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

[Bob's World]

We have the sovereign right to pursue people who attack us or who we know are plotting to attack us. In countries with functioning legal and law enforcement systems that doesn't have to be done in a "war like manner": that's not just in our country, it's in most countries. In the few exceptions where there is no local law, other means are needed. I quite agree that we shouldn't be targeting "nationalist insurgents" in these attacks, but neither am I convinced that we are. I don't think it's an entirely bad thing for nationalist insurgents (or anyone else) to know that if they harbor our enemies they may suffer for that decision.

I have a few issues with your proposition:

First, the connection you propose between AQ and nationalist insurgency is quite tenuous and not supported by hard evidence or detailed reasoning. If you propose a major policy shift based on that proposition, you have to support the proposition a lot more effectively.

Second, there's no clear need to compete with AQ for influence among nationalist insurgents because there's no clear evidence that AQ has much influence with nationalist insurgents. AQ's attempts to generate nationalist insurgency have generally failed: AQ has only gained real support when they fight against a foreign invader. Where nationalist insurgencies in Muslim countries have flourished, as in the Arab Spring, those insurgencies have shown few signs of AQ influence: even where AQ-connected groups have participated, they aren't in control. The Arab Spring rebellions had no special AQ flavor and even where Islamist groups like the Muslim Brothers have played major roles they have tried to steer toward a moderate stance. I see no concrete reason to assume that AQ is an effective or dominant element in any nationalist insurgency anywhere, and I think attempts to push the AQ issue to an insurgency perspective are very questionable.

Third, your policy recommendations are too general to be reasonably discussed. If you would select a few specific regions or nations where you think current policy is wrong, describe what you think is wrong, and offer specific recommendations illustrating your contentions, the argument would be more effective.

I certainly agree that invasion, occupation, regime change and "nation-building" in Iraq and Afghanistan were counterproductive and effectively gave AQ more of what it needs to survive, but I have no clear idea of what you actually and specifically propose to do outside those countries, especially in the core Arab countries. These nations are not our children or our dependencies, we have minimal influence over them, and we certainly aren't enabling them to oppress anyone. It's hard to see how your general propositions apply in any specific sense.

In some ways I think you're a bit stuck in a Cold War paradigm. Possibly the greatest mistake the US made in the Cold War was to allow Communists to seize the moral high ground of opposition to decaying colonial regimes and troglodyte post-colonial dictators. That decision did leave us in the awkward position of supporting and empowering (generally the empowerment was more economic than military) regimes that relied on us against insurgents that were primarily nationalist in character. The times they have a'changed, and I don't think that paradigm is particularly applicable now, at least not in any case I can think of offhand.

Equally, my friend, it is I who believe you are stuck. We look at the same evidence, but from different perspectives, so we see different things.

As to the communists having the moral high ground during the cold war, the hard fact is that all of the larger, more powerful coutries were competing for influence/control over those weaker countries deemed as important to the larger competition between the Soviet-Sino block and the West. No clean hands.

The communists did, however have an advantage in those places where the West was working to sustain systems born of the the very colonialism that nationalist movements were seeking to be free of. These people did not of necessity want to be communists, just like Americans didn't want to be French, and just like most Muslim populaces today don't want to be part of some Islamist Caliphate. But one takes what help one can find, and then worry about the consequences later.

The greater Middle East has been heavily manipulated by the Ottomans, the Europeans and the US for centuries. Now those populaces are largely free of those external systems and at the same time more connected and empowered by modern information technologies than ever before. Those are indisputable facts.

AQ seeks to exploit this situation for their own interests and goals. They do not cause insurgency, but they do seek to leverage the conditions of insurgency that are so prevalent among the people of that region.

The governments cling to how they want to govern, while populaces seek evolution. When denied evolution these things often turn to revolution. It is human nature.

The communists did not cause the insurgencies of the 50s and 60s, but they did seed to exploit that energy to extend their reach and influence. Similar today with AQ. That does not make me stuck in the Cold War. But from what you write, I don't think you understand the Cold War or the current disruptions very well.

These are disruptions rooted in people wanting change, not wars caused by outside forces pushing some controlling ideology. Governments that create and nurture legal means for their people to shape such evolution may well lose the control they have held with in some particular family or segment of the society, but they gain a natural stability that immunizes the people they serve from these external sources of influence and exploitation.

You don't have to agree with that assessment. Your mind is made up. I post it here for other members of the small wars community who are more open minded and appreciate that much of what is captured in Western COIN studies, doctrine, etc is heavily biased. So is what is said by the other sides of these contests. The truth lies somewhere in the middle, and not much is written about that. One must find it for themselves