Can the Anbar model work in Afghanistan?
Insurgency and Counterinsurgency Franchisees
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So how about that proposal/idea that’s occasionally floated for those American-supported Tribal Lashkars in Afghanistan? [Lashkar = local tribal “defense” militia] Can the American-dominated counterinsurgency effort and the insurgents whose grievances are mostly non-ideological come to an Al Anbar-style agreement (usually cited as an idea for Eastern Afghanistan)? Unfortunately, it would require an intense level of micro-managing and an excellent knowledge of local politics that just doesn’t exist. It would also require some co-optable local authority figures whose influence extends past their own little valleys. Furthermore, the exact percentage of those insurgents who would fall into the economic-and-local-power-politics-grievances category is not known with any certainty. There are other factors too that make Eastern Afghanistan not as conducive to this strategy as al Anbar in Iraq was. For many in Eastern Afghanistan an American paycheck would be as good as a death certificate. For those locals who aren’t too xenophopic, the security dilemmas (esp. for many in the East) are just too great for most to consider joining any sort of American supported “Awakening.”
The strategy required to defeat the Taliban is not going to be found in some “silver bullet,” but rather in a comprehensive overhaul of how this campaign is run. That’s not a very original assertion. But this won’t stop the continuing appearance of often independently sourced quick fix proposals that have been given fuel by the ostensible (short-term) success of the al Anbar strategy.
The one thing that concerns me
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Originally Posted by
Entropy
About taking this direction would be that it would have to be done in very large part by the ANA/Afghan Govt, if not there is a very good chance it might workfor us but Not sure the Govt would ever be able to offer the same level of services in order to assume it later. Remember biiiiig dif in GDP and freedom of movement.
What is the Anbar model? It doesn't exist.
To give the USMC credit for the Anbar Awakening and the social change that went with it is laughable. The changes associated with the Awakening were an amalgamation of many, many factors, including the bungling of activities with which the USMC and US Army tried to influence things. They influenced things, alright, but not in the ways they think they did.
I have tried to read some of the after-action reporting but I just couldn't stomach it. It reflects the same blind arrogance as the AARs from the 15th and 26th MEUs from OEF in 2001. The most the US military can take credit for is 1) motivating Sunni leadership to take matters into their own hands by being inconsistent: oscillating between being overly heavy-handed and then completely lacking credibility as a military force, and 2) attempting to make al-Qaeda in Iraq's social exchange costs so high that they couldn't recruit any more members or placate resource providers on the fringes of their networks. We did the former much more effectively than the latter, even though much more deliberate, precise effort was used to implement strategies toward the latter.
So, if that is the "Anbar Model" then, no, the model will not work in Afghanistan. One of the major historical factors that is absent in Afghanistan that is fundamental to understanding tribes in Iraq is the re-tribalization of Iraq by Saddam (his implementation of Social Balance Theory -- the enemy of my enemy is my friend...). He never actually controlled Anbar, he just balanced the important actors against each other to tip it in his favor. Afghani tribes have always been suspect to each other. The further you go away in terms of degrees of separation, the more the distrust plays a role in the relationship. Even in war, there has never been a balance other than having a common enemy. Arguably, there is so much division in the Afghani tribal quilt that uniting them (in any direction) is too expensive an undertaking in time and resources. The term open-market applies here as there are very few external restrictions on tribal behavior. So, to successfully engage in an open-market, we have to behave like it. But, nope, we behave like we own the market. While I hate this quotation, we are indeed “the biggest tribe.” Once an educated person understands the essential aspects of that realization, many other factors and theoretical constructs can become apparent.
Another, more fundamental, problem is that the US military lacks fundamental understanding of insurgencies and social movements. Consequently, it also does not comprehend counterinsurgency, either. The new FM 3-24/MCWP 3-33.5 Counterinsurgency, Dec 2006 is completely inadequate as COIN doctrine for the following reasons: 1) it was written by the conventional military for the conventional military which means it was written without experience. All of the conventional military experience in COIN died with the retirement of Vietnam officer vets (assuming those vets had learned the right lessons, a la Krepinevich in his The Army in Vietnam). The new FM barely even scrapes the surface of the historical COIN publications (read the Military References section) and does not even reference any of the Unconventional Warfare (UW) doctrine, past or present. While many officers and military instructors will pay lip service to the expertise of Special Operations Forces – more specifically Army Special Forces – in conducting and combating insurgencies and other illicit power structures (IPSs), the mainstream officer corps cannot get past their legacy animosities to embrace that fact. Thus, the new “doctrine” is Iraq-centric and lacks theoretical depth. See below.
2) FM 3-24/MCWP3-33.5 is a counter-guerrilla manual, not a counterinsurgency manual. As such, it ignores fully one-third of the structure of an insurgency: the Underground. The Underground is the portion of an insurgency which provides direction, political influence and forms the intermediate- and macro-scale networks connecting to other actors in the social movement industry (endogenous and exogenous to the state enduring the insurgency) and to resources otherwise not available to the Guerrillas or the Auxiliary. Do not read this as there is/was one Underground uniting the guerrilla groups in Iraq. At the macro level, the Kurds have two which are not so “underground” as they used to be and at least one that is still underground and actively supports the PKK; the Shia have at least three which we know something about; and the Sunnis have at least one or two in Anbar (the structural form of the “Anbar Awakening”) and apparently at least two more – one in Diyala and one in Mosul. Those are the result of some anecdotal chunking of groups, but any more detail requires a lot more space.
Chapter 2 talks about state-centric organizations and NGOs, but completely ignores the non-state actors guaranteed to be present and useful in situations such as this: counter-movements. This is the nemesis of the insurgent movement. In Iraq terms, this could be portrayed as Moqtada’s Mehdi Army versus Sistani’s network of clerics versus Hakim’s SCIRI underground. And all these were balanced against the Sunni tribal and al-Qaeda in Iraq movements. In turn, again, the Kurds had their own movements balanced against the others, as well as against each other internally. These kinds of actors will oftentimes be of more use than any of the actors listed on page 2-4. Again, I refer to an outcome of the Anbar Awakening: the Sons of Iraq. This the very archetype of a countermovement and we are using it as much as we can to aid our fight against AQI and other Sunni resistance groups. We didn't create this, but we could have much earlier, if we knew what we were doing.
The “Framework for Counterinsurgency” explained in the US Army’s COIN Campaign Plan also reflects this systemic flaw. It follows, however, since it was written to reflect 3-24. It is more than just a reflection of the COIN manual -- this flaw is being institutionalized in the future COIN publications: the COIN Handbook, the Interagency COIN initiative, FM 3-24.2 (whatever that will be) and the NATO COIN and the future revisions of 3-24.
3) What social movement theories does the new 3-24 employ? What theoretical basis supports the Logical Lines of Operation in Figure 5-1? How are the LOOs influenced by each other? The military does not have the requisite knowledge to answer these questions. We must look to academia for those answers.
The fields of study of social movements/collective action, contentious politics, and wartime resistance offer huge advances in the last 30 years of research. The gift of academia to the profession of war is that they have the time to research, dialog and come to a gradual – developing – understanding of the dynamics of relationships, social structures, psychological framing, and the effects of broad socio-economic processes upon populations. We in the military are too busy to spend adequate time and energy to build the brain-trust necessary to reach into sufficient and necessary resources. That is what academics do.
4) The problem of problem solving is barely mentioned. The issue of problem design is glossed over in Chapter 4 of 3-24, but rather than introducing a generic framework, it further pushes the Iraq-centric agenda of LTG Petraeus’s working group. The issue of problem design ought not to be a prescribed set of factors as each insurgent situation is different. It also does not discuss sources of information. Chapter 2 uses a word I have longed to hear in military discourse: collaboration. But it stops short of elaborating methods of implementing a collaborative work style. I know of no other military publication that picks up on that theme.
Problem design comes from a fundamental understanding of the dynamics of uncontained, unstructured problems. Rittel and Webber’s “Wicked Problems” methodology is a great start for this, and the military has even published a manual which discusses it to great advantage (at least, for those who can open their minds and throw off the shackles of arrogance): TRADOC Pam 525-5-500 Commander’s Appreciation and Campaign Design. Understanding the nature of the unstructured problem – the structural and relational complexity of “people’s wars” – will be the very first step in understanding what the problems are and what the spectrum of solutions, and their implementation strategies, ought to be for each stakeholder according to each stakeholder. If we adopted this, we would drastically alter our first planning assumption (read that as first planning error): the assumption that the military force deployed to “solve” the problem has the requisite education to be able to diagnose the situation to gain true understanding of the problem and the requisite knowledge of the dynamics of the factors identified to be able to design a holistic, coherent family of implantation strategies utilizing the strengths of as many stakeholders as possible in concert to achieve the ever-changing attainable end state.
Niel, Mate, you are wrong....
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Originally Posted by
Cavguy
GBNT73,
Interesting rant. On SWC we generally find it polite
to post an intro here, so we have an idea of your background, experience, and what basis your opinions are formed from before calling me and many others on this board an amateur idiot.
As to the above qyote - horsesh*t. You lost me at the "SF has it all figured out and those idiot GPF'ers hate SF too much to listen to them".
As a GPF'er, some SF teams have been great at COIN and others not so much. Mileage varies as much in SF as in GPF units. Secondly, if SF has the experience, why weren't they sharing it with the GPF? JFK school was offered to help write FM 3-24, and as I understand turned it down because they didn't want to help the GPF get in their rice bowl. In fact, I've been told as much over beers by some current JFK School doctrine types.
And finally, I'll throw my experience against any SF'er of my approximate age any day. We may have had a rough start, but there's a number of us who have learned quick around here, and done quite well, and not always by accident.
We welcome your discussion, but keep the generalized attacks to a minimum.
It is not interesting. It is just a rant.
My philosophy: step back and be analytical
Cavguy -- the above post is not personal, nor is it an attack. Mr. O’Neill, nor is it a “rant.” Rants do not cite theoretical constructs or other sources of information. The above post is a minor culmination of years of observation and interaction combined with a four-year opportunity (whilst teaching and then returning to student-hood at grad school) to take a step back and collect and analyze what we are doing as a military. I do not speak these words lightly. Besides, ranting is pointless and inappropriate for this forum.
The military – and those who study it – are supposed to be able to call a spade for what it is. When it is a subject that touches upon a source of pride, people are sensitive. We are also supposed to be thick-skinned. My assumption is that we all fit that bill. Like I said, this is not personal – it is all business. Besides faith, the business of war is the most important and urgent discourse we as men can have, in my opinion.
FYI, I wrote up an entry about myself in the “about myself” thread.
As to a few of the points made in response to my larger entry above:
1. Yes, the Special Warfare Center feedback about FM 3-24 was indeed rejected wholesale. I was part of that aborted process when I was at SWCS. In it was a lot about the Underground, among other things. The same goes for USSOCOM’s Irregular Warfare Joint Operating Concept, but that is a different thread.
2. Yes, the Special Forces UW and COIN collective knowledge and skills did atrophy – greatly – for the reasons that Bill Moore stated. Our organizational memory, however, is preserved by our culture and the sheer number of gray beards we keep around Camp MacKall. That is part of our saving grace; another part is the fact that SF sends a larger percentage of our officers to get their advanced civil schooling at liberal institutions like Naval Postgraduate School, Stanford and GW.
3. Nope, I made no reference to the intelligence of anyone or any organization. You took it personally and you should not have. As to where I get the “animosity” factor – first, I was warned of it when I tried to reach out to the GPF in a peacetime situation. I got called a “cowboy” by the first O-6 I met before I even got to mention my purpose for being there. I was called “reckless” in Afghanistan when I tried to explain what my ODA was doing in native civilian clothing. I briefed two GPF GOs in Iraq about our “allies” making deals with al-Sadr and was told that it wasn’t true and “how dare I accuse the MNF of such behavior.” We were vindicated when MNFI Cdr kicked an allied commander out of country for “actions not in line with the current strategy for Iraq.” The irony of that statement was that there was no strategy for Iraq. A MNFI C2 also saw no reason to establish a J2X when the CJSOTF tried to help establish one. Two months later, the new C2 established a J2X. The O-6 who introduced my ILE class made no fewer than eleven SF-disparaging comments in his formal remarks at the opening ceremony. Why would he do that? The professional animosity is palpable.
The way this is supposed to work is that the people who know, study and teach something should be part of the constructive process for knowledge creation and dissemination. I wouldn’t go to SF to write doctrine for HBCT operations, and nor should the Army have excluded the only organization within the Army who still consistently teaches COIN (read SF) to write a COIN manual. I know because I taught it for a year, after teaching UW for two years. What about that doesn’t make sense? We even teach a generic, theoretical insurgent framework upon which to base our intervention strategies.
I’ll address the social movement stuff next post.
Social Movement and Collective Action research
Ken White: I tried to use a new catch-all term to include the criminal enterprises: Illicit Power Structures (IPS). It is a couple years old and comes from a Dept of State initiative to attempt to frame and analyze all forms of powerful organizations and groups that exist outside the rule of law or legitimate government.
Bill Moore: you asked who gets to decide which conflicting academia reports we’re going to follow? My answer follows:
Right now, no one gets to decide because no one knows what they are. But in the larger picture, the officers and warrants (180As) who are familiar with the field of theories get to take a look at the environment and see which one(s) fit best (or least worst) and use or modify them as applicable. Even if the theories prove inadequate in the net analysis, the process of that discovery will greatly assist us in developing our own theoretical constructs that do at least accurately explain what has happened and may be useful in giving us prescriptions for what to do and how to do it. Right now, we can’t even have that discussion because the existence of collective action as a field of study is nearly unknown to the Army.
As far as theories go, I think there will not be a “correct one.” Academia is more parochial than the military, so people take positions and state that they are right, exclusive of all other input. So, we have to be able to rise above all that and look holistically at the range of problems and theories before us. I would seek an inclusive approach to analysis and application of theories. Resource mobilization (McCarthy and Zald 1977), break-down theory (Useem 1998), political process and political opportunities (McAdam, 1982 and 1983; Kurzman 1996), religious economics (Iannaccone, Fink and Stark 1997; Introvigne and Stark 1998), mobilization theories (Hirsch 1990; Snow, Zurcher, Eklund-Olson 1980; Stark and Bainbridge 1980) and theories of cognitive framing processes (Snow, Rochford, Worden and Benford 1986; Snow and Byrd 2000) all play a role in developing something relevant and useful for us. There are tons of other research (Della Porta, Weinstein, and others I can’t think of right now) which would help us in this endeavor.
Other useful stuff includes the literature on Social Capital and Brokerage (Ron Burt 1992 and 2005; Granovetter 1973) and everything you can read about Social Network Theory and Analysis. Some sources are better than others, and to list them would be to start a new blog. A Google Scholar search would be just as helpful. I do not have a favorite, as I feel that a lot of them are complementary and at least some dynamics of them are at work simultaneously. It would not take a rocket surgeon to make them fit together, but that is where the parochialism of academia gets in the way. We military folks would have to be tolerant of competing theories -- what a great dialog that would be: getting well-informed Marine officers, Army officers, interagency folks and academics together to share experiences in the field and demonstrate which theories apply or get dumped or modified. That is my dream. Well, one of my work-related dreams. I won't share my other dreams with you.;)
No but it still takes a scientist
Posted by GBNT73,
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It would not take a rocket surgeon to make them fit together, but that is where the parochialism of academia gets in the way. We military folks would have to be tolerant of competing theories -- what a great dialog that would be: getting well-informed Marine officers, Army officers, interagency folks and academics together to share experiences in the field and demonstrate which theories apply or get dumped or modified. That is my dream. Well, one of my work-related dreams. I won't share my other dreams with you.
As for parochialism, I have heard of the rants (and read their papers) from academia experts from the Naval Post Graduate School who basically claim that no one but them understands COIN and UW, so listen to my theory (it's really a law, but the rest of the world doesn't understand it yet), bla, bla. In all seriousness, some of their insights are brilliant, yet they are not brilliant enough to solve the problems we're faced with, nor do they apply to every situation. It takes a savvy person with a lot of muddy boots experience to adapt these theories to reality, so I still tend to think the military should remain in the lead, but obviously open the doors without prejudice to academia, so they can continue to inform us and provide a different perspective on the problem.
A cursory knowledge of several theories will provide a broader context for understanding complex environments, so the list you provided is useful. As for opposing or competing theories, Dr. Barnett commented that a sign of intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in your mind at the same time. Now there's a brilliant insight. The world isn't simple, and while the military tries, out of necessity, to dumb it down to simple rules to enable men to make decisions under stress with less than perfect information (or situation awareness), that type of decision making in counterinsurgency can be very detrimental to mission success. In my opinion, this is where Soldiers who grew up in the tradional UW SF culture tend to be better suited for leading COIN efforts in my opinion, but those are few and far apart.
As for putting an other than military organization in charge of COIN, I would support it if a capable one existed. DoS has been understaffed and under budgeted for years, and as our nation has witnessed too many of these faithful servants do not want to serve in harms way, so the pool of capable of State Department personnel to lead nation building operations on the scale of Iraq and Afghanistan is insufficient. To avoid any misperceptions, there are several heroic and capable employees in the State Department, just not enough.
So in present day reality I believe the military is the only organization with the capacity to manage problems on the scale of Iraq and Afghanistan, even if they are not the idea organization to do so. The only other choice I see for major operations is the UN, and while they have many talented people, we have seen the poor results of too many UN missions, and there are numerous reasons for it that will always be present. For smaller scale contingencies the State Department is probably capable of being the lead agency, but I haven't seen much on State Department transformation? Are they task organizing and educating/training their personnel to manage these problems?
In our mind exists the idea of the way the world should be, and this idea can become a dangerous illusion if it interfers with our ability to deal with the world the way it really is.