Strategy begins with empathy: Netflix series "Colony"

[Azor]

...I turn to Holly and say, "you realize this entire series is an analogy for the US occupations of places like Afghanistan and Iraq, right?"

It reminds me of The Last Valley from 1971 which was an analogy for the Vietnam War, albeit set some 330 years earlier and based upon a book written well before Vietnam...

The twist in this show is that the audience immediately identifies with and builds empathy for the resistance. But in Vietnam, in Afghanistan, in Iraq, this was not our role. We were, we are, the alien invader. That faceless entity employing superior technology and power to impose our will onto others. We too build local security forces, employ drones to spy and kill, and disregard rights of justice we see as fundamental in the US Bill of rights in our hot pursuit of the terrorists of the resistance.

That glosses over the nuances of each conflict, particularly where Vietnam is concerned.

Vietnam
Ho Chi Minh may have had more legitimacy than the various leaders of the South due to his struggle against Japanese and French occupation, but to impose Communist rule on the north required Stalinist methods, including the mass murder of Northern civilians. Despite local adaptation, Communism was not indigenous to Vietnam and had to be imposed by force.

The United States certainly misunderstood the dynamics of Vietnam, including those between the Buddhists and Catholics, but there were clear parallels to the situation in Korea: mass murder, imprisonment and deportation was required for each northern and southern state to survive, and would be required again after unification. Better intelligence would have determined that Ho was not Kim and that a Vietnam united under Communism would not have been an outpost for Soviet or Chinese expansion.

Iraq
The issue was not cultural but political. The de-Ba'athification policy was sheer folly and created the Sunni Arab insurgency. Had the US found suitable Ba'athist leaders to govern Iraq and transition it into a more inclusive society, the situation would have turned out differently.

Afghanistan
Afghanistan has been a failed state gripped in a civil war since before the Soviets invaded. It has suffered whether foreign powers are interfering or not. If the US had secured northern Afghanistan and left the south as a no-man's land subject to UAV patrols, there might be a viable state...

[Bob's World]

I think you are missing the proverbial forest for the trees.

As to Vietnam, the whole construct of "North" and "South" states was a fiction created by the US, so I sadly love the irony of the fact that we view the conflict through the lens of our own fantasy. It was a 30 year resistance against foreign occupation and revolution against the "legal" but illegitimate governments and entities created and protected by those occupiers. Insurgency ebbs and flows, and this was an independence movement from start to finish. Our meddling merely delayed the inevitable and brought an extra generation of hardship to the people of that region.

Was de-Ba'athification a tactical error? Yes. All Iraq needed was a punitive expedition at most. But instead we removed the government, stayed, and put in and sought to protect one of our liking. Strategically that creates presumptive resistance warfare against the occupier, and presumptive revolutionary illegal democracy against the puppet regime. Better tactics would not have prevented the inevitable strategic results of our actions.

As to Afghanistan? A true state whether it meets our standard for that or not. We love to call things "failed" that don't look like what we think right is. As a patronage society where there is "winner" or "loser" and little in between, there is always competition to be the winner. Those who had patronage power under the Taliban will always (rightfully) believe that " but for" the meddling of the US they would still be in power - so there will always be revolutionary illegal democracy against the government we created and protect; and always resistance warfare against our presence to do so.

This is human nature, and we are not exempt because we rationalize good intentions, and believe ourselves to be "exceptional."

[Azor]

As to Vietnam, the whole construct of "North" and "South" states was a fiction created by the US…

Not at all. Firstly, Vietnam was unified in the medieval and early modern period from north to south, with the south being consolidated over 800 years after northern Vietnam had gained independence from China. Secondly, Vietnam was divided into three French protectorates for almost a century. There were regional differences between north and south prior to American intervention, including greater Westernisation and use of the French language in the south.

It was a 30 year resistance against foreign occupation and revolution against the "legal" but illegitimate governments and entities created and protected by those occupiers. Insurgency ebbs and flows, and this was an independence movement from start to finish. Our meddling merely delayed the inevitable and brought an extra generation of hardship to the people of that region.

That is the popular conception of the conflict in Vietnam. Assuming that is true, why then did the North Vietnamese place themselves in a position of dependency upon Soviet and Chinese support in order to conquer the South? Why did they invite hundreds of thousands of foreign soldiers and advisors into their country, when the Americans had not invaded the North? Why risk being at the mercy of a great power that had occupied Vietnam before for a millennium?

The NLF was dependent upon the NVA and the NVA was dependent upon the Soviets and Chinese. This is not to say that the South would have faced no insurgency, but there is a major difference between 1st Chechnya and the Chechen insurgency from 2009 on. Even with massive Soviet and Chinese support, the NLF and NVA were smashed time and time again, but were far from the “golden third” irrecoverable loss rate necessary for winning a war of attrition.

Was de-Ba'athification a tactical error? Yes. All Iraq needed was a punitive expedition at most. But instead we removed the government, stayed, and put in and sought to protect one of our liking. Strategically that creates presumptive resistance warfare against the occupier, and presumptive revolutionary illegal democracy against the puppet regime. Better tactics would not have prevented the inevitable strategic results of our actions.

The complete removal of the Iraqi government was both an arrogant attempt to create a client state and a concession to those Americans who would have bemoaned it had the US not reconstructed the country; and why not as a “model” Arab Muslim democracy?

De-Ba’athification was a decisive strategic error, because a provisional government led by Ba’athists could have governed the country as the Coalition worked to bring the Kurds and Shias into the political process.

As to Afghanistan?…As a patronage society where there is "winner" or "loser" and little in between, there is always competition to be the winner. Those who had patronage power under the Taliban will always (rightfully) believe that " but for" the meddling of the US they would still be in power - so there will always be revolutionary illegal democracy against the government we created and protect; and always resistance warfare against our presence to do so.

Well, the Taliban failed to take responsibility for hosting Al Qaeda. Yes, there are winners and losers, but should we be compassionate toward those Germans and Japanese who benefited from their countries’ wars of aggression and mass murder?

The Taliban is far from a “revolutionary illegal democracy”. It is a Pakistani construction designed to divert the Pashtun people’s collective energies from ethnic nationalism to Muslim supremacism. Pakistan is an unwieldly mash of several ethnic groups and Islamabad suppresses those centrifugal forces through Islamism and conflict with India. The Pashtun nation straddles the Durand Line, making southern Afghanistan ungovernable unless Pakistan is carved up.

…so I sadly love the irony of the fact that we view the conflict through the lens of our own fantasy… We love to call things "failed" that don't look like what we think right is… This is human nature, and we are not exempt because we rationalize good intentions, and believe ourselves to be "exceptional."

It sounds as though you are disillusioned. Yet what of the reconstruction of Western Europe, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan? Failures can’t be dwelled upon in isolation…

[Bob's World]

You are tossing a bowl of historical fruit salad, mixing your apples with your oranges. True facts, but imo strategically immaterial. We cling to the facts that feed our narrative, rather than devising a more accurate strategic framework and considering the facts in that light.

[Azor]

You are tossing a bowl of historical fruit salad, mixing your apples with your oranges. True facts, but imo strategically immaterial. We cling to the facts that feed our narrative, rather than devising a more accurate strategic framework and considering the facts in that light.

Well, I was addressing your various points. Note that I have never argued that reconstruction and COIN were easy or quick processes and that a more adept CPA in Iraq or more resources to the Afghan War or leaving Vietnam to the generals would have necessarily led to victory.

I referenced the postwar reconstruction and COIN successes specifically because they each involved a substantial and sustained national commitment and whole-of-government approach to succeed, and they benefited fron having the attrition part out of the way.

[Bob's World]

I am talking about the strategic framework of these types of conflicts. All are unique in countless fascinating ways that must be taken into account in shaping one's campaigns and tactical approaches. But it is our blind belief in what I call the "Humpty Dumpty " strategic approach that framed all three of these conflicts for failure at inception.

Step one, rationalize the need to replace a government one does not like somewhere with a new government one believes will be less "failed," contrary, or of the wrong brand of form or ideological approach.

Step two, believe in the fantasy of "effective" government and "controlled" populations and the power of American brand democracy to creating stable societies. Then set upon "stabilizing" the population as one sets out in earnest to build a virtual "wall" of security force capacity and institutions, governmental effectiveness and institutions, and development. And then put your Humpty up on that wall and grant him the guarantee as your new "ally" that if he should ever fall you will spare no expense to put him back on the wall again.

This creates presumptive resistance and revolutionary forms of political conflict in a complex devil's brew regardless of intentions or interesting peripheral facts. Yet we never learn and rationalize away our failures to these peripheral factors.

As to Germany and Japan, in both those the entire population was as defeated as their respective governments and military. But they still did not want to be little Americas, no, we were the lesser of two evils, so they tolerated our presence to avoid a far worse fate at the hands of the Russians and Chinese who had very legitimate axes to grind...

[Bob's World]

Now look to the British school of hard knocks and the strategic lessons they learned (but seem to have also largely forgotten) in regards to the true drivers of, and resolution to resistance insurgency warfare and recolutionary insurgency illegal democracy.

First, why make the distinction? Simple, because warfare solutions work against war, but political solutions are necessary for democracy. War is a violent political conflict between two distinctly separate entities. Illegal democracy are those illegal, and often violent to a war-like degree, activities to coerce change of governance within a single system of governance. Historically we call the military suppression of revolution a COIN "win" for the state. Truly "good enough for government work," but in reality, unless governance evolves to address the driving issues, this approach makes the actual insurgency worse even as it tamps down the symptoms for 10-15 years.

British lessons began in the Northern Ireland and American colonies, though took a century or so to sink in. The mid-1800s resolution to grant to the British colonists in Canada, South Africa, New Zealand and Australia the same rights previously ask for by and denied to the American colonists is one example of strategic learning. This paved the way to the relinquishing of colonial control and fostering the emergence of self determined governance in Malaya a century after that.

Those lessons were somehow lost on Americans who deluded ourselves to believe that our superior rationale and lighter touch for imposing our political will onto others would somehow make us exempt from the laws of human nature. So while we often borrow British tactics, we cling to American strategy, with tragic results.

Why have the British COIN efforts embedded within US led operations failed to yield durable strategic results? Simple, because good tactics cannot overcome bad strategy.