Violation of Tom Odoms Rule #1
Quote:
Originally Posted by
GPaulus
The fact that "All" human behavior has a motive and is motivated by one thing and one thing only "Self-interest" does not make all struggles the same.
Sir, I disagree again. People are born Tabula Rosa (blank slate) as they develop the ability to process reality they may or may not develop the ability to see to their own rational self interest. The primary process for which one learns about this reality processing or personal operating philosophy is family,friends,school and initial exposure or non exposure to religion.
Which leads me to Tom's first rule. "They think different then we do"
Kilcullen via Jedburgh on same topic
SWC Thread Center of Gravity Construct #82 has Jedburg link to Kilcullen paper that kind of pulls together much of what you all have discussed, very educationally for me. Especially noted that terrorists and insurgents in modern warfare can and do operate in ways that make it important to know, if possible, which one you've got in your sights. But also that the buggers may switch back and forth, depending on the strategic state of play. My first post, beg pardon if someone made this point earlier and I've missed it.
A terorist by any other name...
Hi Bill,
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Bill Moore
With all due respect to the years of expertise gained through academia and muddy boots field work, I find it both alarming and refreshing we can't agree on to define insurgents and terrorists. Scary because I think it paralyzes us to some degree, as there are clearly different strategies for countering insurgents and terrorists. We all know one size doesn't fit all.
Refreshing in the sense that inability to agree may hopefully lead us to disregard the sometimes futile effort of trying to categorize the enemy, and instead more accurately describe the threat without the legacy terms and baggage that goes with them.
I know that Steve has been working on a think piece coming out of this thread, and I'm looking forward to it (hint, hint).
Bill, I think that your comment has captured the core difficulty with taxonomies, which is how the terms "terrorist" and "insurgent" tend to be used. By relying on definitions that conflate goals and operational tactics, I think we are locked into a reactive model that is poorly adapted to current realities.
Possibly more dangerous, at least in the long term, is that each evocation of a particular toxon, say "terrorist", will tend to also evoke its polar opposite, say "freedom fighter". In situations where these terms are highly politically charged, and you also have a polarized political scene, this means that you inevitably generate support for any group labeled "terrorist" simply because the people labeling it that are opposed politically. It's one of those "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" pieces of "logic".
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Bill Moore
Let's face it, in the government these terms are tied to mandates, laws, and funding issues. If it is terrorism, then this organization owns it (and the funding that goes with it), if it an insurgency, then that one, if criminal then another one. We have a way of defining problems that tends to fit the interest of our organization, not so much our national security.
This is one of the reasons I am arguing for a matrix organization in the GCOIN environment. Put another way, we are dealing with trans-national, non-state actors so why are our response units based on states (see this thread)? Country teams make a certain amount of sense when most players are nation states or alliances of nation states, but little sense when dealing with non-state actors.
Bill, you are quite right in saying that "We have a way of defining problems that tends to fit the interest of our organization", and one way to get around that problem is to create a new institutional mindset and organizational forms to go with it. Why, for example, should membership in an operational or "project" team be restricted to Americans? For example, we can be fairly certain that radical Islamist groups are "fund raising" through defrauding government tax programs. The EU has already noted this publicly, and the Canadian government is also looking at it. The operational tactics of this type of defrauding are very similar and are operating through trans-national networks and, in my opinion, our responses should be as well.
Marc