How to Win in Iraq and How to Lose

[J Wolfsberger]

You beat me to it.

Where can we find Galula's book, Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice?

[tequila]

Amazon has it for $29.95.

[slapout9]

Jay, the Small Wars library has several pubs about Galula, one very good one is Galula's compass which is a condensed version of the book, also several on Algeria and Robert Tranquier is there. All for free Of course you should make a donation to the SWC for their hard work in maintaining such a library. I was slow to do this myself until I realized what it would have cost me if I had try to buy them on the outside. It's a good deal

[John T. Fishel]

Although Herman is correct in his view of the big picture of insurgency and even in drawing an analogy with the Algerian War, he has many of the critical details wrong and, I believe, added little to the discussion.

As is true of all analogies, the cases are analogous but not the same - some are more similar than others. As Herman says, the Algerian war was a French military victory but a political defeat. Unfortunately, he fails to give sufficient weight to the French policy of using torture to win the Battle of Algiers (the Casbah - see General Paul Aussuresses, The Battle of the Casbah). It was this policy, when exploited by the FLN, the French opposition, among ohers, that led to the French defeat on the world stage limiting their ability to even touch the FLN sanctuaries in Tunisia and Morocco.

Herman is very wrong in equating the FLN with AQ. The FLN was a secular, nationalist movement, that, while it made some use of Islam as a rallying point, was committed to building a secular state. For all its failings, Algeria was - and remains - secular, even in the face of the Islamist challenge of the GIA.

Moreover, his interpretation of the film, The Battle of Algiers, is simply wrong. Pontecorvo (the producer/director) and Saadi Yacef (the author, star, and real world rebel, and later Algerianlegislator)are scrpulously fair in their treatment of the FLN. their French adveraries, and the urban campaign in Algiers, itself. There is no question in the film that the French won the battle! It is only in the treatment of the outcome of the war that propaganda takes the lead. The film makes it appear that street demonstrations in Algiers made it impossible for the French to govern, rather than the correct analysis that the French simply decided that "Algerie Francaise" simply was no longer worth the fight for both international and domestic reasons. (Indeed, the film very clearly illustrates the difficulties of both the insurgent and counterinsurgent. I use it in my classes on both terrorism and COIN.)

Other than these points, Herman is on relatively solid ground although he fails to note that there are many other influences besides David Galula on the current strategy. As my friend and colleague Max Manwaring likes to say, this stuff is not new...

[Tom Odom]

John

I agree on your corrections to Herman..except in saying he adds nothing to the discussion.

He may not emphasize the effects of torture policy in a strategic sense but he certainly centers on its effects with regard to French internal support for the war. If we are discussing US internal support for the war then I would say that Hermann's points on torture in internal French politics certainly apply.


All of that aside, I guess the most curious statement in the piece was that "most wars are not won, they are lost" and I agree that his fixation on Galula is rather "iconic" , much like the current media fixation on GEN Petraeus


Tom

[tequila]

The discrediting of the French armed forces and much of the extreme Right elements in the colonial army through the coup of the 1958 and the formation of the OAS should be mentioned as well. That the French people and the Algerian people both voted in separate referenda to give Algeria independence is also elided over in Herman's article.

[Tom Odom]

Maybe we should turn his article into a "Wiki"

I served with a French Captain (in 1988) who as an NCO spent some time in the brig because of his OAS sympathies--yes he was long in the tooth.

Tom

[J Wolfsberger]

Reading the article reminded me of an incident Alistair Horne recounts in A Savage War of Peace:

Two FLNA commanders are watching French Paras frisk an Algerian woman at a check point. One points out the expressions on the faces of the Algerian men waiting their turn. "My, God!" he says. "The stupid bastards are winning the war for us!"

The Paras, more specifically the authors of that policy, weren't the only "stupid bastards" winning the war for the FLNA.

(Apologies if I didn't get the story exactly right - the book's in temporary storage.)

John and tequila both point out omissions, but those don't seem to touch on the central issue. The point I took from the article is that, in Iraq today, as in Viet Nam and Algeria, we have our own "stupid bastards" intent on winning the war for AQ. And like Algeria, they aren't on the field of armed conflict, they are on the field of ideological conflict.

It makes absolutely no difference whether the drum beat of defeatism is driven by hatred of the US, greed for ratings, personnel ambitions or any of a host of base motives. The end result is the same: AQ and its allies realize that they "don't have to win, they only have to not lose" and wait us out.