We need less Chemo and Surgery and more "Voom."

Recently Secretary Panetta applied a cancer treatment analogy to our efforts to defeat terrorism. Apparently the message is that we have applied massive does of chemo therapy and radiation to places like Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen and the Horn of Africa, and our very best surgeons have cut out the portions of the cancer deemed to be most problematic - and yet the cancer continues to spread. Not to worry, however, we are hiring more surgeons.

It seems to me that a "Cat in the Hat Comes Back" analogy is more appropriate. We had a small, but problematic "spot" and despite the best efforts of Cats A, B and C (lets call them "governance," "development" and "security"; or perhaps "regime change," "Pop-Centric COIN" and BPC/CT") the spot has frustrated our best efforts and continued to grow. What we need is a lot less Cat A, Cat B and Cat C, and a little bit of Cat Z and "Voom."

Al-Qaeda 'Cancer' Spreads With U.S. Chasing, Panetta Says Bloomberg.com, By Gopal Ratnam -

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“We have slowed the primary cancer -- but we know the cancer has also metastasized to other parts of the global body” despite American military gains against al-Qaeda in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Somalia and Yemen in the last decade, Panetta said in a speech yesterday in Washington.

... The continuing fight against the terror group “will largely take place outside declared combat zones,” carried out by U.S. Special Operations Forces and through assistance to countries so they “can be effective in combating terrorism on their own,” Panetta said at an event organized by the Center for a New American Security, a policy research group in Washington... Panetta said “we are continuing to ramp up Special Operations Forces” even as the Pentagon’s budget comes under pressure because of budget deficits and debt and the military’s size is being cut back. The forces trained to conduct commando operations, such as the one that killed al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, already have doubled in size from 37,000 on Sept. 11, 2011, to 64,000 today and “will grow to 72,000 by 2017,” he said...

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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-1...etta-says.html


The Cat in the Hat Comes Back:

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The Cat in the Hat made a return appearance in this 1958 sequel. Once again, the mother has left Sally and her unnamed brother alone for the day, but this time, they are instructed to clear away a huge amount of snow while she is out. While they are working, the cat turns up and snacks on a cake in the bathtub with the water running, and leaves a pink residue. Preliminary attempts to clean it up fail as they only transfer the mess elsewhere, including a dress, the wall, a pair of ten dollar shoes, a rug, the bed, and then eventually outside. The cat reveals that Little Cat A is nested inside his hat. Little Cat A doffs his hat to reveal Little Cat B, who reveals C, and so on. A "spot killing" war then takes place between the mess and Little Cats A through V, who use an arsenal of primitive weapons including pop guns, bats, and a lawnmower. Unfortunately, the initial battle to rid the mess only makes it into an entire yard-covering spot. Little Cats V, W, X, and Y then take off their hats to uncover microscopic Little Cat Z. Z takes his hat off and unleashes a "Voom", which cleans up the back yard and puts all of the other Little Cats back into the big Cat in the Hat's hat. The cat leaves, with the promise he will return some day, and bring all his little cats back.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cat_in_the_Hat

The $64,000 question is: Where is Cat Z, and what is "voom"?

I have my thoughts on that topic, but I would like to hear yours.

I'm not sure the "spreading cancer" analogy is useful from the start.

Cancer is a major threat to life, a potentially fatal disease. Al Qaeda specifically and Islamic extremism generally are not and never have been an existential threat to the US.

"Spreading" is substantially exaggerated IMO. These movements have not been eliminated but they haven't gained in influence or capacity either. In many areas (SE Asia was once melodramatically called the second front in the GWOT) they have declined.

I don't see any impending moment when there can be a "victory" over these movements; it's not that kind of fight. It will be a long fight, but that doesn't mean it has to be a long war. I don't think turning it into a war is advantageous to us.

If I had to outline a very general program, it would look something like this:

1. Defend effectively. Monitoring, tracking, infiltrating, and disrupting plots won't eliminate the antagonists, but it can minimize their impact, deprive them of high profile success, and isolate them from supporters who want to see results.

2. Attack effectively. Find and eliminate the key individuals on the operational and the funding/support side by whatever means work.

3. Starve them. Don't occupy territory, don't feed that "expel the infidel from the land of the faithful" narrative. Extended occupations of Muslim territory provide a discrete, specific target for jihadi propaganda and fundraising and should be avoided. We'll never convert the inner circle, they have to be killed, arrested, or driven so far underground that they can't operate. The inner circle can be isolated from their sources of support and recruitment.

4. Don't be stupid. There will always someone who will tell us that the cause of all the mess is bad governance in Muslim countries and we can fix the mess by fixing governance in Muslim countries. Trying to do that is just going to get us deeper in the $#!t. It can be argued (though often exaggerated) that the bad governance problem is to some extent something we helped create, but we can't undo the effect of meddling past by meddling again.

It's certainly a fight, but I don't think it has to be a war. Going big and heavy and indulging in excesses like regime change and nation building does not earn us any advantage and can be a real liability.

All IMO, obviously.

whether cancer, cats in hats, etc., etc.

We would do better to couch our assertions within the broad conventional frameworks, even if those assertions contain outrageously unconventional strategies and tactics.

The term "fight" has no real meaning in this thread's context. A "War" (armed conflict) Paradigm has meaning. A non-War Paradigm also has meaning; but is more limiting in what strategies and tactics are available.

End rant.

BTW, these (except 4, which is a "don't"):

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from Dayuhan

1. Defend effectively. Monitoring, tracking, infiltrating, and disrupting plots won't eliminate the antagonists, but it can minimize their impact, deprive them of high profile success, and isolate them from supporters who want to see results.

2. Attack effectively. Find and eliminate the key individuals on the operational and the funding/support side by whatever means work.

3. Starve them. Don't occupy territory, don't feed that "expel the infidel from the land of the faithful" narrative. Extended occupations of Muslim territory provide a discrete, specific target for jihadi propaganda and fundraising and should be avoided. We'll never convert the inner circle, they have to be killed, arrested, or driven so far underground that they can't operate. The inner circle can be isolated from their sources of support and recruitment.

4. Don't be stupid. There will always someone who will tell us that the cause of all the mess is bad governance in Muslim countries and we can fix the mess by fixing governance in Muslim countries. Trying to do that is just going to get us deeper in the $#!t. It can be argued (though often exaggerated) that the bad governance problem is to some extent something we helped create, but we can't undo the effect of meddling past by meddling again.

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are within the War Paradigm (the USA position); but questionable under the non-War Paradigm (EU and UN positions).

Note also that the War Paradigm is not limited to the SW quadrant of this matrix (JMM added Tangible = "military struggle" and Abstract = "political struggle"; though various "non-violent", "political" actions can be very "tangible"):

Attachment 1646

from 1997 Lwin (thesis), Great States, Weak States & Assymetric Strategies.pdf (then a CPT, now a COL).

Regards

Mike

I don't like the apparent simplicity of Secretary Panetta using a medical analogy, for several reasons. Such an analogy may suit a domestic and friendly audience, like CNAS. I also fear that what he said is actually policy and indicates how he and others perceive the issues.

The conflict against some terrorism waged by AQ and its affiliates by the USA, allies and friends is above all an ideological, political competition. AQ plus have via their message been able to mobilise and motivate a tiny minority to wage a violent Jihad. Many others, still a minority, have provided non-lethal support and waged the non-violent Jihad.

Several times AQ's message has been rejected and still is by the vast majority who it is aimed at.

Political mobilisation abroad for the USA, allies and friends can be hard to understand, let alone anticipate. Nor does it come from amassing data, viewing the world via a VDU and relying on the "men in black" aka SOF.

Dayuhan is right:

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Don't be stupid

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Secretary Panetta's speech does not help.

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Originally Posted by davidbfpo

The conflict against some terrorism waged by AQ and its affiliates by the USA, allies and friends is above all an ideological, political competition. AQ plus have via their message been able to mobilise and motivate a tiny minority to wage a violent Jihad. Many others, still a minority, have provided non-lethal support and waged the non-violent Jihad.

Several times AQ's message has been rejected and still is by the vast majority who it is aimed at.

Political mobilisation abroad for the USA, allies and friends can be hard to understand, let alone anticipate. Nor does it come from amassing data, viewing the world via a VDU and relying on the "men in black" aka SOF.

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Certainly there's a political and ideological competition going on, but I'm not at all sure it's a competition between us and AQ, or even between us and our allies and AQ. I see it more as an internal competition in the Islamic world, a competition between a more progressive Islam that is willing to coexist with the west (while not subservient to or even totally enamored of Western agendas) and a fundamentalist Islam that sees the West purely as an antagonist. I wouldn't say we have no part in that competition, but we have to accept that we're not one of the competing parties, and we aren't necessarily trying to build our influence. Trying to hard to push our own influence can actually work against us, it feeds the narrative of the fundamentalist and the perception that we are trying to dominate the Islamic world. We're trying to support the competitive position of the groups that are most willing to coexist, even though they are not necessarily friends or allies. That requires subtlety, which has never been our strongest suit. We cannot credibly position ourselves as the champion of the oppressed Muslims, and we will step on our collective putz if we try. We can and should demonstrate that if people attack us we will kill them, but we have to separate that from anything that looks like an attempt to control Muslim countries or impose western ways on Muslims.

The comment that this will be a long fight but it needn't be a long war was perhaps based on an overly civilian view of what war is, but I think that view exists among those who make decisions as well. Call it a war and we immediately conjure up visions of large forces, of campaigns, of overwhelming force. I don't think that's what we need. While this fight - war if you will - will need action, that action will best come from law enforcement in places where there's law, from SF operations where there isn't. Large operations of the sort generally thought of as "war" need to be avoided whenever possible IMO. Even when they succeed they feed that narrative of Westerners conquering Muslims and provide a discrete target for jihadi recruitment and fundraising.

Is AQ still about errorism or isn't it long since about loudmouthing, coupled with undermining of Arab regimes in hope for a theocratic caliphate?

Shouldn't it be possible to be a less obvious or at least less enticing target for their PR stunts than said regimes?


AQ in person of UBL declared 'war' and sought its battles, it got those battles in AFG and fled. It got battles in Iraq after they were invited to play there and they lost.
I suppose AQ's interest in PR stunts / battles is not cast in stone; it might be malleable.


The whole AQ / errorism thing changes entirely once you don't assume their tendency towards PR stunts against you and your kind as cast in stone.


AQ transformed from a small terror group and civil war international mercenary group into an ideological movement. Why still treat it as a terror group only?

I'm not sure the attacks can be considered PR stunts.

Undermining Arab regimes has been tried, and has failed. AQ and associated fundamentalist groups have never been able to muster anything close to a credible threat to any significant Arab government. The main target was Saudi Arabia, and they failed miserably there. Many Saudis are perfectly happy to support AQ as long as they are fighting infidels somewhere far away, but when they propose to take over Saudi Arabia the support dies.

The only narrative that's ever really worked for them is the jihad against the foreign invader, and without a foreign invader to fight their status and credibility wane rapidly, as they did after the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan. Seems to me the attacks aren't just PR, they're an effort to bait the US into coming after them. Of course AQ won't win those battles, but keeping the battles going keeps them relevant, and they may think they can wear us down and win the war.

Another term for "jihad against the foreign invader" is resistance insurgency.

I think Dayuhan raises several good points in his posts. Consider this. Classic resistance is when a foreign invader physically occupies one's homeland. They have defeated one's formal military forces and forced the formal system of governance to surrender or flee. Only the populace is left in the fight. Often such populaces receive assistance from some outside source. In US doctrine that is called "unconventional warfare" or "UW."

In the Middle East I think in many countries and among many populaces we have a virtual form of foreign "occupation" going on. The West post-WWI, and the US post-WWII have applied a mix of physical and virtual occupation by policy; shaping governance in ways that suited those foreign governments and that left the populaces of the region powerless and irrelevant. When there was a greater threat, in the form of a Soviet desire to replace that Western influence with their own, those populaces generally tolerated that external influence. After all, they had tolerated the Ottomans for several hundred years.

But once that Soviet threat faded, and once the empowering effects of modern information tools connected and empowered these many diverse populaces in unprecedented ways, the people began to move on long suppressed resentments. AQ formed to leverage that latent energy toward their own ends, and employed those same information tools to show that a fairly small non-state group could conduct UW just like, or even better than, large powerful states such as Great Britain, Russia and the US.

Now, if one is that foreign power and wants to exercise complete dominion over some place and people, one must simply wage war and crush the people. It works. But, if on the other hand one simply wants to have influence and ensure flow of critical resources and keeping major sea lanes open, then one would be foolish to wage war. The other way to make a resistance go away is to remove the proverbial thorn from the lion's paw. This is a problem of policy. Not the Ends of policy, but rather the Ways and Means.

We must evolve to the world we live in today. This is the essence of "Voom."

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The $64,000 question is: Where is Cat Z, and what is "voom"?

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We must evolve to the world we live in today. This is the essence of "Voom."

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Have you read the book? In the book, the Cat shows up uninvited and helps himself to a bath. His bath leaves behind a bathtub ring which the Cat tries to clean. He cleans the tub, but in doing so, he creates another, slightly worse problem. He then tries to "clean" that. After several iterations the dirty "ring" grows and becomes too big for the Cat, so he enlists the cats in his hat. They only make the problem worse and worse. What started as a bathtub ring has grown to cover everything. At last the Cat releases the magic of "voom" which, in an instant, fixes everything.

The "essence" of voom is what everyone who royally F's up fantasizes about - it's the magic cure-all that will make it all better. It's the Dr. Seuss version of the Staples "Easy Button." (Or, rather, the "Easy Button" is the Staples version of "Voom.")

The long and short of it is that there's nothing that will magically come and save us from our mistakes. Sorry for the buzzkill.

"Oh the Places You'll Go" is probably a better Seuss book to use since its central lesson is about overcoming adversity.

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Originally Posted by Bob's World

Another term for "jihad against the foreign invader" is resistance insurgency.

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That would be insurgency against a foreign invader in your own country. Fighting in or funding insurgency in in another country is perhaps something different.

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Originally Posted by Bob's World

We must evolve to the world we live in today. This is the essence of "Voom."

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I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "voom", but if anyone expects anything to pop out of a hat and clean up all the mess they are sadly mistaken. I don't see any quick or clean solution to this.

Of course we must evolve. We are evolving. So is everyone else, including our antagonists. Evolution isn't going to provide any absolute answer or any quick fix; it is a slow and messy process that must be continuously refined. The question now is not whether to evolve or not to evolve, but what direction evolution should take and how best to pursue the selected direction.

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Originally Posted by Bob's World

In the Middle East I think in many countries and among many populaces we have a virtual form of foreign "occupation" going on. The West post-WWI, and the US post-WWII have applied a mix of physical and virtual occupation by policy; shaping governance in ways that suited those foreign governments and that left the populaces of the region powerless and irrelevant. When there was a greater threat, in the form of a Soviet desire to replace that Western influence with their own, those populaces generally tolerated that external influence. After all, they had tolerated the Ottomans for several hundred years.

But once that Soviet threat faded, and once the empowering effects of modern information tools connected and empowered these many diverse populaces in unprecedented ways, the people began to move on long suppressed resentments. AQ formed to leverage that latent energy toward their own ends, and employed those same information tools to show that a fairly small non-state group could conduct UW just like, or even better than, large powerful states such as Great Britain, Russia and the US.

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This I think is largely a speculative construct, and I don't see much real evidence to support it. AQ and its predecessor organizations have had considerable success in drawing recruits and funding to fight direct foreign military occupation of Muslim nations, forst by the Soviet Union and then by the US. Without such occupation they rapidly lose relevance and support. I see no evidence at all to suggest that people who travel to fight in faraway insurgencies or send money to support those insurgencies are doing that to change the pattern of governance in their own countries.

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Originally Posted by Bob's World

Now, if one is that foreign power and wants to exercise complete dominion over some place and people, one must simply wage war and crush the people. It works. But, if on the other hand one simply wants to have influence and ensure flow of critical resources and keeping major sea lanes open, then one would be foolish to wage war. The other way to make a resistance go away is to remove the proverbial thorn from the lion's paw. This is a problem of policy. Not the Ends of policy, but rather the Ways and Means.

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Depends on what you mean by the thorn in the lion's paw. If you mean the lasting irritant of large scale US military presence in Muslim countries, I agree. If you think the thorn in the lion's paw is the way Muslim countries are governed... well, that's certainly a thorn but it's not our thorn and trying to mess with it is only going to make matters worse.

Here's another little matrix, which illustrates the flexibility of the War Paradigm - when it is applied correctly:

Attachment 1649

from 2009 Hartigan (thesis), Why the Weak Win Wars - A Study of the Factors That Drive Strategy in Assymmetric Conflict.pdf.

See also, 2007 Mauldin (thesis), Analysis of the Inability of U.S. Military Leaders to Provide an Adequate Strategy.pdf, who gets too carried away with the "Indirect Approach". BTW: the "indirect approach" (as used by Hartigan and Mauldin) is not vintage, pure Liddell Hart. It is more Andre Beaufre and others thinking independently.

The bottom line is that a "Strong Power" (e.g., USA) must be prepared to use both Direct and Indirect Strategies in what in actuality will be a mixed War and Peace Paradigm - the pure forms of those paradigms died a long time ago.

Regards

Mike

A lot of good fodder for conversation here, that I will nick away at over the weekend. First, though, to be clear, "The Cat in the Hat Comes Back" is a child's book, and there is no magical "voom" that makes our current security challenges go away. "Voom" will be hard work, but more importantly voom will rely upon us first coming to a better understanding of the nature of the challenges we face, and one that takes much more ownership for causation on the parts of governments and governance, both our own and those we interact with abroad.

In many ways the US barreled into the greater Middle East much as the Cat enters into this family's home. In many ways we inadvertently left a "ring" from our actions. I think I would associate the parents coming home and the trouble that promises to bring with that of the local populaces becoming aware of what has happened and being postured to do something about it. The children are the governments of the region. They allowed the Cat in, they feel stuck with the Cat and uneasy with many of his antics, but in many ways they like having him around. But they know the relationship has created a mess and they fear what will happen when they are called to account. I would offer that one big difference is that the kids in the book care about what their parents think. The governments of the greater Middle East fear their populaces, but they by and large do not care about what they think so long as they comply to the lots cast for them.

The many Cats brought in to clean up the mess are like our many approaches to mitigate the effects of our actions and these dysfunctional relationships with these many governments (be they seen as friend or foe). We don't even consider how our very presence contributed so much to the problem, but have a hat full of solutions that we are willing to throw at the symptoms to "cure" or "defeat" the problems.

It's not perfect, but I believe it provides a better insight to what we are dealing with than Mr. Panetta's cancer analogy. How refreshing would it be for Mr. Panetta to look into a camera and say that Western governments, and particularly the US since WWII, are much like the Cat in the Hat, we have barged in to the homes of others in pursuit of our own self interests, we have left a mess, and to be honest, much of our efforts to clean up that mess have by and large served more to make the problem more distributed, more embedded, and more dangerous. We've drawn too much comfort from our perceptions of the good things we bring and too much comfort from the very real tactical successes we have had against aspect of the problem. But we don't understand this well, we don't own our own contributory role, and we don't think very strategically about the effects we need to shape with our engagement. We focus on approaches and first order effects, and those are largely moot in populace-based conflicts.

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Originally Posted by Bob's World

The children are the governments of the region. They allowed the Cat in, they feel stuck with the Cat and uneasy with many of his antics, but in many ways they like having him around. But they know he's left a mess and they fear what will happen when they are called to account.

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Not sure I buy that analogy. These governments are not exactly passive actors who let us in the door and watched helplessly while we made a mess. They are in many cases very much active and have a great deal to do with their own messes and their own successes. They are not children in any way, and our influence over them is in many cases much overrated.

Analogies aside, what specific policy or course of action would you suggest?

There needs to be several steps, but the first one is to recognize that our current understanding of ourselves and how we need to act to secure our interests; what those interests actually are; and the nature of the groups we currently label as "threats" and seek to defeat are all deeply flawed. Just admitting that is a huge step.

So step one is a step back.

Step two is to seriously recognize that others act upon their interests as they perceive them. Like us, they are often wrong as well in their perceptions, but right or wrong, what they perceive is what they perceive. What we perceive or wish them to perceive is interesting, but immaterial to reality.

So step two is to seriously seek to understand and appreciate how others (key individuals, non-state actors, significant populace groups, governments, etc) perceive their critical interests; what they see as their reasonable spheres of influence, and what their near and long term goals are. Too often we tend to see everyone in the context of our own interests, values and goals, and it give us a bias of perspective that leads us to not appreciating the friction we cause and also leads us to being operationally surprised.

Those may seem to general for your desire for specific tangible actions in specific places; but how belongs to the executor. We need to begin by first getting to a better understanding. More steps and some examples of specific actions to follow.

Step 3 for the US would be to recognize the anomaly of the Cold War era, and the dangers of extending and expanding Cold War institutions and relationships as a framework for best approaching and securing our interests in the modern era. This does not mean to throw the baby out with the bath, but it does mean we need a major overhaul of institutions and relationships to go along with our overhauled perspective described in the steps above.

We need to re-balance our partnerships and figure out how we lend others the security of our strengths without at the same time adopting the vulnerabilities of those we help. The US sits on the global key terrain, and everyone seems to know that except us. We should be as secure as Fort Knox, but instead we are as vulnerable as South Korea, Israel, Taiwan, or a dozen others. WWI came tragically of excessive commitment to outdated alliances. WWIII will probably come from the same thing.

Step 4 is to recognize that less is more. To get a revamped State Department (ideally one that sees itself more as a Foreign Office, with a robust Non-state Department to complement our State Department efforts, and an end to the odd idea of having a counterterrorism division in our diplomacy agency) back in lead for US foreign policy armed with a new agenda based upon this new understanding.

Step 4 also includes a major reframe and resizing of our military. Everything and person who threatens us or who could harm us is a "threat" to us. Cyber is largely a private function for private activities, and a civil function for governmental activities. It is not a military mission as a whole. The military needs to be able to leverage cyber tools to the max, be able to play unplugged with no notice, and have reasonable mechanisms in place to reduce the likelihood or duration of having to play unplugged. Land forces need to be downsized and tailored to be a solid core of warfighting capability to build upon if a need for warfighting should emerge. The Navy and Air Force need to deter major threats and keep our access to resources and markets open. BL, the Army can assume risk on strategic missions, and the AF can assume risk on tactical missions. So less bazillion dollar fighter plane programs and less ground combat units in peace.

This still all seems very general, and it would be interesting to see how you'd propose to apply these principles in a specific case. It's certainly good to appreciate that others act upon their own perceptions of interest, though I think most of those involved already know that, but our assessment of the perception of others is easily distorted by our own preconceived assumptions and models, which can also paint us into various corners. Trying to please everyone is not a viable policy goal: whatever we do, including nothing, will piss somebody off.

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Too often we tend to see everyone in the context of our own interests, values and goals, and it give us a bias of perspective that leads us to not appreciating the friction we cause

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Would you assume that the friction that affects us is necessarily caused by us?

Interesting discussion......and I have often found myself using an over simplistic medical analogy when discussing western interventions with friends interested in my perspective about big picture foreign policy and geopolitics.

I will now have to pull out my kids Dr Seuss books now to have a look.

I have found a medical patient and medical procedure options analogous to a foreign nation and national foreign policy.

Sick patients/nations come in a number of different varieties.

Same goes for the various forms of medical practitioners/forms of foreign policy assistance and intervention options.

I think what also holds true with the analogy is how most medical treatment/foreign policy assistance and intervention is voluntary on the part of both the patient(host nation) and the medical practitioner team(foreign policy assistance and intervention), but it can at times be performed on a patient involuntarily(patient/nation deemed mentally incompetent) or a medical practitioner team may feel compelled to assist/intervene when they may strongly prefer not to(how some health systems waste money on expensive geriatric care reminds me of failed foreign policy choices with failing states).

I'm admittedly a bit biased in my analogy as I'm a strong believer that most "patients", most of the time, would require substantially less expensive long-term "medical care" if they simply performed basic self-care best practices such as:

*no overeating.......low corruption
*regular exercise......economic opportunity
*no smoking......transparency/accountability
*no boozing......predictability/participation
*no hookers/STIs......fair human rights and equitable justice

Patients/countries that do the basics right, usually don't require external assistance and/or intervention.

But like a lot of poor choices people make with their individual health, a lot of nations make parallel poor choices with their own figurative and literal health.

Which leads to increasing levels of intervention starting with consultations that can quickly become not too indifferent from paparazzi photos of a celebrity patient coming out of both a brothel hopefully followed by a more discrete visit to the VD clinic for some "antibiotics" in the form of greater, but still less invasive, foreign intervention.

And if a patient/nation displays a lack of personal responsibility towards it's own health by failing to implement cheaper, easier, more effective, and more sustainable healthy living choices, then invasive/kinetic options become increasing harder to avoid or argue against.

Sorry for my going through all this.....it's probably pretty over simplistic for this forum...but it's the best I've got at the moment and gives me a chance to put some form and structure to some of my random thoughts over drinks with friends and peers.

After a few trips overseas working in failed/failing/recovering states I'm starting to adjust my medical analogy a bit to include the following:

*addicts

So I'm thinking the world doesn't actually have too many violently schizophrenic mental patients/nations that compel involuntary intervention....fortunately they actually seem quite rare...like in reality.

BUT the world does seem to have a very high percentage of borderline addicts, as well as a fair number of hard core addicts....much like in reality.

There's a lot of patients/countries right now in need of going on strict diets(global financial crisis and it's long term ramifications over the next decade+) which will demand and compel considerable changes to the poor lifestyle choices and consequences of those choices in recent decades.

The funny thing is that at both the nation state level and the individual level it has already happened in parallel in the recent past in the form of Cuba. Once the Soviet Union cut the cord with Cuba financially at the nation state level it compelled radical change at both the nation state and individual patient level. From what I recall Cuba saw a considerable drop in obesity, heart disease, and diabetes related health care issues following it...so maybe the use of a medical analogy comparing nation states to individuals isn't just figurative, but literal.

And there are a few nations in need of intervention......but I don't think in the traditional kinetic/military sense......but more along the lines of a family/friends intervention framed in ways as to mitigate the risk of a violent backlash.

What I like about the Dr Seuss reference is the sudden appearance of so many foreign/infidel cats......itself a big part of the problem even when trying hard to help.

Not too unlike a patient/nation finding their hospital room filled with a bunch of relative strangers discussing their fate dispassionately and clinically with one another as if the patient/nation isn't present or more importantly, isn't part of the solution.

To me the answer is the same I heard earlier this year from a bunch of US Army National Guard Docs and PAs who also work in private practice.

90%+ of the problems they face every day is the result of poor basic personal health choices......poor diet, lack of exercise, and too much smoking, boozing, and hookers.

They are running a bit of an innovative medical practice(they all work together both in uniform and on civvie street), their patients don't pay them to make them better once they're sick......their patients pay them to keep them FROM getting sick in the first place.

About the only drug they prescribe is statins....the rest of their prescriptions involve "prescribing concrete pill" to get their patients to harden up and simply nagging them to do the right thing when it comes to the basics.

Maybe the US foreign policy "medical practice" should shift a bit more away from highly invasive oncology/cardiology/orthopedic surgeryand shift a bit more towardsprimary care/wellness practice Albeit maybe a very assertive/aggressive primary care/wellness practice. :)

But possibly the best lesson I've learned about individual human addicts in real life that I suspect also applies when it comes to nation state/patient addicts is that effective treatment requires to patient to not only admitting the addiction/poor behavior, but accept the need to change and adhering to a new code of behavior.

That will probably require version 2.0 that merges a 12 step Alcoholics Anonymous program with Kilcullen's 3 Pillars and 28 Articles. :)


Anywho.....just thinking out loud for a bit,

Military interventions and occupations underlie this thread - despite the apparent plethora of medical procedures, cats in hats and persistent bathtub rings. So, to go to the former (and not confronting the latter), here's another resource to review.

2009 Vernetti (MAJ USA), Three's Company: The Efficacy of Third-Party Intervention in Support of Counterinsurgency.

Its BLUF is in this graphic:

Attachment 1651

as explained by the author:

Quote:

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Analysis

Taken together, these results confirm that third-party intervention on behalf of a counterinsurgent decreases the likelihood of a successful outcome. Five of the seven hypotheses are confirmed with Hypothesis #5 and #6 being found not valid (see Table 3).

The results indicate that the occurrence of an early intervention or the occurrence of an early termination of an intervention do not significantly affect the chances for counterinsurgent success.

The results also indicate that third party interventions, military deployments, military occupations, and interventions involving democracies all decrease the likelihood of a successful conflict outcome.

Interventions involving an “indirect” approach to counterinsurgency represent the most promising possibility for third-party intervention with the results indicating that an intervener that participates in this type of counterinsurgent effort has a significantly better chance of bringing a successful outcome.

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What is an "indirect" approach, as opposed to a "direct" approach, will be a point of controversy. At least it requires definition in the context of reality - as opposed to "translating" and "interpreting" metaphors and analogies.

Here's his definition of the chart's variables:

Quote:

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INTERVENTION variable: tests for the occurrence of third party intervention in the form of military occupation, military intervention, or other military aid in support of the counterinsurgent forces. The study also includes the suppression of colonial rebellions as interventions if the colonial power deployed additional troops from outside of the colony in orderbto support the counterinsurgent. The variable titled INTERVENTION is coded “1” if an outside country or colonial power provided assistance to the counterinsurgent during the conflict. The dataset includes 59 conflicts that involved third party intervention.

MILITARY variable: refers to the type of military intervention. Specifically, cases are coded “1” if the intervention involved the deployment combat units to assist incumbent government forces. The dataset includes 50 conflicts that involved direct military interventions.

OCCUPY variable: denotes conflicts involving military occupation. Specifically, cases are coded “1” if the intervention involved the deployment combat forces across international boundaries to establish effective control over a territory to which it had previously enjoyed no sovereign title. This includes cases of colonial rebellions or where the intervening power set up a new government after occupation. The dataset includes 30 conflicts that involved military occupations.

STRATEGY variable: used to code counterinsurgent strategy. Specifically, the study uses Nagl’s binary categorization of counterinsurgency strategy [82] [82 Nagl, Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam: Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife, 27.] with the STRATEGY variable coded “1” for the “indirect” approach, characterized by counterinsurgent strategies that concentrated on winning support among the population. Cases are coded “0” for the “direct” approach to counterinsurgency, characterized by attempts to achieve victory through the destruction of the insurgency’s armed forces. The coding is based off of the RAND “89 Insurgents” dataset’s evaluation of counterinsurgent competency. The RAND study presents a list of capabilities relevant to conducting an effective indirect counterinsurgency campaign [83 & 84] [83 & 84. Gompert and Gordon, War by Other Means: Building Complete and Balanced Capabilities for Counterinsurgency, xxxiii & 389]; and the variable coding comes from RAND analysts’ evaluation of counterinsurgency competency in 63 insurgency based conflicts. Specifically, the coding represents a subjective analyst evaluation of how well a counterinsurgent or intervening military demonstrated an ability to plan and carry out military operations relevant to a population-centric approach to counterinsurgency.

DEMOCRACY variable: coded to reflect the intervener’s form of government at the time of the intervention. The study codes the intervening state’s regime using Polity2 values from the Polity IV Project dataset. The Polity2 rating is a 21-point scaled composite index of regime type that ranges from highly autocratic (-10) to highly democratic (+10). The DEMOCRACY variable is coded “1” for states with a Polity2 rating 6 or higher. In cases where RAND rated government and intervener with separate competencies, the intervener competency coding was used. Sixty three conflicts are coded for STRATEGY with thirty of these involving third-party interventions for the counterinsurgent.
...
[91] Results for the DEMOCRACY sample are included because the Chi Square probability is very close to the 0.05 Alpha level probability threshold, but they are annotated to show that the results reflect a lower statistical significance (0.076).

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The author's conclusion:

Quote:

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Part 5: Conclusion

Does third party military intervention help or hurt an incumbent government during an insurgency?

This study attempted to answer this question by testing prevailing military theories of counterinsurgency in the context of third party intervention using basic tests for statistical significance and bivariate contingency. The results show that intervention on behalf of a counterinsurgent decreases the likelihood of a successful government outcome, and specifically, interventions in general, interventions involving the deployment of combat forces, interventions involving military occupation, and interventions by democratic states decrease the likelihood of counterinsurgent success.

Early intervention, meaning the commitment of third-party support within the first year of conflict, does not appear to have a significant effect on counterinsurgency success. Likewise, the decision to end an intervention early does not appear to significantly alter the chance of counterinsurgent failure.

Interventions in support of an “indirect” approach to counterinsurgencies are the only cases that exhibit a significant improvement for the chances of successful outcome.

In addition, conflicts involving intervention demonstrated longer average duration for losses and shorter durations for successful outcomes. If one accepts conflict duration as a proxy for conflict costliness, then these results indicate that intervention to support a counterinsurgent provides cheaper victories but more costly losses.

The implications for policymakers are twofold. First, the results show that the decision of whether to intervene involves a risky tradeoff. An intervening state may be able to significantly decrease the duration of a successful conflict if it is willing to accept the poorer odds of success. More specifically, intervention provides an opportunity to realize a quicker victory for a besieged government, but the intervening state must be willing to gamble with lower odds of winning and a higher cost for defeat.

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All of this should be very "old hat" - e.g., Jack McCuen in the 1960s; but I guess these things have to be periodically "discovered".

Regards

Mike

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Dayuhan

This still all seems very general, and it would be interesting to see how you'd propose to apply these principles in a specific case. It's certainly good to appreciate that others act upon their own perceptions of interest, though I think most of those involved already know that, but our assessment of the perception of others is easily distorted by our own preconceived assumptions and models, which can also paint us into various corners. Trying to please everyone is not a viable policy goal: whatever we do, including nothing, will piss somebody off.



Would you assume that the friction that affects us is necessarily caused by us?

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"Caused" is one of those hard words people like to use. As in "you're saying we caused this." "Abandon" is another one, as it "you can't abandon an ally."

So, did we "cause" the friction that affects us? I'll let Mike clean up the terminology, but I think we have "joint and several liability" in the friction. This is a legal construct that recognizes that there is rarely a single cause for any mishap. Many contributed to the friction, but we are the one standing there with the deep pockets footing the bill.

As we both have noted, AQ did not "cause" this, nor did AQ's Islamist ideology "cause" this, nor did US foreign policy "cause" this, nor did the self-serving governance of the many despotic regimes grown used to acting with tremendous impunity in regards to their own populaces "cause" this. Certainly high food prices and unemployment did not "cause" this either. But all have contributed, and it is our own actions that have created the trail of "blame" that makes it so easy for organizations such as AQ to make the case "but for the role of the US, you would not experiencing the type of governance you currently receive at home." Is it our fault? No, but we have very real causal connections that we need to own up to and that are being exploited by others to focus the actions of the many populaces who are currently acting out to seek a better future. National governments use us as a Bogey man to focus the attention of their own revolutionary populaces away from themselves and onto us. Friends and foes alike do this. AQ uses it to recruit from these revolutionary populaces the foreign fighters and agents of terror and funding and sanctuary they need to pursue their own political agenda of change.

But it is political suicide to admit this in US politics. Those who have essentially stated positions similar to this have been mercilessly attacked by their opponents and abandoned by their allies. We exhibit classic addict behavior, refusing to take responsibility for our own contributions to causation, and rationalizing all causation onto some external "threat" beyond our control. Many factors contribute to this, so this is natural and to be expected. It is human nature. We need to overcome our nature if we are to truly make progress and get better.

I just happened to be watching a bit of the mini-series on Kennedy last night, the episode where he decides to ignore the advice of his cabinet (the same advisor's who convinced him to authorize the Bay of Pigs operations), and not escalate the operation with direct US involvement and to go to the American people and admit his mistake and take full responsibility for what happened. I don't know what actually happened, but we need a bit of how it was portrayed in the movie for our current policies related to the past 11 years of CT.

Mike asks and observes:

Quote:

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What is an "indirect" approach, as opposed to a "direct" approach, will be a point of controversy. At least it requires definition in the context of reality - as opposed to "translating" and "interpreting" metaphors and analogies.

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I have been working in this space of indirect and direct approaches in the context of the current conflict for nearly a decade, and one of the most amazing things to me is how poorly defined this concept is. I am tempted to say "misunderstood," but if a concept has a dozen definitions, then is it really "misunderstood" if on perscribes more to one definition than to others? Who is to say what is right or wrong? Besides, any way you slice it most take a position as to what the purpose of the indirect approach is that renders their particular definition moot: They think it is about defeating the insurgent and sustaining the current government.

If all roads lead to the same objective, but that objective is what is actually misdiagnosed, then what difference does it make which path you take to get there?

At USSOCOM several years ago some bright action officer sold leadership on a visual of three colorful balls connected by arrows. This was an era when the indirect approach was something done obscurely in the Philippines, and the direct apporach was the only approach in the Middle East. One ball represented friendly forces, with two broad arrows radiating outward, one a supporting effort of indirect approaches aimed through the populace ball to get at the threat ball. The other a main effort of direct approaches aimed directly at the threat ball. It was an evolution and people liked it. Now they had two ways to defeat the enemy. This chart became known by a variety of names, from "the colliding balls" to "the twigs and berries."

After a couple of years, as news "pop-centric" COIN became the rage in major theaters there was a dramatic unveiling of a "major" revolution of the twigs and berries. In a display of powerpoint mastery the old T&B chart rotated before the eyes of the assembled crowd and an new future was revealed: Now the indirect approach arrow as designated as the main effort and the direct approach arrow was designated as the supporting effort. Wise heads nodded in agreement. This was a brilliant advance. All arrows still terminated on the threat ball.

After a quick google, here is what I describe:
http://www.defensemedianetwork.com/s...93-indirectly/

Indirect approach could be anything from a development project providing water or electricity, to efforts to train and employ host nation security forces directly against the insurgent elements of their populace.

To me, the latter seems more like a nuanced variation of the direct approach. A nuance that is probably lost on the populaces engaged by such enabled and empowered host nation CT forces.

To me, indirect approaches did not go through the populace to engage the threat, instead they were approaches that recognized that both the government and the threat were competing elements of the same populace, and that the insurgent would not exist if there were no market for what they offered. So, any efforts designed to allow the current regime to preserver without having to listen to and address the concerns of its own populace and thereby reduce that market for illegal change seemed to me to be misguided. Efforts to suppress rather than resolve. Direct or indirect approaches largely being moot.

More important would be to ask:

What is winning? History books tell us winning is when we keep the government we are supporting in power and make the current challenger go away. Countries such as Algeria and the Philippines have become so good at this form of COIN that they have "defeated" insurgencies over and over and over again...

To me, this is not "winning." This is merely suppressing the symptoms of popular discontent long enough to continue to secure ones national interests in some place through the government one is comfortable working with. So long as we are honest with ourselves about that fact, then such approaches may well make sense. But when we delude ourselves that such approaches have the interests of the affected populaces at heart and that they have defeated the conditions of insurgency among those people, rather than simply forcing the people to stand down and defeating some specific insurgent groups, we create dangerous precedent. That precedent is then captured as doctrine and becomes a gift that keeps on giving.

One big problem is that we focus on the direct effects of both our direct and indirect approaches. These direct effects become the basis for our metrics to measure our success. How many wells did one drill; how many villages did one clear; how many HVTs did one capture or kill; etc. Do it, count it, assess it, report it. We believe that the sum of such tactical first order effects must naturally ultimately add up to strategic victory. As the research provided by Mike suggests, there is little evidence of this being true.

If we were assessing a campaign like that waged in WWII such thinking applies. Destroy more capacity than the enemy can produce, capture his territory, etc and ultimately he is defeated. This Clauswitzian logic applies to Clauswitzian conflict.

But it does not apply to the populace-based conflicts we contend with today and that we conflate clumsily under the illogical construct of "Irregular warfare." We lump things by how they manifest rather than by how they form. By their appearance rather than by their nature. We confuse Clauswitzian conflicts that happen to include populace-based organizations with internal populace-based conflicts that Clausewitz simply does not apply to much at all. If the primary conflict is internal to that trinity of People-Government-Army rather than between competing separate systems of that trinity, it is totally different dynamic altogether. It is much more civil emergency than war, regardless of how violent in nature or similar in appearance. One must focus on primary purpose for action of the challenger, and the nature of the relationship between the challenger and the challenged. This provides distinctions that matter. What tactics applied or what ideology ascribed to in of themselves offer little in the way of insight as to what type of conflict this is and how to resolve it.

The discussion was of AQ, how did it move to insurgency and populaces? AQ is not an insurgency and has no populace, seems to be wandering a bit off the topic.

The OP deals with Chemo, Surgery and Voom - which means that almost anything is fair game for discussion. ;)

Bob: I decline, as a retired gentleman, to be drawn into a discussion of "joint and several liability" (a rather primitive legal construct; better replaced by comparative fault and comparative causation). :)

But, seriously, strategic interaction (e.g., direct and indirect strategies; sequential and cumulative strategies) applies across the board to any armed conflict.

More later.

Regards

Mike

done in one easy step by rearranging the deck chairs.

Bob: thank you for bringing up the DoD (JCS) 7500 Campaign Plan; as well as your perception of what the term "indirect approach" means - presumably a view prevalent in your community. However, there is another way to look at "direct" and "indirect" approaches.

That way (see below) is not the grandiose, "indirect" approach set out in Robert Gates' Jan 2009 statement (quoted in the three balls graphic) and in the graphic itself:

Quote:

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Where possible, what the military calls kinetic operations should be subordinated to measures aimed at promoting better governance, economic programs that spur development, and efforts to address the grievances among the disacontented, from whom the terrorist recruits. It will take patient accumulations of quiet successes over a long time to discredit and defeat extremist movements and their ideologies.

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The main thrust here is simply "nation (state) building". But, it gets "better" (or "worse").

Following the now primary green lines (just as in the investment commercial), we come to:

Quote:

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Global Environment
Shape
Inhospitable to Violent Extremism
Stabilize

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It seems the DoD has reached a program of "world building" (Global Synchronization), which will then (following the big, big green line and arrowhead), isolate the threat - the ENEMY (confined to its red circle and presumably rendered powerless).

Now, turning to a much more modest view of "direct" and "indirect" approaches, generally defining them as follows:

Direct - a plan which adversely affects the enemy's capacity to conduct armed conflict.

Indirect - a plan which adversely affects the enemy's will to conduct armed conflict.

The plan may be offensive, defensive, offensive-defensive or defensive-offensive; and may be executed in a sequential or a cumulative manner. "Direct" and "tangible"; "indirect" and "abstract" seem synonyms to me. BTW: the question of "win, draw, lose" is also handled modestly - with admission that days of reckoning may be postponed.

Even this modest set of "definitions" leaves many questions open for discussion and improvement.

To be continued.

Regards

Mike

This seems a useful resource - because of its added thoughts and its multiple questions. 2011 Kotula & Richardson (thesis), Defeating David - Looking Beyond a Matched Strategy.

Its abstract deals with the generalization that, when strategies are matched, the stronger power wins more often than not; but:

Quote:

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Abstract : This thesis builds upon existing contemporary theories that attempt to explain the outcomes of asymmetric conflict. Specifically, this thesis uses Ivan Arreguin-Toft's Strategic Interaction Theory as a baseline to identify theoretical gaps that can not only help further explain asymmetric conflict outcomes, but also provide insight into developing the proper strategy for strong actors.

Arreguin-Toft contends that when the strong actor employs the correct strategy then it will win over 75 percent of conflicts against a materially weaker adversary. This leads to a fundamental question: if the strong actor uses the correct strategy against a weaker opponent, then why do strong actors still lose nearly 25 percent of the time?

In an effort to identify other key variables that help explain non-conventional war outcomes, this thesis evaluates case studies where the strong actor both won and lost an asymmetric conflict after choosing the correct strategy.

This study finds two other factors that are important to achieving victory in an asymmetric conflict.

First, the strong [intervening] actor must have a viable indigenous political authority to work by, with and through. This concept has little to do with political legitimacy. Instead, it focuses on the capacity of the host nation, with strong [intervening] actor assistance, to synchronize its military and political effort to defeat the insurgency.

Second, the strong [intervening] actor must not only use restraint in applying direct military power, but it must also use the correct force: a cadre that is trained in conducting irregular warfare.

As such, this thesis' conclusions are aligned with the belief that it is the host nation's war to win or lose-adhering to this principle provides the strong actor with the best chance of defeating David before losing its political will.

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The question comes to the forefront as to what is a "viable indigenous political authority"; as well as whether the intervening strong actor has the "correct force" available.

The authors' analysis summarizes what we have already seen in prior studies:

Quote:

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As previously discussed, no one theory by itself answers the question(s) concerning why strong actors lose to weak actors in asymmetric conflict. However, to date, Ivan Arreguin-Toft’s Strategic Interaction (STRATINT) theory is the most complete. In his 2005 book, "How the Weak Win Wars: A Theory of Asymmetric Conflict", Arreguin-Toft successfully demonstrated that if the strong actor employs the correct strategy then it will win over 75 percent of the time against a materially weaker adversary. Whereas, if the strong actor chooses the wrong strategy, then its weaker opponent will win over 60 percent of the conflict engagements.

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Attachment 1654

Quote:

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Arreguin-Toft breaks down the STRATINT possibilities into four scenarios with each actor controlling what strategy it employs. In simple terms, the strong actor can either employ a direct or indirect offensive strategy, and the weak actor can choose either a direct or indirect defensive strategy. He further defines direct versus indirect for each actor based on the following typology. In a direct-direct engagement, strong actors use a conventional attack and the weak actor uses a conventional defense. In an indirect-indirect engagement, the strong actor uses a strategy of barbarism and the weak actor employs a guerrilla warfare strategy.

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http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...9&d=1353732905

This strategic interaction chart is somewhat similar to a strategic interaction chart based on sequential and cumulative strategies in tangible and abstract areas.

http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...6&d=1353538000

The roles of attacker and defender easily flip. E.g., the 2001 Taliban was engaged in a direct-direct engagement in which it was attacking (with some success) the Northern Alliance. Intervention by limited US and UK SOFs - and not so limited US airpower - flipped the attacker-defender roles. When the Taliban later came back, it took on another attacker role - the weak actor employing a guerrilla warfare strategy (as well as a localized political strategy).

The authors then raise some direct questions re: gaps in using the "matching strategies" theory:

Quote:

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On the surface, Arreguin-Toft’s theory is also intuitively logical: the key to victory is choosing the right strategy. However, even as sound as his argument is, several gaps exist in his theory concerning indirect conflicts that merit additional research and consideration.

First, Arreguin-Toft contends that in conflicts where the strong actor chooses the correct strategy, then it will end quickly. While this assumption often holds true in a direct v. direct engagement, it fails to address the inherent protracted nature of indirect conflict.

Second, Arreguin-Toft’s labeling of “Barbarism” and “Guerrilla Warfare” as respective strategies for strong and weak powers in an indirect v. indirect conflict is problematic. These terms over simplify the strategies used by each actor and focuses on the ability (or inability) of the strong actor to defeat its enemy militarily with little regard for the other (social, economic, political) aspects of irregular warfare.

Third, Arreguin-Toft devotes little attention to analyzing the resources employed by the strong actor, and whether or not the strong actor is trained or has experience fighting an irregular war. Clearly, the strong actor is materially superior; however, are there other competing interests that preclude the strong actor from bringing the full weight of its strength to the conflict? More importantly, just because a strong actor chooses the correct strategy as defined by Arreguin-Toft, does not mean its military is adept at implementing the associated tactics.

Finally, Arreguin-Toft fails to distinguish the specific nature of a given conflict particularly when defining the indirect approach used by both actors. For example, what is the nature of the insurgency and its associated grievances? Is it a nationalist movement? Is it motivated by religion? Is there a minority in power? Moreover, there are clearly more tactics available to strong actors than just barbarism. Did the strong actor primarily attempt to kill/capture the insurgents? Did the strong actor attempt to isolate the population from the insurgents with re-location programs? What type of force did the strong actor use? Ignoring these additional considerations fundamentally reduces the STRATINT theory to the military aspect of asymmetric conflict. In short, considering the exact nature of given conflict, as well as clearly defining the political environment, are not only critical to determining the appropriate counter-strategy, but also in determining conflict outcome.

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The authors claim no magic bullet - in fact, here is what they see as missing:

Quote:

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The value in summarizing and evaluating the major theories on asymmetric conflict outcomes is that it helps to identify any areas not adequately addressed by the existing literature. Several areas that require additional consideration are missing.

First, in all four theories outlined above, not one considers in detail the exact nature of the weak actor and the type of insurgency it is fighting. This analysis needs to go beyond the type of military strategy (indirect) and tactics (guerrilla warfare/terrorism) used, and instead needs to focus specifically on the nature of insurgency and its grievances with the existing governance structure. How can a strong actor develop a proper counter-strategy if it does not understand the nature of its opponent, and not only what it has to work against, but also what it has to work with? While all four theories appear to address it, not one accounts for popular support of the weak actor as the deciding factor in the conflict outcome. When in fact the ability (or inability) of the strong actor to isolate the weak actor from the population and deliver the essential services such as security, healthcare, education, and infrastructure may be the most important factor in determining the conflict outcome.

Second, what type of force did the strong actor use? Was it a force trained in irregular warfare with experience in conducting counterinsurgency? Did the strong actor use indigenous forces to supplement its effort? This question specifically addresses if the strong actor used the right tool (force) for the job.

Finally, were there any domestic or international constraints levied on the strong actor? Were there domestic economic issues, or another conflict, that precluded the strong actor from using its full capacity? Was there international pressure (or norms) that precluded the strong actor from implementing its military and political agenda? In sum, the only way for the strong actor to develop the appropriate strategy is to not only fully understand the nature of its enemy, but to also understand the operating environment—both at home and abroad. Failure to account for these factors will likely mean a decreased winning percentage for strong actors engaged in an irregular war against a significantly weaker adversary.

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All being said, a strong power (considering intervention) has a lot of questions to answer before taking the leap.

Regards

Mike

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jmm99

The OP deals with Chemo, Surgery and Voom - which means that almost anything is fair game for discussion.

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Actually the OP referred specifically to terrorism, and was built around references to a speech that dealt specifically with AQ. How we got from there to insurgency, populaces, nation-building, and world-building is an interesting question. Conversation creep, perhaps.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Dayuhan

The discussion was of AQ, how did it move to insurgency and populaces? AQ is not an insurgency and has no populace, seems to be wandering a bit off the topic.

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AQ indeed is not an insurgent.

AQ indeed has no populace.

The hard fact is that without the insurgent populaces of others AQ would just be a bunch of radical crackpots of no consequence.

But the other hard fact is that many populace groups in many countries across the greater Middle East have high conditions of insurgency and are either suppressed currently from acting out, or are actively acting out. This is the energy source that gives AQ significance.

AQ conducts what in US Doctrine is called Unconventional Warfare. They leverage the insurgent populaces of others to advance their own agenda for their own purposes. Just as the Soviets did throughout the Cold War. Just as the US did throughout the Cold War.

This is a reality of the new information age. Not only is it harder for governments to keep insurgent populaces suppressed, or to suppress insurgent populaces once they go active; but equally it empowers non-state actors such as AQ to conduct a distributed, networked approach to UW.

It is a bold new world. Age old dynamics, but leveraged as never before through the tools of modern technology. Now more than ever people matter. Now more than ever governments must actually seriously take into account how their actions will affect people. This is not limited to the people living within some system of governance alone, but also people everywhere who are affected by that governance.

US governance affects people all over the world. AQ is leveraging that fact to recruit members of insurgent populaces to join their ranks as foreign fighters and as terrorist operatives. AQ is also leveraging that fact to gain influence among such insurgent populaces and the insurgent groups that emerge from such populaces as part of their UW campaign.

The great irony for the US is that in many cases it is AQ that is in the role of "de Oppresso Liber" while it is the US dedicated to sustaining in power the regimes these populaces rise against. Many don't want a radical Islamist solution for governance. Many don't want complete change of their governance. Most only want a few, small but significant changes to bring governance into synch with the evolving will and expectations of the people it affects.

Those who feel the US is losing control and should double down on seeking to sustain outdated relationships are calling for an approach that is far more likely to make terrorism worse, not better. Neither should the US simply turn our backs or call for government leaders to stand down. Better we act as mediator to bring the parties to the table to work these things out without the avoidable chaos that is Syria today, or Libya last year.

We need a new approach to foreign policy that allows us to build and wield influence without relying so heavily on regime change, nation building or overly broad programs of targeted killing.

We can do this, and it will be far cheaper and far less offensive to those it affects, and much more insynch with US principles than approaches of the past decade.

But if one can't see that suppressed insurgent populaces and a US policy perceived as keeping the status quo in place as a major aspect of the energy source powering this, then one is not likely to get past programs designed to simply "defeat, disrupt, or deny" the symptoms of the problem.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Bob's World

(...)energy source(...)leverage(...)new information age(...)empowers non-state actors(...)distributed, networked approach(...)bold new world(...)operatives(...)sustain(...)

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Error - error - error. Buzzword overload pre-empts actually reading the text.
Press any key to reboot.

People are more informed so governments must listen and govern.

It takes increasing amount of effort (money, force, etc) to keep restless people suppressed.

Bold claim, which takes a whole lot of historical analysis and knowledge to support properly.


I have doubts.

Taken from a blog which I happen to know well:

Quote:

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An excerpt from the letters of Pliny ( a correspondence between magistrate Pliny the Younger and the Roman emperor Trajan):

To the emperor Trajan

While I was making a progress in a different part of the province, a most destructive fire broke out at Nicomedia, which not only consumed several private houses, but also two public buildings; the town-house and the temple of Isis, though they stood on contrary sides of the street. The occasion of its spreading thus wide, was partly owing to the violence of the wind, and partly to the indolence of the people, who, it appears, stood fixed and idle spectators of this terrible calamity. The truth is, the city was not furnished with either engines, buckets, or any single instrument proper to extinguish fires: which I have now, however, given directions to be provided. You will consider, Sir, whether it may not be advisable to form a company of firemen, consisting only of one hundred and fifty members. I will take care none but firemen shall be admitted into it; and that the privileges granted them shall not be extended to any other purpose. As this corporate body will be restricted to so small a number of members, it will be easy to keep them under proper regulation.

Trajan to Pliny

You are of opinion it would be proper to establish a company of firemen in Nicomedia, agreeably to what has been practiced in several other cities. But it is to be remembered, that societies of this sort have greatly disturbed the peace of the province in general, and of those cities in particular. Whatever name we give them, and for whatever purpose they may be instituted, they will not fail to form themselves soon into political clubs. It will, therefore, be safer, to provide such equipment as is of service in extinguishing fires, enjoining the owners of houses to assist in preventing the mischief from spreading; and if it should be necessary, to call in the aid of the populace.

Many authors in newspapers, blogs and journals have linked the Arab revolts to social media services in the internet. The Egyptian government seems to agree so far as to cut the internet completely in Egypt yesterday. I'm a bit sceptical and see such services as mere and substitutable tools, but it reminded me of the above quoted ancient letter.

Maybe all forms of organisation - even online friends networks and the like - have an inherent potential for political purposes. Maybe modern dictatorships really need to suppress even such forms of organisations / "societies". This might put them at an even greater systemic disadvantage in comparison to open societies than otherwise.

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Maybe you underestimate the role of human nature and overemphasize the attention-grabbers of the day a bit.



You're from the U.S..
There was a certain movement from 2008 on, with quite agitated people. Did an unusually high level of "being informed" play a noticeable role in this movement or maybe more mundane, lesser things?
http://www.addictinginfo.org/wp-cont...011/04/002.jpg

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Bob's World

But the other hard fact is that many populace groups in many countries across the greater Middle East have high conditions of insurgency and are either suppressed currently from acting out, or are actively acting out. This is the energy source that gives AQ significance.

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Is that really "the energy source that gives AQ significance"? I'm not at all convinced that it is. A statement like that requires supporting arguments, it can't simply be proclaimed as revealed truth.

I just read this on another thread, it seemed worth re-quoting here:

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Al-Shabaab presents its mission in cosmic terms, invoking a civilisational conflict between the forces of Islam and non-Islam. This is coupled with attempts to develop an ‘ummah consciousness’ in potential recruits, encouraging them to identify with Muslim causes worldwide. Typically, the suffering of Muslims around the world is juxtaposed with the ease of life in the West. The central tenet of this messaging is that faith necessitates action, and Muslims need to recalibrate their priorities by placing the liberation of Muslim lands ahead of esoteric matters of faith.

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I think the same might well be said of AQ. It might be said as well that AQ established this template.

I see no evidence to suggest that AQ draws its primary impetus from populaces angry at their own governments. AQ and its predecessor organizations have drawn their primary support base from Muslim resentment toward infidel occupation of Muslim lands, first the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and subsequently the American occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. AQ has tried very hard to muster sentiment against Muslim rulers of Muslim countries, but they've generally failed pretty miserably. The only narrative that's ever really worked for them is "expel the infidel from the land of the faithful", which is why they rapidly fade into irrelevance when there's no infidel to expel. Paradoxically that situation makes them more dangerous, as they're likely to try to provoke an incursion that will restore their relevance, but ultimately I think the best way to starve AQ is to stop occupying Muslim countries and deprive them of that core narrative.

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Originally Posted by Bob's World

US governance affects people all over the world. AQ is leveraging that fact to recruit members of insurgent populaces to join their ranks as foreign fighters and as terrorist operatives. AQ is also leveraging that fact to gain influence among such insurgent populaces and the insurgent groups that emerge from such populaces as part of their UW campaign.

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Again, I don't think these people are driven by the "insurgent populace" model at all. They aren't trying to strike a blow against their own government. They see themselves not joining an insurgency (in which they fight their government) but a war pitting the devout against the infidel worldwide, a war in which they travel to the battlefields of the day. The assumption that the core dynamic driving AQ is between governments and their own populaces is very questionable and requires supporting evidence to be accepted.

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Originally Posted by Bob's World

Better we act as mediator to bring the parties to the table to work these things out without the avoidable chaos that is Syria today, or Libya last year.

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That sounds to me like an absolutely disastrous prospect. I don't think we have any credibility at all as mediator among other governments or between governments and their populaces. No mediator can be effective unless all parties to the dispute accept the mediator and desire mediation, and that's not likely to happen with us in the picture. Better to mind our own business than to try to impose ourselves in a role we cannot play and where we are not welcome.

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Originally Posted by Bob's World

We need a new approach to foreign policy that allows us to build and wield influence without relying so heavily on regime change, nation building or overly broad programs of targeted killing.

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Agreed, but I don't see us doing that by messing in the internal affairs of other countries, even if we convince ourselves that we're messing on behalf of "the people".

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Originally Posted by Bob's World

But if one can't see that suppressed insurgent populaces and a US policy perceived as keeping the status quo in place as a major aspect of the energy source powering this, then one is not likely to get past programs designed to simply "defeat, disrupt, or deny" the symptoms of the problem.

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Seems to me that the US policies that have most fed this are polices aimed at altering the status quo, not at sustaining it... supporting the mujahedin against the Soviets in Afghanistan, regime change in Iraq and Afghanistan, etc. Not that I think we should be sustaining the status quo, but in most of the Muslim world the status quo doesn't rely on our sustenance anyway. Trying to change the status quo in ways that we think the populace will like is just going to work us deeper into the scheisse.

Fuchs,

Perhaps you read my words and ascribe meanings I do not attempt to convey as you shape them to fit your own bias?

My work is all about human nature. I believe that good tactics in COIN, or dealing with populace-based problems requires a deep understanding of the particular people one is working with. Good tactics demands we appreciate how people are different. But good strategy for dealing with such problems demands we appreciate how people are the same. Over time and and space and across cultures there are strong threads of human nature that bind us all. It is when we fail to recognize these threads, or when we arrogantly think they do not apply to us or our particular situation, that we tend to get into trouble.

Did Caesar struggle with insurgencies? Of course, it is human nature to resist against a system of governance one does not accept. Several other factors contribute to why societies resist or revolt against governance. So Caesar built roads and fleets to move his legions from one problematic spot to the next efficiently so as to retain control of the empire. This is what successful empires do, they build the minimum force necessary to sustain the status quo, and develop infrastructure that facilitates that effort.

But soon it was not just the emperor's legions and his goods moving on those roads and vessels. All manner of commerce, migration and information moved with greater speed as well. This breakthrough in "information technology" designed to ease the control of empire soon drove the cost of sustaining empire to exceed the benefits. When people cannot be controlled in isolation, they will tend to act out en mass.

The same happened to the Holy Roman empire upon the advent of the printing press. When Rome could no longer control information and knowledge, they soon could no longer control those many diverse people who increasingly came to question the legitimacy of that system of rule.

Great Britain's empire began before the age of steam powered industry and transportation and electronic communications. But as their empire was a major facilitator of developing and expanding those technologies in efforts to maximize the income from their far flung possessions, it was those very technologies that soon came to tax the ability of a government in London to exercise control over diverse populaces around the world. As some of the first to rebel noted in America "An island cannot role a continent"! Nor can an island rule the world - not when the populaces of that world are not isolated into virtual islands of ignorance of how their situation compares to that of the situations of others.

The Soviets offered glasnost to the suppressed populaces of the Soviet Union in the hopes that this "openness" and increased transparency of governance would reduce criticisms of governance. Instead it provided a catalyst of information empowerment to many diverse populaces across the empire, and within a decade the empire collapsed. Oh, it could have sustained itself for decades no doubt, through generations of bloody, suppressive state violence and control over the people, but Gorbachev did what few in his position have done before or since: He let the people go, and in so doing sealed the fate of the Soviet empire.

What is going on today in the Middle East is little different. A region of frozen conflicts, autocratic regimes, and powerful external influences. The people there are informed now in ways they have never been before, and with no threat of Soviet dominion to serve as rationale for accepting a much more benign brand of Western manipulation they are drawing courage from each other and acting out to force their own governments to listen and evolve, and to remove what they deem as inappropriate external influence.

As you say, this is human nature. But the speed, scope and scale of events is new. The cost of influence has dropped radically, so that now a small group of networked individuals can conduct UW more effectively than major states such as Russia or the US could in their prime. Equally the cost of control is going up. Governments overly reliant on control to sustain an artificial stability create very brittle systems, and those systems are shattering. Governments that have more flexible systems are also under pressure to evolve, but are better able to flex and bend and continue on.

Governments must evolve in how they govern at home and in how they pursue their polices and interests abroad.

The US is an interesting case. We have tremendous flexibility at home, but in our approaches overseas we cling to rigid systems designed for containing great threats or for bringing some colonial possession back into a "stable enough" status that ensures the costs do not exceed the benefits.

When we learn how to facilitate and accept for others the same freedoms we demand for ourselves, we will break free from the challenges of this period of post -Cold War transition and enter a new age of American influence. But if we cling to the past and the comfort of a status quo designed by and for us, it will break us, just as it has so many before us.

After all, it is human nature.

I'm not convinced that costs or ease changed a lot, for much influence works best with much charisma, and that's still working the old-fashioned way.

Look up how many millions of poorly informed, technology-devoid Indians were harnessed by Gandhi for the struggle for independence.

Obama is known for savvy campaign organisation, but it was a simple, old-fashioned convention speech which catapulted him into the race in the first place.

Walesa started the downfall of the Warsaw Pact as a labour leader with a simple worker's strike at a Polish shipyard when the time was ripe.
____________

To me, new technologies and all the other changes that supposedly shook supposedly stable regimes so much are merely old wine in new bottles.

I'm coming from a history-swallowing background here, with much more history knowledge about thousands of years and five continents than one actually needs in life. Thus I see rarely anything really new.


Look, a singer can probably push a regime over the brink with a popular song and music video that's on almost all smartphones in the country and copied like a virus.
Just as well, a hundred years ago the singer would probably have composed a simple song everyone can sing - and almost everyone would sing, teaching others this way.*
The smartphone is a mere superficiality.
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One more:
An old boss of mine once explained to me why in his opinion the Dutch and Danes are much better at getting things done with political innovation and experiments than Germans: Whenever there's a challenge, they have one or maybe two university institutes as scientific advisors and thus usually one advising voice.
The German government on the other hand has a whole committee of scientific advisors from dozens of universities. There's almost never just one voice, and the different politicians pick the advice they like and don't get anything experimental of consequence done.

I suppose the overall noise level and diversity of voices heard from new technologies, new institutions et cetera does also have an element that promotes inaction.


__________________
*:
Als Adam grub und Eva spann wo war denn da der Edelmann? / When Adam dug and Eve spun, where was then the aristocrat?
This simple line is still associated with the huge peasant revolts in Germany of around 1525, when huge peasant armies overwhelmed the ruling class in Southern Germany and were only defeated with help from North Germany and mercenary support.
It didn't take any modern technologies then to set ablaze much of Central Europe within months, almost turning around a thousand years-old dominant order of society.

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Originally Posted by Fuchs

Look, a singer can probably push a regime over the brink with a popular song and music video that's on almost all smartphones in the country and copied like a virus.

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The thing is that it is typically only in retrospect that we know that the regime was on the brink!

People with close-up knowledge of the country in question often sense such developments 'a bit' earlier than the foreign public.

Your foreign politicians won't get such news in their intel dossiers in time if your intelligence agency co-operates industriously with the dictator's domestic intelligence agency, of course.

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Originally Posted by Bob's World

Did Caesar struggle with insurgencies?

...But soon it was not just the emperor's legions and his goods moving on those roads and vessels. All manner of commerce, migration and information moved with greater speed as well. This breakthrough in "information technology" designed to ease the control of empire soon drove the cost of sustaining empire to exceed the benefits. When people cannot be controlled in isolation, they will tend to act out en mass.

The same happened to the Holy Roman empire upon the advent of the printing press. When Rome could no longer control information and knowledge, they soon could no longer control those many diverse people who increasingly came to question the legitimacy of that system of rule.

Great Britain's empire began before the age of steam powered industry and transportation and electronic communications. But as their empire was a major facilitator of developing and expanding those technologies in efforts to maximize the income from their far flung possessions, it was those very technologies that soon came to tax the ability of a government in London to exercise control over diverse populaces around the world.

...The Soviets offered glasnost to the suppressed populaces of the Soviet Union in the hopes that this "openness" and increased transparency of governance would reduce criticisms of governance. Instead it provided a catalyst of information empowerment to many diverse populaces across the empire, and within a decade the empire collapsed. Oh, it could have sustained itself for decades no doubt, through generations of bloody, suppressive state violence and control over the people, but Gorbachev did what few in his position have done before or since: He let the people go, and in so doing sealed the fate of the Soviet empire.

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All of these seem to wedge the history into the theory, and I'd have to question the fit: in each of these cases there were many factors active and the spread of information was not necessarily the dominant factor in any case.

In any event the fall of empires past seems of questionable relevance to the fight against terrorism and AQ. The US is not en empire, and does not hold the Middle East as an Imperial possession, neither does AQ threaten the existence of the US. The Middle Eastern countries now facing actual or potential upheaval are not parts of any empire, each has its own internal issues.

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Originally Posted by Bob's World

What is going on today in the Middle East is little different. A region of frozen conflicts, autocratic regimes, and powerful external influences. The people there are informed now in ways they have never been before, and with no threat of Soviet dominion to serve as rationale for accepting a much more benign brand of Western manipulation they are drawing courage from each other and acting out to force their own governments to listen and evolve, and to remove what they deem as inappropriate external influence.

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I think it's very different indeed from any of the cited examples.

Certainly there's a great deal of tension between governments and various populaces and popular factions all over the Middle East, and in many other places as well. That's not about us, though, and our role in the resolution of those tensions is and should be generally pretty minimal. In some cases there may be scope for action by the US or other outside parties, but only when it's asked for and clearly needed: the last thing we want to do is to try and impose ourselves as a mediator, still less as a spokesperson for "the populace".

The link between AQ and this populace/government internal dynamic is the weakest point in your argument, and you've presented little evidence or reasoning to support it. It seems to me that AQ grows less out of the tension between individual Muslim governments and their own populaces than out of a perceived tension between a long-oppressed but rising Islam and a long-dominant but crumbing West. Again, AQ have tried to extend that perception to generate support against Muslim governments they dislike, but those efforts have seen very limited success. Tho only narrative that's ever really worked for them is opposition to direct foreign occupation.

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Originally Posted by Bob's World

Equally the cost of control is going up. Governments overly reliant on control to sustain an artificial stability create very brittle systems, and those systems are shattering. Governments that have more flexible systems are also under pressure to evolve, but are better able to flex and bend and continue on.

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The cost of controlling what, for whom?

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Originally Posted by Bob's World

When we learn how to facilitate and accept for others the same freedoms we demand for ourselves, we will break free from the challenges of this period of post -Cold War transition and enter a new age of American influence. But if we cling to the past and the comfort of a status quo designed by and for us, it will break us, just as it has so many before us.

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When we learn that the internal affairs of other nations are not our business, and that we've no business trying to define any other government's relationship with its populaces, we may (or may not) begin the process of extracting our collective head from out collective bung. That may take time and effort; it's been there a while and it's in deep.

There's a lot to be thrashed out, all over the world. Most of it isn't about us, though it may have some effect on us.

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Originally Posted by Bob's World

After all, it is human nature.

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It's also human nature to shove reality into our pet theories, whether or not it fits.

The theory comes from history, not the other way around.

Too many seek to understand and solve "terrorism" and "insurgency" wholly within the context of a particular place and time and set of facts, and wholly within the context of the mission and ability of their particular institution sent out to deal with the same. This is so incredibly limiting.

Our history books love the war stories, but more often the truly interesting and helpful insights are buried in footnotes, or must be derived from clues authors sprinkle across their text without even being aware they are doing so. Often their main points and conclusions are of questionable value, but buried within the verbiage they use to make those points one finds the nuggets that helps form greater understanding.

Consider this popular example. Comparing British tactics in Malaya to US tactics in Vietnam is great sport; but it offers very little toward the understanding of why either situation occurred to begin with or equally what led to one result in one place, and very different results in the other. No pure military study helps one get to better understanding of what the truly interesting and important lessons from those conflicts are.

Military professionals love to put these conflicts into the context of war, identify a "threat" and wage war against it.

Development professionals love to put these conflicts into the context of basic needs, identify ways to meet those needs, and then poor money and energy into addressing them.

Governance professionals look for external factors for why they might be so rudely, illegally, and quit often violently, challenged in their governance. They then place blame on those external factors and set out to defeat them. This might be some ideology or form of governance different than the one they promote, or it might be some "malign" and "evil" competitor internal or external to the state that is somehow leading the populace to this dangerous state.

This is all human nature as well. People are the common thread. We are assigned roles and we play those roles out. History repeats over and over again as these roles are cast in the universal context of human nature, but flavored with the unique facts of each particular event.

I know I irritate many on this site when I tend to point out the futility of arguing tactics and weapons when one is pursuing such a flawed strategic understanding to begin with. Likewise when I dare to suggest that Clausewitz's very brilliant insights on war and warfare are often not much help (indeed, often quite dangerous) when applied to the internal conflicts and competition for power internal to some particular populace of system of governance.

I also know I don't have all the right answers or are asking all of the right questions. But I pursue answers and ask questions all the same. We have an opportunity to evolve, but opportunities only matter if one is willing to risk departing the well trod path of business as usual to pursue other insights that might actually help us get to where we are seeking to go.

History's a big place, and you can pick something out of it to support practically any point you want to make.

I think the comments in the previous posts about the decline of empires are dangerously oversimplified and of debatable relevance to issues between the US and AQ, and more generally between the US and the Islamist terrorist fringe.

I think you're overrating the extent to which AQ specifically and Islamist terrorism in general derives from an insurgency dynamic, meaning conflict between governments and the citizens of the countries those governments govern. I think the relationship you're claiming needs a great deal more supporting evidence than you're providing.

I think the model you propose has real relevance to questions of insurgency, but I think, again, that you overrate the connection between AQ and insurgency, and exaggerate the extent to which AQ is a reaction to specifically American actions. The issues you cite can help understand populace/government relations in the Middle East, but I think you overrate the extent to which these conflicts are about us or require our involvement.

There is real risk in this construct: if we adopt the idea that AQ exists because we "broke" Muslim governments and put them out of touch with their people, some bright person is likely to conclude that we can disable AQ by "fixing" Muslim governments and making them accountable to their people. I can imagine no worse strategy.

In recent discussions with analysts several have commented on the importance of the local Muslim faith context changing, as the Salaf school gains adherents, so enabling the strand that supports the violent Jihad (Salafism has many strands and may not support the violent Jihad). Islam has changed in many ways recently, notably with external private funding of the more conservative schools of thought - even in places like Kashmir, where a local variant dominated.

I expect someone has written on this private funding, much of it from the Gulf and Saudi Arabia and the possible impact on the violent Jihad. Suggestions or pointers please.

We know that the local context can suddenly and rapidly change when foreign fighters arrive to reinforce an existing insurgency. Of late Mali and Syria have been cited as examples, although the Pakistani reinforcement, if not creation of the Taliban in Afghanistan is the most well known example.

Clint Watts directed attention to a pro-regime, Syrian newspaper report yesterday, so a caveat applies:

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published the names of 142 foreign fighters from 18 countries the regime said were killed alongside rebels in Syria's conflict....47 Saudis, 24 Libyans, 10 Tunisians, nine Egyptians, six Qataris and five Lebanese. It also listed 11 Afghans, five Turks, three Chechens, one Chadian and one Azerbaijani.

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Link:http://www.thenational.ae/news/world..._campaign=feed

The violent Jihad has a long history before 9/11 and the appearance of AQ. Sometime ago I read a book on them in Imperial India and beyond, they were simply called something else.

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Originally Posted by Dayuhan

History's a big place, and you can pick something out of it to support practically any point you want to make.

I think the comments in the previous posts about the decline of empires are dangerously oversimplified and of debatable relevance to issues between the US and AQ, and more generally between the US and the Islamist terrorist fringe.

I think you're overrating the extent to which AQ specifically and Islamist terrorism in general derives from an insurgency dynamic, meaning conflict between governments and the citizens of the countries those governments govern. I think the relationship you're claiming needs a great deal more supporting evidence than you're providing.

I think the model you propose has real relevance to questions of insurgency, but I think, again, that you overrate the connection between AQ and insurgency, and exaggerate the extent to which AQ is a reaction to specifically American actions. The issues you cite can help understand populace/government relations in the Middle East, but I think you overrate the extent to which these conflicts are about us or require our involvement.

There is real risk in this construct: if we adopt the idea that AQ exists because we "broke" Muslim governments and put them out of touch with their people, some bright person is likely to conclude that we can disable AQ by "fixing" Muslim governments and making them accountable to their people. I can imagine no worse strategy.

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These are all fair concerns. But I would offer a few thoughts to consider:

1. "Simple" and "Simplistic" share the same root word, but are on opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to understanding some situation. In between the two lay some of our favorite stomping grounds of "complicated," "complex," and "confused." You are very right that "simplistic" solutions do not offer much, unless through pure happenstance they fall upon the right approach. But simple is genius. Simple is so very incredibly difficult to get to yet so very easy to apply. So often we reject simple solutions because we fear they are so, well, "simple," that they could not possibly have merit. So we instead embrace confused, complex and complicated approaches, because if anything is so hard it must be worthwhile, and if I am not producing the results I intended, that is to be expected, after all, this is "complex."

My goal for years has been to get to "simple." The problem is that once once starts to get close to simple one tends to get farther and farther from the comfortably confused, complex, complicated place where most everyone else is happily mucking around. Thus the quote from Einstein I keep at the bottom of my posts. Einstein was the grand master of simple.

2. As to AQ, I don't overrate AQ, but certainly our approach to AQ over the past decade-plus holds them in very high esteem. After all, if everything we have so carefully crafted (from our image of ourselves to our goals for the governance of the Middle East, etc) are all falling about our ankles, it must be some very important, very powerful enemy that is causing that to happen. Right? Wrong.

No, I think AQ is largely a joke, but a very dangerous one who will have the last laugh if we do not stop chasing them in such a complex, complicated, confused manner from pillar to post around the country, with Intel leading our strategy, and military leading our foreign policy, and no nation's sovereignty more important than our own fear of this little band of opportunists.

We need to strike 80% of the organizations currently on the "terrorist" list off, not add more to. We need to analyze why some group loosely associated with AQ is not part of AQ so the we can address them wisely, not why they are AQ so that we can address them simplistically.

It is convenient to our egos, and those of the many out of touch regimes around the Middle East, if in fact AQ is Pied Piper, and that they have indeed brain washed good people to do bad things with their radical, Islamist ideology. But the Pied Piper is a fairly tale, and so is the idea that ideology causes terrorism and insurgency. Governments cause these conditions and they manifest deep withing broad segments of any given populace. Governments are the arctic winds blowing down from the north, and insurgent populaces are like large masses of ice that form and break away from the pack to cause trouble. Our COIN and CT approaches go after that aspect of such masses that floats above the surface, and largely ignores the reality that any effort designed to simply shave ice off of the top or to press the entire mass through brute force beneath the surface, out of sight and mind, is a fool's errand. It can produce temporary effects that look like success, but that are very temporary and symptomatic in nature, and that require constant energy to sustain. So the typically fail, unless the warm waters of good governance work to melt and blend that entire mass into the larger sea.

AQ does not make icebergs, but they work to leverage the destructive energy within and across a sea of such icebergs of popular discontent.

As to Muslim governments being broken, no, we did not "break" them any more than a rich, entitled man "breaks" his children when he allows them to act out with massive unearned wealth with few rules and little consequence for bad behavior. We have manipulated the governance of the region for our own purposes and our actions have indeed allowed many regimes of the region to act with growing impunity toward their own populaces. Those governments did this of their own free will, they need to own their problems and address them. Most seek to simply bribe or suppress such problems back into submission. This is a new era and I don't think such approaches will work. Those Republicans who yearn for the forced, artificial stability of the final years of the Cold War are idiots, or rather "intelligent fools." Likewise those who think we can "fix" this through regime change, nation building, US values and US-brand democratic governance.

We did not break this and we cannot fix this. We are, however, the major player in the mix. It is easy for these governments, and for organizations such as AQ to blame the US. This is human nature, just like the US blames AQ and ideology. We can, however, form a more helpful perspective and be willing to accept that change is happening and that many of these systems will find solutions that work for them that do not necessarily make us happy. It is not about us. We must learn when to simply let people sort things out for themselves, and how to better set red-lines for all parties that work to minimize the violence of change, and how to better mediate from neutral positions, rather than mandate from biased positions we take so often.

So, yes, simple is hard. But it is my goal. But what I offer may not be quite to simple yet, I assure you, it is not simplistic.

Bob's World started this thread with a reference to a Panetta speech, a medical metaphor, and the The Cat in the Hat Comes Back. He proceeded to ask "Where is Cat Z and what is 'voom'?"

I think that the starting point and frame of reference are somewhat mistaken. Try reading "Yertle the Turtle" instead:

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Originally Posted by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yertle_the_Turtle_and_Other_Stories

The eponymous story revolves around a Yertle the Turtle, the king of the pond. Unsatisfied with the stone that serves as his throne, he commands the other turtles to stack themselves beneath him so that he can see further and expand his kingdom. However, the stacked turtles are in pain and Mack, the turtle at the very bottom of the pile, is suffering the most. Mack asks Yertle for a respite, but Yertle just tells him to shut up. Then Yertle decides to expand his kingdom and commands more and more turtles to add to his throne. Mack makes a second request for a respite because the increased weight is now causing extreme pain to the turtles at the bottom of the pile. Again Yertle yells at Mack to shut up. Then Yertle notices the moon rising above him as the night approaches. Furious that something "dares to be higher than Yertle the King", he decides to call for even more turtles in an attempt to rise above it. However, before he can give the command, Mack decides he has had enough. He burps, shaking the stack of turtles and tossing Yertle off into the mud, leaving him "King of the Mud" and freeing the others.

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As I'm sure you can see, at least two levels of metaphoric interpretation are available for King Yertle and the pond/mud puddle. Please note that the turtles solved their problem without recourse to outside intervention. The turtles apparently saw no need to ask an eagle (Little Cat Z?) to swoop down from the sky and carry King Yertle away (voom?).

The polar positions taken in the rest of this thread remind me of another Theodor Geisel (AKA Dr. Seuss and Theo. LeSieg) story--"The Zax"--while the need to define terms precisely in order to identify the problem and its sources)/solutions is reminiscent of "Too Many Daves" (both in The Sneetches and Other Stories). For those who want to get past the children's literature, I'd suggest a review of Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations discussion of family resemblances as a way of trying to solve the problems of applying definitions to achieve identification.

BTW, my simple answer to Bob's initial question is to suggest that maybe the Cat in the Hat with his matroysha (nested Russian Dolls) solutions ought to stop calling in places where he isn't invited.
Or, more tersely, "Cat in the Hat, MYOB!*"

*MYOB =mind your own business

There is some truth to the idea that everything we need to know about dealing with these situations "we learned in kindergarden."

But that would be "too simplistic," so we seek the long, complex, expensive, intrusive, violent, controlling solution instead. (and the special equipment, gangs of contracted SMEs, massive defense budgets to go with).

"the two levels of metaphoric interpretation" are what ?

Regards

Mike

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Originally Posted by wm

"Cat in the Hat, MYOB!*"

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Amen.

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Originally Posted by Bob's World

"Simple" and "Simplistic" share the same root word, but are on opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to understanding some situation.

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I applied the term "simplistic" purely to your conclusions about the fall of the Roman, Holy Roman, British, and Soviet empires, and the extent to which those falls were caused by expanded access of populaces to information. I would stand by the observation that both those conclusions and their application to the interface among the US, Muslim Governments, insurgents, and terrorists are simplistic.

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Originally Posted by Bob's World

Simple is so very incredibly difficult to get to yet so very easy to apply. So often we reject simple solutions because we fear they are so, well, "simple," that they could not possibly have merit. So we instead embrace confused, complex and complicated approaches, because if anything is so hard it must be worthwhile, and if I am not producing the results I intended, that is to be expected, after all, this is "complex."

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I've nothing against simple solutions, but they have to presented in clear and specific terms to be implemented. I note that your pescriptions are often cast in extremely general terms.

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Originally Posted by Bob's World

As to AQ, I don't overrate AQ, but certainly our approach to AQ over the past decade-plus holds them in very high esteem. After all, if everything we have so carefully crafted (from our image of ourselves to our goals for the governance of the Middle East, etc) are all falling about our ankles, it must be some very important, very powerful enemy that is causing that to happen. Right? Wrong.

No, I think AQ is largely a joke, but a very dangerous one who will have the last laugh if we do not stop chasing them in such a complex, complicated, confused manner from pillar to post around the country, with Intel leading our strategy, and military leading our foreign policy, and no nation's sovereignty more important than our own fear of this little band of opportunists.

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I don't think AQ is a joke at all: people attacking us and killing our people are never a joke. I don't see any evidence that anything is "falling around our ankles" in the Middle East, and to the extent that anything is, that's not a consequence of anything AQ has done.

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Originally Posted by Bob's World

We need to strike 80% of the organizations currently on the "terrorist" list off, not add more to. We need to analyze why some group loosely associated with AQ is not part of AQ so the we can address them wisely, not why they are AQ so that we can address them simplistically.

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I agree that affiliation to AQ is vastly overestimated and that many organizations described as "AQ linked" probably have little or no impact on us. A better question would be whether any given organization is attacking us or killing our people, or trying to. If they are, that requires a response, whether or not AQ is involved.

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Originally Posted by Bob's World

But the Pied Piper is a fairly tale, and so is the idea that ideology causes terrorism and insurgency. Governments cause these conditions and they manifest deep withing broad segments of any given populace.

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I'm disturbed by the way "terrorism" and "insurgency" are lumped together here, suggesting that they are the same thing, or inextricably linked, or are products of the same causes. Any such contention would require supporting evidence that is not given here. I'd certainly agree that governments are a leading cause of insurgency, but I think the link that you draw between insurgency and the type of terrorism exemplified by AQ is extremely tenuous and requires far more support than you've provided. It's not enough to say that it is so.

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Originally Posted by Bob's World

Governments are the arctic winds blowing down from the north, and insurgent populaces are like large masses of ice that form and break away from the pack to cause trouble. Our COIN and CT approaches go after that aspect of such masses that floats above the surface, and largely ignores the reality that any effort designed to simply shave ice off of the top or to press the entire mass through brute force beneath the surface, out of sight and mind, is a fool's errand. It can produce temporary effects that look like success, but that are very temporary and symptomatic in nature, and that require constant energy to sustain. So the typically fail, unless the warm waters of good governance work to melt and blend that entire mass into the larger sea.

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I can see how this analogy applies to insurgency, but I don't see how that needs to concern us: other than the ones we created with our ham-handed regime changes, there's not an insurgency on the planet that requires a major commitment from us. In fact, I think we need to ditch the "COIN"-driven assumption that insurgency is someting that by definition should be countered, and start looking at it as an opportunity.

How this all relates to "terrorism" in the AQ mold is another question entirely, and again the proposed link between insurgency and AQ-style terrorism is in no way clear.

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Originally Posted by Bob's World

AQ does not make icebergs, but they work to leverage the destructive energy within and across a sea of such icebergs of popular discontent.

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AQ has not successfully leveraged popular discontent with Muslim governments. They've tried, but they've failed. The discontent that they have leveraged stems from broader relations between "the West" and the Islamic world, and the perception that "the West" oppresses Islam. I see no evidence to suggest that the terrorists who struck at the west or the fighters who flocked to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan or the Americans in Iraq were driven by anger at their own governments. Any claim that this was indeed the case needs to be supported with specific evidence and compelling logic. It is not self-evident truth.

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Originally Posted by Bob's World

As to Muslim governments being broken, no, we did not "break" them any more than a rich, entitled man "breaks" his children when he allows them to act out with massive unearned wealth with few rules and little consequence for bad behavior. We have manipulated the governance of the region for our own purposes and our actions have indeed allowed many regimes of the region to act with growing impunity toward their own populaces.

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This contention seems to me paternalistic to the point of being patronizing. These governments are not our children. Certainly we tried to manipulate them; they also tried to manipulate us. Arguably they were the more successful manipulators. These governments did not require our permission or help to oppress their populaces; they did it on their own and of their own free will. We can't make them stop and we never could. I don't see any evidence that we "enabled" them to oppress or that they would have been any less oppressive if we hadn't been there.

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Originally Posted by Bob's World

We did not break this and we cannot fix this. We are, however, the major player in the mix.

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I don't think we are or need to be "the major player in the mix".

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Originally Posted by Bob's World

We can, however, form a more helpful perspective and be willing to accept that change is happening and that many of these systems will find solutions that work for them that do not necessarily make us happy. It is not about us. We must learn when to simply let people sort things out for themselves, and how to better set red-lines for all parties that work to minimize the violence of change, and how to better mediate from neutral positions, rather than mandate from biased positions we take so often.

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I agree for the most part, though I don't think this requires much change: again, these governments do not depend on us for sustenance, we are not keeping them afloat, and we have little or no control over their actions. Setting red lines for all or any parties is something I'm less comfortable with: we have no business setting red lines in the internal affairs of other countries and there's no point at all in setting red lines you're not able or willing to enforce.

It is not for us to mandate, nor do we do so. Neither is mediation any of our business, unless it is requested by all parties to a given conflict. Trying to impose ourselves as a mediator or as self-appointed spokesperson for any group is an excellent and dramatic way to self-destruct.

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Originally Posted by Bob's World

So, yes, simple is hard. But it is my goal. But what I offer may not be quite to simple yet, I assure you, it is not simplistic.

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Mind our own business to the greatest possible extent. Do not unilaterally interfere in the internal affairs of others. Kill those who attack us.

What could be simpler?

So, what, pray tell, is a "terrorist" organization?

Terrorism is, after all, merely a tactic. Many insurgents use terrorist tactics. Many governments (to include our own) use terrorist tactics. Many non-state actors with broad political agendas, such as AQ, use terrorist tactics.

Frankly it is a label that bundles all manner of actors based upon a particular tactical approach. I don't find that very helpful, as it does not create a category that frames or suggests a particular family of solution to apply.

Which leads to "counter-terrorism," which equally is a little more than a commitment to seek to disrupt, defeat, deny, etc those individuals and organizations that employ terrorist tactics. It is very symptomatic in nature, and as such does not much consider WHY some organization or individual is acting out, or why they have come to a position where they believe terrorist tactics are their best hope for achieving their goals.

AQ is actually more accurately a non-state political action group that operates outside the rule of law to conduct unconventional warfare to leverage the insurgent populaces of a wide range of primarily Muslim states, employing both guerrilla warfare and terrorist tactics, to force change upon the governments of those states and their foreign allies.

This cannot be well addressed by "counter-terrorism." Nor can this be well addressed by the slightly broader concept of "combating-terrorism." What I have long argued is that we we really need is a much broader, more holistic construct of "counter-unconventional warfare." This gets us past an excessive focus on the tactics employed, and instead forces us to think in the context of the actual operations being waged. Much of our jousting in the "3rd world" with the Soviets during the Cold War was essentially counter UW. We did not fly drones to Moscow and attempt to kill soviet leaders with missiles. But we fly drones in the sovereign airspace of many countries where AQ and nationalist insurgents operate and attempt to kill them. I find this odd at best.

But the energy source of any successful UW campaign is an insurgent populace. One cannot go to a stable, satisfied populace and create an insurgency. One can, however, go to place where such conditions are strong, but suppressed, and employ ideology, motivation, arms, leadership, funding, etc to move such a populace to action.

Che Guevara did not understand this fundamental truth of UW. He wanted to ignite a flame of insurgency that would spread and envelope all of South America. He looked at his map and picked a country in the middle of the continent and decided to light his fire there. So he went to Bolivia. But Bolivia had already had a revolution and much of the latent insurgent energy of the populace there was already released. He found few recruits and no sanctuary among the people. He was in short order hunted down and killed. He failed because he did not understand UW and the necessity for conditions of insurgency to fuel any such movement. AQ does not make that mistake, or perhaps they do not understand either, but the fact is there are so many populaces across so many countries in the Middle East with high conditions of insurgency that they cannot hardly help but finding fertile ground for their operations.

If not AQ, it would be someone else. They exploit the opportunity, they do not create the opportunity. I suspect this is why AQ has never resonated nearly as well among the Muslim populaces of the Asia-Pacific Region as they have in those areas that have not had the political revolutions yet such as have occurred there. As you well know, things are not perfect in Malaysia, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Cambodia, or the Philippines - but these people and these nations have already thrown off the major aspects of external, illegitimate manipulation and are working toward their own destiny. Small groups and small numbers of individuals are open to help from groups such as AQ, but nearly so much as in the greater Middle East.

This is political. There are simple, fundamental aspects of human nature that provide a framework for understanding these problems. Each is unique in its details, but all are similar in their fundamentals.

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Originally Posted by jmm99

"the two levels of metaphoric interpretation" are what ?

Regards

Mike

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Level 1: King Yertle is the US (post Truman Doctrine), the Pond is the Earth and the other turtles are the various countries in the world.
Level 2: Yertle is the tyrannical leader of any country/organization with grandiose ambitions, the pond is just that country/organization while the other turtles are various segments of the dominated populace/workforce/organizational membership.

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Originally Posted by Bob's World

Terrorism is, after all, merely a tactic.

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I'm not so sure that terrorism is always a tactic. Saying so is equivalent to saying that terror activities are being used as a means to some end. I suspect that some terrorist acts are conducted as ends in themselves. I am thinking primarily of some of the things done by so-called anarchists in the later 19th Century, but Timothy McVeigh's exploit in OKC might also fit in that category.

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Originally Posted by Bob's World

Which leads to "counter-terrorism," which equally is a little more than a commitment to seek to disrupt, defeat, deny, etc those individuals and organizations that employ terrorist tactics. It is very symptomatic in nature, and as such does not much consider WHY some organization or individual is acting out, or why they have come to a position where they believe terrorist tactics are their best hope for achieving their goals.

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The above categorization of counter terrrorism seems rather shallow. I see two aspects to counter terrorism. The first includes those actions one might take to prevent terrorist activity. These are what, for example, the Counter IED community calls actions to the left of the boom. Seeking to answer Bob's "why" question above, rightly belongs in this part of counterterrorism. I submit demotivating someone from the commission of terrorist acts is rather hard without knowing what is motivating him or her to engage in them in the first place.
The second aspect of counter terrorism is remediation--restoring order/cleaning up the mess after the terrorist action has occurred. How one does this may well fuel further terrorism. Knocking down the hovel next to the big hole left by the IED in the process of filling the hole, enforcing a curfew to "keep people safe" until we find the terrorists, or just leaving the restoration to the locals' own devices are probably not conducive to achieving the sort of results that the first aspect of counter terrorism is attempting to achieve.

I remain unconvinced that terrorism is "merely" a tactic. As WM points out, there are far too many cases where terrorism is clearly an end and not a mean. Also, there are too many examples of groups that have over time spun into a cycle of violence where the attack is the end in and of itself and the why of the attack no longer has any real meaning.

An article based on 2iC SOCOM's presentation to an open conference, amidst the "we need more" approach there is some balance by a CFR expert:

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Successful employment of the indirect approach requires both proactive involvement and patience for the effort to produce results. It requires placing SOF teams out in troubled regions for extended periods so they can gain familiarity, knowledge and relationships and then begin to execute solutions with the resident partners...This runs counter to a common tendency to wait until crises are full blown and action is imperative.

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Link:http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.o...st.aspx?ID=983

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Originally Posted by Bob's World

Which leads to "counter-terrorism," which equally is a little more than a commitment to seek to disrupt, defeat, deny, etc those individuals and organizations that employ terrorist tactics. It is very symptomatic in nature, and as such does not much consider WHY some organization or individual is acting out, or why they have come to a position where they believe terrorist tactics are their best hope for achieving their goals.

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Disrupt, defeat, and deny is essential. It may not be the only the only thing that's essential, but it's certainly essential. That doesn't mean you don't have to look at and address the "why", it just means that when someone is actively trying to kill you or your people you stop them first and then worry about why.

One of the problems with efforts to identify and address causes is that they are very much open to erroneous interpretations of causes. One trend we often notice in the US is the tendency to assume that everything happens because of us, and that everyone else simply reacts... thus if AQ wants to kill us that must be a "backlash" against something we did to them, and we can make them stop by not doing whatever that was. I think we underestimate the extent to which AQ is proactive, acting not in response to situations but in an attempt to initiate conditions they believe will be conducive to their growth.

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Originally Posted by Bob's World

AQ is actually more accurately a non-state political action group that operates outside the rule of law to conduct unconventional warfare to leverage the insurgent populaces of a wide range of primarily Muslim states, employing both guerrilla warfare and terrorist tactics, to force change upon the governments of those states and their foreign allies.

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Again we have the contention that AQ primarily exploits an "insurgency" dynamic (built around relationships between Muslim governments and the populaces they govern) rather than a wider perception of direct occupation of Muslim land and direct oppression of Muslims by the West. This contention could use less repetition and more supporting evidence, as it is anything but self-evident.

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Originally Posted by Bob's World

We did not fly drones to Moscow and attempt to kill soviet leaders with missiles. But we fly drones in the sovereign airspace of many countries where AQ and nationalist insurgents operate and attempt to kill them. I find this odd at best.

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Not odd at all. By the time we had effective drones the Soviet Union no longer existed... and there was always that MAD thing going on.

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Originally Posted by Bob's World

But the energy source of any successful UW campaign is an insurgent populace. One cannot go to a stable, satisfied populace and create an insurgency. One can, however, go to place where such conditions are strong, but suppressed, and employ ideology, motivation, arms, leadership, funding, etc to move such a populace to action.

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I don't see the relevance of this, since AQ is not creating an insurgency or moving a populace to action.

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Originally Posted by Bob's World

I suspect this is why AQ has never resonated nearly as well among the Muslim populaces of the Asia-Pacific Region as they have in those areas that have not had the political revolutions yet such as have occurred there. As you well know, things are not perfect in Malaysia, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Cambodia, or the Philippines - but these people and these nations have already thrown off the major aspects of external, illegitimate manipulation and are working toward their own destiny. Small groups and small numbers of individuals are open to help from groups such as AQ, but nearly so much as in the greater Middle East.

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That's certainly not true in, say, The Philippines or Thailand, where "external, illegitimate manipulation" by national governments that Muslim minorities do not accept is alive and well. The limited appeal of AQ in these ideological markets stems more from AQ's preoccupation with pan-Islamic issues and foreign occupations that seem very remote in these parts: Southeast Asian Muslims are for the most part more concerned with their own domestic issues than with what's going in the Middle East or South Asia.

The assumption that those who support AQ do so because they want to change their own governments is inherently suspect and needs to be supported by evidence and reasoning. It's not credible simply because it's said to be so.