Bahrain's Unrest

[Rex Brynen]

al-Jazeera English has broadcast an outstanding documentary on the ongoing repression in Bahrain:

Bahrain: Shouting in the dark
The story of the Arab revolution that was abandoned by the Arabs, forsaken by the West and forgotten by the world.

Bahrain: An island kingdom in the Arabian Gulf where the Shia Muslim majority are ruled by a family from the Sunni minority. Where people fighting for democratic rights broke the barriers of fear, only to find themselves alone and crushed.

This is their story and Al Jazeera is their witness - the only TV journalists who remained to follow their journey of hope to the carnage that followed.

This is the Arab revolution that was abandoned by the Arabs, forsaken by the West and forgotten by the world.

AJ Arabic has rather downplayed Bahrain since GCC intervention there, so the broadcast of this on AJE is quite interesting.

[Bob's World]

Bahrain is a sneeze for the US; Saudi Arabia is the flu.

We ignore the sneeze to our peril.

But this is a great case study of the tremendous dilemma for the US in the greater Middle East. We have acted "consistently" across the region, in that we consistently act or don't act in places and manners hat we think will best serve our interests. That is fine to a degree, but becomes problematic when it takes a nation too far afield from their stated principles. This is doubly true for a nation so arrogantly verbose about the superiority of its principles to those of others, such as the US is. This is even more true when those principles include in a prominent manner the recognition of the right and duties of people everywhere to rise up in insurgency to form a government of their choosing when THEY believe the current government to be too out of touch with the people and un-reformable through legal means.

During the Cold War the US intentionally compromised some of our principles in order to create an effective scheme of Containment to thwart Soviet, and later Chinese, expansion of influence.

Some 22 years ago we did not see the end of the Cold War; no, we saw the collapse of the Soviet system of controls and externally focused national governments over the populaces of the states surrounding them as people, empowered by an emerging information age took advantages of conditions shaped by Western pressures and problems internal to Russia. That was the first boot hitting the floor.

Now in Arab Spring we finally hear the second boot hit. Finally the populaces of the greater Middle East, also empowered by far more sophisticated information technology are rising up to challenge the system set in place to contain the Soviets. Granted, US controls were far different than Soviet Controls; and Middle Eastern Despots are far more independent to act than their Eastern European counterparts.

Every conflict has two sides, we over focus on the other side. We were much quicker to roll back Cold War Containment measures in Europe and even Asia; but largely let it ride in the Middle East. The people there had no voice at that time, and the governments in power were happy to stay in power, so there was no change. Now the people have a voice, and change is happening.

The US needs to look at Arab Spring as a whole and understand it for what it is. If we do this right we will empower a new era of legitimacy of government and freedom of people across this region that will do far more to disempower AQ and similar organizations than any of the military operations of the past 10 years.

Too bad we're so internally focused on nonsensical political posturing over who will occupy the White House after the next election, all in the guise of fixing the economy. Our civilian leadership is earning an "F" on all counts. At home and abroad.

[Dayuhan]

Bahrain is a sneeze for the US; Saudi Arabia is the flu.

I'd say the lesson we need to take away from Bahrain is not that we need to roll back our control, but that we haven't really got any control to roll back. When disorder broke out in Bahrain, the US came out with statements recommending dialogue, reform, and reconciliation. The Bahrainis, with Saudi assistance, completely ignored us. We did nothing about it, because realistically there was nothing we could do.

Change will happen in Saudi Arabia, but it will happen in its own time and way, not because of anything we do.

Anyone expecting the Arab Spring to usher in a golden age of freedom and democracy is being wildly optimistic. It might be a step along that road, but there's a long rough road ahead and the early stages are probably not going leave the neighbors eager to follow the same route.

As always in these discussions, I come away wondering what you want us to actually do. While I'm well aware of the negative perceptions that the US has incurred thorough past meddling, I really don't think we're going to change those perceptions by meddling more. I also don't think we're going to change those perceptions by making statements of any kind... and making statements that we aren't prepared or able to back up with action only underscores our own ineffectuality.

The perceptions are what they are. Nothing we do or say will change them overnight or in the immediate future. If we mind our own business and stop meddling in anything that does not directly and gravely threaten us, those perceptions will eventually - as in a few decades - change.

Supporting or protecting locally initiated attempts at change that enjoy clear popular support is fine with me, as long as we don't try to take over leadership or step in with regime change. Trying to initiate, direct, or control political change in other countries.... bad, bad idea, IMO.

[Bob's World]

Ahh. So wait a few decades absorbing terrorist attacks from nationalist insurgents who believe that they must break US support to the regimes they are up against first before they can succeed at home?

Wait a few decades, when we our teetering economy is so dependent on stable flow of oil from the Gulf states, for massive internal disorder to erupt at any moment that may well destroy the infrastructure that keeps the oil flowing?

We can do a great deal and I have laid it out dozens of times, only to have you say "no, I disagree, the US is like distilled water in the Middle East, we have no influence there and did nothing to shape the current conditions." You need to get some oxygen brother.

We have options. We can do nothing . Bad Choice. We can over engage as we have been throughout the past 10 years. Worse Choice. Or, we can recognize what is going on and attempt to take a role to facilitate evolution of government on terms worked out between these populaces and their governments in an effort to avoid (and yes, they are avoidable)the revolutions that will continue to ripple across the region otherwise.

[Rex Brynen]

Or, we can recognize what is going on and attempt to take a role to facilitate evolution of government on terms worked out between these populaces and their governments in an effort to avoid (and yes, they are avoidable)the revolutions that will continue to ripple across the region otherwise.

In the Bahraini and Saudi cases, what exactly would that entail?

[Bob's World]

Small changes in certain factors have tremendous impact.

1. Putting greater justice into the rule of law

2. Dignity/respect: addressing any formal or traditional forms of discrimination supported by the government.

3. Legitimacy: Appreciating to what degree the populace percieve that the governmetn draws its legitmacy from sources that they recognize, and if not, taking actions to repair those perceptions

4. Creating legal venues for popular input and control of governance.

This is fundamental. All the US need do is recognize that these factors are far more important than silly metrics of effectiveness that we love, and to use our considerable influence to bring these governments and their people to the table, rather than the square, to discuss these issues and to work out reasonable evolutions that make sense within their cultural context, to move incrementally toward a more sustainable future.

[Dayuhan]

Ahh. So wait a few decades absorbing terrorist attacks from nationalist insurgents who believe that they must break US support to the regimes they are up against first before they can succeed at home?

Who said we were attacked by "nationalist insurgents who believe that they must break US support to the regimes they are up against first before they can succeed at home"? That seems a highly speculative assumption at best.

We can do a great deal and I have laid it out dozens of times, only to have you say "no, I disagree, the US is like distilled water in the Middle East, we have no influence there and did nothing to shape the current conditions." You need to get some oxygen brother.

What I see laid out always seems to come down to issuing statements that we're not in a position to back up with any meaningful action. As I said before, I don't see that words unsupported by action are going to do anything but underscore our lack of influence. How much attention did the Bahrainis and Saudis pay to American statements urging dialogue, restraint, and reform in Bahrain? Nothing we say is going to make any difference, and it certainly isn't going to change anyone's perceptions. Action might, but what action do you propose to take?

I didn't say that we "did nothing to shape current conditions". We did a good deal. A lot less than some would suggest, but still a good deal. That doesn't mean that we can correct the impact of yesterday's meddling by counter-meddling today. If meddling makes a mess, we don't need better meddling, we need to stop meddling.

The perception of the US as self-interested meddler is deeply entrenched and nothing we say or do will change it quickly. If we stop meddling and mind our own business, that perception will - give it some decades - eventually change. More meddling will only make it worse.

Small changes in certain factors have tremendous impact.

1. Putting greater justice into the rule of law

2. Dignity/respect: addressing any formal or traditional forms of discrimination supported by the government.

3. Legitimacy: Appreciating to what degree the populace percieve that the governmetn draws its legitmacy from sources that they recognize, and if not, taking actions to repair those perceptions

4. Creating legal venues for popular input and control of governance.

All these things would have impact, but they aren't things that Americians can do in another country.

All the US need do is recognize that these factors are far more important than silly metrics of effectiveness that we love, and to use our considerable influence to bring these governments and their people to the table, rather than the square, to discuss these issues and to work out reasonable evolutions that make sense within their cultural context, to move incrementally toward a more sustainable future.

How exactly do you propose to do that? What exact form of "considerable influence" will you bring to bear? Perhaps more important, what on earth makes you think that anyone in Saudi Arabia wants the United States to impose itself as an uninvited mediator in Saudi Arabia's internal politics? Do you really think an uninvited attempt to impose American influence on Saudi governance is going to disempower AQ? I'd guess the opposite. Foreign meddling is what they thrive on, and no matter how many times we say we're acting for the good of the populace, I don't bet you'd find one single Saudi who would believe it. I doubt you'd find more than a handful of Americans who would believe it.

Rex asked a very legitimate question: "what exactly would that entail"? I second it... with emphasis on "exactly". Imagine you're President. What exactly and specifically do you propose to do?

[Bob's World]

Who said we were attacked by "nationalist insurgents who believe that they must break US support to the regimes they are up against first before they can succeed at home"? That seems a highly speculative assumption at best.



What I see laid out always seems to come down to issuing statements that we're not in a position to back up with any meaningful action. As I said before, I don't see that words unsupported by action are going to do anything but underscore our lack of influence. How much attention did the Bahrainis and Saudis pay to American statements urging dialog, restraint, and reform in Bahrain? Nothing we say is going to make any difference, and it certainly isn't going to change anyone's perceptions. Action might, but what action do you propose to take?

I didn't say that we "did nothing to shape current conditions". We did a good deal. A lot less than some would suggest, but still a good deal. That doesn't mean that we can correct the impact of yesterday's meddling by counter-meddling today. If meddling makes a mess, we don't need better meddling, we need to stop meddling.

The perception of the US as self-interested meddler is deeply entrenched and nothing we say or do will change it quickly. If we stop meddling and mind our own business, that perception will - give it some decades - eventually change. More meddling will only make it worse.



All these things would have impact, but they aren't things that Americans can do in another country.



How exactly do you propose to do that? What exact form of "considerable influence" will you bring to bear? Perhaps more important, what on earth makes you think that anyone in Saudi Arabia wants the United States to impose itself as an uninvited mediator in Saudi Arabia's internal politics? Do you really think an uninvited attempt to impose American influence on Saudi governance is going to disempower AQ? I'd guess the opposite. Foreign meddling is what they thrive on, and no matter how many times we say we're acting for the good of the populace, I don't bet you'd find one single Saudi who would believe it. I doubt you'd find more than a handful of Americans who would believe it.

Rex asked a very legitimate question: "what exactly would that entail"? I second it... with emphasis on "exactly". Imagine you're President. What exactly and specifically do you propose to do?

You are so trapped in your paradigm.

The "exactlys" must be tailored to each specific situation, but before I play President for you, to answer a couple other questions you pose:

Who says we were attacked by nationalist insurgents who believe they must break the support of the US to the regimes of the region before they can achieve success at home? I do. This is political and rooted in a dozen diverse national situations; not just evil or ideological. AQ has no populace and no land. They must always borrow other's. We overly focus on their sales pitch to do so, rather than on their organization's true political purpose, and that of those who opt to work with them directly or merely accept their support.

I make this based upon my training and experience, my understanding of the region and insurgency, my analysis of positions that focus on Ideology, terrorism, caliphates, etc, etc and find all to be seriously wanting in logical basis. You don't have to agree with me. You are convinced of your position, I post these things for others who still retain open minds and also see the flaws of much that is out there but can't quite put their finger on what's wrong about them. Sure, they always have to climb over the "no you are wrong" fences you feel compelled to build around my every post, but in so doing they see how you always conveniently ignore the qualifying terms I use to recast my posts in absolutist terms that better fit the arguments you post on your perspective.

Second, I never say that American leadership needs to sit back and lecture these leaders publicly, nor that we need to make these changes ourselves. This is not a time for speeches or direct interventions to shape things to what we thing the specific solution should be. This is a time for tough love behind the scenes. These despots suffer from the same problem the US does. They are still in denial as to their role in the problems they face.

We need to accept our role, they need to accept their role, and then it needs to be "how do we work together to fix this," demanding major changes on the parts of all the parties. There will need to be public messages on these changes, and also clear changes in actions that coincide with our messages. Maybe all we can do is get these guys to the mediation table and guarantee protections for those who have the moral and physical courage to participate in such talks. This means guarantees to leaders emerging from the populace (regardless of what group or ideology they may be associated with) and also for the governmental leaders, be they friend or foe. (We are making a HUGE mistake in not making a major effort to gain a pardon and respectable retirement for Mubarak; and the same needs to be clearly there for Qadaffi and others as well regardless of our past histories).

As to my Presidential guidance? Let me think about that a bit.

[Rex Brynen]

Small changes in certain factors have tremendous impact.

1. Putting greater justice into the rule of law

2. Dignity/respect: addressing any formal or traditional forms of discrimination supported by the government.

3. Legitimacy: Appreciating to what degree the populace percieve that the governmetn draws its legitmacy from sources that they recognize, and if not, taking actions to repair those perceptions

4. Creating legal venues for popular input and control of governance.

This is fundamental. All the US need do is recognize that these factors are far more important than silly metrics of effectiveness that we love, and to use our considerable influence to bring these governments and their people to the table, rather than the square, to discuss these issues and to work out reasonable evolutions that make sense within their cultural context, to move incrementally toward a more sustainable future.

And what if the Bahraini royal family doesn't care about that "considerable influence" -- or, for that matter, doesn't even view the US as having much influence?

The US has only limited economic leverage over Bahrain, short of full-scale sanctions. It won't use military force. Bahrain can always ask the 5th fleet to move.

What would be an actual US action that might push the King into taking steps that he, quite rightly, would regard as antithetical to his core political interests (indeed, as an existential threat)?

I'm all in favour of pushing Bahrain hard on human rights issues, but working out how to do so isn't that simple.

[Bob's World]

And what if the Bahraini royal family doesn't care about that "considerable influence" -- or, for that matter, doesn't even view the US as having much influence?

The US has only limited economic leverage over Bahrain, short of full-scale sanctions. It won't use military force. Bahrain can always ask the 5th fleet to move.

What would be an actual US action that might push the King into taking steps that he, quite rightly, would regard as antithetical to his core political interests (indeed, as an existential threat)?

I'm all in favor of pushing Bahrain hard on human rights issues, but working out how to do so isn't that simple.

The "what if" is that the populace sees that we are not blindly supporting this continued oppression by their government. They have an ally in the US, and not just AQ or (likely Iran or some Shiite rooted NSA in Bahrain's case). Even if we are seen as a neutral it improves our position in the region and reduces the risk of terrorist attacks against the US and our citizens. Will the government reform? Or more importantly make the right type of reforms that history shows have the greatest effect in reducing the conditions of insurgency in a populace? Who knows.

At the end of the day, it's not our job to fix this government or any other. But it is our job to not take positions that increase the likelihood of terrorist attacks on Americans. So long as we blame the current unrest on ideology, or radicalized people, or the difference between Islam and Christianity, etc we will continue to reinforce the very status quo that creates the problems we agonize over.

If we label these nationalist insurgents "terrorists" because they accept assistance from some organization we have placed on a terrorist list and wage CT against them; we make the problem worse.

If we merely call them insurgents, and commit resources to build the security force capacity of the government of Bahrain to employ in the suppression of the same; we make the problem worse.

Those are the two biggest "cures" we are bringing to this problem here and elsewhere, and it is guided by a very flawed understanding of the problem and flogs at the symptoms in ways that make the problem worse.

So too if we pour in massive Development that goes to projects that totally miss the mark of the major drivers of insurgency; or if they are weighted to bring benefits to that element of the populace already favored by the government, thereby exacerbating the disparity of service to the segment of the populace the insurgency rises from; we make the problem worse.

We employ COIN tactics derived from TTPs for sustaining colonial governments or conducting containment. That is not COIN.

We apply an understanding of insurgency that casts it as warfare, and that too misses the true essence of such internal discontent.

We can do better, but first we must look at the problems differently than we currently do. In the general nature of insurgency, and in the post Cold War re-balancing of Arab Spring; and in the way AQ is political and leverages this widespread political discontent to fuel their cause; and in the unique aspects of each of these separate cases.

[Rex Brynen]

The "what if" is that the populace sees that we are not blindly supporting this continued oppression by their government. They have an ally in the US, and not just AQ or (likely Iran or some Shiite rooted NSA in Bahrain's case).

What, however, would the US actually do? Verbal condemnation? Economic sanctions (if so, how severe)? What else?

If the US verbally calls for reform (which it has already done)but does nothing (ditto), it can often be read in the region as the US failing to put its (oil) money where its mouth is. So what would you do, above and beyond what the Obama Administration has already done?

[Dayuhan]

This sort of summarizes what I find so frustrating in this recurring dialogue...

Who says we were attacked by nationalist insurgents who believe they must break the support of the US to the regimes of the region before they can achieve success at home? I do. This is political and rooted in a dozen diverse national situations; not just evil or ideological. AQ has no populace and no land. They must always borrow other's. We overly focus on their sales pitch to do so, rather than on their organization's true political purpose, and that of those who opt to work with them directly or merely accept their support.

I know you say that. What I haven't yet seen is evidence supporting that contention, or the contention that foreign fighters travel to Iraq or Afghanistan to break US support for regimes in their own countries.

AQ has certainly tried to ride on the resentment of various populaces toward their governments. It has generally failed: where has AQ ever managed to translate resentment to actual insurgency (they aren't the same thing), or generated anything close to a critical mass of popular support for an effort to overthrow an Arab government? The narrative that has worked for them is "expel the infidel from the land of the faithful".

By the mid-90s, despite conditions that were extremely favorable to them in Saudi Arabia (oil glut, economic crisis, US troop presence), AQ's efforts in Saudi Arabia had utterly failed, and the organization was reduced to a very marginal level. They needed a foreign antagonist, and above all they needed foreign intervention in a Muslim country... hence jihad against the US.

Is there any systematic study of foreign fighter motivations that points to a desire to break US support for home-country government as a primary cause? The studies I've seen don't come to that conclusion.

You posted this to Rex:

The "what if" is that the populace sees that we are not blindly supporting this continued oppression by their government. They have an ally in the US, and not just AQ or (likely Iran or some Shiite rooted NSA in Bahrain's case).

In order for any populace to see something, we have to do something. Not say, do: hearing and seeing are different things and nobody believes the words anyway. Like Rex, I'm wondering what you want us to do that will make anyone see anything? What course of action are you prescribing here?

Where exactly has a populace decided that it has an ally in AQ? Seems to me that it's AQ turning to Arab populaces for support, not the other way around. As long as AQ is fighting foreign occupation of Muslim lands, they get support from Arab populaces.

I'd also have to point out that it's generally quite impossible for us to be an ally of "the populace", because like all populaces, they are far from monolithic. Different factions of these populaces have very different complaints and seek very different solutions. If we become an ally of one faction (generally one that tells us what we want to hear), we're likely to generate fury from other factions... and as we know, a furious faction of a populace doesn't have to be anything like a majority to cause us all kinds of grief.

In Saudi Arabia I expect you'd find that about the only thing virtually all factions of the populace agree on is that they do NOT want the US meddling in Saudi internal politics.

I never say that American leadership needs to sit back and lecture these leaders publicly, nor that we need to make these changes ourselves. This is not a time for speeches or direct interventions to shape things to what we thing the specific solution should be. This is a time for tough love behind the scenes.

Now I'm confused. You told Rex that the populace has to see that we are on their side. Here you're saying that we should work behind closed doors so that the populace will NOT see us meddling in their country's domestic affairs? Is that not a contradiction? It looks like one.

How exactly is "tough love" our role here? We're not their parents. If we offer tough love and they tell us to %$#@ off, or if they listen, nod gravely, thank us for our advice, and continue as before, what do you propose to do about it?

We need to accept our role, they need to accept their role, and then it needs to be "how do we work together to fix this," demanding major changes on the parts of all the parties.

Who defines "our role"? It sounds like you want us to define it. It also sounds like you propose to tell the leaders of other countries that we have decided that they have to work with us to resolve what we perceive as their internal problems... and that we are demanding "major changes" on their part. Don't you think that's going to come across as more than a bit arrogant and more than a bit patronizing? What foreign leader anywhere, unless they are completely dependent on us, is going to talk to us on those terms? And again, when they tell us to %$#@ off, or if they listen, nod gravely, thank us for our advice, and continue as before, what do you propose to do about it?

I don't see how we're going to help matters by swaggering in, behind the scenes or otherwise (and it wouldn't stay behind the scenes for long), and declaring "we've decided that you have a problem and you have to work with us to fix it, and we demand major changes in your domestic policies". I can't imagine any head of state, anywhere, accepting that kind of dictation.

I don't want to sound excessively harsh here, but I feel like I'm seeing conclusions based on scant evidence and prescriptions that range from contradictory to impractical... I just don't see it as practical for the US to demand that other countries work with us to implement changes that we think they should make to domestic policy. I also feel that you're assuming far more influence than we actually have... and basing actions on influence that is presumed but not demonstrated seems a fairly uncertain course. On what basis does this presumed influence rest? Carrots? Sticks? if not, what?

Like Rex, I remain more than a bit curious about what you actually propose to do when words prove ineffective... as they have in Bahrain.

[Ken White]

I was told that most people could identify problems with about 90% assurance and about 80% of those would broadly agree on the pertinent issues and they would be generally correct. I was told not to waste much time on that front end because the assessment of what was wrong was relatively easy and generally straightforward. It was also said that excessive effort on the front end often led to much second guessing and revisions of the generally more accurate first impressions.

Instead I was to search for solutions to the identified problem(s), solutions that should not be based on ideal circumstances but that could be applied in the messy real world; they should invariably be based on worst case possibilities. Never on desirabilities, not on 'probabilities,' rather only on the most adverse potentialities. I was given several examples of actual problems and attempted solutions and was shown how those solutions rarely worked because they were based on flawed perceptions by decision makers and the fact that people invariably and messily intruded -- mostly by not doing what everyone thought they would or should do. That and rejection of potential worst case scenarios...

"Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose..."

I've been watching the US in the world for a long time. We get things right often but we err equally often -- and most errors are due to the wrong person being in the wrong place at the time a decision was needed. Luck of the draw in a democracy.

We are tolerated due to our wealth and the fact that most Americans, gauche as we are, are pretty decent and it is not them but the US government that has proven it is not too reliable in anything less than a MAJOR crisis. That is due not to evil intent but to a form of government that is not conducive to coherence -- by design.

The guy who taught me that initial bit above also emphasized that a 75% solution today was almost always better than a 95% solution tomorrow -- he noted that only rarely since TR and Elihu Root et.al. introduced excessive bureaucracy has the US been capable of the rapidity of action to do that...

I wouldn't change that. I would attempt -- have long attempted -- to embed knowledge or awareness of those traits in the minds of those who would affect US foreign policy. Those domestic pluses and international shortfalls have led to far more failures of the US on the international stage than any other single thing IMO.

Folks should also recall that we bribe a lot. We do that reasonably well. So did the Byzantines. As did the Mongols. Difference between those two and us other than the eras and mores of the day is twofold. The amount of political toughness available should bribes fail (as they often do...) and the concentration of power to act as opposed to our deliberate diffusion of it to deter action. We have problems in both areas. Still, we've bribed well and bullied and bluffed rather poorly for years.

Influence others? Very rarely.

Never reliably...

[Bob's World]

Dayuhan,

Organizations that conduct Unconventional Warfare as a major tactical approach (Russian and the US in the Cold War; AQ today) do not create insurgencies. No amount of ideology or effort will create an insurgency where the conditions for such popular revolt do not already exist. In effect, a populace must first be radicalized by their own government before some external party can come along and move them to insurgency. (Or as I often express, "the Pied Piper is a fairy tale).

So when you ask questions such as "Where has AQ caused an insurgency" you demonstrate what I believe to be a flawed understanding of the fundamentals of insurgency and UW. The better question is "where has AQ effectively leveraged nationalist insurgencies and insurgent individuals to act in ways that advances AQ's ends?"

As to the term "actual insurgency" I assume based on your many posts that you do not recognize insurgency in a populace until such time that it takes a particular form or engages in particular activities. The horse is long out of the barn and civilian government failure is nearly complete by that point. That is the classic reactive "counter-insurgency. This is the majority view, and I believe it to be a dangerously short-sighted one.

We see counterinsurgency in the west as a governmental response to popular insurgency.

Far more helpful to see insurgency as a response to governmental failures along a few critical high order humanistic psychology lines of operation.

I realize this is a "chicken or the egg" type analysis; but as one who grew up in the country, I assure you, that it is far easier to gather eggs than it is to catch chickens.

By changing our perspective and becoming more proactive, with an emphasis on the actions of civil governance to prevent the growth of the conditions that give rise to insurgency over the actions of militaries to come in after the fact of such failure and attempt to restore stability, one is able to get in front of the problem.

Most stable countries are stable because they in effect "gather eggs" day in and day out. They don't think of it as COIN, they just see it has how governments must work in the service of the populace. In countries that are unstable this is generally not the case.

[Pete]

During 1994 to 1996 I worked as a contractor managing the U.S. Army medical war reserve supplies stored in a leased warehouse adjacent to the U.S. Navy base in Juffair, Bahrain. I made four trips there, two of them when tensions were high and there was a slight possibility of getting hurt.

I went out of my way to learn all I could about the country -- from tourism brochures, newspapers, and about a dozen books from the library. Based upon my research the recent sectarian conflict there does not surprise me at all and the places where the violent confrontations have taken place are familiar to me. They are places where I've been.

My rant is that nobody in the office, either in U.S. Govt or in my company, thought my research on the country was the least bit interesting or worthwhile. To them a medical supply job was a medical supply job, be it at Ice Station Zebra, Antarctica, Landstuhl, Germany, Camp Zama, Japan, or Columbus, Georgia. It's all antiseptic, just doing a narrowly technical job.

That went against all my instincts -- a good combat arms leader recons his area and learns what he can about the lay of the land. SF and Intel folks try to learn all they can about the Area of Operations.

During the Balkan peacekeeping mission I read that the DoD contractor Brown & Root forbade its employees from even speaking to local nationals.

I want the U.S. to be sucessful overseas but with narrow-minded and insular attitudes and policies like that we deserve to lose.

[Dayuhan]

Organizations that conduct Unconventional Warfare as a major tactical approach (Russian and the US in the Cold War; AQ today) do not create insurgencies. No amount of ideology or effort will create an insurgency where the conditions for such popular revolt do not already exist. In effect, a populace must first be radicalized by their own government before some external party can come along and move them to insurgency. (Or as I often express, "the Pied Piper is a fairy tale).

So when you ask questions such as "Where has AQ caused an insurgency" you demonstrate what I believe to be a flawed understanding of the fundamentals of insurgency and UW. The better question is "where has AQ effectively leveraged nationalist insurgencies and insurgent individuals to act in ways that advances AQ's ends?"

Where has AQ succeeded in transforming "the conditions for popular revolt" into actual insurgency?

The point I think you're not addressing is that AQ's UW campaign in Saudi Arabia in the 90s was an absolute failure, despite very conducive conditions: oil glut, economic crisis, high unemployment, large American military presence. Certainly there was discontent, but AQ never managed to rally anything like a critical mass of the populace behind the attempt to convert that discontent to actual insurgency. That might be because the discontent was not as pervasive as an American would think it should have been, or it may be because the Saudi populace, despite discontent, did not see AQ as a viable or desirable vehicle for expressing that discontent... or likely a bit of both. The observed fact remains that while AQ draws very substantial support from the Saudi populace when they attack the US or fight to drive perceived foreign aggressors out of Muslim countries, their attempts to rally the Saudi populace against their leaders have drawn a very tepid and very limited response. I don't think your conclusions are accounting for that observed reality.

As to the term "actual insurgency" I assume based on your many posts that you do not recognize insurgency in a populace until such time that it takes a particular form or engages in particular activities. The horse is long out of the barn and civilian government failure is nearly complete by that point. That is the classic reactive "counter-insurgency. This is the majority view, and I believe it to be a dangerously short-sighted one.

I realize that you have your own definition of "insurgency", and that it complicates dialogue: it's hard to discuss something when people are applying different definitions for the basic terminology.

I don't think popular discontent is insurgency. It may be a precondition for insurgency, it may be a warning sign of insurgency, but it doesn't become insurgency until it's expressed in sustained, organized action.

Poor sanitation is a precondition for a cholera outbreak and a warning sign of a possible cholera outbreak, but poor sanitation is not a cholera outbreak. The cause and the effect are different things and have different names.

I realize this is a "chicken or the egg" type analysis; but as one who grew up in the country, I assure you, that it is far easier to gather eggs than it is to catch chickens.

By changing our perspective and becoming more proactive, with an emphasis on the actions of civil governance to prevent the growth of the conditions that give rise to insurgency over the actions of militaries to come in after the fact of such failure and attempt to restore stability, one is able to get in front of the problem.

Most stable countries are stable because they in effect "gather eggs" day in and day out. They don't think of it as COIN, they just see it has how governments must work in the service of the populace. In countries that are unstable this is generally not the case.

Of course it's easier to deal with the cause before the effect manifests itself, and it's better to prevent insurgency than to try to correct it. I don't see anyone disputing that. The question is how the US can proactively persuade or compel other governments to to take the actions we think they need to take to prevent insurgency or alleviate the conditions supporting insurgency in their countries, especially where we have limited leverage and influence. Even assuming that we are accurately reading the internal political dynamics of other countries (and there is a very lively possibility that we are not reading those dynamics accurately at all), there are real questions about whether we have the capacity or the right to impose ourselves as the arbiter of internal policy in another country.

Which brings us back to the original question... what exactly do you propose to do to persuade or compel the Saudis or Bahrainis to accept our dictation on matters of domestic policy?

[Ken White]

You don't never chase a Chicken, ya lure 'em with somethin' they like...

[ganulv]

My rant is that nobody in the office, either in U.S. Govt or in my company, thought my research on the country was the least bit interesting or worthwhile. To them a medical supply job was a medical supply job, be it at Ice Station Zebra, Antarctica, Landstuhl, Germany, Camp Zama, Japan, or Columbus, Georgia. It's all antiseptic, just doing a narrowly technical job.

I have heard a variation on that from a number of friends who have had a Fulbright to do anthropological field work. They make a trip to the capital to make sort of transaction at the Embassy and while there end up having lunch with a State Department lifer whose (lack of) knowledge of the country as a whole suggests he or she doesn’t leave the immediate area of the Embassy except to go to the airport. I assume that interacting with local elites takes up the greater part of their time, but it still just seems ridiculous to me to not make some effort to know a bit more about the country you’re going to call home for years at a time.

[Bob's World]

Dayuhan,

While I am one who is firmly in the camp that "insurgency has not changed"; I am also firmly in the camp that "we have shaped our understanding to date through a lens heavily clouded by hundreds of years of Western Colonial interventions and decades of Cold War Containment interventions."

So, yes, I am spending a lot of time thinking about insurgency itself, the effects of modern information technologies and recent (since WWII) external manipulations of governance in the regions where insurgency seems most problematic today, and a wide range of other factors that attempt to remove it from the military/warfare context that most historic writings are cast in, and find some clearer understanding.

It's a journey, and like most journeys the obstacles and challenges one encounters along the way tend to lead to discoveries one would have likely missed other wise. That is why I share so much of my journey here where it is open to input and scrutiny from a wide range of perspectives. Some emotional, some fixed in doctrine, some very open an insightful; and all helpful in some degree.

In the model I produced (and continue to play with and evolve) there are essentially 4 quadrants, with the upper right quadrant essentially being the classic, warfare-based, Maoist described manifestation of insurgency. I have not changed anything about that, all I have done is opened the aperture to look at what is happening in the other three quadrants below and to the left, to explore where insurgency comes from, and where it might go if resolved or merely suppressed; and what it might look like if tactical choices opt for non-violent responses rather than violent ones, etc.

The idea is to look at insurgency as a condition that ebbs and flows within every populace-governance dynamic, with most happily hovering down in that lower left quadrant of "peace" or "stability." The primary benefit of such a perspective IMO is that it places the onus for stability on government. Civilian government. It allows a better appreciation that the best "COIN" is in fact preventative, not warfare at all, but simply government approaching its duty in a manner that is sensitive to popular perception along a few critical lines that match closely with the higher order human needs identified in the field of humanistic psychology that Maslow made famous.

As I said its a journey. But you ask fair questions. What indeed does a country like the US do if in some region where we deem ourselves to have vital national interests at stake we see a government failing in its duties to its populace, we see a populace frustrated in its lack of control over government through legal means, slipping toward what may well become the type of violent, warfare-like interaction that occurs in that upper quadrant? How to do so in a manner that avoids pasting a big target ourselves as promoters of insurgency or despotism either one?? Difficult stuff.

But it begins by looking at the problem through a fresh lens.

Bob

[Dayuhan]

So, yes, I am spending a lot of time thinking about insurgency itself, the effects of modern information technologies and recent (since WWII) external manipulations of governance in the regions where insurgency seems most problematic today, and a wide range of other factors that attempt to remove it from the military/warfare context that most historic writings are cast in, and find some clearer understanding...

In the model I produced (and continue to play with and evolve) there are essentially 4 quadrants, with the upper right quadrant essentially being the classic, warfare-based, Maoist described manifestation of insurgency. I have not changed anything about that, all I have done is opened the aperture to look at what is happening in the other three quadrants below and to the left, to explore where insurgency comes from, and where it might go if resolved or merely suppressed; and what it might look like if tactical choices opt for non-violent responses rather than violent ones, etc.

I realize that, and I think there are virtues to the model... though I'm not convinced that all cases of insurgency fall within the model, and I think we have to be very careful about assuming that our definitions or assumptions about what makes governance good or bad are universal. A model can be a useful tool, but if we get to devoted to it we can fail to see that which falls outside it.

What indeed does a country like the US do if in some region where we deem ourselves to have vital national interests at stake we see a government failing in its duties to its populace, we see a populace frustrated in its lack of control over government through legal means, slipping toward what may well become the type of violent, warfare-like interaction that occurs in that upper quadrant? How to do so in a manner that avoids pasting a big target ourselves as promoters of insurgency or despotism either one?? Difficult stuff.

Difficult indeed. For me the default assumption about meddling in another country's internal affairs should be "don't". If we're going to move away from that default we need to be very, very sure of what we're doing and why, and to review out assumptions very carefully indeed.

I've mentioned this before, but the frequency with which terms like "the populace", "a populace", "it's populace", all treating "populace" as a singular noun, is disturbing to me. We have to be aware at all times that populaces are anything but singular, and that they have deeply divergent assessments of what's wrong with a country, what needs to be done to fix it, and to what degree - if any - foreign participation is acceptable in the process. Actions taken in support of one segment of a populace - or of an agenda that we assume is that of "the populace" - may deeply alienate and even enrage parts of that same populace. Any time we catch ourselves thinking we are supporting or acting on behalf of "the populace" we need to slam on the brakes and reassess, because we are likely deceiving ourselves (something we're good at).

It also seems to me - and I may be wrong here - that you are very confident that Americans have the ability to accurately diagnose the internal ailments of other nations and to prescribe effective remedies. I confess that I do not share this confidence. Even in the unlikely event that we can persuade or compel another country to do what we think they should, I think there's a very good chance, in most cases, that we may not make things better and could make them worse.