Contextualizing Insurgency

[Old Eagle]

Slap

I was one of CSA's "LIC" guys back in the 80s when John T, Max Mainwaring, Bill Olsen and others were doing their work. And when there were proxy wars raging in the developing world.

The issue is the definition of "low intensity". As one of my former bosses pointed out, if you're an infantry platoon leader who just sprung an ambush on the lead element of a main force NVA regiment, your conflict is about to become anything but low intensity.

At the other end of the spectrum, President Duarte of El Sal, speaking at NDU made the point that the Salvadoran insurgency was low intensity for the US because if the FMLN prevailed, life in the US goes on as usual, whereas the gov't of ES was in fact playing for all the marbles. Not very low intensity for them.

[Bob's World]

Slap

I was one of CSA's "LIC" guys back in the 80s when John T, Max Mainwaring, Bill Olsen and others were doing their work. And when there were proxy wars raging in the developing world.

The issue is the definition of "low intensity". As one of my former bosses pointed out, if you're an infantry platoon leader who just sprung an ambush on the lead element of a main force NVA regiment, your conflict is about to become anything but low intensity.

At the other end of the spectrum, President Duarte of El Sal, speaking at NDU made the point that the Salvadoran insurgency was low intensity for the US because if the FMLN prevailed, life in the US goes on as usual, whereas the gov't of ES was in fact playing for all the marbles. Not very low intensity for them.

We never have found that one good label as all fall short of being a description that suggests a solution.

A "small war" can be very conventional and between nuclear states; or it can be little more than Mr. Shay's rebellion.

Similarly "intensity" has little to do with the nature of the conflict either. (Though I would offer to President Duarte, that while his government may be playing for all the marbles, the nation of El Salvador I am sure would endure the change in stride.)

Certainly considering all to be "insurgencies" to apply COIN upon is equally flawed.

Even if one goes with "inter-state" vs "intra-state" conflicts it still leaves a wide range of options, and more often or not will include elements of both.

I suspect that a pretty good decision-tree could be crafted, that allows one to key their way down to one or two of a dozen different options by focusing on the presence of absence of key indicators, and then assessing ones own role as to how they fit into the mix. I haven't seen anything along those lines, but if anyone out there has, I would love to see it.

Bob

[John T. Fishel]

The only term we ever came up with that was worse than LIC was MOOTW (which, according to Larry Cable, sounded like a cow going out of both ends).

OE, good quotes - I always phrased it as "there is no such thing as a low intensity bullet."

Bob, Bill Olson came up with a slide called "The 100 Names of LIC"

Cheers

JohnT

[ekaphoto]

Read "SAS Secret War" by Tony Jeaps. It used to be required reading at the British War College and probably still is.

http://www.amazon.com/Sas-Secret-War.../dp/0004708997

[slapout9]

The only term we ever came up with that was worse than LIC was MOOTW (which, according to Larry Cable, sounded like a cow going out of both ends).

OE, good quotes - I always phrased it as "there is no such thing as a low intensity bullet."

Bob, Bill Olson came up with a slide called "The 100 Names of LIC"

Cheers

JohnT

Lets see Old Eagle dosen't like it, John T. dosen't like it, and Larry the Cable Guy dosen't like it.....pretty much the end of LIC.

[TDB]

You don't want to fall into the trap of thinking new wars are new at all. I'm sure it has already been mentioned. Yes the end of the Cold War left the sole great power of the world reflecting on its new role in the world. There is plenty of stuff out there on how the 90's were punctuated by the humanitarian intervention and how at the end of the decade there was a massive over reliance on airpower. In terms of the US military machine (or the military machine of any nation) they are only as good as the last war they fought. That is to say, and I know it is somewhat cliche, but armed forces seems to go into any new conflict and conduct it the same way they conducted the last conflict they were involved in. See the massive use of airpower in Afghanistan in 2001 or in Iraq in 2003 and compare it to the use of airpower in Kosovo in 99'. I think militaries are very unwilling to admit they are doing something wrong almost as much as they are to admit defeat.

[Matt S.]

TBD posted:
In terms of the US military machine (or the military machine of any nation) they are only as good as the last war they fought. That is to say, and I know it is somewhat cliche, but armed forces seems to go into any new conflict and conduct it the same way they conducted the last conflict they were involved in. See the massive use of airpower in Afghanistan in 2001 or in Iraq in 2003 and compare it to the use of airpower in Kosovo in 99'.

Though this is true, generally people disparage various country's militaries because when they try to fight the new war using the old war's strategy/tactics, and failed (like the much-maligned French during WWII).

While we did use a huge amount of air power in Afghanistan in 2001, it actually worked very well for us, particularly during the few weeks of the battle. Gary Shroen, in First In, and Gary Bernsten in Jawbreaker both outline this very well. Using a combination of CIA personnel (some from the Special Activities Division) and, later, Special Forces A-Teams, along with the Northern Alliance, we pretty much routed the vast majority of the Taliban and al Qaeda. None of that would have been possible without the massive air campaign conducted over Afghanistan.

The over-reliance on air power, the emphasis from the Bush administration on having as low of a footprint as possible, and unreliable warlords and allies (particularly in southern Afghanistan) would come to bite us in the a**, most noticeably during the battle for Tora Bora. But I don't think that was the case of "fighting the last war," - it was a deliberate attempt to destroy the Taliban and Al Qaeda on the cheap, without having to commit massive amounts of troops and treasure. While that worked great for us at first, the lack of any sort of plan after the initial invasion screwed us. All of this (the lack of a plan for a post-Taliban Afghanistan, the small footprint in terms of troops and thus a reliance on unreliable warlords) was because as early as a few days after 9/11, the Bush administration was planning to invade Iraq (See: The Longest War, by Peter Bergen; Descent into Chaos, by Ahmed Rashid).