When to Bring the Love, When to Bring the Hate
Captain Few's article hit on some points that have been running around in the back of my mind for some time. Namely, what do you do when the civilian population hates you?
It is expected that in COIN operations, we will often be looked on unfavorably. We try to win over the population by being the good guys, protecting them from insurgent atrocities and helping develop the economy and basic services to improve life.
But what if the large majority of the population hates you with an ideological fervor? What if they are willing to take our goodwill and throw it back in our faces, ignoring what benefits we may bring them? We want their cooperation, but sometimes just giving benefits won't bring it, and will in fact be seen as weakness (just as troops don't want to be coddled . . ).
Perhaps the ideal way to handle such a situation is to undermine the society economically, developing trading relations (through second or third parties most likely) that corrode the ideological base and make them dependent on products or services we provide (or can control). This is a long term solution, though, and the grunts on the ground will need something more immediate.
So (in my roundabout way) what I'm asking is, are there times when you have to 'get tough' with the civilian population? If so, how tough do you - can you - get?
The problem associated with inserting oneself into another's insurgency
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Originally Posted by
Ian K
But what if the large majority of the population hates you with an ideological fervor? What if they are willing to take our goodwill and throw it back in our faces, ignoring what benefits we may bring them? We want their cooperation, but sometimes just giving benefits won't bring it, and will in fact be seen as weakness (just as troops don't want to be coddled . . ).
Half of America hated the Clinton Administration. Roughly the opposite half of America hated the Bush Administration with even more ardent fervor. I would contend though, that if China had graciously inserted itself into that mix in an effort to "liberate" either half from that offensive governmental leadership, both halves would have joined as one immediately to fight them in the streets, to "take their goodwill and throw it back in their faces, ignoring the benefits they bring..."
Dealing with ones own insurgent populace is hard enough, being an embroiled third party, either by invite as is S. Vietnam, or by invasion, like in Iraq, is an entirely different situation altogether. The HN is conducting COIN; it really helps to avoid confusion of roles when you clearly keep your foreign engagement in a separate classification. We have a mission for this, and it is FID, and by staying in that lane it also helps clarify your engagement with the HN's populace as well.
The ultimate goal is to assist in healing the perception of the populace that they are both experiencing poor governance, and that their only effective recourse to the same is through illegal acts of violence. As a guest, ones best course is to remain as neutral as possible, only taking sides when required to stabilize specific situations that have gotten out of control in ways that will escalate and exacerbate the problem.
When a foreign country aids a HN government's COIN efforts through FID, everyone knows that it is to support its own national interests in that particular state, and that they believe those interests are best served by sustaining the current government. So right off the bat your "neutrality" in this fight between the government and the governed is justifiably questioned.
When a foreign country aids a populaces insurgent efforts against their government through UW, everyone knows that it is to support its own national interests in that particular state, and that they believe those interests are best served by removing the current government. So again, right off the bat, your "neutrality" in this fight between the government and the governed is justifiably questioned.
The one constant in every equation is the populace, and so long as the efforts of the meddling foreign entity remain in word and deed focused as much as possible, not on sustaining any particular government, but instead on enabling the establishment of good governance (the form of governance desired by the populace, independent of any metrics of how effective it might be), and then to help make that governance as effective as possible, is best for the foreign intervening party.
Remember, insurgencies fall into three broad categories:
Revolutionary to change the governance
Separatist to create new state out of a larger old state, and
Resistance to drive off an unwanted foreign entity.
All three exist in Iraq; and only the third category is specifically motivated to the removal of the U.S. influence there.
A fourth category is dedicated to removing the U.S. influence there due to the U.S. being logically perceived as the protector of the existing government of Iraq, and that is those states (Iran) and non-states (AQ) waging UW in Iraq to destabilize that US backed government. (A separate disertation in of itself on why striking the mission "CT" from the roles and incorporating "counter unconventional warfare" in its stead is probably something I need to write up for larger discussion)
So, to understand how to engage the populace you really have to first understand what type of operation you have inserted yourself into the middle of, what your objectives there are, and then how to best engage with all of the various actors to best achieve those objectives. But if I was pressed for a one-word description of how to treat the populace it would be: "Respect" You can neither buy nor beat respect out of someone. You have to earn it.
Operational Truths To Live By
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""Hearts and Minds" (which I really hate now), doesn't mean making people like you. It means enticing or forcing them to make an irrevocable choice to pick a side."
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"Any COIN campaign in a given area must be preceeded with a detailed mission analysis to understand the problem. Do not ask "where is the enemy", but rather ask first "where am I?" and then, "why is he able to operate there?" Do this and your COA will fall into place."
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"...This model is not an approach on how to win the hearts and minds of a populace as I believe this concept to be misguided and irrelevant. From personal experiences in combat operations, one can control the minds of a population for a discrete amount of time; however, one can never control the hearts..."
Such is the path of true righteousness. So let it be written, so let it be said...:cool:
Disrupting the Enemy's Information Advantage
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Originally Posted by
Ian K
So (in my roundabout way) what I'm asking is, are there times when you have to 'get tough' with the civilian population? If so, how tough do you - can you - get?
In Pre-OIF/Pre-COIN times, long/long ago, army guys used terms like recointer, area reconnaissance, zone reconnaissance, IPB, and OODA loops.
Before the Break Point, before the Surge, the FIRST thing we did in country was an aerial reconnaissance followed with an area reconnaissance followed with route reconnaissance for my boy's to understand the PHYSICAL TERRAIN of the Diyala River Valley from Baqubah to Abu Sayda (at that time a troop AO not squadron). Second, we conducted leader engagements throughout EVERY town with political, security, and economic leaders AND Adbul Average "Six Pack" so my boy's would understand the HUMAN TERRAIN.
This situational awareness allowed us to conduct Step One: Describe the environment. From there, we could start identfying Avenues of Appoach, key terrain, tribes, sects, factions, families, so forth and so on. All simple stuff derived from the scout platoon manual, FM 7-8, and the Ranger Handbook. Sometimes in combat people forget to do the basics.
If we didn't receive human intelligence b/c the people were scared, then we cheated and snuck in at night to observe.
Eventually, I'll publish the events in chronological order.
One of the culminating operations (derived from 3 weeks of tactial reconnaissance) is described below in the first part of my next paper. The result was 17 EKIA, 1 US WIA, no civilian casualties, and temporary security in light of the civil war. It was a good three weeks.
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Disrupting the Information Advantage
In counterinsurgency, killing the enemy is easy. Finding him is nearly impossible.
-David Kilcullen, Twenty-Eight Articles
“Sir, trade weapons with me,” Bernie whispered from the protection of our hide site. We were hidden deep within the grape vineyards. We snuck in under the cover of darkness, found the enemy, and now it was time to kill. We had been tracking our prey for weeks. We were finally given the go. As the women and children scattered, the sniper quickly began to recede back into the safety and anonymity of the town. For a moment, he was in range- two hundred meters away. Staff Sergeant Bernthall focused. We traded weapons- his sights were conditioned for room clearing, mine for long-range observation. He calmed his body, breathed deep, and squeezed the trigger. With the first round, he zeroed my weapon to his specifications. With the second squeeze, in one fell swoop, the bullet traveled out of the palm groves, across the Diyala River, down the crowded street, and the sniper fell- one round to the head-perfection. Operation Shaku Maku had begun. Thankfully, there would be no civilian casualties today.
-Zaganiyah, October 31, 2006
Sometimes you get it right. Two weeks after al Qaeda declared Baqubah its new Caliphate and ten days prior to the Break Point of Zaganiyah, we tried a new tactic we dubbed terrorize the terrorist.
Hope this helps.
v/r
Mike
True. Equally true in many other places.
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Originally Posted by
Rex Brynen
Perhaps I've been working in Lebanon for too long, but I've never seen such a thing as an "irrevocable choice." I have a sneaking hunch Stan and Tom would say the same about Zaire/DRC... :D
The good news is that most people are pragmatic and are willing to make choices that are sensible and fairly durable if not irrevocable. Ron has it right; the key is to make that choice less hazardous or more hazardous -- METT-TC dependent; sometimes you need one, sometimes the other -- than alternatives; irrevocability is always negotiable. Ask any politician in any nation... ;)
Be careful in use of language...
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Originally Posted by
Stan
Gaining and keeping population or local support is a hard one to get a grasp on. When insurgents threatened them with death, it was fairly clear. Regardless of what we did to better the locals' existence, they knew we (Belg, French and US) were unlikely to ever beat or kill them for cooperating.
"The Population" "The Insurgent" "The Government" "The Counterinsurgent" all get thrown about fairly regular as if they were not all of the same cloth.
The Population is of course the one fabric from which all are cut, with The Government and The Counterinsurgent being one and the same, and also a subset of the populace. The insurgent is also a subset of the populace.
If someone is not of "The Populace," then I would offer they are neither an insurgent nor a counterinsurgent, but are something else altogether.
When we get careless in our language it leads to carelessness of thought, which then results in carelessness of action.
I contend that current U.S. military doctrine on COIN has fallen into this trap, casting ourselves into the role of counterinsurgent in many cases where we are not; and that this line of thinking has been heavily reinforced by our recent operations in Iraq. The US Army is to be commended for the amazing transition of both thought and deed in dealing with the situation that it was launched into the middle of in Iraq. But what we are doing there, while absolutely taking place in the middle of an Iraqi Insurgency, is not COIN. COIN is what the Iraqi government is conducting, and it is as much about improving their own governance of the populace as it is about containing any manifestations of those that challenge that governance.
If anything the role of the intervening party is the most complex of all, because it is the intervener who in fact must make what often is treated as an "irrevocable choice" about which aspect of the populace he will support in this complex dance among "The Populace."
Well put and thanks, Colonel
I appreciate where you're coming from and your experience. I will not begin to generalize what a tour in Sub-Sahara is and what a tour in Iraq is. They are like night and day.
Rest assured, I do not carelessly throw around words with my comments; They come from experience.
I regret you failed to see the joke regarding "irrevocable choices" which was more or less pitched to me the very same way.
Regards, Stan
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Originally Posted by
Bob's World
"The Population" "The Insurgent" "The Government" "The Counterinsurgent" all get thrown about fairly regular as if they were not all of the same cloth.
Maybe I missed something but to my mind, this was never and is not
an issue:
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"...But what we are doing there, while absolutely taking place in the middle of an Iraqi Insurgency, is not COIN. COIN is what the Iraqi government is conducting, and it is as much about improving their own governance of the populace as it is about containing any manifestations of those that challenge that governance.
If anything the role of the intervening party is the most complex of all, because it is the intervener who in fact must make what often is treated as an "irrevocable choice" about which aspect of the populace he will support in this complex dance among "The Populace.""
as Bob's World said...
Only thing I'd add to that is that the intervenor's 'irrevocable choice' reverts to CavGuy's assertion with regard to the population:
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That phrase was borrowed from Kilcullen. You are probably right, but you want the population to "get off the fence" and side with you in such a way that it becomes difficult to switch back. Anything can switch back, but we want it to be painful to do so.
The intervenor has made a choice when he enters the fray, it can be irrevocable -- or not... :wry:
As Mike F summarizes:
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1. A person, group, actor that is external or foreign (i.e. AQI, NVA) is a partisan force. This force is attempting to arbitrate in the state's affairs.
2. The state is the one that conducts COIN. As an outside force (i.e. in Iraq) we can assist through FID, SFA, etc...)
3. Our actions in Iraq thus far should be charaterized as an occupation using COIN principles or tactics."
Other than preferring Bob's 'intervene' to Mike's 'arbitrate, I thought -- and think -- most were thinking that and that it is correct. Though I see no problem with saying that we were or are conducting COIN operations (with the implied 'in conjunction with HN forces.').
The importance of nuance...
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Originally Posted by
Ken White
summarizes:Other than preferring Bob's 'intervene' to Mike's 'arbitrate, I thought -- and think -- most were thinking that and that it is correct. Though I see no problem with saying that we were or are conducting COIN operations (with the implied 'in conjunction with HN forces.').
If I were a shrink, I'd probably see this as a "breakthrough moment." :)
My big issue with this, is that small things matter. If you say you are doing COIN, you begin to think you are doing COIN. Soon you forget or minimize the "in support of" or "in conjunction with" HN forces part of it.
Plus, Americans are not the most patient people in the world. No, really, this is true. We also sometimes think we have the corner on good ideas. Again, I kid you not.
So what happens is that American unit that thinks its doing the same mission as the HN unit soon moves from behind, to beside, to out in front because the HN is too (pick your excuse) to do it on our timeline to our standard. Soon the HN takes a knee. If you aren't listening to what he says, and if you are willing to do it yourself, he often is willing to let you. Before you know it that handful of "US Advisors" has ballooned to a major US operation; and we're trying to figure out how it ever got out of hand in the first place, and how we can extricate ourselves with our honor intact.
So, yeah, I really do think that clearly distinguishing and defining what you are doing up front as distinct from what the HN is doing is very very important indeed.
Usually where we avoided this problem and achieved great results it has been some place where political sensitivities drove extremely constrained parameters for any military involvement (El Salvador, Columbia, the Philippines). Where we have not constrained our actions, we have acted unconstrained, and that has often as not gotten messy.
