Defining "instrumentality"
Hi Wilf & Ken,
My problem with your answers is the implicit breadth of your concept of what the word "instrumental" means in this context, which seems to be all violent actions north of an epileptic seizure. :D
Taken to that grand extent, sure, most violence can be defined as purposeful toward an end but when all things are something, then nothing is. Common sense and five minutes observation at a busy intersection in a bad neigborhood at around 11:00 o'clock in the evening will disabuse anyone of the idea that all violence has rational root causes. Sometimes the pretext for violence is a nominal excuse.
Too broad a definition to be useful analytically, in my view. Perhaps WM's suggestion of reframing the debate is more productive
Or, more likely, there is nothing to debate?
'Instrumental' to me as Wilf stated simply means it has a purpose other than recreational; whether said purpose is rational or not is neither said or implied.
Though I could make a valid case for any conflict being at least partly irrational. Necessary perhaps but still irrational... :wry:
In any event, I'm not at all sure that debate is merited. Quite the contrary.
As we are stuck on semantics, no.
Hi Ken,
Sorry I can't buy the premise that all organized violence is "instrumental" minus violent acts that might be "recreational" in nature, though "fun" per se cannot be excluded as a byproduct of the former.
I will wish you a Happy New year though! Cheers!
Applying Clausewitz to Insurgency
How does one best apply Clausewitz's insights on warfare to the realm of Insurgency and counterinsurgency? Reasonable minds can differ, and it is a topic worthy of debate as it strikes to the heart of designing effective strategies, and crafting successful campaign plans for many of the operations we find ourselves embroiled in in the Irregular dominated environment we face today.
The attached paper, written by COL John C Buckley II back in 1995 when he was a Major at Leavenworth does an excellent job of tackling this complex subject. He uses the American experience in Vietnam and the British experience in Ireland to explore his take on a proper application of Clausewitz. Regardless of if you agree or disagree with his position, this is a piece of work well worth considering.
http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc...c=GetTRDoc.pdf Alas not working try below.
http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc...c=GetTRDoc.pdf
Carl the great fits in my pantheon along
with all the other 20 or so who have good things to offer -- but no total solution because there is none. People are too complex and dynamic (Well, not me; the dynamic bit... :D ) and warfare is too subject to change for anyone to have all the answers.
Having said all that, I totally agree with you that insurgency in general and modern insurgency in particular was a little beyond Clausewitz. He offers little help in how to oppose or support it.
Cogent comment. We are still wedded not only to the Cold War
but to WW II lessons not learned. I'm unsure how to break that mindset but after many years in and a few outside watching the operation, I'm firmly convinced we will continue to have major problems unless we modernize thinking xonsiderably.
That slam, BTW, applies every bit as much to the Civilian Politicians and appointees and to the pundits as it does to the Armed Forces. I'm the old guy but I think all those groups are in a time warp and that the Armed forces are thus constrained to be there as well...
Actually, he was one of my later
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Old Eagle
I think that Ken studied under Clausewitz, so he may have a better interpretation than I. :D
students; I was already in my dotage, didn't do as well as I might have with him...
My earlier prize pupils Gus and Morrie were better, I think. ;)
So, too was my own mentor. :D
Good post. This particularly resonated:
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Eden
This is a perennial problem for us in COIN when we work with host governments as in South Vietnam or Iraq, or without any governance, as in Afghanistan.
Third time, as they say, is the charm. Maybe the lesson has been learned.
Hopefully, we will discover that there are other ways to influence actions, aid nations who need it, deter insurgents and exercise military power effectively.
Actually, all that's been discovered. The question is will we adopt the principles and techniques -- and actually work smarter...
You've caught the dichotomy...
Quote:
Originally Posted by
LawVol
In looking at CvC's trinity as applicable to both sides of an insurgency, wouldn't the COIN force's trinity consist of its government, it military, and its people while the insurgents force would consist of its leaders, that segment of the population taking up arms, and the same population the as COIN forces? In other words, using Afghanistan as an example, the good guys' trinity is US/Afghan government, US/Afghan military, and the Afghan people. The insurgency's trinity is the Taliban/AQ leadership, the fighters, and the Afghan people.
I believe your assessment is correct -- but I think it shows why there's a problem in adapting CvC to insurgency in many cases and particularly in the current situations.
CvC posits a Trinity. Good -- where does the US fit in that trinity? An ideal model like your example assumes the US and the HN are in perfect synch and therefor comprise one leg. The actuality in Afghanistan is quite different, just as it is in Iraq and was in Viet Nam. In each case there are significant and troubling differences between the US and the HN. So you end up with a quartet instead of a trinity -- and one leg is shorter than the other; no balance there...:eek:
In most insurgencies there are outside actors that intrude and garble the trinitarian aspect. In your example the opponents also likely have outside players assisting their 'trinity.' Aside from the obvious role of Pakistan, I imagine the Chinese, Indians, Iranians and Russians also are playing. Perhaps others as well.
Of recent insurgencies, Malaya perhaps comes closest to the concept simply because the UK was the government and there was little to no outside support for Chin Peng and the CT. That makes a tremendous difference and is one reason Malaya offers a poor model for COIN efforts.
Philosophy is good; reality is is usually much more messy... :wry:
Agree that ruthless and enduring crushing works
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Eden
Not always. That's what we are after, but in many cases the counterinsurgents are not interested in 'repair of governance', but in the perpetuation of their own power/privileges/position. And insurgencies have been suppressed through sheer violence - it can work if the counterinsurgent is ruthless and sufficiently powerful in relation to the insurgent. Ask the post-war Ukrainian nationalists, Apaches, or the Albigensians, if you can find any.
This is a perennial problem for us in COIN when we work with host governments as in South Vietnam or Iraq, or without any governance, as in Afghanistan.
But it's not who we are, so we must take the the more complicated route of trying to get a government that we are supporting to actually govern its populace. Ghengis Khan can kill every male taller than a wagon hub and defeat an insurgency very well. We, thankfully, refuse to resort to such ruthlessly simple and effective solutions.
And when an individual, like President Karzai complains that the Americans are not supporting him we should say: We never were. We are supporting the Afghan populace and their efforts to attain good, self-determined governance. If you share that objective and have the support of your populce then you will have our support as well. If you have some other goal, you would be well advised to not count too highly on some personal loyalty committing America to sustaining you in office. As I have stated elsewhere, the days of "Hes a dictator, but he's our dictator" just don't work any more.
(We still have some loose ends to clean up in that regard).
I agree with you, Bob's World...
What your comment proposes is IMO totally correct. F.D.R.s 'our SOB' should never have been adopted -- but it was.
I agree with you on Karzai and we should never have manipulated the Afghans the way we did to put him where he is -- but we did.
In short, I agree with you for the future but that doesn't help now. We have done what we did and are where we are, One would hope that we could learn from history and avoid doing this to ourselves again. Somoza, a host of others in that area, all the many Venezuelans,Vargas, Pinochet, Mohamed Reza Pahlavi, Chalabi / Allawi / Al Maliki, Karzai. Long list. Lot of blowback...
What's that old Pennsylvania Dutch saying? 'Ve are too zoon oldt und too late schmart.'
Anyway -- and I realize you acknowledged we still have some loose ends to clean up -- what's your solution for now?
As you know, I agree with you that a grand strategy is desirable.
However, you may recall I also do not think one is possible in this nation due to our political process and schedule. One could argue for hours about what is or have we ever and arrive at several conclusions. Regardless, I think that what you wish for is desirable but probably unachievable.
Even if achievable it would take a few years to be fully implemented and embedded as a process.
What do we do with Afghanistan in the meantime?
Clausewitz' 3 legged Furniture and World Decor
With regard to LawVol's position, I think what one ends up with on that analysis is not two 3-legged stools contending with each other for the right to be the preferred place to sit but instead an odd-looking "settee" that has 2 seats, each with 2 uprights and a shared middle upright. The bad news is that when either, or both, of the two seats get occupied, the stress is too great for the shared leg and it snaps, to the misfortune of all. (In this poor metaphor, the occupiers of the two seats just happen to be outsiders who are supporting the two leaderships/armed forces contending for the "hearts and minds" of the people--that poor, over-stressed third leg.) So in the AOR, we have Karzai/ANA contending with Omar/Taliban forces (and maybe others as well--I suspect the various warlords and their supporters in the provinces represent other pairs of leader/army "legs" in the equation) for the "hearts and minds" of a mixed bag of people (Pashtun, Baluchi, etc) that happen to live within arbitrarily drawn boundaries that make up a "nation" called Afghanistan. The US comes along and overbalances the settee (perhaps with AQ sitting on the other seat), just as the USSR did 30 years or so ago, just as the British did more than once in the 19th Century and various Persian states did before them.
In response to Ken's question as to the way ahead, I'll repeat the position I've taken before--we need to back out and let the peoples of the region have the space to make their own decisions about how they want things to go. To continue the furniture metaphor, I submit we need to give them the space to figure out what kind of stool they will create for their country (or countries). That means the US does not sit on one of the setteee's 2 seats and does not allow other outsiders to sit on those 2 seats as well. However, because of the global nature of things, the contending parties don't get carte blanche to do whatever they want. The world as a whole wants peace and prosperity for all. So, how they choose to furnish their Afghan room (or rooms) in the global house must not clash with that design motif. This means that the US takes a position that says something like this: Whatever three legged stool(s) they end up with better not be destabilizing to other areas/nations of the world because that kind of furniture just doesn't fit the decor of the rest of the world. The most important point about this last position is that the US cannot hold it unilaterally. It must be a position agreed to by the rest of the world as well. And that will require the US to collaborate on policies, not dictate them to others.
So to fix the probem in Afghanistan effectively, a US national grand strategy is not sufficient. What is needed is a global strategy, achieving which is probably an even taller order than getting agreement on a US grand strategy.
Slightly off thread but I have to say it
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Bob's World
...Some day this will happen. Nations working to achieve their national objectives, competing for advantage, but within the framework of a global strategic construct.
You're probably correct but I'm very happy that I'll be long dead and gone before that disaster befalls the world.
From a nation of sheep to a world of them is not an encouraging thought...
What CvC actually said/felt about "insurgencies"
CvC was very concerned with generating big armies and proposed conscription as a result. A nation in arms was relevant to issues of insurgencies of the day. Spain was an object lesson in this and Clausewitz recognised that.
First off, Insurengcies were just not a major issue at the time he was writing, but CvC, like myself, saw Guerillas and Insurgents as just another form of warfare, and his thesis was basically they achieved their aim in the same way as conventional armies - thus needed to be defeated in the same way. Mao-Tse Tung apparently read more CvC than Sun-Tzu and this is where he gets the move to conventional phase, as, in his opinion, only conventional forces are decisive. OK, not always true, but it does have some merit.
Point being, the view that "protecting the population" is the corner stone of COIN, is in fact, the requirement for the military defeat of the insurgency.
But how to defeat Mao? or Ho?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
William F. Owen
CvC was very concerned with generating big armies and proposed conscription as a result. A nation in arms was relevant to issues of insurgencies of the day. Spain was an object lesson in this and Clausewitz recognised that.
First off, Insurengcies were just not a major issue at the time he was writing, but CvC, like myself, saw Guerillas and Insurgents as just another form of warfare, and his thesis was basically they achieved their aim in the same way as conventional armies - thus needed to be defeated in the same way. Mao-Tse Tung apparently read more CvC than Sun-Tzu and this is where he gets the move to conventional phase, as, in his opinion, only conventional forces are decisive. OK, not always true, but it does have some merit.
Point being, the view that "protecting the population" is the corner stone of COIN, is in fact, the requirement for the military defeat of the insurgency.
I have to totally agree with your statement of the basis for your position, all the way up to your conclusion. Mao's model for waging an effective insurgency against a state absolutely called for a gradual growth of capacity to ultimately developing a conventional, and decisive, force. This is the essence of Maoist insurgency.
But what we are discussing here is how does the counterinsurgent truly defeat Mr. Mao or Mr Ho or their latter day desciples?? If, when they surge to phase three conventional and decisive operations, and are defeated by the counterinsurgent, they simply step back into phase 2 operations until they once again have the capacity and believe the timing is right to surge yet again to phase three. This can go on for generations.
I believe the essence of our disagreement is that it appears that your position is that when that phase three operation is knocked back to phase 2 or even phase 1 operations the insurgency is defeated. My position is that the insurgency is not defeated under the underlying causes are addressed so that the populace lacks the causation to continue the fight. To, in effect, disempower Mr. Mao or Mr. Ho or whoever else might come along, with whatever ideology they might choose to use.
Most COIN "victories" are little more than delays of the inevitable, because most governments simply do not want to change how they treat their own populace, and prefer to blame unrest on the insurgent, and consider his removal as "mission accomplished." Not all of them announce that wearing a flightsuit on the deck of a carrier, but the effect is the same.
I could be wrong as often occurs but I think
Wilf is saying that the military does the force bit and the civilian political -- and aid types -- do the other stuff. That is an approach that I am absolutely convinced is correct as I have watched the US Armed Forces try to mix the two in several nations over many years and we do not do it at all well. In fact we do it badly and the attempts have adversely impacted both our military performance and capability as well as our efforts at the political bits.
I think the answer to Ron's question is Yes, it is easy to separate the two -- provided one wants to do that.
The problem is, of course, that we are not really a colonial or imperial power, thus the idea of military support to the civil power is not natural for us. That's okay -- the answer, IMO, is to avoid if at all possible such efforts. I acknowledge that may not always be possible and for such circumstances, we need a civilian effort prepared to be implemented when necessary. We are doing that now (sort of...) but we really need to back off DoD and the Services filling gaps in the civil structure. What we do not need to do is to let our short attention span derail this effort in a few years or our egos and turf or budget battles interfere.
That last is a very real potential problem. Not only between DoD and the civilian side but within the Department and between Services and Commands, That parochialism is truly dangerous and needs to be halted.
Our past efforts at mixing military and civilian support have done us no favors. Nor are our current efforts, well done as they are, doing long term good.
We have a civil-military continuum
From CvC based on Graham's Translation and Vom Kriege (brackets for JMM endnotes added):
Quote:
War therefore is an act of violence to compel our opponent to fulfil our will.
Violence arms itself with the inventions of Art and Science in order to contend against violence. Self-imposed restrictions, almost imperceptible and hardly worth mentioning, termed usages of International Law, accompany it without essentially impairing its power [1]. Violence, that is to say physical force (for there is no moral force without the conception of states and law [2]), is therefore the means; the compulsory submission of the enemy to our will is the ultimate object. In order to attain this object fully, the enemy must be disarmed [3]; and this is, correctly speaking, the real aim of hostilities in theory. It takes the place of the final object, and puts it aside in a manner as something not properly belonging to war.
Der Krieg ist also ein Akt der Gewalt, um den Gegner zur Erfüllung unseres Willens zu zwingen.
Die Gewalt rüstet sich mit den Erfindungen der Künste und Wissenschaften aus, um der Gewalt zu begegnen. Unmerkliche, kaum nennenswerte Beschränkungen, die sie sich selbst setzt unter dem Namen völkerrechtlicher Sitte, begleiten sie, ohne ihre Kraft wesentlich zu schwächen [1]. Gewalt, d. h. die physische Gewalt (denn eine moralische gibt es außer dem Begriffe des Staates und Gesetzes nicht [2]), ist also das Mittel, dem Feinde unseren Willen aufzudringen, der Zweck. Um diesen Zweck sicher zu erreichen, müssen wir den Feind wehrlos machen [3], und dies ist dem Begriff nach das eigentliche Ziel der kriegerischen Handlung. Es vertritt den Zweck und verdrängt ihn gewissermaßen als etwas nicht zum Kriege selbst Gehöriges.
Assuming for purposes of discussion that the initial definition is valid, an act of violence (from Latin vis = physical force) is essential to the existence of war. The inclusion of "inventions of Art and Science" brings us to the more modern substitution of "armed conflict" for the older term "war".
Taking now, the stages of insurgency (adding phase 0, as suggested by BW in other threads):
phase 0 > phase 1 > phase 2 > phase 3
this is a continuum, which passes from emphasis on the Rule of Law [4] to emphasis on the Principles of War [5]. The key phrase is "the enemy must be disarmed" (müssen wir den Feind wehrlos machen) and its interpretation (what does "disarm" mean). Then, after deciding that, comes its implementation - and who does what to accomplish that.
The civilian world and the military world both play key roles (albeit greater or lesser depending on the given phase). They had best learn to talk to each other.
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[1] "Self-imposed restrictions, almost imperceptible and hardly worth mentioning, termed usages of International Law, accompany it without essentially impairing its power." One wonders what CvC would think of the GCs, other conventions and modern ROEs - which are quite perceptible in our Laws of War.
[2] "... for there is no moral force without the conception of states and law ..." One wonders what CvC would have thought about non-State actors such as AQ, who have their own Rule of Law, Principles of War and Laws of War.
[3] The term "wehrlos" translates generally as "unprotected", "defenseless" or "helpless" (more figurative), which have a broader meaning than "disarmed".
[4] Rule of Law, as used here, is taken in its broadest meaning - including not only acts by a State (everything that a State does is in a sense "a law"), but by non-State actors who are Powers to armed conflicts. While the Rule of Law is aimed more at using non-violent means (absence of physical force) to enforce its rules, it does retain and uses acts of violence (physical force) to compel compliance. So, the continuum cannot be placed into neat, all-inclusive or exclusive boxes.
[5] To what extent the Laws of War have impinged on the Principles of War seems to me to be a difficult question - more so in some areas than others, as I perceive it - without dogmatism as to generalities.