Counterinsurgency, Denial, and Iraq

[Gian P Gentile]

In my reading of history, two methods have worked in counterinsurgency...The other is, for want of a better term, the British model. It recognizes that there are underlying political and economic causes of an insurgency which must be addresses. The military component of it is simply defensive, holding the line while political and economic reforms take hold...the military never had it in their power to bring decisive results. We could have had Petraeus, Chiarelli, the "new" Odierno, 3-24, and the advisor corps in place in 2003 and it would not have made a fundamental difference. That could only be done in the political and economic realms... Lamentably, I remain skeptical of long term success. I think we have, in fact, given the Iraqi government an opportunity. I'm not seeing evidence that they are capitalizing on it. We also have succeeded in postponing disaster until the end of the current administration. Everyone can draw their own conclusions as to how important that was in the overall plan.

Your response suggests to me that there are conditions that the United States simply can not change with military force even when supported by the best doctrine and competent outfits. It also suggests agreement with Doug Macgregor in another thread that in the greater scheme of things the Surge really hasn’t accomplished much. If the fundamental political conditions have not been resolved then the Surge at best has done what you say and only staved off disaster until the end of this Administration.

This is why I have pushed the term Civil War in Iraq as a way to understand conditions there instead of counterinsurgency. Because the country is in Civil War over fundamental political and social issues, the war will not be resolved until certain sides win out through fighting over others. That was really the point i was getting at in my Eating Soup with a Spoon piece. That American Coin doctrine has removed fighting as the reality of war and replaced it with, to use your words, "the British model" which employs scientific processes to link the people to the government, or to use a catchy Kilkullen phrase, "rewire the social environment."

To use a historical analogy such thinking sounds like the decade preceding the American Civil War where compromises were made between the north and south but since the fundamental political and social conditions had not been resolved the war came. Political leaders like Stephen Douglas believed that their cleverness with organizing territories like Kansas and Nebraska under popular sovereignty would allow these territories to develop economically, railroads to be built, etc, and that these processes would be enough to "rewire" the north to the south and stave off war. Obviously, it did not work.