Thoughts from the Field on Kilcullen's 28 Articles (Pt. I)

[SWJED]

... articles 13 - 20 and articles 21 - 28.

[Stan]

A very enjoyable read. Wished we had this a few years ago !

Great work guys !

[goesh]

Point #19. Except in direct educational services, the Peace Corps Volunteers who spent the most time with children were the least respected and usually accomplished the least in W. African muslim bush villages. Very smart to beware the children. There is nothing more insulting than for powerful, grown men from a poweful, unknown, foreign culture to be interacting with children while their fathers and uncles look on. As mentioned, family roles and parental authority is changed when a child through lots of interacation and contact becomes the authority on the Americans in the home and the center of attention because of it. No good can come of it. I don't see how the rigid paternalism of traditonal 3rd world Islam, the arranged marriages, the lack of full economic participation and power sharing by the women and their complete lack of religious authority is very conducive to planned enpowerment of them in any kind of COIN implementatioin. The responses given suggest utilizing and positively exploiting presented opportunities more so than focusing time and resources to cultivate said opportunities. If energy/resources can be devoted to empowering women, there should be equitable energy/resources for income generating projects for men.

[Stan]

Hey Goesh,
I could be wrong here, but I think the article is in general broad stroke and a tad vague, but the subsequent inputs clear things for me. I read it as being careful and also being influential, but not straight interaction.

I can say that while in Afghanistan, we tried to make sure the children saw us as friendly and respectful, but that didn't mean we let our guard down (We also didn't try to teach them bad language such as in the recent video herein). Weeks later in the city flea markets, some remembered us and came up to greet us in front of the general population. They displayed no fear, were open and walked with us for 15 minutes or so, exchanging a few words in English and Estonian. The USAF CPT with us said he had never seen such friendly relations with foreign troops and asked if we had been 'dumping' candy and food 'excessively'. The Estonian NCO responded with an immediate "No, just good will !"

Going back to 90 - 94 in Zaire, the women ran "wall street" (directly across the street from the US Embassy), their presence, their rate of exchange, and in some cases their interaction with me and my drivers was key to such things as events of the day and in one case, civil uprisings.

That's my take on Article 19

[Tom Odom]

Why I decided to press on this project:

First of all sometimes a certain article "resonates" with an audience because it touches that audience as a group and as individuals.

Clearly Kilcullen's 28 touched a very large audience because he offered insights that could be understood and applied at the small unit level. Much of what was previously published on COIN fell in 2 camps: the war story/history that can be very enlightening but requires the reader to dig a bit or b., the pollitical science, sociology, anthropology brain twisting theory ridden writing that just does not prompt a sergeant, a captain, or any other soldier to say, "I really enjoyed reading that because I understood it as the author was speaking to me, not at me, or worse, down to me."

Kilcullen touched RTK enough that he worked through each point and offered his own thoughts, followed by JC on the blog. When I took the two and combined them, the sum became greater than the total of the two. Others who contributed seemed to sense the same thing.

Secondly how you react to any of the discussed points, hopefully will be in the same vein. That what you take away is based on what we put before you and how you interpreted it. Kilcullen's stated goal was COIN principles at the company-level. In using his 28 articles as a framework, I deliberately dropped the "company-level" limitation. My goal--and I believe the goal of everyone who offered a thought including Dave Kilcullen--was to get you to think on how these principles might affect you at whatever level you apply them.

Best,

Tom

[goesh]

Fighting the War on Terrorism: A Counterinsurgency Strategy

- so while the wife is shopping, I'm in the bookstore and spend an hour with Corum. I see good stuff that makes sense to a non-professional civilian, some I understand, some I don't but I can relate to alot of it, what I see in an hour of browsing. Then towards the end he says in affect that there are significant forces that essentially oppose the concepts and precepts of counterinsurgency. There's basically one small blurb on something with immense ramifications and implications coming from a man of some insight and experience. It's sort like getting a nice blueprint of a fort that tells all about the bulwarks and fortification and its many intracacies and all the tactical advantages it offers, then a note attached to the last page says in affect: "hostile Indians will be descending on the fort from all sides."

To quote Mr. Odom: "That what you take away is based on what we put before you and how you interpreted it" and that applies to my browsing of Mr. Corum's book. Who are these oppositional forces? What are their mechanisms of action? who are their supporters and who has the vested interest in the counter-counterinsurgency mindset? How strong are these vested interests? How much of a threat are they to the counterinsurgency crews (policy makers)? How high up and deep does this antagonism run? Is it really antagonism or general professional difference in strategic orientation? I realize the intent of this forum is specific, rightfully so, and excellant it is, but when you align yourselves directly with civilian quasi counterparts in non-traditional civilian roles, these are the questions you will get. There is a general tendency amongst civilians to think the military is all on one page, all nicely lined up like in some parade, in step and all that, but clearly that is not the case. The element of trust of our military is based on part because of this perception and in-house fighting IMO is not going to hurt that trust. I don't expect the airing of any in-house dirty laundry and certainly not any specific finger pointing but it seems to me you have a 2 front war on your hands - one over there and one at home. Our own civilian bias of simply wanting to crush enemies is not helped when experts like Corum don't deal a full hand to us. That's my gripe for the day.