The David Kilcullen Collection (merged thread)

[Steve Blair]

Marc, you're spot on regarding the symbolic level of this conflict. That's why the oaths you were talking about are so important. We have to embrace that aspect of the conflict (something that as near as I can tell has been missed by some of the high-speed 4GW arguments) and find ways to get it to work for us.

Mike's points regarding COIN in VN are also very relevant to the discussion. In VN we faced a situation where the legacy of central government was (at best) mixed and tainted. Things from that standpoint had always been looser in the South than they were in the North, and we didn't recognized that (if we ever did at a policy level) until it was too late. Iraq, IMO, is somewhat different, but you're still dealing with a region that has reasons to doubt a central government. That makes things interesting, to say the least!

I like the idea of an Imam-developed oath for ralliers to take, and suspect it could be expanded to others in positions of local leadership as well. The problem here is the same one we faced in SVN: insurgents would then target oath-takers and kill them. Provided you have reasonable local security, and can develop more, it's a great idea.

Bill, as far as quid pro quo for wells and such, I think what we may see is a sort of "horse trading" level of operations. Something like "if we don't get hit with IEDs in X area for Y days, you'll get your well." Simplistic as well, I know, and possibly not the best example, but I strongly suspect that this is what it will come to if we go that route. One thing VN showed is that if you do civic projects and then walk away, the insurgents end up benefiting from them (or at least positioning themselves to take credit for them, which is the same thing in this sort of warfare).

On the Frontier, the Army (during the brief periods when they had control of the reservation system) used to threaten to withhold rations and (more importantly) weapons and ammunition from tribes if there was a problem with raiding from the reservation. This could be reasonably successful, even given the weak central leadership structure of the tribes. This may be the sort of thing (or a modified version of same) that we end up going back to.

[marct]

Hi Steve,

Marc, you're spot on regarding the symbolic level of this conflict. That's why the oaths you were talking about are so important. We have to embrace that aspect of the conflict (something that as near as I can tell has been missed by some of the high-speed 4GW arguments) and find ways to get it to work for us.

It's a corollary of 4GW that is implicit in the shift to the Information Age <shrug>. In a lot of ways, it really stems from the question of "how do I [read any individual] get meaning in the current economic system?" We don't get it from working on farms or in factories any more, and they produce far more in the way of tangible goods than can ever be used, so we have to look for "meaning" in other directions, and fundamentalist style religions are one of the ways people have gone.

Mike's points regarding COIN in VN are also very relevant to the discussion. ... Iraq, IMO, is somewhat different, but you're still dealing with a region that has reasons to doubt a central government. That makes things interesting, to say the least!

Too true! That's why the politics is so crucial as is a theatre wide IO effort that accurately reflects the political decisions.

I like the idea of an Imam-developed oath for ralliers to take, and suspect it could be expanded to others in positions of local leadership as well. The problem here is the same one we faced in SVN: insurgents would then target oath-takers and kill them. Provided you have reasonable local security, and can develop more, it's a great idea.

Yup, it all comes down to that. Still and all, some of them will end up dying as the ISF and IA people are dying. If they can die with their honour intact and their lineages honour intact that is better than the alternative. Besides that, if they are killed by insurgents, then the insurgents may end up starting a blood feud by their dishonourable actions.

I think the trick with the oaths would be to allow anyone who takes it the right to oppose government actions as long as that opposition does not take a kinetic form. In the West, we would call this Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Association - so, let's construct that as a value that we respect, even if "they" say things "we" don't like.

Marc