The Clausewitz Collection (merged thread)

[Ken White]

I think that Ken studied under Clausewitz, so he may have a better interpretation than I.

students; I was already in my dotage, didn't do as well as I might have with him...

My earlier prize pupils Gus and Morrie were better, I think.

So, too was my own mentor.

[wm]

If the 'leadership' and 'people' are already two separate components, as you have identified, how is "supression of the will of one's own people by military means" not "the continuation of politics by other means" if the normal course of politics would be for the leadership to "take extra measures to garner... support"?

I'm not suggesting that we turn out the Army to supress Copperhead riots, which seems to be what you took from my comment. I was thinking more along the lines of a strategic communications campaign (aka propaganda) for home consumption--Buy Bonds, "Loose Lips Sink Ships," "Lucky Strike Green has Gone to War"--that kind of stuff.

I believe , by the way, that we may not be univocal on what is meant by politics. "Politics" in the sense expressed in that famous quote from St Carl has to do with inter-state relations not intra-state relations. It does not have the same sense as "all politics is local" as expressed by Tip O'Neill, which seems to be what is expressed in the quoted comment above.

[AmericanPride]

I'm not suggesting that we turn out the Army to supress Copperhead riots, which seems to be what you took from my comment. I was thinking more along the lines of a strategic communications campaign (aka propaganda) for home consumption--Buy Bonds, "Loose Lips Sink Ships," "Lucky Strike Green has Gone to War"--that kind of stuff.

I understand. However, I would argue that our (American/Western) conception of civil-military relations is unique, and while influenced by the Clausewitz model, I think most other societies have experiences where the military actively intervenes in civil life. That said, while I agree that Clausewitz spoke mostly of 19th century inter-state relations, his concepts are nonetheless applicable because the characteristics of politics do not fundamentally change from one system to another. Advocates of omni-balancing theory suggest that the majority of foreign policy decisions are made for domestic gain, or as the resolution of a state's internal contradiction. In some sense, inter-state relations are a 'continuation of politics by other means'.

[Bob's World]

Its been my assessment that most advocates of applying the concepts advanced by CvC to an insurgency problem are those who believe that success can come through the military defeat of the insurgent himself. Counterinsurgent vs Counterinsurgency.

My take from history is that this only suppressess the violent manifestation of the problem, and that so long as the conditions of poor governance (not effectiveness, but an assessment through the populaces eyes as to their satisfaction and sense of not being able to exert peaceful change) exist the violence will emerge. It may come back with new leaders or ideology, but while critical requirements to any good insurgency, the exact nature of either is immaterial so long as it is effective.

What the author did, is show how CvC's model for state v state warfare can, in effect, "snap into" a similar model of popular warfare over the common ground of the populace. I thought it was a clever adaption, and that the model would be helpful to those who believe that CvC applies to all conflicts a way to perhaps see what others are talking about when they disagree.

[William F. Owen]

Its been my assessment that most advocates of applying the concepts advanced by CvC to an insurgency problem are those who believe that success can come through the military defeat of the insurgent himself. Counterinsurgent vs Counterinsurgency.

If the insurgent is not using military/violent means, then he can't be countered using military force. There's clear blue water between COIN and the social conditions that create it - so yes, there is a fire safety type factor here, but soldiers should not be used to address the social problems.

CvC wrote "On War". Not "On Welfare".

[Bob's World]

If the insurgent is not using military/violent means, then he can't be countered using military force. There's clear blue water between COIN and the social conditions that create it - so yes, there is a fire safety type factor here, but soldiers should not be used to address the social problems.

CvC wrote "On War". Not "On Welfare".

Not all organized violence is "warfare" as addressed by CvC. The point being that even if you have an organized, violent insurgent organization, one can not achieve enduring effect by simply beating them down to the point that they lack capacity to wage violence. Also, that the techniques used to contain the violent actors and secure the populace must be designed so as to not actually antagonize the problem while seeking a solution.

Complex tricky business, but it begins, IMO, by first understanding what it is that you are actually trying to accomplish. And that is not defeat of a foe, but a repair of governance.

[William F. Owen]

Not all organized violence is "warfare" as addressed by CvC. The point being that even if you have an organized, violent insurgent organization, one can not achieve enduring effect by simply beating them down to the point that they lack capacity to wage violence.

Well if you can show me a military model that does not adhere to the CvC trinity, I will be extremely grateful and very interested.

...but once you have "beaten them down" that is the limit of military power. - so I agree, Military power can only solve military problems, and unless you solve the military problem, you cannot generally address any of the other problems

Also, that the techniques used to contain the violent actors and secure the populace must be designed so as to not actually antagonize the problem while seeking a solution.

- I think CvC would agree and he actually warns against embarking on military action, unless you have a clear aim in mind.

I think we may be violently agreeing...

[Eden]

Complex tricky business, but it begins, IMO, by first understanding what it is that you are actually trying to accomplish. And that is not defeat of a foe, but a repair of governance.

Not always. That's what we are after, but in many cases the counterinsurgents are not interested in 'repair of governance', but in the perpetuation of their own power/privileges/position. And insurgencies have been suppressed through sheer violence - it can work if the counterinsurgent is ruthless and sufficiently powerful in relation to the insurgent. Ask the post-war Ukrainian nationalists, Apaches, or the Albigensians, if you can find any.

This is a perennial problem for us in COIN when we work with host governments as in South Vietnam or Iraq, or without any governance, as in Afghanistan.

[Ken White]

This is a perennial problem for us in COIN when we work with host governments as in South Vietnam or Iraq, or without any governance, as in Afghanistan.

Third time, as they say, is the charm. Maybe the lesson has been learned.

Hopefully, we will discover that there are other ways to influence actions, aid nations who need it, deter insurgents and exercise military power effectively.

Actually, all that's been discovered. The question is will we adopt the principles and techniques -- and actually work smarter...

[LawVol]

Have to disagree--Clausewitz' trinity is the government/leadership, the military, and the people. In an insurgency, the Clausewitzian trinity collapses--the people become the military, or at least a subset of the people do. In conducting counter-insurgency, the leadership of the state tries to impose its will on the people (or, again, a subset of them) by means of the military. This sets the whole trinitarian construct on its head, I think. In the normal way of Clausewitzian war, I submit the leadership uses the military as a means of executing the will of the people. It may be the case that leadership may need to take extra measures to garner the support of the people for military action, but I do not think that suppression of the will of one's own people by military means is really part of the continuation of politics by other means.

In looking at CvC's trinity as applicable to both sides of an insurgency, wouldn't the COIN force's trinity consist of its government, it military, and its people while the insurgents force would consist of its leaders, that segment of the population taking up arms, and the same population the as COIN forces? In other words, using Afghanistan as an example, the good guys' trinity is US/Afghan government, US/Afghan military, and the Afghan people. The insurgency's trinity is the Taliban/AQ leadership, the fighters, and the Afghan people.

Granted issues are encountered when attempting to attack the will of the people as Clausewitz counsels. But what if the concept of "war" is broadened? Although Clausewitz spoke of a political/war continuum (war is the continuation of political activity...), he choose a bright line between the two (or at least appears to when considering his description of war). But if we look at the concept of war as a means to an end, then is it possible to argue that "war" can be viewed as a competition using both violent and non-violent means.

Thus, while violent means may be used to alter the will of the people in traditional war (e.g. attrition warfare), non-violent means are employed when it comes to COIN. Put differently, the alteration of will in the two contexts are different and call for different means. In traditional war, we seek to convince the people to give up fighting. In COIN we're trying to get them to fight or at least dime out the bad guys.

I'm not criticizing here; just trying to understand. I've been reading that Unrestricted Warfare book, so maybe it is coloring my thoughts too much??

[Ken White]

In looking at CvC's trinity as applicable to both sides of an insurgency, wouldn't the COIN force's trinity consist of its government, it military, and its people while the insurgents force would consist of its leaders, that segment of the population taking up arms, and the same population the as COIN forces? In other words, using Afghanistan as an example, the good guys' trinity is US/Afghan government, US/Afghan military, and the Afghan people. The insurgency's trinity is the Taliban/AQ leadership, the fighters, and the Afghan people.

I believe your assessment is correct -- but I think it shows why there's a problem in adapting CvC to insurgency in many cases and particularly in the current situations.

CvC posits a Trinity. Good -- where does the US fit in that trinity? An ideal model like your example assumes the US and the HN are in perfect synch and therefor comprise one leg. The actuality in Afghanistan is quite different, just as it is in Iraq and was in Viet Nam. In each case there are significant and troubling differences between the US and the HN. So you end up with a quartet instead of a trinity -- and one leg is shorter than the other; no balance there...

In most insurgencies there are outside actors that intrude and garble the trinitarian aspect. In your example the opponents also likely have outside players assisting their 'trinity.' Aside from the obvious role of Pakistan, I imagine the Chinese, Indians, Iranians and Russians also are playing. Perhaps others as well.

Of recent insurgencies, Malaya perhaps comes closest to the concept simply because the UK was the government and there was little to no outside support for Chin Peng and the CT. That makes a tremendous difference and is one reason Malaya offers a poor model for COIN efforts.

Philosophy is good; reality is is usually much more messy...

[Bob's World]

Not always. That's what we are after, but in many cases the counterinsurgents are not interested in 'repair of governance', but in the perpetuation of their own power/privileges/position. And insurgencies have been suppressed through sheer violence - it can work if the counterinsurgent is ruthless and sufficiently powerful in relation to the insurgent. Ask the post-war Ukrainian nationalists, Apaches, or the Albigensians, if you can find any.

This is a perennial problem for us in COIN when we work with host governments as in South Vietnam or Iraq, or without any governance, as in Afghanistan.

But it's not who we are, so we must take the the more complicated route of trying to get a government that we are supporting to actually govern its populace. Ghengis Khan can kill every male taller than a wagon hub and defeat an insurgency very well. We, thankfully, refuse to resort to such ruthlessly simple and effective solutions.

And when an individual, like President Karzai complains that the Americans are not supporting him we should say: We never were. We are supporting the Afghan populace and their efforts to attain good, self-determined governance. If you share that objective and have the support of your populce then you will have our support as well. If you have some other goal, you would be well advised to not count too highly on some personal loyalty committing America to sustaining you in office. As I have stated elsewhere, the days of "Hes a dictator, but he's our dictator" just don't work any more.

(We still have some loose ends to clean up in that regard).

[Ken White]

What your comment proposes is IMO totally correct. F.D.R.s 'our SOB' should never have been adopted -- but it was.

I agree with you on Karzai and we should never have manipulated the Afghans the way we did to put him where he is -- but we did.

In short, I agree with you for the future but that doesn't help now. We have done what we did and are where we are, One would hope that we could learn from history and avoid doing this to ourselves again. Somoza, a host of others in that area, all the many Venezuelans,Vargas, Pinochet, Mohamed Reza Pahlavi, Chalabi / Allawi / Al Maliki, Karzai. Long list. Lot of blowback...

What's that old Pennsylvania Dutch saying? 'Ve are too zoon oldt und too late schmart.'

Anyway -- and I realize you acknowledged we still have some loose ends to clean up -- what's your solution for now?

[Bob's World]

What your comment proposes is IMO totally correct. F.D.R.s 'our SOB' should never have been adopted -- but it was.

I agree with you on Karzai and we should never have manipulated the Afghans the way we did to put him where he is -- but we did.

In short, I agree with you for the future but that doesn't help now. We have done what we did and are where we are, One would hope that we could learn from history and avoid doing this to ourselves again. Somoza, a host of others in that area, all the many Venezuelans,Vargas, Pinochet, Mohamed Reza Pahlavi, Chalabi / Allawi / Al Maliki, Karzai. Long list. Lot of blowback...

What's that old Pennsylvania Dutch saying? 'Ve are too zoon oldt und too late schmart.'

Anyway -- and I realize you acknowledged we still have some loose ends to clean up -- what's your solution for now?

As a junior officer I developed a personal philosophy of "While it is sometimes right to do the wrong thing, it is never wrong to do the right thing." (no need getting into any war stories as to what "wrong things" may have been executed in order to accomplish the mission or take care of my soldiers - statute of limitations, etc)

We have a change of leadership, and with it an opportunity to make significant changes of priorities and focus without the dreaded "loss of face" that seems to trap us into riding bad policies and decisions into the ground.

Recognizing that we have to continue to operate; we must fix this plane in flight. We need a national grand strategy that is based upon a fresh understanding of the dynamic world as it exists today and appears to be trending toward in the future. We then need to reassess every institution, every agency, every policy, and every relationship in the context of that fresh appreciation of the environment and modify, cancel, reinforce, etc each as necessary to bring them up todate and in synch with that new grand strategy.

This should be so comprehensive, that we all grow tired of reporters asking senior leaders "How does this (bill, program, war, relationship, treaty, etc) square with the national grand strategy?"

Once we have this, then we have a anchor point that allows us to get past opinion-based arguments over policy decisions and focus on what we are trying to accomplish, what vital national interest is at stake, and whether or not some proposal is suitable, acceptable, feasible and complete or not. Obviously problems like Afghanistan could be tackled several ways. Once we agree on a context, we will have less to argue about as which way the boss decided to take within that context.

[Ken White]

However, you may recall I also do not think one is possible in this nation due to our political process and schedule. One could argue for hours about what is or have we ever and arrive at several conclusions. Regardless, I think that what you wish for is desirable but probably unachievable.

Even if achievable it would take a few years to be fully implemented and embedded as a process.

What do we do with Afghanistan in the meantime?

[Steve Blair]

However, you may recall I also do not think one is possible in this nation due to our political process and schedule. One could argue for hours about what is or have we ever and arrive at several conclusions. Regardless, I think that what you wish for is desirable but probably unachievable.

Even if achievable it would take a few years to be fully implemented and embedded as a process.

What do we do with Afghanistan in the meantime?

Concur with Ken. I would hazard to state that historically we have never had a national grand strategy, except when looked at with the benefit of hindsight (the Cold War is a good example of that). We have had a national continental expansion strategy, and even that was debated at great length and often subsumed by the debate over slavery and only appears unified and focused with the benefit of about a hundred years of hindsight.

Given our geographical size and diverse population, one could argue that governing the US alone is akin to governing an empire, and that our "national grand strategy" only really comes into focus domestically, and even then it's a pretty hazy picture. Overseas? I don't think you'll ever see it due to the difficulty of getting said domestic empire to agree on anything. Our national interest has traditionally revolved around domestic concerns, with "them folks over yonder" not really factoring into the process. Even with the supposed 'global village,' most of the college students I work with view other countries as exotic destinations for a spring abroad. Policy stuff? Fuggidaboutit.

Like Ken, I think this is an interesting and possibly valuable idea, but in practice I don't think you'll ever see it happen. At least not in the US.

[wm]

With regard to LawVol's position, I think what one ends up with on that analysis is not two 3-legged stools contending with each other for the right to be the preferred place to sit but instead an odd-looking "settee" that has 2 seats, each with 2 uprights and a shared middle upright. The bad news is that when either, or both, of the two seats get occupied, the stress is too great for the shared leg and it snaps, to the misfortune of all. (In this poor metaphor, the occupiers of the two seats just happen to be outsiders who are supporting the two leaderships/armed forces contending for the "hearts and minds" of the people--that poor, over-stressed third leg.) So in the AOR, we have Karzai/ANA contending with Omar/Taliban forces (and maybe others as well--I suspect the various warlords and their supporters in the provinces represent other pairs of leader/army "legs" in the equation) for the "hearts and minds" of a mixed bag of people (Pashtun, Baluchi, etc) that happen to live within arbitrarily drawn boundaries that make up a "nation" called Afghanistan. The US comes along and overbalances the settee (perhaps with AQ sitting on the other seat), just as the USSR did 30 years or so ago, just as the British did more than once in the 19th Century and various Persian states did before them.

In response to Ken's question as to the way ahead, I'll repeat the position I've taken before--we need to back out and let the peoples of the region have the space to make their own decisions about how they want things to go. To continue the furniture metaphor, I submit we need to give them the space to figure out what kind of stool they will create for their country (or countries). That means the US does not sit on one of the setteee's 2 seats and does not allow other outsiders to sit on those 2 seats as well. However, because of the global nature of things, the contending parties don't get carte blanche to do whatever they want. The world as a whole wants peace and prosperity for all. So, how they choose to furnish their Afghan room (or rooms) in the global house must not clash with that design motif. This means that the US takes a position that says something like this: Whatever three legged stool(s) they end up with better not be destabilizing to other areas/nations of the world because that kind of furniture just doesn't fit the decor of the rest of the world. The most important point about this last position is that the US cannot hold it unilaterally. It must be a position agreed to by the rest of the world as well. And that will require the US to collaborate on policies, not dictate them to others.

So to fix the probem in Afghanistan effectively, a US national grand strategy is not sufficient. What is needed is a global strategy, achieving which is probably an even taller order than getting agreement on a US grand strategy.

[Bob's World]

So to fix the probem in Afghanistan effectively, a US national grand strategy is not sufficient. What is needed is a global strategy, achieving which is probably an even taller order than getting agreement on a US grand strategy.

Some day this will happen. Nations working to achieve their national objectives, competing for advantage, but within the framework of a global strategic construct. Would have to be very principle based to work. What the UN might evolve to now that its Cold War mission is long over?

Not in time to help much in Afg. though. But you have to have goals to strive toward, even if they are seemingly unreachable today. At least you stay on azimuth that way.

[LawVol]

With regard to LawVol's position, I think what one ends up with on that analysis is not two 3-legged stools contending with each other for the right to be the preferred place to sit but instead an odd-looking "settee" that has 2 seats, each with 2 uprights and a shared middle upright. The bad news is that when either, or both, of the two seats get occupied, the stress is too great for the shared leg and it snaps, to the misfortune of all. (In this poor metaphor, the occupiers of the two seats just happen to be outsiders who are supporting the two leaderships/armed forces contending for the "hearts and minds" of the people--that poor, over-stressed third leg.) So in the AOR, we have Karzai/ANA contending with Omar/Taliban forces (and maybe others as well--I suspect the various warlords and their supporters in the provinces represent other pairs of leader/army "legs" in the equation) for the "hearts and minds" of a mixed bag of people (Pashtun, Baluchi, etc) that happen to live within arbitrarily drawn boundaries that make up a "nation" called Afghanistan. The US comes along and overbalances the settee (perhaps with AQ sitting on the other seat), just as the USSR did 30 years or so ago, just as the British did more than once in the 19th Century and various Persian states did before them.

I like the "settee" analogy (Ken also alluded to this) and I think it still works, assuming you broaden the scope of war to include all available means. Clausewitz said that the aim of warfare is to disarm the enemy by matching your effort against his power of resistance. Furthermore, the aim of war must be taken as applying to both sides. I take this to mean that it is a fight between the military legs of the trinity stool under the direction of the government and supported by the people.

Expanding this concept dictates that non-violent means (or asymmetric if you prefer) must also be considered since the aim in COIN is not destruction of the enemy but the support of the people. The complication here, as you discussed, it that both sides share that leg. I believe this counsels even further for the expansion of the concept of war (i.e a contest between opposing factions by any means -- still working on this definition though). Am I way off target here?

Of course, it some environments your "settee" can become an even more oddly shaped stool when one considers the varying factions at issue in a particular COIN environment (e.g. US, Afghan government, Pakistan, Taliban, Iran, and the list goes on). However, isn't the fundamental precept still the same? It is still an expanded concept of war fought for control or support of the people using muliple means, both violent and non-violent.

[Ken White]

...Some day this will happen. Nations working to achieve their national objectives, competing for advantage, but within the framework of a global strategic construct.

You're probably correct but I'm very happy that I'll be long dead and gone before that disaster befalls the world.

From a nation of sheep to a world of them is not an encouraging thought...