Counterinsurgency Theory, Sort Of

From Wretchard at the Belmont Club Blog - Counterinsurgency Theory, Sort Of.

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There's an interesting article by Eric P. Wendt based on counter-terrorism experience on Basilan describing operations against the Abu Sayyaf. One of the major keys to success, in the author's view is not the destruction of enemy output but it's infrastructure.

While it is important to target all four areas shown in Leites' and Wolf's model, it is helpful to liken internal and external support to a well that provides the overall supply of water. The water flows from the well through the spigot (the infrastructure), which translates it into output (guerrilla patrols, bombings, etc). The output can be equated to water coming out of a faucet. Attacking the output involves engaging trained, organized and equipped insurgents, or their planted bombs, in battle. Such attacks against insurgent output are resource-intensive and often carry a high price in blood.

While attacking the output is a necessary portion of COIN, it must be a supporting effort and not the main effort. Attacking output as the main effort in COIN is equivalent to trying to stop the flow of water by slapping at it as it comes out of the spigot. If we throw ever-increasing resources against the output, we will slap the water even faster, but we are doomed to failure. Attacking output as the main effort in COIN has failed throughout history, and it will fail during the GWOT.

The unconventional approach to COIN must address all areas of the Leites and Wolf model, but the main effort must be to attack the cadre or infrastructure. In conventional war, we can make direct attacks against troops in the field (output), but in COIN, we cannot directly attack the members of the infrastructure, because we cannot easily identify them.

Instead, we must first work indirectly, through, by and with the local internal supporters and population, using the correct carrots and sticks so that the population will identify and expose members of the local insurgent infrastructure for us. Once they have been identified by the local populace, the infrastructure members can be killed or captured. When we work indirectly through the local populace to identify members of the infrastructure, we are correctly stopping the insurgent flow of water by turning off the spigot. Targeting the members of the local infrastructure must be the main effort in COIN...

The whole article emphasizes the use of developing local structures to defeat the enemy. Politics and public diplomacy, to use the word du jour, is the main weapon in counterinsurgency. One striking omission in the paper is the lack of discussion of the role of the media in any campaign. The campaign in Basilan was conducted outside the glare of media scrutiny, a factor which other battlefields of the GWOT -- even Afghanistan -- share to degree because of press preoccupation with Iraq.

The interesting question is what effect a closely involved MSM will have on the task of working "indirectly, through, by and with the local internal supporters and population, using the correct carrots and sticks so that the population will identify and expose members of the local insurgent infrastructure for us". Two people with a possible opinion on the subject are Max Boot and Robert Kaplan. Boot's views on the efficacy of small footprint interventions are well known. At a symposium at the Council of Foreign Relations Kaplan spoke to issue of media involvement directly...

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...in the Belmont Club post:

Strategic Counterinsurgency Modeling - Special Warfare article by Eric Wendt.

The American Military around the World, An Account from the Front Lines [Rush transcript; Federal News Service, Inc.] - Council on Foreign Relations; Robert Kaplan speaker, Max Boot presider.

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Instead, we must first work indirectly, through, by and with the local internal supporters and population, using the correct carrots and sticks so that the population will identify and expose members of the local insurgent infrastructure for us. Once they have been identified by the local populace, the infrastructure members can be killed or captured. When we work indirectly through the local populace to identify members of the infrastructure, we are correctly stopping the insurgent flow of water by turning off the spigot. Targeting the members of the local infrastructure must be the main effort in COIN...

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The wheel has been thoroughly invented.

Pacification - Mar 69

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...the attack on the enemy infrastructure is a most important in the clearing and security phases of pacification. This Vietnamese program provides a combined system of GVN/US intelligence gathering and collating agencies from the national level down through corps, province and district levels...

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Phung Hoang Advisors Handbook - 20 Nov 70

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...It is emphasized that the advisory effort of all agencies must be directed toward the sustained attack on the VC infrastructure...

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Phung Hoang: A Breakout of Current VCI Executive and Significant Cadres - 1 Jan 70

...of course, Phoenix certainly wasn't the first concerted attempt to target the enemy infrastructure in a COIN campaign. But it was a very comprehensive approach that required joint and interagency cooperation as well as integrating host-nation partners at all levels. At the time, much of that equation simply failed to work itself out operationally. Yet, despite the infighting and pervasive local corruption, there was a tremendous amount of success with the program.

Way to go Jedburgh. Great stuff, as I was reading the article( The Theory article) I was wondering if anyone was old enough to remember this has been figured out before. Also isn't it more accurate to say the USMC developed the Constabulary force idea during the Banana Republic wars?? Like the 1920's era? Not sure but I think that is where the army got it from.

The blogger "Wretchard" who is writing in the Belmont Club, is obviously yet another in the crowd of johnny-come-lately commentators in the newly popular world of COIN, judging by his comments both on attacking the bad guys infrastructure and on the effects of the media in COIN. But, hell, at least he's trying.

Moving on, I feel the Wendt article bears a little more discussion. One point I take issue with is the author's selective definition of "success":

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In early 2004, more than a year after all U.S. forces had withdrawn from Basilan Island, the ASG had virtually ceased operations on the island. (2) After visiting the southern Philippines, noted author Robert Kaplan pointed to the work done by JTF 510 on Basilan Island as a superior example of successful counterinsurgency.

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The Phillipines is an archipelago of over 7,000 islands. Sure, ASG "virtually ceased operations" on Basilan, but they were displaced to other locations within the Phillipines where they continue to operate today. Sure, their infrastructure was damaged significantly, but by focusing on localized operations instead of with the broad awareness of the entirety of the operational environment and potential integration of ASG members with elements of MILF and JI, the "success" is only temporary at best. Taking into account displacement and lessons learned by the bad guys during ops on Basilan, the worst case is a smarter more professionally compartmented and run organization.

The SSI report, Balik Terrorism: The Return of Abu Sayyaf - Sep 05, is a good read.

There are significant lessons to be learned here, but not necessarily the ones Wendt is touting.

The article brings to mind a question: In Vietnam, the mission statement of the USMC's CAPs included elimination of the VC infrastructure. Any knowledge on CAP success rate/statistics in identifying and uprooting VCI in CAP hamlets? Literature (Andrade, Moyar, etc.), dwells mainly on Phoenix and PRU in this regard.

The wheel reinvented, absolutely! Great differences between then and now notwithstanding, in the context of discussing anti-infrastructure operations, I suggest that a particular COIN principle that came into play so preeminently in VN yet seems to be softpedalled today retains validity. I paraphrase Thompson: Convince the people that you are committed to victory, or they will support the insurgents. And US decimation of enemy main force units 1968-69 and pushing the 5th 7th and 9th VC Divisions off the MR-III/Cambodian border in spring 1970 convinced a great many people that we were, in fact, winning, and the enemy's cause was hopeless. (No light footprint...Yeah, I know, we face no enemy divisions in Iraq). A dividend: 47,000 enemy defectors under Chieu Hoi in 1969 alone.

The opposite side of the same coin: By mid 1971, my arrival date, when all had come to believe that we were, in fact, withdrawing no matter what (and our withdrawal had left some gaps that were handily filled by the enemy), you would have been hard put to find any Vietnamese of sound mind who believed the existence of his country had more than a couple of years to run. So the nemesis of the CORDS advisers, accommodation, increased greatly. The phenomenon was not limited to the villagers. Some RVNAF officers, including a number of sub-sector and sector commanders (district and province chiefs) decided accommodation was the better part of valor. (Disruption of accommodation exemplified, par excellence, the euphemistic "backbone" that CORDS teams were intended to provide.) By then, elimination of the infrastructure was the priority, but the problem was not identification (often the VCI were VC relatives--so a couple of families often wound up terrorizing an entire hamlet). Rather, the problem was getting our counterparts to act on the intel. (Remember, CORDS was advisory--we didn't build things, we didn't conduct operations--we tried to get THEM to do these things.)

Wendt's text on modelling is an interesting read, but I have a couple reasons to doubt his assertion that the presence and activities of TF-150 and 1st SFG during OEF-P were the primary reasons for "removal" of ASG elements on Basilan. I further doubt that Kaplan's observations mean anything.

I had the opportunity to host a Philippine Marine Corps Capt during my year at the Amphibious Warfare School. The Capt was one of two Filipino officers attending AWS that year, because he had ledthe small Force Reconnaissance unit responsible for rescuing Jeffery Schilling, who had been taken captive by the ASG on Jolo Island. The Capt was a stud, with the PMC equivalent to two Silver Stars and three Purple Hearts under his belt. He once told me that the Philippine military didn't need training, advisors, or the other baggage that came with U.S. military interaction. What the military needed was logistical and technical support, and nothing more. His countrymen had, after all, been fighting a counter-insurgency and anti-piracy campaign almost as long as the USAF has been in existence.

He mentioned the need for FLIR capable helicopters, UAVs, and other ISR assets that could pinpoint enemy locations and generate the tactical information critical to timely intelligence. Although I cannot speak to what capabilities TF-150 and 1st SFG brought with them, I think the author may be drawing his conclusions from flawed observations.

I am now curious about the information capabilities that US forces brought with them...Did UAVs finally start to operate in the skies over Basilan, allowing the military to pin down and eliminate the "outputs", or did US presence, as the author asserts, prove the key to influencing the "infrastructure"?

This same Capt also mocked the ASG, calling them nothing more than lowly criminals who had very little civilian base to operate from, hence the kidnappings and links to external groups. Now if the author had based his arguments on effective actions against the MILF that had US involvement, I'd be a believer.

...in the SWJ Library Vietnam section.

The program was mainly to help village militias defend the vil. While they were successful at that it is hard to say they were used to attack enemy infrastructure, unless you consider defense of the village against enemy "tax collectors" attacking infrastructure.

If you read Max Boot's Savage Wars of Peace you see that most of the small wars end pretty quickly after leadership of the insurgents is killed or captured. For some reason many believe that this history does not apply to the current conflict, but I would like to see how it works if al Qaeda's entire leadership is destroyed.

The reality is that you to destroy all the enemy assets that you can find and target and then look for a cumlative effect. The insurgent is most vulnerable while moving, so you generally need to do things that keep him moving by denying sanctuaries and setting up checkpoints to intercept him. You destroy his weapons caches and in the case of Islamic terrorist, you concentrate on his bomb builders. I guess that probably passes for infrastructure.

As I have noted elsewhere, you need to find a way to challenge the enemy's message in the media where he claims over half the battle is taking place. So far that has been the single largest failure of our current effort.

The website Defense and the National Interest has a good article by William Christie called "Whose Security" short, brief and to the point. If we are going to change a country or build a new one this must be the first military objective in order for all else to follow.