Raising a civilian army...
Bob,
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Bob's World
That is one way of defining it to be sure, and you are not alone. Personally I find it much easier to grasp the true dynamics at work, and therefore the true solutions required to the problem, by looking at the military aspect as not some separate event, but as a capability that is brought into a much larger event when it rises to a level that the civil government can not handle by itself.
War is not just limited to the 'traditional military operations' which first come to mind, economic warfare, information warfare, tribal warfare, and many other types of warfare are also involved. Competition for resources takes many forms, not just overt physical violence. I too prefer the broader definition, but Wilf's point is a favored approach by many and perhaps by the majority...
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Bob's World
Phased in as needed, phased out as not needed. Sometimes bringing warfighting capabilities, and other times bringing the vast civil capabilities inherent in the manpower, training, organization, and equipment capacity that the military has on hand and uncommitted when not warfighting. Civil capacity is by designed pretty much maxed out. The governmental "reserve" is really its active military force first for overseas engagement, and reserve component military force for domestic engagement.
I look at this differently. While in Mosul my casual survey of the number of coalition engineers who spoke Arabic, who had a social network optimized for the the AO, and who fully understood the location and nuances of the existing public works and utilities infrastructure convinced me that engaging the civil public works and utilities capacity was vital. Iraqi's had the knowledge and numbers needed to assess the situation, and develop a targeted plan which addressed the situation we found on the ground. From my perspective by effectively engaging the 'host nation' we are able to truly mass upon the problem...military CMO force numbers are insufficient.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Bob's World
To look at insurgency and its many related missions as "military operations focused on defeating the threat" does two very dangerous things in my mind:
1. It focuses a solution on a symptom of a problem vs the causes of the problem.
2. It lets the Civil government off the hook for their failure that brought us here in the first place.
By looking at support to a foreign country's insurgency as "COIN" does one very dangerous thing: It causes you to look at their war as your war, and then you beging to take over, and then your very presence expands the insurgency by adding a "resistance" component to the "revolutionary" or "separatist" movement you came to help with. By keeping our intervention in the context of FID, we can focus on repairing the breach between the failed government and the revolting populace.
Makes sense.
Regards,
Steve
Key is remember what brought you to Mosul in the first place
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Surferbeetle
Bob,
I look at this differently. While in Mosul my casual survey of the number of coalition engineers who spoke Arabic, who had a social network optimized for the the AO, and who fully understood the location and nuances of the existing public works and utilities infrastructure convinced me that engaging the civil public works and utilities capacity was vital. Iraqi's had the knowledge and numbers needed to assess the situation, and develop a targeted plan which addressed the situation we found on the ground. From my perspective by effectively engaging the 'host nation' we are able to truly mass upon the problem...military CMO force numbers are insufficient.
Of course we did not go to Iraq to perform FID to assist the Government there to serve its populace more effectively. We invaded to destroy the government because we believed them to be a threat to America.
Then, finding ourselves possessed of a shattered nation with no governance of its own, and having a populace with no love for the invader, things started to get very complicated very fast.
First we declared war on the government of Iraq. Then, once that government was defeated, the Populace of Iraq declared war on the United States. Needless to say, this created one complex, dynamic mess that defies all easy models; and is a mix of several evolving models.
I am optimisitc that this unfortunate story will one day have an extremely positive ending to it; but even if it does, students of military history will be forced to study this little vignette for thousands of years to come. This will be due in part to the story of how it played out, but primarily to the unique location and transitory period between major historic eras that it will come to mark. Not the end of the United States; but the beginning of the end of the final residues of the Western Colonial system and classic application of the western model of sovereignty contained within the Treaty of Westphalia. The rise of popular power and competing entities to the state will mark the new era. My prediction.
I suspect the historic powers of the Middle East will re-emerge to dominate the region for the same reasons they did so for thousands of years prior to oil shifting the balance. Egypt, Iraq, Iran and Israel will all benefit from key terrain and enduring resources to be major players once again in the region.
Once we get our nose out of the oil trough long enough to look around and take a fresh longterm perspective I believe we will form new policies and priorities that puts in a better light with the majority of the populaces there.
Interesting thread and I'm just lurking but I think this
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Bob's World
Of course we did not go to Iraq to perform FID to assist the Government there to serve its populace more effectively. We invaded to destroy the government because we believed them to be a threat to America.
Then, finding ourselves possessed of a shattered nation with no governance of its own, and having a populace with no love for the invader, things started to get very complicated very fast.
pair of paragraphs raise a pair of questions.
Did we really invade because we thought the Iraqi regime was truly a threat -- or did we invade for another purpose and -- possibly foolishly -- use the potential of an Iraqi threat as public justification?
I think the answer to that question has a bearing on the discussion.
Re: the second quoted paragraph, totally correct observation but it does raise the question of why prior planning did not prevent poor performance on our part.
That may also have a bearing on your discussion.
The answers to those questions also tie with Wilf's earlier comment:
Quote:
"If the US is trying to do FID, then changing the local governments policy is the task of the State Department and not the DoD. All military action has political and social consequences. The only thing currently lacking is the effective teaching of the enduring fact."
To which I'd add that the State Department ought to have a great deal more say BEFORE we get frisky as well as considerably more input during and after...
(and yes, I'm aware of the personalities involved in the case of invading Iraq --as well as Congress' ineptitude and State's own guided descent into oblivion with the connivance of an unthinking and venal Congress )
Does warfare consist of more than overt physical violence?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
William F. Owen
Warfare (as opposed to war) is the domain of the military. There is no such thing as "Economic Warfare." There is merely the use of economic means to reduce the enemies capacity to conduct violence. That only becomes Warfare when you use military forces to execute it.
Sorry to sound pedantic or semantic, but words - Bob said - are important.
Does warfare consist of more than overt physical violence? Does Economic Warfare qualify as a component of warfare? What is warfare? Who is responsible for the definition?
First, I’d like to throw out some ideas to use to examine this question. These ideas include mapping & analysis (GIS), urban metabolism, differential diagnosis, indicators (metrics) & indicator populations, and monetary diplomacy.
Richard Florida in a thought-provoking piece in this months Atlantic entitled How the Crash Will Reshape America provides a series of interesting examples in the use of economic geography to map our self inflicted wound. He describes the concept of urban metabolism by which successful countries, mega-regions, cities, or boundary crossing places can be examined for their ability to convert various inputs into economic energy. He also discusses economic shifts from agricultural, to manufacturing based industrialization, to creative industrialization and where in America this is occurring.
(Added link: http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/20090...down-geography )
Jeffrey Sachs, in his book The End of Poverty, provides insights into the idea of using a differential diagnosis to assess the economic health of an area and to do something about it. He defines capital as consisting of Business Capital, Human Capital, Infrastructure, Natural Capital, Knowledge Capital, and Public Institutional Capital. His differential diagnosis checklist is presented as having seven components one of which includes poverty mapping, which as further described reflects an understanding of the uses of GIS and incorporates his definition of capital.
David Landes in his book The Wealth and Poverty of Nations, and Paul Kennedy in his book The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, both examine global economic bases of power & weakness and their myriad components across the centuries. William Gibson in his book Pattern Recognition tells a modern story about applied marketing, which provides insight into the gathering of metrics. Peter Bernstein, in his book Against the Gods The Remarkable Story of Risk covers applied mathematics through the ages. Max Boot, in his book The Savage Wars of Peace, provides a narrative and analysis of small wars and dollar diplomacy. The Cambridge Illustrated History of Warfare focuses upon the broad sweep of Western warfare.
All of these references are interesting reads and provide background to my thesis that warfare is defined as the competition for resources, it is multifaceted, and it is not limited to just overt violence. Warfare cannot be accurately described by just one thinker/examiner/researcher using one model (the parable of elephants & blind men always applies). Students and practitioners of warfare have a broadly scoped portfolio to master.
Clausewitz has been translated to say “destruction of the enemy forces is the overriding principle of war”. Being simple and concise this absolute briefs well, however it is a flawed analysis through its oversimplification of a complex world. How many times has history witnessed the destruction of a people due to warfare (in the absolute sense that Clausewitz implies here)? Clausewitz does, however come from a Germanic people famed for their skills in warfare and it is instructive to examine their transition from a reliance on overt violence to a reliance upon economics in the competition for resources. Mary Fullbrook’s book A Concise History of Germany, Kurt F. Reinhardt’s Germany: 2000 Years, and of course Wikipedia (I know, I know) will be my references for my brief flyby on Germany’s startling transition from warriors to applied economists.
The Roman Cornelius Tacitus (AD 54-120 or AD 55-116) wrote about the early tribal Germans in his book Germania. It is described as being slanted in favor of the barbarians and their idealized lifestyle. Weapons of choice were described as the framea (a short javelin), the francisca (hatchet), slings, and bow & arrow. Shields were used for defense. Tribal units were the Sippe (clan), the Hufe (hide – different lots of households), Hundertschaft (~100 households), and Stamm (tribe). Tribal feuds cost lives and were ultimately resolved in Weregeld (blood money), Fickle and independent Wodan was the HMFIC and it was all prophesied to end in blood and tears in the Ragnarok.
The massive Volkerwanderung (migrations) started before AD 375, resulted in profound societal upheavals upon the European Continent and set the stage for the ongoing and sometimes very bloody competition for resources seen in milestones such as AD 486 (Clovis defeats last Roman Governor in Gaul), AD 843 (Treaty of Verdun - division of Frankish Kingdom), 1517 (Martin Luther publishes 95 theses), 1525 (Albrecht von Hohenzollern joins the Protestant team), 1618 (Thirty Years War kicks off, food fights among Royalty, religious fights, peasant revolts due to economic downturn, etc.), 1648 (Peace of Westphalia), 1724-1804 (Immanuel Kant drops in for a visit), 1914 –1918 (WWI), 1941-1945 (WWII), and 1989 (Reunification).
Germany’s 2008 GDP is 2,897 billion USD (America 13,164 billion and Israel 140 billion for scale). Throughout it all: blood money, booty, bribes, indulgences, Reich taxes, loans, defaults, overseas economic exploration/exploitation, reparations costs, chemical & engineering mastery, and overt physical violence it is all about competition for resources and it is all warfare. Mapping & analysis (GIS), urban metabolism, differential diagnosis, indicators (metrics) & indicator populations, monetary diplomacy are tools to help see it more clearly however I say that in any analysis the parable of elephants & blind men always applies. Clausewitz does not have the definitive nor final word on warfare.
Failure to cross the bridge
Quote:
Professionals separated by a common profession and language...
I feel like a 3 y/o kid because I want to keep asking why your quote above is true. Why don't they understand? Or am I missing the bigger picture? We're looking at the same problem set, but we see two different things entirely. Unfortunately there is a lot of truth in the statement that if you're a hammer, then everything looks like a nail.
Common profession -- or two different jobs done by people in the same clothes....
Quote:
"Professionals separated by a common profession and language..."
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Bill Moore
Why don't they understand?
I don't think a lack of understanding is the problem. Bound to be for a few but the majority I believe understand; they just are not inclined to want to get enmeshed in other cultures to a great extent. How many guys do you know in SF who do not enthuse about performing FID or similar missions but want to go to the CIF?
Quote:
Or am I missing the bigger picture? We're looking at the same problem set, but we see two different things entirely. Unfortunately there is a lot of truth in the statement that if you're a hammer, then everything looks like a nail.
That's part of it -- then again some people just don't like goat meat or rice. It's not so much that they do not understand -- just that THEY don't want to do it.
That's at least part of why there's an ongoing DA / SF disconnect. Been that way ever since the first SF was invented. Likely will be that way for our great Grandkids...:wry: