COIN Counterinsurgency (merged thread)

[Dayuhan]

We need to evolve to a more sophisticated understanding of insurgencies. I can't get on board with what guys like Doc Nagl is selling, you can't buy off a populace in insurgency; but neither can I get on board with the position represented here, as you can't beat the desire for liberty out of a people either.

I'd certainly agree that anyone involved in a particular insurgency needs to develop a sophisticated understanding of that particular insurgency, but I see considerable danger in making generic conclusions about "insurgency" and imposing them on any given situation.

Certainly some insurgencies are fought out of desire for liberty... but does that mean that all insurgency, everywhere, represents a struggle for liberty? Don't people sometimes fight over power, profit, position, advantage?

[Bob's World]

I'd certainly agree that anyone involved in a particular insurgency needs to develop a sophisticated understanding of that particular insurgency, but I see considerable danger in making generic conclusions about "insurgency" and imposing them on any given situation.

Certainly some insurgencies are fought out of desire for liberty... but does that mean that all insurgency, everywhere, represents a struggle for liberty? Don't people sometimes fight over power, profit, position, advantage?

Obviously guys like George Washington are rare cats, who when presented with the opportunity to take absolute power unto them self, instead remain absolutely resolute to the principles of the movement itself.

WILF rolls out Sierra Leone as a recent example of where military force defeated the insurgency. I must admit, I have not studied this insurgency much, but the small amount I have read it appeared to be much more a small band without significant popular support fighting for the power and profit associated with control of the Diamond industry. That is more like a Western American "range war" than an insurgency; and such efforts have no "roots" so to speak, so can be eradicated and done with.

The key remains the populace and making a fair and accurate assessment of where their loyalties lie. Obviously every populace is a complex mosaic, and few assessors, be they insurgent, colonial, or national government will be unbiased and probably over value their own stakes accordingly.

If a movement has no root in populace desire to get rid of existing governance (rather than promote some new governance - that is us focusing on what is being promoted rather than what is being resisted) it probably isn't really an insurgency.

[William F. Owen]

Is this then a "conservative construct" that does the same? I'm looking for examples of where military operations to defeat an insurgent movement actually defeated the insurgency as well.

No. It's a logical construct. You can only use armed force to set forth or resist a policy that seeks to do the same.
Military force is limited to military problems.

Malaysia? One has to ask, did the military operations of the Brits set conditions for political success; or rather was it the military operations of the communist insurgents who set the conditions for independence and withdrawal of the illegitimate British Colonial government?

What British Armed force did was ensure that power was transferred peacefully to a regime that wished to be part of the Commonwealth.

If we stop using this silly word "insurgency" with all the bad history that gets attached to it and say "rebellions" then its a lot simpler to ask, do some rebellions get defeated?" Answer, is yes they do.

The post WWII insurgencies in SEA were not about expanding communism, but rather about expelling colonialism.

True, but so what?

We need to evolve to a more sophisticated understanding of insurgencies.

Why? There is nothing about them that is complicated or hard to understand. The challenge comes with using force, not with working out what force cane be used to do. It's a technical problem, not a conceptual one.

What history shows is that the populace may pause, but they will not stop.

So Politics? - and pause for how long? I don't see the populations of North Korea, Libya, Syria, and/or Saudi Arabia ever getting anywhere to begin to pause.

[William F. Owen]

WILF rolls out Sierra Leone as a recent example of where military force defeated the insurgency. I must admit, I have not studied this insurgency much, but the small amount I have read it appeared to be much more a small band without significant popular support fighting for the power and profit associated with control of the Diamond industry. That is more like a Western American "range war" than an insurgency; and such efforts have no "roots" so to speak, so can be eradicated and done with.

Well what armed force did is Sierra Leone was get several armed irregular groups to cease fighting because they were either all dead, run away or wanted to give up.
Calling Sierra Leone "an Insurgency" is yet another example of silly language obscuring facts. It was irregular warfare for political control of the diamond fields, to fund various other military and criminal activities.

[Dayuhan]

The key remains the populace and making a fair and accurate assessment of where their loyalties lie. Obviously every populace is a complex mosaic, and few assessors, be they insurgent, colonial, or national government will be unbiased and probably over value their own stakes accordingly.

The "loyalty" of the populace is often driven by their perception of who's likely to be on top when the shooting stops. For any given village, tribe, clan or other sub-unit of the populace the practical need to avoid backing the losing side and facing a stomping from the winning side is likely to take priority over abstract perceptions of legitimacy or good governance.

Even when parts of the populace are not simply trying to keep on the winning side, their own perception of the greatest advantage to their group or lowest risk to their group are likely to be far more important than perceptions of legitimacy or good government.

If a movement has no root in populace desire to get rid of existing governance (rather than promote some new governance - that is us focusing on what is being promoted rather than what is being resisted) it probably isn't really an insurgency.

What then is an insurgency? Is armed opposition to a government by an internal group that wants to seize power for its own purposes not insurgency?

[slapout9]

I suspect that the lack of inspired leadership is closely related to the lack of clear policy objectives. What's the goal? What's the desired end state? Nobody seems to know... and it's difficult to provide inspired leadership if you don't know where we're trying to go.

Point 1-Like I said we believe in "The Invisible Hand Theory". An entire generation of Americans have been raised to believe that Government is bad,Government is the problem, not the solution. Many of these elite educated are now in positions of power and influence and simply believe that might makes right.

Point 2-We have never figured out that we are fighting a long range Guerrilla War in Afghanistan and other locations of convenience from which the enemy plans and launches attacks against the USA. All Nation building will do is give them better stuff to use against us. Until the Guerrilla force is destroyed there will be no end.

[Ken White]

Point 1-Like I said we believe in "The Invisible Hand Theory". An entire generation of Americans have been raised to believe that Government is bad,Government is the problem, not the solution. Many of these elite educated are now in positions of power and influence and simply believe that might makes right.

I think there are just as many or more here who may over believe in government. Certainly the elite educated crew now in power has no qualms about expanding the role of government.

We Americans have a complex relationship with our government that is fairly distinctive; we seem to want 'it' to leave us alone unless we think we have a problem, than we scream "what's the government going to do about this?" Some weird folks out there...

Point 2-...Until the Guerrilla force is destroyed there will be no end.

True dat.

[jmm99]

Again a note of thanks to Slap for the 1962 book "Insurgency and Counterinsurgency: An Anthology" (in 9 pdf parts, linked in my post here), which takes us back to the Genesis of the present controversy - Counterinsurgency and its Discontents.

The following jpg image is from the 1962 Insurgency and Counterinsurgency An Anthology 01.pdf (the file on my drive, originally at the link 2171701001a.pdf):

1962 IN & COIN Defined.jpg

The jpg quote above (the "new" inter-departmental definitions) are found in and explained in the link above as the 4 page Introduction (pdf pp. 7-10) written by Richard M. Leighton, Chairman of the ICAF Counterinsurgency Committee. I've attached a 2-page pdf (1962 Insurgency and Counterinsurgency An Anthology 01, 7-8.pdf), which has the key explanatory caveats - the forgetting of which may be some of today's problem.

The 1962 introduction of the "new" (according to the author) term "counter-insurgency" is self-explanatory. So also, the revised definition of "insurgency" and the definition of the new term "counter-insurgency", for US inter-departmental use.

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Turning now to some pedantic points.

As to the point that "insurgency" has centuries old validity in international law, consider Fr. insurger, "to revolt, to rebel, to rise" (Larousse); the source of our English "insurgent" and "insurgency", as well as our English "insurrection" (Oxford; both go back to Lat. insurgere, "to rise up"). The Lat. insurgere had two slightly different meanings (Hinds-Hayden): "to increase in power" as in Caesar paulatim insurgere, Tacitus; and "to rise up against" as in insurgere suis regnis, Ovid).

IMO: insurgency, insurrection, revolution, rebellion and [up]rising are fundamentally cognate, although variations in meaning may be asserted by their variant users. The variations in meaning are based on the users' variant ideas - the magic, if any, lies in the supporting content in context, not in the buzzword used or misused.

Truth in Lending: The terms "insurgency, insurrection, revolution, rebellion and [up]rising" do paint somewhat different mind pictures for me - no doubt based on how others have used those words in what I've read and how I've perceived their apparent meanings.

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If you are serious about making an argument about how the terms "insurgency" and "counter-insurgency" developed meanings in 1962 - and then further morphed over the last 48 years, the entire 1962 book "Insurgency and Counterinsurgency: An Anthology" is a must read.

To it, I'd add a number of manuals from 1951-1963 - which, if you are interested, are probably all still online (as .pdfs) and can be found by a bit of Googling).

These old (I'd say "vintage") manuals have much to commend themselves, as successors to and expanders of the 1940 USMC Small Wars Manual.

1951 FM 31-21 Organization and Conduct of Guerrilla Warfare.pdf
1955 FM 31-20 US Army Special Forces Group.pdf
1958 FM 31-21 Guerrilla Warfare and Special Forces Operations.pdf
1961 FM 31-15 Operations against Irregular Forces.pdf
1961 FM 31-21 Guerrilla Warfare and Special Forces Operations.pdf
1962 (rev 1964-65) FMFM 8-2 USMC Operations Against Guerrilla Units.pdf
1963 FM 31-16 Counterguerrilla Operations.pdf
1963 FM 31-22 US Army Counterinsurgency Forces.pdf

Note that Counterinsurgency (as a title) enters the manuals in 1963.

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Another part of this topic is classification of "insurgencies". Back in 1993, our Steve Metz suggested that we would see two basic types, presented in the Summary of his short (29-page) article, The Future of Insurgency (emphasis added by JMM):

Insurgency will persist even after the end of the cold war. But as insurgent strategists recognize the bankruptcy of old techniques, especially protracted, rural "people's war," they will innovate. It is vital for those interested in preventing or controlling insurgency to think creatively, speculate on the new forms that will emerge, and craft new frames of reference to serve as the foundation for strategy and doctrine.

The key to post-cold war insurgency is its psychological component. The greatest shortcoming of Third World states (including most of the former Soviet bloc) is their inability to meet the psychological needs of their populations, especially a sense of meaning during the stressful periods of rapid change associated with development. This shortcoming will generate frustration and discontent which can be used by insurgent strategists.

Two forms of insurgency are likely to dominate the post-cold war world. Spiritual insurgency is the descendant of the cold war-era revolutionary insurgency. It will be driven by the problems of modernization, the search for meaning, and the pursuit of justice. The other form will be commercial insurgency. This will be driven less by the desire for justice than wealth. Its psychological foundation is a warped translation of Western popular culture which equates wealth, personal meaning, and power.

The dominance of one of these two forms will vary from region to region. Latin America is likely to suffer more from continued and expanded commercial insurgency than from spiritual. Sub-Saharan Africa will be particularly prone to insurgency. Initially the spiritual form will be pervasive, with the potential for commercial insurgency to develop later. The likelihood of spiritual insurgency is also high in the Middle East (including Arab North Africa). The Asia/Pacific region and the former Soviet bloc will probably experience both spiritual and commercial insurgency.

IMO: This is a remarkable 4-paragraph analysis from 17 years ago, whose basic construct seems still valid to this armchair observer.

Steve "Roadkill" Metz may now have a different take on his 1993 BLUF. RSVP.

Regards

Mike

[slapout9]

jmm99, the real beginning is in the table of contents.

1-Guerrilla warfare in the Underdeveloped Areas
2-Introduction to Counterinsurgency
3-Unconventional warfare


Article 1 really describes what is happening now. Guerrilla warfare in Underdeveloped areas not necessarily what we would call states.

Article 3 is by Frank Lindsay who was not only a theoretician but a SUCCESSFUL practitioner of UW. Lindsay has been rediscovered by SF and is the primary subject of the "Unconventional Warfare Leaders Handbook" that I posted just a while back. This was really astounding to me when I first read it because it has only been out a short time, but what is being rediscovered used to be the standard SF theory (7 steps from hell as I learned it) how it got lost I don't know but at least they found it again.

It also blends in nicely with the Question of Command theory by Mayor. Lindsay talks quite a bit about how selection of Guerrilla leaders Underground leaders and Axillary leaders are the key to victory and the Establishment of the future leadership of the new government.

Like I said we are not "Virgins writing a sex manual" we are "Sex therapist with amnesia" We know how to do it, we have just forgotten how.

[slapout9]

I think there are just as many or more here who may over believe in government. Certainly the elite educated crew now in power has no qualms about expanding the role of government.

Dosen't matter if they are on the right or the left, they all went to the same Law School

[jmm99]

from Slap

jmm99, the real beginning is in the table of contents.

1-Guerrilla warfare in the Underdeveloped Areas
2-Introduction to Counterinsurgency
3-Unconventional warfare

The real beginning of the substance starts there. I was talking about the beginning of the terms ("insurgency" and "counter-insurgency") which some find offensive, used too much as buzzwords, etc.

I'd rather go with the substance myself, but some folks like to argue about what are akin to "legalisms".

Can't Google up much on Franklin Lindsay (something of a "Prince Charming" in 1946 when he was only 30) - OSS and CIA, but left for private sector.

Regards

Mike

[Dayuhan]

Again a note of thanks to Slap for the 1962 book "Insurgency and Counterinsurgency: An Anthology" (in 9 pdf parts, linked in my post here), which takes us back to the Genesis of the present controversy - Counterinsurgency and its Discontents.

What I find interesting in the definition of insurgency as "revolt or insurrection against a constituted government" is the problem of defining a "constituted government". At what point does a government, especially one installed by an outside power, become "constituted"? One could argue that at least at the time they began, the insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan were not opposing a "constituted government" but rather an occupying power... if that's the case, would they be insurgencies at all, at least according to this definition?

[Bob's World]

Just because something is older, louder, or more persistent does not also imply that it is more correct.

These 1962 inputs are a great addition to the debate on how we see these things now, as they help to clarify how we saw them then.

Just reading it as a lawyer, I would suggest that in addition to the definitions of "Insurgency" and "counterinsurgency" one would also have to have the definition of "Subversion" to have the full picture of what they mean by COIN.

The definition they give for insurgency describes insurgency in general, and then focuses in on what they call "subversive insurgency", which would apparently be a distinct subset from insurgency as a whole.

Then, the definition for COIN is specifically focused on subversive insurgency, which in turn suggest that other forms of insurgency are not addressed with COIN at all.

But to talk about two legs while ignoring the third leg on this problem is to miss perhaps the most critical aspect of all, and that is the leg made up of Unconventional Warfare, or UW. UW is the art of the third party who come into a country for reasons of his own to incite and promote subversive insurgency. This, of course, is what AQ is doing in so many communities across Northern Africa, the Middle East, and to a far lesser degree with far less success, South and South East Asia. (that last part should be a thread unto itself, as to why Muslim dominated populaces that have already resolved their issues with external colonial influences are largely immune to AQ's message, while those who have remained under such influences are so easily susceptible to the same. Again, Insurgency is about getting rid of some form of governance far more than it is about promoting some form of governance. Like in many relationships, the one you grab first on the rebound is often more transition than permanent. Mr./Miss "right now", rather than Mr./Miss "right.")

UW is not only critical in that it helps clear the fog of this crazy talk of "Terrorism" and "Counterterrorism" (note, the SOF community could completely drop CT from its mission list and not lose a single skill set or capability. That is a fact too often ignored and misunderstood. Just as "Terrorism" is a tactic and not a mission; so is "Counterterrorism" IMO).

An operation would be "Counter UW", but we don't have that operation on the books, so instead we focus on tactics rather than operations, and it results in a very tactical, Intel driven focus that is not helpful; in fact, it is a very dangerous focus as it leads us to see those who commit acts of Terrorism as the enemy, when in fact they may well be the party on the right side of the problem in many cases that we, rather than AQ, should be conducting UW with to have the best effects on bringing stability to these troubled regions.

This leads to the $60,000 question: Is our goal to bring stability to the region and thereby by promote our various Western interest there; or, is our goal to preserve the current governments that we have long relations with at any cost, and hope that we can somehow build stability around them?

I argue that we have taken on the latter of those two options, and that the Intel driven threat-focus of the CT tactical construct help drive us there; and has also led in turn to this perversion of COIN that presumes the maintaining of these current governments in power which arguably is the greatest cause of these many insurgencies in the first place.

By focusing on the goal of Stability and creating conditions that also support Western interests (we are not charities, this is serious, selfish business) We should probably argue far less about what is COIN and where do we do that operation; but rather on:

"Where do we counter the AQ UW operations; and where do we Co-opt them and conduct UW ourselves."

Now, there will be some governments who will be willing to get serious about understanding and addressing their shortcomings with their own populaces that make them vulnerable to UW to begin with. They can do this by targeting and reducing the level of insurgent potential in their populace (on the Jones Model I try to show this by the curve that moves up and to the right out of Phase 0 pre-insurgency, and into the realm of Phase I Insurgency). A populace deep in Phase 0 is largely immune to UW. One cannot "radicalize" or "Pied Piper" a satisfied populace into insurgency. To think so is to adopt classic "addict" or "victim" mentality, that places all blame for ones problems on some external bad actor, when in fact those bad actors merely took advantage of your own vulnerability.

This is getting too long, but this is important. I'll drill on this a bit at work this week, so please, feel free to weigh in.

[Backwards Observer]

A coin campaign that seems relatively hard to find extensive information on is the PAVN effort in Cambodia. I do recall a brief interview a couple of years ago with a PAVN Colonel who said the most important thing was to fix the government. In this case, he meant the Cambodian government.

When I visited Hanoi in the late '90s, my cab driver, who "spoke American", told me he had been a sergeant in the PAVN and his company had taken heavy casualties. Before it became uncomfortable, he added with a smile, "In Cambodia." He went on to say the fighting there had been very bad.

I ran into him again in a coffee shop around the corner from the Hoa Binh Hotel, where I was staying. He told me that the survivors of his company had a reunion there every year. I asked, "Oh, you guys book the whole restaurant?" He said, "No, the reunion is at this table...and there is one stool left over!" The table seated four. Then he laughed, but his eyes bored straight into mine.

[Dayuhan]

This leads to the $60,000 question: Is our goal to bring stability to the region and thereby by promote our various Western interest there; or, is our goal to preserve the current governments that we have long relations with at any cost, and hope that we can somehow build stability around them?

I'm not sure we're doing either. It seems to me that our post Cold War policies in the relevant areas (and arguably many of our Cold War policies) are less a pursuit of goals than an often incoherent backlash against real or perceived threats, with little thought for a desired end state.

I can't think of a single case post Cold War where we've fought to preserve a Middle East government we have long relations with. We didn't fight Gulf I to preserve Kuwait or Saudi Arabia, we fought it to prevent Saddam from seizing the Gulf oil supplies. Not an unreasonable response; that would have been a highly undesirable outcome.

Since then... certainly we're not fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan to preserve any allied government. In Iraq... well, I've never been entirely sure why we went into that fight, beyond the domestic political window of opportunity provided by 9/11. We went to Afghanistan because people who had attacked us were taking refuge there... again, not unreasonable, but I'm still not sure why we stayed or what we're trying to accomplish.

Where are we trying to "preserve the current governments that we have long relations with"? Are any of these governments threatened by insurgency? If not, where does COIN come into it?

I argue that we have taken on the latter of those two options, and that the Intel driven threat-focus of the CT tactical construct help drive us there; and has also led in turn to this perversion of COIN that presumes the maintaining of these current governments in power which arguably is the greatest cause of these many insurgencies in the first place.

The insurgencies we are fighting were not caused by our maintenance of governments in power, they were caused by our (delusional, IMO) idea that we could install governments in places where we removed governments we disliked.

By focusing on the goal of Stability and creating conditions that also support Western interests (we are not charities, this is serious, selfish business)

Where is there a government in the Middle East that supports western interests? I can't think of one, except to the extent that they perceive a common interest... in which case the motivating interest is theirs, not ours.

"Where do we counter the AQ UW operations; and where do we Co-opt them and conduct UW ourselves."

Are you proposing that we conduct UW operations against governments in the ME? If so, where? Unconventional war is still war, and making war against another government is not something to be undertaken lightly.

there will be some governments who will be willing to get serious about understanding and addressing their shortcomings with their own populaces that make them vulnerable to UW to begin with. They can do this by targeting and reducing the level of insurgent potential in their populace (on the Jones Model I try to show this by the curve that moves up and to the right out of Phase 0 pre-insurgency, and into the realm of Phase I Insurgency).

Possibly so, but how and when they do it is entirely their own business. Lecturing other governments on their own relationships with their populaces is something we've no right or reason to do, especially when the governments in question are not dependent on us. We generally don't know anything about it anyway, and in most cases they've little reason or inclination to listen to us. The populace isn't going to appreciate it either: in much of the world the fastest way to rally the populace behind an oppressive government is for Americans to criticize that government.

A populace deep in Phase 0 is largely immune to UW. One cannot "radicalize" or "Pied Piper" a satisfied populace into insurgency.

Very true... but it do us no good to assume that there must be an insurgent populace because the conditions in a country are those that we think ought to produce insurgency.

[Red Rat]

I suggested the potential of raising specialised battalions along the lines of the US's Merrill’s Marauders of the past for permanent deployment in Afghanistan. Again the response to this concept was a predictable... its new, therefore strange, therefore frightening, and therefore too scary to be supported. The only objection that was raised was the theoretical threat of an increased incidence of PTSD.

The UK has done this. The 'Helmandi Scouts' which has been in the field for at least 2 years. The objection to raising a UK regular unit was (as well as the possible risk of increased PTSD rates) mostly that in a limited war we are only allowed and able to do limited things!

A question: if it is true that by killing a civilian you turn the family, the village, the whole tribe against you then why does that not apply equally to the Taliban?

Because the insurgents make themselves the dominant force in the community by co-opting or killing any rivals in the community. There is therefore no-one in a position to fight back. While the community may want to fight back, it might not be able to.

[Red Rat]

I'm not sure we're doing either. It seems to me that our post Cold War policies in the relevant areas (and arguably many of our Cold War policies) are less a pursuit of goals than an often incoherent backlash against real or perceived threats, with little thought for a desired end state.

I am with Dayuhan on this. Higher command and higher authority does not mean, or even imply, a higher degree of thinking, analysis or rationale. Most governments are run like newspapers and tv news stations. They may start with an editorial bias (strategy) but they end up mostly being run by events. As Harold Macmillan (ex-UK Prime Minister) is reputed to have said when asked what he feared most as Prime Minister: 'Events, dear boy, events'. Events interfere with plans so governments tend to manage events in such a way that they hope it will enable them to get back to their plan

The insurgencies we are fighting were not caused by our maintenance of governments in power, they were caused by our (delusional, IMO) idea that we could install governments in places where we removed governments we disliked.

Because (IMHO) we seem to have conflated 'national interests' with 'human rights' and in order to look after our national interests we have to appear (at least) for domestic reasons to be making things better for the people in the places we are fighting - which probably explains why our strategy is so confused!

We also forgot that you have to spend to save, and both Afghanistan and Iraq went to 'economy of force' operations (across all the Lines of Operation) very early, again reinforcing my view that both are regarded as limited wars, with limited (and confused) objectives and very limited means allocated to them.

[Dayuhan]

Because (IMHO) we seem to have conflated 'national interests' with 'human rights' and in order to look after our national interests we have to appear (at least) for domestic reasons to be making things better for the people in the places we are fighting - which probably explains why our strategy is so confused!

I suspect that you're right... the desire to appear benevolent and beneficial to those we've invaded requred us to install governments that our people and our allies (though not necessarily those being governed) could see as "good". I suspect that this had less to do with national interest than with self-perception, and the interest of parties in power!

[slapout9]

I was talking about the beginning of the terms ("insurgency" and "counter-insurgency") which some find offensive, used too much as buzzwords, etc.

Regards

Mike

jmm99, Agree!!! when I found that document I new I had caught my man. I felt like I just solved one of the greatest crimes in history. I am a pretty good Cop if do say so myself So my job is done.... and now it is time for the Prosecution and Defense to take over. A note on the crime scene...it did not take place at any of the usual war colleges but the Industrial War College...the birthplace of Globalization

[Bob's World]

AQ is conducting UW; so if we really wanted to bundle our operations wisely we would drop narrow tactical constructs such as "Counterterrorism" or inaccurate constructs for describing our foreign interventions, such as "Counterinsurgency."

The most appropriate umbrella for our post-9/11 operations would be one called "Counter Unconventional Warfare." Now, a couple of attempts at similar bundling have been offered, such as "Asymmetric Warfare" and "Irregular Warfare"; but the fact is that most all warfare waged wisely includes aspects that are either or both asymmetric or irregular, so those concepts, while popular, really don't help very much.

UW, however, is a specific operation, and similarly, while not existing in our doctrine currently, to Counter-UW is also a specific operation. Within a CounterUW program one would certainly conduct CT missions, and also do a great deal that would best be described as Foreign Internal Defense (FID), or perhaps Internal Defense and Development (IDAD).

This may seem like more irrelevant namesmanship, but in fact, it is really a logical simplification that allows us to finally break away from the irrelevant namesmanship that we have been engaging in for the past 9 years. To recognize that we are not waging a war against Terrorism; but that rather we are working to disrupt, prevent, contain, etc the efforts of a non-state entity to conduct UW to incite and foment insurgency among Muslim populaces across a wide expanse of the globe. That doing so requires much more than conducting CT against that UW agent, though there is certainly nothing wrong with a smart, tailored family of effective CT. That doing so requires much more that a feel-good COIN program that assumes as a going in position that we are conducting COIN ourselves, and therefore committed to preserving certain governments in power and helping them to defeat the insurgent elements of their own populaces.

By recognizing that I am countering AQ's UW program, I may realize that the best way to secure US national interests in some areas is for us to consider if we might want to usurp AQ as the champion of some oppressed populaces and perhaps take on the UW mission ourselves to best defuse the brewing instability that AQ is targeting. This would best be coupled with a diplomatic approach that gives these governments fair opportunity to heal themselves and evolve to work more effectively with their own populaces and the larger world community, or be prepared to face wrath of their own populace enabled and unleashed. Carrots and sticks work best when one holds one in each hand during the course of the conversation.

There is no such thing as Counter Unconventional Warfare though, and we suffer for that lack of that perspective. UW however, is alive and well, and AQ is a master at that skill. (US UW doctrine is a bit too mired in romantic perspectives of WWII France, and too kinetic as a whole considering the larger success of peaceful subversion over violent insurgency in history, but we can evolve to learn from AQ's successes, and add non-violent approaches as well as we outcompete AQ at their own game), but once we realize we need to Counter UW operations rather than Counter Terrorist tactics or Counter the nationalist insurgencies of others, we will, I believe, finally make the big turn toward a successful approach to this problem.