"The imperfection of Human Understanding..."
On the 28th of June, 1787, then 81 year-old Benjamin Franklin, who had been largely silent for much of the 6 weeks of the Constitutional Convention, gave a short speech to apeal for divine help in sorting out the differences of opinion regarding "Government." One could very easily replace the subject of Government with that of Insurgency and his words would be just as meaningful today as they were then:
"The small progress we have made after 4 or 5 weeks close attendance & continual reasonings with each other - our different sentiments on almost every question, several of the last producing as many noes as ayes, is methinks a melancholy proof of the imperfection of the Human Understanding.
We indeed seem to feel our own want of political wisdom, since we have been running about in search of it. We have gone back to ancient history for models of Government, and examined the different forms of those Republics which, having been formed with the seeds of their own dissolution, now no longer exist. And we have viewed Modern States all round Europe, but find none of their Constitutions suitable to our circumstances.
In this situation of this Assembly, groping as it were in the dark to find political truth, and scarce able to distinguish it when presented to us, how has it happened, Sir, that we have not hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the Father of lights to illuminate our understanding?"
We too are groping in the dark; but these former insurgents did, in their quest for political wisdom, devine and capture a form of government through much debate and compormise designed to perform the role of deterring insurgency very well. The one issue avoided and unaddressed that stood at the heart of much of the debate would not be resolved until 1865, but otherwise this document has stood the test of time. Smarter guys then us have struggled with larger issues and shared our frustration in the process.
No TTPs from any historic example should be transferred literally.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
slapout9
First one must free their mind from the widely accepted fiction that the Algerian Insurgency has ever been resolved. Organizations have been suppressed, names have changed, but there has yet to be a root resolution of the problems there and establishment of a form and nature of governance that could realistically be seen as having the country firmly on track in Phase 0 conditions.
That said, Galula must not be read literally, but one must take the many gold nuggets that exist in his work and apply them to the situation they are in, tailored for all the many factors that make every insurgency unique; but focused by the general dynamics that also make every insurgency similar as well. Most COIN practitioners don't appear to understand insurgency well enough to make that distinction.
French COIN is no better or worse than say, British COIN, or US COIN; there are lessons to be drawn from all. For me personally, I'd been working the Philippine mission for a couple of years at SOCPAC when I found my first copy of Galula tucked away in a corner of the Army War College books store. A small little paperback, ridiculously priced at about $35, as if the AWC felt compelled to be able to say they carried it, but really didn't want anybody to actually buy or read it. After a quick scan, I bought it and have no regrets. I don't see it as the end all, be all primer on COIN, but I have yet to read anything else nearly as good. Whoever stole my copy (that I probably loaned around the office too freely) may well agree.
Until our understanding of COIN evolves to the point where practitioners stop talking of COIN "victories", and begin talking about the art of establishing and maintaining general, willing, stability between a populace and its government, we will continue to draw the wrong lessons and either overly praise or criticize works like Galula.
Hell, people think that the current Algerian insurgency is AQ simply because they changed their name to AQ; and that therefore CT is the right mission to apply against them. If they change their name again to Goldman Sachs will we give them a bail out? :eek: We need to get past the surface confusion and simplistic analysis and drill into the real roots of these problems, the problem is that once we get there we don't like what we find out, so we back up and apply some mitigating approach instead.