace without bureaucratic control over any of it. Needless to say, this is not a technique that is adaptive for bureaucratic organizations. This tends to lead to an increasing perception that first, they are not as efficient as the networking system and, later, they are a parasitic drain on the social system. It's that "everyday life" effect - if the Government can only help me find a crap job and it takes them 50 weeks to do so, and I can get a good job in 5 weeks using my network contacts, which do you think I am going to use and what technique will I place my trust in?

This "everyday life" effect has a spreading effect out into their areas of lived experience as well. If, for example, I need ideas and information fast will I use the bureaucracy or will I use my network? The more I bypass bureaucratic technique, the more likely I am to bypass or discount things associated with it. Which brings me to your next comment...


but by and large I think there is room to create a narrative or policy in which our actions fall within the narrative - we just need to be very clear about our narrative, and we need to be engaged in strategic (inter) communications.

In my view this can occur by more leaders (uniformed, government civilian, religious, academic and private sector) being more engaged with both each other, and the general public.

One of the properties of an information reciprocity system is "trust" in the validity of the information (and the person providing it), including statements about the limits of that information. Part of this is, as you note, combining action with story.

The question of "leaders" is an interesting one. At present, I would tend to agree with you about increased engagement. At the same time, many of these leaders are "leaders" solely by virtue of offices held within a bureaucratic system, so the level of "trust" in the individual and the information they provide is often related to the level of trust in the organization they represent. With the rise in interactivity, we are also seeing a concomitant rise in "information leaders" (for want of a better term) who operate outside of formal bureaucratic organizations. A really good example of this is in the open source software community. This means that, in the interactive environment, you have differing types of "leaders" operating based on differing assumptions of technique, which brings us to


Certainly there are also the more accepted and very important components of "by, with, through" as they relate to BPC, but to build capacity (and in some cases capability ) in our available means commensurate to the scale and scope of the "end", and means that help us put into action our desired, or optimal "ways", we need to explore how the enemy is leveraging existing means, and in some cases tempting us to use our own weight/strengths against ourselves (I've heard it described as "cultural judo"). Does that make sense?

Yup, it does make sense. One of the key ways that our opponents are practicing cultural judo is by pointing to the problems in everyday lived experience as they are being articulated in our own societies. They are leveraging a reciprocity technique against us by supporting the many narratives that oppose the bureaucratic techniques (e.g. globalization = job loss, etc.), and there is not really much "trust" at home in the bureaucratic narratives.

Anyway, I did tell you it would be a long answer :D.

Marc

[Hacksaw]

As usual Rob has posted another of his intellectual hairballs that generates so much intellectual activity that it is nearly impossible to keep up and still do your job :D. A few thoughts that might already be accounted for above, but I don't have the time to digest...

Being on the strategic defense does not preclude offensive action. This is especially true if you consider STRATCOM/Info Engagement (IE) as part of the mix. Of course Clausewitz needs to be bent to fit generational changes, but he still fits in this era of fourth generation warfare.

All this gets a little hazy if you are like me and consider all actions/activities as having some IE component. I conduct a raid, I take physical action but I also convey a message to foes, friendlies, and neutrals alike based on how, when, etc...

However, if we bend our concepts of offense and defense so far that they no longer resemble their commonly understood definition (an example would be that Iraq was strategically a defensive action because it was pre-emptive of a presumed threat), then we probably just need to start over again.

As I continue on this stream of consciousness... I heard rumor (probably in this forum) that ADM Mullen proposed as food for thought that we ought to have an Info Order with an OPS Annex as opposed to the other way around. There is probably way too many cultural hurdles to scale with that idea, but that is the kind of big idea that I expect from a CJCS. If you get past your initial gut reaction, you can easily so why that is a far more useful mental construct. Unfortunately it took a squid... god help us if they are going to do all our thinking.

Live well and row

[selil]

The question of "leaders" is an interesting one. At present, I would tend to agree with you about increased engagement. At the same time, many of these leaders are "leaders" solely by virtue of offices held within a bureaucratic system, so the level of "trust" in the individual and the information they provide is often related to the level of trust in the organization they represent.


Currently on about Friday of next week I'll be reading "Leaderless Jihad", don't know much about the book, but the concept of leaderless organizations does intrigue me. The organizational structure has definite impacts on the ability to effect desired outcomes.

On the transnational level of crime and terrorism (which I disagree with Steve Blair it has been around a lot longer than the anti-Globalists e.g. Yakuza, Tongs, Mafia). I would suggest that there is an element to leadership and organization that is starting to emerge due to the hyper-connectivity of current communications/technology structures.

The use of technology in cyber-terrorism (sic) and trans-national crime has allowed for disparate groups to near instantly form and coalesce around a chosen target (for different reasons being targeted) engage in an attack and evaporate as an agency of action. All without clear thought or organizational leadership.

Tilly (<-- sociology classes are paying off to argue with MarcT) would argue that this is a form or resource mobilization in contrast to Durkheim and the break down theorists. I would suggest it is a wholly new form of organizational structure eclipsing earlier societal network structures and illuminating a neo-Marxism of the new hyper-connected/communication model.

Several authors and academics have looked at the "Copyright Wars", and digital copyright issues, the "Hacker Code" and other meritocracy type organizations of the hyper-connected and identified the forming and dissolving of these groups. This is truly more than the Internet as hyper-connected takes in ALL forms of communication's (cell phone, pda, instant messenger, etc.)

The question I can't answer is will society enforce the dictum of currency (perhaps convention as MarcT illustrated elsewhere), or will the evolving communication model (distributed, less ideology driven, loosely coupled or uncoupled) expand to effect and change the "whole" of society? If the expansion and assumption of normalcy occurs then it will have substantial and long lasting effects on conflict. If it doesn't occur and is relegated to a "phase" then it will be more a symptom rather than a disease.

Or, something like that.

[Steve Blair]

On the transnational level of crime and terrorism (which I disagree with Steve Blair it has been around a lot longer than the anti-Globalists e.g. Yakuza, Tongs, Mafia). I would suggest that there is an element to leadership and organization that is starting to emerge due to the hyper-connectivity of current communications/technology structures.

Actually, Sam, we're in agreement. I toss out the anti-globalists because they were one of the first to make massive use of the newer technologies (the internet, for one) in terms of organization and communication. My apologies for not being clearer....:o

[Rob Thornton]

Hi Steve,


Gotta agree with the terrorist argument here. You also need to consider the changing face of many of those organizations (after all, the anti-globalization folks were the first true trans-national terrorist group, and the majority of them come from pretty settled and stable regions).

A good point that both you and Eden raise. I'd bring up that while movements may originate and find purchase in more developed states, its also important to consider that state's ability to respond to it in terms of capability and capacity. Can the state mitigate the threat in such a way that public security or the perception of public security are not compromised to the point where the state's ability to govern is jeopardized?

Its probably also worth considering that in terms of consequences to surrounding states. If a terrorist movement originated in the past in a developed state because of one aspect - say politics, or religion, what effect did it have on its neighbors or the broader international community? How are the consequences and the means in which such a movement can now extend or cooperate with other movements (or state actors) and what does that mean? How does the access to a place that is unstable and ungoverned facilitate training and coordination by what once were more disparate groups, and what opportunities does that present them in terms of better safe havens? All of those get to the broader question of why we should identify a political objective that on its face may be at odds with how we have traditionally defined ourselves and our role, as well as the means and ways available or desirable to achieve those ends. Tough stuff to grapple with for sure, and this is a great place to talk about them.
Best, Rob

[Rob Thornton]

John, and others -

Sorry about the tech difficulties - anybody who needs to - just send me a PM with an email addy I can put an attachment to and I'll send them on.

Best, Rob

[Rob Thornton]

Hacksaw - good catch,


As I continue on this stream of consciousness... I heard rumor (probably in this forum) that ADM Mullen proposed as food for thought that we ought to have an Info Order with an OPS Annex as opposed to the other way around. There is probably way too many cultural hurdles to scale with that idea, but that is the kind of big idea that I expect from a CJCS. If you get past your initial gut reaction, you can easily so why that is a far more useful mental construct. Unfortunately it took a squid... god help us if they are going to do all our thinking.


I did not want to lose that thought you had in the post, it also deserves to be talked about - and gets to the question of narrative and actions very well.
Best Rob

[marct]

Hi Selil,


Currently on about Friday of next week I'll be reading "Leaderless Jihad", don't know much about the book, but the concept of leaderless organizations does intrigue me. The organizational structure has definite impacts on the ability to effect desired outcomes.

You know, for most of our species history we have been "leaderless" in the current meaning of that term. Back when we were Hunters and Gathers, we had what is now called "situational leadership" - it shows up now in management texts on "matrix organizations".


On the transnational level of crime and terrorism (which I disagree with Steve Blair it has been around a lot longer than the anti-Globalists e.g. Yakuza, Tongs, Mafia). I would suggest that there is an element to leadership and organization that is starting to emerge due to the hyper-connectivity of current communications/technology structures.

Well, on the transnational level, I would add in the early (~1550+) TNCs such as the Hudson's Bay Company, the British East India Company, etc. Given their history of acting as if they were nations...


Tilly (<-- sociology classes are paying off to argue with MarcT) would argue that this is a form or resource mobilization in contrast to Durkheim and the break down theorists. I would suggest it is a wholly new form of organizational structure eclipsing earlier societal network structures and illuminating a neo-Marxism of the new hyper-connected/communication model.

IMHO, Tilly has been reading too much Castells :D. This is one of the key problems with Marxist and neo-Marxist theologians... oops, sorry, "theoreticians" - when reality doesn't match their prophecies, they build a new prophecy and explanatory framework. I always wondered if Althusser was a reincarnation of Ptolemy! This neophilic theological system of theirs really does reinforce why it is so difficult to make social sciences into sciences ;).

On a less-Marxist bashing note, it really isn't a "new" form at all - it is just about the oldest form of social relations we, as a species, have. The fact that it doesn't mesh with the creation myths of the Marxists (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1884/origin-family/index.htm) is irrelevant; at least for me.


Several authors and academics have looked at the "Copyright Wars", and digital copyright issues, the "Hacker Code" and other meritocracy type organizations of the hyper-connected and identified the forming and dissolving of these groups. This is truly more than the Internet as hyper-connected takes in ALL forms of communication's (cell phone, pda, instant messenger, etc.)

Oh definitely! Add in On*Star, chips in your appliances that call for repair, the dating ####s advertising your sexual proclivities and availability, etc, etc., and the interconnections are ruly mind boggling.


The question I can't answer is will society enforce the dictum of currency (perhaps convention as MarcT illustrated elsewhere), or will the evolving communication model (distributed, less ideology driven, loosely coupled or uncoupled) expand to effect and change the "whole" of society? If the expansion and assumption of normalcy occurs then it will have substantial and long lasting effects on conflict. If it doesn't occur and is relegated to a "phase" then it will be more a symptom rather than a disease.

There are so many possibilities that I, literally, can't think of them :wry:.

Marc

[Rob Thornton]

I got to thinking about that one:


Will Rogers was asked how he would defeat the Nazi U-boat menace. "Simple", he said, "just raise the temperature of the Atlantic Ocean to the boiling point." The reporter agreed this would destroy all the enemy submarines, but wondered how Will would heat up the ocean.

In a way Rogers did hit upon an idea, and eventually we did did make a pretty "hot" environment for the U-boats to operate, the operationalization of it required improved ASW, convoy escort tactics, the development and fielding of some new technologies, and an increase in the sheer amount of shipping vs. the U-boat capacity to intercept and the and selective use of cypher effort to defeat German encryption to do so. Operationalizing it required multiple efforts along a variety of lines. Interesting comparison's have been made to the German use of U-Boats in the Atlantic vs. our sue of submarines in the Pacific - which in its own way could be used to consider approaches to the Operational Environment - but the differing contexts only allow you to get so far. I don't think Roger's explanation was anything new, maybe just his way of looking at it.

There might be some other parallels worth considering - but I'm not sure of their utility once you acknowledge that to devise a strategy is one part, but implementing or operationalizing it is another. Just creating the "means" to pursue a "way" that is in keeping with the "end" is proving to be a challenge.

Best, Rob

[marct]

Just creating the "means" to pursue a "way" that is in keeping with the "end" is proving to be a challenge.

You know, Rob, at the same time I really think it is necessary to consider the effects of the means on the end state. In some ways, this is just another restatement of the old question "do the ends justify the means?" but, I would suggest, that any means will influence the actor(s) and the ends. For example, think about the increase in airport security - one of the effects of the means chosen has been to decrease the likelihood of air travel.

Just a thought...

Marc

[Steve Blair]

You know, Rob, at the same time I really think it is necessary to consider the effects of the means on the end state. In some ways, this is just another restatement of the old question "do the ends justify the means?" but, I would suggest, that any means will influence the actor(s) and the ends. For example, think about the increase in airport security - one of the effects of the means chosen has been to decrease the likelihood of air travel.

Just a thought...

Marc

I agree completely. There are any number of historical examples to back up this idea, and it's well worth looking at.

[Rob Thornton]

If you change things blindly - to support a "way", you may be changing more then you know. While we can't read the future, we should at least consider it. This gets to a point I hoped I'd made early on (maybe in another thread) about identifying and understanding how things may have changed, and what that means. Mark O'Neill was surprised once that I'd quoted the former Aussie PM when he said, America's challenge is to be the global hegemon, without acting like it." I'm sure I butched that, but I think I've got the gist of it.

That "role" as one which might be acceptable to most Americans, is I think out of character with how we have traditionally viewed ourselves. I mentioned before that I believe 9/11 and the events which have followed it, have changed our conception of security that go far beyond the threat posed by AQ. The inter-connectedness piece was already occurring, but for the general public it was largely benign, even beneficial - MTV in multiple languages, global shopping, cheap manufactured goods. With 9/11 we started to take more serious not of Pandemics, Transnational crime, the ME, events in non-western parts of the world. The media picked up on it, and soon we started checking the labels on our tooth paste, children's toys and pet foods as well as looking at who was the fellow passenger in 15D. Our borders have certainly become a hot topic from terrorism, to narco - trafficking to economic security. I think there are also some interesting takes on internal questions such as the relationship to communications and school shootings, suicides, violent crime, etc. as well. Those are just a few examples, but I think it has caused us to reconsider our relationship to and within the world.

Its not the "western burden" argument at all. It is a question of how the state of the rest of the world effects us. Its not a simple of matter either, when I was growing up the perception from the general public was largely relegated to the Soviet Union and fear of nuclear brinkmanship - stoked by movies, books, songs, and the news. The Military had its doctrine and acquisitions geared largely toward the Fulda Gap. Now its much more diffuse, and I think from our NSS, to the QDR “shift our foot print” diagram, to the our recognition that our wars will be "among the people" we are only now starting to question on a national scale what that translates to in terms of strategic cultural change.

Adaptation is not going to be easy or smooth. There are going to be some real painful lessons as we adjust I think. It is a very interactive world and just because we think we have a good enough plan, and the tools in place to adjust to changing realities does not make it so – in other words its not enough to know “what” or “how”, but we must know “why” in order to assess strategic risk for changing or not changing. Other states and non-states, groups and individuals have their own goals, and perspectives and they have an increasing means to realize those goals in many cases.

The goal I think is to be anticipatory enough and to get it more right then wrong. Part of this I think is considering the "more" correct policy objectives as they relate to the way the world is and to how it may be changing, and then considering means and ways that are feasible, acceptable, and sustainable. We have to get beyond just identifying the world as uncertain, and that there are decades of persistent conflict ahead - that was useful to a point, now what?

At the same time, we have to keep from paining ourselves in a corner (Marc's airport ex. is a good example of a secondary effect), denying ourselves strategic and operational flexibility, and finally to keep ourselves from exposing some unknown chink in armor that exposes a critical vulnerability as we shift focus or effort.

A tall order for sure.

Best, Rob

[Rank amateur]

As usual Rob has posted another of his intellectual hairballs that generates so much intellectual activity that it is nearly impossible to keep up and still do your job :D.


Glad I'm not the only one.

1. I also have to jump on the stability doesn't automatically equal less terrorism bandwagon. Furthermore, I don't think our objective is stability. Iraq was stable before we invaded. If dividing Iraq into three countries were proven to make the situation more stable, this administration wouldn't do it. There is wide consensus that a Palestinian state would make the entire region more stable. We've had over 50 years to make one happen. We haven't done it.

2. I believe that the words/actions dynamic (which I've seen Rob mention a couple of times, so I'll address it even though it is a bit of topic) in the Middle East is very simple. We support Israel unconditionally: always have and probably always will. Anything we're in favor of will be perceived - correctly - as being good for Israel. Anyone who believes that whatever is good for Israel is bad for the Arabs - which probably includes most Arabs - is not only never going to believe that we want to help them, they'll always believe that we're going to hurt them. No matter what we do or say.

3. Which brings me to AQ. Their Achilles heel is recruiting. (Blowing up your own members is obviously unsustainable unless you can replace the old mules with fresh meat.) The Koran says that Muslims have a religious obligation to fight against anyone who attacks Islam. Anyone who takes that obligation seriously (fundamentalists) is going to become a terrorist if they think that we're at war with Islam. UBL really didn't care about the Palestinians, but photos from Gaza bring in fresh recruits better than just about anything. He repeatedly uses the term "Zionists and crusaders" to make our support of Israel like a war against Islam.)

4. A rule of advertising. You don't try to change people's beliefs, you leverage them. (If people believe that the planet getting warmer is bad, you don't try to change that. Instead you leverage their belief that change isn't bad. As a spin doctor you stop talking about climate warming and start talking about climate change.) As a spin doctor for the other side you realize that people believe that mankind shouldn't fool around with nature and you start talking about "man made climate change."

5. Therefore, indirect approaches that can work in the long war are:

a) convincing people that we only hate the Palestinians, but not Muslims. Although I don't think any president would ever be so blunt, and such a statement would undoubtedly cause many other problems.

b) convincing potential recruits that AQ is blowing up more Muslims than "zionists and crusaders." This one has the advantage of being true, so it's a relatively easy sell. On the other hand, it kind of forces UBL to respond by attacking the homeland, so it only works if we simultaneously kill everyone who is planning and leading the attacks.

6. Nothing personal Rob, because I know you've been tasked with BPC - and I know you'll do an excellent job - but BCP is highly likely to be viewed as building capacity to "wage war on Islam" by those who are most likely to blow themselves up, so there is at least a theoretical possibility it'll make the "long war" tougher not easier.

[Rob Thornton]

Hi RA,


Nothing personal Rob, because I know you've been tasked with BPC - and I know you'll do an excellent job - but BCP is highly likely to be viewed as building capacity to "wage war on Islam" by those who are most likely to blow themselves up, so there is at least a theoretical possibility it'll make the "long war" tougher not easier.

Absolutely nothing personal taken, and I appreciate your participation and opinion. And you make some good points to discuss. The point about how BPC is viewed is well worth considering. Many people view power and influence as a zero sum gain, so if somebody gets more of it, then somebody else gets less e.g. if I accept more states into NATO, then that encroaches upon the Vladmir Putin's idea of the status quo.

However, we need to decide if that is risk worth taking, and what are the consequences for, or for not doing so.

Then we have to decide how to mitigate the risk associated with that decision.

In the case of BPC, it may be that the capacity improved upon is not strictly military, although that is clearly a part of SFA (but the level of proportion allocated to military vs. other security areas is conditional). This is not to say either that BPC in other areas will not threaten others - improving economies, or changing the status quo in other areas will produce some kind of change in the region, depending upon what the other interests at stake are will expend upon the amount of resistance given to that change could be from internal or external actors. We have to address that as well by a comprehensive review of potential frictions and stakeholders in those areas, and where possible look for like and parallel interests, but where the effort is opposed, we must consider if the opposition is legitimate or illegitimate, constructive or destructive, benign or threatening - then we (the partnership) must act based on that. While some of this might be possible to anticipate, it must be understood as with any partnership there will be a great deal of the unseen and unforecasted that requires flexibility, tolerance in some areas and the willingness to accommodate on issues that can be reconciled.

I think its a going in position that some enemies cannot be accommodated. As such we are going to find some who are opposed because by the nature of our political and cultural beliefs we will be at cross purposes to them and their beliefs. This does not mean that are going in position should be unreasonable or antagonistic, or that we cannot be compromising on many things. This is where Diplomacy is key, the articulation and transparency combined with actions that match the narrative to build trust are key to building and maintaining relationships.

I do think we are interested in stability, and I believe its in our strategic interests to pursue it. Now, you can go down the road of ideologically defining stability.... If you don't think we are interested in stability, then what do you think the objective is or should be?

Best, Rob

[Rank amateur]

If you don't think we are interested in stability, then what do you think the objective is or should be?

Best, Rob

I think we want more than just stability, we want a form of stability that works for us and that's often not the most naturally stable option.

Stability under Saddam was unacceptable and like I said, if someone could scientifically prove - and this is obviously hypothetical - that dividing Iraq into three countries would cause stability, we still wouldn't do it. Democracy in Iraq hasn't produced much stability. Obviously, an "iron fist" could produce stability faster, but we won't go down that road. (BTW I'm not saying we should, just that logically we should if stability was our only objective.)

I'm actually working on a theory about the behavior of "inkspots" but it is difficult to define the geopolitical limits of COIN in a thousand words or less - while working a full time job - so it's possible I might never succeed.

Basically, I think the idea that we can be part of the political foundation then replace one US "brick" at a time without making the foundation unstable can work in certain circumstances, but not all the time.

Assuming for the moment that the factors you discuss are necessary for stability, are they sufficient? Will they work every time, or are there other factors that could cause instability anyway? If so, what are they?

[Rob Thornton]

I'm actually working on a theory about the behavior of "inkspots" but it is difficult to define the geopolitical limits of COIN in a thousand words or less - while working a full time job - so it's possible I might never succeed.

I think that will make for an interesting and useful paper - I hope you can flesh it out. You might consider posting chunks of it on the SWC to help you write it as you go.


Stability under Saddam was unacceptable and like I said, if someone could scientifically prove - and this is obviously hypothetical - that dividing Iraq into three countries would cause stability, we still wouldn't do it. Democracy in Iraq hasn't produced much stability. Obviously, an "iron fist" could produce stability faster, but we won't go down that road. (BTW I'm not saying we should, just that logically we should if stability was our only objective.)

I'd agree, its not just stability - its got to be qualified by something like: Increased Stability in developing and politically volatile states that offer conditions our enemies can exploit to counter or harm U.S. interests at home or abroad; or to a greater extent, something like - The United States and its Interests are not threatened at home or abroad by State and Non-State actors using Violence, Coercion, Intimidation & messages of intolerance to promote extremist agendas to realize their political ends

I pulled those from the slides, but I'd say those represent acceptable endstates in terms of political objectives that justify the expenditure of means. The discussion Marc brought up is relevant here as there is a gap in terms of specific justification to settle domestic policy concerns and in terms broad enough to accommodate others in the International community. There is also the context in which a threat and an endstate are evaluated - regardless of what is known now, the Administration and all those in Congress who voted for war saw Saddam Hussein as a threat. They can bemoan the fact that they were not given the whole truth, but many did not even personally read the intelligence they were provided or conduct personal analysis that would define their vote. You could go back to Clausewitz's Trinity and contemplate the role of emotion over rational thought, but its still OBE. So context of evaluation matters.

There is also the analysis that must be conducted to determine which COA gets you closer to your broader objectives, and it gets real muddled there. Consider the potential consequences for a hard partition of Iraq? Other then saying we did our part to address Iraq's internal problem so we can exit, I find few good things in it for the future. I think the potential for greater regional and international instability would only multiply.

So - yes the word stability must be qualified. I think anything that is as complex and interactive as a human society is going to be inherently unstable - it almost has to be given the nature of its actions. To be completely stable would be no activity. So, the goal might be defined as "more" stable, or stable "enough" to run itself within the context of the endstate or political objective. As I'd mentioned early on, ideas like BPC have their warts, nobody should be under the illusion that you are going to make completely self sustaining states over night, or even over a decade - they are going to require continued inter-action - it may be on a military level, a diplomatic level, an informational level, or economic level - which we have (and others have with us) with almost every existing state.

Assuming for the moment that the factors you discuss are necessary for stability, are they sufficient? Will they work every time, or are there other factors that could cause instability anyway? If so, what are they?

Yes - I'd pointed to a few earlier in the thread - put a "trans" in front of almost anything and you have a potential enabler or accelerator for instability - this just means that if you add more of something - it creates more things the HN government must contend with. Refugees crossing the border, nomadic influences, crop infestations, cyber-hacking/crime/espionage, human migrations, climate changes, crime, terrorism, foreign investment that attracts more of something else or creates something new, the use of ungoverned spaces as safe havens, etc. - you could really go for awhile I think. However, if you increase a states ability to extend governance over its own territories and citizens, you mitigate (probably not eliminate - after all look at our own domestic issues) the effects of those destabilizing influences. The pay off for us goes back to the endstate. So if Columbia is able to extend governance and increase stability how does that effect destabilizing influences in our own country? If Latin America is more developed and offers more opportunity - how does that effect us - not just the things that come to mind, but the second and third order effects.

Not all of it is good - countries that are developing are by nature "unstable", but you have to weigh the good against the bad - and you must weigh the various potential outcomes as well given the nature of things today, and our best guess on the future - this gets into things like "conflict prevention vs. conflict termination" and the associated costs of doing either. That goes back to - how important is it to the role you see yourself playing in the world, it could be because nobody else can or will, and the effects of doing nothing are going to hurt you (or your friends, or your partners, or your outlook) enough to justify the effort, or because the benefits and prospects of doing something now are better then waiting, or because there is competition on the horizon that will accelerate it in the other direction because they view it as a zero sum game, etc.

It gets complicated fast, but that is the nature of it. Its messy, it requires sustained commitment or the means to go back and fix what you left unattended when you can no longer ignore it. Given the changes we've seen in the world, the latter may no longer be an option. Its not just a matter of "new", or "more" changes, its the degree of scale and the speed in which those changes now effect us, and our ability to compensate - it almost seems exponential.

Best, Rob

[Rank amateur]

Yes - I'd pointed to a few earlier in the thread - put a "trans" in front of almost anything and you have a potential enabler or accelerator for instability - this just means that if you add more of something - it creates more things the HN government must contend with. Refugees crossing the border, nomadic influences, crop infestations, cyber-hacking/crime/espionage, human migrations, climate changes, crime, terrorism, foreign investment that attracts more of something else or creates something new, the use of ungoverned spaces as safe havens, etc. - you could really go for awhile I think.


I was thinking more along the lines of religious/ethnic/economic divides. In Iraq, for example, three religious/cultural groups and two sources of oil wealth is an obvious source of instability. "Breathing space" maybe necessary for a revenue sharing agreement, but I'm not certain that it is sufficient. (Many of the things Marc mentioned are relevant here. Establishing trust, transactions, leadership etc. aren't necessarily going to happen across cultures simply because we build capacity.)

Also, as long as opium makes up a huge percentage of Afghanistan's GDP, there is going to be corruption. (The demand for corruption will be huge: supply will expand to meet the demand.)

On the other hand, when a bunch of narco terrorists take over a remote town, a single platoon might be able to restore stability quickly and all government functions can return in a very short period of time. (Showing past examples is much easier than writing a predictive theory, but that's the direction I'm heading down.)

[marct]

Edward Sapir (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Sapir) (1884-1939) was a linguistic Anthropologist and one of the creators of the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapir-Whorf_hypothesis) (amazing how those Klingons have infiltrated our society :eek:). Put simply, the hypothesis states that the nature of a language influences the thought patterns of the users of that language. While it is hotly debated, personally I subscribe to a weak form of it (influence vs. control). I think that this thread is showing that influence.

One of the things that I found fascinating was that St. Carl based his work on Newtonian physics - think about such concepts as "friction", "centre of gravity", etc.; these are all metaphors and analogs grounded in Newtonian physics. In this thread, there is a lot of discussion on the concept of "stability" which is also a concept from Newtonian physics that is, IMO, a very poor metaphor.

As RA has pointed out, SH had a very "stable" system but one that was judged as "unacceptable". So, it isn't "stability" that BPC is engaged in but, as Rob noted, some form of stability that operates to counter opponent interaction.

I suspect that what we are looking for, if we take a ore internationalist perspective and go beyond purely US national interest in the immediate sense, is something closer to quasi-stable or homeostatic systems (these are biological metaphors) that, at the minimum, do not support our opponents while,at the same time, are willing to engage with the West in a non-kinetic form of competition within internationally acceptable conventions.

This is getting back, in some ways, to the distinction I was making in that conference paper (http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showthread.php?t=4827) about "required" and "desired" institutions. IMO, we should be requiring some form of quasi-stable social system and the acceptance of certain (to be determined) international conventions. While some form of "democracy" (or republic) may be viewed as desirable, I do no consider it to be either useful or even valid to require it. First, democracies are less stable than many other forms of governance and they are even less stable when dealing with a culture that doesn't believe they will actually work to meet their basic needs. Putin's popularity in Russia is a good example. Second, democracies are the simplest form of governance to subvert into dictatorships run either by moronic idiots with a death wish (Mugabe comes to mind) or by demagogues-of-the-day (post-Periclean Athens comes to mind as does the back and forth between Marius and Sulla).

[Eden]

In thinking about BPC, do you see that as equating to strengthening the 'state', in whatever form that may take? I ask that because, just about the time I left Afghanistan - and isn't that always the way - I came to realize that strengthening the central government might just be both incredibly difficult and counterproductive.

One of the strongest forces for stability in Afghanistan had always been the tribes. Guided by tradition and a very practical sense of local politics, tribal leaders enforced intratribal discipline and mediated intertribal conflicts. This included a certain amount of violence, but usually within well-understood parameters. The Soviet occupation, the ensuing civil war, the rise of the Taliban, the ensuing civil war, and the struggle with the US and NATO have severely weakened the influence of the tribes, regardless of the constant references to them in the media. It would seem to me that restoring the tribes' influence - if the social fabric is not yet, in fact, irreparably damaged - would go a long way in stabilizing the country.

This, of course, is not in line with the stated goals of NATO, the UN, or the US. But a weak central government in Afghanistan has always improved the stability of that country. The many power brokers in Afghanistan have preferred a central government strong enough to take on one of their competitors without being able to dominate the political or military life of the country. Thus the central government can be a source of largesse or protection from foreign/domestic competitors, but doesn't seriously interfere with the power brokers own activities (illegal or not) so long as he stays within certain parameters.

These two things produced a relatively stable society - if you define 'stable' not as 'violence-free' but as 'self-regulating' - for several centuries until the Marxists took over.

Our knee-jerk reaction to stabilizing places is to strengthen the central government. I think there are places in the world where extra-governmental or even commercial entities might be better candidates for our assistance.

[selil]

On the other hand, when a bunch of narco terrorists take over a remote town, a single platoon might be able to restore stability quickly and all government functions can return in a very short period of time. (Showing past examples is much easier than writing a predictive theory, but that's the direction I'm heading down.)

So, I have a question.

How does this model fit when the "terrorist" organization isn't ideology bound, but the result of corporatism?

Religious ideology as root of terrorism and war is only supplanted by war in the ever present battle for profit. What happens when the insurgency is the result of corporatism like Shell Oil being attacked in a proxy war by Standard Oil? What happens when the battle is selective termination of key players on the South Eastern Asia Continent plantations by rival crop producers? As the scope expands historical examples such as the East Indian Trading Company preying on other smaller companies.

The reason I ask isn't that I think this is the "big" deal of the future, but I've read several articles (Economist, ARS, CSIS, a few others) recently pointing out that companies have full on intelligence capability, basically small armies, and have recreated most of the tools of governance.

Then that begs the questions are the tools and strategies (models) being created capable of being used in a corporate warfare environment?

[marct]

Hi Eden,


It would seem to me that restoring the tribes' influence - if the social fabric is not yet, in fact, irreparably damaged - would go a long way in stabilizing the country.

I spent about a year and a half working on a database for CIDA that tracked Afghanistan in the early part of the war there. The person who worked with was an Afghan doctor who had grown up in the refugee camps of Pakistan and was now living in Canada. We spent a lot of time talking about what the political structure of the state should be leading up to the Loya Jirga of 2003 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_loya_jirga). We both hoped that it would come out as a moderately strongish central government with the King's grandson as the new King and head of state, but where the tribes would have a lot of power both nationally and locally.


This, of course, is not in line with the stated goals of NATO, the UN, or the US. But a weak central government in Afghanistan has always improved the stability of that country. The many power brokers in Afghanistan have preferred a central government strong enough to take on one of their competitors without being able to dominate the political or military life of the country. Thus the central government can be a source of largesse or protection from foreign/domestic competitors, but doesn't seriously interfere with the power brokers own activities (illegal or not) so long as he stays within certain parameters.

Yup, and it also meant that the central government had to persuade, rather than try to order, the tribes. In some ways, at least in terms of power, the tribes are the equivalent of provincial/state governments in a confederated system.


These two things produced a relatively stable society - if you define 'stable' not as 'violence-free' but as 'self-regulating' - for several centuries until the Marxists took over.

Agreed; it's also why I made that point about thinking of "stability" using the metaphor of homeostasis (from biology) rather than motionlessness or absolute predictability (from Newtonian physics). Anyway, I can't think of a single society that is "violence free", so that is, IMHO, a red herring. What societies have is a variable tolerance for and conventions for the practice of violence.


Our knee-jerk reaction to stabilizing places is to strengthen the central government. I think there are places in the world where extra-governmental or even commercial entities might be better candidates for our assistance.

Well, personally, I believe that there is ample evidence to show that "governments" of any form can and have operated against the best interests of the population they claim to represent / govern. Then again, the same is pretty much true of any form of human organization. As an historical note, "government" in the sense of a centralized authority, is a quit recent invention in species terms - it only goes back about 12,000 years or so. As a species, we have had governance (not government) for most of our history (~2.2 million years if we only go back to H. Erectus and H. Habilis), but this type of governance was based around kinship systems - clans and tribes if you will - and used oral history and tradition as its "laws". I don't find it surprising that in some places in the world, we are "going back" to this type of governance system :wry:.

[Rank amateur]

I'm either on to something, or Marc and I are both out in left field, but I coined - pun intended - the term "counterinsurgency physics" about 10 minutes ago.

The basic idea is that "inkspots" are attracted to and repelled from each other by various forces: religious/economic/cultural/historic etc. BPC can efficiently create stability by removing insurgents who are preventing the connections, but it requires enormous energy to force together inkspots that are naturally repelled. Such forced connections are temporary. Yugoslavia is a good example. It was held together by secret police but exploded along religious/cultural/ethnic lines when the "energy" was removed.

[Ken White]

Professor 'Iggins -- I think you've got it...

All politics is local. Multiculturalism is a dichotomy. Liquids of differing viscosities and ionization attract or repel each other. The monolithic State is an unnatural state (pun intended).

Add those four facts of life together and one comes up with a dispersed and loose federal structure of governance allowing considerable autonomy downward as societies seek peace and equilibrium. Stability occurs through cooperation and mutual respect; like morality, it cannot be dictated and any effort to attempt to force it is a waste of time.

Unfortunately, that's a smack in the face to the progressive worldview. :D

[marct]

Hi RA,


I'm either on to something, or Marc and I are both out in left field, but I coined - pun intended - the term "counterinsurgency physics" about 10 minutes ago.

Okay, you an have "counterinsurgency physics", but I'm claiming Quantum COIN :D!

[marct]

Unfortunately, that's a smack in the face to the progressive worldview. :D

Too true, Ken. Then again, you can't blame the poor "progressives" - after all, they have been told that material reality (including biology) has no effect on human free will ;).

[Rob Thornton]

Hi Eden,
A good point with regard to Afghanistan - and maybe this gets to the observation Marc made both here, and I think we talked about on the Stability vs. IW thread, about a biological vs. a Newtonian perspective on the idea of stability.

We're struggling with not only the idea of stability within what we might geographically define as a state, but the activities and opportunities offered within the geography for others to operate to influence not only what goes on internally to those boundaries, but externally through the use of improved means - the convergence of technology, freedom of action (in its many forms) and ideas. While the Taliban's activities were repugnant to us prior to 9/11, they took on new context as a base of operations and operational support for Bin Laden with the event of 9/11. The idea of vulnerability caused us to reconsider how we think about security.

Coming up with analogies or models to contemplate what is very complex, and very interactive, and very non-linear in terms of the possible future actions it produces is tough - no single model gets to it, multiple models often contradict each other. I think that every effort to implement is going to (and probably should) differ based on the context of the conditions, historical relationships that have shaped those conditions, and the potential future relationships that we see emerging. So you can have some broad Ends, Ways, Means and both a Direct and Indirect component to provide flexibility, and suitability, but when it comes to implementation or operationalizing it, you are going to have to do some framing that keeps you on course, and adaptable to way things evolve.

Marc had mentioned that Clausewitz was influenced by Newtonian physics - I think that is a good assumption based on much of the language. However, there are also instances of Art and Social influences - so I think he recognized the limitations of science in describing a political activity. There is something in Book 1 I think where he notes and I'll paraphrase greatly - "the outcome should not be a slave to the original political objective because things change and to limit yourself would be to deny options and realities" - if I think about it I'll go back and find it later, but maybe John F could find me something close.

I think the discussion on entity based vs. Westphalian based control mechanisms is an important one - but it quickly gets into the question of accountability, and participation. If you move to use military force (or any force) against an entity based control mechanism - what are the implications?

Part of the reason I put this discussion under "Strategic Compression" is because you quickly get into some prickly areas where ideas and perspectives lead to more challenges, or overturn existing mechanisms that seem to work, or at least not work against goals and objectives that all can generally say would be worth achieving. Choices made or not made have some type of effect in this environment for much of the reasons Marc had alluded to with the ref. to biological systems; this is a competitive environment where niches not filled don't stay vacant for long.

Best, Rob

[Rob Thornton]

Too true, Ken. Then again, you can't blame the poor "progressives" - after all, they have been told that material reality (including biology) has no effect on human free will .

I am reminded of the MSG who said during our safety briefing on the deck of the LHA Belleau Woods prior to going on Libo in Subic Bay (and from which I stole shamelessly for my safety briefs almost 15 years later "Gents, before you go down range, let me impart some biblical wisdom, God told Adam, "Adam I got some good news and some bad news. The good news is that I'm giving you two heads, the bad news is that I'm only givng you enough blood to run one of them at a time!"

Well worth remembering - but also that immediately following the brief we tore ass for Magsaysay, and in the following days many were lined up for a shot of the wonder drug - which back then killed most everything. Today, most everything is resitant to the wonder drug, and many of those things have also morphed and might even kill you.

Best, Rob

[Ken White]

... Today, most everything is resitant to the wonder drug, and many of those things have also morphed and might even kill you.

bacteria, cancers and social afflictions do morph...

People -- not so much. ;)

All goes back to Robert Fulghum; be careful what you want, you may get it. Seems to me that defining two things; (a) the National Interest; and (b) as Marc said "The point I am trying to make is that the ideology / symbology - what we stand for - must transcend any individual national interest." is the first step and that it is a quite difficult if not impossible step. Still, if one succeeds in doing that, then one must reconcile the two -- even more difficult.

Add to that the fact that one must do that under a governmental system that is, by design, prone to significant changes of course every four or eight years and one is confronted with the fact (IMO) that only an extremely significant and truly existential threat is going to prompt a coherent, stable long term strategy. One is further confronted with two more facts today; (1) the attention span and knowledge of history required to implement anything over the long term is in short supply; and (2) competing visions in a broadly egalitarian society are many and an overarching vision is generally selected by 600 pound Gorillas (or the loudest squeaking Wheels) on the basis of personal preference and only rarely on a logical needs.

All this leads to me saying what everyone already knows. The life of a Strategic Planner is not easy. Such planning is needed, no question but I also believe that it should aim for an achievable solution as opposed to the most desirable solution and, to get back to the 'people don't change much' meme, should be strongly influenced by the culture and history of the target and less so on what 'we' want or believe desirable.

Strategic planning must also accept the reality that is our political milieu (both in and out of uniform...) and should be aimed at inculcating the 'plan' from the bottom up over a long time as opposed to attempting a top down "fix this problem today" approach. The swamp / alligator tale applies...

IOW, to tacticalize the strategizing, it's not one up, two back, hit 'em in the flank and feed the troops a hot meal; rather one up, two back, infiltrate and don't feed the troops until they get the job done...

[Ken White]

Too true, Ken. Then again, you can't blame the poor "progressives" - after all, they have been told that material reality (including biology) has no effect on human free will ;).

They have less experience with alcohol or Rob's "two heads" phenomena than most... ;)

[marct]

cuts through the verbiage to the heart of the issue ;).


All goes back to Robert Fulghum; be careful what you want, you may get it. Seems to me that defining two things; (a) the National Interest; and (b) as Marc said "The point I am trying to make is that the ideology / symbology - what we stand for - must transcend any individual national interest." is the first step and that it is a quite difficult if not impossible step. Still, if one succeeds in doing that, then one must reconcile the two -- even more difficult.

Absolutely. Actually, I think that such an ideology / symbology is rather simple to build since most of the base ideas are already floating around in various forms. As I see it, it can be structured around the basic idea of a convention between sovereign entities (BTW, not limited to nation states) along the loose confederate lines Rob mentioned at a global level. As long as it also includes guarantees of internal sovereignty within minimal agreed upon limits, including the right of departure, it should work. Of course, negotiating those limits and the conventions would be a freakin' nightmare :rolleyes:.

[Rob Thornton]

Of course, negotiating those limits and the conventions would be a freakin' nightmare .

You know Marc, the other day I got asked to brief a foreign attaché on JCISFA. There was a set of slides to go over as a kind of info brief. The most wonderful thing happened - technical difficulties arose and caused a pause. The pause allowed a real, no fooling conversation to take place. In that brief time I found out he'd already gotten a similar info brief not 6 months ago. At that point we were both relieved and nixed the slides and talked about what was on his mind with regards to SFA, and many of the other subjects we've discussed in this thread and others. We probably talked for a good hour - and I believe we all got infinitely further then any set of slides could go.

So the key I think is the interaction, the discussion, the negotiation. I think up front, although terribly unpopular as it does not hold "solution" like answers that can be filed away as another win in time to hold up as one more reason to elect or re-elect. This gets to the reconciliation that both Ken and you mentioned between what you want and what you can realistically achieve (for whatever reasons), what you want and what your partners want (or believe to be more in their interests), how it plays in one place vs. somewhere else, etc. None of those things are easy because they are conditional and that means unless you are willing to roll the dice and be able to live with comes up, then you are going to have to bring appetite and stomach into balance. That our political cycle is what it is does not engender itself to that reality, but it does not stop us from perpetuating the fiction that there are easy wars either.

So we're back to the nightmare that is:D, and the guy who gets sent forward to do the best that he can, be he a soldier or civilian advising foreign forces or bureaucrats, or the guy getting off a Blackhawk as part of an AASLT to seize some key piece of terrain to extend the Line of Operation.

One of the things I'd mentioned early on is that I don’t consider the genesis of this thread as something novel - if anything it is an attempt to synthesize what I think we're already doing in many ways (and many have done before us), just maybe in a disconcerted manner. Putting it in the format that I did just helps me to frame the strategic and perhaps operational contexts as I contemplate where SFA fits, be it as part of BPC in an Indirect sort of way, or be it in post conflict operations following a Direct application of military power. This is one of the reasons why the SFA slide showing breadth and depth in an attempt to consider its scope was upfront.

I think of the two approaches (Direct and Indirect) as complementary. Indirect, for many of the reasons Ken mentioned and I think I brought up early on is hard, and from a military standpoint (if not a political one), somewhat contrary to our nature. However, I also believe we have to have an indirect component to fight a long war, particularly one in which just access can be so critical to be able to be direct at times and places more (not completely) on our terms. We could quickly exhaust ourselves in terms of domestic will, international political capital, and military means by trying to unilaterally pursue a direct approach. The other thing about framing it into direct and indirect components is it helped me consider where the broader inter-agency, multi-national partners, IOs and maybe even NGOs might work together to better achieve (or achieve out right) what military power may not be able to accomplish in and of itself. To me its about better positioning ourselves to take advantage of things as they are vs. how we’d like them to be, then when we realize they are not so, we reach for military power applied in a direct manner, because that is the only element we developed, and the only manner we have time for.

As stated over and over, t’aint easy.
Best, Rob

[Ken White]

...
Absolutely. Actually, I think that such an ideology / symbology is rather simple to build since most of the base ideas are already floating around in various forms. As I see it, it can be structured around the basic idea of a convention between sovereign entities (BTW, not limited to nation states) along the loose confederate lines Rob mentioned at a global level. As long as it also includes guarantees of internal sovereignty within minimal agreed upon limits, including the right of departure, it should work. Of course, negotiating those limits and the conventions would be a freakin' nightmare :rolleyes:.

Taking the last (and most difficult) first; very much so -- but that also leads one to your three earlier points; the ideas are out there; confederations; and guarantees.

All those fall afoul of human foibles and perversity:

The "... but it's not MY idea..." syndrome.

To quote Eisenhower "This world of ours... must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be, instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect." I see little evidence that his admirable desire is on the horizon. I believe that mutual trust and respect have been ruined by a short sighted, immediate gratification view of national interest (on the part of virtually every nation, not just the US). The Politicians are at fault -- but we elect them...

Add that, as R. Reagan said of guarantees, "Trust but verify" as an innate human trait and you have an admitted encapsulation of some of the obstacles to a better world order.

I think those human factors are what make the agreements so very difficult and are also those which most confound today's strategic planning.

More germane to this thread. I see three points:

Strategic planning is difficult at best, more so in the politico-military environment of the US and, indeed, the world today. The very factors that make it difficult are the same factors that make it imperative that it be done.

Both direct and indirect approaches will be required; the indirect to bypass some problems; the direct to confront those that cannot -- or should not (not always the same thing) -- be circumvented. This requires great flexilbility, a willingness to innovate (and for the powers that be to accept, even encourage, innovation), knowledge not only of own aims but of target goals and aspirations as well as an acknowledgment of those and a willingness to be pragmatic and accept what is achievable as opposed to what is desired (while preparing stepped plans to over the long term* arrive at the desired end state). That's a terribly long way of saying we must break the habit of trying to get everything done on one person's watch; that has crippled us since the early 60s.

Such planning in the mass and immediate communication environment of today must balance conflicting demands but due simply to the fact that everything always comes out should always emphasize simplicity, transparency and total honesty (OPSEC contingent on the last two items, of course).

* Not one of our strong suits. In fact, I'm not even sure we have that suit... :D

[Jedburgh]

RAND, 6 Jan 09:

Unfolding the Future of the Long War: Motivations, Prospects, and Implications for the U.S. Army (http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/2008/RAND_MG738.pdf)

....This report uses the generation of either “trajectories” or alternative paths in which the long war might unfold to explore the implications for the U.S. military. The discussion focuses on the potential threats the U.S. faces in each trajectory and considers the confluence of three major problems raised by the war: those related to the ideologies espoused by key adversaries in the conflict, those related to the use of terrorism, and those related to governance (i.e., its absence or presence, its quality, and the predisposition of specific governing bodies to the United States and its interests). The goal of this report is not to determine which of these areas is the key problem. Instead, we take the stance that in order to ensure that this long war follows a favorable course, the United States will need to make a concerted effort across all three domains. Numerous broad conclusions and recommendations are given for addressing issues surrounding the long war.....

[Ken White]

I don't fully agree with their conclusions and recommendations but I'm sure they'll start a flood... :wry:

[Rex Brynen]

May I start by saying how much I dislike the term "The Long War" ?

[Steve Blair]

Can I start by saying how much I dislike the term "The Long War" ?

No....:p;)

[Ron Humphrey]

May I start by saying how much I dislike the term "The Long War" ?

don't look like it's goin away anytime soon

[Tom Odom]

don't look like it's goin away anytime soon

how about the "don't look like it's goin away anytime soon" war?

[Bob's World]

As a guy who's spent a lot of time out at SOCPAC where this whole business of "direct" and "indirect approaches" latest version really developed (I believe Sun Tzu gets credit for first recorded use of the terms) I'll offer a little history and personal opinion.

The phrases "Basilan Model" and "Indirect approach" were getting thrown around in ever expanding circles as the good news story of the OEF-P began to circulate. The problem was that the real essence of what those terms meant resided primarly in the head of then MG David Fridovich who was the first JSOTF CDR and the SOCPAC commander. Everyone else was forming their own idea as to what they meant based on their own experiences elsewhere. To capture this essence in a simple form as his J5 I drafted this and he approved it:

"We are waging two campaigns, a COIN campaign that is our main effort and is based on the indirect approach; and a CT campaign that is our supporting effort and is based on the direct approach."

I later modified that to say that we were actually conducting FID, and that it was the Govt of the Philippines that was conducting COIN and CT.

Now, to SFA. SFA is primarily the direct approach.

If you are building security force capacity to go out an execute CT operations, or counterinsurgent operations, it does not somehow make it the indirect approach because you are enabling someone else to go out and execute the direct approach.

The indirect approach is so named because it focuses on addressing the environment that gives rise to the insurgency in the first place, not so named because it is executed by surrogates.

So whether you are a drain the swamps (indirect) and kill the alligators (direct) guy;

or of you are a fan of Thoreau: "There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil (direct approach) to one who is striking at the root (indirect approach), and it may be that he who bestows the largest amount of time and money on the needy is doing the most by his mode of life to produce that misery which he strives in vain to relieve."

or can grasp: attack the symptoms (direct), attack the causes (indirect)

you get what it is all about.

I have seen recent GCC plans that lay out efforts of building host nation security force capacity to go out and conduct COIN against the insurgent as their indirect approach effort. As I told them, "good engagement, but not the 'indirect approach'."

[Mark O'Neill]

I think that the understanding of 'direct' and 'indirect' vis a vis OEF-P was perhaps not helped by the article in JFQ in early 2007 by Fridovich and Fred K, (see Fridovich, David and Krawchuk, Fred, Winning in the Pacific: The Special Operations Forces Indirect Approach (http://www.ndu.edu/inss/press/jfq_pages/editions/i44/9.pdf), Joint Forces Quarterly, Q1 2007, Issue 44, pp 24-27) which did not make the distinction you made quite as clear (note: this is not a critcism of either the General or Fred, I think both men are smart operators who have done fantastic work in advancing commonsense approaches to these issues).

When I worked with another former JSOTF-P commander in Iraq, the position he narrated seemed more in tune with what I would have regarded as a 'classic' SFA task supported by 'good old hearts and minds' stuff (MEDCAPS etc).

Cheers

Mark

[davidbfpo]

The Uk has had a national strategy for CT for a few years, known as Operation Contest, with four steps: Prevent, Pursue, Protect and Prepare. Short summary on this link via Google: http://www.west-midlands.police.uk/terrorism/terrorism-public/contest.asp

Only in the last eighteen months has the indirect Prevent aspect gathered pace, after recognition that the direct Pursue aspect alone was insuffiecent.

If only there was the brevity and understanding Bob's World's contribution makes:

"We are waging two campaigns, a COIN campaign that is our main effort and is based on the indirect approach; and a CT campaign that is our supporting effort and is based on the direct approach."

davidbfpo