The David Kilcullen Collection (merged thread)

[Bill Moore]

Mike,

This ties into my previous comments elsewhere that the carrot isn't a strategy, at least not without a stick in the other hand. We have been winning hearts and minds for years, but unfortunately that hasn't correlated with winning wars. When I use the phrase political correct war, this is definitely part of what PC war involves. The American population (and political body) expects to see its military handing out rations, building schools, building roads, etc. to demonstrate our good will, and while it plays nicely to the international audience (sometimes) and definitely to the home audience, it has resulted (in my opinion) that we just do these things without any real thought behind them except for a Kodac moment showing we're winning hearts and minds, but in reality we're only getting temporary positive press coverage, and no real effect on the local population. We simply can't stop doing this cold turkey without first educating our population and political leaders that these seemingly nice acts are frequently counterproductive.

I would love to hear some ideas/recommendations from the council on ways to get a quid pro quo from the local populace in return for our good deeds? I heard one from my boss recently where he recommends encouraging an amnesty program, but an insurgent/terrorist can't get amnesty without turning in at least one other insurgent. This betrayal tactic prevents him going back to the insurgency, so he has a vested interest in seeing the government win (this closes the revolving door, and really goes back to you either with us or against us). However, amnesty isn't a carrot like building a well, so what do we reasonably demand in exchange for digging a well, building a road, etc.? How do we enforce it? I know it is situation specific, but any ideas will generate further ideas that will our guys deployed.

[marct]

Hi Bill,

I think you've got a really good point here.

I would love to hear some ideas/recommendations from the council on ways to get a quid pro quo from the local populace in return for our good deeds? I heard one from my boss recently where he recommends encouraging an amnesty program, but an insurgent/terrorist can't get amnesty without turning in at least one other insurgent. This betrayal tactic prevents him going back to the insurgency, so he has a vested interest in seeing the government win (this closes the revolving door, and really goes back to you either with us or against us). However, amnesty isn't a carrot like building a well, so what do we reasonably demand in exchange for digging a well, building a road, etc.? How do we enforce it? I know it is situation specific, but any ideas will generate further ideas that will our guys deployed.

On the amnesty program, I really think it would be counter-productive in that form. Make them take an oath on the Quran (get a local Imam to do the exact wording). It seems that a lot of the local AIF people are fighting in kinship groups, and most kin groups will be happy to have people in both camps (maximizes overall survival chances). Requiring a "betrayal", however, goes against honour.

On the quid pro quo for wells etc., why do you need one? The ideal QPQ is in the form of IO ops. I'll admit that this hasn't been done that wel so far, but that is because there have been serious problems in developing coherent, theatre wide IO campaigns. For example, put verses of the Quran on wells and schools and, if the insurgents blow them up, start rumour campaigns about heresy (NB: in Islam, you are not allowed to deface or destroy a Quaranic quotation).

Marc

[Mike in Hilo]

Bill, I've not been to Iraq. My COIN experience is VN-specific--in the Middle East I was just another embassy bureaucrat...So--at the expense of sounding facile, I'll touch on what was done in VN, where local participation in self defence was the quid pro quo:

Pacification was a package designed to tie the villagers to the government...A community that was reclaimed from the communists for the GVN got its "pacification projects" all right, schools, wells, access roads, etc....But the emphasis was on people-participatory activities that had a security component (As John Vann, who more than any other individual made CORDS work, was fond of saying, "Security may be 10% of the problem, or it may be 90%. But it's always the FIRST 10%, or the first 90%."). So in the newly pacified village, teenagers too young to be drafted and the elderly were immediately organized into the village-based People's Self Defense Force under the village chief. This was a political concept designed to tie the people to the government through this "act of commitment" rather than to provide real defense from enemy attack. (I found that organizing villagers to participate in GVN DEVELOPMENT activities did NOT constitute a similar "act of commitment" on the part of the villagers, mainly because both VC and villagers saw such activities as harmless to the VC.) At the same time, of course, draft age males were inducted into the RF/PF (territorial forces). Did this entail a risk of the ranks being infiltrated by VC?--definitely--and this did happen. However, the key to making this work was supervision/leadership. The RF officers were ARVN officers--vetted outsiders presumably loyal to the GVN. And paramilitary RD Cadre, the same guys who organized the villagers for community development projects, were outsiders tasked with keeping an eye on the village authorities to minimize accommodation with the enemy. (These guys weren't too good--good concept on paper, but falls apart if you've not got top notch people.) Village autonomy was a much vaunted concept in CORDS, but in my experience, having good CENTRAL government officers right there on the ground to provide both leadership and close supervision was a sine qua non to successful "pacification" and to avoiding wholesale local "deal-making" with the enemy. (Excessive local autonomy in a country ripped apart by centrifugal forces only exacerbates the problem--this was one case where the Vietnamese saw it correctly even though the US did not.). And how much better when we could afford to have a small US contingent embedded with the local forces living right there in the hamlet--I mean the USMC CAP effort in I-Corps! In French Algeria, of course, the locally organized village self-defense contingents had French officers.

Now another way of looking at the quid pro quo issue is found in a component of the Malaya model, where the inhabitants of the New Villages lived under seriously constrained movement. There, an uptick in villager-provided, actionable intel led to loosening of those constraints. For example, curfew hours would be shortened. More drastically, food was doled out by the authorities: village recalcitrance led to an immediate decrease in each family's food ration; local cooperation (e.g., good intel, decrease in terrorist incidents) led to an immediate increase in the food ration. Is the Iraqi economy still socialized to the degree that food is government provided? If so, this may be one angle (though I'd shudder at the thought of our politically correct press fastening upon such "collective punishment").

To all y'all, A Happy New Year.
M.

[Bill Moore]

Marc, I like your IO approach, and I don't see why our PC crowd would preempt us using it, as a matter of fact the PC crowd would probably embrace it. Responding to your why questions:

If we don't require an insurgent to turn someone in, then it is too easy to go back and forth between the two sides. We don't want a guy accepting amnesty to get a couple of hot meals and a cot to sleep on, then go back and fight for whomever. If we do, we simply establish a revolving door where they wear a coalition uniform one day, and black pajamas the next. BTW both sides of the revolving door are now infiltrated. However, the oath you suggested taken in a semi-public location in front of a respected local leader does seem more realistic. It is possible for highly educated professionals such as yourself to influence knuckle draggers like me, and it should happen more often. I know there are hundreds of soldiers out there who would be eager to send you questions in order to get your ideas. I am very supportive of forming centers of excellence that DoD members can access from the field, even if the field on this particular day happens to be my home office (lol).

On to the harder issue, why would I want to tie a civil military project such as digging a well to behavior concessions from the local village, neighborhood, etc.? First, we don't have to tie all actions to concessions, because there is merit for doing good (don't forget the international and home audiences); however, I am assuming we want to defeat an insurgency, and that definitely requires the host nation government to effectively assert control over its population, and these projects are a tool for achieving that goal. In a COIN scenario I look at building a well as a tool to persuade the population to separate themselves from the insurgents, but if we don't spell that out and mandate certain actions in return, well we simply dug a well, so now the insurgents have a ready source of clean drinking water.

This is an overly simplistic explanation, but I think the jest of it is clear.


Mike, great thoughts, and I appreciate the relevant history. I want to read the RAND paper all the way through before I comment.

I wish all a Happy New Years!

Bill

[marct]

Hi Bill,

Marc, I like your IO approach, and I don't see why our PC crowd would preempt us using it, as a matter of fact the PC crowd would probably embrace it.

Maybe I am getting jaded from my environment, but they might claim that it is a cynical manipulation of religion. Regardless, I'd love to see the same PC crowd out on the sharp end <evil grin>.

Responding to your why questions: If we don't require an insurgent to turn someone in, then it is too easy to go back and forth between the two sides.... However, the oath you suggested taken in a semi-public location in front of a respected local leader does seem more realistic.

I do agree that having a revolving door is pretty useless <wry grin>. I don't know if the oath idea would work, although I think it may be worth trying. What I am trying to find, and any and all suggestions are welcome!, is a way to get kin groups to accept a person shifting from active opposition to a neutral position with their honour intact. That's step one.

Step two, is to place the burden for any potential loss of honour on to the insurgents, hence suggestions about placing Quranic verses on wells and schools. Step three, although it should have been there at the start <sigh>, is the idea of a theatre wide IO campaign spelled out in the simplest possible terms that are acceptable to the specific local populations and the international community.

It is possible for highly educated professionals such as yourself to influence knuckle draggers like me, and it should happen more often. I know there are hundreds of soldiers out there who would be eager to send you questions in order to get your ideas. I am very supportive of forming centers of excellence that DoD members can access from the field, even if the field on this particular day happens to be my home office (lol).

LOL. Well, they could always post here . Hey, speaking as a long-haired, ivory tower inhabiting refugee from the '60's (that's 1660's ), I really appreciate being influenced by "knuckle draggers like" you .

On a slightly more serious note, that is already happening a bit. I think the idea of a centre of excellence would be a good idea and I would be happy to be involved in one. If you can get one started, let me know .

On to the harder issue, why would I want to tie a civil military project such as digging a well to behavior concessions from the local village, neighborhood, etc.? First, we don't have to tie all actions to concessions, because there is merit for doing good (don't forget the international and home audiences); however, I am assuming we want to defeat an insurgency, and that definitely requires the host nation government to effectively assert control over its population, and these projects are a tool for achieving that goal. In a COIN scenario I look at building a well as a tool to persuade the population to separate themselves from the insurgents, but if we don't spell that out and mandate certain actions in return, well we simply dug a well, so now the insurgents have a ready source of clean drinking water.

This is an overly simplistic explanation, but I think the jest of it is clear.

Yup. Honestly, I do understand the reasoning behind it. I think I am just being a touch contrary because I think it's important to bring out our assumptions. There has been some discussion (can't remember he thread) about how this worked in Malaysia, and Mike has certainly brought out the VN examples. The problem I see is that we are operating in a different battlespace; one that is much more media controlled.

If Vietnam was the first war we could see in our homes at dinner, Iraq and Afghanistan are the first wars that both we and our opponents can interact with vicariously. That has been one of the Islamists most important weapons - they can mobilize an international hinterland not just for psyops (e.g. the anti-War movement against Vietnam), but for overt financial, material, intelligence and political support.

This is one of the reasons why I like Kicullen's work so much - he is thinking in terms of "glocalization" ("think globally, act locally). I think that this is the biggest flaw in most of our (i.e. Western nations) thinking about this "war". In terms of a "long war" scenario, we are actually fighting an ideological or symbolic war: the Islamists, spearheaded by the Muslim Brotherhood realize this and the Western nations don't.

So, back to buy in <grin>. Why I agree that "in a COIN scenario I look at building a well as a tool to persuade the population to separate themselves from the insurgents", we also have to ask "what are we asking that they attach themselves to"? If the "government" is viewed as "enemies" by the locals and we separate them from a larger insurgency (e.g. AQ), we will just end up with either local militias or a quasi "criminal" organization (which is certainly what Rob has been seeing in Mosul). These local groupings, in tern will, inevitably form alliances with other local groupings in an effort to maximize their power and survivability. How are we going to convince them that their best bet for maximizing survivablity is with the "government"? It's this type of question that I was trying to answer with the idea of a theatre wide IO campaign.

Marc

[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

[Bill Moore]

Marc,

I don't think we should use Iraq as "the" example, because the conflict there is far beyond a simple, or even complex insurgency. By the DoD definition I guess it falls under the category of lawlessness, so we're doing COIN, but the country is in such disaray that traditional COIN approaches are too little, too late. My biggest concern isn't Iraq, but rather that we draw the wrong lessons from Iraq when we get involved in COIN missions in the future. I'm concerned we'll hear, oh we can't do that, we tried it in Iraq and it didn't work. The fact is we tried it after we lost the high moral ground, so of course it didn't work. Our national leadership didn't understand the nature of the war they getting in, and now we're trying to play catch up, and the reality is a lot of these tactics won't work once you're past the credibility tipping point.

Iraq was complex to begin with (although that seemed to be a conveniently disreguarded fact during planning). Some of the larger issues is the ethnic make up, the uncooperative neighbors (that's putting it politely), the multiple insurgencies, multiple criminal gangs, ineffective economy, massive unemployment, civil war, transnationals, limitless munitions, all topped off with a cherry on top known to us as the Iraqi government, but I doubt many in Iraq see it that way. We walked in to this with our eyes wide open, there are none so blind as those who refuse to see.

Quite simply, war doesn't have to be the way in the future. Iraq could have looked much different if we engaged our brains first before committing our military. I think there is a timing or phasing issue with COIN TTP that we haven't discussed much, but if we started this war focused on the Iraqi people from day one, and fought to maintain the moral high ground instead of just taking ground, we may have been able to pull this one off.

I think our COIN doctrine has merit, and would work if applied correctly from day one in numerous countries inflected with insurgencies. I think we have to pull the population away from the insurgency to the government, and if you can't do that you can't win.

[marct]

Hi Bill,

I've got to agree with most of what you have said. In many ways, Iraq isn't the real issue or a good test of current doctrines. You are quite right that the por initial planning has led to a SNAFU situation <sigh>. Right now, in a lot of ways, I would almost prefer to concentrate on Afghanistan and the Horn of Africa as places where we can still win and win well.

Marc