Another wicked problem...
Hi Marc,
For the most part, I agreed with your last comments, specifically on our pre-conditioned values, beliefs, and norms that we all must learn to relax when dealing with a foreign indigenous population. I find myself constantly struggling to remember that normal for me is not normal for others. I will take issue with one and use a current example to try and articulate.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
marct
One of the more intriguing things, I find at any rate, about "ill-defined problem sets" or "wicked problems", is that a large part of their definition as classes comes from the perceptions and assumptions of those defining them. For example, some of these "problems" are only "problems" because they do not fall neatly within "traditional" disciplinary boundaries, while others are only "problems" because of the definers epistemological stance. Other times, they are only "problems" because of the actions taken by the definers.
I'd like to return, for a moment, to Mike's original four "problems" and pull them apart from this angle:
2. Interdicting in denied areas, shadow govt's, or enemy safehavens.
The scenario Mike set out is a nasty one but, again, it is making some axiomatic assumptions that may be invalid. First off, in many of the current AOs, the "traditional" structures have already been under attack for a long time. A second possibility is that the "traditional" structures have morphed in an adaptive format to mimic the insurgent structures.
Depending on what is actually going in, your tactics should vary. For example, going in to an insurgent stronghold with low troop counts and insufficient logistics will undermine your entire campaign (take a look at the British in Helmand in 2006 for an example). Go back to the basic political power dynamics operating in the culture and use that as your guide.
For example, if the insurgents are holding power by using beheadings, then they are drawing on two sources of legitimacy - strength and, if Muslim, some interpretation of Sha'ria law. In Afghanistan at any rate, this would indicate that the "traditional" balance between the sheiks and the mullahs has been vectored strongly in the mullahs favour. This type of enemy enclave is, actually, a good one to first isolte / beseige (for its value as an IO example) and then take down with a ready made civil admin plan after the kinetic attack.
If, however, the enclave is controlled by an "insurgent" group that is mimicing insurgent structures, then this could indicate the potential for a political rapproachement. Again, using Afghanistan as an example, we always have to keep in mind that "the Taliban" are, actually, a co-alition of differing groups, some of which could well be incorpated into the central government.
My example was harsh, but that is the environment that the military must work in. As much as we wish to allow the society to work issues out own their own, the military must make jugement calls as to what is acceptable. The following example may show a striking contrast in the roles of the military and the anthropologists. Back in Diyala circa 2006, AQI was cutting locals hands off for mixing male and female vegetables. Here is what the boys on the ground are dealing with today.
Taliban threaten to chop off voters' fingers in Afghan election
Ben Farmer
The Guardian
Quote:
Insurgents in southern Afghanistan told locals that fingers found bearing the indelible ink used to mark voters would be removed.
"We will know those who cast a vote from the ink, and his finger will be cut off," a commander warned villagers in the south of the country, the New York Times reported.
The Taliban ruling council led by Mullah Omar has called on Afghans to boycott the election, described them as an American sham and told its fighters to block roads to polling stations.
The new threat of mutilation appeared to rule out hopes that lower level Taliban leaders would call a temporary ceasefire to allow the vote to proceed without violence.
To the rational western actor, we would assume that the Taliban would simply allow the people to vote. If the Taliban won, then we would be in a difficult conundrum. Instead, the Taliban is using another measure of coersion to control the populace through fear.
Just another example of what the boys are dealing with.
v/r
Mike
Thank you for saying that
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Bob's World
Tactical problems are always hard, regardless of the type of warfare one is engaged in. This is the hard fact of the life of the combat soldier.
Doubly frustrating is that nagging question that is also always there, regardless of the form of combat, of if your hard efforts and sacrifice have in any way contributed to the ultimate "good" that brought you to this harsh place to begin with. Sadly, far too often, history shows that often effort and lives are squandered on efforts that contribute little to that ultimate success.
So, as to Mike's questions:
1. Corrupt governance.
2. Interdicting in denied areas, shadow govt's, or enemy safehavens.
3. Coping with corrupt police or army counter-parts.
4. Reconciling greivances on the tribal level.
The bigger and more important question is not how does one take on these difficult tactical challenges, but rather are these really the challenges that must be taken on at all.
I have opinions that I will share on all of these, but figured I'd see what others had to offer first.
It has been a constant frustration to me how often we fail to follow the adage know yourself before trying to know the enemy.
Put more bluntly can anyone point to any given society ours included within which all of 4 of those don't exist in some form.
And more importantly how they are addressed differently not only in different nations but even in different cities/towns/etc.
If we can accept at the reality of their existence and as they exist in a much more familiar form thus the reasons for various approaches will be easier to actually understand; then maybe we can ask the more important questions like why, where, and how to address them somewhere else.
-Ron
Lines of Operations (LOO)...I couldn't resist
Quote:
Originally Posted by
William F. Owen
I'd actually make it even simpler.
1. Find the enemy - to kill/capture.
2. Do not cause harm to the population, or allow them to be harmed, by others.
Ferdinand Foch's "Core Functions" basically still apply - Find, Fix, Strike, Exploit - and Striking can be an arrest and Exploitation can be having a meeting the local head man, or digging him a well.
Wilf, for the American Army, my suggestions are a bit unconventional...Your views are simply subversive or rebelious:D.
The typical view would state that one must maneuver along these lines of operation:
- Security
- Essential Services
- Tribal/Political Leadership engagement
- Security Force Development/Training
These views are simply too constrained and ambigious for me.
v/r
Mike
Pop Centric Strategy can be a dangerous idea
Contrary to my statement above, I believe we have to focus on the populace, because a mobilized populace is a powerful weapon. Thus the softer side of irregular warfare where we focus on providing basic needs, hope for a better tomorrow, education, and an alternative narrative to the enemy among other activities is critically important, and perhaps even decisive over time. I think most of us agree on this point to varying degrees.
This is why I think Secretary Gate's push for a whole of government approach (team effort) is the basis of enabling the strategy. A promising sign that we're perhaps moving in this direction (ever so slowly) is that the State Department was recently given several million dollars to take lead on the counter propaganda war in Afghanistan. The military role in irregular warfare is not "the strategy", but simply one leg in the total effort, and its role in this soft zone should largely be focused on providing security and logistics to enable the other legs (do gooders) to their work.
The problem since 9/11 is that the military was implementing the entire strategy by itself. Sort of like putting a football team in the field that only has an offense team. They know the principles of defense, but they're not very good at it. This has forced the military to play positions on the team that they were not prepared for, and now it has become the norm. Of course the danger is we're weakening our offense team by making them play defense. Not until recently have we seen a concerted interagency effort to get into the fight and better enable a holistic strategy, but I suspect we're still a long ways off from getting it right.
Our senior military and many junior leaders in the field are focused on building schools, improving the economy, and taking a stab at good goverance (good luck on that one), because they know it needs to be done and no one else has been picking up the ball and running with it. Now that the team is "begining" to get flushed out with the appropriate interagency players we may need to reassess what the military should be focused.
I think Mike F. took a good first stab at it with:
Quote:
1. Control the Physical Terrain.
2. Control the Populace.
3. Conduct Intelligence Collection.
At a minimum I would add:
4. Provide security and logistics support to the do gooders.
5. Conduct offensive operations against the enemy.
6. Help build host nation security force capacity.
I know there are multiple schools of thought on what comes first in the counterinsurgency chicken or the egg argument, but I'm in the school who believes you have to establish security for the populace before you can develop their economy and establish good governance (if a government can't protect its people, then it is a stretch to claim they're providing good governance).
I disagree with Bob W's assumption that the people are fighting for good governance and if we provide it we will take the wind out of their sails (as I understand the argument). The enemy we are fighting today is not fighting against a dictator, they are fighting against good governance. They want to be in charge to facilitate their criminal activity, or impose a stone age political system based on an extreme interpretation of their religion. We won't win these die hards over with good governance, rather we must win the people over to gather the intelligence on who these folks are and where they're at so we can kill them, if we don't remove the cancer we will not win.
During 2003-2005 in Iraq, as many have stated, we conducted drive by COIN, by executing nightly raids to go after suspected insurgent leaders, and then we turn the populace back over to insurgent control. Since we were only focused on offensive operations, rather than providing security to the populace, this strategy proved ineffective and of course led to resentment of our forces in many cases. It wasn't until the surge (in some locations prior to the surge) that the military adjusted its military strategy and pushed out into the streets to protect the populace which had telling results (however, the results are only temporary without the right team coming in once security is established to start fixing the other problems). Since we had even less forces in Afghanistan (a much larger country), we obviously left a lot of terrain under the control of the enemy. In short, we didn't execute the military portion of the strategy very effectively. The military can't blame the interagency for failure to follow the basics of military strategy of taking and holding physical and human terrain. Instead we pursued some network targeting "theory" that continues to fail us. The network targeting theory would be a great supporting effort to a real clear and hold strategy (which would result in more dead insurgents), but it is no way to win this this fight.
I guess I would need at least one example to be convinced of this
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Bill Moore
I disagree with Bob W's assumption that the people are fighting for good governance and if we provide it we will take the wind out of their sails (as I understand the argument). The enemy we are fighting today is not fighting against a dictator, they are fighting against good governance. They want to be in charge to facilitate their criminal activity, or impose a stone age political system based on an extreme interpretation of their religion. We won't win these die hards over with good governance, rather we must win the people over to gather the intelligence on who these folks are and where they're at so we can kill them, if we don't remove the cancer we will not win.
First I must make clear that I am not an advocate for CNAS-brand "Population-centric" engagement that is all about controlling the population and attempting to buy them off by producing "effective" governmental services free from corruption, etc.
I am an advocate for Jones-brand "Populace-centric" engagement that is all about understanding the needs of the populace and enabling self-determined governance on their terms while focusing on brokering/enabling positive movement between the populace and their existing government to address conditions of "poor governance" (defined as any issue, real or perceived, that is so important to any substantial segment of a populace so as to drive them to subversion or full insurgency; that they also perceive they have no means to address through legitimate channels).
Poor governance does not require a dictatorship; it merely requires a little bit of governmental arrogance or ignorance mixed with a lack of effective process for a populace to express their discontent. Personally, I think we should focus our effort on enabling good process and communication; but because we have cast these problems as "warfare" we apply military solutions, as WILF wisely points out, the military role is far more about defeating threats and providing security.
At the end of the day, we have overstated this entire problem to the degree that it appears impossible to address. On the Government/Civil side we have created a "population-centric" problem set that we in no way have the capacity to address; and on the population end have conflated the threats into a massive "they are evil and out to get us" monster that we are lashing out at inappropriately in all directions.
Less is more definitely applies.
Remember, the key to good governance is not how well it performs, the key is both how the populace feels about the governance and the degree of certainty they have that they can do something about it short of breaking the law.
As to the US and how we got mixed up in these little soap operas; is due to our degree of interference in these relationships. What I call "establishing an inappropriate degree of legitimacy over the government of others." When a populace perceives that a 3rd party is an obstacle to their achieving good governance at home, they will target that third party to attempt to break that obstacle. So, to reduce the threat at attack to the US and our interests is not to target these nationalist movements, but instead to target this perception that we are an obstacle to good governance.
We chose to make our focus "Defeat AQ"; and may well achieve a tactical success that produces a strategic defeat in the process. Make the focus these perceptions of inappropriate legitimacy instead, and keep our efforts against AQ low-key and IAW the main effort; and we can render AQ irrelevant. If we simply "defeat" them they will be replaced by a smarter and more effective organization that is free from their baggage but primed to run through the hole AQ made for them. That would be a tragedy, simply becasue it is so avoidable.