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

[Bob's World]

Moderator's Note

This thread was in the Operation Iraqi Freedom arena and on a quick review is a far more general topic so moved here (ends).


People enjoy comparing Afghanistan to Vietnam. Some comparisons fit, many do not. I believe it is high time to explore some other comparisons in a manner that may help us to better understand a family of conflicts, past and present. That family is Resistance.

The two case studies that most of the Small Wars Council community are very versed in for this thread are WWII and the ongoing US War on Terrorism. The core (rooted in human nature) dynamic that I would like to explore is the natural tendency for a foreign, and therefore illegitimate, occupation to trigger a resistance response in the populations affected by the same.

A resistance insurgency is very different than a revolutionary insurgency. The first is a continuation of war - where one system of governance seeks to coerce its will over another, where the government and army have been defeated, and only the population remain in the fight. Resistance is war.

A revolutionary insurgency, however, is internal to a single system of governance. Like the division of a cell, revolutionary insurgency occurs when some segment of the population comes to feel compelled to coerce through illegal (and often very violent) ways political change on the domestic system of governance over them. Such conflict is best thought of as civil emergency, rather than war, as it is largely an act of illegal democracy where legal democracy either does not exist or is inadequate to the task. If such a "cell" ultimately divides and new governance and army forms around the dissident population, such a civil emergency then, and only then, becomes civil war.

Below is a response I posted this earlier today on a thread on the Small Wars Journal:
http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/how...s-of-tora-bora

In a court of law this entire thread is what might be called "relevant, but immaterial" (in that the information, while interesting and applicable to the case at hand, in no way helps resolve said case).

At a tactical level AQ is a pain in the ass. Tactically they are "a threat." They came to our country, they murdered our citizens, and while they did so in a war-like way, it was plain old, garden variety mass murder and we need to bring justice to those who perpetrated the act, and peace to those who suffered a tragic loss from that same act. Acting like a proverbial elephant with an irrational fear of mice, tromping all over any place where we think mice might hide with little regard to the impression that is creating in the minds of those innocently affected by our tromping is not making us safer. Quite the opposite, in fact.

At a strategic level AQ is a symptom. Just as the Treaty of Versailles made a future war with Germany inevitable, so too did the US decision to let the programs, policies and relationships nurtured during 45 years of Cold War manipulations in the Middle East to simply ride into the future make conflict with the people of that region inevitable as well. The explosion of information technology was an accelerant. Like the collision of a cold (war) front and a warm front over a sea of the people - it brewed a perfect storm.

In the first case, if not Hitler and the Nazi ideology it would have been someone else with some other rallying message. In the second case, if not AQ and their Islamist ideology it would have been someone else with some similar message (Islam-based ideology seems to be the only flavor that works in the Middle East for rallying people to illegal political action).

Resistance insurgency is a natural human response. While it is easy to appreciate why Hitler triggered this human response in every single country he invaded during WWII (and to some degree we even concede why we triggered resistance in Iraq and Afghanistan), we have a harder time appreciating that not every inappropriate, illegitimate "occupation" need be physical. I think we understand the rise of AQ and the resonance their message has had across the greater Middle East in the post-Cold War era best if we consider the possibility that one can trigger this human response through an "occupy by policy" as well as by the more traditional physical occupations we normally associate with resistance movements.

Why is this important? Because if we want to reduce the likelihood of terrorism against the US we must address the source of energy fueling the problem in the first place. Widespread CT operations and invasions of nations we see as supporting or facilitating the UW operations AQ has been conducting to leverage this resistance energy have served primarily to make that energy stronger. Symptoms must be mitigated, not defeated. To attempt to defeat symptoms ignores the problem and allows it to grow unchecked at best - at worst, and we have been bad, such efforts make the problem worse and accelerate its growth.

In many ways, much of what President Obama has been doing in regards to turning his back on Mubarak, tempering the use of drones, looking for diplomatic solutions to Syria, acting in ways that tend to piss off Cold War partners such as the Israelis and the Saudis in general - all have done far more to reduce the energy of this occupation by policy than all of our military efforts over the past 12 years combined. The boss has good instincts, but we have no strategy to provide the framework or narrative necessary to guide and communicate the logic of those actions.

If we want to get to better results, we need to redefine the problem and then devise new strategies. Working harder and faster to execute flawed perspectives focused on symptoms, or rehashing 12-year old battles, is not going to help us finally turn the corner on this problem.

RCJ

Did the victors of WWI provoke an inevitable WWII by their occupation by policy of Germany through the harsh terms of the Treaty of Versailles?

Did the victors of the Cold War provoke an inevitable War on Terrorism and associated Arab Spring by their decision to largely leave in place in the Middle East the policies, practices and relationships nurtured during and in support of activities designed to contain the Soviet Union?

Do men like Osama bin Laden and Adolf Hitler "cause" these types of conflicts, or are they simply opportunists who, like Mao so eloquently said about his role in China, "saw a parade and leapt in front"?

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?

I believe we need to refocus the debate. We have debated the branches of these types of conflicts to death. The roots, however, we tend to gloss over. After all, it is uncomfortable to confront the very real possibility that these are roots we planted ourselves.