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

[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?

[Bob's World]

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.



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

"Caused" is one of those hard words people like to use. As in "you're saying we caused this." "Abandon" is another one, as it "you can't abandon an ally."

So, did we "cause" the friction that affects us? I'll let Mike clean up the terminology, but I think we have "joint and several liability" in the friction. This is a legal construct that recognizes that there is rarely a single cause for any mishap. Many contributed to the friction, but we are the one standing there with the deep pockets footing the bill.

As we both have noted, AQ did not "cause" this, nor did AQ's Islamist ideology "cause" this, nor did US foreign policy "cause" this, nor did the self-serving governance of the many despotic regimes grown used to acting with tremendous impunity in regards to their own populaces "cause" this. Certainly high food prices and unemployment did not "cause" this either. But all have contributed, and it is our own actions that have created the trail of "blame" that makes it so easy for organizations such as AQ to make the case "but for the role of the US, you would not experiencing the type of governance you currently receive at home." Is it our fault? No, but we have very real causal connections that we need to own up to and that are being exploited by others to focus the actions of the many populaces who are currently acting out to seek a better future. National governments use us as a Bogey man to focus the attention of their own revolutionary populaces away from themselves and onto us. Friends and foes alike do this. AQ uses it to recruit from these revolutionary populaces the foreign fighters and agents of terror and funding and sanctuary they need to pursue their own political agenda of change.

But it is political suicide to admit this in US politics. Those who have essentially stated positions similar to this have been mercilessly attacked by their opponents and abandoned by their allies. We exhibit classic addict behavior, refusing to take responsibility for our own contributions to causation, and rationalizing all causation onto some external "threat" beyond our control. Many factors contribute to this, so this is natural and to be expected. It is human nature. We need to overcome our nature if we are to truly make progress and get better.

I just happened to be watching a bit of the mini-series on Kennedy last night, the episode where he decides to ignore the advice of his cabinet (the same advisor's who convinced him to authorize the Bay of Pigs operations), and not escalate the operation with direct US involvement and to go to the American people and admit his mistake and take full responsibility for what happened. I don't know what actually happened, but we need a bit of how it was portrayed in the movie for our current policies related to the past 11 years of CT.

[Bob's World]

Mike asks and observes:

What is an "indirect" approach, as opposed to a "direct" approach, will be a point of controversy. At least it requires definition in the context of reality - as opposed to "translating" and "interpreting" metaphors and analogies.

I have been working in this space of indirect and direct approaches in the context of the current conflict for nearly a decade, and one of the most amazing things to me is how poorly defined this concept is. I am tempted to say "misunderstood," but if a concept has a dozen definitions, then is it really "misunderstood" if on perscribes more to one definition than to others? Who is to say what is right or wrong? Besides, any way you slice it most take a position as to what the purpose of the indirect approach is that renders their particular definition moot: They think it is about defeating the insurgent and sustaining the current government.

If all roads lead to the same objective, but that objective is what is actually misdiagnosed, then what difference does it make which path you take to get there?

At USSOCOM several years ago some bright action officer sold leadership on a visual of three colorful balls connected by arrows. This was an era when the indirect approach was something done obscurely in the Philippines, and the direct apporach was the only approach in the Middle East. One ball represented friendly forces, with two broad arrows radiating outward, one a supporting effort of indirect approaches aimed through the populace ball to get at the threat ball. The other a main effort of direct approaches aimed directly at the threat ball. It was an evolution and people liked it. Now they had two ways to defeat the enemy. This chart became known by a variety of names, from "the colliding balls" to "the twigs and berries."

After a couple of years, as news "pop-centric" COIN became the rage in major theaters there was a dramatic unveiling of a "major" revolution of the twigs and berries. In a display of powerpoint mastery the old T&B chart rotated before the eyes of the assembled crowd and an new future was revealed: Now the indirect approach arrow as designated as the main effort and the direct approach arrow was designated as the supporting effort. Wise heads nodded in agreement. This was a brilliant advance. All arrows still terminated on the threat ball.

After a quick google, here is what I describe:
http://www.defensemedianetwork.com/s...93-indirectly/

[Bob's World]

Indirect approach could be anything from a development project providing water or electricity, to efforts to train and employ host nation security forces directly against the insurgent elements of their populace.

To me, the latter seems more like a nuanced variation of the direct approach. A nuance that is probably lost on the populaces engaged by such enabled and empowered host nation CT forces.

To me, indirect approaches did not go through the populace to engage the threat, instead they were approaches that recognized that both the government and the threat were competing elements of the same populace, and that the insurgent would not exist if there were no market for what they offered. So, any efforts designed to allow the current regime to preserver without having to listen to and address the concerns of its own populace and thereby reduce that market for illegal change seemed to me to be misguided. Efforts to suppress rather than resolve. Direct or indirect approaches largely being moot.

More important would be to ask:

What is winning? History books tell us winning is when we keep the government we are supporting in power and make the current challenger go away. Countries such as Algeria and the Philippines have become so good at this form of COIN that they have "defeated" insurgencies over and over and over again...

To me, this is not "winning." This is merely suppressing the symptoms of popular discontent long enough to continue to secure ones national interests in some place through the government one is comfortable working with. So long as we are honest with ourselves about that fact, then such approaches may well make sense. But when we delude ourselves that such approaches have the interests of the affected populaces at heart and that they have defeated the conditions of insurgency among those people, rather than simply forcing the people to stand down and defeating some specific insurgent groups, we create dangerous precedent. That precedent is then captured as doctrine and becomes a gift that keeps on giving.

One big problem is that we focus on the direct effects of both our direct and indirect approaches. These direct effects become the basis for our metrics to measure our success. How many wells did one drill; how many villages did one clear; how many HVTs did one capture or kill; etc. Do it, count it, assess it, report it. We believe that the sum of such tactical first order effects must naturally ultimately add up to strategic victory. As the research provided by Mike suggests, there is little evidence of this being true.

If we were assessing a campaign like that waged in WWII such thinking applies. Destroy more capacity than the enemy can produce, capture his territory, etc and ultimately he is defeated. This Clauswitzian logic applies to Clauswitzian conflict.

But it does not apply to the populace-based conflicts we contend with today and that we conflate clumsily under the illogical construct of "Irregular warfare." We lump things by how they manifest rather than by how they form. By their appearance rather than by their nature. We confuse Clauswitzian conflicts that happen to include populace-based organizations with internal populace-based conflicts that Clausewitz simply does not apply to much at all. If the primary conflict is internal to that trinity of People-Government-Army rather than between competing separate systems of that trinity, it is totally different dynamic altogether. It is much more civil emergency than war, regardless of how violent in nature or similar in appearance. One must focus on primary purpose for action of the challenger, and the nature of the relationship between the challenger and the challenged. This provides distinctions that matter. What tactics applied or what ideology ascribed to in of themselves offer little in the way of insight as to what type of conflict this is and how to resolve it.

[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,

[jmm99]

Military interventions and occupations underlie this thread - despite the apparent plethora of medical procedures, cats in hats and persistent bathtub rings. So, to go to the former (and not confronting the latter), here's another resource to review.

2009 Vernetti (MAJ USA), Three's Company: The Efficacy of Third-Party Intervention in Support of Counterinsurgency.

Its BLUF is in this graphic:

Intervention Success.jpg

as explained by the author:

Analysis

Taken together, these results confirm that third-party intervention on behalf of a counterinsurgent decreases the likelihood of a successful outcome. Five of the seven hypotheses are confirmed with Hypothesis #5 and #6 being found not valid (see Table 3).

The results indicate that the occurrence of an early intervention or the occurrence of an early termination of an intervention do not significantly affect the chances for counterinsurgent success.

The results also indicate that third party interventions, military deployments, military occupations, and interventions involving democracies all decrease the likelihood of a successful conflict outcome.

Interventions involving an “indirect” approach to counterinsurgency represent the most promising possibility for third-party intervention with the results indicating that an intervener that participates in this type of counterinsurgent effort has a significantly better chance of bringing a successful outcome.

What is an "indirect" approach, as opposed to a "direct" approach, will be a point of controversy. At least it requires definition in the context of reality - as opposed to "translating" and "interpreting" metaphors and analogies.

Here's his definition of the chart's variables:

INTERVENTION variable: tests for the occurrence of third party intervention in the form of military occupation, military intervention, or other military aid in support of the counterinsurgent forces. The study also includes the suppression of colonial rebellions as interventions if the colonial power deployed additional troops from outside of the colony in orderbto support the counterinsurgent. The variable titled INTERVENTION is coded “1” if an outside country or colonial power provided assistance to the counterinsurgent during the conflict. The dataset includes 59 conflicts that involved third party intervention.

MILITARY variable: refers to the type of military intervention. Specifically, cases are coded “1” if the intervention involved the deployment combat units to assist incumbent government forces. The dataset includes 50 conflicts that involved direct military interventions.

OCCUPY variable: denotes conflicts involving military occupation. Specifically, cases are coded “1” if the intervention involved the deployment combat forces across international boundaries to establish effective control over a territory to which it had previously enjoyed no sovereign title. This includes cases of colonial rebellions or where the intervening power set up a new government after occupation. The dataset includes 30 conflicts that involved military occupations.

STRATEGY variable: used to code counterinsurgent strategy. Specifically, the study uses Nagl’s binary categorization of counterinsurgency strategy [82] [82 Nagl, Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam: Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife, 27.] with the STRATEGY variable coded “1” for the “indirect” approach, characterized by counterinsurgent strategies that concentrated on winning support among the population. Cases are coded “0” for the “direct” approach to counterinsurgency, characterized by attempts to achieve victory through the destruction of the insurgency’s armed forces. The coding is based off of the RAND “89 Insurgents” dataset’s evaluation of counterinsurgent competency. The RAND study presents a list of capabilities relevant to conducting an effective indirect counterinsurgency campaign [83 & 84] [83 & 84. Gompert and Gordon, War by Other Means: Building Complete and Balanced Capabilities for Counterinsurgency, xxxiii & 389]; and the variable coding comes from RAND analysts’ evaluation of counterinsurgency competency in 63 insurgency based conflicts. Specifically, the coding represents a subjective analyst evaluation of how well a counterinsurgent or intervening military demonstrated an ability to plan and carry out military operations relevant to a population-centric approach to counterinsurgency.

DEMOCRACY variable: coded to reflect the intervener’s form of government at the time of the intervention. The study codes the intervening state’s regime using Polity2 values from the Polity IV Project dataset. The Polity2 rating is a 21-point scaled composite index of regime type that ranges from highly autocratic (-10) to highly democratic (+10). The DEMOCRACY variable is coded “1” for states with a Polity2 rating 6 or higher. In cases where RAND rated government and intervener with separate competencies, the intervener competency coding was used. Sixty three conflicts are coded for STRATEGY with thirty of these involving third-party interventions for the counterinsurgent.
...
[91] Results for the DEMOCRACY sample are included because the Chi Square probability is very close to the 0.05 Alpha level probability threshold, but they are annotated to show that the results reflect a lower statistical significance (0.076).

The author's conclusion:

Part 5: Conclusion

Does third party military intervention help or hurt an incumbent government during an insurgency?

This study attempted to answer this question by testing prevailing military theories of counterinsurgency in the context of third party intervention using basic tests for statistical significance and bivariate contingency. The results show that intervention on behalf of a counterinsurgent decreases the likelihood of a successful government outcome, and specifically, interventions in general, interventions involving the deployment of combat forces, interventions involving military occupation, and interventions by democratic states decrease the likelihood of counterinsurgent success.

Early intervention, meaning the commitment of third-party support within the first year of conflict, does not appear to have a significant effect on counterinsurgency success. Likewise, the decision to end an intervention early does not appear to significantly alter the chance of counterinsurgent failure.

Interventions in support of an “indirect” approach to counterinsurgencies are the only cases that exhibit a significant improvement for the chances of successful outcome.

In addition, conflicts involving intervention demonstrated longer average duration for losses and shorter durations for successful outcomes. If one accepts conflict duration as a proxy for conflict costliness, then these results indicate that intervention to support a counterinsurgent provides cheaper victories but more costly losses.

The implications for policymakers are twofold. First, the results show that the decision of whether to intervene involves a risky tradeoff. An intervening state may be able to significantly decrease the duration of a successful conflict if it is willing to accept the poorer odds of success. More specifically, intervention provides an opportunity to realize a quicker victory for a besieged government, but the intervening state must be willing to gamble with lower odds of winning and a higher cost for defeat.

All of this should be very "old hat" - e.g., Jack McCuen in the 1960s; but I guess these things have to be periodically "discovered".

Regards

Mike