"Occupation by Policy" - How Victors Inadvertantly Provoke Resistance Insurgency

[Bob's World]

BG Wendt wrote at article that goes to one way SOF can more effectively develop understanding, influence and relationships than solely through traditional vehicles, such as training with partners, traditional Embassy positions, or emersion language training.

http://www.soc.mil/swcs/swmag/archiv...nnProgram.html

This is not about spying on people or working to develop covert networks, this is simply about being in critical places (a fusion of geostrategy and vital interests), living among the equally critical populations who live in those places, and having trusted relationships with appropriate military partners as well. This means stop chasing the threat of the day and going where the J2 says "the threat" is; this means not working to simply help some government stay in power by helping them through capacity building and CT to keep their own population in check; this means applying a strategic perspective that takes a long view so that we are already there and aware long before a threat to interests ever develops.

As to the types of perceptions that create conditions of insurgency among a population, these are subjective and tend to develop over time; and can grow to very high levels (as Arab Spring demonstrates) and remain latent for years before some event or leader sparks the people to move. Or when the people simply overcome their fear of their government. This is nuance and cannot be measured with ruler. Many states, like the KSA, look extremely stable, but in fact are quite brittle. Like the Titanic, a state can appear "unsinkable," but hidden flaws and poor leadership can quickly lead to a catastrophic event.

There are many subtle signals coming out of the ME; and increasingly out of Europe, China and other places as well. Poor governance and conditions of insurgency are widespread. When these conditions are merely revolutionary (internal) in nature it is of little consequence to the US unless it threatens some critical location where our interests manifest. But when the conditions are of a resistance nature cause by the impact of US policy we need to be extremely aware, as this is what drives transnational terrorism against us. When it is a fusion of both, and we work to protect the government that is at odds with its population (as is typically the case for out intel-driven operations today), it is the worst case, and this is why strategically we are moving in the opposite direction our tactics are intended to take us.

[Dayuhan]

But when the conditions are of a resistance nature cause by the impact of US policy we need to be extremely aware, as this is what drives transnational terrorism against us. When it is a fusion of both, and we work to protect the government that is at odds with its population (as is typically the case for out intel-driven operations today), it is the worst case, and this is why strategically we are moving in the opposite direction our tactics are intended to take us.

We need to very careful about any assumption that any situation is caused by US policy. US policy is often one of many interactive causes, but it is almost never "the cause" of anything. Overrating the causative impact of US policy can lead us to overrate the curative impact of a US policy change, or lead us to assume a control that we do not actually have.

Perhaps the worst mistake we can make is thinking that problems exacerbated by our meddling in the past can be alleviated by meddling again: that we can effectively counter-meddle, or undo bad meddling with good meddling. That just gets us deeper into the mess.

Casting the causation of modern radical Islam and the terrorism some factions of it have embraced purely in terms of populace-government dynamics is dangerously simplistic. Assuming that it was caused by US policy and therefore can be uncaused by US policy is equally simplistic and equally dangerous, assuming a power that we do not actually have. Government-populace dynamics in the Muslim world (and elsewhere) are complex and often tense, but they are not something we can play any meaningful role in resolving. Even in cases where we have distorted those relationships in the past, we cannot meddle again to try to un-distort them; if we try we just distort them more.

I feel that at times you're trying to force ground circumstances into the model, rather than adjusting the model to fit ground circumstances.

[Bob's World]

Dayuhan,

We'll just have to agree to disagree.

There is a far cry from "simple" to "simplistic.". A P38 C-ration can opener is simple, beating a can open with a rock is simplistic.

Ideology has been made the great Bogeyman, along with simplistic statements like "they hate us for our freedom." History of such conflicts and the facts of the current ones simply don't support this.

"They" hate that we are often the obstacle to forcing governments to evolve where evolution is both necessary and reasonable, and no effective legal means exist to gain such changes. Or at least this is often perceived to be true. Reality is irrelevant, as is our own perceptions of ourselves. It is the perceptions of the people in question that rules.

[AmericanPride]

Ideology has been made the great Bogeyman, along with simplistic statements like "they hate us for our freedom." History of such conflicts and the facts of the current ones simply don't support this.

Bob, I am interested in where you see policy and ideology intersecting and the relevancy of that relationship to your discourse. I ask this because the comment quoted below is itself riddled with ideological presumptions.

"They" hate that we are often the obstacle to forcing governments to evolve where evolution is both necessary and reasonable, and no effective legal means exist to gain such changes. Or at least this is often perceived to be true. Reality is irrelevant, as is our own perceptions of ourselves. It is the perceptions of the people in question that rules.

In your original post, you asked: do ideologies - be it Nazism, Communism, Islamism, or any other "ism" radicalize otherwise content populations to rise in illegal conflict, or are these simply effective tunes tailored to help a particular "parade" march in step?

The question, and some other comments in the same OP, contain numerous references to legality and I am curious to what extent your emphasis on legality shapes your policy prescriptions.

[AmericanPride]

this comment goes to the heart of our policy failures in the ME---it is all about how we are perceived nothing more nothing else---how does the common man in the population view us.

I submit to you that the "common man" is an irrelevant political construct, and that the perception of others of us is less important than our perception of ourselves, as far as pursuing a specific policy is concerned. The Middle East is an interesting case study because the material interests of the engaged parties are so clearly visible and so it's easy to dispense with theoretical distractions. I agree that there are a number of "policy failures" in the Middle East, though I would contend that none of them are disastrous, and I am sure we will disagree on which policies should be counted among the failures. I do not think our failures can be described in any significant part to "how we are perceived" - as Dayuhan pointed out, the US is widely perceived as acting in a way contrary to the interests of the "common man in the population" regardless of which policy it pursues. The real question is which uncommon elites are unnecessarily incited to oppose US policies and is it necessary for the US to do anything about it?

Several countries in the ME are in contentious transition, and all the actors have already chosen sides - including the US. But the US is more constrained by the political and economic conditions at home than by any perception of the "common man" in the ME. If the US was ever interested in the views of the "common man", it would never have backed dictatorships in the first place.

[Dayuhan]

There is a far cry from "simple" to "simplistic.". A P38 C-ration can opener is simple, beating a can open with a rock is simplistic.

I'm aware of the difference. I used "simplistic" for a reason.

Ideology has been made the great Bogeyman, along with simplistic statements like "they hate us for our freedom." History of such conflicts and the facts of the current ones simply don't support this.

Agreed.

"They" hate that we are often the obstacle to forcing governments to evolve where evolution is both necessary and reasonable, and no effective legal means exist to gain such changes.

Unfortunately, that's very nearly as simplistic as "they hate us for our freedom". There are any number of people out there who hate us, or see us as an obstacle to their ambitions or as a potentially exploitable asset or any number of things. There's a huge range of reasons behind all of those. The one you cite is probably among them, but it's by no means the only or the most important one. Singling out that one element as a basis for policy is, yes, simplistic.

The contention that "we are often the obstacle to forcing governments to evolve where evolution is both necessary and reasonable" remains unsupported. Where is this the case? Certainly not in Saudi Arabia. We have zero control or influence over Saudi domestic policy, and not much more over their foreign policy. The example given before, of what happened when the US tried to promote accommodation and negotiation in Bahrain's Arab Spring incident, remains appropriate. I'm sure you noted that the Saudis recently offered $3 billion in military hardware to the Lebanese army, obviously seeking to improve its position vs Hezbollah, with the provision that the hardware must come from France. That's $3 billion less for the US defense industry. That seems a pretty clear statement to me, and I seriously doubt that any American attempt to influence the relationship between the Saudi government and its populaces is going to be well received by either side of that equation.

Or at least this is often perceived to be true. Reality is irrelevant, as is our own perceptions of ourselves. It is the perceptions of the people in question that rules.

I think you're making quite sweeping assumptions about what other people perceive, and I don't see any effort to support those assumptions with evidence.