The Clausewitz Collection (merged thread)

[William F. Owen]

I think it's dangerous intellectually to talk about the nature of war, or the outcome of any war, without first discussing its relationship to politics. Having looked through the article again, what I primarily dispute is (1) defining the wars by the capabilities in use which leads to a faulty, perhaps misleading, conception of war and its future.

I think there are two things in play here and they are not the same thing. Military force is a political or diplomatic tool. Military force is applied as a continuation of politics with an admixture of other means.

The political will to employ and persist with military means is not one that should concern the military. What should concern the military is achieving the outcome the politicians want. (it may include loosing or not winning.) - as soldiers that's none of their business.

The expression of military capability, usually refers to a "want to do." This is not the same as a "can do." My guess is that a lot of folks are very reluctant to discuss why an ACR squadron, for example, cannot perform certain missions they are supposed to.

IMO, we have got to recover the idea that military force is only applied to military problems. Military force is primarily destructive and coercive. Its benefits come from actual or threatened harm. How you apply threaten or apply the harm is basically what defines how you work. Just an opinion, but why make it more complicated?

[wm]

IMO, we have got to recover the idea that military force is only applied to military problems. Military force is primarily destructive and coercive. Its benefits come from actual or threatened harm. How you apply threaten or apply the harm is basically what defines how you work. Just an opinion, but why make it more complicated?

Wilf,
I suspect that part of the confusion arises because we have folks wearing uniforms who do a lot things that are neither destructive nor coercive. A medic administering vaccinations to children in Afghanistan, a construction engineer working to build a new school in Iraq, and a wheeled vehicle mechanic fixing a local farmer's tractor in Djibouti are three easy examples. These are not examples of military force in the sense you apply the phrase, but they are examples of a type of force that just happens to be applied by military personnel (among many others).

Trying to categorize warfare and put in a pigeon hole is quite dangerous. Also serves absolutely no useful function that I can see...

Ken, it provides the economy with a lot of jobs for people who work in organizations that garner "lessons observed." Too bad we have yet to figure out a way to convert lessons observed effectivelt and efficiently into lesson learned. (No offense to folks like Tom Odom intended)

[William F. Owen]

I suspect that part of the confusion arises because we have folks wearing uniforms who do a lot things that are neither destructive nor coercive. A medic administering vaccinations to children in Afghanistan, a construction engineer working to build a new school in Iraq, and a wheeled vehicle mechanic fixing a local farmer's tractor in Djibouti are three easy examples. These are not examples of military force in the sense you apply the phrase, but they are examples of a type of force that just happens to be applied by military personnel (among many others).

Concur. They acts of kindness and are thus choices. The military does these things to help. They are humanitarian. It is "Military Humanitarian Aid" - and that has implications by itself!

If it "saves life and relieves suffering" I am all for it. I can little or no reason to build schools. I'd be genuinely interested in hearing the justification for why that is deemed important.

The militaries primary contribution should be the provision of security to the population and Government. The desired end state should be the level of security where non-military humanitarian aid can be provided. If 90% of the effort is not going in that direction, then I think there is a problem.

[wm]

Concur. They acts of kindness and are thus choices. The military does these things to help. They are humanitarian. It is "Military Humanitarian Aid" - and that has implications by itself!

If it "saves life and relieves suffering" I am all for it. I can little or no reason to build schools. I'd be genuinely interested in hearing the justification for why that is deemed important.

The militaries primary contribution should be the provision of security to the population and Government. The desired end state should be the level of security where non-military humanitarian aid can be provided. If 90% of the effort is not going in that direction, then I think there is a problem.

Spealking from the American perspective, I suggest that the reason the military is doing a lot of this work is because no one other element of our national government is willing or capable of stepping to the plate and taking the mission. We are apparently trying to plus up our capabilities in this area, but not too many folks who are not already wearing uniforms seem willing to place themselves in the harm's way that characterizes the current SWA operating environments in order to do the rest of the nation building work that might help stablize the countries there.

With regard to your last point, I wish it were as easy as, "make secure, then rebuild." I do not have a number/percent but your 90% of the effort in "pure" military work seems high to me. I suspect that part of the feeling of security comes from helping folks to have a better daily life. I'd be less likely to blow things up if I had a predictable supply of water, electricity and sewerage and my kids could get to a school that wasn't in danger of collapse or very far away.

[Steve Blair]

It's also important to remember that, from the American perspective, the Army has historically been involved in humanitarian missions. Going back to the Chicago Fire and earlier, the Army was often involved in a number of areas (to include feeding people). The CCC was built pretty much on the back of the Army during the Depression. It's been debated domestically at times (Sheridan took some heat for getting the Army into Chicago), but it's been a constant (if often ignored) aspect of the Army in the US.

[William F. Owen]

With regard to your last point, I wish it were as easy as, "make secure, then rebuild." I do not have a number/percent but your 90% of the effort in "pure" military work seems high to me. I suspect that part of the feeling of security comes from helping folks to have a better daily life. I'd be less likely to blow things up if I had a predictable supply of water, electricity and sewerage and my kids could get to a school that wasn't in danger of collapse or very far away.

This is the heart of the problem. If a family has food, water and shelter, there is not a lot else. The family either has them, because they are provided or they have them because they can afford them via employment. It is not the militaries task to engage in social agendas. You don't see OXFAM building schools. They save lives. That's it.

I think the reasoning that people join an insurgency because they don't have a school or clean water is spurious and un-proven. Lack of clean water means you die. Lack of school means you are uneducated.

Where does it reason that good infrastructure helps defeat an insurgency? Cyprus, Thailand, and Northern Ireland all had/have excellent infrastructure. They did not help stop an insurgency in any way. The only time when provision of infrastructure the might stop an insurgency is when it's lack is the issue. In Peru, the road building program, actually aided the drugs trade!

I think the military mission should cease at prevent death and stop suffering.

[Ron Humphrey]

This is the heart of the problem. If a family has food, water and shelter, there is not a lot else. The family either has them, because they are provided or they have them because they can afford them via employment. It is not the militaries task to engage in social agendas. You don't see OXFAM building schools. They save lives. That's it.

I think the reasoning that people join an insurgency because they don't have a school or clean water is spurious and un-proven. Lack of clean water means you die. Lack of school means you are uneducated.

Where does it reason that good infrastructure helps defeat an insurgency? Cyprus, Thailand, and Northern Ireland all had/have excellent infrastructure. They did not help stop an insurgency in any way. The only time when provision of infrastructure the might stop an insurgency is when it's lack is the issue. In Peru, the road building program, actually aided the drugs trade!

I think the military mission should cease at prevent death and stop suffering.

he can eat for a day, teach him to fish he and his family can live forever-

The problem with only "saving" them is what your saving them from or for. Doesn't do much good to give them fish it only last for a meal, and it doesn't do any good to teach someone to fish if there is no water nearby, or the water has no fish in it. All the factors must be addressed or it will untimately end up cycling right back to the same problem over and over.

[William F. Owen]

he can eat for a day, teach him to fish he and his family can live forever-

The problem with only "saving" them is what your saving them from or for. Doesn't do much good to give them fish it only last for a meal, and it doesn't do any good to teach someone to fish if there is no water nearby, or the water has no fish in it. All the factors must be addressed or it will untimately end up cycling right back to the same problem over and over.

I get it. I really do, but it is not part of the military mission to provide fishing instruction. The military mission is to keep said actual or potential fisherman alive, to be able to learn, or benefit from his piscatorial employment or recreation.

[wm]

I think the reasoning that people join an insurgency because they don't have a school or clean water is spurious and un-proven. Lack of clean water means you die. Lack of school means you are uneducated.

Where does it reason that good infrastructure helps defeat an insurgency? Cyprus, Thailand, and Northern Ireland all had/have excellent infrastructure. They did not help stop an insurgency in any way. The only time when provision of infrastructure the might stop an insurgency is when it's lack is the issue. In Peru, the road building program, actually aided the drugs trade!

I think the military mission should cease at prevent death and stop suffering.

Defeating an insurgency and eliminating the grounds that motivate an insurrection are very different activities. George III and his ministers had the chance to do the latter with the Atlantic coast colonies in North America before 1775 and were forced to try the former with the military after failing to take that opportunity. The French monarchy had a similar opportunity in the later 1700s and failed so miserably that it lost the ability to take the miltary option, leaving it to the other crowned heads of Europe to restore the status quo, at which they also failed miserably (thus the Revolutions of 1848 and the rise of the Anarchists following Metternich and the 1815 Congress of Vienna).

I believe that people tend to be motivated to "act out" against the current power hierarchy for a range of reasons that happen to correspond with Maslow's needs hierarchy. If folks are used to certain levels of misery and then are made more miserable, they may well view the return to their former stayte of "objective" misery as sufficient to stop their complaining, at least until they learn how miserable they are compared to others in the world (the so-called "crisis of rising expectations"). An adequate infrastructure lets folks focus on other things that bother them. I suspect that this is the case in all three examples Wilf cited. If one has adequate food and shelter, one is more likely to view the government's apprently different treatment of one's neighbors, who happen to practice a different form of religion, be of a different ethnic background, etc., as a ground for acting out against the perceived inequality.

[Jim Rodgers]

This is based on very limited real world experience, so take it FWIW -

-There seems to be little debate or disagreement about the need to address death\suffering by any and all means. That may mean very basic stuff, but, particularly in the context of an urban insurgency, may be much more complicated.

-For a while there, while the Army was trying to (re)learn COIN, it seemed like the Army was thinking of "hearts and minds" and "warm and fuzzy" as interchangable concepts. I don't think that's appropriate, and it seems like the Army has, in large part, moved past it.

-At a low level - Being friendly to the locals, respecting customs, etc is appropriate from a standpoint of basic respect, human decency, and promoting interaction. More elaborate stuff should probably be weighed carefully against the benefits. Dropping a couple of million on soccer balls to hand out to the kids (or whatever) should probably be approached carefully. If it facilitates interaction, HUMINT, whatever - go for it. If it's just an effort to look like nice guys and gals, a little skepticism by the commander is in order.

-Massive infrastructure projects are, overall, best handled by non-military agencies. But as wm and others point out, the US's agencies for doing that have eroded. Perhaps not in size, but the type of stuff that USAID could do (directly) in Vietnam appear to be much more limited today. This appears to be turning around, but it is, at best, a work in progress. My understanding is that the UK has some of the same issues. Accordingly, as many have pointed out, the military jumps in. The unity of command provided by that approach is also an issue. Also, while US military units never lost freedom of manuever in Iraq, I think you can make a case that civilian agencies did, making a whole of government approach difficult. Probably not the case today, but impressions may linger. Lastly, the US, in particular, has substantial funds available to military commanders, with (relatively) few bureaucratic strings\nightmares attached. Those funds have, at times, been used for massive projects. That might or might not be wise (see below), but part of giving a commander more resources and lattitude is increased liklihood of mistakes. We have wisely resisted applying a lot (in relative terms) of oversight to CERP.

-Large scale infrastructure projects may be a subtle, low-coercion form of population control. It's sufficiently different from what has traditionally been called "population control" (as Ken and Wilf have pointed out elsewhere) that perhaps that not the best term. But a school that redirects children from Tribe A through a path through a dangerous area occupied by Tribe B (less violence, fewer revenge killings), extends the reach of the local government (gotta pay the teachers, gotta patrol the area), employs a few locals and counteracts an insurgent narrative might be a great idea. Our ability to predict 2nd and 3rd order impacts is limited enough that I'm skeptical of leading with massive projects that aren't handed off to USAID or a similar agency, and "schools" in particular would give me pause - but we shouldn't get wrapped around the axle about this or that TTP. If a whole of government approach isn't working in a given security environment, then the military has to step up until the other agencies get ready. Others have talked about the military's efforts giving license to those agencies to sit on their hands, but that's another discussion.

-Large scale infrastructure projects may also be a form of large scale national level diplomacy. They may also something similar to bribery - nothing wrong with that, but apply carefully and evaluate for sustainability. They may also be a counteraction to an insurgent narrative. Or they may just be a bad idea. In short - I'm skeptical of one size fits all answers.

[reed11b]

Where does it reason that good infrastructure helps defeat an insurgency? Cyprus, Thailand, and Northern Ireland all had/have excellent infrastructure. They did not help stop an insurgency in any way. The only time when provision of infrastructure the might stop an insurgency is when it's lack is the issue. In Peru, the road building program, actually aided the drugs trade!

I think the military mission should cease at prevent death and stop suffering.

Sorry Wilf, disagree 100% on this one. unemployment and dissatisfaction strengthens the insurgent leaders ability to recruit. Army units Iraq did a great deal of humanitaruian work early on becouse they were all that was available for it. $87bil for Iraq in '03-04? Never left Kuwait. The building projects you did see came from the CA budget and unit slush funds. If the infastructure had never been there, then your point might have some validity, but in Iraq, it had been there at one point.
Reed

[William F. Owen]

unemployment and dissatisfaction strengthens the insurgent leaders ability to recruit. Army units Iraq did a great deal of humanitaruian work early on becouse they were all that was available for it.

Reed, I am not doubting that, and I have no abiding problem with the military providing humanitarian aid, be it the provision of water, food, power, and constructing shelter where needed. It's both ethical and logical, to a population you are protecting.

I have no real issue if the Army provides employment in providing those things. They can even recruit/train Soldiers and Policemen. That is all part of the mission. Repairing or building roads/railways to assist the logistical provision of aid, is also good.

However, I am sceptical when it comes to building schools, and other types of social programmes and civilian infrastructure. This is getting into muddy water. The Army is not there to provide education and employment. If it needs to hire, then great.

[AmericanPride]

If infrastructure and social well-being is decisive in Iraq as a component of the military strategy, I think that's a situation unique to the country (and region) in general and the conflict specifically. Iraq has few sources of natural wealth and resources, except oil, and so the state itself becomes the primary patron of the citizenry. Add into the mix the complexity of religious, ethnic, and tribal relations without any real unifying identity or ideology, and the only effective means of management is state power; whether that's a reliance on violence (i.e. Saddam), institution-building, or some kind of combination of both. But even while the lack of infrastructure or employment may encourage, for example, a professional soldier with no other opportunities to "work" for the insurgency, that does not suggest the same motivation is applicable to other elements of the insurgency, much less to other wars in general.

The political will to employ and persist with military means is not one that should concern the military. What should concern the military is achieving the outcome the politicians want. (it may include loosing or not winning.) - as soldiers that's none of their business.

I agree for the most part in that military planners should not be concerned with politics at home; but the enemy's politics is fair game. I should have clarified that in my previous statement. Understanding why the enemy fights clarifies how (and to what extent) he fights. So, as for the article, categorizing a war by how it was, or should be, fought is not very useful whatsoever without the "why". Why is the "psycho-cultural war" concept useful if the conditions in which its applicable are not universal?