Selective Use of History in the Development of American COIN Doctrine

I stumbled upon this piece by COL Gentile in the Summer 2009 issue of Army History Magazine (9.65 MB PDF file): The Selective Use of History in the Development of American Counterinsurgency Doctrine (begins on page 21 of 60). In it, Gentile points out that current COIN theory was developed largely in response to one narrow type of conflict, ignoring others, and now is being misapplied wholesale to other inappropriate situations.

In a nutshell: Galula assumes future wars will be countering Maoist revolutionary wars, Galula proposes a sophisticated counter to it, US doctrine writers fall for it, hilarity ensues.

Here is a series of excerpts that summarize the basic idea...

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The French officers of the Revolutionary War School constructed a simplified model to explain these insurgencies based on Mao Tse-tung’s overthrow of the Nationalist Chinese government in 1949... The French officers reduced Maoist revolutionary war into a simplified and rigid template for action that, they believed, other Communist-inspired insurgencies would follow... These officers spent their time constructing a doctrine and methods to counter the simplified type of insurgency they posited instead of gaining a deeper appreciation and more sophisticated explanation of what Maoist revolutionary wars really entailed. The French officers essentially reduced Maoist revolutionary war to a set of uncomplicated steps that would occur during the process of internal revolution or insurgency... The counterrevolutionary approach that these French Army officers produced, in contrast to their simplification of Maoist war, was actually quite sophisticated. They sought to counter Maoist tactics by turning the process leading to Communist revolution on its head... Since the ultimate goal for Maoist revolutionary war was to use the Communists’ domination of the people to overthrow the government, the officers’ goal in fighting it was to de-couple the people from the revolutionary insurgency.
- Excerpted from pages 25 and 26

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So, my questions are...

1. For you historians, or those of you who play historians online, do you agree with the basic argument put forth that current COIN doctrine, based heavily upon Galula et al, is too narrowly built upon assumptions of insurgencies resembling Maoist revolutionary wars? Why?

2. If we assume that our COIN doctrine does, indeed, rest upon assumptions characteristic of a Maoist revolutionary war, does this render it inapplicable - or significantly flawed - for today's operations in Afghanistan? Why or why not?

3. What historical examples, if any, provide us with conflicts that share more parallels with Afghanistan and/or better lessons more applicable to Afghanistan? Why?

You haven't got a master's paper to write and are looking for ideas are you? (VTIC)

3. Ferghana Valley Bolsheviks vs. "Basmachi" and Eastern Bukhara highlands Bolsheviks versus Lokai, Enver Pasha and Basmachi.

Why? Because, aside from being in the neighborhood and involving the use of Islam as a rallying call by the insurgents, the bolsheviks were able to create local allies and win elites to their side despite being militantly anti-religious. The alien divide between locals and bolsheviks was even worse than between Americans and random folks up in the hills in Kunar. However, the Afghan Amir agreed to end the safe haven on his side of the river, so hard to compare with Pakistan these days.

Also, Tajikistan from 1992-1997. The opposition eventually signed a joke of a "power-sharing" agreement from a position of weakness. But that involved Sri Lanka style movement of supporting civilians and mass killing etc.. Also, they lost the safe haven in Afghanistan after Massoud allied with the Russians. So no usable lessons. Jesse Driscoll has a forthcoming book on the subject, so there will finally be something useful on the topic in English.

Unfortunately, the literature on Russian/Soviet COIN in Central Asia is terrible.

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Originally Posted by Christian

3. Ferghana Valley Bolsheviks vs. "Basmachi" and Eastern Bukhara highlands Bolsheviks versus Lokai, Enver Pasha and Basmachi.

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I admit to knowing nothing about this. Can you recommend a source (preferably a paper, rather than a book) to shed any light on it?

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Originally Posted by Christian

Also, Tajikistan from 1992-1997... Jesse Driscoll has a forthcoming book on the subject, so there will finally be something useful on the topic in English.

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I googled to see if it's on pre-order at amazon, bn, etc - nothing listed. Do you know the name of it? Also, I saw that he did a paper on militias and civil wars, but I don't see it available online - perhaps there's a future tweet.

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Originally Posted by GI Zhou

You haven't got a master's paper to write and are looking for ideas are you? (VTIC)

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No. But if I did. Hopefully someone with an interest and a need stumbles upon this thread.

VTIC?

I haven't read Galula so I can't say whether his writings are exclusively an answer to Maoist revolutionary doctrine. However, history has lots of examples of unconventional warfare that had nothing to do with Mao. Three instances of UW in which the unconventional forces operated in support of larger conventional efforts were the Confederate John S. Mosby's battalion in Virginia during the American Civil War, the SAS and OSS Jedburgh operations in 1944 in France in support of the Normandy landings, and U.S. Army Special Forces as they were originally conceived when founded in the 1950s, stay-behinds in Germany who would promote insurgencies behind Soviet lines in the event WW III broke out. In the 1980s SF adopted the crossed arrows insignia of the old Indian Scouts, poachers turned gamekeepers who if I'm not mistaken were founded by the Army officer George Crook in the 19th century.

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Originally Posted by Pete

I haven't read Galula so I can't say whether his writings are exclusively an answer to Maoist revolutionary doctrine. However, history has lots of examples of unconventional warfare that had nothing to do with Mao. Three instances of UW in which the unconventional forces operated in support of larger conventional efforts were the Confederate John S. Mosby's battalion in Virginia during the American Civil War, the SAS and OSS Jedburgh operations in 1944 in France in support of the Normandy landings, and U.S. Army Special Forces as they were originally conceived when founded in the 1950s, stay-behinds in Germany who would promote insurgencies behind Soviet lines in the event WW III broke out. In the 1980s SF adopted the crossed arrows insignia of the old Indian Scouts, poachers turned gamekeepers who if I'm not mistaken were founded by the Army officer George Crook in the 19th century.

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Crook was not the first officer to use Indian scouts, although his PR machine would have people believe that. Scouts (both native and Frontiersmen) formed the backbone of the Frontier Army's reconnaissance efforts, and had been so since the 1830s (if not sooner).

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Originally Posted by Steve Blair

Crook was not the first officer to use Indian scouts, although his PR machine would have people believe that. Scouts (both native and Frontiersmen) formed the backbone of the Frontier Army's reconnaissance efforts, and had been so since the 1830s (if not sooner).

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Another good example comes from the annihilation of General Hull's forces in 1812 by Brock and his allies. That campaign (less than 40 days from Hull's invasion until we captured Detroit) does have some very interesting applications top Afghanistan including how not to use propaganda and why General's should never believe their own propaganda.

colonial wars. During the Revolution, Oneida and Creek Scouts were particularly effective. Wayne used Miami scouts in the move to the Battle of Fallen Timbers. Indian Scouts were always used by the Army but until 1866, they were volunteers or local employees of the units involved. That year Congress authorized '...a force not to exceed 1,000 of Indians to act as Scouts...'

A number of them got Medals of Honor. IIRC, Crooks use of Apache Scouts had some problems...

To return to the thread, I am no historian but I believe the answers to the questions are:

1. Yes, it is too narrowly focused. Maoist theory worked for the China that existed in the first half of the 20th Century, it was and is not universally applicable. It later worked to an extent in Viet Nam but only because Giap adapted. Many espouse Galula's theories because it is easier for most to wrap around a 'theory' the predicts human behavior than it is to acknowledge that such behavior is so infinitely variable that there is and can be no unifying theory. One must be infinitely adaptable and most people don't want to do that, it makes them uncomfortable...

2. No, it does not render it inapplicable though it can and does induce flaws in application. Why? Simply because Afghanistan is not China, the Afghans are not Chinese, there have been major changes in communication and other aspects of life and attempts to win over a population that will resist you simply because of who you are and which has long survived by brigandage and deception is quite different than confronting the China of 1930. Or the Viet Nam of 1950-75, much less Algeria in the 1960s -- which was not a Maoist insurgency in most aspects. Simply put, in Afghanistan the sea where the fish swim can be made toxic to fish but one is not going to win a single heart or mind. EVERY war is different, attempts to apply a template or pattern will generally be ineffective and can induce further errors and unintended consequences (however, that pattern factor does resonate with those reluctant to stray outside their comfort zones -- at a rough guess, about 80% of all populations including Colonels and Generals...).

3. The Apache campaigns come close, among other things, the inter band feuds replicate the ethnic divisions in Afghanistan. Angola might bear a look. The Philippines...

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Originally Posted by Ken White

3. The Apache campaigns come close, among other things, the inter band feuds replicate the ethnic divisions in Afghanistan. Angola might bear a look. The Philippines...

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They also have a number of non-state and outside actors who had a major impact on the course of operations (to include sanctuary areas). The Philippines come close, but there was at least an inkling of nationalism in many areas that transcended tribal identities (which is something you didn't see with the Apache). Arizona between 1850ish and 1870 is actually a better fit, because you had the Pai peoples and Navajo running around as well (by the time Crook came on the scene the picture had been simplified to a degree). But now I'm wandering into my specialty and should hush...:o

A few points relative to this...

First, in the midst of all this enthusiasm for insurgency study, COIN, etc, it might be worth recalling that our core antagonist in the fight of the day, AQ, is not an insurgency at all.

Second, we need to note a fundamental difference between the COIN situations we're in now and those of the Cold War. During the Cold War we intervened to assist "allies" (often rather dubious in nature) that were threatened by insurgency. Insurgencies arose against existing Governments, and we responded. In today's cases, we initiated the situations through our own decisions to occupy territory and install governments. We did not intervene to support allies, we intervened to remove governments we didn't like, and subsequently created our own "allies". In one case, Iraq, this effort was completely peripheral to the core conflict with AQ.

The point of all this is simply that today's COIN efforts were not thrust upon us, they were consequences of our own choices. I don't think it's necessarily true that COIN must dominate our immediate military future, or that dealing with AQ requires us to manage insurgencies. We have the ability to control the amount of COINage in our lives by making different decisions.

I think the French theorists missed the point when they characterized the insurgencies they faced as "Maoist", and if we accept that characterization we miss an important lesson. Our great mistake in managing the Cold War in the developing world lay in allowing our opponents to seize the moral high ground of opposition to decaying empires and oafish post-colonial dictators, while we took the role of trying to rescue sinking ships, many of which were simply unsalvageable. The Communists didn't create the insurgencies, they simply exploited and harnessed a perfectly natural desire to remove foreign conquerors and incompetent dictators, something we could and should have done ourselves, instead of swimming against an overpowering historical tide.

The lesson we need to learn from that doesn't revolve around population-centric tactics, it revolves around choosing interventions wisely and avoiding situations that will harness us to governments that cannot stand, but which we cannot allow to fall.

I could go on at length, but to sum up...

Are there lessons to be learned from Cold War COIN that are relevant today? Yes.

Are all lessons deduced from Cold War COIN relevant today? No.

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Originally Posted by Dayuhan

First, in the midst of all this enthusiasm for insurgency study, COIN, etc, it might be worth recalling that our core antagonist in the fight of the day, AQ, is not an insurgency at all.

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But our policy makers have chosen to prop up a new government and defend it against the Taliban. Not saying that was wise, but just observing that's the reality. That is what we need to deal with.

I agree with most of what you wrote, as I'm sure most who have no imbibed the COIN bong water will also agree. But it seems that the solution you offer up is to put wise men into office and to conduct actual strategic planning. I suspect the odds of that happening are far less than the odds of us destroying the Taliban.

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Originally Posted by Schmedlap

But our policy makers have chosen to prop up a new government and defend it against the Taliban. Not saying that was wise, but just observing that's the reality. That is what we need to deal with.

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Very true, and certainly the management of that situation is part of our present and our immediate future. Just pointing out that this was our choice, it wasn't inevitable, and that we may be able to avoid such situations in the future by making different choices.

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Originally Posted by Schmedlap

I agree with most of what you wrote, as I'm sure most who have no imbibed the COIN bong water will also agree. But it seems that the solution you offer up is to put wise men into office and to conduct actual strategic planning. I suspect the odds of that happening are far less than the odds of us destroying the Taliban.

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Also very true, and I've no good ideas on how to weasel out of that one. One way might be to drink the bong water and merge with the Borg. Another might be to run off to self-imposed exile on a remote mountaintop and rant on the internet... but I already did that :D

It always appears to me that the only people abusing history are those with something to sell. MW and EBO both used very bad history to try and sell their wears. I see the COIN agenda as no different.

If you read military/strategic history in both depth and breadth, you really see nothing new, in terms of basic form. Wars and rebellions flow from the politics of their time. Until someone stands up and admits that the Army should ALWAYS have been skilled at irregular war, and nothing has changed, we will make little progress.
The end of the Cold War should have been a far more seismic shock to the World's Armies that 911.

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Originally Posted by William F. Owen

If you read military/strategic history in both depth and breadth, you really see nothing new, in terms of basic form. Wars and rebellions flow from the politics of their time.

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I'm definitely in agreement with you there, but I wonder what chance this argument has of talking the cult members out of the cult, or at least pumping the kool-aid out of their stomachs.

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Originally Posted by William F. Owen

Until someone stands up and admits that the Army should ALWAYS have been skilled at irregular war, and nothing has changed, we will make little progress.

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I don't see that happening until the flaws of pop-COIN in Afghanistan can be thoroughly discredited to a degree that most people with an interest in the topic can comprehend. Sadly, I don't think we're there yet.

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Originally Posted by Schmedlap

I'm definitely in agreement with you there, but I wonder what chance this argument has of talking the cult members out of the cult, or at least pumping the kool-aid out of their stomachs.

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None. - which is why I try and avoid cult members - and agenda monkeys!! :)

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I don't see that happening until the flaws of pop-COIN in Afghanistan can be thoroughly discredited to a degree that most people with an interest in the topic can comprehend. Sadly, I don't think we're there yet.

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Agree, but I don't think they ever will be. There is a huge emotional need to believe in the solution, as all things good will be part of the solution in the eyes of those adhering to POP-Coin.

Gentile himself uses history selectively to beat the too-much-COIN drum. One common theme rooted in history that influenced the French in their wars to preserve their fading empire and the US in Iraq by the early 2000s was defeat or near defeat: both were losing. Establishing context - like a zeal for practical solutions fired by losing - is a critical historical task and seems rarely to make into history-using TTPs.

Much of the American work on COIN until recently was actually explain-the-defeat history of second wave Vietnam War historiography. Much of that history concluded the US Army got the war wrong because it didn't "do" COIN right. The French school, if you will, was one place to start. But what of that American school represented by Andrew Krepinevich's The Army in Vietnam? Fast forward to the most recent works of Andrade, Birtle, and Moyar that argue that maybe the previous conclusions about the army in Vietnam were wrong.

One reason the army's COIN-manual writing team had to work fast (and accuracy often suffers when speed has become necessary) was the intellectual voids left by the army in terms of doctrine and honest historical inquiry into small wars in the shadow of the perceived failures in Vietnam. Those voids speak to larger issues of both intellectual intensity and PME as well as the long-discussed role of military history in PME.

People use phrases like "that's Maoist insurgency" the same way they use phrases like "that's a good tactical approach, but is not strategic." Both are typically phrases meaning nothing intended solely to undermine the position of their opponent.

Insurgency is insurgency; many tactics can be applied, but the root causes are pretty damn constant. Address the root causes and the counterinsurgent will prevail, ignore the root causes and the counterinsurgent will either fall into a cycle of re-occurring insurgency or will lose.

Did the majority of the COIN crowd draw the wrong conclusions from Galula's work? Probably. Population-Centric COIN is too focused on sad attempts to buy the populaces support while keeping the offending government in power; rather than on addressing the problems of governance and supporting the populaces right and duty to stand up to despotism.

COL Gentile makes some valid points that should be listened to. We need a US military that is fully prepared to deter major state-based threats and to deal with warfare. Insurgency really isn't warfare at all, and as such, COIN should be a supporting mission for the military that falls in the category with the rest of MSCA.

When we do, however, get drawn into the insurgencies of others, we will indeed need some unique capabilities, authorities and funding to engage. We also need a new COIN manual that is based on a clearer understanding of Insurgency than the current one.

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Originally Posted by iveschris

One reason the army's COIN-manual writing team had to work fast (and accuracy often suffers when speed has become necessary) was the intellectual voids left by the army in terms of doctrine and honest historical inquiry into small wars in the shadow of the perceived failures in Vietnam. Those voids speak to larger issues of both intellectual intensity and PME as well as the long-discussed role of military history in PME.

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Well there is considerable debate as to why they even had to write a COIN Manual. Why was it needed? Did it actually make any difference? The British Army never produced a COIN manual. They had theatre doctrine. It worked and worked well. Only now, are they sadly writing COIN-doctrine and it's a mess.
I submit that there was no intellectual void when it comes to "COIN". There was considerable ignorance, but no void.
Most folks just never bothered to read the material or to cherry pick the material they did, based on fashion. Personally I can see nothing written about COIN in the last 10 years is either insightful or new.

An American military historian now working in Australia wrote of the British Army in WWI that they had an ethos rather than a doctrine: embedded behaviors from the collective memory of the regiments. No, the British Army didn't have a COIN doctrine going into their participation in the Iraq War even after decades of hands-on "war among the people" or COIN in N' Ireland. I suspect it is different to find a serving officer or long-service NCO who has not served multiple rotations in N' Ireland (like the US Army and Marines now with multiple tours in a GWOT theater). This embedded, tacit knowledge is perhaps more valuable than all the doctrine written. Such knowledge didn't keep them from their issues in Southern Iraq I suspect. The internal BA study on their historical experiences and learning about COIN did not paint a pretty picture.

One reason the joint US COIN manual had little new in it was that the old knowledge was largely unknown. Even in army special forces in the '80s and '90s I found there was very little in the way of historical discussion possible about anything other than Vietnam or El Salvador because there was almost no venue for professional, serious study. It is interesting that McMasters and Petreaus both did Vietnam War dissertations outside of the military during their advanced civil schooling. The only officer, at the risk of injecting an anecdote, I recall a historical conversation with about small wars with was the now-USASOC commander when he was a battalion XO. We discussed SF and the Montagnards in VN.

The TRADOC history of the period immediately following the Vietnam War makes pretty clear - as does Conrad Crane's monograph for SSI - that the army seized upon the 1973 war in the Middle East with its high intensity and combined arms requirements with notable zeal. This institutional decision - rather than studying the recent, long return from Vietnam - resembles very much the British Army's decision to return to real soldiering on the frontiers of the Empire in the 1930s rather then study WWI for knowledge.

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Originally Posted by iveschris

An American military historian now working in Australia wrote of the British Army in WWI that they had an ethos rather than a doctrine: embedded behaviors from the collective memory of the regiments.

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Well for WW1 they had a published Doctrine Manual in 1909. "The Field Service Regulations." I have a copy, and it's pretty good. Yes, it is strongly imbued with "opinion." - The section on Cavalry is very telling.

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No, the British Army didn't have a COIN doctrine going into their participation in the Iraq War even after decades of hands-on "war among the people" or COIN in N' Ireland. I suspect it is different to find a serving officer or long-service NCO who has not served multiple rotations in N' Ireland

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The UK did have COIN doctrine. It just didn't reside in one manual. The CATOM was published in 12 different Editions, and specific to Malaya. There was published doctrine for each theatre.
Actually by 2003 in Iraq, very few men had real pre-cease fire NI experience, but everyone understood that doing COIN was what all armies did and it was not an option to ignore it.

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The internal BA study on their historical experiences and learning about COIN did not paint a pretty picture.

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Concur, but more importantly the problem would not have been solved by having a "COIN Doctrine."

Perhaps we've come down to whither doctrine.

Were the historical doctrine examples we've noted, beginning with Gentile's, trailing indicators or leading indicators of battlefield chalenges the respective armies faced?

How does doctrine influence on balance how the force faces its war? Imperial policing and the Boer War had a decisive influence on the British doctrine before WWI. To what extent did that doctrine influence the British response to what the army found in Flanders? By the end of 1915 much of the Old Army was dead.

Countering insurgents for the Army and Marines in Vietnam was countering guerrillas until after 1970. Did the consistent emphasis on find/fix/fight/finish doctrinal solutions address the tactical problems of the ARVN/US Army-Marine Corps? Both guerrillas and beginning in 1965 PAVN units offered lots of fighting but the tactical solution set based on the doctrine couldn't drive operational or strategic actions to defeat the enemy. Experimentation did finally address the "other war" with no small amount of borrowed military manpower.

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Originally Posted by William F. Owen

MW and EBO both used very bad history to try and sell their wears.

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Wares, Wilf, wares.

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Why can't the English teach their children how to speak?
This verbal class distinction by now should be antique.
If you spoke as she does, sir, instead of the way you do,
Why, you might be selling flowers, too.

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Originally Posted by Pete

Wares, Wilf, wares.

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ThanX mate! My dyslexia and spell checker never cease to amaze me. - but you understood what I meant?

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Originally Posted by iveschris

... the British Army's decision to return to real soldiering on the frontiers of the Empire in the 1930s rather then study WWI for knowledge.

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Wait a minute, I was under the impression that the field sports of British cavalry regiments during the interwar years encouraged bold maneuver and decisive action. Maybe the U.S. Army Armor Center and School should be moved to Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, where there are lots of wild boars.

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Originally Posted by Pete

Wait a minute, I was under the impression that the field sports of British cavalry regiments during the interwar years encouraged bold maneuver and decisive action.

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Do not even get me started. "Cavalry Traditions" are reason why Britain has only ever produced 2 good tanks in 90 years.

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Originally Posted by William F. Owen

Do not even get me started. "Cavalry Traditions" are reason why Britain has only ever produced 2 good tanks in 90 years.

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Perhaps three, if you include the Firefly variant of the Sherman. What were the other two?

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Originally Posted by Rex Brynen

Perhaps three, if you include the Firefly variant of the Sherman. What were the other two?

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OK, fair one. It was the best of the WW2 Shermans. (for some reason the US has never produced good tanks guns) The other two would be Centurion and Challenger-2.

I could have a real "Airfix versions of history" debate some of the others, but I do not wish to be that geek today!!

Interesting. As Bob's World alludes to, Afghanistan (and COIN theory in general) seem to suffer from a "Strategy of Tactics"; no amount of securing the population is going to win the war. We seem to take historical examples of tactical successes like Tel Afar to hold them aloft as avatars of how to prosecute campaigns and design strategy. Maneuver Warfare suffered heavily from this - some good leadership principles were bundled up into an entire flimsy doctrinal concept.

As an aside on uses of military history - which may or may not be relevant - I had a fellow soldier expounding COIN doctrine and pointing out how Vietnam was a failure and COIN is the response to this failure. Being contrary, I asked where failure was with a US Military which won most tactical engagements, destroyed the VC as a guerrilla force, stemmed the NVA tide and left South Vietnam in one piece; a South Vietnamese state that would fall to a conventional invasion as opposed to a insurgent army of sandal wearing guerrillas. He didn't have much to say (although there probably is alot) - the profession seems to have an unfortuate trend of accepting things at face value without a critical eye.

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Originally Posted by Schmedlap

3. What historical examples, if any, provide us with conflicts that share more parallels with Afghanistan and/or better lessons more applicable to Afghanistan? Why?

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Well, at risk of being provocative and putting forth a suggestion that hasn't a snowball's chance of being implemented... perhaps the rule of Abdur Rahman? Massive forced resettlements. Hey, didn't that work in Malaysia, too?

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Originally Posted by William F. Owen

Do not even get me started. "Cavalry Traditions" are reason why Britain has only ever produced 2 good tanks in 90 years.

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The British cavalry has mostly gotten a bad rap for its 20th century performance. As an admirer of Allenby I'm sure you'd see that in WWI. Bad designers and some of the "RTC avant garde" had a lot more to do with poor British tanks than the cavalry.

Stephen Badsey has pointed out that the "cavalry spirit" shared many features with the much more celebrated auftragstaktik.

http://www.amazon.com/Doctrine-Refor...988342&sr=8-10
(Very expensive but worth it if the subject is of real interest).

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Originally Posted by Schmedlap

Massive forced resettlements.

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That's an idea. We could call it the Strategic Hamlet Program.

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Well, at risk of being provocative and putting forth a suggestion that hasn't a snowball's chance of being implemented... perhaps the rule of Abdur Rahman? Massive forced resettlements. Hey, didn't that work in Malaysia, too?

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Abdur Rahman didn't really face a non-tribalized insurgency. Breaking up tribal power structures worked for him in specific regional contexts because what Pashtun opposition there was to his rule often was sparked within specific tribal grievances, i.e. resistance to new forms of conscription. I doubt this would work against the Taliban. Also, again, not a snowball's chance in hell of actually being implemented, for good reason.

Also, no Hazarajat to use as outside-enemy/conquest/looting opportunity to unify the Pashtuns. I don't think the Hazaras are willing to play this role again.

Unless you wanted to redefine Afghanistan as a country of Tajiks, Farsiwan, Uzbeks, and Hazaras, and put the Pashtuns on the bottom? Many Pashtun seem to think this is happening anyway, so why not confirm their conspiracy theory, substituting the south and east for Hazarajat, and indulge in mass killing, enslavement, and expulsion of the Pashtun population at the hands of a newly-unified coalition of Tajik/Hazara/Uzbek warlords? Very Victorian-era of us, I would think!

Oh, right, we're supposed to be the good guys. Also the Soviets tried a version of this already and it didn't work that great for them. The existence of Pakistan also makes this scenario utterly impractical as well.

I guess I should clarify that I threw this out there as devil's advocate in hopes of drawing out some less traditional ideas (not so much courses of action - but just ideas, factoids, etc).

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Originally Posted by tequila

Abdur Rahman didn't really face a non-tribalized insurgency.

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Some would argue that this is not a non-tribalized insurgency. And some, such as Tom Johnson and Chris Mason argue (below), argue that the Taliban is a Pashtun phenomenon.

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Originally Posted by Johnson and Mason

The Taliban and the other Islamic extremist insurgent elements operating on both sides of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border are almost exclusively Pashtuns, with a sprinkling of radicals from nonborder ethnicities. The implications of this salient fact—that most of Pakistan’s and Afghanistan’s violent religious extremism, and with it much of the United States’ counterterrorism challenge, are centered within a single ethnolinguistic group—have not been fully grasped by a governmental policy community that has long downplayed cultural dynamics.
- from Thomas H. Johnson and M. Chris Mason, "No Sign until the Burst of Fire: Understanding the Pakistan-Afghanistan Frontier," International Security, Vol. 32, No. 4 (Spring 2008) p. 42

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Rahman perceived his problems to be along tribal and ethnic lines. The following passages are from Thomas J. Barfield, " Problems in Establishing Legitimacy in Afghanistan," Iranian Studies, Vol. 37, No. 2, June 2004.

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Originally Posted by Barfield

… Abdur Rahman looked upon the tribal rebellions that had led to the British withdrawal as a greater danger to him than they were to the British. Had the rebellious Tajiks or Ghilzais that attacked Kabul had leaders with more vision, or more ambition, they could have seized power … Rahman made sure they would not have the chance to change their minds.
- p. 278

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Rahman set out to ensure that large swaths of the country that were more or less autonomous were put under central control. Specifically, he was concerned that many areas had the ability to raise armed forces that could challenge the state that he was creating. That seems to be a similar problem today among the Pashtun areas where the Taliban has its sanctuaries. Rahman saw those areas as a risk to the government because of the political coalitions that could form along kinship lines (or, in today's case, perhaps allegiances to warlords that roughly coincide with ethnicity/tribe).

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Originally Posted by Barfield

Abdur Rahman destroyed this autonomy by sub-dividing provinces into smaller units and by appointing new governors who were personally loyal to him rather than immediate relatives... Large numbers of defeated Ghilzais were uprooted and exiled to northern Afghanistan.
- p. 278-9.

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You point out...

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Originally Posted by tequila

Breaking up tribal power structures worked for him in specific regional contexts because what Pashtun opposition there was to his rule often was sparked within specific tribal grievances, i.e. resistance to new forms of conscription.

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I don't think that is the only plausible explanation. Again, quoting Barfield...

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Originally Posted by Barfield

From 1881 until 1888 Abdur Rahman directed most of his campaigns against the Pashtuns, particularly the Ghilzai. Yet for the next 90 years, the Pashtuns as a whole would see themselves, and be seen by others, as the privileged ethnic group in the country. For if the Pashtuns were the prime victims of Abdur Rahman’s early wars they were the beneficiaries of his later ones. For example, his suppression of the Ghilzai revolt coincided with his recovery of Afghan Turkestan in 1888. This allowed the amir to punish large numbers of rebellious Pashtuns from the south by exiling them to Turkestan, a territory then inhabited primarily by Uzbeks and Tajiks. The deported Pashtuns were given rich agricultural lands and access to pastures for sheep-raising in a territory that had been depopulated by wars.
- p. 279

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This seemed to pay off in the long run. After Amanullah was overthrown…

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Originally Posted by Barfield

Nadir Khan… raised an army of eastern Pashtuns from both sides of the Durand Line to support him in part by portraying the Tajik ruler of Afghanistan as a usurper who had no right to rule over Pashtuns. That the Ghilzais would rally around the idea of preserving Pashtun privilege by restoring another Muhammadzai leader to power, rather than attempting to seize power themselves, shows how effective Abdur Rahman had been in his policies of co-optation.
- p. 280

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Again, playing devil’s advocate, in hopes that someone will see something in here to bite onto at a micro or macro level and spur a discussion to hopefully flesh out something useful.

Lastly, if this clarification helps at all, while I am playing devil's advocate, there are some suggestions that I think are sufficiently absurd and can be assumed to not be part of any argument that I am making. In particular, this one...

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Originally Posted by tequila

.... so why not confirm their conspiracy theory, substituting the south and east for Hazarajat, and indulge in mass killing, enslavement, and expulsion of the Pashtun population at the hands of a newly-unified coalition of Tajik/Hazara/Uzbek warlords? Very Victorian-era of us, I would think!

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I'm playing devil's advocate, not Hitler's advocate.

Well, a couple of thoughts on this:

First, insurgent violence highly correlates with areas with a significant Pashtun population.

Secondly, one effect of the Soviet invasion, occupation, withdrawal and subsequent civil war was a break-down in tribally loyalty structures. A generation of boys grew up divorced from the traditional tribal governance structures which weakened those structures. Not too surprising considering that 1/3 of the population became external refugees, another several million internal refugees and over a million were killed outright.

I haven't heard much talk about it lately, but one strategy we've been using in some areas of Afghanistan for the past several years is to attempt to rebuild broken tribal structures in order to displace other structures that developed during the period of the Soviet occupation and civil war.

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Originally Posted by Entropy

... one effect of the Soviet invasion, occupation, withdrawal and subsequent civil war was a break-down in tribally loyalty structures.

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That's where I was going with my parenthetical...

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Rahman saw those areas as a risk to the government because of the political coalitions that could form along kinship lines (or, in today's case, perhaps allegiances to warlords that roughly coincide with ethnicity/tribe).

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Originally Posted by Granite_State

The British cavalry has mostly gotten a bad rap for its 20th century performance. As an admirer of Allenby I'm sure you'd see that in WWI.

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Correct. I'm very much admire Allenby, but he was good because he was good. Nothing to do with Cavalry

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Bad designers and some of the "RTC avant garde" had a lot more to do with poor British tanks than the cavalry.

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Almost. I'm doing my Masters on this very subject. No firm conclusions yet but the "mechanising of the cavalry" is an issue. They see tanks as armoured horses. That may have had negative flow down effects.

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http://www.amazon.com/Doctrine-Refor...988342&sr=8-10
(Very expensive but worth it if the subject is of real interest).

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Thanks!

Schmedlap,

Actually I agree with Barfield in most aspects. I think that that Abdul Rahman fought tribalized insurgencies, mostly because he was focused on unifying/controlling the Pashtuns for the first part of his reign. This required breaking Pashtun tribal leadership and forcing large numbers of tribesmen into the army. He then focused on conquering non-Pashtun parts of Afghanistan, focusing on the north and especially Hazarajat, which had the side benefit of increasing his control of the Pashtuns by granting them lands, property, and slaves at the dispensation of the central government.

However, this isn't the situation facing the current GiRoA. The Taliban may be a mostly ethnic Pashtun phenomenon, but they are not a tribal phenomenon - quite the opposite I'd argue. Indeed as Entropy pointed out, the Soviet occupation and the civil war broke tribal power structures far more thoroughly than even Abdur Rahman could, except in parts of the east.

Abdur Rahman faced the problem of unifying the country, which he did first by breaking rivals in his own Pashtun ethnic group, focusing their loyalty instead on himself and his government. Then he used them to brutally conquer and impose his will on the Hazarajat and the north, consolidating his rule by handing out the benefits of conquest. It's a time-tested method of building a kingdom. He did not, however, face problems from Pakistan (controlled by his erstwhile backers and allies, the British) or outside his own borders as the GiRoA do now, nor the problems of legitimacy.

Basically, Abdur Rahman had a different problem set than GiROA does at the moment. GiRoA faces, I think, a major legitimacy issue throughout the Pashtun south and east. It is viewed as a foreign puppet regime made up of the Pashtuns' traditional adversaries (i.e. the targets of Abdur Rahman's conquests), without the compensation of either strength in the ability to protect or punish, nor the wealth to hand out patronage and benefits. We cannot alter the former perception, being part of the problem ourselves, but anything that increases the latter should be done.

That's good analysis Tequila.

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Originally Posted by Entropy

That's good analysis Tequila.

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Agreed. Good concise compare/contrast. Gold star.

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Originally Posted by Pete

I haven't read Galula so I can't say whether his writings are exclusively an answer to Maoist revolutionary doctrine. However, history has lots of examples of unconventional warfare that had nothing to do with Mao. Three instances of UW in which the unconventional forces operated in support of larger conventional efforts were the Confederate John S. Mosby's battalion in Virginia during the American Civil War, the SAS and OSS Jedburgh operations in 1944 in France in support of the Normandy landings, and U.S. Army Special Forces as they were originally conceived when founded in the 1950s, stay-behinds in Germany who would promote insurgencies behind Soviet lines in the event WW III broke out. In the 1980s SF adopted the crossed arrows insignia of the old Indian Scouts, poachers turned gamekeepers who if I'm not mistaken were founded by the Army officer George Crook in the 19th century.

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The Revolutionary War is almost a carbon copy of the old 7 steps from hell Special Forces model.

George Washington was the guerrilla force leader and he hired General Von Steuben to advise and train, not fight the US guerrillas. (The First Green Beret!) Because of the heroism and legitimacy of many US guerrilla members, they emerged as leaders for the demobilization step. The demobilization step is where we (US) seem to fail alot. We are good at starting and fighting, not so good at ending.

America often gets into trouble following other peoples models, we should look at our own first.

one might want to explore these two rebellions after it and before 1800, Shays' Rebellion and the Whiskey Rebellion - and the Alien & Sedition Acts of the same period are also interesting.

Shays' Rebellion brought out the statement by Joneserson (oops - meant Jefferson):

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.... a little rebellion now and then is a good thing. The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.

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and another from Wilfington (oops - meant Washington):

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You talk, my good sir, of employing influence to appease the present tumults in Massachusetts. I know not where that influence is to be found, or, if attainable, that it would be a proper remedy for the disorders. Influence is not government. Let us have a government by which our lives, liberties, and properties will be secured, or let us know the worst at once.

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And so it went - back then ;) :)

Regards

Mike

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Originally Posted by slapout9

America often gets into trouble following other peoples models, we should look at our own first.

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Abb-so-lootlee!!!

I'd even say that following the Von Steuben model instead of the Cherokee, Hodenosaunee or Anishinabe models, militarily, was the first big, bad step in following the models of others...

I love to read frontier history but I think we should remember that many of the small wars against the Native Americans were described in their day as "Punitive Expeditions." Some amounted to scorched earth campaigns.

In the southeast corn crops were destroyed, orchards were cut down, and villages were torched. For western tribes the buffalo provided a mobile commissary and even a theology (center of gravity, so to speak?) so it was hunted to the brink of extinction with the Army's encouragement. Then tribes were resettled by force. Are we going to do something like that to the Pashtun? Doubt it.

I'm sure there are valuable things to be learned from studying the Indian Wars but I guess my point is that there are also limits. Some things that "worked" then simply won't be allowed today for humanitarian and environmental reasons.

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Originally Posted by Rifleman

I'm sure there are valuable things to be learned from studying the Indian Wars but I guess my point is that there are also limits. Some things that "worked" then simply won't be allowed today for humanitarian and environmental reasons.

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Leading of from Rifleman's mention of 'frontier history' and it's lack of relevance:

A very left-or-arc question, but does the American audience even know what I am talking about if I mention the Maori wars? They were concurrent with the American civil war, and are a great example of a series of 'small war' campaigns against a militarily capable indigenous population. It would be easy to describe it as 'counter-insurgency' if you are so inclined.

As an aside it always perplexed me in that, in New Zealand schooling, we would undertake a compulsory module on Native American Indians when we were 14 years old (approx). I never studied the era too much at the time, and since my main exposure to the colonisation of the States has been through the memoirs of Sir Harry Flashman.

Even in my limited exposure to the two wars I think a lot more of relevance can be gained from the Maori wars, if anyone is interested. To provide a simple narrative summary, the Maori's dominated the tactical engagements but were strategically impotent against the combined economic/political/military advance of the British empire. The political treaty that resulted in many ways reflected the cost involved in inflicting any decisive defeat upon the opposing tribes and made many concessions to the Maori - equal citizenship under the empire being one example.

Lots of bad history has arisen from the Maori Wars literature, including some ludicrous claims that the Maori "invented" trench warfare and the British empire could have avoided the Somme had they paid attention to the Maori and that the Maori wars saw statistically greater concentrations of artillery fire than WW1 did (both claims are absolute rubbish) however the study of the British Empire vs the Maori tribes may be of relevance and interest to today's environment, perhaps more so than the Indian Wars.

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Originally Posted by Chris jM

Even in my limited exposure to the two wars I think a lot more of relevance can be gained from the Maori wars, if anyone is interested. To provide a simple narrative summary, the Maori's dominated the tactical engagements but were strategically impotent against the combined economic/political/military advance of the British empire. The political treaty that resulted in many ways reflected the cost involved in inflicting any decisive defeat upon the opposing tribes and made many concessions to the Maori - equal citizenship under the empire being one example.

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Interesting here is that (I only learnt recently) the British and New Zealanders (read Maori) signed the “Declaration of the Independence of New Zealand” in 1835. The British had little intention of ruling New Zealand and were mainly interested in trade. This in contrast to their more common lust for colonising.

By 1840 the Brits had changed their minds and the treaty of Waitangi sort of pushed the declaration of independence out of existence.