Kinetic vs Empathetic Warfare
"Meeting with his North Vietnamese counterpart, described by McNamara as "a wonderful man named Thach," almost 30 years after pulling out of Vietnam, Thach still insisted that America's mission was to colonize and enslave the Vietnamese. Thirty years later, McNamara couldn't convince his former enemy that we believed we were there to protect them from Communist control. In all those years of conflict and killing on both sides, we had never successfully communicated to our enemy why we were fighting and killing them, and we were unable to empathize with what they were experiencing as a civil war. Thach felt they were fighting for their independence and we were fighting to enslave them. Total misunderstanding is the result of failure to empathize. We must learn to find out why we're so hated and make an attempt to understand each other."--Dr. Wayne W. Dyer
Empathetic vs Kinetic Warfare
Kinetic Warfare: warfare that resembles weapons which achieve their
destructive effect by the shear force of their impact; distinguished
in the terminology of modern warfare, from those which do damage by
blast and heat or arrival at the target. (U.S. Joint definition).
Empathetic warfare: To attack the willpower and resistance capacity of
an opponent through the capacity to understand, being aware of, being
sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts,
and experiences of an enemy of either the past or present without
having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in
an objectively explicit manner. (Definition taken from NPS Thesis Progressive Reconstruction).
My intent here is to discuss a potential difference in warfighting technique. Although it could just be a fancy way to say know thy enemy.
-T
Insurgent use of empathetic warfare
Expanding the argument--
Empathetic warfare or "warfare that attacks the willpower, the moral and physical capacity for resistance of an opponent through the cognitive dimension, the knowledge and understanding of who he is and how and why he fights." is the principle method of war utilized by physically weaker forces. The guerilla can cause damage far beyond the size and strength of his forces applied by relying on 'emotional contagion' and 'terrain amplification or multiplication.'
Emotional Contagion- a human response to facial expression, body language & tone of other humans that causes a person to have an involuntary empathic reaction. For example a smile can cause other humans to be happy as a sneer can cause anger.
Terrain Amplification & Multiplication--Using terrain to mask and or amplify your force size and strength, generally causing it to seem larger and more effective than it actually is. The goal of any good ambush or guerilla force action. Taken in conjunction with emotional contagion the shock of an ambush or perceived ambush can cause a negative (ambushee) or positive (ambusher) emotional response either increasing or decreasing fear.
*This is the goal of all IED and other surprise type attacks.
Western militaries tend to focus on the physical differences and similarities between ourselves and our enemy. COG, CV's, priority and high payoff targets most often reflect the physical hard targets: tanks, training camps, command and control nodes, weapons caches etc. It is harder for us to grasp or to target the will and level of fear/respect of local influencers. This is what insurgents do best.
-T
empathy vs sympathy and Col Trinquier
Simplified,
empathy = understanding another's feelings, experience, pain without necessarily having the same experience.
sympathy = sharing another's emotion; generally feeling another's pain.
In the 1960's French Col Roger Trinquier (contrversial for many things, advocacy of torture for one, put that aside for a seperate discussion) wrote French Modern War. In his theory he puts forth the need to gain the support of the population. His methods where, in my opinion 'empathetic' in that he advocates knowing of the needs, desires, and fears of the people not out of sympathy but in order to understand and then CONTROL them. Population control is the essential element of his theory, and is the backbone of what I discuss in both Progressive Reconstruction and Empathetic Warfare. Here is an excerpt from Trinquier:
"The battlefield today is no longer restricted. It is limitless; it can encompass entire nations. The inhabitant in his home is the center of the conflict. Amidst the continuing movement of military actions, he is the stablest element. Like it or not, the two camps are compelled to make him participate in the combat; in a certain sense, he has become a combatant also. Therefore, it is essential to prepare him for the role he will have to play and to enable him to fulfill it effectively on our side.
For the inhabitant to elude the threats of the enemy, to cease to be an isolated target that no police force can protect, we must have him participate in his own defense. To this end, we have him enter into a structured organization encompassing the entire population. No one shall be able to avoid this service, and each person at any moment will be subject to the orders of his civil or military superiors to participate in protective measures.
Control of the masses through a tight organization, often through several parallel organizations, is the master weapon of modern warfare. This is what permits the enemy to uncover quickly any hostile element within a subjugated population. Only when we have created a similar organization will we be able to discover, and as quickly eliminate, those individuals the enemy tries to introduce among us.
The creation of such an organization may run into serious difficulties, but they are not insurmountable if we firmly desire to succeed. There will be no lack of good will; danger will create it. The experience of the battle of Algiers provides us with a sound basis for this assumption."
-T
Mods to Trinquier and Lyautey
In my thesis I talked about population controls based on the empathetic approach-a concept generated by the historical 'successes' of Col Trinquier and Marshal Lyautey. (Successes are relative of course and these two Officers and their theories are products of their times). Here is an excerpt that explains what I am leaning towards: Population and Resource controls taken from NPS Thesis -Progressive Reconstruction.
By taking note of what insurgents are trying to do politically and militarily—pick a fight, cause havoc, cause the interventionist force to loose credibility and gain for themselves the support of the population—it can be seen that force alone cannot defeat an insurgency. Insurgencies are local. The issues that motivate the average insurgent are local conditions. Transnational terrorists are outside agents, the same as intervention forces, and cannot exist without the support of the local people. Che Guevara’s ill-fated attempt at revolution in Bolivia is a good example of the failure to gain and maintain local support by an introduced insurgent ‘foco’. Therefore counter-insurgency must focus on localized solutions; attacking unstable politics and economics locally with indigenous support.
Population and resource controls cross the boundaries of development and counterinsurgency. The employment of indigenous workers, the rationing of supplies, census taking and the establishment of a national identification card program as well as taxation are all essential elements of both a counterinsurgency and a reconstruction campaign. Civic Action to provide basic services and infrastructure repair that fully involves the local population will in effect reduce the provocation towards subversion. Work programs sponsored by the PRT (provincial reconstruction team) can dry up the well of insurgent recruits. “[Lyautey’s] officers were expected to show initiative: build roads, dig wells, [and] vaccinate the population against disease,...” They were to undertake civic programs to bring the indigenous population into the government camp. Economics and counterinsurgency are fully entwined as the more intrusive control mechanisms such as a national identification card program will be easier to accept if tied to a positive economic outcome.
Population controls become even more difficult in major metropolitan areas. The political and economic magnetism of Mogadishu and other capital cities is a spur to conflict transcending interventions over the course of history. Cities like Mogadishu need to be deflated and devalued. These big cities attract the impoverished from the more rural areas with the promise of work and shelter. Yet the promise is generally a mirage leaving a growing pool of disaffected unemployed. The indigent population needs to be given incentive to leave the city for a better life in outlying less populated easier to manage regions. A process of voluntary relocation can be attempted to facilitate this.
