Capture, Detain and COIN: merged thread

[jmm99]

with this principle:

BW
(Personally I see this whole detainee issue as just one of dozens of related issues that could all have been avoided if we would just stop trying to control everything on our terms, and instead get back into the role of being an example of what self-determined, popular power can achieve, and help shape an environment that allows other populaces to craft their own destinies.)

We'll agree and disagree on specific applications as the principle is reduced to practice - which is a good thing (discussion - thesis, antithesis and synthesis in my simplified "Hegelian" terms).

Yes, you do have a fixation on the Declaration of Independence.

PS: Ken expresses the lead quote principle in terms of Chimps and a 600# Gorilla - as I have demonstrated in another thread.

[Bullmoose Bailey]

I feel the state of the State may be changing, if you'll pardon the expression.

Logical evolution; City-State to Nation-State to Continent-State

Possible Future Evolution; Nation-State to Micro-State or concurrent governance and the such, particularly in the frontiers regions of Asia & Africa.

We might be dealing in the future with trans-corporeal states, virtual states and religious states wich would in the past have only been labelled fronts/cells/networks.

The statehood criterion will likely change due to communication & easement of access as well as the Enclave method of occupation in different areas by NNAs.

There is of course no good legal framework for attacking these issues. Certainly the new fronts & groups are not Geneva Signatories.

Given these factors, if we continue with "pre-emptive imprisonment" as an, admittedly good, deterrent/collection/spoiling effort, can we ever morally return to summary execution of spies ?

Could any enemy combatant be forced into the category of spy/saboteur?

At the beginning of this action that "forcing" was essentially my best advice. Today I feel the Bush Administration might actually have gained less from housing than from hanging in these terror suspect cases, but what of the cost ?

In past wars non-uniformed combatants were able to be hanged as spies. Is this still the case ?

Morally & legally ?

To what extent has the moral implication driven US procedures ?

Or was it global opinion rather ?

And what of the precedent ?

Is this even a precedent ?

[Jedburgh]

MR, May-Jun 09: Detention Operations, Behavior Modification and Counterinsurgency

Influencing the population is critical in a counterinsurgency, and the detainee population in Iraq represents a particularly salient demographic in that endeavor. Can an Iraqi detainee’s extremist behavior be influenced and modified during detention, thereby making him a lesser threat to coalition forces upon release?1 This question is crucial for Iraq’s future. The lengthy insurgency has resulted in a large number of detainees, and of those who are still being held captive, many have extremist backgrounds. If enough of them can be influenced to adopt positive attitudes toward coalition forces and the Iraqi government, and they return as constructive members of their villages and social networks, the cumulative effects would help tremendously in ensuring long-term national stability......

[Bob's World]

Jedburgh, this segment highlights one of the most misunderstood and misused words in our efforts to support the COIN operations of others: "Influence"

Invariably it is stated as it is here, as a verb. Something you do to the populace. I mean seriously, how hard is it to influence someone in cuffs standing on the business end of your M-4?

What is needed, and is much much more difficult to achieve is Influence the noun.

Every commander we've ever worked for could influence us, but how many of them possessed influence with you?

The second piece of this is that this is not our populace, this is not our COIN, and these should not be our detainees. Which leads us to the critical point Influence is closely related to Legitimacy. The government that needs to be developing Influence in the eyes of its populace (both insurgent and otherwise) is the host nation government. This builds their legitimacy in the eyes of their populace and reduces the causation for insurgency.

When we as the intervening FID force attempt to build our influence, it robs from the host nation and prolongs the insurgency. It also builds our perception of legitimacy over that host nation government which also prolongs the insurgency and makes the FID force a target of the insurgency as well.

There are many words associated with employing influence:
Order, Direct, Compel, Coerce, Sanction, Intimidate, Scare

There are also many words associated with possessing influence:
Trust, Stature, Prestige, Respect, Credibility, Reputation, Leadership

We need to not only focus on ensuring that every single engagement we execute, be it a raid to take down an HVT or a ribbon cutting ceremony, is designed to preserve the latter in ourselves, and build it in the HN.

I see this as part of our national treasure, a giant "credibility account," if you will. We have been drawing heavily on that account of late, deficit spending in hopes to make it all back at some future date when this GWOT is over. The future is now. It is time to redesign operations around this one point.

In the past if we could deter one man, we could deter a nation, and if we could deter one nation we could prevail. This was the Cold War paradigm.

Now and increasingly we must deter many nations, many leaders, and in fact many populaces to achieve the same degree of security. I see no way to get there except through the retirement of Cold War / GWOT Influencing, and the adoption of a new strategy of building credible influence.

Easily lost, hard to gain. We have a lot of work to do in this regard and we need to get started.