A Thin Blue Line in the Sand

[LawVol]

I just PM'd you on this. I'm renewing my interest in this area because I'm revisiting the paper I wrote on LE in a COIN environment. I'm going to try and find those two books you mentioned and give them a read. I'm sure they'll give me some ideas on expanding my paper; Troufion's thesis did as well.

[Rob Thornton]

Its interesting to me that while the IPs are more effective in Anbar, but up in Ninewa - at least in Mosul, it was the IA who carried the load. In the case of the IP, allot could be said about their lack of resources. As for the IA, they were adopting some LE like TTPs.

I don't think its just a matter of the friendlies (includes CF CDR personalities), the enemy and neutrals also matter in how effective a certain COA is in a particular AO. CPT Travis Patriquim's .ppt pointed out how IPs from local villages knew who were AIF - its hard to hide that within a close knit village socities. As you get to larger cities, it may be easier to blend in, but indigenous guys who do regular patrols start to figure things out real quick - like 2 opals with 3-4 guys and a bongo truck traveling together is bad news. I'd see IA stop guys on the street in Mosul and ask why - I got some good explanations - but it really ammounted to cop sense.

We should definetly be asking the question as to why what works in one area does or does not work in another. It may provide us away of comparing and contrasting other aspects of the fight - such as the cultural/political attitudes unique to certain areas.

[slapout9]

Wow we finally got a little rain in Alabama, been so long the ground just sucked it up. 10 minutes later you could barely tell it happened.

Back to the subject. Law Vol I wouldn't worry to much because as the author points out this is such a radical point of view it is not likely to be adopted as any kind of an overall game plan. But that General Mattis is Smart in how he is doing it. From what I have read he is being very carefully about who gets support, he is not just backing a pickup truck and throwing out some guns. Wired magazine had an article about how they are using portable fingerprint devices and retinal scans to record who gets what. This is in contrast to the SWJ Blog by Bing West but they will figure it out.

Now 4SW theory. Many people here and other places have commented about how this is not like shall we say the classical COIN theory because of the number of players and the complexity involved. Don't worry about it! People cause crimes and wars and people can stop them. It is a man made problem it is not some sort of natural phenomenon. And if it is man made it can be man solved.

As many experts have pointed out that one of the best ways to do COIN is to act like a BEAT COP. Problem is theses experts don't know what they are talking about. They wouldn't know a beat cop if one came up and hit them with their baton. Here is why. For all practical purposes beat cops are extinct in America that ended with the radio and the patrol car. THE SECOND AND MOST IMPORTANT PART IS BEAT COPS GREW UP IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD THEY PATROLLED IN. THEY NEW EVERYBODY WHICH IS WHY THEY WERE SO GOOD. And since they patrolled primarily on foot they reinforced long standing relationships and were able to develop outstanding local intelligence.

So America forces are kind of screwed when it comes to using one of the most useful tools to do COIN. So what do you do. Recruit the local population and train them as police officers and reserves (militias). Is it a perfect method no. Is it a good enough method to achieve stabilization. I think so but time will. Combined with the support of the local leaders and the flexibility to let them develop their area as they would like in accordances with their customs and traditions we may even have a good enough long term solution. Again time will tell. Thats my nickles worth.