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Thread: War is War

  1. #41
    Council Member slapout9's Avatar
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    IMO-War is competition and Peace is cooperation.....the difference between the two is the rules and laws, and whenever one side thinks the other side is manipulating the rules, things go from cooperation to competition. We need to expand the definition of War to match up with the reality of anything and anybody and any situation can be weaponized!

  2. #42
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    All quotes are from Bob,

    No one ever said that when faced with a violent insurgency that it would not require violent reactions, only that such violent reactions are not war because the objectives are different than war because the opponent is your own populace and you're going to have to live with them when its over.
    You’re trying to redefine war as strictly an activity between States which in my view is very close minded and worse doesn’t conform to reality. Al Qaeda is an external non-state entity that has declared war on much of the world. The fact that they’re partnering with various surrogates in those countries to conduct their own version of through, by and with operations does not change the equation, it is still war.

    The essential nature of war is that it is a large scale duel, where each dualing party uses force/violence to compel the other side to submit to their will, and each opponent is subordinate to a rational policy (political or other higher objectives)

    Just because the military showed up does not change a civil emergency into war either; though too often when the military shows up the civil government abdicates its responsibilities and the military turns it into war.
    Prior to the military getting involved it was a dual between two armed and organized opponents attempting to compel their will through the use of force (and other means, but the use of violence is what make it an insurgency).

    The American Civil Rights movement was largely a non-military response with a main effort of addressing the wrongs of government rather than defeating the wronged segment of the society. That was excellent COIN.
    The American Civil Rights movement was NOT an insurgency, it was a social movement. True it could have escalated to an insurgency if preventative measures were not taken, but prevention is not COIN, it is prevention and social movement is not an insurgeny. I don’t think you’ll find much disagreement that prevention is always desired over war, but it not always possible.

    It is not the presence of military or the tactic of violence that makes war war. It is the purpose and nature of the conflict. The purpose and nature of COIN is that of civil emergency, and to address it as war typically makes it worse.
    Violence is clearly one aspect that makes it a war, if there is no violence then it is something other than war.

    This appears to be one of the great myths of the war; however, in fact most Vietnamese supported their government. The insurgents were NOT successful, they didn’t throw out the government in the end; conventional N. Vietnamese forces did. It would be helpful if people would get their history straight when using Vietnam as example, and not simply mimic the uninformed howls of the far left protesters.

    What is the upside of taking over the role of COIN for the (equally illegitimate) government of Afghanistan and fighting their war for them?
    Don’t see an upside at this time, but the missteps that led us from a punitive operation to destroy AQ in response to 9/11 to nation building are visible for all to see, and understandable when you leap without thinking it through first.

    What would the downside be to having Afghans decide what the government of Afghanistan should be? Does anyone really believe that even if the Taliban did ultimately prevail there that they would be able to revert to their old ways of dark age Islam? Does anyone really believe that AQ trainees would be swinging on the monkey bars at training camps again, unmolested by Western CT capabilities?
    If the Taliban were allowed to return within the first two to three years of our invasion there was no reason they wouldn’t return to their old ways; however, after fighting us for years now and learning much about how to compete for populace they probably wouldn’t revert to their original form of completely intolerant governance.

    War is indeed politics. So is insurgency. But COIN is Governance and that is a very different thing indeed.
    The character of the war is very different, so the strategy and tactics used to wage it must be different, but it is still warfare.

  3. #43
    Council Member Dayuhan's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bob's World View Post
    (But then I also am strongly of the opinion that it is governments who cause insurgency (or at least the conditions of insurgency that others then come in and exploit to their own ends) rather than some malignant internal or external force that comes in and "radicalizes" the populace. Poor Governance is what radicalizes a populace, those malignant forces just take advantage when government lets that happen.)
    In many cases this is true. In some cases it is not, and the existence of those exceptions is very relevant to our current situation.

    We're now fighting in conflicts that we choose to call "insurgencies" in Iraq and Afghanistan. To the extent that we are trying to counter insurgency, we are thus involved in COIN, though we may choose to call it FID if it suits our purposes to do so. In both cases, the conflict existed before the government existed, so in both cases it's hard to say the "insurgency" was caused by the government. We could of course claim that once a government existed it was then the responsibility of that government to generate governance good enough to magically resolve these conflicts, but that is an extremely unrealistic expectation.

    We need to face reality, and the reality is that these "insurgencies" do not exist because of the governments they are fighting. They exist because we chose to remove governments we didn't like and replace them with governments that we like. This may mean by your definition that these conflicts are not actually insurgency, but that is neither here not there: whatever we call these conflicts, we caused them.

    The nice thing about that realization is that if our choices result in unfavorable outcomes, we can make different choices in the future. We are in no way condemned to a future of COIN: we may be stuck in the fights we're in now, but we won't be there forever and there is absolutely nothing requiring us to make similar choices in the future. The COIN community, which is heavily invested in the assumption that COIN is an unavoidable feature of our future, may not want to face up to this, but it is nonetheless true. If we don't want COIN to be our future, all we have to do is stop creating insurgencies.

    Certainly there are many insurgencies on the planet that we did not create, but these are for the most part not our problem, and none of them require anything beyond a limited FID presence on our part. The only "insurgencies" existing where we are actually doing the fighting are the ones we created.

    A whole lot of governments around the world became emboldened by the support of the US and have come to act with impunity toward their own populaces. Many of those places are predominantly Muslim.
    I think you're imposing a causative relationship here that is not really supportable. The way that governments relate to their populaces in these countries is not a consequence of US support, it's just the way it's always been in that part of the world. I think you vastly overestimate the extent of our support and the degree to which it has enabled the status quo.

    In any event these countries are not really a problem for us, since AQ's attempts to generate insurgency in these environments have generally been abject failures. AQ flourishes when they fight foreign intervention that can be pitched as infidel aggression against the lands of Islam. They draw their support from the "expel the infidel from the land of the faithful" narrative. When they oppose Muslim governments they generally fail. That's something we need to remember.
    Last edited by Dayuhan; 10-06-2010 at 12:09 AM.

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    Default Defining war (armed conflict) for what purposes ?

    This post got clobbered - hitting submit by accident. See two posts down.

    Cheers

    Mike
    Last edited by jmm99; 10-06-2010 at 01:29 AM.

  5. #45
    Council Member Bob's World's Avatar
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    global scout-

    I stand by all of the positions I put up, and frankly none of your counters disprove any, they just show that you disagree. That's fine, you're entitled to your beliefs. But to be clear, I am not trying to "redefine war" I am simply trying to point out that COIN does not actually fit within the context of war; and that forcing it into that context for superficial reasons of violence, armed competitors, etc but ignoring the critical difference of the purpose of COIN and the relationship of the parties leads to long, inefficient, ineffective engagements, that may well suppress the symptoms of an insurgency, only to flash back up once those suppressive efforts let up.

    I think we see insurgency more clearly when we see it as a condition that comes to exist in a populace that has come to see (in the words of our forefathers) their government as despotic. It is that condition that must be resolved to resolve the insurgency, and the causation is in the actions of the government and it is assessed in the perceptions of populace. Fact has little to do with such perceptions (Dayuhan likes to argue facts as he sees them, I merely point out that how others perceive us is often very different and it is those perceptions that drive this kind of violence, not fact). Quite often the government sees the insurgent populaces perceptions as irrational. That may be true, but it is also moot.

    How the populace decides to act out when these conditions of insurgency exist varies based on culture, what leader steps up, outside UW efforts, etc. It may be violent or it may be non-violent. All of that is tactics. You have to deal with the tactics, but you have to solve the problem, and the problem is a government that has lost its way with some segment of the populace it is responsible for. If the conditions of insurgency are not addressed, if the COIN force is distracted by the tactics, if the COIN force becomes too focused on defeating the insurgent, if he COIN force thinks it is fighting a war, it detracts from the real mission. The real mission is to address the conditions of insurgency, and that requires a government to understand what the concerns of the populace are and then working to address them. The US Civil Rights movement is every bit as much an insurgency as the Taliban in Afghanistan is. They just chose different tactics. The government recognized it was wrong and made concessions it did not have to make. Such is not appeasement, such is government doing its job. We need to be focused on making GIROA do its job. If we're not willing to do that we need to go home.

    Tom says I hold others to American values when I cite the Declaration of Independence. No, I hold OURSELVES to American values when I cite the Declaration of Independence. We've set that document aside in many ways, written it off as outdated now that we find the shoe on the other foot. I think we would do well to go back to our roots and hold ourselves to our own values.

    The National Security Strategy proclaims that US values are "universal values." I disagree strongly. I think the principles in our founding documents may be fairly universal, but believe that a value is a principle with a judgment applied to it, and values change within cultures over time and are certainly different between cultures. A great example of this is the principle that "all men are created equal." I agree with that principle, but I also understand that Americans valued it very differently in 1776 than they do today, and that similarly other cultures we engage with around the world today will value it differently than we do today. We need to stand on our principles, we need to hold ourselves to our stated values, but we need to withhold judgment of others.

    Dayuhan says we invaded Afghanistan and started the insurgency there. No. We conducted UW to assist the Northern Alliance insurgency to prevail. The current insurgency is because we then set about making a new, illegitimate government out of the Northern Alliance, and enabling their bad behavior by protecting them from the segment of their populace that they chose to exclude from participation in opportunity and governance. There was an insurgency when we got there, there is an insurgency now, we just changed the roles. If we shifted our focus to forcing GIROA to evolve rather than enabling them to stay the same we would get on a faster track to helping stabilize the country.
    Robert C. Jones
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    (Understanding is more important than Knowledge)

    "The modern COIN mindset is when one arrogantly goes to some foreign land and attempts to make those who live there a lesser version of one's self. The FID mindset is when one humbly goes to some foreign land and seeks first to understand, and then to help in some small way for those who live there to be the best version of their own self." Colonel Robert C. Jones, US Army Special Forces (Retired)

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    Default Defining war (armed conflict) for what purposes ?

    Clearly, the existence of "war" and "armed conflict" must be determined for legal purposes (triggering of Conventions and various statutes) and for many derivative purposes (e.g., ROEs, RUFs, etc.).

    The question is: for what purposes, other than legal and legal derivatives, do we need to define war (armed conflict); and how do those definitions differ from the legal construct ?

    This question is generated by Steve Metz's Conference Brief (post on p.2).

    For legal purposes in the US, the existence of "war" and "armed conflict" can be determined easily if we have either a formal declaration of war or an AUMF. Some uncertainly can exist if Congress has not yet acted and the Executive is acting under interim CinC authority. See below under line.

    Except for legal definitions and practices, this and other discussions here about "war" seem to go around in circles. Discussions of "warfare", however, seem to be much more focused, even though they may be marked by intense disageements as to strategy, tactics, etc.

    --------------------------
    Declarations of War & AUMFs

    Formal declarations of war were going out of style when the Constitution was drafted. James Kent (a noted NY judge, as well as a scholar), in Kent's Commentaries from 1826, made it perfectly clear that the Constitution did not require a formal declaration of war; but it did require a joint act of Congress:

    LECTURE III. OF THE DECLARATION, AND OTHER ABLY MEASURES OF A STATE OF WAR.
    ....
    2. Declaration of War.
    ....
    But though a solemn declaration, or previous notice to the enemy, be now laid aside, it is essential that some formal public act, proceeding directly from the competent source, should announce to the people at home their new relations and duties growing out of a state of war, and which should equally apprise neutral nations of the fact, to enable them to conform their conduct to the rights belonging to the new state of things. War, says Vattel, is at present published and declared by manifestoes. Such an official act operates from its date to legalize all hostile acts, in like manner as a treaty of peace operates from its date to annul them. As war cannot lawfully be commenced on the part of the United States without an act of Congress, such an act is, of course, a formal official notice to all the world, and equivalent to the most solemn declaration.
    Thus, there must be at least an AUMF act by Congress, which may be short of a formal declaration of war.

    Kent illustrates that by examples from the times before and after the Constitution was adopted (footnotes omitted below - see full text at link above for context):

    Since the time of Bynkershoek, it has become settled by the practice of Europe that war may lawfully exist by a declaration which is unilateral only, or without a declaration on either side. It may begin with mutual hostilities. After the peace of Versailles, in 1763, formal declarations of war of any kind seem to have been discontinued, and all the necessary and legitimate consequences of war flow at once from a state of public hostilities, duly recognized and explicitly announced by a domestic manifesto or state paper.

    In the war between England and France, in 1T78, the first public act on the part of the English government was recalling its minister; and that single act was considered by France as a breach of the peace between the two countries. There was no other declaration of war, though each government afterwards published a manifesto in vindication of its claims and conduct. The same thing may be said of the war which broke out in 1793, and again in 1803; and, indeed, in the war of 1756, though a solemn and formal declaration of war, in the ancient style, was made in June, 1756, vigorous hostilities had been carried on between England and France for a year preceding.

    In the war declared by the United States against England, in 1812, hostilities were immediately commenced on our part as soon as the act of Congress was passed, without waiting to communicate to the English government any notice of our intentions.
    Formal declarations of war were somewhat revived by the Hague Conventions; but again fell into disuse after WWII.

    Drawing the "Armed Conflict" Line

    Some problems exist in the legal arena where the President acts unilaterally. It illustrates an instance from Kosovo where the lawyer-politicians at the "highest levels" did not measure their statements according to the legal norm.

    From CLAMO's, LL Kosovo (pp. 61-62 pdf) (link here):

    Both prior to and during the early days of the air campaign, disagreement existed within U.S. and NATO political and legal circles over whether or not LOAC applied to Operation Allied Force.[5] Because LOAC applies to international armed conflicts,[6] the precise legal issue was whether Operation Allied Force constituted an international armed conflict. It also seems apparent that political concerns entered the calculation.[7]

    The debate proved more than academic when Yugoslav forces captured three U.S. soldiers conducting a security patrol along the border between the FRY and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) on 31 March 1999, one week after NATO forces had dropped the first bombs of Allied Force.[8] At issue was the soldiers' legal status: were they prisoners of war entitled to full Geneva Convention[9] protections (as would be the case if LOAC applied); were they "detainees" entitled to some lesser status;[10] were they common criminals under host nation law; or were they something else?

    The immediate U.S. political response was that the soldiers had been "illegally abducted."[11] This position quickly evolved into a curious amalgam of prisoner of war language mixed in with demands for immediate return of the soldiers (although prisoner of war status affords protections under international law, it also allows the detaining power to hold the prisoner until the end of the conflict).[12]

    The ultimate U.S. position was that LOAC applied to Operation Allied Force and, accordingly, that the soldiers were prisoners of war.[13] However, by not presenting an early, united front on the status of the captured soldiers, equivocation within U.S. policy channels potentially placed the soldiers in harm's way. For example, the Serbs might have agreed with early U.S. statements that made no mention of prisoner of war status, thereby concluded that the soldiers did not have combatant immunity, and then tried the soldiers for domestic crimes.[14]

    5. [JMM: very long footnote on jus ad bellum omitted; cited in note 5 and below, Major Geoffrey S. Corn & Major Michael L. Smidt, "To Be or Not to Be, That is the Question:" Contemporary Military Operations and the Status of Captured Personnel, ARMY LAW., June 1999, p.1 et seq.]

    6 Common Article 2 of the Four Geneva Conventions of 1949 states that "the present Convention shall apply to all cases of declared war or of any other armed conflict which may arise between two or more of the High Contracting Parties." Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armed Forces in the Field, Aug. 12, 1949, art. 2-3; Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of Wounded, Sick, and Shipwrecked Members at Sea, Aug. 12, 1949, art. 2-3; Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, Aug. 12, 1949, art. 2-3; Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Civilian Persons in Time of War, Aug. 12, 1949, art. 2-3.

    7 See Kosovo AAR, supra note 5, at 257, 261.

    8 For a detailed discussion of this incident and an analysis of the status of captured personnel in modern military operations, see Corn & Smidt, supra note 5, at 1.

    9 Specifically, the Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, supra note 6.

    10 The initial NATO guidance was that "detainee" would be the appropriate term for a captured member of NATO forces. See Kosovo AAR [CLAMO, Kosovo After Action Review Conference (12-14 June 2000); Transcript, note 5 of LL Kosovo] at 265.

    11 The phrase was used by both President Clinton and Secretary of Defense Cohen. See Guy Dinmore & Joan Biskupic, Yugoslavia Opens Case Against 3 American Soldiers, WASH. POST, Apr. 3, 1999, at A11.

    12 Department of State Spokesman James Rubin, at a press briefing held the day after the soldiers' capture, used a confusing mixture of terms, asserting that the soldiers were at once prisoners of war entitled to Geneva protections and "illegal detainees" who should be immediately released. James P. Rubin, U.S. Dep't of State Daily Press Briefing (Apr. 1, 1999).

    13 On the same day that Mr. Rubin made his confusing comments, Department of Defense Spokesman Kenneth Bacon articulated what soon became the official U.S. government position: "We consider them to be [prisoners of war]. . . . By international law the Geneva Convention applies to all periods of hostilities . . . . [T]he government has decided that the Geneva Convention applies." Kenneth H. Bacon, Off. of the Ass't Sec'y of Defense (Public Affairs), Dep't of Defense News Briefing (Apr. 1, 1999). Interestingly, despite the conclusion that the soldiers were prisoners of war and thus could be kept until repatriated at the end of the conflict, the Reverend Jesse Jackson was widely credited with securing the soldiers' 2 May 1999 release as a result of the private religious delegation that he led to Serbia. ....

    14 See Corn & Smidt, supra note 5, at 14-18.
    An educational trip into why politicians should often shut up.

    Regards

    Mike

  7. #47
    Council Member slapout9's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by jmm99 View Post
    The question is: for what purposes, other than legal and legal derivatives, do we need to define war (armed conflict); and how do those definitions differ from the legal construct ?

    Mike
    So that we can recognize when we need to change the rules/laws in order to survive. Especially when an attack that threatens are very survival as a nation may not have anything to do with a kinetic attack. Like an Oil Embargo which is/was the Moral equivalent of War.

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    Default No doubt, Slap,

    but again the purpose you state ("need to change the rules/laws in order to survive") deals with legal and legal derivatives. So, we have rules and laws dealing with embargo and blockade, where the existence of "war (armed conflict)" in a legal sense is determinative of whether we apply Laws of War or Rule of Law.

    What I was trying to get at is whether there are definitions for the existence of war which not dependent on the legal rules and which exist for independent purposes.

    Regards

    Mike

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    Council Member William F. Owen's Avatar
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    a.) - Nice to the see the re-emergence of a high standard of discussion/debate.

    b.) Searching my soul, I have come to realise that I do not really ever use the term "War" except in a theoretical form. Bridging the gap between necessary theory and practice is my schtick, but I find almost no "practical" use for the term "War." - other than to acknowledge that there is a human activity which seems to have an unchanging nature but a widely varied character.

    c.) Thus there is regular and irregular Warfare, not regular and irregular "War."

    Make sense? Help any?
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bob's World View Post
    The key point in why I don't think it is helpful to consider COIN war (even though I believe that insurgency typically is war for the insurgent); is because COIN is waged against one's own populace. The techniques, tactics and procedures, the very mindset of war are completely counter productive to a government resolving a dispute with an armed rebellion that enjoys a broad base of popular support.
    I don't that one flies...an insurgency may generally be conducted against one's one populace but COUNTER-insurgency is often (more often than not?) conducted by a foreign force agaisnt a population e.g. France in Algerie and Indo-Chine, England in the US, the US et al in Vietnam, NATO in AFG, the Commonwealth in Malaya...

    Also a broad popular base of support may not necessarily exist in an insurgency, often the insurgent will NOT be representative of the broader population e.g. the CT in Malaya, Taliban in AFG, AQ in Iraq, Republicans in Northern Ireland, militia in Timor Leste, Mau Mau in Kenya, Red Brigade?Baaader-Meinhof etc in Europe (I don't think they actually count but they probably thought they did)...

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    Quote Originally Posted by William F. Owen View Post
    a.) - Nice to the see the re-emergence of a high standard of discussion/debate.

    b.) Searching my soul, I have come to realise that I do not really ever use the term "War" except in a theoretical form. Bridging the gap between necessary theory and practice is my schtick, but I find almost no "practical" use for the term "War." - other than to acknowledge that there is a human activity which seems to have an unchanging nature but a widely varied character.

    c.) Thus there is regular and irregular Warfare, not regular and irregular "War."

    Make sense? Help any?
    Good point, well made...maybe 'war' is a specific event in the continuum/history of warfare e.g. World War 2, Korean War, 100 Years War, Falklands Islands War, etc , etc...

  12. #52
    Council Member Bob's World's Avatar
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    Default I believe you are mixing closely related, but very different missions here

    Quote Originally Posted by SJPONeill View Post
    I don't that one flies...an insurgency may generally be conducted against one's one populace but COUNTER-insurgency is often (more often than not?) conducted by a foreign force against a population e.g. France in Algerie and Indo-Chine, England in the US, the US et al in Vietnam, NATO in AFG, the Commonwealth in Malaya...

    Also a broad popular base of support may not necessarily exist in an insurgency, often the insurgent will NOT be representative of the broader population e.g. the CT in Malaya, Taliban in AFG, AQ in Iraq, Republicans in Northern Ireland, militia in Timor Leste, Mau Mau in Kenya, Red Brigade?Baaader-Meinhof etc in Europe (I don't think they actually count but they probably thought they did)...
    If it is something "waged against ones own populace": This sounds like you are describing the acts of a foreign body coming in to engage one's populace and stir it to insurgency? this is unconventional warfare.

    Unconventional Warfare (UW): Efforts of any state or non-state actor to incite, lead, or facilitate insurgency among any populace of which they are not a member. UW is typically used to serve organizational interests within some populace or region illegally through a segment of its populace when unable to achieve the same ends legally through the governance of the same. UW can also be employed to wage a form of surrogate warfare to create difficulties for an opponent who currently enjoys a legal relationship with the governance of the affected populace or region. Recent examples of UW are Pakistan with the Taliban in Afghanistan; al Qaeda with nationalist insurgent groups across Northern Africa, the Middle East and South Asia; and the U.S. with the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan.

    It is an operation "conducted by a foreign force against a population" as in the examples you describe, certainly that is commonly called COIN, but in reality it is FID, as the roles, missions, status, objectives, etc are very different between the HN governance and some intervening foreign body. The HN governance is looking for dominion over the people to serve them. The intervening foreign body is looking for dominion over the HN government to serve its own interests. When these very different things get lumped under one title and merged together, bad things happen.

    Counterinsurgency (COIN): Efforts by any governing body to prevent, mitigate or resolve conditions of insurgency within any significant segment of the society they govern. The primary focus of COIN is on efforts to understand and address critical perceptions of poor governance. If such conditions of insurgency are allowed to grow unchecked, organizations will grow within the populace to assert illegal challenges to the government. At such point, preemptive COIN has failed creating a civil emergency that may require military assistance or even external aid in the form of Foreign Internal Defense to allow the reestablishment of good governance and the mitigation of the conditions of insurgency back to benign levels. External challengers to the state will also exploit the conditions of insurgency through UW. When it occurs it creates the need for a broader, more comprehensive CUW campaign by the governing body.

    And lastly, as I indicated earlier, I think it is best to think of insurgency not as some illegal violent challenger to the government that must be defeated, but rather as a condition that comes to exist within a populace that makes it vulnerable to the rise of such groups. Consider:

    Conditions of Insurgency: A state of mind. The conditions of insurgency arguably exist to some degree within every populace. In most cases such conditions are benign in that they are not strong enough to support the rise of a significant insurgent organization, even if manipulated by outside actors conducting UW or by ideological themes designed for this audience. As perceptions of poor governance increase so does the degree of the conditions of insurgency. Left unchecked these conditions are apt to be exploited by internal and/or external parties for purposes of their own that may or may not have the welfare of the affected populace in mind. Conditions of insurgency are caused by the government and assessed through the perspective of the populace.

    As to your short list of examples. I would argue that conditions of insurgency existed in all.

    "France in Algerie and Indo-Chine, England in the US, the US et al in Vietnam, NATO in AFG, the Commonwealth in Malaya..."

    - All of these are classically thought of as "COIN", yet in fact none of these, as you point out, were the HN government. These are all examples of FID.

    "CT in Malaya, Taliban in AFG, AQ in Iraq, Republicans in Northern Ireland, militia in Timor Leste, Mau Mau in Kenya, Red Brigade?Baaader-Meinhof etc in Europe "

    This is a bit of mixed bag.

    -CT in Malaya: Not sure who the "CT" are/were. The MNLA were citizens of Malaysia of ethnic Chinese decent, and had broad support within the that populace base. This was a resistance insurgency against British Colonialism, with the primary causal factor to the Conditions of Insurgency being the Illegitimacy of the British and the governing structures they established to govern. I suspect that with the Japanese Army running the British colonials off, and then with the subsequent defeat of the Japanese, the populace got a whiff of hope for independence. Once the liberating force turned back into a colonial force the conditions of insurgency likely spiked considerably. This was true with most of the genre of post-WWII insurgencies. The end of that war was a catalyst of hope and opportunity. When colonial powers moved back in to reestablish control, insurgencies were inevitable. Communist ideology was merely the convenient tool to tap into and leverage the success and TTPs that Mao had recently employed. It worked for those populaces, in that time, and that place, nothing more.

    Taliban in AFG: Insurgents. Even those that come from Pakistan, because as was the case in Vietnam, the border drawn by Westerners means little to how the local populace see themselves. These borders serve more to cause us to confuse roles, as we take them so seriously even when the locals do not.

    AQ in Iraq: UW. AQ went to Iraq to wage UW to still up the Sunni insurgency. They also saw it as an opportunity to strike a blow for their primary purpose of reducing Western influence over the Middle East, so they developed their own group of foreign fighters and joined the fray. They were still a UW force. Any Iraqi insurgents who called themselves AQ were still insurgents. It does not matter what T-shirt you wear, or what tattoo you put on your arm. These roles are cast by where you come from and what your purpose is.

    Republicans in Northern Ireland: Insurgents. A revolutionary nationalist movement to remove the illegitimate (in the eyes of the populace...) British government

    militia in Timor Leste: Not super familiar, if they were locals they were insurgents.

    Mau Mau in Kenya: Insurgents.

    It is important to remember that no populace is a monolith. Conditions of Poor Governance radiate out from the government, it is how they are received by these diverse pockets of the populace that creates a mosaic of levels of conditions of insurgency across any country. It is only when it reaches a dangerous level within one or more of these pockets of populace that groups will begin to organize to challenge the government. Typically they try legal means first, and then are forced to resort to illegal means. At this point they have a broad choice of tactics from non-violent to violent; they also attract or seek the attention of foreign allies who either already have a grudge themselves with the government they are rising up to challenge, or that merely see an opportunity to expand their own agenda or establish interests where they currently have none on the backs of the insurgency.
    Last edited by Bob's World; 10-06-2010 at 10:59 AM.
    Robert C. Jones
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    "The modern COIN mindset is when one arrogantly goes to some foreign land and attempts to make those who live there a lesser version of one's self. The FID mindset is when one humbly goes to some foreign land and seeks first to understand, and then to help in some small way for those who live there to be the best version of their own self." Colonel Robert C. Jones, US Army Special Forces (Retired)

  13. #53
    Council Member Dayuhan's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bob's World View Post
    Dayuhan says we invaded Afghanistan and started the insurgency there. No. We conducted UW to assist the Northern Alliance insurgency to prevail.
    What I actually said was this:

    We need to face reality, and the reality is that these "insurgencies" do not exist because of the governments they are fighting. They exist because we chose to remove governments we didn't like and replace them with governments that we like.
    Whether we removed the government we didn't like through UW or through invasion is really quite irrelevant. What matter is that we removed a government an installed one that was shaped and designed by us to suit our purposes. That government now faces an insurgency, and we are deluding ourselves if we pretend that today's insurgent/government conflict is not a consequence of our intervention. If we hadn't intervened there would still be conflict, but the government that exists today would not exist and the conflict would be fundamentally different: we wouldn't be in it and the Northern Alliance would not have prevailed.

    That realization is important because it underscore the reality that we do not necessarily have to be involved in insurgencies, or in COIN. We are involved now because of our choices, choices that were in no way necessary. If we do not wish to be so involved in the future, we can make different choices. The COIN role is not something thrust on us by circumstances beyond our control. We chose it.

    Quote Originally Posted by Bob's World View Post
    If we shifted our focus to forcing GIROA to evolve rather than enabling them to stay the same we would get on a faster track to helping stabilize the country.
    One could argue that the belief in our capacity to force other governments to evolve is what got us into today's mess in the first place. I'm not at all convinced that we can, or that we should try. The evolution of other people's governments is generally not our business.
    Last edited by Dayuhan; 10-06-2010 at 11:44 AM.

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    Council Member slapout9's Avatar
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    Default I Am Tracking Better Now

    Quote Originally Posted by jmm99 View Post
    but again the purpose you state ("need to change the rules/laws in order to survive") deals with legal and legal derivatives. So, we have rules and laws dealing with embargo and blockade, where the existence of "war (armed conflict)" in a legal sense is determinative of whether we apply Laws of War or Rule of Law.

    What I was trying to get at is whether there are definitions for the existence of war which not dependent on the legal rules and which exist for independent purposes.

    Regards

    Mike

    I say yes. The Moral level of war is the first question(s) to be defined. What makes it right or wrong to go to War, because warfare usually comes down to which rules/laws will you break in order to win.

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    Quote Originally Posted by William F. Owen View Post
    b.) Searching my soul, I have come to realise that I do not really ever use the term "War" except in a theoretical form. Bridging the gap between necessary theory and practice is my schtick, but I find almost no "practical" use for the term "War." - other than to acknowledge that there is a human activity which seems to have an unchanging nature but a widely varied character.
    Might be on to something there!

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    Council Member Bob's World's Avatar
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    I guess to nutshell my ramblings,

    A. What one calls a problem should suggest a category of solution to that problem.

    B. War is war in that wars suggest (with many variants) a category of solution to the problem; I.e. Warfare.

    C. COIN does not fit with the category of war as the category of solution for a government faced with a COIN mission fits more appropriately under Civil Emergency.

    D. The majority of the conflicts we are dealing with now are some mix of UW and Insurgency, COIN and FID. Our tendency to ignore fine points of distinction between roles, to focus on tactics such at Terrorism or CT, and to lump all under a broad title of WAR is counter productive to our ends.
    Last edited by Bob's World; 10-06-2010 at 01:37 PM.
    Robert C. Jones
    Intellectus Supra Scientia
    (Understanding is more important than Knowledge)

    "The modern COIN mindset is when one arrogantly goes to some foreign land and attempts to make those who live there a lesser version of one's self. The FID mindset is when one humbly goes to some foreign land and seeks first to understand, and then to help in some small way for those who live there to be the best version of their own self." Colonel Robert C. Jones, US Army Special Forces (Retired)

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    Council Member Bob's World's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dayuhan View Post
    What I actually said was this:



    Whether we removed the government we didn't like through UW or through invasion is really quite irrelevant. What matter is that we removed a government an installed one that was shaped and designed by us to suit our purposes. That government now faces an insurgency, and we are deluding ourselves if we pretend that today's insurgent/government conflict is not a consequence of our intervention. If we hadn't intervened there would still be conflict, but the government that exists today would not exist and the conflict would be fundamentally different: we wouldn't be in it and the Northern Alliance would not have prevailed.

    That realization is important because it underscore the reality that we do not necessarily have to be involved in insurgencies, or in COIN. We are involved now because of our choices, choices that were in no way necessary. If we do not wish to be so involved in the future, we can make different choices. The COIN role is not something thrust on us by circumstances beyond our control. We chose it.

    One could argue that the belief in our capacity to force other governments to evolve is what got us into today's mess in the first place. I'm not at all convinced that we can, or that we should try. The evolution of other people's governments is generally not our business.
    Actually there is a huge difference between invasion and UW. With invasion one is unlikely to have much legitimate local force they are supporting and the invader is also clearly the lead; with UW one has greater legitmacy, and that legitmate force is the lead. (legitimacy comes from the populace, not some legal status. There can only be one official government, but there may be several legitimate ones that may or may not be official). The reason we got got into the current fix we are in is because we wanted to use Afghanistan as a base of operations to continure our pursuit of AQ, so we stayed, manipulated the form, nature, and leadership of the government, then commited ourselves to keeping it in power. Those were choices, and bad ones.

    We also choose where we believe we have national interests that require a certain degree of access or influence to manage. We have gotten into a (bad) habit of manipulating governments so that we have a friendly government in power, and overlooking how in many cases those relationships are distancing those same governments from their own populaces, enabling them to trim civil rights and act with impunity. We still have places where we have national interests to service that require access or influence. Instead of sustaining poor governance in power we are better served in "forcing" (coercing, influencing, threating to take our ball and go home, theatening to support their insurgent populace rather than them if they persist in their oppressive ways, etc. It is a range of options. Giving those governments a choice. Basically saying "we won't save you from your own populace, and as we have vital interests here to service we will work with whoever is in power to do so. If you want that to be you, clean up your act.") I think this is far more appropriate in today's environment than to continue sustaining "friendly dictators" or executing regime change operations and taking over management of an already insurgent populace.


    I think we actually see things very simiarly, but just from different perspectives.
    Robert C. Jones
    Intellectus Supra Scientia
    (Understanding is more important than Knowledge)

    "The modern COIN mindset is when one arrogantly goes to some foreign land and attempts to make those who live there a lesser version of one's self. The FID mindset is when one humbly goes to some foreign land and seeks first to understand, and then to help in some small way for those who live there to be the best version of their own self." Colonel Robert C. Jones, US Army Special Forces (Retired)

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    Default Two real good summaries

    from Wilf

    a.) - Nice to the see the re-emergence of a high standard of discussion/debate.

    b.) Searching my soul, I have come to realise that I do not really ever use the term "War" except in a theoretical form. Bridging the gap between necessary theory and practice is my schtick, but I find almost no "practical" use for the term "War." - other than to acknowledge that there is a human activity which seems to have an unchanging nature but a widely varied character.

    c.) Thus there is regular and irregular Warfare, not regular and irregular "War."
    I didn't want to search my soul (for good reasons), but I suspect that the legal side may not have a real good definition of "war" or "armed conflict" in the abstract. I'll look and find out, sirs. Our laws and rules definitely do deal with "warfare".

    -----------------------
    from Slap
    I say yes. The Moral level of war is the first question(s) to be defined. What makes it right or wrong to go to War, because warfare usually comes down to which rules/laws will you break in order to win.
    Well stated. I'm no expert on Just War theories (which I see more as Moral Theology than law) or on other philosophical systems dealing with war. Their definitions and "rules" could be quite different from what we accept as "law".

    Regards

    Mike

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    Default "Public War" defined

    The oldest definition of "war" in the ICRC Treaties and Documents listing.

    Given the context of the Lieber Code, its definition of "public war" may be as much military as legal (emphasis added):

    Instructions for the Government of Armies of the United States in the Field (Lieber Code). 24 April 1863
    .....
    Art. 20. Public war is a state of armed hostility between sovereign nations or governments. It is a law and requisite of civilized existence that men live in political, continuous societies, forming organized units, called states or nations, whose constituents bear, enjoy, suffer, advance and retrograde together, in peace and in war.
    This roughly corresponds to what Geneva terms "international armed conflicts", Geneva adding (Common Article 2) that a non-state "Power" to an "armed conflict" may accept and apply the Conventions and be treated as a state party.

    Lieber's philosophy is reflected in these two sections (emphasis added):

    Art. 29. Modern times are distinguished from earlier ages by the existence, at one and the same time, of many nations and great governments related to one another in close intercourse. Peace is their normal condition; war is the exception. The ultimate object of all modern war is a renewed state of peace. The more vigorously wars are pursued, the better it is for humanity. Sharp wars are brief.

    Art. 30. Ever since the formation and coexistence of modern nations, and ever since wars have become great national wars, war has come to be acknowledged not to be its own end, but the means to obtain great ends of state, or to consist in defense against wrong; and no conventional restriction of the modes adopted to injure the enemy is any longer admitted; but the law of war imposes many limitations and restrictions on principles of justice, faith, and honor.
    A bit Wilfian in Art. 29 and some CvC + humanitarianism in Art. 30 - non ?

    Regards

    Mike

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    Default Absence of definitions

    After the Lieber Code and up to WWII, none of the texts in the ICRC Treaties & Documents series defines "war" (or "public war", or "private war").

    In fact, the Kellogg–Briand Pact, General Treaty for the Renunciation of War (text at Avalon here), did not define what was being renunciated.

    So, among the key ICRC texts before WWII, the Lieber Code contains the only definition of "war", and that limited to "public war".

    To be complete, 1907 Hague imposed formal notice requirements (declaration or ultimatem), which if met evidenced the exisitence of a state of war, on state parties before commencing "hostilities" against another state party. The term "war" was not in itself defined, but use of "hostilities" as the trigger suggests a mindset the same or similar to the Lieber definition.

    Cheers

    Mike
    Last edited by jmm99; 10-06-2010 at 08:06 PM.

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