James Madison - Greatest COIN leader in History
I debated starting this thread under "History" or "Futurists." I could still go either way, as the future of effective COIN lies in understanding the historic impact of James Madison and his work.
The United States was indeed, born of insurgency. The founding fathers, as insurgents all, then set about their new role as counterinsurgents, to shape a new form of government that was least likely to slip into despotism; while also ensuring that the populace was always well empowered to help keep the government on the straight and narrow as well.
James Madison is known as the "Father of the Constitution" and also as the "Father of the Bill of Rights." The US Constitution set a frame work for a government effective enough to run a major nation, but not so effective as to slide into despotism. To ensure that even more, Madison fought for the greatest COIN tool of all time, the US Bill of Rights. This document was designed specifically with COIN in mind.
Madison was also a Federalist with Hamilton, while at the same time a great friend and collaborator with Jefferson. He was able to see what needed to be done, and work with those who could help achieve it.
So, set your COIN manual aside; put your Kilcullen and Nagl back on the shelf. Reach for some really brilliant work on COIN, the works of James Madison. Once you can grasp why Madison's work is brilliant COIN, then you are ready to shape a context for other, more tactical works.
So, this thread is to discuss the work of James Madison, and why it marks him as the greatest COIN leader of all time.
Madison: a Conservative who wanted to support the Old Order
JM was hardly an insurgent looking to mix up the old order. He wrote the Bill of Rights because of the radicals' (in places like PA and NC, two very large "states to be" with powerful Anti-Federalist lobbies) reaction to the conservative bent the Constitution took. The only way that PA and NC agreed to ratify was if changes (the BoR) we made to the extend the revolutionary gains of the Rev to more people. The BoR was a compromise to bring more "radical" elements into the US polity. If you really want to read some good history on this, I suggest Bernard Bailyn, Gordan Wood, Jackson Turner Main, and Cecilia Kenyon. Drew McCoy's work on how Madison's political philosophy changed over the years is excellent. Madison was a man of the established and elite political order.
I label him a Great Counterinsurgent; not insurgent.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
John Grenier
Well, his effects were counter-revolutionary, so to say he was a great insurgent thinker is seriously ahistorical. If he was in fact an insurgent like you claim, he then in fact became like most insurgents in history: a failure.;)
So, the only failure here are your skills of reading comprehension. :)
All governments are counterinsurgents every day. The best COIN is done by governments in times of peace. It is only failed governments and their inextremis efforts to preserve themself that we typically think of as COIN. A limited perspective in my view.
No, I stand by my claim. Madison is the greatest counterinsurgent, as the main force in developing a family of governance structures uniquely born of insurgency, and therefore designed to prevent the same. ( But, for the record, all of the founding fathers were insurgents first, and they prevailed against the most powerful nation in the world. That's a win in any book)
Missed my point here too.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
John Grenier
The United States did not (in 1783-1787/89) have the same ethno-linguistic divisions that AFG has today. To expect the different AFG tribes and clans to come together and put aside their self interests to form a larger union is just fantasy, IMHO. We cannot impose our model of historical development on them -- it just will not work. To get AFG to agree to something as limited in unifying power as an Arts of Confed would be a miracle. The clans have no interest in the concept of "divided sovereignty" that made the Arts of Confed and the constitution work for Americans. Don't forget, also, that we had to have a civil war to decide whose version of the Constitution would dominate American political, social, economic, and cultural life. This all goes back to your original point about JM, and exactly why he was not an insurgent; everything he did (Constitution, Bill of Rights, VA/KY Resolutions) was to support and uphold the established political order that kept him and his peeps in control.
Not selling either the Art of Confed, or the US Constitution to AFG; merely noting that just as we dumped a bad form as we entered peace, AFG too could take advantage of a period of transition to dump their equally flawed constitution for one more apt to produce durable stability.
Everyone knew that Slavery was elephant in the room.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
tequila
We Americans do tend to have a rather odd concept of our Constitution as a sort of magical document where Madison and the Founding Fathers somehow glimpsed a template of Good Government in the ether and then brought it back to America for enshrinement in perpetuity. A whole legal ethos in the U.S. - originalism - appears to be based on this concept.
As John Grenier points out, the Constitution is a document of its time, built out of the political compromises necessary to pull many very different interests and entities together. These compromises failed in the long term - the result was a massive civil war that nearly resulted in the breakup of the country. A long period of civil unrest followed that saw many state-level insurgencies where the losers of the civil war managed to reassert political control at the local level through a campaign of bloody violence abetted by corrupted/infiltrated security forces and sectarian militias. Peace was largely restored because these insurgencies achieved victory at that level.
So while the Constitution was not exactly a failure, I would hardly call it an unmitigated success.
So yes, the US was forged from insurgency, and tempered in civil war. We are the oldest enduring republic. It is the unique blend of compormises and protections that make our documents strong. Other countries and populaces have unique issues that divide and concern them. I would never argue that everyone must be like us; only that what we did worked, and that their is value in understanding WHY it worked and to capture those same components in their documents as well.
The Afghan constitution was not designed to preserve rights, it was designed to prevent warlords. As such it created a national ponzi scheme of leadership and patronage that robs the government of local legitimacy and robs the locals of their wealth, while literally Billions of dollars are sent to banks in Dubai by Afghan officials. Maybe it was the right constitition for its time, but now it is arguably the root of the current insurgency.