Dead link and Human Factors
Maybe, someone out there can solve this technical problem.
I said I and others had a problem with the original link, in Jedburgh's original thread. Using that link:
http://www.usgcoin.org/library/USGDo...s/AD416553.pdf
I get this from IE 8.0 (same IE version, but a different computer and network from this afternoon): Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage.
If I reduce the url to this:
http://www.usgcoin.org
I get: Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage.
This afternoon (since it's a different network). I got: Sorry, "www.usgcoin.org" is unavailable or could not be found.
I'd love to read through summaries of 24 "new" insurgencies in "The Casebook on Insurgency". Please, can some very kind soul give us a link we can use ? COL Maxwell to the rescue ?
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I'd do some things in addition to what the quote in 1966 Human Factors suggests (let's not be quite so "immediate"). Human Factors and its companion, 1963 Undergrounds in Insurgent, Revolutionary, and Resistance Warfare - SORO, discuss my "political struggle" stuff as well.
Depends on your power position vice the other guy, who is stronger and who is weaker in each given geographic, demographic, etc., etc. (area study). All that seesaws; no two situations are exactly alike; and generalities are just that.
Basic courses of action - don't think of them as phases or stages - situational awareness would seem useful:
- use the power of vexation and provocation in the other guy's balliwick
- manage savagery and chaos (perhaps, via relative insecurity) in contested areas
- establish military, police & political control in your own balliiwick
The last is the immediate concern for both Powers to the conflict - "strategic base areas" or whatever you want to call them.
As to the first point, either side may invade the other's balliwick - and, if it wants an acceptable outcome, probably will. The question is when. You might want to do some preliminary stuff first.
Cheers
Mike
This is probably a futile discussion. Elusive points will do that...
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Originally Posted by
Bob's World
Not a general, just a concerned, thinking civilian like yourself.
You left out the more important adjectives, old and stubborn...:D
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I will admit that I am searching for your point. I suspect we both understand that the Pied Piper is a fairy tale. No one can come along to some well governed populace with their magic flute of ideology and create an insurgency. The conditions must exist in advance.
Oh, I think you've found my point. As well as that of Bill Moore, Dayuhan, Mike and others. You just acknowledged that bad governance is not a cause of but rather a facilitator of insurgencies. None of us have ever questioned that, the question was that you -- sometimes -- say it is THE sole causation...
Since you have now agreed with us, we can take the rest of the week off...;)
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Oh, and we had Israel do some wet work for us as quid pro quo to support their bid for indepencence.
Uh huh. Right, I've heard those rumors as well -- in the last few years. Funny they didn't float around at the time. Since that independence occurred in 1948 over the strenuous objections of most of foreign policy crowd in DC -- Marshall, then SecState, is reliably reputed to have told Truman "Mr. President, I serve at your pleasure but you should know that if you recognize Israel, I will not be able to vote for you in the next election." He was not alone and for most of the 50s and 60s, there was a strong anti-Israeli bias in DoD and the Intel clique -- probably mostly related to the potential to get sucked into a war that would really be little to none of our business, that and budget competition. That 'wet work' -- really hokey fiction term, that -- May not be an old wives tale but it sure is suspect.:rolleyes:
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I have my thousands (ok modest exaggeration admitted) of insurgencies, I'm still waiting for you to come up with just one where my model does not apply. I need that exception to prove the rule.
I've done that and so have others; you can search those responses up if you wish. You did note that in this thread and today I mentioned two, ala Riel and Chin, where your model doesn't apply -- plus one where it not only doesn't apply, the reverse was true? The good governance was tossed out in an effort to retain slavery which said good Government had banned. Not to mention the Mexican Revolutions (plural...).
Others have been mentioned; you tend to not accept them not by directly refuting the case but by sliding to one side or the other and aiming at OBL or some such...
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We aren't good at COIN. We don't understand insurgency well. We don't know our own history, and we sure as hell don't know the history of others. We can do better than this. If everyone just nods their head and says "good idea, boss," or if no one asks "why" we won't get in front of this.
You and I have agreed on this many times. I still agree and am not disputing any of that.
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Is it disturbing to think that US foreign policy laid much of the foundation that Bin Laden has built his UW campaign up? Yes, absolutely. But if we just go out and kill him and his handful of compadres and do nothing to change ourselves, to tear down that foundation, some other group will get up on it and really hurt us next time. Is 9/11 our fault? Absolutely not.
All true and we have previously agreed on all that -- so why bring it up now?
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Do we need to take responsibility for how our actions contributed to the conditions that Bin Laden feeds upon? Absolutely yes.
Who has said that we are not or have not?
May I suggest that taking responsibility and undoing the past are two very different things? One can rant for days on the dumb (many) and evil (few) things we have done and that will change nothing. One can acknowledge responsibility and that changes nothing.
However, one can change ones approach and preclude further errors. You have suggested some strong and positive steps in that direction with which I agree. You have suggested others with which I do not disagree but have urged caution or an indirect approach.
The foremost of those is that you seem to wish to ignore the way the US government really works. My point to you for a couple of years is that what you wish for will not happen because you appear to insist the system change to the way you think it should operate. It won't. You cannot ignore the domestic politics in this huge nation and their effects on our relations and interface with the rest of the world.
Now that you've realized and acknowledged that poor governance is sometimes a cause of insurgency and that it is most always a facilitator and hopefully that it is sometimes not really an issue at all, if only rarely, you've taken the first step toward true enlightenment. Now for US domestic politics, election and budget cycles... ;)
Bob, best wishes for the future
and at CADS - despite the fact that you have done away with one of my introductory clauses: There's this nutty SF COL I know who says ..... :D
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From 1963 Undergrounds (pp.166-167) (not the "bible" in its every word, BTW; but some good points even for today) (emphasis added):
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OBJECTIVES OF COUNTERMEASURES
At the beginning of an underground movement government countermeasures are limited by lack of information about the nature of an enemy which is coming into being. Although the ultimate aim of all government countermeasures is to destroy the leadership and organization of an underground, initially the government must find out who the enemy is. Therefore the government's first objective is to identify the underground leaders, usually by infiltrating the movement. Next the government tries to prevent growth of the underground by restricting its access to the populace and to supplies. To do this the government may seek the cooperation of the people for intelligence purposes, offering them both protection from threats by the underground and evidence that the government measures are in their best interests.
In the second stage of development of the underground the objective of government countermeasures depends upon whether the underground is a resistance or a revolutionary movement and on circumstances external to the underground itself. The aim may be either pacification or control. Pacification entails obtaining a large amount of popular support and willing cooperation. Control does not require such a high degree of popular support; if the government's security forces control resources and production facilities, and the lines of communication and transportation in strategic areas, that may be sufficient. In both resistance and revolutionary situations pacification is preferable, because a progovernment populace requires a minimum of physical restraint and permits the government to use security forces for other duties. If an occupying government aims for pacification in a resistance situation, a great many troops will be needed originally for occupation duty. In practice it has proved expedient during a military campaign for an occupier merely to establish control without attempting to achieve pacification.
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In revolutionary war, however, control alone cannot be a sufficient aim for the government. The ultimate objective must be pacification even though the government may be required to restrict personal freedom to such an extent that martial law is invoked. Such restrictions may cause resentment and aid the revolutionary movement by adding credence to its claims of government persecution. On the other hand, failure to undertake prompt and effective countermeasures may permit tho illegal organization to grow rapidly. In dealing with revolution, a government typically works under several handicaps: (1) the revolution is usually well underway before control measures are applied, and therefore the security forces are on the defensive at the offset; (2) security forces are often subject to legal restraints; and (3) the government faces conflicting goals--to suppress the revolution and gain the active support of the people.
A different slant from "immediate" use of military force. I'd use some different terms (e.g., "mobilization of the masses" for "pacification", which to me is a form of "control" - Undergrounds uses "control" in its more coercive meaning).
Regards
I wasn't going to reply, probably better if I hadn't...
but I had to reply to these statements. What follows is tantamount to a rant (and rambles towards the end too) and I apologise to Bob’s World for any offence. Despite the wording of the below post I am attacking your statements not you (using emoticons are no help in this regard), in particular these three gems from separate posts...
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Originally Posted by
Bob's World
Is it disturbing to think that US foreign policy laid much of the foundation that Bin Laden has built his UW campaign up?
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When we begin to hold governments accountable for their actions we begin to get in front of the current conditions of insurgency that are being exploited by AQ's UW campaign.
&
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COIN is Governance
COIN is most certainly NOT governance. COIN begins where governance ends. As far as I am concerned if there’s no military action (war by any other name) going on then it’s not COIN it’s social outreach (politics). It’s the military aspect that makes it COIN (the logical extension to riot police). In the words of Carl Schmitt, a declaration of war is a declaration of enmity. In other words (theoretically speaking in the spirit of Clausewitz) those who declare war (armed conflict for political purposes) are no longer friends. They are enemies and thus, in the domestic context, cease to be citizens and therefore cease to have the right to be citizens until such a time as they re-acknowledge the authority of the government (if I’m not mistaken this is in a nutshell how the IRA and the Loyalists were brought to heel). If they are supported by an external third party then it’s bordering on war proper (by proxy). Until they come to heel or acknowledge your government (and system of laws) they are no longer your citizens and therefore they are combatants (the law be damned), if people are trying to kill me I won’t let the law stand in my way (“In time of war law stays silent”). I believe in reciprocity; if they fight civilised so will I. I detect in your somewhat fashionable relativistic prose (which I would agree with if I didn’t think you were hiding behind it simply to make a point) that you are actually still a universalist with your pronunciation of the justness of any insurgent’s cause. That is a subjective not a universal judgement. There is no Natural Law to which you can appeal (one needs at least two people who agree to understand the functioning of the universe in a certain way before they can say that it functions so. Natural law is not a universal structuring principle, it is opinion shared by the likeminded). By your account the attacks on London in 2005 were justified because it was a failure in governance; a failure on the government’s part to accommodate Islamic goals, which is tantamount to appeasement and collaboration. The reasons for the attack are obvious to veryone who cars to listen.
The logical consequence of your proposition is that to disarm Muslim terrorists/ insurgents/ revolutionaries/just plain vanilla Muslims (delete as appropriate) all governments have to do is to recognise their demands as legitimate (which is the tacit presupposition of your proposition) and thus hand over every state in the world to our local (un)friendly Muslim (of course, the rather happier corollary is that armed opposition to Islam also becomes “just”, but I doubt they’d be so even handed). Your view of AQ is also slightly jaundiced suffice to say. The idea that we are the cause of AQ ignores Islamic theology and history (sort of like dismissing Hitler’s racisim). The Kilcullen view that we merely satisfy Islamic desires assumes that there is a point at which they will be satisfied...anyone who understands Islam (i.e., its historical apriori/deep grammar) know's differently. AQ is but one manifestation/symptom of a wider, global problem that of the reconnection of the previously sundered parts of the Islamic terrain through, ironically, the technological revolution of modernity/ globalisation and the reawakening of its sense of mission.
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But for the military success of the first khalifs Islam would never have become a universal religion. Every exertion was made to keep the troops of the Faithful complete. The leaders followed only Mohammed's example when they represented fighting for Allah's cause as the most enviable occupation. The duty of military service was constantly impressed upon the Moslims; the lust of booty and the desire for martyrdom, to which the Qoran assigned the highest reward, were excited to the utmost. At a later period, it became necessary in the interests of order to temper the result of this excitement by traditions in which those of the Faithful who died in the exercise of a peaceful, honest profession were declared to be witnesses to the Faith as well as those who were slain in battle against the enemies of God,—traditions in which the real and greater holy war was described as the struggle against evil passions. The necessity of such a mitigating reaction, the spirit in which the chapters on holy war of Mohammedan law books are conceived, and the galvanizing power which down to our own day is contained in a call to arms in the name of Allah, all this shows that in the beginning of Islam the love of battle had been instigated at the expense of everything else.
-Hurgronje,
Mohammedanism, p. 88-89
And in the words of W. H. Norton, ‘The Influence of the Desert on Early Islam’, The Journal of Religion, Vol. 4, No. 4, July, 1924, p. 394;
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Sometimes the essential spirit of a religion is best seen when magnified in its fanatical sects. It would really seem that the more orthodox and pious a Moslem sect, the more ferocious and bloodthirsty is it.
That, sir, has absolutely nothing to do with governance.
To defeat AQ (and every other Muslim self-starter that decides to fulfil their universal obligation to Jihad which has nothing to do with US or European foreign policy, which is just an excuse the Left use to advance their own agenda) we have two options, allow me to quote the late, great von Clausewitz (note that so-called “Attritionist” and “Manouvrist” approaches are considered two sides of the same coin [COIN?] by CVC)...
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‘If you want to overcome your enemy you must match your effort against his power of resistance, which can be expressed as the product of two inseparable factors, viz. The total means at his disposal and the strength of his will. The extent of the means at his disposal is a matter, though not exclusively, of figures, and should be measurable. But the strength of his will is much less easy to determine and can only be gauged approximately by the strength of the motive animating it.
Given the deleterious effects of liberal prejudices regarding attacking Islam at the root (i.e., its generative grammar/COG- The Quran, Mohammed , the Shari’a and Sunna) the only other option is the one we took with the Nazis. In the words of an Arab who almost rid us of our present enemies....
Or in the words of El-Lawrence...
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An opinion can be argued with: a conviction is best shot. The logical end of a war of creeds is the final destruction of one[.]
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The Evolution of a Revolt by T. E. Lawrence p.6
That’s all I have to say on the matter. I know I rambled onto other issues toward the end but I consider them part and parcel of the same strategic malaise afflicting our respect nations in the current fight. I appreciate that many consider me plain wrong regarding Islam and its relationship to Islamism (“there he goes again...”!:mad:), so be it. That’s your prerogative...I have no problem with being Churchill to your Halifax (no doubt the great man is turning in his grave at the comparison).
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And yet we had plenty of warnings, if we had only made use of them. The danger did not come on us unawares. It burst on us suddenly, 'tis true; but it’s coming was foreshadowed plainly enough to open our eyes, if we had not been wilfully blind.
- Gen. G. T. Chesney,
The Battle for Dorking: Reminiscences of a Volunteer (London: Grant
Richards Ltd., 1871/1914), p. 17