Line up your insurgencies...
Quote:
Originally Posted by
jmm99
As to this:
Could you define and distinguish for me each of the terms "Motivation" and "Causation" in a factual historical context ?
Regards
Mike
American Colonies Vs Britain:
Causation:
Colonists widely perceieved as second class citizens by those living in Britain, and treated as such across the board: Disrespect
Governors selected by the Crown and imposed upon the Colonists; An island attempting to rule a continent; etc: illegitimacy
taxation without representation, sending the Army and Navy to Boston to inforce the rule of law: Injustice
Disbanding of colonial governments, ignoring or refusal to hear Colonial grievances, etc: Perception that no legitimate means existed to address all of the above.
Motivation:
Concepts of Liberty; Events like Concord, Breeds Hill, the Boston Masacre; The writen and spoken words of men like Thomas Paine, Sam Adams, Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin.
Vietnam:
Causation:
French colonization; American reinstatement of French colonization; Western divsion of the country into two; American support for the Government established over the southern half: Illigitimacy, Disrespect, Injustice; no legitimate recourse to address.
Motivation:
The example of China in freeing itself from western colonialism through communism and insurgency; The leadership of Ho Chi Minh, Giap, etc;
Pick an insurgency, any insurgency. This isn't a card trick. The model fits virtually all the time. Depending on one's perspective though it is often hard to see due to a variety of reasons.
As Paul Harvey used to say, "The rest of the story..."
You live in a simplistic world, Robert...
In the American Colonies versus Britain, you left out the bit about the costs of the French and Indian war from which the Colonies greatly benefited and for which they promised to help pay -- then reneged on raising taxes. Add to that a series of provocations by groups of people who were NOT in accord with mainstream Colonial thinking and half dozen or more other things (not least French activities before during and after...) and that conflict wasn't nearly as simple as you infer. You tend to cherry pick your history and ignore things that are inconvenient
Same is true of Viet Nam. That was far more complex than your statements imply -- as was the Chinese example. For example, you ignore the impact of the death of FDR on the acceptance of the French as de-facto rulers of Indo China and you ignore the fact that American support for the southern half was very low key until the Brothers Kennedy decided to use Viet Nam to stimulate the US economy. There were a a lot of wrongs in Viet Nam but not all were US or western wrongs. Not by a long shot.
Bob's World is nice and simple.
The real world is filled with a lot of gray and half tones -- most of which are ignored only at some peril. The good news is that you're smart enough to realize that with statements like this:
Quote:
...Depending on one's perspective though it is often hard to see due to a variety of reasons...
...But, it is very comforting for politicians to be able to blame their shortcomings on others...
You acknowledge the existence of human fallibility but your prescriptions and descriptions usually fail to account for it.
That sort of ambiguates your message... ;)
Motivation vs Causation; Theory and Practice
I think these posts (along with this post and any that follow on the same topic):
this is classic "motivation"
Motivation vs Causation
Line up your insurgencies...
As Paul Harvey used to say, "The rest of the story..."
E= MC2 is simple
Slapout9 (untitled)
Funny....Money
should be moved to a new thread cuz they are beyond the scope of this thread's topic. Perhaps this post's heading (Motivation vs Causation; Theory and Practice) could title the new thread. But, that's up to the Powers That Move Things. :)
I believe it would be worthwhile cuz this discussion has been going on (in one form or the other) for better than a year - the Eagle Landed here in Nov 2008. ;)
The American Revolution and Vietnam seem to me excellent contexts in which to frame the discussion: both were major events (a complex of conventional and unconventional warfare); a lot will be known to members here; and as past events, we don't have to worry about OpSec and other current considerations.
Without answering (yet) prior posts, I am coming at this from the following basic levels:
1. Practitioner, not theoretician.
2. Tactics, not strategy.
And, those at the lowest local level - just the "little" things.
Now, it so happens that I also subscribe to the theory that the practitioner must interface with the theoretician; and tactics have to interface with strategy. Those interfaces are where I am having a problem.
So, if a Power That Moves Things could oblige, I would like to continue this long-standing discourse elsewhere.
Best to all the discoursers
Mike
Motivation vs. causation ?
As to all these (realizing that others have added or want to add more):
Quote:
from BW
American Colonies Vs Britain:
Causation:
Colonists widely perceieved as second class citizens by those living in Britain, and treated as such across the board: Disrespect
Governors selected by the Crown and imposed upon the Colonists; An island attempting to rule a continent; etc: illegitimacy
taxation without representation, sending the Army and Navy to Boston to inforce the rule of law: Injustice
Disbanding of colonial governments, ignoring or refusal to hear Colonial grievances, etc: Perception that no legitimate means existed to address all of the above.
Motivation:
Concepts of Liberty; Events like Concord, Breeds Hill, the Boston Masacre; The writen and spoken words of men like Thomas Paine, Sam Adams, Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin.
Vietnam:
Causation:
French colonization; American reinstatement of French colonization; Western divsion of the country into two; American support for the Government established over the southern half: Illigitimacy, Disrespect, Injustice; no legitimate recourse to address.
Motivation:
The example of China in freeing itself from western colonialism through communism and insurgency; The leadership of Ho Chi Minh, Giap, etc;
I first have a hard time seeing why some factors in those conflicts are placed in the Causation box and others in the Motivation box. Both boxes include tangibles and intangibles, for example.
How do I make up my own little Causation and Motivation boxes for my little piece of heaven; and make them meaningful ?
Example: double role playing in a small village complex (ville + 5 hamlets; say 5000 population, located somewhere between Saigon and the Parrot's Beak):
1. "NLF" cadre commandant (actually regular PAVN, but of a peasant family from the village complex, who as a teen went North in 1954 and then was infiltrated back in the 60s).
2. VN Pacification commandant (regular ARVN, also from the village complex, but from a family of local notables; long service, but relatively low grade because he lacks "Saigon connections").
Posit roughly equivalent military resources.
How do the revolutionary and the counter-revolutionary each use your Causation and Motivation constructs for his own purposes ?
Regards
Mike
1 Attachment(s)
Good governance, legitimacy, causation, motivation
Since Entropy has added "good governance", which is central to COL Jones' populace-centric construct, I'm going to add one more term, "legitimacy", as viewed by Timothy J. Lomperis, Vietnam's Offspring:The Lesson of Legitimacy (Winter 1986, Conflict Quarterly).
From that, we have this chart:
Attachment 1023
In this chart (more fully discussed in the article), Lomperis is not considering "legitimacy" from the viewpoint of a nation-state; but from the different viewpoints of persons (three levels) in each of two incumbant models and the revolutionary insurgency model.
The individual "legitimacy issues" (which Lomperis considers fluid and variable) look much to me like "causation" or "motivation" issues - whichever box you put them in.
I understand that the 1986 article was expanded and became a chapter in Lomperis' 1996 book, From People’s War to People’s Rule: Insurgency, Intervention, and the Lessons of Vietnam. Only two reviews, but the second (from 2005) is interesting:
Quote:
This is a book about the non-lesson "lessons" of the Vietnam War. Published in 1996, it could be considered the most horribly confusing book about political-military strategy ever conceived. Based tightly on articulating research bounded inside a "paradigmatic presupposition," many early readers would venture to believe Lomperis wasted a decade of research to make sense of a society "in the throes of a revolutionary insurgency struggling to form and consolidate an independent and modernizing state." But reading this book in 2005 makes it all relevant. It actually makes perfect sense, so much so that when read and digested properly, it can be used to predict not only how the newly formed Iraqi government will stabilize and prevail, but will also predict when it will happen by month and year, and that will determine the US exit strategy.
....
To bring about the change of government from turmoil due to insurgency and into a sphere of stability, Chapter 11 is the most interesting and useful because it demonstrates how to create a timeline for an exit strategy. Using lessons from six case studies ranging from Mao's long march in China from 1920-1949, Greece 1941-1949, Philippines 1946-1956, Malaya 1948-1960, Cambodia-Laos 1949-1975, to Sendero Luminoso's Peru 1970-1992, Lomperis benchmarked insurgent successes and defeats in a smartly laid out timeline that identifies factors important to legitimate governments. He then plots categories and possible futures which are laid out for policy analyst to mull over. Lomperis' work shows that from legitimate national elections to victory will take approximately five years to achieve, if, all involved will stay the course.
I guess I will get sucked in to see what he actually says.
Regards
Mike
Distinguishing "Causes" from "causes"
This comment from Slap:
Quote:
I say a cause is nothing more than a large group of people with a common motive. It turns into an insurgency/revolution when it reaches a certain tipping point as to the total number of people involved.
got me thinking. What I come up with is that we use the same word "cause" to mean two quite different things:
1. In one sense, we look at "cause" and "effect" based on a set of more or less objective facts: e.g., what factors "caused" the accident. Those factors span a spectrum from the most "proximate" to the most remote ("but for causation", "ultimate causation" - but for a nail, the kingdom was lost). In the accident case, we focus on the more proximate causes and the extent to which each of them contributed to the accident in assessing comparative fault (where the motivations of the parties does come into play). In this rather inexact form of art, the jury finds A, X%; B, Y%; C, Z% at fault and awards damages accordingly. And, certainly, folks use a similar process to consider the "causes" of an insurgency.
2. In another sense, we look at "cause" not with respect to effect, but as one or more of the "Causes" that appear in the "Narratives" of the revolutionaries and counter-revolutionaries. Each of those "Causes" may or may not have a basis in a "cause" that we find objectively (Meaning 1). Each of them does, however, have a basis in the perceptions and motives of the populace as they view their individual situations. As to those "Causes", "Motives" are very much intermixed and crucial to the feedback process which frames the "Narrative" (whether revolutionary or counter-revolutionary). That is the basis for Mao's "from the people, to the people", where the "Narrative" is taken in raw form from the People, shaped by the Party, and then returned to the People, who reshape it in a continued "chicken & egg" scenario. The "Narrative" (as one of the factors) probably will have an effect on the outcome of the insurgency - and, hence, would be a "cause".
To sum the distinctions in blunt terms: People die because of a "cause"; people die for a "Cause".
-------------------------------
This continuation is somewhat thinking out loud; although the thoughts have occured to me before.
In Southeast Asia, we can look at four countries: Indochina, Malaya, Indonesia and the Philippines. As to them, we can accept some common factors:
1. All were feudal (as the Marxists used that term) and colonial, pre-WWII.
2. All were occupied by the Japanese during WWII (showing the people that an Asian military could defeat Western militaries).
3. During WWII, nationalist movements were strengthened.
4. At the end of WWII, the colonial powers returned (length of stay varied).
5. After WWII, insurgencies developed in all (in Indochina and Indonesia, we have I and II cases).
We could (simplistically, IMO) look at WWII as the "cause" of those insurgencies and that the "Causes" were "anti-feudalism" and "anti-colonialism". There is some truth in that, but the realities were more complex.
In considering those six insurgencies (Indochina I & II, Malaya, Indonesia I & II, the Philippines), Bill Pomeroy (CPUSA author and special operator) left us with some good advice in his Guerrilla Warfare & Marxism (1968, International Publishers, the CPUSA bookstore - book no longer in catalog), p.200:
Quote:
The theory that there is an "Asian model" of contemporary guerrilla liberation struggles (it is assumed to be patterned on the Chinese experience) breaks down with a close examination of each struggle. This has been pointed out in the Introduction, but it needs to be stressed further that liberation movements in the region have been variegated, each with its own historical roots, deriving from the peculiar nature of the colonial system in each colony, and each pursuing its own course of development.
With that caveat in mind, considering the "Causes" expressed in the "Narratives" (both revolutionary and counter-revolutionary) in each of these six instances gains some understanding as to one factor (among many) that made each of them different from the others, in both development and outcomes. That is an exercise that I've not yet completed.
Regards
Mike
Agreed as to what a cause is
Quote:
Originally Posted by
slapout9
I say a cause is nothing more than a large group of people with a common motive. It turns into an insurgency/revolution when it reaches a certain tipping point as to the total number of people involved.
But what an organization's "Cause" is is a very different thing from what the "causation" for a conflict is.
For an example, I listed above some aspects of what I believe contributed to causation for the American insurgency against Great Britain. Their cause however, was probably best summed up in one word:
Independence
I think it is very important to sort out the differences between causation, motivation, and cause when addressing an insurgency. By putting these very different things into the correct boxes, one can then begin to focus their efforts either as the counterinsurgent, or insurpport of the counterinsurgent, for best effect.
Most people I meet dump them all into one box, like a the way a typical guy dumps all his clothes into the washer. Sure, they get "washed", but it isn't particularly effective.
My $.02, woth approximately that...
I think BW has valid points if we're discussing insurgency. There's a certain problem in applying those points to our current conflicts, though, because we're not fighting against insurgencies. One of the reasons our current problem set looks so complex is that we keep slamming square pegs into round holes and trying to impose grandiose but imaginary and counterproductive constructs such as "war on terror" and "global insurgency".
We're fighting a war against AQ, but AQ is not an insurgency, unless we stretch the definition of insurgency far beyond the breaking point. AQ is not populace-based or nationally based, nor is it directed toward the overthrow of an existing government. It's never been able to muster sufficient support in any national environment to drive a true insurgency, though it has managed to exploit existing insurgencies that it did not create. AQ doesn't need to move the populace of any given nation to establish a COG and overthrow a Government, it draws its strength from diffusion and holding a relatively small but very highly motivated core of true believers spread out among a large number of national environments. An insurgency needs to establish a support base among a national populace, a terrorist group does not.
I don't see the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan as insurgencies either. We didn't start these fights to defend a government from insurgents, we started them to remove governments we found distasteful. We succeeded, and created power vacuums in both areas. What we are seeing now is not insurgency against established governments, it is armed competition to fill that vacuum. In each case we support one one of the contending parties, which we choose to call a government.
In this environment "good governance" may be less an issue than it would be in a traditional government vs insurgent scenario. The armed parties are not fighting for good government, they are fighting for power, which they will use to advance their own interests. The populace is less concerned with good governance than with staying out of the line of fire and with supporting whatever faction they think will best advance the interests of the groups they actually identify with, more likely to be defined by family, clan, tribal, or sectarian distinctions than by any concept of nationhood. "Good governance" is only an issue to the extent that it is defined as "governance that brings benefits and protection to me and mine".
In some cases, especially in Afghanistan, people may be fighting not because they object to bad government but because they simply don't want to be governed. In this case any external government constitutes bad government.
In short, I think BW makes valid points about what we might call the Cold War pattern of insurgency. I'm just not sure our current fights fit into this pattern.
What AQ is doing & "global insurgency"
Hi Dayuhan et al,
My two centavos worth since I cite two posts. ;)
We may be on the same page.
As close as I can come, AQ is waging global special operations warfare. If you want to say they are waging global unconventional warfare, that's OK since AQ's operations take place in areas it regards as "eneny-occupied" territory. See this post:
Hi John - part 2
As to "global", but not "insurgency" (except as part of the toolkit), see this post:
You're moving in the right direction
Those are my current best shots at the 25m target.
Regards
Mike
You'll get no arguement from me on these points
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Dayuhan
I agree... but I have to point out, again, that our operations in Iraq and Afghanistan were not initiated in order to support a government, legitimate or otherwise, against insurgency. They were initiated to remove governments we found distasteful. Having succeeded in that, we then faced a situation where there was no government at all. That's a very difficult position to be in: a government installed by an occupying power is going to be perceived as illegitimate and not recognized as a government, but if the occupying power leaves without putting together some kind of government the probable result is a takeover by whatever armed force is left after the intervention. If armed force is distributed the likely outcome is civil war, with intervention by all manner of self-interested actors.
Compounding the problem is the tendency of the intervening power in these cases to pursue legitimacy in the eyes of its own constituents in its own country, rather than in the eyes of the occupied populaces. In order to justify intervention and make it appear legitimate the US government promised to pursue transitions to an electoral democracy along American lines, which may have been what the American populace wanted to hear but may not have been a very practical approach to the problem at hand. Of course the American people also wanted an intervention of limited duration, ideally with a fast withdrawal, and nobody seemed willing to tell them that these objectives were mutually exclusive.
If there's any lesson to be learned from all this it is that people who contemplate future regime change efforts need to put a lot more effort into realistic assessments of the challenges implicit in a post regime change environment. It's easy to say we made mistakes, and by any criteria we did, but I'm not convinced that any alternative course of action would have provided a quick magical transition to a functional government that was perceived as legitimate by all of the competing populaces in the picture. The task parameters were just not realistic from the start.
I believe that if there was a better understanding of the concept of Causation for insurgency in the U.S.; then we would have taken very different courses from what we instead embarked upon. I won't second guess the guys who made the decisions; but I think if they had been a bit more informed as to the nature of what they were attempting to manipulate through force of arms; they would have made better choices.
Fact is though, at that time you had Ph.D.'s ranting about Isalmism and the Caliphate; Intel guys looking hard for a state-based threat and pinning the WMD tail on our favorite Donkey Saddam; No one in DC second guessing the validity of our own post-cold war policy and how it might be contributing to the growing violence being directed back at the US; and EVERYONE wanting to exact a healthy dose of American-style revenge on someone; and to return our lives here at home back to normal.
That was then, this is now. The question is, what do we do now?
There are still plenty clinging to concepts and policies that have dug us an 8-year deep hole, be it out of loyalty, stubborness, or just what must be very rose colored lens perspectives. I think a clear order has been given to turn the ship around; I just don't know that we've picked a new heading yet.