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

[Fuchs]

All true, yet that in no way undermines my proposition that conditions of insurgency grow when some distinct segment of the overall governed populace comes to perceive the current system as intolerable.

"Government", not "system".

There's no reason to see a cure in democracy if the point of the insurgents is that they want some of their own ideologues in power who wouldn't win democratically.

[Bob's World]

"Government", not "system".

There's no reason to see a cure in democracy if the point of the insurgents is that they want some of their own ideologues in power who wouldn't win democratically.

"Democracy" is only a cure if democracy is what the populace in question sees as appropriate in the context of their culture.

But democracy has many shades and is a term that gets tossed around pretty loosely. We certainly don't have anything close to pure democracy in the US.

The final bullet that I mention is perhaps the essence of "democracy." How a particular society secures and nurtures this line of legal feedback from those who are governed to those who govern is up to them. When some external power comes in and thinks they have the one perfect way to do this and then seeks to impose that system on others, one can almost guarantee they are wrong. Such systems would be de facto illegitimate and a violation of sovereignty. That is a deep hole to crawl out of, regardless of how bad the old system was, or how good you think your new system is.

That is the hole we dug in Iraq and Afghanistan. Easy to dig, hard to crawl out of.

[Bill Moore]

Posted by Bob

All true, yet that in no way undermines my proposition that conditions of insurgency grow when some distinct segment of the overall governed populace comes to perceive the current system as intolerable. Their are many reasons why men fight (most tied to youth and testosterone), but when societies grow restless in this way the most common drivers appear to be those more closely tied to the top of Maslow's hierarchy.
They do not perceive the governance to be acting in a manner they deem as appropriate

And perhaps most importantly, they do not perceive themselves to have trusted, certain, and legal means consistent with their culture to affect governance driving the perceptions listed above.

I bundle all of this up as "poor governance"

Bob,

Your argument is borderline irrational, but most importantly it is completely irrelevant to the issue at hand. First, many in our government have been pushing the same view for years and our current strategy is based on reforming governments (it isn't working). Second, you tend to identify every insurgent as legitimate and automatically default to finding the State government illegitimate which is a serious bias on your part. Poor governance really? When a minority of Islamists want to impose Shari'a law upon all and the government fights to defeat their attempt to subject the people to their extreme views this is poor governance? Really? A government fights against a communist insurgency which only has 15% of populace supporting it, and their goal is suppress the people much more than the current government, yet any effort by the government to defeat them is illegitimate, because only the insurgents are legitimate? Really?

Government's have every right and obligation to defend the status quo. In some situations we support them, in others we support the insurgents (based on our interests), and in most cases we remain neutral (or should). As Dayuhan correctly points out we're not going to fix other people's government's and even if we did AQ would still survive, so as a core of our strategy to defend the U.S. fixing governments to defeat AQ won't work and it is too expensive to sustain, so it isn't feasible to begin with.

While I don't concur with Dayuhan's assessment of AQ, it is still very much alive and it is growing in many parts of the world, his overall approach to dealing with it is one of the most level headed I have seen (it is not the approach we're following now, we're following Bob's approach of trying to fix foreign governments and it isn't work well for us)

Posted by Dayuhan

1. Defend effectively. Monitoring, tracking, infiltrating, and disrupting plots won't eliminate the antagonists, but it can minimize their impact, deprive them of high profile success, and isolate them from supporters who want to see results.

2. Attack effectively. Find and eliminate the key individuals on the operational and the funding/support side by whatever means work.

3. Starve them. Don't occupy territory, don't feed that "expel the infidel from the land of the faithful" narrative. Extended occupations of Muslim territory provide a discrete, specific target for jihadi propaganda and fundraising and should be avoided. We'll never convert the inner circle, they have to be killed, arrested, or driven so far underground that they can't operate. The inner circle can be isolated from their sources of support and recruitment.

Solid points have been ignored since 9/11, but there are at least to categories of starving them. The psychological you address above, and then the financial. They won't conduct effective transnational terrorist attacks without adequate resources.

4. Don't be stupid. There will always someone who will tell us that the cause of all the mess is bad governance in Muslim countries and we can fix the mess by fixing governance in Muslim countries. Trying to do that is just going to get us deeper in the $#!t. It can be argued (though often exaggerated) that the bad governance problem is to some extent something we helped create, but we can't undo the effect of meddling past by meddling again

.

The fact that we're pushing to the point of imposing our values on other States and their societies is what is creating the backlash against us in many cases. It provides propaganda for AQ, and for the emergent AQ 2.0 and 3.0 and all their step children. If our goal is to reform the world, that won't be done peacefully or within a budget we can afford.

[Bob's World]

Bill, pray tell, when have I EVER said the US needs to "fix" the governance of others?

I merely point out the broken part we should be concerned about. Governments and their populaces must make these repairs for themselves. But most government have no interest in making such repairs when they can simply play the "might makes right" card and suppress the illegal actors. As you say, governments have the right to do this. Such is sovereignty. But equally, when the people under such a sovereign system find it to be intolerable they too have both the right and the duty to rise up and challenge it.

You may think the principles contained in our Declaration of Independence to be uniquely American, or concepts that have become somehow quaint or irrelevant with time. America and all we think we stand for is sadly doomed when that becomes the case. If a man or a nation is not what they proclaim to be, then they are little or nothing of value at all.

And your example of Communism is "borderline irrational" as well.

Do you think the people Russia looked to Communism because they wanted to be communists or because they wanted to get rid of the Tsar?

Do you think the people of China looked to Communist because they wanted to be communists or because they wanted to be free of external Colonial powers and their puppet regime?

Do you think the people of Vietnam, Malaya, etc, etc turned to communism because they wanted to be communist or because they wanted to be free of Western Colonial powers and their puppet regimes??

Again, I cannot emphasize enough, revolution does not happen to bring something new, it happens because their is tremendous energy within a significant segment of the populace to remove something that exists and is deemed intolerable.

Do governments have the right to simply ignore the reasonable concerns of their evolving populaces and enforce the rule of law in a war-like way to sustain the status quo? Certainly. But the US and our interests are not well served by dedicating our reputation, our treasure and the blood of our young men and women to such efforts.

Does Dayuhan suggest effective ways to kill the current crop of complainants? Sure. No rocket science there. That may well reduce a particular threat in a particular place for a short period of time. Congratulations. Mark all your tactical metrics Green, give yourself a top block ORE and go home. But such tactical successes are growing the deep roots of strategic failure. Such "successes" validate the anti-American message of organizations such as AQ, and serve to extend the reign of governments no longer wanted by their own people in their current form. It allows such governments to treat their people with impunity and to rely for their sovereignty upon the protection of the US rather than upon the consent of those they govern.

That is not who we are Bill. And those who rationalize such poor behavior in the name of national security are, IMO, dangerously wrong. Wrong about who we are, wrong about how we best secure our interests, wrong about why such conflicts occur and how to resolve them, and wrong about what the long-term results of this reactionary abuse of the sovereignty of so many others in the name of preserving the sovereignty of ourself will bring.

We cannot fix others. We cannot resolve their insurgencies or repair their relationships with their own people. This they must do on their own. But we can work across the DIME spectrum in a neutral way in those few places that are actually critical to our interests to force governments to listen and to help keep violence (state or insurgent) within the bounds of clear red lines.

What you suggest is little different than practices of the last century to take out Union organizers, and to send pipe-swinging goons into a mass of striking workers. To me, that is irrational. And not in a borderline sort of way.

[Dayuhan]

Worth considering is that you subscribe to a position that fits fairly closely with the thinking that has driven US reactions since 9/11. How is that working for us?

One of the core elements of my position is that the US should not occupy Muslim territory or try to determine the form of governance in any Muslim country. That doesn't sound like what we've been doing.

But without insurgent populaces who are both very dissatisfied with their own systems of governance, and who equally perceive that external Western influence, money and manipulation is a major factor in why their governance is so out of step - there would be no AQ.

You keep saying this, but you provide no evidence or reasoning to support the contention. It's simply laid out as revealed truth. The problem with this is that it's not consistent with what we see on the ground. We know that populaces aren't turning to AQ for help in getting rid of their own governments because every attempt by AQ to raise an insurgency against a Muslim government has failed to draw anything close to a critical mass of popular support. What we actually see is that while Muslim populaces are happy to fund and support AQ as long as they're fighting infidels far away, that support stops as soon as AQ tries to bring the jihad to their neighborhood. Interview-based studies on foreign fighter motivations have not revealed any hint that people are traveling to fight in order to affect governance in their home countries: the motivation is consistently to end the oppression of Muslims and expel the infidel in the place where the fight is going on.

The contention that AQ s driven by populaces who oppose their own governments and believe that support for AQ will change those governments has to be supported by convincing evidence and reasoning to be accepted. It can't simply be decreed.

Getting rid of AQ without addressing that base of energy will only open the way for the emergence of "AQ 2.0."

It's good that we don't need to address the "base of energy" that comes from tension between Muslim governments and their populaces, because we can't. That's not about us and it would be self-defeating to try to impose ourselves on those situations. The governments in question do not for the most part depend on us, are not accountable to us, and will not do what we want.

Again, I cannot emphasize enough, revolution does not happen to bring something new, it happens because their is tremendous energy within a significant segment of the populace to remove something that exists and is deemed intolerable.

Possibly true, but since AQ is not a revolution and you've shown no evidence to suggest that AQ is driven by revolutionary sentiment, I don't see the relevance to AQ.

Such "successes" validate the anti-American message of organizations such as AQ, and serve to extend the reign of governments no longer wanted by their own people in their current form. It allows such governments to treat their people with impunity and to rely for their sovereignty upon the protection of the US rather than upon the consent of those they govern.

This is arguably happening Iraq and Afghanistan, where our (IMO) misguided attempts to install governments left those governments under our protection and dependent on us. That (again IMO) was a bad idea, it shouldn't have been tried and it shouldn't be done again. Other than those cases, which of course occurred after AQ was already established, I can't think of any Muslim government who relies on the US to protect it from its people, or whose oppression of its people is empowered by US support. That contention, again, needs to be supported by specific evidence and examples.

But we can work across the DIME spectrum in a neutral way in those few places that are actually critical to our interests to force governments to listen and to help keep violence (state or insurgent) within the bounds of clear red lines.

How do you propose to "force governments to listen"? Even if you could, how do you force them to hear what you think you hear, or react as you think they should?

I seem to recall that not long ago the US told the government of Bahrain to listen to its people and implement reforms. I also recall that all we accomplished was to look impotent: they ignored us. I think you overrate the influence we can bring to bear.

[Bill Moore]

Bob,

Some of your points are spot on, but your logic in my opinion jumps all over the place. I'll highlight a couple of your comments below, but ultimately what I would like you to explain is what do you propose we do differently? I hear your arguments about governance and they apply in some, maybe even most cases, but since you're not proposing trying to fix their governments, and assumingly you recognize the requirement for the U.S. to protect itself from terrorist attacks, what is the so what of your argument? I think most U.S. policy makers and senior military leaders have recognized that insurgencies are due to a "segment" of the population being disconnent with their government or the global order. That certainly doesn't mean in all cases that the government should change! We have Islamists in the U.S., a very small minority, who want to impose shari'a law. Should the government allow that? We have Aryan Nation types that want to purge our state and society of all except Christian whites. Should we allow that? Why are you always so aghast when a government decides to protect the state and their citizens from similiar groups? You keep saying the people, but in fact you are only referencing particular group that more often than not is a minority group that is opposing the government, so the people argument really doesn't carry a lot of water. It is especially weak when we're talking strictly terrorist organizations that are not capable of fomenting a mass movement. You have readily admited that if the insurgents win they may in fact install a worse government. Does anyone think the Vietnamese are better off under an oppressive communist government than they would have been under another system? There are times we have to make choices, tough choices where the best answer is often the lesser of two evils. In my 30 plus years working in East Asia (with an occassionalworking holiday in the Middle East and Africa) I trained the militaries of three dictators (South Korea, Philippines, and Thailand, and there was also Indonesia but I didn't get a chance to work with them). Now they're democracies, so I think an argument can be made that our efforts to "help" them from falling to communism created some political space that allowed them to evolve politically and socially, which unlikely wouldn't have happened under communism (Vietnam, Laos).

Bill, pray tell, when have I EVER said the US needs to "fix" the governance of others?

When your argument is our strategy is wrong because "we're" not addressing poor governance then I think it is fair to claim you are proposing we help fix the governance of others. We already recognize the challenge poor governance presents, so again what are you proposing?

I

merely point out the broken part we should be concerned about.

Why do you think this is new? I remember discussing this topic at length in my early years in SF (it was in our doctrine). Recognition and concern is one thing, but is it the military mission to fix it? Our link is professionalizing military forces, the State Department plays a much larger role. Unfortunately since the Cold War ended we seem to think we have a mandate to tell every country in the world how they should behave, so I think we may have taken it a bit too far. In response nations are forming new coalitions to oppose perceived or real U.S. bullying.

But most government have no interest in making such repairs when they can simply play the "might makes right" card and suppress the illegal actors. As you say, governments have the right to do this. Such is sovereignty

.

True in some cases, in others there is nothing a government can or should do to appease Islamists and hard core communists who have a vision for a state that does not serve the people. For one, I am glad governments do fight these extremists, I hope they are generally fair to most people, and would make every effort to encourage that versus forcing it upon them. The U.S. you refer to is still aspirational, the reality is we have more people in prison than any other nation, hell we even privatized over 10% of our prisons and these fast growing businesses have lobbies that influence Congressional law making so they can maintain a high prision population. We are casting stones from a glass house.

You may think the principles contained in our Declaration of Independence to be uniquely American, or concepts that have become somehow quaint or irrelevant with time. America and all we think we stand for is sadly doomed when that becomes the case. If a man or a nation is not what they proclaim to be, then they are little or nothing of value at all.

Are you claiming we should conduct a global crusade to impose the principles contained in our Declaration of Independence? Using your logic I guess the Muslim Brotherhood is obligated to push jihad globally, if they don't they are not who they proclaim to be. In that case we'll see a clash of political ideologies and only might will make right, so we're back where we are now. Again we're casting stones from a glass house.

And your example of Communism is "borderline irrational" as well.

This gets interesting

Do you think the people Russia looked to Communism because they wanted to be communists or because they wanted to get rid of the Tsar?

Do you think the people of China looked to Communist because they wanted to be communists or because they wanted to be free of external Colonial powers and their puppet regime?

Do you think the people of Vietnam, Malaya, etc, etc turned to communism because they wanted to be communist or because they wanted to be free of Western Colonial powers and their puppet regimes

??

Very few turned to communism, Ho imposed it and brutally executed any political opponents, especially ones who were more popular. Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and Ho killed millions of their own people, so glory to the people, or maybe it was actually better to support the state?

Do governments have the right to simply ignore the reasonable concerns of their evolving populaces and enforce the rule of law in a war-like way to sustain the status quo? Certainly. But the US and our interests are not well served by dedicating our reputation, our treasure and the blood of our young men and women to such efforts.

In the vast majority of cases we don't. In my opinion the Bush administration led us astray to pursue an unreachable dream; however, there are some cases that when they're in our national interest we do make sacrifices to defend those interests. If we do it smart and focus on FID instead of taking over the mission (which fails in the vast majority of times). We can do this with little sacrifice relative to what we did in Afghanistan and Vietnam. It also allows us an honorable exit if the State fails to reform. We tried to help you, but you failed to help yourself so we're out of here.

Does Dayuhan suggest effective ways to kill the current crop of complainants? Sure. No rocket science there.

Often there is no rocket science required. What seems to harm us more than anything else is all the talking heads in national security competing to come up with the new "clever" idea.

That may well reduce a particular threat in a particular place for a short period of time.

Often that is all we need to do and should do. We fool ourselves if we think we come up with permanent solutions. History doesn't stop, yet our national policy tends to embrace the idealist book titled, "The End of History."

Congratulations. Mark all your tactical metrics Green, give yourself a top block ORE and go home.

I don't use metrics, I leave that to those who think they're applying science to something they really don't understand.

[Bill Moore]

It allows such governments to treat their people with impunity and to rely for their sovereignty upon the protection of the US rather than upon the consent of those they govern.

Where does the U.S. allow or encourage this? No other nation in the world puts more pressure on governments to treat their people better than the U.S., but at the same time we have to work within the confines of reality. I think you are wearing blinders when you write stuff like this. Go to the State Department website and look at the daily press briefings, they always address poor governance and put pressures on those governments. What other nation in the world is doing this in a meaningful way?

That is not who we are Bill. And those who rationalize such poor behavior in the name of national security are, IMO, dangerously wrong.

You're beginning to sound like Oliver Stone with these conspiracy theories. Where are we turning a blind eye to governments that treat their people badly? Do we work with them? Yes, but at the same time we encourage reforms. If we didn't work with them, the reality is someone else would and they would enable that government to treat their people a lot worse. Note China's assistance to Sri Lanka because we disengaged because we couldn't stand the the smell of the human rights abuses. Did our disengagement make thinks better for the Sri Lankan people?

We cannot fix others. We cannot resolve their insurgencies or repair their relationships with their own people. This they must do on their own. But we can work across the DIME spectrum in a neutral way in those few places that are actually critical to our interests to force governments to listen and to help keep violence (state or insurgent) within the bounds of clear red lines.

We generally do this already, but if we have critical interests then it isn't always effective to work in a neutral manner. Fortunately these cases are the exception rather than the rule.

What you suggest is little different than practices of the last century to take out Union organizers, and to send pipe-swinging goons into a mass of striking workers. To me, that is irrational. And not in a borderline sort of way.

I never said that, but it reads well, so bravo on your use of propaganda to attack my argument by putting me in the goon camp. On second thought when your grand kids can't enjoy hostness twinkees in their school lunch you may think twice about the value of unions.

[Fuchs]

Where does the U.S. allow or encourage this?

Afghanistan. Was also done in Pakistan, Egypt, ..... long list, especially if you go back a bit.
Yes, old stories are relevant if there hasn't been a fundamental break with old practices.

No other nation in the world puts more pressure on governments to treat their people better than the U.S., (...)

I consider sending this to a German website for joke quotes.
Did you ever take notice of other countries' foreign policies? Or your own countries'?

It's especially ironic as when the U.S. applies pressure, it very often hurts those foreign people first and foremost. Those alleged hundred of thousands of less births or children died of poor care in Iraq prior to 2001; they were -if true at all- the product of Saddam's AND U.S. policies.
Almost all other countries wanted the sanctions lifted, only the U.S. and UK consistently kept all embargoes up. The lesson; never empower the US or UK to pull it off a second time, no open-ended UN embargoes any more!