COIN comes home to assist policing

[SWJED]

The latest from the SWJ blog - Iraq & the Americas: 3 GEN Gangs Lessons and Prospects (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2007/04/iraq-the-americas-3-gen-gangs/) by Robert Bunker and John Sullivan.


Gangs and Iraqi insurgents, militias, and other non-state groups share common origins based on tribalism, and therefore, it is expected that they will exhibit similar structures and behaviors. It is our belief that further insight into Iraq’s present situation and future prospects may be derived from a perspective utilizing 3rd generation gang (3 GEN Gangs) studies which present lessons learned from the emergence and spread of gangs within the United States, and other parts of the world, over roughly the last four decades. (1) Basically, from a 3 GEN Gangs perspective, three generations of gangs have been found to exist: turf based, drug based, and mercenary based. The first generation gangs, comprising the vast majority, focus on protecting their turf. These gangs, the least developed of the three generational forms, provide both protection and identity to their members and little more. While some drug dealing is evident, it tends with these gangs to be a sideline activity...

[Jedburgh]

...an earlier thread looking at Iraq in the context of 3rd gen gangs:

3rd Generation Gangs and the Iraqi Insurgency (http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showthread.php?t=241)

[Eric Churchg]

Moderator's Note

On January 18th 2012 this thread was merged with a smaller one, which started in 2010 called 'Convergence: Special Operations Forces and Civilian Law Enforcement' and the merged thread renamed 'COIN comes home to assist policing' (Ends).


Counter insurgency, particularly it's emphasis on good relations with the People, seems to be affecting police training and approaches. This article
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/baltimore_city/bal-te.md.ci.training18may18,0,5306468.story
about efforts to retrain the Baltimore Police Department shows a huge influence from lessons learned overseas. Even the trainers have served overseas;
"The lecturer, Eric Greitens, was a former Navy SEAL who led missions in Fallujah, Iraq, to hunt down insurgents. The city officers copied down four phrases he wrote on a white board: No worse enemy. No better friend. No better diplomat. No better role model."
This makes me wonder if lessons learned by the military will be reflected more police training and tactics

EC

[davidbfpo]

The quoted article is I suspect not unique - as urban police struggle to meet new demands. Using ex-military / COIN lessons is only part of the response, although using such trainers may make such intensive training more acceptable to the students and bureaucrats who make decisions behind a desk. Early days to make a judgement.

In the UK - for very different reasons - the military has had very little impact on policing, with the exception of firearms and specialist surveillance. Mention COIN and there'll be a stampede to the exit.

davidbfpo

[MattC86]

Why so, given the history with Ireland?

You'd think there'd be more interest within the Metropolitan Police and other UK law-enforcement for non-typical policework. . .

. . .then again, you don't have the guns and murder problems that we do (or at least I haven't seen them?)

Regards,

Matt

[davidbfpo]

Why so, given the history with Ireland?

You'd think there'd be more interest within the Metropolitan Police and other UK law-enforcement for non-typical policework. . . then again, you don't have the guns and murder problems that we do (or at least I haven't seen them?). Regards,

Matt

All manner of reasons. It is a moot point that the methods used by the British Army and the police (RUC) to counter terrorism and associated criminal activity would suit the normal problems of urban mainland UK, including gun crime. Northern Ireland was a very intensive environment, notably urban West Belfast and rural South Armagh, where amidst a largely un-co-operative public PIRA operated. The latest knife murders of teenagers in London for example are quite different.

Applying COIN, even CT methods to mainland policing and in the USA I venture to suggest are not appropriate. I have my doubts that police managers would accept, even understand, COIN.

davidbfpo

[Ron Humphrey]

All manner of reasons. It is a moot point that the methods used by the British Army and the police (RUC) to counter terrorism and associated criminal activity would suit the normal problems of urban mainland UK, including gun crime. Northern Ireland was a very intensive environment, notably urban West Belfast and rural South Armagh, where amidst a largely un-co-operative public PIRA operated. The latest knife murders of teenagers in London for example are quite different.

Applying COIN, even CT methods to mainland policing and in the USA I venture to suggest are not appropriate. I have my doubts that police managers would accept, even understand, COIN.

davidbfpo

That if they just manage to catch the parts like failure to account for failure in the system and thus failure to address them makes things worse, and / or
as long as everyone has to follow the same rules local disputes would become less frequent then I think we'll still be one step closer to where we need to be

[MattC86]

All manner of reasons. It is a moot point that the methods used by the British Army and the police (RUC) to counter terrorism and associated criminal activity would suit the normal problems of urban mainland UK, including gun crime. Northern Ireland was a very intensive environment, notably urban West Belfast and rural South Armagh, where amidst a largely un-co-operative public PIRA operated. The latest knife murders of teenagers in London for example are quite different.

Applying COIN, even CT methods to mainland policing and in the USA I venture to suggest are not appropriate. I have my doubts that police managers would accept, even understand, COIN.

davidbfpo

Well, I should have been far more clear. I don't mean to suggest that COIN techniques are something that municipal police forces should take up and study. I would just assume there'd be a little more interest among police forces, given that people are always pejoratively calling COIN heavily-armed policework. . .

To put it another way, do you think that UK police (or any police, for that matter) could gain something from the proverbial lessons learned in COIN efforts in Northern Ireland or elsewhere?

Actually, as a follow-up, you take it, then, that the British Army took far more from its Northern Ireland experience than any police institution did?

Regards,

Matt

[davidbfpo]

Well, I should have been far more clear. I don't mean to suggest that COIN techniques are something that municipal police forces should take up and study. I would just assume there'd be a little more interest among police forces, given that people are always pejoratively calling COIN heavily-armed policework. . .

To put it another way, do you think that UK police (or any police, for that matter) could gain something from the proverbial lessons learned in COIN efforts in Northern Ireland or elsewhere?

Actually, as a follow-up, you take it, then, that the British Army took far more from its Northern Ireland experience than any police institution did?

Regards,

Matt

Far too many issues to easily answer. COIN is not for me heavily armed policework: COIN is usually where government legitimacy is weak, with little if any popular support and the opposition comes from capable armed insurgents whose identity is largely unknown. Most Western policing operates where legitimacy is far from weak, albeit contested in some areas (inner city slums); popular support exists and the identity of the opposition is known - although not actually what they do.

The military operate with precison regarding their opponents; the police often do not know who their opponents are.

Yes, policing can learn from COIN, but with care. Tasking and co-ordination groups (TCG) from Ulster is one of the most visible lessons learned; alongside technical aids to surveillance, notably ANPR and CCTV. Looking for other options to arrest, charge and convict is another - notably seen in using disruption. Use of informants is another, although many are critical of those lessons (from the Army & RUC).

What did the UK Army learn? Biggest lesson, never get involved overtly at home! That maybe reflected in seeking better policing, notably in riot control / public order (No.1 issue in the early 1980's for the UK government for the Home Office, less now). Other lesson - remember I have no miltary expereience - how effective small unit leadership was. The best example being responding directly at incidents to press enquiries with those there and not a press officer miles away.

I am not aware if anyone from the UK Army has written publically on what lessons they learnt. I know the official reflections on UK Army deployment, called Op Banner, was posted on the web and a quick read in '07 left no lasting impression.

I am sure we will talk about this next weekend!

davidbfpo

[CPT Holzbach]

http://www.examiner.com/a-1423820%7ELanier_plans_to_seal_off_rough__hoods_in _latest_effort_to_stop_wave_of_violence.html

This sort of thing works, to an extent, in COIN. In America? Not a chance. And if it does lower crime in certain neighborhoods, why not do it in EVERY neighborhood? Slippery slope, there. I'm thinking the overturning of the DC gun ban (very likely to happen this month), neighborhood watches, and people who don't go along with the "stop snitchin'" mentality would work a whole lot better. This is a fine example of a COIN technique that should NOT come home.

[slapout9]

This is a lot of whooee about nothing. It is a short term project 10 days according to the article and they are only going to control designated areas (most likely private or government property). This is a very old Police technique nothing new here. The was one of the core techniques used in the old Federal Weed and Seed program. The Feds paid the overtime for the police to do just what is talked about in the article and provided funds for other community building projects.... hence Weed the LE part and Seed the building part. Yes it does sound similar to Clear,Hold and Build but it is a lot more focused and the time frames are a lot shorter. This is more about a police chief learning to be a politician than anything else.

[Tacitus]

Interesting story I heard on NPR on the drive into work today.

D.C. Police use Radical Tactic to Combat Homicides
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91379525

They're setting up Bagdad style checkpoints (in a "failed state" type neighborhood you might say) to check IDs of people coming in to determine if they have a legitimate use to be in the neighborhood.

Obviously, this is controversial. And residents of the neighborhood have differing opinions. The D.C. police chief seems determined, though, and thinks it is working to lower homicides.

[Surferbeetle]

From the Economist's 'The World in 2009', Crime Interrupted (http://www.economist.com/theworldin/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12574177&CFID=35629762&CFTOKEN=82972255) by Joel Budd


The approach that will come to prominence in 2009 is almost the exact opposite of zero tolerance. Rather than cracking down on petty offenders such as turnstile-jumpers and squeegee men, the authorities will focus on those who are most likely to kill or be killed. Some may be drug dealers recently released from prison. Others may be the associates of people recently wounded by gunfire. What makes the approach particularly novel is that it depends on local people. Rather than insisting on zero tolerance from the police, it tries to change what the residents of crime-infested areas will tolerate.


The new method has been quietly honed for almost a decade in Chicago, where it is known as Operation Ceasefire. It has two main tools. The more conventional one is a team of outreach workers who try to mobilise communities to oppose violence, often in partnership with local clergy. Then, at night, “violence interrupters” hit the streets to sniff out trouble. Often former gang members and graduates of the prison system, the interrupters have a hard-nosed approach to law and order. They may, for example, encourage an aggrieved man to consider beating someone instead of shooting him, or try to convince rival drug-dealers that a turf war would be bad for business, as it would attract the police.

[jmm99]

is here (http://www.ceasefirechicago.org/cpvp.shtml). Its results-data page is here (http://www.ceasefirechicago.org/results.shtml) - and its publications are here (http://www.ceasefirechicago.org/publications.shtml).

NRA members might find this article of interest (http://wednesdayjournalonline.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&SubSectionID=1&ArticleID=10815&TM=57247.4) - knew I read of Gary Slutkin somewhere else - probably in the Rifleman.

[Bob's World]

I believe that if you all expand your view of what COIN is, you gain a clearer understanding. To my way of thinking, EVERY police officer is waging COIN every day on the job. It is only when Civil government fails in their COIN efforts that they have to bring in the military for the type of expanded COIN operations that most think of when they think of COIN.

Viewed in this manner, the most successful COIN operation of the 60's was the passing and implementation of the Civil Rights Act by the US Government. Faced with with a rising insurgency, complete with ideology and dynamic leadership, the US could have brought in greater force to put the African American populace back into "its place," or they could change their behavior and bring a better form of governance to all Americans. Thankfully they chose the latter.

Think of this when people talk of "Appeasing" insurgents by listenting to and addressing their concerns. When a government addresses the concerns of its own citizenry it is not appeasement, it is simply doing their job. Appeasement is when a government compromises its own populace to grant concessions to the government of an other populace. Very different things altogether.

So yes, all COIN is local, and the best COIN is that which is done day in and day out to meet the needs of a populace long before it starts drifting into the behavior described by Mao as Phase I insurgency.

Just something to consider.

[120mm]

I believe that if you all expand your view of what COIN is, you gain a clearer understanding. To my way of thinking, EVERY police officer is waging COIN every day on the job. It is only when Civil government fails in their COIN efforts that they have to bring in the military for the type of expanded COIN operations that most think of when they think of COIN.

Viewed in this manner, the most successful COIN operation of the 60's was the passing and implementation of the Civil Rights Act by the US Government. Faced with with a rising insurgency, complete with ideology and dynamic leadership, the US could have brought in greater force to put the African American populace back into "its place," or they could change their behavior and bring a better form of governance to all Americans. Thankfully they chose the latter.

Think of this when people talk of "Appeasing" insurgents by listenting to and addressing their concerns. When a government addresses the concerns of its own citizenry it is not appeasement, it is simply doing their job. Appeasement is when a government compromises its own populace to grant concessions to the government of an other populace. Very different things altogether.

So yes, all COIN is local, and the best COIN is that which is done day in and day out to meet the needs of a populace long before it starts drifting into the behavior described by Mao as Phase I insurgency.

Just something to consider.

Ding, ding, ding, Winnah!


Then, at night, “violence interrupters” hit the streets to sniff out trouble. Often former gang members and graduates of the prison system, the interrupters have a hard-nosed approach to law and order. They may, for example, encourage an aggrieved man to consider beating someone instead of shooting him, or try to convince rival drug-dealers that a turf war would be bad for business, as it would attract the police.

But the above quote is industrial strength stupid. How about we NOT look to Chicago for any answers on how to fight crime? Teaching criminals to commit crimes smarter is not the answer.... But Chicago is a fine example of a failed government. Basically the criminals are running the government.

[William F. Owen]

I believe that if you all expand your view of what COIN is, you gain a clearer understanding. To my way of thinking, EVERY police officer is waging COIN every day on the job. It is only when Civil government fails in their COIN efforts that they have to bring in the military for the type of expanded COIN operations that most think of when they think of COIN.


OK, I'll just run a quick test on this.

An insurgency is armed rebellion against the state. Yes/No?
An insurgency is war, in that it uses violence for political gain. Yes/No?

Is countering these activities the primary mission of a police officer. Yes/No?
Is defending the state the primary mission of a police officer. Yes/No?

I am not saying that some perspectives from Police Work are not incredibly valuable to Soldiers fighting against armed rebellions, but I see clear blue everything between COIN and Policing.

[wm]

OK, I'll just run a quick test on this.

An insurgency is armed rebellion against the state. Yes/No?
An insurgency is war, in that it uses violence for political gain. Yes/No?

Is countering these activities the primary mission of a police officer. Yes/No?
Is defending the state the primary mission of a police officer. Yes/No?

I am not saying that some perspectives from Police Work are not incredibly valuable to Soldiers fighting against armed rebellions, but I see clear blue everything between COIN and Policing.


Seems to me that one can see COIN operations in two different lights: preemptive COIN and reactive COIN.

Preemptive COIN stops an insurgency before it starts (sort of like preventive maintenance). What Bob's World described in his post wrt the Civil Rights Act would fall in this category I think.

Reactive COIN is what happens after the insurgency has broken out and one seeks to return things to a preinsurrection status quo aka peacefulness (restorative maintenance--what your mechanic does after your car breaks down on the highway, if you wish). What Wilf is seeking to describe with his questions above falls into the second category. What the coalition is doing in IZ and AF is reactive COIN as well.

A third consideration applies whether one is engaged in reactive or preemptive COIN. That is what we might call Limitation COIN. Limitation COIN strives to ensure that the actions taken to restore the status quo do not fan the fames and broaden the insurgency instead. It also must ensure that the efforts to forestall/preempt the insurrection do not produce new sources of dissatisfaction that foment more/different dissent in the populace. I suspect that this part of COIN is what Nagl had in mind when he called on us to produce soldier diplomats.

[jmm99]

Galula's Counterinsurgency Warfare (chap. 4, pp.43-47) uses "Revolutionary" for "X" - insert whatever word suits your fancy.

The situation is one where the insurgent's acts are generally legal and non-violent - ranging up to the situation where military forces have to take an active role because of violence that police actions cannot control.

The counterinsurgent has 4 methods in a "cold war":

1. Direct police and legal action vs. the insurgents (primarily directed at its infra-structure).

2. Indirect action by alleviating the underlying conditions supporting the insurgency's cause.

3. Infiltration of the insurgency (intelligence & derailment).

4. Co-opt the insurgency into a mainstream political movement.

Now, moving to Bob's World's example of the Civil Rights Movement, which addresses only one side of the coin (pun intended) - Black Voting Rights, etc. One can cite use of all four methods by local, state and Federal authorities in that era; but the Kennedy-Johnson approach was to emphasize #2 (enforcement of the Civil Rights Acts) and #4 (bringing Black voters into the Democratic Party, realizing that substantial numbers of White voters would be lost).

The other insurgency was the anti-Civil Rights movement, which had both non-violent and violent aspects. Once the decision was made to pursue enforcement of the Civil Rights Acts, application of method #2 in favor of the "antis" was not possible - although as time went on (now 5 decades), modifications were made to satisfy some of the concerns about busing, affirmative action, etc.

The methods used against the "antis" tending to violence were largely #1 and #3 (e.g., Mississippi Burning). That again was a long process; and there were still a large number of dissatisfied Whites without a political home. That need was met by Nixon's Southern Strategy, which changed the US political map by bringing former Democrats into the Republican Party. That message (method #4) was conveyed in a number of ways - including SCOTUS nominations of two Southern judges (Haynsworth & Carswell in 1969 & 1970), which were destined to fail from the gitgo.

The foregoing is an explanation by hindsight - the various responses developed because of the US system of governance - not because of some magical 50-year plan.

[Ken White]

...One can cite use of all four methods by local, state and Federal authorities in that era; but the Kennedy-Johnson approach was to emphasize #2 (enforcement of the Civil Rights Acts) and #4 (bringing Black voters into the Democratic Party, realizing that substantial numbers of White voters would be lost).
. . .
The foregoing is an explanation by hindsight - the various responses developed because of the US system of governance - not because of some magical 50-year plan.there are a lot of myths about that time and effort.

While your summation is generally correct, as one who lived in the south during most of that period, there are three things that often get discounted or ignored. First, as a result of WW II and Korea and Truman's desegregation of the Armed Forces plus a lot of returning black veterans and a lot of white guys who became aware that black was not bad, the south was in process of changing. Barriers were falling all over the place. The Kennedy developed Act that Johnson got passed just sealed the issue. Goldwater's contention that the Act was not truly necessary and could do some harmful if uintneded things was correct I believe.

Secondly, the 'antis' were vocal but really rather few in number and the so-called Nixon southern strategy while real was successful not because of blacks becoming strong Democratic supporters or because the Democratic party had passed the CRA but because Nixon, whom no less an authority than Noam Chomsky calls the last liberal American President signed more legislation that helped the south than did his democratic predecessors. Most of the later stuff -- school and busing issues were more a result of mishandling and bad court decisions as anything else. Not to say there weren't bitter dead enders; there were -- but poor handling exacerbated things significantly.

Lastly, the Baby Boomers had nothing to do with all that. ;)

Long way of getting to the point -- I don't agree that the era and the civil rights imbroglio were a COIN effort in any sense. I do understand that one could use the actions as a corollary and have no objection to that, though I wouldn't do it.

However, if one was there at the time, it wasn't quite the way the academics like to portray it in their somewhat revisionist history and it may have been a COIN-like preemption in Stage 0 seen through that prism but on the ground at the time, Stage 0 had not yet arrove, much less Stage 1...:wry:

Lot of shrewd, party enhancing domestic politics though, that's for sure. :rolleyes:

[jmm99]

Very much agreed that "there are a lot of myths about that time and effort" - time being roughly 1960-1970, and effort being Civil Rights issues and Vietnam as well. I also will babble forth before reaching my bottom line - which also agrees with "Lot of shrewd, party enhancing domestic politics though, that's for sure."

----------------------------------------------
1. Integration and Armed Services

I am in violent agreement with this:


from Ken
First, as a result of WW II and Korea and Truman's desegregation of the Armed Forces plus a lot of returning black veterans and a lot of white guys who became aware that black was not bad, the south was in process of changing. Barriers were falling all over the place.

Or, as my dad said, "I don't care if the guy in my foxhole is purple with pink polka dots - so long as he shoots straight."

-------------------------------------
2. Goldwater

As I was a Goldwater Preacher from 1958-1964 (when we got clobbered), you are preaching to the already converted. I was taken by Goldwater's view of the 9th and 10th Amendments; his view on Indochina (in particular) and on the Cold War (in general - "Why Not Victory ?").

In any event, he set out his views on States' Rights and Civil Rights in chaps. 3 & 4 of The Conscience of a Conservative, available here (http://www.amazon.com/Conscience-Conservative-Barry-Goldwater/dp/0895265400) - my 1961 copy cost 50¢ !

A good discussion of that book & Goldwater is here (http://www.heritage.org/Research/features/PresidentsEssay/PresEssay2004.pdf).

As you correctly point out, Goldwater was firm on the 15th Amendment (Voting Rights) and the 14th Amendment as interpreted by the 1866 Civil Rights Act. Where he drew the line was on education and public accomodations - his view of constitutional history (interpreting the 14th in light of the 9th and 10th) precluded a Federal "cram down" in those areas (see pp.34-37). On the merits of integration, Goldwater was firmly on the side of its objectives (including integration in the military) - see p.38 for his classic statement.

So, Goldwater did precede Nixon in opening the door to Southern conservatives.

--------------------------------------
3. Breach of Covenant - Democrats become Republicans


from Ken
Secondly, the 'antis' were vocal but really rather few in number and the so-called Nixon southern strategy while real was successful not because of blacks becoming strong Democratic supporters or because the Democratic party had passed the CRA but because Nixon, whom no less an authority than Noam Chomsky calls the last liberal American President signed more legislation that helped the south than did his democratic predecessors. Most of the later stuff -- school and busing issues were more a result of mishandling and bad court decisions as anything else. Not to say there weren't bitter dead enders; there were -- but poor handling exacerbated things significantly.

Some disagreement here. Let me be clear - I'm not saying that Southern Democrats went into the Republican Party because Blacks were coming into the Demoratic Party. Rather, the loss of Southern Democrats started in 1948 with the Dixiecrat "revolt", which was a consequence of the Hubert Humphrey "revolt" at the 1948 convention - and continued through the 50's and 60's. The crux of it was a perceived "breach of the covenant", which had governed the relations between the two wings of that party for roughly 75 years.

Agreed that Nixon's overall program was not race-baiting. While Goldwater appealed to Southern conservatives, Nixon broadened that appeal to Southern populists (and to Midwestern and Western populists as well).

Now, as to "the 'antis' were vocal but really rather few in number", that is true about the violent "antis" (for which, God be thanked); but the non-violent "antis" (e.g., George Wallace and Ross Barnett) were very vocal indeed - especially in the earlier years. Wallace, of course, later shifted gears - and appealed more to populism than anything else (he did very well in certain sections of Michigan).

We can also agree about "bad court decisions", which have marked the course of Civil Rights from Reconstruction on. In the late 1800's and early 1900's, the SCOTUS pendulum swung too far in one direction - e.g., as pointed out by John Harlan I in his dissents (Plessy v Ferguson being his classic). In the 1950's and 1960's, it swung too far in the other direction - e.g., as pointed out by John Harlan II (grandson of I) in his dissents.

Not for nothing that those two folks of Kentucky lineage were named after John Marshall.

---------------------------------------
4. Detroit Riots - 1967

Detroit, Newark, LA, etc. - were among the 1967 "urban disorders" in the North. I'll stick with the Detroit riots where I have some knowledge and experience.

The Michigan Citizen ("America's Most Progressive Community Newspaper") calls it the Detroit Rebellion in its multi-part series celebrating its 40th birthday, which starts here (http://www.michigancitizen.com/default.asp?sourceid=&smenu=106&twindow=Default&mad=No&sdetail=4778&wpage=1&skeyword=&sidate=&ccat=&ccatm=&restate=&restatus=&reoption=&retype=&repmin=&repmax=&rebed=&rebath=&subname=&pform=&sc=1070&hn=michigancitizen&he=.com).

My reasons for citing this left of center reference are, firstly, it represents (even today) a flavor of the views held by that "insurgency"; and, secondly, it is based in part on the 86 page Michigan Law Review study of the riots and their aftermath - see part IV of the series, which is here (http://www.michigancitizen.com/default.asp?sourceid=&smenu=106&twindow=Default&mad=No&sdetail=4838&wpage=1&skeyword=&sidate=&ccat=&ccatm=&restate=&restatus=&reoption=&retype=&repmin=&repmax=&rebed=&rebath=&subname=&pform=&sc=1070&hn=michigancitizen&he=.com):


.... Prof. Kamisar, now a nationally recognized authority on constitutional law and criminal procedure and the Clarence Darrow Distinguished University Professor of Law Emeritus at the UM Law School, recalled how he encouraged students, including two members of the Michigan Law Review, to make an on-the-ground investigation.

While learning theory in class was important, he told them, the best way to learn the law would be for them to “go to Detroit.” In doing so, he added, they would also be recording a significant historical event.

In the immediate wake of the rebellion, the students interviewed defendants in regular jails, makeshift detention centers and courtrooms, as well as defense attorneys, prosecutors and judges. Their 86-page study, “The Administration of Justice in the Wake of the Detroit Civil Disorder of July 1967,” was published in the Michigan Law Review, vol. 66, no. 7 (1968), pp. 1544-1630.

“The Constitution and its guarantees,” it concluded, “are applicable to all citizens at all times. Panic, disorganization, and lack of preparation should never excuse granting a defendant less than his full measure of constitutional rights.” ...

I still believe that - although my "full measure of constitutional rights" were and are admittedly somewhat more limited than many (including Yale Kamisar) would grant.

Truth in lending - Yale Kamisar was one of my Crim Procedure & Con Law profs - and yours truly was one of the law review editors involved in the project.

Bottom line - the 1967 Detroit "situation" certainly looked like some form of insurgency to me.

----------------------------------------
5. Galula's "Cold War" - insurgency and war.


from Ken
Long way of getting to the point -- I don't agree that the era and the civil rights imbroglio were a COIN effort in any sense.

Can't get dogmatic against what you say - Calling the Detroit riots "War" or a "Rebellion" doesn't float my boat either; but they (and other incidents of domestic violence in the 60's) were far from "Peace" - as I thought of it then and now.

If Bob's World wants to wax on about what "phase 0" should be called - and how to define it more precisely - more power to him.

---------------------------------------
PS: Since I was conceived about the time meatballs were flying over Oahu, I can't claim Baby Boomer status - instead I belong to your generation as one of the tail-end runts of the litter.

BTW: was thinking about putting red hair on the Unicorn, but that seemed excessive.

[Ken White]

roaming rather far afield. My fault for getting overly politically oriented in simply disagreeing with O'l Bob's World.

Not sure you should have held back on the Unicorn though, I have a soft spot for Redheads (first wife... :o ).

On topic, from you:
Can't get dogmatic against what you say - Calling the Detroit riots "War" or a "Rebellion" doesn't float my boat either; but they (and other incidents of domestic violence in the 60's) were far from "Peace" - as I thought of it then and now.

If Bob's World wants to wax on about what "phase 0" should be called - and how to define it more precisely - more power to him.I can sure agree with both those points...

[Bob's World]

I only offer the "phase 0" construct as tool to help address what I see as some of the major problems that tend to crop up in COIN operations:

1. The reluctance of Civil leadership to take over all charge of a comprehensive program of engagement due to seeing insurgency as a combat operation that the military needs to resolve so that they can get back to work conducting civil governance; and

2. The tendency of threat-focused military COIN forces to become too counterinsurgent and not prioritze addressing the root causes of the problem over that glaring symptom of it.

3. The reactive nature of COIN in both name and deed. How do we get more proactive and nip these situations prior to their going kinetic on us.

If you can't get past seeing insurgency as only being that period of time when an actual insurgent has emerged and become operational, then it isn't going to help you much.

I think of the old saying "If a tree falls in the forest, and no one is there to hear it, does it make any noise"?

Similarly, if all of the conditions of poor governance and disenfranchised populaces exist, complete with an external party conducting UW to stir up an insurgency, but no group has made that final metamorphasis from disident to insurgent, do you have a COIN mission that needs addressed?

I think you do. Similarly that is why I think all of the talk about "defeating extremist ideology," or becoming too focused on killing senior leadership of insurgent cells, or even the massive operation that Israel is waging currently to attack the symptoms of the insurgency while enflaming the causes; are understandable, but also very short-sighted.

How do we expand our vision? How do we become better at both prevention and resolution? I think this Phase 0 concept will help some to do that. Others may not find it helpful. I can live with that.

[Ken White]

I only offer the "phase 0" construct as tool to help address what I see as some of the major problems that tend to crop up in COIN operations:

1. The reluctance of Civil leadership to take over all charge of a comprehensive program of engagement due to seeing insurgency as a combat operation that the military needs to resolve so that they can get back to work conducting civil governance...my fear is that few politicians will make the necessary decisions due to fear of political risk. Some will not see the problem because politicians as a class tend to dissimulate about everything and thus believe everyone else is doing the same thing -- they routinely suspect that religious leaders, like the politicians, do not themselves believe what they are saying. Iran in 1979 and Iraq in 2003 are good examples of this folly.

Some Politicians will see the problem and hope it goes away, some will be too timid to act, a very few may take some action which may or may not make sense and thus it behooves the Armed Forces to be prepared for most anything...
The tendency of threat-focused military COIN forces to become too counterinsurgent and not prioritze addressing the root causes of the problem over that glaring symptom of it.Too many examples in history of the accuracy of this -- and we're one of the worst offenders.
3. The reactive nature of COIN in both name and deed. How do we get more proactive and nip these situations prior to their going kinetic on us.Crux of the problem, isn't it? How do we fire up the politicians to do their job so the Troops don't have to do theirs?
Similarly, if all of the conditions of poor governance and disenfranchised populaces exist, complete with an external party conducting UW to stir up an insurgency, but no group has made that final metamorphasis from disident to insurgent, do you have a COIN mission that needs addressed?Maybe, maybe not. What you do have is three questions; Is this issue important (not vital, just important) to US interests? Does the US need to get involved and if so at what level or to what degree? Is force required and if so to what level and for how long and is the US prepared to do that?
How do we expand our vision? How do we become better at both prevention and resolution?That's the big question. I don't have an answer other than that I believe very strongly that the One Third and the Two Year Rules are accurate enough for planning purposes; that we will never do COIN well because we are not prepared to train adequately or to risk our troops out in the wilds wandering about purposefully but with no armor, no hot meals, no easily provided support and subsisting on a ball of rice a day for weeks at a time. Our prospective COIN opponents will do that; we will not -- they will win due to that fact unless we spend years at it and just wear them down. That, IMO, is not a smart way to fight. In fact, I think it's terribly stupid. I know it is unduly expensive in every sense of the words.
I think this Phase 0 concept will help some to do that. Others may not find it helpful. I can live with that.I agree with your Phase 0, just not that it existed in the US as you postulated. I also agree with you that when it is occurring, we should make an assessment and act rather than waiting for Phase 1 to begin. Where you and I might differ is on what that action should be... ;)

[Bill Moore]

I read Bob's World post with interest, and while I agree it is better to nip the problem in the butt before it goes kinetic, there are two questions/comments that I have.

First, I think elements in the USG and the UN attempt to do this. We frequently see that conditions are ripe for someone to stir up an insurgency and we "try" to convince the HN to address their problems, make whatever reforms are necessary, etc.

The military has role with security force assistance, which will hopefully better prepare that HN's security forces to professionally handle, or ideally contribute to pre-empting the problem. I need to think about this one, but I bet I think of some cases that are not classified.

Second, the HN must be convinced that there is a problem to solve, and this frequently is the long pole in the tent. We can't do it for them, and they refuse to reform, as Clausewitz said, war and warfare are an extension of politics. I still think an insurgency in many ways is an armed election process. Whatever side can most effectively mobilize the populace towards their ends will 'probably" win.

We should continue to identify the signs of an emergent problem and encourage others to take appropriate steps to prevent it, but I think it isn't realistic to weight our (the military's) efforts here, since most countries won't ask for help until it is too late.

Good post, definitely food for thought.

What do you think we can or should do better in the area of prevention?

Do we have the forces available to do it?

[jmm99]

from Ken
... I suspect we're roaming rather far afield. My fault for getting overly politically oriented in simply disagreeing with O'l Bob's World.

and I'm leaning toward saying that "getting overly politically oriented" is not a sin in analysing either Phase 0 (as BW defines it) or Phase 1 (in the classical Mao model), since political action is what those phases are all about - with perhaps an occasional riot or assassination to add some spice.

BTW: such political analysis is also necessary to establish that a Phase 0 situation does not exist (Ken's position re: 1960's US).

Bill Moore points out a serious issue - the GHN's refusal to recognize the political problem, or to accept solutions to resolve it.

cf., Government of South Vietnam in many areas - since GSV was not in a Phase 0 or 1 situation vs. PAVN-VC (except possibly in 1955-1956), it is not an exact on point example - I realize that.

Anyway, what is the best national strategic policy for the US in that case ? Pull the plug and use resources elsewhere ? Pour men and $ into an effort that is probably doomed from the gitgo ? Do what is feasible to buy time ?

I guess I need some more cases of Phase 0 - successes or failures - to grasp the parameters we face.

[Ken White]

..."getting overly politically oriented" is not a sin in analysing either Phase 0 (as BW defines it) or Phase 1 (in the classical Mao model), since political action is what those phases are all about - with perhaps an occasional riot or assassination to add some spice.but I sometimes ramble... :o
Anyway, what is the best national strategic policy for the US in that case ? Pull the plug and use resources elsewhere ? Pour men and $ into an effort that is probably doomed from the gitgo ? Do what is feasible to buy time ?Questions I asked above: "What you do have is three questions; Is this issue important (not vital, just important) to US interests? Does the US need to get involved and if so at what level or to what degree? Is force required and if so to what level and for how long and is the US prepared to do that?" Once those are answered, then some idea of how to proceed MAY be available.
I guess I need some more cases of Phase 0 - successes or failures - to grasp the parameters we face.I'll leave that up to Bob's World but will note that Viet Nam, Afghanistan and Iraq do not fit the Phase 0 / 1 parameter or, very importantly I think, the questions I listed to be asked for prospective FID support. Other questions applied and that can happen again in different ways. not only do Generals tend to want to fight the last war; the Politicians are generally clueless about war and what to do and thus make bad decisions. No Army or Generals can predict what the Pols will do...

The question in Viet Nam was "Do we honor our agreement and if so to what extent?" There were other considerations. The economy was down, a small war would boost it a bit -- domestic politics will always intrude. Campaign rhetoric had to be followed to an extent. Then Lyndon blew it...

The question in Afghanistan was "Oh, s**t, we ran 'em off -- what do we do now?" (we still have not answered that question).

The question in Iraq was "How do we let the ME know we're not going to put up with anymore attacks on US interests worldwide?" Not Afghanistan, it's not in the ME and the attack there was retribution for an attack on the US land mass. Home and international interests are different things. The answer was to go into the geographic center of the ME against a despised regime that everyone wanted gone, plop in a new government and leave. Then it was decided that the new government we thought -- well, not we; that Wolfotwits thought -- would work was not going to get off the ground. Rightly or wrongly, the decision was then made to stay.

Thus in those three cases, Bob's World parameters from this thread do not apply. My questions to be asked do not apply. the path to war is not predictable or orderly...

What does apply to the questions I posed in all three cases is that I think the last should have been but was not asked. Also applicable to his comments on this thread is the fact that in all three cases a number of missteps were made, many due to lack of COIN knowledge. {{ADDED for clarity: particularly with respect to the culture, ethos and people of all three nations. }}

Of course, many more mistakes were due to poor operational decisions irrespective of COIN knowledge and many were due to personnel policies. Note those are not civilian leadership responsibilities. And yes, you read that right, personnel policies contributed to major errors in all three wars.

So did easily avoidable training shortfalls...

[Bob's World]

Bill Moore raised a couple of great points that I'll follow up on: The role of the HN government, and what our role would be in these phase 0 operations

I came to the conclusion that "insurgency happens when government fails" as a bumper sticker a couple years ago. It met a lot of resistance, as everyone prefers to blame the bad things that happen in life on someone else if possible. Certainly few politicians are stepping up in times of crisis and saying "People, here is what is happening, and here is what we didn't do very well that set the conditions for this crisis, here is who is exploiting those conditions to manifest that crisis, and here is my plan to address both my own failures that led us to this sad place, and to deal with those who act outside the law to exploit the situation." I certainly never heard anything like that coming out of DC the past 7+ years.

I believe in many ways good COIN is like good rehab. Nothing good happens until the one with the problem recognizes and admits it and commits to addressing it. A 12-step program for COIN if you will. "Hello, my name is the Government of the Philippines, and I have a problem." Now we can sit down and talk about the full spectrum action required to move forward. Prior to that, you ignore the big problem, and can only help that government swat at the symptoms that are manifesting in the populace, or throw charitable aid at the miss-served populace in lieu of the government services they are not receiving. Both are band-aids, and are the core of our foreign policy engagement.

As to what we can do, well, first is to not simply support whoever is in power without conditions. Not a dollar of engagement or aid should be committed until we set some populace-based conditions. We feel free to put valued based conditions on things, (I'd drop those in lieu of principle based conditions, but that is another post altogether), I'd get off that high horse and instead look at conditions aimed at ensuring the people of country X have the type of fundamental conditions that they need to live on their own terms and values. Carrots and sticks.

Next, the GCCs would need to go to the Ambassador and say "We're here to write a campaign plan of engagement for this country, and it will be in total support of your plan. We realize that we are supporting, and we will do no more or no less than you approve, and will coordinate and synchronize the efforts of our component forces to ensure that all military engagement is effectively applied to the ends you desire." (Those who've worked in a GCC or TSOC know how rarely this really happens, those who have not are probably thinking 'don't we do that already'?)

Our overall national strategy for foreign policy has gone from "Containment" for the Cold War, to "intervention" during the Clinton era, to "Preemption" under Bush; but if I was going to bundle all of those under one common banner it would be "Control." Once we are willing to give up on trying to control the global environment, and transition to a more desireable leadership trait of having "Influence" throughout the global environment, I think we can move forward as well. "Hello, I am the United States of America, and I have a problem..."

[wm]

We should continue to identify the signs of an emergent problem and encourage others to take appropriate steps to prevent it, but I think it isn't realistic to weight our (the military's) efforts here, since most countries won't ask for help until it is too late.

Good post, definitely food for thought.

What do you think we can or should do better in the area of prevention?

Do we have the forces available to do it?

Two points:
(1) The final question above indicates the wrong mindset. I not so humbly submit that prevention (action during BW's Phase 0) is not a military option; it does not require "forces." One's military may be used for things like civil works projects (the kind of stuff the Corps of Engineers does for example) but not for doing warfighting or policing type activities.
(2) Prevention outside of one's own sovereitgn land is not possible. Trying to stop an insurgency elsewhere is an example of the "leading a horse to water" problem. As noted by others in this thread, the host nation has to see that the nascent problem exists and desire to do something about it. The only thing outsiders can really do is to keep identifying that, as Marcellus said in Hamlet (Act I, Sc 4), "Something is rotten in the state of Denmark."

An aside:
I just started reading The Wars of German Unification (Modern Wars), by Dennis Showalter, published in 2004. In the first chapter, he discusses the period around 1848, describing, among other things, the work done by the armies of Prussia, Austria and the various Germanic principalities in counter-insurgency (he actually uses that term). He notes how poorly they did at it and how blind the various Germanic states were to the causes of the insurrections. He also briefly discusses the debate in Prussian military circles about the value for officers of an academic preparation/study in the art of war .

The more things change, the more they seem to stay the same.

[Ken White]

Of recent FID / Support to HN actions, the only efforts of note I can recall are Greece, the Philippines, El Salvador (Guatemala doesn't count for several reasons) and the Philippines again. All those were small efforts in comparison with our three larger combat theaters of Viet Nam, Afghanistan and Iraq which had FID aspects but which were all entered upon for reasons far from Mao's or other people war phases or of 'assisting the HN with its problems...'

So my question is; why all the FID emphasis and discussion for large bodies of troops when that has not historically been a commitment, rather our commitment to FID has been on the small scale SF model -- as it should be...

[Bob's World]

Ken,

You lost me, so I can't answer your question until I'm back on track. The insurgency waged in S. Vietnam was classic, by the book, Maoist 3-phase insurgency. The phase 0 part would have been in that period from when Ho and his buddies helped us defeat the Japanese to when we screwed him by letting the French have "their" colony back. After that they worked through the phases to defeat the French, to persuade us to leave, and then to defeat the South's government to reunite the country.

When I say phase 0, I am talking about the steady state dynamic between every populace and their government. Canada is way low in Phase 0. The US a little higher, Mexico quite a bit higher. France and other European countries are moving up the ladder in phase 0 as their demographics continue to become more muslim and young on one side, and older, less numerous traditional european on the other.

When using the phase 0 model, one can track the state of these governed-government relationships and take steps early to keep things from ever getting out of hand. One of our primary concerns now is that so much of our SOF is committed to the CENTCOM AOR that we do not have adequate resources to commit to important places around the world that are edging their way up toward phase 1. And yes, SOF is the force of choice for that type of engagement, but all of the other conventional engagement that goes on day in and day out around the world should be prioritized and focused toward phase 0 maintenance as well. Much of it is very haphazard. We can do better.

[Ken White]

You lost me, so I can't answer your question until I'm back on track. The insurgency waged in S. Vietnam was classic, by the book, Maoist 3-phase insurgency. The phase 0 part would have been in that period from when Ho and his buddies helped us defeat the Japanese to when we screwed him by letting the French have "their" colony back. After that they worked through the phases to defeat the French, to persuade us to leave, and then to defeat the South's government to reunite the country.you left something out between "...the French," and "to persuade us to leave." Specifically, that Eisenhower, at the urging of Ridgeway refused to heavily support the French in Viet Nam, that the US was not a party to and did not support the Geneva Accords. However, the US was a signatory to the SEATO Treaty which pledged mutual support and South Viet Nam, not a signatory to the Treaty proper, was added in a Protocol. The Treaty called for mutual support to handle foreign aggression ONLY and intra country insurgency was specifically rejected by both the US and Australia -- thus we had no occasion to support South Viet Nam in Phase 0 through Phase 2.

The Phase 1 effort in South Viet Nam didn't start until 1960. Then the brothers Kennedy decided to boost the economy and get all idealistic and offered to 'help' and used the SEATO treaty -- wrongly -- as a fulcrum. We forced our way into a scrap that was not in US interests for domestic political and 'looking tough' reasons. I'm aware of the Domino theory and all the allied garbage but the bottom line is a bunch of us got sent to a war that was not in US interests and then the Army proceeded to screw it up for too long so that by the time we got our act together, the Politicians had given up on it. I think there are several cautionaries in all that...

My point was that my questions weren't asked (or properly answered -- always a potentiality) and that we elected NOT to get involved in Phases 0 and 1 -- and then elected to get heavily involved in Phase 2.5 when the PAVN / NVA got sent south to help out the then losing VC in 1964. We saw a problem and decided to help -- but it was not a problem with which we needed to help and even then we did it poorly. We were there as a result of a treaty and domestic politics, not solving a problem that was of concern to us.
When I say phase 0, I am talking about the steady state dynamic between every populace and their government. Canada is way low in Phase 0. The US a little higher, Mexico quite a bit higher...I understand and do not disagree with that. My caution is directed at what one should do to, by, for or in Phase 0... :D
When using the phase 0 model, one can track the state of these governed-government relationships and take steps early to keep things from ever getting out of hand...Understood -- just that my experience with 'models' is that they seldom reflect reality.
One of our primary concerns now is that so much of our SOF is committed to the CENTCOM AOR that we do not have adequate resources to commit to important places around the world that are edging their way up toward phase 1. And yes, SOF is the force of choice for that type of engagement, but all of the other conventional engagement that goes on day in and day out around the world should be prioritized and focused toward phase 0 maintenance as well. Much of it is very haphazard. We can do better.Far be it from me to suggest that CentCom is an extremely ineffectual, overstaffed headquarters that does not have a sterling track record or that certain USSOCOM decisions on employment of SF may have been ill advised.

Seems sort of amusing to me that the stepchildren, long ignored and on the back burner, now have to be employed not as they should be but to back up the hot shots who were and are not available in adequate numbers for their missions. I have noted the modification of missions within all elements of the command with a lot of clucking and "I told you" -- acknowledging that I did not tell anyone except a few friends and acquaintances. I doubt Jim Lindsay or Carl Stiner would've listened to me. :wry:

Barbwire Bob would have due to a brief moment of shared history long ago but though he was the father of SOCOM, he never got to command it...

[jmm99]

This is addressed to anyone who can help me - that is, a better Google searcher than I.

The focus is on Ken's point about decisions to be made about FID in Phase 0 and Phase 1 "insurgencies" - and the questions that should be asked before jumping in to "help" the HN. The timeframe is 1954-1955.

I find the following JCS memoes (just after the Geneva Accord), which are summarized here (http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/pentagon2/pent11.htm).


CHRONOLOGY

21 Jul 54 Geneva Cease-fire Accord
Ended fighting between Viet Minh and French; divided Vietnam at 17th parallel; limited U.S. military personnel in RVN to current level (342).

22 Sep 54 Memo, JCS for SecDef, Retention and Development of Forces in Indochina
U.S. resources could better be used to support countries other than RVN.

19 Oct 54 Memo, JCS for SecDef, Development and Training of Indigenous Forces in Indochina
Opposed U.S. training RVN army. Risk not worth the gamble.

17 Nov 54 Memo, JCS for SecDef, Indochina
Development of effective forces and prevention of communist takeover cannot be prevented without Vietnamese effort that is probably not forthcoming.

21 Jan 55 Memo, JCS for SecDef, Reconsideration of U.S. Military Program in Southeast Asia
Outlines alternative U.S. courses of action in RVN: present program, advice with leverage, U.S. forces, or withdrawal.

What I'm looking for are (1) online versions of the complete memoes; and (2) online background docs that might explain the rationale for the JCS viewpoint. A plausible inference is that the right questions were being asked and answered by some soldier(s) and/or Marine(s) in 1954-1955.

Along the same vein, I find this NCS memo summarized here (http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/pentagon/pent9.htm).


An unsigned, undated memorandum posed eight key questions to be answered by the NSC during the spring of 1954. Comment on the following four questions, in relation to the time at which they were raised, is unnecessary:

--Just how important is Southeast Asia to the security interests of the U.S.? Is the analysis in NSC 5405 still valid? Is the area important enough to fight for?

--How important is Indochina in the defense of Southeast Asia? Is the "domino theory" valid? Is Indochina important enough to fight for? If not, what are the strategic consequences of the loss of all or part of Indochina?

--If the U.S. intervenes in Indochina, can we count on the support of the natives? Can we fight as allies of the French and avoid the stigma of colonialism?

--Is there a strategic concept for the conduct of a war in Indochina which offers promise of early success. . . ?

What I am looking for are the same as above (1) online version of the complete memo; and (2) online background docs that might explain the author's rationale for the questions (finding those seems a long shot since the memo is both unsigned and undated).

Those same questions were being asked by many (including me) throughout the period 1954-1975; and, truth in lending, although I was asking myself the same questions throughout that period, the answers changed because the factual situations kept changing throughout that period (no surprise there).

Also have some thoughts on posts by wm and BW, but I'll do those separately.

[Bob's World]

Ken,

Your knowledge of the history of US efforts in Nam far exceeds mine, but to be clear on the phases, when I talk 0-3 I am talking phases of insurgency, not the effort to deal with the insurgency. Mao's three phases with a zero phase added to the front end.

As you well know we were just as spun up in the late 50s and early 60s over Communist ideology as we are today over islamic ideology. 30 years from now it might be Scientology ideology. The only ideology I really concern myself with is US ideology, and as I have stated previously, I believe the bedrocks of that are our Declaration of Independence, the Bill of rights, and the rest of the constitution in that order. When we start worrying about the other guys ideology we start making bad decisions. When we abandon our own ideology, we make horrible decisions. We did both in Nam, and a dozen other places.

So, I don't want to get off track by focusing too much on what we actually did, the lessons learned being sought here are in terms of the over all environment at the time (populace, governance, outside parties, etc) how could we have approached the problem differently for better effect.

Clearly the people of Vietnam did not want French Governance re-imposed on them. Understand that at the time we were justifiably concerned about any expansion of Communism, but in retrospect that all seems a little silly. I suspect in a decade or two we will look back on countries that have adopted what we call 'extreme' aspects of Islam in their governance and look back on that as silly as well. Self Determination is core US ideology, and good phase 0 operations are about allowing populaces the right to self determine. Any place we have denied a populace that right in the name of US national interests it has created a problem, or at least a time-delayed problem that festers for years potentially before it manifests itself.

Getting off track, but it all relates back to my core tenants of staying true to our values as a nation, not forcing them on others, and being more proactive in phase 0 periods to be a champion of the principle of self determination for people everywhere.

[jmm99]

on this one.


from wm
Two points:

(1) The final question above ["Do we have the forces available to do it?"] indicates the wrong mindset. I not so humbly submit that prevention (action during BW's Phase 0) is not a military option; it does not require "forces." One's military may be used for things like civil works projects (the kind of stuff the Corps of Engineers does for example) but not for doing warfighting or policing type activities.

(2) Prevention outside of one's own sovereign land is not possible. Trying to stop an insurgency elsewhere is an example of the "leading a horse to water" problem. As noted by others in this thread, the host nation has to see that the nascent problem exists and desire to do something about it. The only thing outsiders can really do is to keep identifying that, as Marcellus said in Hamlet (Act I, Sc 4), "Something is rotten in the state of Denmark."

So, we are solidly based (IMO) on political action as the key to Phase 0 problems.

To paraphrase Ross Perot, the devil is in the details. The first problem is the outside nation's sense of smell. If that sense is impaired (as badly as my own is in reality), it will smell nothing or get the wrong scent. The same thing applies to the HN. Given all the variations in cultures and politics, outsider and indigenous recognition of the existence of the problem, the nature of the problem and the solution(s) to the problem, are more likely than not to be on different pages.

----------------------
While wm calls this an "aside", it opened up a window and provided some daylight in my swamp,


An aside:
I just started reading The Wars of German Unification (Modern Wars), by Dennis Showalter, published in 2004. In the first chapter, he discusses the period around 1848, describing, among other things, the work done by the armies of Prussia, Austria and the various Germanic principalities in counter-insurgency (he actually uses that term). He notes how poorly they did at it and how blind the various Germanic states were to the causes of the insurrections. He also briefly discusses the debate in Prussian military circles about the value for officers of an academic preparation/study in the art of war.

because it gave me a jump start to my problem of "I guess I need some more cases of Phase 0 - successes or failures - to grasp the parameters we face."

My thought is that we can take any rebellion, revolution, etc., and find a Phase 0 - which in those cases was obviously not handled well because an armed conflict of some kind resulted. We can then beat the horse to death finding the causes and the solutions - and all of that will be in hindsight and shaped by our present sense and mindset. From that, perhaps, we can glean some general principles and some future guidence - maybe.

What we want to head off in a Phase 0 situation is a Detroit Riot: Something north of 600 buildings torched directly or indirectly (DFD had to withdraw from the scene in many blocks); besides local LE, some 400 MSP troopers deployed (insufficient and beyond their operational scope); some 9200 NG troops (who were then at "summer camp" in The Mitten, 200 miles away - their Detroit deployment a total cluster flop) and 2700 regulars (Airborne), whose quadrant was the only TAOR with any sanity. A "police action" ?

Could reasonable steps have been taken before the "blind pig" raid to avoid what happened (other than the obvious - don't raid the bloody place). Maybe, but whoever wants to tackle that will have to have more time on his hands than I have.

And, in searching any given revolution for its Phase 0, how far do we want to go back to find that Phase 0 ?

I can make a case that Phase 0 before the French Revolution was broken some 180 years before heads were cut off - this incident from 1610 as an example (http://www.ville-igny.fr/Armoiries.html) - a map here (http://fr.topic-topos.com/pont-monseigneur-igny).


L’échauffourée légendaire du pont Monseigneur en 1610, au cours de laquelle François de Vigny fut mortellement blessé par ses paysans ...

The bottom line is that François de Vigny was un plus grand SOB, who abused his peasants, called in the army (probably the gendarmerie) to quell them, and got whacked in the process - which then meant more troops had to be called in, who settled all armed conflict issues in the effective manner of those times. 179 years later, the situation existed on a larger scale and most troops refused to fire.

So, how far do you want to go back to find causes and to develop hindsight solutions ?

[Ken White]

...Mao's three phases with a zero phase added to the front end.Understood -- my point on Viet Nam was simply that was NOT an insurgency when we got involved and really only became one as we increased our involvement and that our increasing involvement had little to do with the perceived need for FID support. Much the same thing is true of Iraq.

As JMM illustrates, the Armed forces, the entire national security structure under Eisenhower wanted nothing to do with it; only when the new and overly idealistic Kennedy crowd got in did that change. Overall point being that we did not get into that FID situation for any of the reasons most stated for our involvement nowadays. That and the fact that the Politicians who make commitments to go to war do not often listen to their Armed Forces with respect to the advisability of their intended effort...
As you well know we were just as spun up in the late 50s and early 60s over Communist ideology as we are today over islamic ideology.No, not really -- what I do know is that some people in some administrations get wrapped around those dipwad axles. Kennedy got embarassed by Kruschev and then came back and said Viet Nam was a likely place to show we weren't going to be pushed around. He used the SEATO treaty as a lever and did something that didn't need to be done. The Politicians used Communism as a hammer to smack each other; most Americans of the day ignored that BS.

That's in contrast to W. who did something that needed to be done that his four predecessors from both parties allowed to fester and build into a problem. Unfortunately, his Army couldn't do it right.
...30 years from now it might be Scientology ideology. The only ideology I really concern myself with is US ideology, and as I have stated previously, I believe the bedrocks of that are our Declaration of Independence, the Bill of rights, and the rest of the constitution in that order. When we start worrying about the other guys ideology we start making bad decisions. When we abandon our own ideology, we make horrible decisions. We did both in Nam, and a dozen other places.I agree with that.
So, I don't want to get off track by focusing too much on what we actually did, the lessons learned being sought here are in terms of the over all environment at the time (populace, governance, outside parties, etc) how could we have approached the problem differently for better effect.I'm not sure anyone's off track; as you note "We did both in Nam, and a dozen other places." Sort of behooves us to look honestly at why we intervened I think. I went to VN twice as Grunt and elsewhere in SEA as a SF troopie, no regrets about it all, I was a pro and it was a job -- that doesn't change the fact that it was stupid, poorly run and was really for domestic political reasons, not to save the Viet Namese or insure their right to self determination or anything else.
Clearly the people of Vietnam did not want French Governance re-imposed on them. Understand that at the time we were justifiably concerned about any expansion of Communism, but in retrospect that all seems a little silly.That's not correct -- I disagree with 'justifiably;' it was a political scare tactic that our very ignorant media parroted because they knew no better. Our 'concern' was vastly overstated and hyped and most Americans realized that. Not the media, then as now all they wanted was pain and sorrow to make headline items.
I suspect in a decade or two we will look back on countries that have adopted what we call 'extreme' aspects of Islam in their governance and look back on that as silly as well.Same thing, a political scare tactic -- that is not to say that Communism in the day (or today) did or does not have persons who are truly concerned with some justification that it is dangerous and the same applies to Islamic fundamentalism. There was / is cause for concern but it is /was vastly overblown by politicians for their own purposes. Most people have more sense than to pay attention to that blather.
Getting off track, but it all relates back to my core tenants of staying true to our values as a nation, not forcing them on others, and being more proactive in phase 0 periods to be a champion of the principle of self determination for people everywhere.That's where we part company; been my observation that such 'proactivity' (another word that needs to be banned :rolleyes:) leads to bad mistakes because we are impatient and do not study all the tea leaves and nuances --and because we are clumsy -- we mean well but we screw up constantly. I also suggest that being a 'champion' for the principle of self determination is a good idea -- but some caution in how assertive we need to be in the process is in order.

One of the big problems in the US Armed forces is that inclination to 'proactivity' -- do something even if it's wrong. That attitude insures that quite often, it will be wrong...

My point is still that my questions MUST be asked and honestly answered before any implementation of your model is begun.

That and the fact that in our last three reasonably large sized wars, the principle of FID, propping up a failing state and defeating an insurgency were not the issues that caused us to enter the nations involved. ;)

[jmm99]

from BW
The only ideology I really concern myself with is US ideology....

but maybe you do.

I can't see how you can understand an "insurgency" (whatever the phase) without understanding the ideologies involved and the political action that flows from those ideologies. E.g., Indochina. Ho's ideology (some SovCom, some ChiCom and some VietNat) and Giap's (slightly different from Ho's, but then Giap was a lawyer who became a general - that one for you, Ken). And moving south to - Diem's ideology (leaving an explanation of Personalism on the shelf for a bit); and the ideologies of the military governments that followed - or the lack of same, perhaps better.

I don't think you are saying "don't bother with knowing our enemy", but maybe you are.

If you are saying that we should be a hell of a lot more careful before we engage anywhere, and that our engagement when we engage should accord with our ideology (if we can agree on what that is), then you and I are on the same page as to that general principle of national strategic policy.

[Bob's World]

I think we essentially agree. The M in DIME needs to be applied wisely, and we are defaulting to it a little too easily these days; and GCCs oversee (ok, "track" or "are aware of" may be more accurate)thousands of engagement events annually throughout their AORs. Virtually all of these are taking place in "Phase 0" environments. I.e, these populaces are at peace.

Getting State to be more proactive and to do a better job of ensuring that every military event either contributes directly to advancing our national position with that nation, or is clearly categorized and prioritized as not, but being done anyway for unique exceptions, but all geared not to ensuring the US supports a given government, but instead the "nation" itself. Governments come and go, and getting too tied to the temp help gets us in trouble.

[Ken White]

...a Detroit Riot: Something north of 600 buildings torched directly or indirectly ... and 2700 regulars (Airborne), whose quadrant was the only TAOR with any sanity. A "police action" ?Actually, there were two Airborne Brigades, one from each Division and they relieved the Police and the MiARNG (Federalized) all over the City. The night we arrived, I stopped a 46th Div troop firing his .50 caliber MG at a 'sniper' -- god knows where some of those over 300 bullets went; he heard one shot and fired three cans of ammo -- no one stopped him and his Company Commander was in the track from which he was firing...

Detroit was a beautiful example of a fiasco that didn't need to happen. Corrupt Police and incompetent and poorly trained ArNG folks made a bad situation far worse than it needed to be.

Point is that sometimes a Phase 0 or even a Phase 1 might settle themselves but overly precipitate and less than competent action will almost certainly make a bad situation worse (See Asia, South East [and hopefully not South])..

[reed11b]

deleted by me...reposted in proper thread
Reed

[Bob's World]

JMM,

Good question on ideology. Majority position is that "extremist islamic ideology is the strategic center of Gravity of AQ." That really bothered me when I first read it, so as I studied what the experts (Mao, Deng, Galula, etc) had to say about insurgency and counterinsurgency, I came to the (minority) position that:

1. Every Insurgency requires an effective ideology in order to succeed.

2. An ideology is effective if it both rallies the populace to the cause, and also takes a position that the government is either unwilling or unable to co-opt or conceed.

3. If any given ideology is ever "defeated" or fails to be effective for whatever reason, so long as the conditions giving rise to insurgency still exist, the insurgent simply picks up a new one and continues to fight. Ideology is like an infantryman and his rifle. He has to have one, but if his breaks, is captured, or lost, he can pick up another and continue the fight.

4. Deng's quote is classic on how he viewed ideology: "It does not matter if a cat is black or white so long as it catches mice."

5. Deng's predecessor, Mao, changed ideologies 4 times in the course of leading his movement, always shifting to stay with what was "effective."

So, I don't get too bothered about AQ's choice of ideology. We should try to "Neutralize" it, not defeat it. Bin Laden makes some good points, by agreeing with those points that are valid we take the wind out of his sails. By being pig-headed and trying to "defeat extremist Islamic ideology" we put ourselves at odds with good Muslims everywhere and actually stregthen AQ in the process.

Fight smarter, not harder.

[jmm99]

from Ken
Detroit was a beautiful example of a fiasco that didn't need to happen. Corrupt Police and incompetent and poorly trained ArNG folks made a bad situation far worse than it needed to be.

and, in light of your "in country" service amidst the trolls, you are an honorary Yooper - has absolutely no benefits, a lot of detriments; but is an "honor" that cannot be declined.

---------------------
BW,

OK, you're back on track - some quibbles as to jots and tittles, but we'll let those go for now. Something of a problem with this one:


3. If any given ideology is ever "defeated" or fails to be effective for whatever reason, so long as the conditions giving rise to insurgency still exist, the insurgent simply picks up a new one and continues to fight. Ideology is like an infantryman and his rifle. He has to have one, but if his breaks, is captured, or lost, he can pick up another and continue the fight.

Absent conversion, an ideology cannot be "defeated" - its proponents can be. If facts change, methods, etc., have to change - so, in a sense the ideology changes. I'd call that improvise, adapt and overcome. It is not that easy to develop a new ideology from scratch. So, I doubt that the "soldier" will say "Boy, this ideology ain't working today. I'll just pick up this one."

Using your analogy, my AR15 is broken, so I'll pick up my CAR15 - go to something similar. Have no doubt that someone can cite an example where an insurgent did a complete 180, but I expect that is rare.

As to Mao's 4 changes, I suspect they were agitprop changes in the content of the public message; but post what they were and I stand to be educated.

[Bob's World]

I rely on Galula for the four changes as he lays them out in his classic. I don't have my copy handy (hopefully it is getting passed around at SOCPAC and PACOM doing good duty, but is probably in somebody's household goods gathering dust).

Off the top of my head, he started with land reform, and ended with land reform, I need to see if I can find what versions 2 and 3 were. He wasn't afraid to change tactics when one wasn't working. He also tried to follow Lenin's guide at first and have a city based worker's revolt, but China was too rural so he switched to targeting the peasantry for support.

[wm]

And, in searching any given revolution for its Phase 0, how far do we want to go back to find that Phase 0 ?

I can make a case that Phase 0 before the French Revolution was broken some 180 years before heads were cut off - this incident from 1610 as an example (http://www.ville-igny.fr/Armoiries.html) - a map here (http://fr.topic-topos.com/pont-monseigneur-igny).



The bottom line is that François de Vigny was un plus grand SOB, who abused his peasants, called in the army (probably the gendarmerie) to quell them, and got whacked in the process - which then meant more troops had to be called in, who settled all armed conflict issues in the effective manner of those times. 179 years later, the situation existed on a larger scale and most troops refused to fire.

So, how far do you want to go back to find causes and to develop hindsight solutions ?

JMM--
Lots of questions in the unexpurgated text of your post. I'll only try to address the last one in the excerpt I quote above.

I'm sure you are aware of the variuous types of cause that get mentioned in the literature. Two that seem most important in relation to your question are 'final cause' and 'proximate cause.' As I seem to remember from my philosophy of law coursework, these two are the only ones that really matter in tort cases. I could, arguably, sue all the heirs of Henry Ford in a wrongful death suit involving my parent's death by an exploding Ford Pinto gas tank. But the courts won't let me do so because these relatives have insufficient proximity to the cause of the death. In like fashion, we don't need to go back 180 years before the events of the tennis court on Vingt Juin Mille Huit Cent Quatre-Vingt Neuf to descry the beginnings of what ended the reign of le Roi Louis Seize. The reign of Louis Quinze is probably far enough. The activities of "agitators" in the 1950s is probably also far enough to start ascertaining the events that resulted in Detroit, Watts, and Newark.

Bottom line: Proximate causes are what we ought to try identify, as they are the kinds of things a government can affect to effect a change in the path down which their country is heading.


BTW, I understand the concern about governmental myopia that started off your post (and which I expurgated)--that's part and parcel of the "lead a horse to water" problem I mentioned. It has a corollary called the "Swapping Horses Fallacy;" namely, one cannot resolve a problem by changing one's perspective on that problem ("swap horses") in the middle of identifying and resolving the problem ("the middle of the stream" as it were).
As a reflective lawyer, you might also recognize it as a form of the "definitional stop" found in the work of H.L.A. Hart.

[Bill Moore]

Our detached and distant situation invites and enables us to pursue a different course. If we remain one people under an efficient government. the period is not far off when we may defy material injury from external annoyance; when we may take such an attitude as will cause the neutrality we may at any time resolve upon to be scrupulously respected; when belligerent nations, under the impossibility of making acquisitions upon us, will not lightly hazard the giving us provocation; when we may choose peace or war, as our interest, guided by justice, shall counsel.

Why forego the advantages of so peculiar a situation? Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground? Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor or caprice?

It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world; so far, I mean, as we are now at liberty to do it; for let me not be understood as capable of patronizing infidelity to existing engagements. I hold the maxim no less applicable to public than to private affairs, that honesty is always the best policy. I repeat it, therefore, let those engagements be observed in their genuine sense. But, in my opinion, it is unnecessary and would be unwise to extend them.

While the international environment has evolved considerably since President's Washington's farewell address, much of his wisdom still applies. I'm very fond of his warning about interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe (today that would mean anywhere in the world). I don't think we need to get involved in other country's phase 0 insurgency problems, because to be frank it is seldom in our interest, and seldom in the interest of the other nation.

The take away from this debate is we should be very deliberate before we intervene. There are tens and tens of said situations around the world, that doesn't mean it our nation's role to address each one of them. As Ken stated we had an ideologue drag us into Vietnam against the advice of wise council to the contrary. Sometimes isn't a matter of doing the right things, the fact is some situations are unwinable and we don't need to spend American blood, treasure and sour our international reputation by intervening everywhere. We need to protect the homeland, and to protect our true interests overseas period. Anything else we get involved in will impact our ability, normally for the worse, to protect the homeland and our true interests.

[Bill Moore]

In offering to you, my countrymen, these counsels of an old and affectionate friend, I dare not hope they will make the strong and lasting impression I could wish; that they will control the usual current of the passions, or prevent our nation from running the course which has hitherto marked the destiny of nations. But, if I may even flatter myself that they may be productive of some partial benefit, some occasional good; that they may now and then recur to moderate the fury of party spirit, to warn against the mischiefs of foreign intrigue, to guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism; this hope will be a full recompense for the solicitude for your welfare, by which they have been dictated.

Our founding fathers were profoundly wise, perhaps in ways we can't comprehend now, because their wisdom runs so much deeper than a cool phrase on a power point slide. Their wisdom is the product of a life time of study and observation.

Washington counselled us to avoid the party system, because it would lead to false accusations and trumped up issues, and he warned us about being manipulated by false patriotism. Both of these conditions still shape our policy today.

We should develop a thread called the wisdom of our forefathers as it pertains to SWJ.

[Ken White]

and, in light of your "in country" service amidst the trolls, you are an honorary Yooper - has absolutely no benefits, a lot of detriments; but is an "honor" that cannot be declined.I am also humbled. That'll take care of that for 2009... :D

P.S.

Uh, I don't have to get too close to the Yooper Chick you linked to do I? Women who can whip me always make me nervous...

[jmm99]

are always at hand here - my secret: I don't have to share them. :D

Anyway, thought you might be paraphrasing that - and mixing "the Cause" (what is publicly expressed) with "the Ideology" (which is what is privately believed, and communicated only to the inner circle). Galula defines "The Nature of the Cause" (pp.14-15); and gets into your territory in "Tactical Manipulation of the Cause" (pp.15-16; where there were more than 4 changes) - window dressing, in effect.

So, "the Cause", to a dedicated communist, was totally casuistic - the end (based on ideology) justified the means (the expressed causes). To paraphrase the old priest in the Exorcist, "It goes by many names, but it is always the same." Mao illustrates the varied dances employed by the ChiComs; the announcers for Radio Moscow did the same for SovCom - and they had to be very good dancers, indeed.

Simple rule: a Chekist is a Chekist is a Chekist - regardless of the letters used. Not saying you can't deal with them; and total killing was never an option. So - trust, but verify (thrice IMO).

As to AQ, it seems to me (from reading UBL and Zawahiri; and earlier such as Maududi) that they pretty much practice what they believe (they ARE very "legalistic"). That structural rigidity is a strength (hard to get into their inner circle), but also a weakness - e.g., Anbar ("awakening") and Astan (under the Taliban - these "saints" eventually wore out their welcome).

BTW: AQ itself is not a monolith (again IMO); and their writings suggest various hardcore levels. But, that is really tea leaf reading and WAGs.

--------------------------------------
Brief to Ken - I'm honored that you're honored - and that you admit you will never be humbled. Wouldn't have it any other way. I'll answer your PS elsewhere - if at all.

[jmm99]

we're again hitting a common page;

except for H.L.A. Hart - had to Google that one. Henry Hart (of Harvard Law and co-author of The Federal Courts and the Federal System), oui - "reflective" there. As to jurisprudence and legal philosophy, non - in general (might surprise on some specifics, but only as they deal with legal practice).

Remember you are dealing with a guy who has a lot of CFM-Canada genes :) - so, don't expect much beyond someone like Dani Greysolon, here (http://www.biographi.ca/009004-119.01-f.php?&id_nbr=824&interval=20&&PHPSESSID=6387bhbacmk20mprdrbf1dfih0) and here (http://www.biographi.ca/009004-119.01-e.php?&id_nbr=824&interval=20&&PHPSESSID=lrsqmgai6lpueoj1rqal5riie0) - not an ancestor, but my fav CFM capitaine.

Getting to the meat. Your distinction between proximity of causes makes sense. To me, "final cause" would imply the "proximate cause" which is closest in time to the injury giving rise to the tort. That is not what you meant by it.

What I learned (I think the same thing) was called "but for causation" - that is, but for the lack of a nail, etc., etc., etc., the kingdom was lost. In your Pinto case, that would be akin to suing Daimler's heirs - cuz he started it all (actually I guess Carnot's heirs, if he had any).

Anyway, we do look to "proximate cause", for which we have an operational definition here (http://courts.mi.gov/mcji/negligenceCh10-19/negligence-ch15.htm):


M Civ JI 15.01 Definition of Proximate Cause
When I use the words “proximate cause” I mean first, that the negligent conduct must have been a cause of plaintiff’s injury, and second, that the plaintiff’s injury must have been a natural and probable result of the negligent conduct.

M Civ JI 15.03 More Than One Proximate Cause
There may be more than one proximate cause. To be a proximate cause, the claimed negligence need not be the only cause nor the last cause. A cause may be proximate although it and another cause act at the same time or in combination to produce the occurrence.

M Civ JI 15.04 Causation by Multiple Defendants
You may decide that the conduct of [neither / none], one or [both / more] of the defendants was a proximate cause. If you decide that [one / one or more] of the defendants was negligent and that such negligence was a proximate cause of the occurrence, it is not a defense that the conduct of [the / any] other [defendant / defendants] also may have been a cause of the occurrence. Each defendant is entitled to separate consideration as to whether [his / or / her] conduct was a proximate cause of the occurrence.

M Civ JI 15.06 Intervening Outside Force (Other Than Person)
If you decide that [the defendant / one or more of the defendants] [was / were] negligent and that such negligence was a proximate cause of the occurrence, it is not a defense that [description of force] also was a cause of this occurrence. However, if you decide that the only proximate cause of the occurrence was [description of force], then your verdict should be for the [defendant / defendants].

Now, all this is what we'uns call "litigation language". The question of proximity is simply one of fact, as to which reasonable people can differ.

As to the example of the French Revolution, I would (based on my knowledge now) look at Louis XIII-XVI as a continuum - lots of threads passing through that period and giving us a 1789 conflagration.

But, having said that, if I were looking at the question cold - as an intel officer would have to with a new project, I'd start with Louis XVI. And then work backwards, if I had the time. In the real world, we not only have to look for arteries (avoiding waste of time on capillaries); but for lack of time we have to select which arteries are best pursued. So, you can't be risk averse - just careful.

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

from wm
It has a corollary called the "Swapping Horses Fallacy;" namely, one cannot resolve a problem by changing one's perspective on that problem ("swap horses") in the middle of identifying and resolving the problem ("the middle of the stream" as it were).

Liked this one, which was similar to what I read recently in a military context - always keeping the objective in sight and not being diverted by intervening events (obviously based on CvC, but I will possibly remember the actual book after posting this).

[jmm99]

Amen.

And a prayer to St. Jude (patron of lost causes) that our elected and appointed officials would read and heed them.

[Sergeant T]

Article here (http://cbs13.com/local/vigil.shooting.suspect.2.968035.html). Aside from the obvious nausea over this it's worth noting that someone is trying to get some mileage out of perpetuating the rift. The group's website (http://www.inpdum.org/) is straight out of the Cynthia McKinney playbook. (Or vice versa.) Maybe the ten pound brains at NPS should forget about Salinas and work on Oakland.

[AdamG]

Being in a street gang is now forbidden for members of the U.S. armed forces. But you might not guess that if you were to visit U.S. military bases in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to soldiers who have recently served there.

Jeffrey Stoleson, a Wisconsin corrections official, returned from Iraq in January with photos of gang graffiti on armored vehicles, latrines and buildings. Stoleson, a sergeant with a National Guard unit, was there for nine months to help the Army set up a prison facility outside Baghdad.

*

Now back in Chicago, the officer said he has arrested high-level gang members who have served in the military and kept the "Infantryman's bible" -- called the FM 7-8 -- in their homes. The book describes how to run for cover, fire a weapon tactically and do the "three- to five-second rushes" seen in war movies.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/24-7/2506292,CST-NWS-graffiti18.article

[Jedburgh]

JSOU, Jul 10: Convergence: Special Operations Forces and Civilian Law Enforcement (https://jsoupublic.socom.mil/publications/jsou/JSOU10-6alexanderConvergence_fiinal.pdf)

....The requirements to obtain warrants prior to execution of raids for high-value targets, collect and preserve evidence for criminal prosecution, and on occasion present testimony in courts of law are new missions for SOF. They are not relatively simple changes in the rules of engagement or comparable techniques. As far as can be determined, previously no U.S. military combat arms unit has ever been tasked with such a mission during combat operations. The thesis is straightforward; if such missions are to continue, then consideration must be given to adequate training for them.

In addition, the dangers faced by civilian LEAs in the U.S. have been constantly escalating. Many criminals are equipped with fully automatic weapons and in some areas conducting small-unit operations. The response to these threats requires additional SOF-like civilian units within LEAs. As such, SOF and LEAs will be competing for personnel from a limited subset of the American population.

The purpose of this monograph is to examine the elements precipitating this convergence, provide SOF with a better understanding of changing domestic threats and operational capabilities of LEAs, and draw insights from the similarities and challenges imposed by transnational gangs and terrorists both domestically and abroad. The monograph will argue that SOF need new skills and training to assume the law-enforcement-like missions they are being assigned. In addition, it will provide leaders of major LEAs a better understanding of special operations and potentially facilitate a basis for future cooperation and mutual support. The monograph is written as a forward-looking document and a harbinger of emerging trends; some are quite clear, and others more subtle, but all worth contemplating, especially by those engaged in planning for the future of SOF. It is also argued that the public attitude toward conflict is changing and perhaps the legal underpinnings on use of force as well....

[slapout9]

Jed,thanks for posting this. This concept should have been implemented a long time ago IMO.

[OfTheTroops]

gain legitimacy through transparency. Darn Posse Comitatus degrades our skill set.

[jmm99]

The monograph is certainly on point in suggesting that a closer educational relationship should exist between SOFs and LEAs. I'd say that, where the outcome hinges on the quality of local governance, seeking guidance from those in the civil and criminal justice system is simply logical.

Where the author (a non-lawyer) jumps the track (to some extent) is in the section "Criminalization of Terrorism" (pp. 72-75), particularly in citing LTC Mike Hoffman's 2005 article, Rescuing the Law of War: A Way Forward in an Era of Global Terrorism (http://www.carlisle.army.mil/USAWC/parameters/Articles/05summer/hoffman.htm); and then not following up on how LTC Hoffman's 2005 recommendations were treated in terms of what US courts have held since then.

Thus, the author says:


The issue of how to deal with terrorism is not new, nor is the debate concerning whether terrorist acts constitute war or a crime.[192] The lines are certainly blurred when terrorist actions are embedded in a war zone and constitute a basic tactic employed by the adversary. Since 9/11 and the inception of the GWOT, the debate has intensified with serious concerns about how to deal with perpetrators. A review of terrorists’ prosecutions by Michael Hoffman in Parameters noted, “Terrorists are gaining an astonishing legal edge over the U.S.” The rights and privileges they are now afforded exceed those of enemy soldiers or even insurgents in civil conflicts.[193] The implications for SOF are significant as they, like law enforcement officers, are often the people who are executing operations that bring them into direct contact with the terrorists and must then meet legal challenges. Hoffman indicated that this trend would increase.

No doubt that Hoffman wrote what was quoted; but Hoffman (vice the Rule of Law trend he saw in 2005) recommended instead a Laws of War approach (snip from his 2005 Parameters article):


A Way Forward

The judicial branch of government is the one least qualified to apply the laws of war and determine national security policy, but these issues are undeniably generating crucial legal questions, and the courts consider it their duty to move with rapidity when urgent issues come before them. Though an incremental approach to these issues by the executive and legislative branches reflects their appreciation of the complexities involved, this leaves a gap that the courts are quickly filling.

32/33

When applied against post-9/11 challenges, earlier American state practice arguably can be used to support either a pragmatic law-of-war approach or an utterly impractical law-enforcement approach. In the absence of a firm law-of-war framework, the courts are furnishing their own answers. There is simply no time to spare if the executive and legislative branches want to weigh in with alternative answers. The following two principles offer a way forward.

• Terrorist warfare represents a form of unlawful belligerency that sovereign states can meet by adapting customary rules of war.

Not all warfare is necessarily covered by the Geneva Conventions, and where it isn’t, the customary law of war should apply. The 9/11 Commission observed that such rules can form the basis for an operational response to terrorism.[24] The executive branch needs to establish clear, firm guidelines for the application of the customary rules of war in operations against unlawful belligerents. Legal issues will arise that haven’t been foreseen, but that’s inherent to all military operations and they will have to be addressed as they arise. There is little time, however, to build a complete customary law-of-war framework ad hoc, and relying upon the judicial branch to sort out uncertainties in the rules of war is not an option.

• The customary laws of war, when adapted for conflict with unlawful belligerents, must always incorporate rules of humanitarian restraint.

Any set of customary rules of war adapted for this purpose will have to include rules for humanitarian protection of civilians and military captives. There simply is no getting around this. While certain rules found in the Geneva Conventions may not be appropriate or obligatory when dealing with terrorist organizations (e.g., the rule limiting the scope of questions that prisoners of war are obligated to answer[25]) there are still lines that can’t be crossed.

The US courts involved in the Gitmo cases (SCOTUS, DC Circuit and DC District) have applied the Laws of War - primarily developing Common Article 3 - since 2005. Those courts generally have followed Hoffman's advice.

So, if an SOF trooper is proceeding against terrorists under US law, he is not subject to LE rules - unless (1) the ROE/RUF have been tightened to incorporate LE rules (e.g., if EU-NATO rules are being used in an ISAF context); or (2) if a SOFA (or other HN agreement) requires the local Rule of Law to apply (as in Iraq, and in Astan under some circumstances).

The exceptions to the application of the Laws of War are not something imposed by US courts. They have been imposed by political, diplomatic and military considerations (e.g., "best practices COIN"). That conglomeration of the Rule of Law and Laws of War has led to a much stickier quagmire than COL Alexander describes in his monograph.

More directly to the use of police (including paramilitary police) in "COIN" is this JSOU monograph by Joseph D. Celeski, Policing and Law Enforcement in COIN — the Thick Blue Line (http://jsoupublic.socom.mil/publications/jsou/JSOU09-2celeskiPolicing.pdf) (2009).

A snip indicating his perspective agrees with mine:


7. Conclusions

The primary frontline COIN force is often the police, not the military. The primary COIN objective is to enable local institutions. Therefore, supporting the police is essential.

The ability to prevent an outbreak of insurgent activities rests on the perceived legitimacy of the government to provide its citizens security, rule of law, and a better way of life within some type of moral framework acceptable to the culture. When effective, police and law enforcement institutions can control just about any level of criminality and violence to a level acceptable to the populace. If the violence emanates from the armed actions of insurgents, police and law enforcement retain the capabilities to manage the situation at an acceptable level—that is, if the government correctly identifies the origins of the violence as insurgent in nature. If policing efforts cannot contain the insurgent threat, then they must either be reinforced or the government must choose to inject military might to defeat the insurgency.

Whether the government chooses a course of action to reinforce policing measures or deploy its military, maintaining the rule of law will remain paramount throughout the crisis to buttress legitimacy. In order to prevent a protracted conflict, which is a central component of insurgent strategy, combined military and paramilitary policing efforts, while simultaneously continuing community policing, are often the best method to defeat the enemy and return society to a level of law enforcement reasonable to control societal violence.

The police and law enforcement sectors are key enablers for the COIN practitioner. The police and law enforcement organizations often outnumber the personnel in the military, are closest to the problem, and are normally the first responders to insurgent violence. Conversely, a low level of perceived legitimacy on the part of the populace towards its law enforcement institutions, often due to corruption and ineptness within the police, can almost guarantee that the COIN effort will become more difficult in achieving its objectives.

COL Celeski's article seems more practical (IMO).

Regards

Mike

[davidbfpo]

Early in January 2012 this SWJ article was published 'Counterinsurgency and Community Policing in Afghanistan':http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/counterinsurgency-and-community-policing-in-afghanistan

The relevance here is in the comment, with links, by a Massachusetts State Police & SOF veteran Michael Cutone aka ODA944, which opens with:
Massachusetts State Police initiated a pilot program during the fall of 2009 at the north end of Springfield Massachusetts. A high crime area of gangs, violence and drugs. Below is the project we initiated. Utilizing the eight COIN principles to combat gangs and drug dealers.

Lessons From the Battlefield: Counter-Insurgency for Domestic Law Enforcement

Springfield, Massachusetts, was ranked the 12th most dangerous city in America and had a rampant gang problem. A rise in crime and gang violence was exacerbated by budgetary restraints on the police force. Massachusetts State Trooper Michael Cutone had recently returned from a tour of duty in Iraq where he and Trooper Thomas Sarrouf had played essential roles in a Special Operations mission in the Avghani region of Iraq...

Mike Few, who whilst at NPS looked at the problems faced the city of Salinas in California, added a SWJ article in October 2011 'Gangs and Guerrillas'; which looks at the work NPS did, a very short taster:
The goal of this project is to share the ideas developed to fight insurgents and terrorists and
see if they can be adapted or modified to help the people of Salinas think about their city’s problem with gangs in an innovative way.

Link:http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/gangs-and-guerrillas

I know awhile back MikeF also posted on his experiences in Salinas, but there are too many hits on the city name.

Important enough to add this post, perhaps others will ask how community policing can be married to COIN in the USA or other developed, liberal democracies.

[Bill Moore]

David,

This sounds like good police work to me, not COIN. I thought we borrowed a lot of community policing tactics to inform our COIN doctrine, so if the police are using COIN doctrine to inform community policing efforts, maybe that means the police let this skill set erode over time? If so, why?

Regardless the outcome appears to be positive, so I'm not criticizing the approach, just trying to learn why the police needed to borrow from our COIN doctrine to learn it? Maybe budget cuts reduced police manpower to the point community policing wasn't possible? Maybe the increase in deadly engagements with gangs, made it impractical?

[MikeF]

David,

This sounds like good police work to me, not COIN. I thought we borrowed a lot of community policing tactics to inform our COIN doctrine, so if the police are using COIN doctrine to inform community policing efforts, maybe that means the police let this skill set erode over time? If so, why?

Regardless the outcome appears to be positive, so I'm not criticizing the approach, just trying to learn why the police needed to borrow from our COIN doctrine to learn it? Maybe budget cuts reduced police manpower to the point community policing wasn't possible? Maybe the increase in deadly engagements with gangs, made it impractical?

Bill M,

Conversely, after 9/11, the flow of money from Department of Homeland Security down to local police forces allowed many groups to outfit SWAT type units. There is some serious concern that many police groups have taken this technology and resources as a substitute for community policing.

Have we reached a point in our domestic policing where it has become over-militarized and raids are replacing patrolling?

[Bill Moore]

At the risk of sounding liberal, I agree with your comment. There appears to be a great emphasis on SWAT type take downs and the over use of stun guns, and much less emphasis on using psychology and engaging the public, or so it appears. A SWAT capability is worthwhile for those situations where it is required, but it shouldn't replace community policing.

Borrowing our COIN doctrine is in my view a potentially real bad idea for policing our neighborhoods, but that doesn't mean they can't borrow some of the TTPs.

[MikeF]

At the risk of sounding liberal, I agree with your comment. There appears to be a great emphasis on SWAT type take downs and the over use of stun guns, and much less emphasis on using psychology and engaging the public, or so it appears. A SWAT capability is worthwhile for those situations where it is required, but it shouldn't replace community policing.

Borrowing our COIN doctrine is in my view a potentially real bad idea for policing our neighborhoods, but that doesn't mean they can't borrow some of the TTPs.

It's a matter of applying COIN doctrine (or TTPs) properly for the environment.

For my folks back home in NC, I'm seriously considering asking some of the senior leaders,

What the hell did you expect was going to happen when you gave our country boys flashbangs :D???

[tripleoption]

David,

This sounds like good police work to me, not COIN. I thought we borrowed a lot of community policing tactics to inform our COIN doctrine, so if the police are using COIN doctrine to inform community policing efforts, maybe that means the police let this skill set erode over time? If so, why?

Regardless the outcome appears to be positive, so I'm not criticizing the approach, just trying to learn why the police needed to borrow from our COIN doctrine to learn it? Maybe budget cuts reduced police manpower to the point community policing wasn't possible? Maybe the increase in deadly engagements with gangs, made it impractical?

Bill,

It is both good police work and COIN. Under Community Policing, the cops were required to do the work and solve all the problems. Due to the financial crisis PD's are not equipped to flood the problem areas to "nuke" (borrowing a term from a local police associate) every problem.

With this methodology, the people are provided with the tools to help and they are expected to work with the police, not sit back and watch.

This is necessary because the usual police response it to attempt to "arrest out of" the gang and other problems. This COIN based methodology attacks the root causes of the problems.

[tripleoption]

At the risk of sounding liberal, I agree with your comment. There appears to be a great emphasis on SWAT type take downs and the over use of stun guns, and much less emphasis on using psychology and engaging the public, or so it appears. A SWAT capability is worthwhile for those situations where it is required, but it shouldn't replace community policing.

Borrowing our COIN doctrine is in my view a potentially real bad idea for policing our neighborhoods, but that doesn't mean they can't borrow some of the TTPs.

Taking COIN and modifying for a civilian model makes sense if you think of the gang members as replacing the insurgents. There are many similarities, and both use the civilian population as active or passive participants in their terrorist activities.

In a neighborhood where a criminal posse was driving down city streets on mini-bikes with SKS rifles slung across their backs and nobody calls the cops, this makes sense. Some of these people had bullet holes in their doors and when asked if they reported it, they had not because "it happens all the time."

The important distinction is that the public are not the enemy, the gang members are. The public absolutely loves the police in this area now, where the relationship was previously adversarial at best.

The hammer is there, and it comes in the form of gathering intel and executing operations to clean out the gang members and put them away for good. When those times come, even when group of residents are faced with an elevator full of SWAT geared cops with rifles they respond with a thumbs up and a smile. After an op where troopers and officers flood the area and there are SWAT vehicles, a helicopter etc members of the public will approach the cops and thank them for what they had done.

That just did not happen previously in this area.

[Bill Moore]

Tripleoption,

I agree it is COIN like, and that street gangs (1st, 2d, and 3d generation gangs) present growing challenge that we can't simply "arrest our way out of; " however, since you brought up "underlying causes," in your view what are the underlying causes that lead to these gang problems, and how can the police or community at large address them? I realize it is often different in each case, but if you're familiar with a particular problem set I would like to see your views on it.

[davidbfpo]

Welcome aboard Tripleoption and I have slightly edited your quote below

Under Community Policing, the cops were required to do the work and solve all the problems. Due to the financial crisis PD's are not equipped to flood the problem areas...With this methodology, the people are provided with the tools to help and they are expected to work with the police, not sit back and watch....This is necessary because the usual police response it to attempt to "arrest out of" the gang and other problems. This COIN based methodology attacks the root causes of the problems.

'Community Policing' is alas nowadays a slogan and can mean different things within a few miles, as we can find here - in England - between the inner-city and the suburbs, let alone rural areas. No doubt definitions vary too.

What is important about 'Community Policing' is that it is a partnership between the public / community in a clearly defined area and the police. In my experience and supported in the UK by polling data there is rarely agreement on priorities. Indeed one can argue the police service provided to the British public is what senior officers (known as ACPO) and national politicians alongside civil servants (in the Home Office) decide upon.

The best single advice on partnership working I found that to a British Army Colonel's presentation at an Oxford University conference, which he'd found written by a fire brigade and is attached.

[Bob's World]

It should not surprise anyone that many of the tactics developed for what we have been calling "COIN" operations overseas in the support of the COIN efforts of other nations apply domestically for us as well. After all, much of insurgency is simply an illegal political challenge to governance by a populace that feels it has few effective legal options to address their concerns.

Certainly this is true for revolutionary insurgency, where the objective is political in nature and rising from some (or multiple) populaces in a state to force changes the the government has proven unwilling to take on. That form of insurgency is largely a civil emergency, and the best COIN is largely a matter of the government demonstrating that it believes those populaces are important and listening to their reasonable concerns.

Resistance insurgency is another matter. Resistance is much more a continuation of war, where the government and the military have surrendered or been defeated and only the populace is still left in the fight against that foreign power. Separatist insurgencies tend to appear more of a blend, being like war at times, and like civil emergencies at other times.

Good COIN when faced with revolution is good governance. Good COIN when one wants to enforce the effects of their invasion and occupation is good warfare. Our problem is that we face blends of revolutionary, resistance and separatist insurgencies and apply a once size fits all approach.

Like many of those Colonial powers who wrote the books we derive so much of our doctrine and operational designs from, we cannot see ourselves in the same light as seen by the affected populace. The revolution in Afghanistan moved into full swing shortly after we codified the Northern Alliance under Karzai and their Constitution and dedicated ourselves to enforcing that US solution onto that country. The resistance is what we engage though, within the largely apolitical populace who simply want us to leave them to their own self-determined designs.

Senior leaders talk about how it is a "rural insurgency" rather than a "urban insurgency." True, and equally immaterial. Until we can appreciate what types of insurgency are war and what types are internal emergencies that can only be resolved through internal solutions, we will begin to make some headway. True headway, and not just the false headway that comes from the military suppression or monetary bribes of some people.

In many ways the entire "war on terrorism" is a very real resistance to the virtual occupation of the Middle East with the policies and governments we have created, supported and protected over the years to first wage a Cold War, and then sustained past the expiration date because those autocratic regimes liked the set up and so did we. Too bad no one asked the people. Wait, bin Laden did. So, now there are many nationalist revolutions in various stages bumping along, coupled with an overarching perception of resistance against what is perceived as excessive and inappropriate Western influence.

Step one is to better understand the problem. Like those before us we have a hard time seeing the downside of our actions as perceived by those they affect. We need to get better at that.

[tripleoption]

Tripleoption,

I agree it is COIN like, and that street gangs (1st, 2d, and 3d generation gangs) present growing challenge that we can't simply "arrest our way out of; " however, since you brought up "underlying causes," in your view what are the underlying causes that lead to these gang problems, and how can the police or community at large address them? I realize it is often different in each case, but if you're familiar with a particular problem set I would like to see your views on it.

Bill,

The real problems in these neighborhoods aren't necessarily the big national gangs (Latin Kings, GD etc...). The problem are smaller local "posse" groups that are selling the heroin and crack to those inside the community as well as those traveling in from the suburbs.

The biggest root cause is passive support. See a drug dealer, a shooting etc...don't call the police. The gangs rely on this; they thrive on it.

If the public is empowered (by the legitimacy of the police effort) and is properly instructed on correctly reporting (street leaders education) then the gangs can't rely on the knowledge that nobody will "snitch" on them.

If the gangs can't sell outside with impunity (we're talking about an area that was literally an open air heroin market, heroin sales on Main St in broad daylight) then they are forced inside and we can pick them off there.

There are other factors and tactics, such as revoking their housing etc but it is much too complicated an issue to fully get into here. I will PM you a website. Check it out and then let me know what you think.

[tripleoption]

NY Times: With Green Beret Tactics, Combating Gang Warfare (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/01/us/springfield-mass-fights-crime-using-green-beret-tactics.html?emc=eta1)

[Bill Moore]

Thanks for the article, but without more information it is hard to determine if this approach is having a real impact, and while it co-opts the community, I don't see how it is addressing the underlying issues that facilitated the gang issue in the first place. I'm sure unemployment plays a role, but perhaps not as significant as some suggest. Gangs offer more than employment, they offer easy money in some cases a sense of belonging. How do you address the sense of belonging that often missing these youths' lives? How do you effectively change their moral beliefs so they choose to reject this way of life? If you can do that, then you addressed the underlying issues. Based on the article, it appears they effectively co-opted the community to fight the gangs (all good), but not really address the underlying issues. Thoughts?

[tripleoption]

Thanks for the article, but without more information it is hard to determine if this approach is having a real impact, and while it co-opts the community, I don't see how it is addressing the underlying issues that facilitated the gang issue in the first place. I'm sure unemployment plays a role, but perhaps not as significant as some suggest. Gangs offer more than employment, they offer easy money in some cases a sense of belonging. How do you address the sense of belonging that often missing these youths' lives? How do you effectively change their moral beliefs so they choose to reject this way of life? If you can do that, then you addressed the underlying issues. Based on the article, it appears they effectively co-opted the community to fight the gangs (all good), but not really address the underlying issues. Thoughts?

Bill,

Bearing in mind that I was not an SF guy nor am I an expert in COIN, I think I can address some of your issues.

I'm not sure that what C3 is trying to address is "why do gangs exist?", it's a complicated issue and I am sure you are right to cite belonging and money as main components of the gang's allure.

What C3 (IMHO) is trying to address is why are the gangs here; a not so subtle distinction. C3 attempts to remove community support from the gangs, both passive and active. The gangs don't feel comfortable operating in the are so they either leave, get out of the business of selling drugs or they get locked up by MSP or SPD. They become low hanging fruit because the community hangs them out to dry. One of the main reasons that gangs thrive in these areas is a fear of the police and general apathy/hostility. Take that away and the gang banger that used to sell drugs on the sidewalk in broad daylight (without a care in the world) is now laying low and running scared.

There are many other components you haven't seen a lot about ( as I am sure you have guessed) involving community programs, jobs etc. These components foster a positive attitude towards the police and their community in general.

This methodology was utilized by ODA 944 in Iraq and Trooper Sarrouf (Capt Sarrouf) and Trooper Cutone (MSgt Cutone) are both assigned to the MSP Special Projects Team and have an incredible amount of input into how the mission is conducted.

I am quite sure that I am not doing C3 justice, but I am open to further discussion.

[slapout9]

Not real Green Beret Tactics IMO. Real Green Beret Tactics in this situation would be more like the book Killing Pablo which would be highly illegal in the US. Creating a Counter-Gang like Los Pepes would be real Green Beret stuff.

The whole article is more like a Police Public Realtions event IMO. Real Green Berets don't like publicity on real operations....messes up the whole thing.

[tripleoption]

Not real Green Beret Tactics IMO. Real Green Beret Tactics in this situation would be more like the book Killing Pablo which would be highly illegal in the US. Creating a Counter-Gang like Los Pepes would be real Green Beret stuff.

The whole article is more like a Police Public Realtions event IMO. Real Green Berets don't like publicity on real operations....messes up the whole thing.

And what do you know about "real Green Beret tactics"?

I think the two "real Green Beret" SF soldiers that created C3 and work on the SPT every day might disagree.

You know, the guys that have been doing it in the field for 20+ years? Or, I could just take the word of a guy on the internet that read a book once.

Unbelievable. :confused:

[slapout9]

And what do you know about "real Green Beret tactics"?

I think the two "real Green Beret" SF soldiers that created C3 and work on the SPT every day might disagree.

You know, the guys that have been doing it in the field for 20+ years? Or, I could just take the word of a guy on the internet that read a book once.

Unbelievable. :confused:

Yes,you are pretty unbelievable and definitely confused. If you had done any checking of previous threads you would have found out we have had pretty extensive discussions on this subject with real Green Berets, real Army Officers(one was a former SWJ editor),and real Police Officers.

[tripleoption]

Yes,you are pretty unbelievable and definitely confused. If you had done any checking of previous threads you would have found out we have had pretty extensive discussions on this subject with real Green Berets, real Army Officers(one was a former SWJ editor),and real Police Officers.

Again, you have "had discussions" online. I work directly with 2 current SF soldiers that are also police officers (as am I).

Your opinions don't sync with what they know for a fact.

Who should I believe? A guy on the internet, or 2 guys with 20 years in the SF teams and 15+ years in Law Enforcement?

It's exceptionally arrogant for you to brand 2 guys who worked on an ODA in multiple wars incorrect because you have read a book and talk online with people on a forum.

[davidbfpo]

Moderator Adds

The last few posts reflect a difference of opinion, as we see on SWC daily and are within the RoE. Now back to the council!

[jmm99]

The website mentioned in post #65, perhaps - MSP C3 Policing (http://mspc3policing.com/), with its most pertinent points defining itself being:

Mission Statement (http://mspc3policing.com/mission-statement-2/) (emphasis added):


The MSP Special Projects Team facilitates unity of effort and criminal intelligence gathering by, with, and through interagency, community, and private enterprise cooperation in order to detect, disrupt, degrade and dismantle criminal activity in North End of Springfield, Massachusetts.

The Origins of C3 Policing (http://mspc3policing.com/the-origins-of-c3-policing/)


The Avghani Model, Stanley T. Grip, Jr. (Army, May 2008) (ODA 944, 19th SFG) (pdf (http://www.ausa.org/publications/armymagazine/archive/2008/5/Documents/Grip_0508.pdf))

Using the Bob Jones "Flag Test", Avhgani was FID; this C3 Policing (presumably - since it's INCONUS) might be regarded as some form of "COIN" .

Principles of C3 Policing Model (http://mspc3policing.com/principles-of-c3-policing-model/)

http://mspc3policing.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/principles3.jpg

C3 vs Community Policing (http://mspc3policing.com/difference-between-community-policing-vs-c3-policing/)

http://mspc3policing.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/difference1.jpg

My take: LEOs <-> Community (interactive support via the "from the people; back to the people" loop - true rule of law).

Regards

Mike

[slapout9]

tripleaction,
First I clearly stated in my first post that it is my opinion (IMO) if you believe me or not is up to you not me,if you think that is arrogant again that is up to you to decide not me but I will try and make myself a little clearer. I don't see the "difference" between what we at SWC have been calling COIN tactics and what you are calling Green Beret tactics?

My point of reference is this. In 1973 I went through what I call the one minute Green Beret Course. For a month I was involved in a war game where 2"A" teams fought each other,one with a guerrilla force and the other with a conventional force. It was called Operation "Cable Alley" and resulted in the death of one member of our Auxillary,which resulted in a lot of paperwork and a lot of documentation that your SF friends could research if you want some type of proof that I am not just some guy on the internet. (If you want names it needs to be taken offline).Those tactics that I learned would be highly successful against any type of Gang in the USA but they would also be highly illegal. So again no disrespect intended but I don't see how those tactics could legally be used against gangs inside the USA.

Also, I am retired LE, started in 77 and except for a short detour have been in it ever since. Again this is my opinion but LE cannot solve the gang problem,with or without COIN or Green Beret Tactics or anything else, they can suppress criminal activity but the problem is largely the result of the breakdown of the basic 2 parent Family unit in America. Single parent families do not provide enough supervision and moral guidance for young children and when they get a little older they are prime candidates for recruitment for Gangs. To make matters worse it is not politically correct to have that opinion so I don't see any changes in the future that would help rectify the situation. Again just my opinion.

[Bill Moore]

Slap is right, the tactics are not Green Beret tactics, they're tactics that actually go back many years and are used by both insurgents and counterinsurgents, but these tactics to various levels have been adapted by SF soldiers. The tactics themselves are not magical, sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. The key is to gain understanding/insights about the operational environment and then adapt your approach as needed. I suspect your perps will adapt to your strategy, so you need to stay cognizant of how they're adapting and adjust accordingly.

I'm glad to see the LEA and the military learning from one another. There is much to learn from each other if the strategies and tactics are adapted to fit the world each is operating in. I still have a police tactics book written on street survival by a seasoned Los Angles Police Officer in the 70s that I believe helped me get through some situations relatively unscaved. A lot of good lessons on mind set, situational awareness, weapons retention, etc. I was somewhat surprised when I couldn't find any good policing strategy books ( but I did find a few articles), so if the soldiers and marines coming back from the current fight can help the police organizations in the U.S. to start experimenting with strategies to address serious issues like the gang problem then that is goodness in my opinion.

After reading the article again, I caught the police Lt Col's comment about not being able to arrest our way out the gang problem, and then on the next page the article commented that more arrests were made because the program was successful. I got it, it isn't black and white, and while we say we can't kill our way out of an insurgency, that doesn't mean killing isn't required. Better relations with the community results in better intelligence from the community which results in more arrests, which in turns results in the criminals/gang members viewing that environment as hostile. In that case they adjust their tactics (perhaps becoming more threatening) or leave the area. If they apply harsher tactics to coerce support from the local population, and the population gives into the coercion then the strategy failed and an adjustment will have to be made.

Still begs the question about how to get to the left of the problem, or to prevent it from starting or resurging, and I think Slap hit that one dead on. It appears to be the result of the breakdown of the basic 2 parent Family unit in America. Agree that is probably over simplifying it, but a lot of kids seem to be looking for a place to belong and gangs fill that void.

[Bob's World]

All policing is, IMO, "some form of COIN." Mostly preventative COIN, but preventing conflicts is far better than fighting them. When prevention fails, however, one must be prepared to deal with increased illegality and violence with whatever group might be action out, without sliding into a mindset or family of approaches that is detrimental to that ongoing prevention mission across the larger populace.

In general we do a pretty good job of this at home in our policing efforts, it is when we go to foreign countries and call it "COIN" that we tend to overly militarize and "warify" the problem; and adopt approaches that produce tactical success, but at a tremendous cost in terms of the sovereignty and legitimacy of the very government we seek to assist.

As to this particular list, I see nothing wrong with it on its face, but would caution anyone who is merely handed the list without any additional training and instruction, that the difference between success and failure is in the fine nuance of how such things are approached, and fine nuance is hard when just going off a checklist (or some doctrinal manual, for that matter).

"Legitimacy" for example, is crucial, but this is a word that has two broad meanings, and too often we apply the wrong one. Below is my introductory comments for a class I gave on Legitimacy in Irregular warfare yesterday:

"The most important thing, is to understand what type of war one is in."- Clausewitz.

Conventional war is a contest for legal legitimacy. Irregular warfare, on the other hand, is a contest for political, or popular legitimacy.

The first is external, the second is internal.

The first can be created or destroyed by others, granted or denied, much like an honorary degree from some properly sanctioned body. And like such a degree, legal legitimacy may mean a great deal to strangers, but won't do much to impress ones friends and family at home.

The second is largely impervious to the whim or will of others. They cannot create it, nor can they destroy it. In fact, no government can create popular / political legitimacy. It is a writ from the people, and it must be earned.

Certainly police officers have legal legitimacy, but in this context what they must earn among the populace they seek to influence and understand is the political / popular brand that rests within the perceptions of the populace at hand. Tough, but cortical.

Similarly, as Mike and I have discussed several times, "rule of law" is too often treated as "I'm right and you are wrong, so do what I say and submit to my rule"; where what is really important is if the populace at hand perceives that it is treated with respect and is receiving justice under the rule of law as it is applied to them.

Good stuff. Now that we are learning to apply COIN at home, perhaps we'll learn how to apply it more in a home-like way when we go abroad...

[MikeF]

Bill,

Bearing in mind that I was not an SF guy nor am I an expert in COIN, I think I can address some of your issues.

I'm not sure that what C3 is trying to address is "why do gangs exist?", it's a complicated issue and I am sure you are right to cite belonging and money as main components of the gang's allure.

What C3 (IMHO) is trying to address is why are the gangs here; a not so subtle distinction. C3 attempts to remove community support from the gangs, both passive and active. The gangs don't feel comfortable operating in the are so they either leave, get out of the business of selling drugs or they get locked up by MSP or SPD. They become low hanging fruit because the community hangs them out to dry. One of the main reasons that gangs thrive in these areas is a fear of the police and general apathy/hostility. Take that away and the gang banger that used to sell drugs on the sidewalk in broad daylight (without a care in the world) is now laying low and running scared.

There are many other components you haven't seen a lot about ( as I am sure you have guessed) involving community programs, jobs etc. These components foster a positive attitude towards the police and their community in general.

This methodology was utilized by ODA 944 in Iraq and Trooper Sarrouf (Capt Sarrouf) and Trooper Cutone (MSgt Cutone) are both assigned to the MSP Special Projects Team and have an incredible amount of input into how the mission is conducted.

I am quite sure that I am not doing C3 justice, but I am open to further discussion.

I don't think that passive support is the root cause of the problems of gangs and drugs in a community.

The gangs are present because a demand exist for illegal drugs.

Conducting raids and locking up the lower level drug dealers and users will not decrease the demand for the drug.

[Bob's World]

Certainly the illegal drug market creates a powerful demand signal that gangs have expanded to fill. Take away that demand signal and gangs will retract accordingly, but still exist.

Many factors surely contribute. Man is social. Look at all of the legal "gangs" like the Elks, VFW, Masons; or bowling and softball leagues, etc, etc, etc.

Mike is right though, that what we may be categorizing as a "gang problem" is really a much deeper problem that the gangs are just a symptom of. Fix the domestic policies that feed this response among young men through "indirect approaches" and one likely makes the challenge of dealing with the gangs that currently emerge from that pool of causation much more manageable. Legalization has to be on the table.

This same logic applies to the US's foreign policy challenge of Violent Extremist Organizations and transnational terrorism. At a tactical level these are "threats" but at a strategic level these are merely symptoms of deeper problems that are rooted in the perceptions of a wide range of foreign populaces. These organizations emerge from populaces that feel provoked by the Western foreign policies that they feel inappropriately shape their respective political and economic situations. One can run a counterterrorism program, much like one can run a counter-gang program, and what one is doing is mitigating the symptoms, while likely at the same time making the provocation of the root causes worse in the execution of said programs.

Less is more. Take a hard look at foreign policies and re-tune them to be less provocative in the world we live in today. We evolve slowly, but we need to come up with a new strategy, a new approach, and announce it to the world and make a major change of course to operationalize the same. We likely would give up little, and potentially could gain much.

I cannot help but look to the Great Britain's strong alliance across the Common Wealth that exists today because Britain wisely opted not to ride a desire for Empire all the way into the ground.

The system developed to contain the Soviets was appropriate enough in its day, but that day is long gone. New approaches must be far less ideologically defined, and much more respective of the sovereignty and rights to self determination of the assorted partner members. We can do this. At home in dealing with criminal gangs, and abroad in dealing with political gangs.

[MikeF]

I would suggest exploring the economic costs of raiding and imprisonment. Below is one cost-prison in the state of Massachusetts.


The Cost to Taxpayers (http://smartoncrimema.org/cost-of-prison-over-crowding/the-cost-to-taxpayers/)


Overcrowding


MA prisons are at over 140% of their capacity, with many operating at more than 200% of their intended capacity, and some over 300%.

As of March 2011, there were 11,388 inmates in 18 facilities managed by the Department of Corrections. That number is projected to grow 26% — to almost 14,000 – by 2019.

Parole rates in MA have dropped dramatically, from 58% in 2010 to 35% in 2011.


The Cost to Taxpayers


It costs about $46,000 a year to house just one inmate in MA, 56% more than the national average.

In 2010, MA spent $514.2 million on prisons, up from $408.6 million in 2001.

Inmates are far more expensive than parolees and those on probation. In 2008, prisons cost an average of $79 per inmate per day, while it costs only $3 to $8 per individual per day to administer parole or probation services.

Massachusetts spends nearly $100 million a year on prisoner health care, nearly double the cost from 2001.

[Fuchs]

A complete study would add the opportunity costs - such as people not working in a real job, not paying taxes.

The same should always be kept in mind regarding military personnel, too.

[Bill Moore]

Posted by MikeF,


I would suggest exploring the economic costs of raiding and imprisonment. Below is one cost-prison in the state of Massachusetts.

Our approach to law enforcement is expensive, but I'm not sure there is a realistic way around this. The article you linked to referenced drug rehab (always good to try, but we haven't experienced much success yet, which makes me wonder if we continue to pursue old drug rehab programs that have record of limited success instead of trying another approach?) and encouraging early parole. It also argued for removing he mandatory sentence times for drug use, which I strongly support. Politicians have in effect took on the role of the Judge and Jury by mandating a minimal sentence for specific crimes (politically popular), instead of allowing the jury and judge to assess the total person and the overall context of the alleged violation, and then determine an appropriate punishment instead of X=Y.

On the other hand, what the article didn't address is the potential impact of not arresting the growing number of gang members. Failure to enforce the law and for the government to protect the population from criminals has its own costs. If you take a position you can always spin the numbers to support it, so we all need to take a step back and look at the problem in a more holistic manner in my opinion.

[jmm99]

I'd like to quote Bob Jones from 2 years ago, FID or COIN? does it matter - Big Difference (http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showpost.php?p=93089&postcount=44):


As to last US COIN; as I have stated on other threads I have come to believe that it is most helpful to look at COIN as Governance. COIN is a condition between a governance and its own populace. When you travel to another country to intervene in the relationship between that governance and populace you are either conducting UW or FID (in US doctrinal terms), depending on which side you are there to assist.

Arguably, viewed in this manner, all governance and every populace in every country is at some level of COIN/Insurgency at all times. Most are bumping along in what I would call "Phase 0". It is only when the government loses the bubble on the populace, that some segment of discontent will rise up from the masses to compete with the government for the support of the populace through illegal and typically violent means. This is when one enters Phase I Insurgency and typically needs to bring in military assistance to help move the conditions back down into Phase 0, or within the Civil government's span of control.

The major points are differentiating "COIN" from UW and FID; and also the introduction of a Phase 0 to "COIN".

Graphically, Phase 0 (and the normative Phases 1-3 of Mao) looked like this to Bob (12-17-2009):

http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=995&stc=1&d=1261104721

More generally, I looked at it using different terms, as so (12-17-2009):

http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=996&d=1261107331

My small green "Rule of Law" triangle (under the red "Violence" line) corresponds to Bob's Phase 0 "COIN". The larger blue "Laws of War" area corresponds to Bob's Phases 1-3 "COIN". As Slap points out, TTPs "legal" in a "Laws of War" context are not necessarily "legal" in a "Rule of Law" context.

In terms of the nuts and bolts of it, Bill Moore has pointed up a few basic rules (whether the situation be FID, UW or "COIN") to support the overall concept of Be flexible, be realistic (http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showpost.php?p=88370&postcount=5) (12-06-2009).

Regards

Mike

[MikeF]

Our approach to law enforcement is expensive, but I'm not sure there is a realistic way around this.

At some point, our law enforcement efforts will become too expensive, and we're going to have to ask if we willing to lose our civil liberties when drones are flying over the skies and we're using social network analysis to map out the human terrain- which goes against our constitution.


It also argued for removing he mandatory sentence times for drug use, which I strongly support. Politicians have in effect took on the role of the Judge and Jury by mandating a minimal sentence for specific crimes (politically popular), instead of allowing the jury and judge to assess the total person and the overall context of the alleged violation, and then determine an appropriate punishment instead of X=Y.

Concur. We need to empower local leaders. The bureaucracy is not the answer.


On the other hand, what the article didn't address is the potential impact of not arresting the growing number of gang members. Failure to enforce the law and for the government to protect the population from criminals has its own costs. If you take a position you can always spin the numbers to support it, so we all need to take a step back and look at the problem in a more holistic manner in my opinion.

For a holistic manner, I would submit that it's not simply a police or governance problem. Rather, it's a community problem.

If the police are taking ownership to "fix" it, then that decision absolves the local leaders, families, churches, NGOs, etc from having to step up and be good citizens.

It's similar to some parents who drop their kids off at school expecting the teachers to have sole responsibility for educating their child. They outsource their responsibilities and do not take the time to work with their children on homework and during the summer.

[Bob's World]

What we enforce is a fuzzy thing in the best of times. In less than a year of county budget crunch, we went from charging drug residue in a simple glass tube crack/meth pipe as a felony possession, to a misdemeanor, to a mere violation. Such is politics.

Can we afford our current war on drugs, with indirect costs that far exceed the extremely high direct costs? I don't think so. We can come up with smarter policies to mitigate the down side of legalized drugs that will be well funded by the legal revenues from the sale and taxation of the same.

Morality is shaped by what we can afford to feel indignant about.

[socal1200r]

Watched a very interesting movie last night, called "Bloody Sunday", directed by Paul Greengrass from 2002. It's about the killings of numerous unarmed Irish civil rights protestors by British army troops on Jan 30, 1972. Now I can't tell if it's entirely objective, but it does raise some very interesting points, that are still applicable today, maybe even more so.

The most obvious one is the military is not trained for the law enforcement mission. They can secure an area for the police-types to come in and do what they're trained for, but the military, for the most part, should not be charged with doing what is primarily a law enforcement mission (rounding up suspects, effecting arrests, searches and seizures, etc). In this movie, some members of 1 Para are so keyed up, they don't view these protestors as fellow citizens, but as hooligans who are responsible for the deaths of fellow troops, and are bent on revenge.

Another obvious paradigm that is clearly shown is, "the best laid plan never survives initial contact with the enemy." There's a scene where the staff shows some higher-level officer the placement of their troops, the route of march of the protestors, what they anticipate the protestors actions will be, what their reactions will be, etc. Although it may have looked great on the wall in the command post, once events started to unfold, it quickly got out of hand.

Some other TTPs that came into play are unity of command, maintaining good SA and discipline, and good comms. A lot has been mentioned about the Brits' experience with the "Troubles" in Northern Ireland, as a good source of lessons learned regarding COIN, strategic comms, etc. There's a scene at the end, where the member of Parliament who was the main organizer makes a statement that the British govt has just handed the IRA their biggest victory. This is a great example of the superior force losing the battle of the narrative.

All in all, a very well done movie, with lots of good discussion points relevant to today's operational environment.

[davidbfpo]

The title of a 'Wired' article on an issue that lingers around and irregularly returns, as seen in:http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showthread.php?t=15971

The article has information I'd not seen before on the scale of this largesse, if not greed:
the Fairmount Police Department. It serves 7,000 people in northern Georgia and received 17,145 items from the military. The cops in Issaquah, Washington, a town of 30,000 people, acquired more than 37,000 pieces of gear.

In 2011 alone, more than 700,000 items were transferred to police departments for a total value of $500 million.

Citing a former Seattle PD chief:
.. having small local police departments go around with tanks and military gear has “a chilling effect on any effort to strengthen the relationship” between the community and the cops. And that’s not the only danger. “There’s no justification for them having that kind of equipment, for one obvious reason, and that is if they have it, they will find a way to use it. And if they use it they will misuse it altogether too many times,” said Stamper.

Link:http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/06/cops-military-gear/all/

[SWJ Blog]

Countering Criminal Street Gangs: Lessons from the Counterinsurgent Battlespace (http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/countering-criminal-street-gangs-lessons-from-the-counterinsurgent-battlespace)

Entry Excerpt:



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Read the full post (http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/countering-criminal-street-gangs-lessons-from-the-counterinsurgent-battlespace) and make any comments at the SWJ Blog (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog).
This forum is a feed only and is closed to user comments.

[bourbon]

The Mass State Police C3 Policing Project in Springfield was featured on 60 Minutes last week:

Counterinsurgency Cops: Military tactics fight street crime (http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50146229n). CBS News 60 Minutes, 5 May 2013.

[bourbon]

Police clicking into crimes using new software - Harvard students’ software seeks to help police dismantle networks (http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2013/03/17/police-intelligence-one-click-away/DzzDbrwdiNkjNMA1159ybM/story.html), by Aaron Lester. The Boston Globe, 18 March 2013.

Called Nucleik (http://www.nucleikapp.com/), the software is being tested by Gregorczyk and his gang unit. Nucleik is the brainchild of three Harvard University engineering students who hatched it as a class project for a professor with friends in law enforcement. The students were struck by how little technology was used by police to organize all the information they gather in their surveillance of gangs.

“We’re seeing these guys fighting crime everyday, putting their lives on the line everyday, but they’re not doing it with the right tools,” said Scott Crouch, cofounder of Nucleik.

So they set about to create a single platform for multiple uses, whether as a mobile app used in the field for street-level info or as a powerful desktop tool that could sift through mountains of data. The Springfield gang unit has been trying out the first version of Nucleik since mid-summer.

“Normally you’d need probably five pieces of software to do all of this and it would take hours. Now with one software, it takes minutes,” said Crouch.
The MSP C3 Policing Project has worked Harvard bioengineering professor Major Kit Parker (http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504803_162-57582930-10391709/from-soldier-to-mad-scientist-kit-parkers-lab/), who enlisted his design engineering class to help tackle project related problems. One output from that was a set of software tools designed to support C3 Policing – with the help of Harvard's innovation lab, the students who originally developed the tools have launched a start-up called Nucleik (http://www.nucleikapp.com/).

[JohnBertetto]

I am currently working on a similar software package. Dynamic SNA, geospatial and spatio-temporal, and social media analysis.

[davidbfpo]

John B.,

I recommend you look through the Social Media thread, especially for the latest posts on SNA in London:http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showthread.php?t=5954

[SWJ Blog]

Counter-Gang Strategy: Adapted COIN in Policing Criminal Street Gangs (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/counter-gang-strategy-adapted-coin-in-policing-criminal-street-gangs)

Entry Excerpt:



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Read the full post (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/counter-gang-strategy-adapted-coin-in-policing-criminal-street-gangs) and make any comments at the SWJ Blog (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog).
This forum is a feed only and is closed to user comments.

[SWJ Blog]

Counter-Gang Strategy: Adapted COIN in Policing Criminal Street Gangs (http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/counter-gang-strategy-adapted-coin-in-policing-criminal-street-gangs)

Entry Excerpt:



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Read the full post (http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/counter-gang-strategy-adapted-coin-in-policing-criminal-street-gangs) and make any comments at the SWJ Blog (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog).
This forum is a feed only and is closed to user comments.

[davidbfpo]

SWC Member & CPD officer John Bertetto's latest offering 'Counter-Gang Strategy, Part 1, Creating guiding principles through lessons learned in the fight against gangs & terror':http://www.lawofficer.com/article/tactics-and-weapons/counter-gang-strategy-part-i

The editor's note:
This article is the first of two in a series adapted from the author's longer works, "Countering Criminal Street Gangs: Lessons from the Counterinsurgent Battlespace" and "Counter-Gang Strategy: Adapted COIN in Policing Criminal Street Gangs."

For a complete description of the principles and strategy described, visit the Illinois Law Enforcement Training and Standards Board Executive website atwww.iletsbei.com/forum (http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/www.iletsbei.com/forum)

[davidbfpo]

A short PBS video (7 mins):
A report from the Center for Investigative Reporting and KQED delves into a wide-scale surveillance system being developed for police forces. How can the trade off between safety and privacy be negotiated as technology gets more and more sophisticated?

Link with a transcript:http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/new-police-surveillance-techniques-raise-privacy-concerns/

The system originated from a counter-IED tactic in Iraq, so the clarity of the images has been reduced, so for example a number plate cannot be read. The system is more of a pointer after the event to look at other CCTV. That might explain why no-one has purchased it.

[davidbfpo]

Within a short article reviewing the growth of the DHS In New Mexico. centred around Albuquerque, are some comments by Tom Ridge, ex-DHS head, which I have not seen before:
The last thing in the world you want is a Department of Homeland Security involved in a day-to-day basis with traditional and state and local law enforcement. It’s not their role or their function, unless it’s related to terrorist activity.

On "fusion centres":
I think fusion centers are a great idea. I think the proliferation of fusion centers makes no sense. My vision then was to start with building fusion centers that covered four or five states for all hazards, natural weather events and law enforcement sharing. They’ve gone much beyond that. It would be foolish to build that capacity and limit it exclusively to dealing with terrorism..

APD's deputy responded the rejected the notion that DHS has become too involved in local policing:
I don’t believe they are taking on too active of a role. We are collaborating with HSI as a force multiplier and we are sharing resources.

Link:http://www.abqjournal.com/390807/news/nm-footprint-grows-weve-uparmored.html

[SWJ Blog]

Community Policing in a ‘War on Terror’ Environment: More Difficult, More Vital (http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/community-policing-in-a-%E2%80%98war-on-terror%E2%80%99-environment-more-difficult-more-vital-0)

Entry Excerpt:



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This forum is a feed only and is closed to user comments.

[SWJ Blog]

Counterinsurgency and Community Policing: More Alike than Meets the Eye (http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/counterinsurgency-and-community-policing-more-alike-than-meets-the-eye)

Entry Excerpt:



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This forum is a feed only and is closed to user comments.