We need less Chemo and Surgery and more "Voom."

[Dayuhan]

Another term for "jihad against the foreign invader" is resistance insurgency.

That would be insurgency against a foreign invader in your own country. Fighting in or funding insurgency in in another country is perhaps something different.

We must evolve to the world we live in today. This is the essence of "Voom."

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "voom", but if anyone expects anything to pop out of a hat and clean up all the mess they are sadly mistaken. I don't see any quick or clean solution to this.

Of course we must evolve. We are evolving. So is everyone else, including our antagonists. Evolution isn't going to provide any absolute answer or any quick fix; it is a slow and messy process that must be continuously refined. The question now is not whether to evolve or not to evolve, but what direction evolution should take and how best to pursue the selected direction.

In the Middle East I think in many countries and among many populaces we have a virtual form of foreign "occupation" going on. The West post-WWI, and the US post-WWII have applied a mix of physical and virtual occupation by policy; shaping governance in ways that suited those foreign governments and that left the populaces of the region powerless and irrelevant. When there was a greater threat, in the form of a Soviet desire to replace that Western influence with their own, those populaces generally tolerated that external influence. After all, they had tolerated the Ottomans for several hundred years.

But once that Soviet threat faded, and once the empowering effects of modern information tools connected and empowered these many diverse populaces in unprecedented ways, the people began to move on long suppressed resentments. AQ formed to leverage that latent energy toward their own ends, and employed those same information tools to show that a fairly small non-state group could conduct UW just like, or even better than, large powerful states such as Great Britain, Russia and the US.

This I think is largely a speculative construct, and I don't see much real evidence to support it. AQ and its predecessor organizations have had considerable success in drawing recruits and funding to fight direct foreign military occupation of Muslim nations, forst by the Soviet Union and then by the US. Without such occupation they rapidly lose relevance and support. I see no evidence at all to suggest that people who travel to fight in faraway insurgencies or send money to support those insurgencies are doing that to change the pattern of governance in their own countries.

Now, if one is that foreign power and wants to exercise complete dominion over some place and people, one must simply wage war and crush the people. It works. But, if on the other hand one simply wants to have influence and ensure flow of critical resources and keeping major sea lanes open, then one would be foolish to wage war. The other way to make a resistance go away is to remove the proverbial thorn from the lion's paw. This is a problem of policy. Not the Ends of policy, but rather the Ways and Means.

Depends on what you mean by the thorn in the lion's paw. If you mean the lasting irritant of large scale US military presence in Muslim countries, I agree. If you think the thorn in the lion's paw is the way Muslim countries are governed... well, that's certainly a thorn but it's not our thorn and trying to mess with it is only going to make matters worse.

[jmm99]

Here's another little matrix, which illustrates the flexibility of the War Paradigm - when it is applied correctly:

Hartigan Fig 1, Direct-Indirect Matrix.jpg

from 2009 Hartigan (thesis), Why the Weak Win Wars - A Study of the Factors That Drive Strategy in Assymmetric Conflict.pdf.

See also, 2007 Mauldin (thesis), Analysis of the Inability of U.S. Military Leaders to Provide an Adequate Strategy.pdf, who gets too carried away with the "Indirect Approach". BTW: the "indirect approach" (as used by Hartigan and Mauldin) is not vintage, pure Liddell Hart. It is more Andre Beaufre and others thinking independently.

The bottom line is that a "Strong Power" (e.g., USA) must be prepared to use both Direct and Indirect Strategies in what in actuality will be a mixed War and Peace Paradigm - the pure forms of those paradigms died a long time ago.

Regards

Mike

[Bob's World]

A lot of good fodder for conversation here, that I will nick away at over the weekend. First, though, to be clear, "The Cat in the Hat Comes Back" is a child's book, and there is no magical "voom" that makes our current security challenges go away. "Voom" will be hard work, but more importantly voom will rely upon us first coming to a better understanding of the nature of the challenges we face, and one that takes much more ownership for causation on the parts of governments and governance, both our own and those we interact with abroad.

In many ways the US barreled into the greater Middle East much as the Cat enters into this family's home. In many ways we inadvertently left a "ring" from our actions. I think I would associate the parents coming home and the trouble that promises to bring with that of the local populaces becoming aware of what has happened and being postured to do something about it. The children are the governments of the region. They allowed the Cat in, they feel stuck with the Cat and uneasy with many of his antics, but in many ways they like having him around. But they know the relationship has created a mess and they fear what will happen when they are called to account. I would offer that one big difference is that the kids in the book care about what their parents think. The governments of the greater Middle East fear their populaces, but they by and large do not care about what they think so long as they comply to the lots cast for them.

The many Cats brought in to clean up the mess are like our many approaches to mitigate the effects of our actions and these dysfunctional relationships with these many governments (be they seen as friend or foe). We don't even consider how our very presence contributed so much to the problem, but have a hat full of solutions that we are willing to throw at the symptoms to "cure" or "defeat" the problems.

It's not perfect, but I believe it provides a better insight to what we are dealing with than Mr. Panetta's cancer analogy. How refreshing would it be for Mr. Panetta to look into a camera and say that Western governments, and particularly the US since WWII, are much like the Cat in the Hat, we have barged in to the homes of others in pursuit of our own self interests, we have left a mess, and to be honest, much of our efforts to clean up that mess have by and large served more to make the problem more distributed, more embedded, and more dangerous. We've drawn too much comfort from our perceptions of the good things we bring and too much comfort from the very real tactical successes we have had against aspect of the problem. But we don't understand this well, we don't own our own contributory role, and we don't think very strategically about the effects we need to shape with our engagement. We focus on approaches and first order effects, and those are largely moot in populace-based conflicts.

[Dayuhan]

The children are the governments of the region. They allowed the Cat in, they feel stuck with the Cat and uneasy with many of his antics, but in many ways they like having him around. But they know he's left a mess and they fear what will happen when they are called to account.

Not sure I buy that analogy. These governments are not exactly passive actors who let us in the door and watched helplessly while we made a mess. They are in many cases very much active and have a great deal to do with their own messes and their own successes. They are not children in any way, and our influence over them is in many cases much overrated.

Analogies aside, what specific policy or course of action would you suggest?

[Bob's World]

There needs to be several steps, but the first one is to recognize that our current understanding of ourselves and how we need to act to secure our interests; what those interests actually are; and the nature of the groups we currently label as "threats" and seek to defeat are all deeply flawed. Just admitting that is a huge step.

So step one is a step back.

Step two is to seriously recognize that others act upon their interests as they perceive them. Like us, they are often wrong as well in their perceptions, but right or wrong, what they perceive is what they perceive. What we perceive or wish them to perceive is interesting, but immaterial to reality.

So step two is to seriously seek to understand and appreciate how others (key individuals, non-state actors, significant populace groups, governments, etc) perceive their critical interests; what they see as their reasonable spheres of influence, and what their near and long term goals are. Too often we tend to see everyone in the context of our own interests, values and goals, and it give us a bias of perspective that leads us to not appreciating the friction we cause and also leads us to being operationally surprised.

Those may seem to general for your desire for specific tangible actions in specific places; but how belongs to the executor. We need to begin by first getting to a better understanding. More steps and some examples of specific actions to follow.

[Bob's World]

Step 3 for the US would be to recognize the anomaly of the Cold War era, and the dangers of extending and expanding Cold War institutions and relationships as a framework for best approaching and securing our interests in the modern era. This does not mean to throw the baby out with the bath, but it does mean we need a major overhaul of institutions and relationships to go along with our overhauled perspective described in the steps above.

We need to re-balance our partnerships and figure out how we lend others the security of our strengths without at the same time adopting the vulnerabilities of those we help. The US sits on the global key terrain, and everyone seems to know that except us. We should be as secure as Fort Knox, but instead we are as vulnerable as South Korea, Israel, Taiwan, or a dozen others. WWI came tragically of excessive commitment to outdated alliances. WWIII will probably come from the same thing.

Step 4 is to recognize that less is more. To get a revamped State Department (ideally one that sees itself more as a Foreign Office, with a robust Non-state Department to complement our State Department efforts, and an end to the odd idea of having a counterterrorism division in our diplomacy agency) back in lead for US foreign policy armed with a new agenda based upon this new understanding.

Step 4 also includes a major reframe and resizing of our military. Everything and person who threatens us or who could harm us is a "threat" to us. Cyber is largely a private function for private activities, and a civil function for governmental activities. It is not a military mission as a whole. The military needs to be able to leverage cyber tools to the max, be able to play unplugged with no notice, and have reasonable mechanisms in place to reduce the likelihood or duration of having to play unplugged. Land forces need to be downsized and tailored to be a solid core of warfighting capability to build upon if a need for warfighting should emerge. The Navy and Air Force need to deter major threats and keep our access to resources and markets open. BL, the Army can assume risk on strategic missions, and the AF can assume risk on tactical missions. So less bazillion dollar fighter plane programs and less ground combat units in peace.

[Dayuhan]

This still all seems very general, and it would be interesting to see how you'd propose to apply these principles in a specific case. It's certainly good to appreciate that others act upon their own perceptions of interest, though I think most of those involved already know that, but our assessment of the perception of others is easily distorted by our own preconceived assumptions and models, which can also paint us into various corners. Trying to please everyone is not a viable policy goal: whatever we do, including nothing, will piss somebody off.

Too often we tend to see everyone in the context of our own interests, values and goals, and it give us a bias of perspective that leads us to not appreciating the friction we cause

Would you assume that the friction that affects us is necessarily caused by us?

[flagg]

Interesting discussion......and I have often found myself using an over simplistic medical analogy when discussing western interventions with friends interested in my perspective about big picture foreign policy and geopolitics.

I will now have to pull out my kids Dr Seuss books now to have a look.

I have found a medical patient and medical procedure options analogous to a foreign nation and national foreign policy.

Sick patients/nations come in a number of different varieties.

Same goes for the various forms of medical practitioners/forms of foreign policy assistance and intervention options.

I think what also holds true with the analogy is how most medical treatment/foreign policy assistance and intervention is voluntary on the part of both the patient(host nation) and the medical practitioner team(foreign policy assistance and intervention), but it can at times be performed on a patient involuntarily(patient/nation deemed mentally incompetent) or a medical practitioner team may feel compelled to assist/intervene when they may strongly prefer not to(how some health systems waste money on expensive geriatric care reminds me of failed foreign policy choices with failing states).

I'm admittedly a bit biased in my analogy as I'm a strong believer that most "patients", most of the time, would require substantially less expensive long-term "medical care" if they simply performed basic self-care best practices such as:

*no overeating.......low corruption
*regular exercise......economic opportunity
*no smoking......transparency/accountability
*no boozing......predictability/participation
*no hookers/STIs......fair human rights and equitable justice

Patients/countries that do the basics right, usually don't require external assistance and/or intervention.

But like a lot of poor choices people make with their individual health, a lot of nations make parallel poor choices with their own figurative and literal health.

Which leads to increasing levels of intervention starting with consultations that can quickly become not too indifferent from paparazzi photos of a celebrity patient coming out of both a brothel hopefully followed by a more discrete visit to the VD clinic for some "antibiotics" in the form of greater, but still less invasive, foreign intervention.

And if a patient/nation displays a lack of personal responsibility towards it's own health by failing to implement cheaper, easier, more effective, and more sustainable healthy living choices, then invasive/kinetic options become increasing harder to avoid or argue against.

Sorry for my going through all this.....it's probably pretty over simplistic for this forum...but it's the best I've got at the moment and gives me a chance to put some form and structure to some of my random thoughts over drinks with friends and peers.

After a few trips overseas working in failed/failing/recovering states I'm starting to adjust my medical analogy a bit to include the following:

*addicts

So I'm thinking the world doesn't actually have too many violently schizophrenic mental patients/nations that compel involuntary intervention....fortunately they actually seem quite rare...like in reality.

BUT the world does seem to have a very high percentage of borderline addicts, as well as a fair number of hard core addicts....much like in reality.

There's a lot of patients/countries right now in need of going on strict diets(global financial crisis and it's long term ramifications over the next decade+) which will demand and compel considerable changes to the poor lifestyle choices and consequences of those choices in recent decades.

The funny thing is that at both the nation state level and the individual level it has already happened in parallel in the recent past in the form of Cuba. Once the Soviet Union cut the cord with Cuba financially at the nation state level it compelled radical change at both the nation state and individual patient level. From what I recall Cuba saw a considerable drop in obesity, heart disease, and diabetes related health care issues following it...so maybe the use of a medical analogy comparing nation states to individuals isn't just figurative, but literal.

And there are a few nations in need of intervention......but I don't think in the traditional kinetic/military sense......but more along the lines of a family/friends intervention framed in ways as to mitigate the risk of a violent backlash.

What I like about the Dr Seuss reference is the sudden appearance of so many foreign/infidel cats......itself a big part of the problem even when trying hard to help.

Not too unlike a patient/nation finding their hospital room filled with a bunch of relative strangers discussing their fate dispassionately and clinically with one another as if the patient/nation isn't present or more importantly, isn't part of the solution.

To me the answer is the same I heard earlier this year from a bunch of US Army National Guard Docs and PAs who also work in private practice.

90%+ of the problems they face every day is the result of poor basic personal health choices......poor diet, lack of exercise, and too much smoking, boozing, and hookers.

They are running a bit of an innovative medical practice(they all work together both in uniform and on civvie street), their patients don't pay them to make them better once they're sick......their patients pay them to keep them FROM getting sick in the first place.

About the only drug they prescribe is statins....the rest of their prescriptions involve "prescribing concrete pill" to get their patients to harden up and simply nagging them to do the right thing when it comes to the basics.

Maybe the US foreign policy "medical practice" should shift a bit more away from highly invasive oncology/cardiology/orthopedic surgeryand shift a bit more towardsprimary care/wellness practice Albeit maybe a very assertive/aggressive primary care/wellness practice.

But possibly the best lesson I've learned about individual human addicts in real life that I suspect also applies when it comes to nation state/patient addicts is that effective treatment requires to patient to not only admitting the addiction/poor behavior, but accept the need to change and adhering to a new code of behavior.

That will probably require version 2.0 that merges a 12 step Alcoholics Anonymous program with Kilcullen's 3 Pillars and 28 Articles.


Anywho.....just thinking out loud for a bit,