COIN Counterinsurgency (merged thread)

[Abu Buckwheat]

Abu B, what might be the "deal breaker" that would convince Iraqis to put that tool down? How do we separate the link between the people and AQI? Is US withdrawal the answer? Sounds like basic economics, if there is a need (remove the occupiers), it will be filled (AQI). If the need disappears, will AQI be out of a job and force to move on?

I think the answer is rather rudimentary ... Petraeus and Kilcullen are focusing on the community, but again that community has its own insurgents they support because they are family and friends. They will make some inroads but then they will have to face the big questions. What about our children's comfort and safety (not from AQI but from the Shiites and a lack of electricity?)

To break the deal with AQI there would have to be a monumental shift in the political and economic recovery in Iraq. I mean Marshall plan sized in its scope and intent. The country is massively broken and until the basics of electricity and jobs are restored, there won't be security. The contracting methods we have used (American only equipment, US Company's as lead partners, politcal sole source, cost plus contracts for shoddy work) have guaranteed there would never be a reconstruction. We need to open it up to the world and expect to pay a heavy price.

We have to go back to square one on reconstruction. I have a blog entry I'll post later this week that talks about how much in concessions the US & GoI will have to make, and it is substantial, but the entire American effort has been based on the stick. Micro-reconstruction programs such as those in Anbar can make a minor local difference and only as long as the money goes to the Sheiks but a massive Iraq-wide reconsituction, using Middle East companies from Saudi and Syria (Yeah, I said it!) with Iraqi-only subcontractors, building new electrical plants, free distribution of Diesel for generators and militarization of the oil industry. To be honest the UN is far more skilled at this kind of massive people management than we ever will be and they should be brought in to bring back the displaced people and refugees and document them.

Start simple ... initiate a new National boimetric ID card program with RFID embedded. It should start with all police and soldiers... some have been checked but we need to sort them out gang-style and let them know there is a permanent trackable system that can identify them down to the retina. Since they love a good conspiracy and believe the TV show "24" is a CIA documentary, that will actually scare quite a few of them. Then make a simple rule ... no new ID, no movement throughout the coutry. Period.

Let the UN administer a natonal registration in exchange for food, air conditioners and diesel oil. We have got to get people registered under a more modern system and know exactly whom we are dealing with.

The insurgency has to be bought. Nothing less will do. If that means setting honey-pots for Sunni politicians and enriching them, then it has to be done on a scale that far exceeds what they get from oil smuggling ... once the insurgents have a choice between money, commerce or fighting and no air conditioning for their kids, they will seek more concessions.

I have met some of the Sunni insurgents and their extremist supporters in other ME countries... if I could put it in a word what they want it would be Money... closely followed by electricity for air conditioning. If those conditions are met then AQI would only have to hit one of their electrical plants to break the deal. Its really that simple.

[Abu Buckwheat]

This reminds me of the baseball expression "play for a tie at home, play for a win on the road." If the struggle in Iraq is between AQI and the US, then the US is the team on the road... and President Bush wants to play for a win -- but AQI know it still has the bottom of the 9th in their "100 year struggle," so a tie works for now.

Good Analogy. I put it this way ... "You Stay, We Win ... You leave, We Win."

[marct]

Hi Brian,

In my understanding of COIN, you can target three things:

1. The insurgent themselves
2. The population who supports the insurgent (thus indirectly attacking the insurgent by destroying its logistical base).
3. Target the cause of the insurgency, the ideas that feed it.

I really think that you should split your third point into three separate ones:

1. Target the physical, environmental and infrastructural causes of the insurgency. As an example, consider how the Thais broke their northern rebellion by building a highway into te northern provinces.
2. Target the social and political causes of the insurgency. An example would be the land tenure reformation in Bolivia that led to Guevera being beaten and betrayed.
3. Target the ideological and symbolic causes of the insurgency. This is the hardest one, but a good example comes out of Al Anbar right now.

In actuality, all three are interlinked quite heavily, as Abu Buckwheat alludes to when he says

Micro-reconstruction programs such as those in Anbar can make a minor local difference and only as long as the money goes to the Sheiks but a massive Iraq-wide reconsituction, using Middle East companies from Saudi and Syria (Yeah, I said it!) with Iraqi-only subcontractors, building new electrical plants, free distribution of Diesel for generators and militarization of the oil industry.

One of the points I really liked about this post was that it just highlights so many of the things that the US did wrong in the attempts at reconstruction. If a Marshall Plan sized operation had been planned at the beginning, it could have worked, but the current version is, in many ways, an insult to much of the Muslim world. In effect, it's saying, "listen kids, we know you are incompetent so we'll do it and you'd better thank us for doing it. Be nice children and say we are great." No wonder that it isn't hard to wave the "occupiers" flag and get recruits!

Basically, as far as reconstruction is concerned, there are really only two options - overwhelming force with a damn good understanding of cultural engineering (vide post WW II Germany and Japan), or co-operative reconstruction (what Abu Buckwheat is proposing).

Marc

[Abu Buckwheat]

I think that if I were Reconstruction Czar and I were told to do one thing I would bring in modular powerplants, like they did in California after the backout, and smack about 30 of them down all over SOUTHERN Iraq, make the locals guard it with their lives and promise 24 hour electricity ... any intrurruptions are the fault of the insurgents. I was in Basrah for the electrity riots in 2003 and its all about not making their kids sleep on the roof at night in summer.

Once the south is comfortable I would propose doing the exact same thing in Anbar/SAD/and Nineveh province, etc ... however they would have to give us the heads of local AQI in exchange for a powerplant. Once they see people in Najaf and Samawah and, heaven forbid, even Zubayr ... they'll be ready to trade for anything.

[Armchairguy]

I think the family analogy is useful because it paints the other guys as humans for a start. Without that it's too easy to look at them as things. No hearts and minds to win there. Learning names and some of the details about locals lives would be useful, if possible. I like the microloan idea. I think that would be a good one to leave in local commanders hands. Give them an amount of discretionary funds to loan or give out. This would need some thinking to not look like someone just trying to buy good will. perhaps the local commanders after being in an area for a time could help fund projects that the community most needs.

[Rob Thornton]

This is something I've been trying to work through for about a month since I got back from the Overland Campaign staff ride. There I finally thought I understood, by virtue of physically having gone over it, where Operational Art, Campaign Design, and the Operational Level fit in the relationship between the Tactical and Strategic levels of war.

I understood that tactical engagements could be a means to achieve an operational advantage, and the goal of that advantage is to translate it into a strategic gain - say against an operational or strategic center of gravity, then you could win the war. It also struck me as important that you could win tactically, but lose on the operational and strategic level - and conversely, you could lose tactically (at least relatively), but win on the operational and strategic level by taking away and retaining the initiative at the Operational Level.

Since then the question of Operational Art in COIN has continually bothered me as I look and consider what is going on in Iraq and Afghanistan.

You can see that there are many different types of Lines of Operation - doctrinally some of these are logical lines of operation - going on in Iraq. There are Diplomatic, Economic, Informational, Military, Financial, Intelligence & Legal LOOs. Some seem to be having better success then others within the PMESII - Political, Military, Economic, Social, Intelligence & Infrastructure framework then others - but how do you tie all this together in a COIN campaign plan to achieve a strategic objective?

It seems to me MNF-I is on to something. At first it did not register to me what I thought was the significance of Kilcullen saying they were "hardwiring the social environment" to prevent AIF from getting back in once they were separated. I also did not infer a connection between that (rightly or wrongly) and the "tribal revolt" against the AQ in Iraq, and the thought of enlisting sheiks toward achieving a secure environment in areas where ISF and the central government have little authority.

I feel like these are elements of "Operational Design" to achieve a broader strategy of securing the population so that some political progress can be made, but its not exactly the same thing as Grant continually stealing the move on Lee and extending him from Richmond to Petersburg while cutting his LOCs to the South and exhausting his means & will - its different.

I think this is a good question to consider - given the discussion on likely threats, and the debate on military force structure and adaptability here on the Council.

Thanks, Rob

[Smitten Eagle]

In reading Tom Rick's Fiasco, he made the analogy that when dealing with "human terrain", that individual opinion is the tactical level, and that mass public opinion would be analogous to strategic level. Operational level would thus be "opinion-makers", being NGOs, Loya Jirgas, Anbar Salvation Councils, Imams, mosques, etc...

Seems pretty reasonable to me. Some weaknesses of this would be the role of the media (is it an opinion-maker or merely a guage--and if it's a maker, how operational or strategic is it in scope?) Also, many NGOs are intimately connected with foreign publics outside the realm of the tactical/operational fight. Lastly, this construct seems to not take into account the human terrain of the home front, which is certainly important in the long war.

But apart from those criticisms, Ricks seems to be on to something.

[slapout9]

Hi Rob, you must be psychic! I have been thinking about it and wanted to say a few things but have bitten my tongue. I haven't been to Iraq nor have I fought a counterinsurgency (except gangs and the like) so I don't like saying here is what you guys should do. But some of the things that have been posted here and similar threads makes me wonder didn't somebody see this coming or wasn't this obvious?? So you want my thoughts here or in a PM?

[Rob Thornton]

Steve , and everyone else
Please post your thoughts on the thread so we can collaborate and draft off of each others thoughts - I for one really benefit from the different perspectives (and the occasional tangent/rabbit hole) we get from coming at problems/questions as groups

I'd also offer up to those interested - if your not sharp on the vernacular and feel like you need something clarified to better understand this (or any topic) feel free to write it down or PM somebody on the site you think might be able to help - your thoughts are valuable.
Best regards, Rob

[slapout9]

Hi Rob, Random thoughts. Lets start with how the Mafia would take over Iraq. Most people believe the Mafia works like they see on TV and the movies and there is sometimes some truth in this but here is an "Operational Design" of how they really do it.

Say you want to take over neighborhood X. You and your thug buddies first go and case the Hood and decide on the pressure points to go after first. Lets say Bakeries and there are 4 in your AO. Do you round them all up and threaten to kill them....no. Thatsa no gooda recipe. You go see each owner and tell them you guys are not making enough money. Starting Monday the price of bread is going to go up 25 cents and out of that I want 5cents you keep the rest. Once a week I am going to send a guy around to pick up my share.

Right now you stand a good chance of gaining the hearts and minds of those folks right then. But say you get 3 bakery owners and 1 guy once to hold out.
So you go pay him a special visit. You are going to make him an offer he can't refuse. You ask him how much to buy his business. He says he doesn't want to sell. You respond with you will pay him what his business is worth now or you can pay him what it is worth after it is burned to the ground.

You keep doing this with all the other businesses in your AO and pretty soon you will own the neighborhood and whats more everyone will like you and support you. You have in effect hard wired the government out of the area! Have I lost everyone or do you want to hear more?

[Stan]

It seems to me MNF-I is on to something. At first it did not register to me what I thought was the significance of Kilcullen saying they were "hardwiring the social environment" to prevent AIF from getting back in once they were separated. I also did not infer a connection between that (rightly or wrongly) and the "tribal revolt" against the AQ in Iraq, and the thought of enlisting sheiks toward achieving a secure environment in areas where ISF and the central government have little authority.

Hey Rob,
Using Slapout's recent post (which I actually understand having lived in Estonia for 12 years), once we've hardwired ourselves into the social environment, what is it exactly that keeps the AIF from coming back and offering (if you will) the very same ? Our physical presence may no longer be sufficient, or may no longer be next year. If I wanted back in per se, I'd simply wait for the US departure and subsequently go back to business as usual (with far less resistance than before).

Having observed 'tribes' for years in Sub-Sahara, I learned that the 'chiefs' don't always have the last say for long. Would an enlisted sheik last long if his community was silently against his decisions and receiving cash from say AQ ?

Are promises of Democracy, Peace and Serenity adequate to win ? They had that before (or naively believed they did). The Africans used to tell me, "I can't eat it or sell it. So why do I need it, and why are you offering it to me?"

Thanks for an interesting post !
Regards, Stan

[Steve Blair]

Rob,

Many of my thoughts and examples tie back to the Indian Wars (one of my main areas of expertise and perhaps the longest COIN effort ever undertaken by the US Army...though the term didn't exist then).

In that particular situation, the operational COG was really the tribes themselves. I don't mean the Sioux per se, for example, but the various bands and factions within what the whites considered the Sioux. In the Southwest it centered on a variety of sub-groups and tribes within wider families, but the effect was still the same. If you could "turn" segments or factions of the tribes, you stood a good chance of coming out ahead.

Crook gained a great deal of fame for using Apache scouts, but he wasn't unique in this effort. Carleton used Indian auxiliaries during his campaigns in Arizona, and the North brothers fielded a battalion of Pawnee in Kansas and other central plains states. And Crook's efforts weren't always successful (he misread the Sioux and couldn't recruit scouts there). But most commanders who were successful on the frontier came to recognize (at least intuitively) that the tribes were key. Mackenzie understood, for example, that tribes depended on mobility and targeted their pony herds when he attacked villages. As a result, he generally killed far few hostiles than other commanders but his engagements were often decisive.

A bit of a ramble, but I'd say that tribes (or other social networks) make up a good chunk of the operational level in COIN. NGOs work a great deal with social networks, making them key to any operational design for COIN. Same goes for civic action projects (when balanced against the local networks/human terrain). Crook and other officers (Mackenzie, Carleton in his own way, Grierson, and others) also recognized this and fought many battles (mostly losing, sadly) with the Washington bureaucracy to get needed programs to reservations.

I'll add more things as they come to me with this. It's an interesting subject to be sure, and one of growing importance.

[Hippasus]

I think we should remember that the current levels of war were birthed in the Napoleonic wars and matured in the WWI and II. They are, then, tuned to wars of attrition and manuever. This is not a bad thing - since we were fighting wars of attrition and manuever, it only makes sense to develop thought models specifically suited to them. In "war among the people," as Rupert Smith calls what we're fighting today (Trinquier named it "modern war," to give a more dangerous example), we are still struggling to develop thought models specifically tuned to how we're fighitng.
It is natural to simply take what we have (strategic, operation, and tactical levels) and try to make them fit - to consider them a universal tool for all warfare. I'm not sure that has served well in Algeria, Vietnam, Iraq, or Lebanon to name just a few examples. I think the 4GW crowd may have something when they present Boyd's conception of the "moral, mental, and physical" levels of war. I don't think levels is a good description, however - it is to linear and simplistic. "Dimensions" of war may be more appropriate. It is easy to imagine existing on only one "level" of something (a building, a ship), but very difficult to imagine anything existing in just one dimension. Our world experience is that we exist in four physical dimesions simultaneously(3 of space, one of time). In "modern war," I believe we must accept that, instead of a battle or even a series of operations being "tactical" or "operational" in and of themselves, that ALL our actions, from a fire fight on Haifa street to a GEN Petraeus's speech next week exist simultaneously in the "physical, mental, and moral" dimensions of war.
So what? To bring in Slapout's excellent example, that means when we craft campaigns, whether it's to take over a neighborhood in Chicago or to bring security and stability to Iraq, understanding the how our actions interplay with the existing situation within the dimensions of war is more effective that attempting to tie tactical actions together to support operational and strategic aims. I love the bakery example - the Gangsters don't start by busting heads (primarily in the physical dimension, but weak in the moral and mental). They start by being strong in the moral dimension - appealing to the baker's greed. The Gangsters did not need to create this greed - the bakers wouldn't be in business to begin with if they didn't want to make money. The Gansters are taking advantage or what already exists and then using it for their own profit.
Our success in Anbar, I think, is similar. Reading Kilcullin's description of what happened in Anbar, it was not that we "enlisted the sheiks toward achieving a secure environment in areas where ISF and the central government have little authority" as Rob writes, but that we saw, understood, and took actions to profit from a situation where the shieks in Anbar already had power and AQ had alientated themselves through thier actions (attempted intermarriage). This understanding of human systems and their potential within the moral, mental, and physical dimensions of conflict is at the heart of quality campaign planning. Sorry for the long post....

[Tom Odom]

Hi Rob, Random thoughts. Lets start with how the Mafia would take over Iraq. Most people believe the Mafia works like they see on TV and the movies and there is sometimes some truth in this but here is an "Operational Design" of how they really do it.

Say you want to take over neighborhood X. You and your thug buddies first go and case the Hood and decide on the pressure points to go after first. Lets say Bakeries and there are 4 in your AO. Do you round them all up and threaten to kill them....no. Thatsa no gooda recipe. You go see each owner and tell them you guys are not making enough money. Starting Monday the price of bread is going to go up 25 cents and out of that I want 5cents you keep the rest. Once a week I am going to send a guy around to pick up my share.

Right now you stand a good chance of gaining the hearts and minds of those folks right then. But say you get 3 bakery owners and 1 guy once to hold out.
So you go pay him a special visit. You are going to make him an offer he can't refuse. You ask him how much to buy his business. He says he doesn't want to sell. You respond with you will pay him what his business is worth now or you can pay him what it is worth after it is burned to the ground.

You keep doing this with all the other businesses in your AO and pretty soon you will own the neighborhood and whats more everyone will like you and support you. You have in effect hard wired the government out of the area! Have I lost everyone or do you want to hear more?

Slap

What you are describing is essentially tribal in that it lays out the extra-legal/non-governmental-- legitimate in the eyes of the locals --use of force. I use legitimate because that is the "hardwiring" which is occurring. Here is where I see flaws in what Dave Kilcullen says on this subject; as a foreign power we cannot hardwire the tribal society of Iraq's Sunnis. to assume that tactical shifts now with uson tne ground are long term is delusional.

Consider the issue of women and women's rights; four years ago we made sweeping declarations about emncipating women--the Vice President's daughter was put in charge of the State Department effort to affect those changes. Now we using the dispute between the Sunni chiefs and the AQ over who gets to marry the Sunnii women as a larger context for cooperation. Should we assume then that the chiefs now believe in women's rights? I don't think so and I doubt anyone in MNF-I does either. But I do ot see what is happening right now as a longer term commitment to stability or a permanent rejection of AQ values.

Tribal politics are defined in raw power--just like your mafia example. They cannot accept stasis for any length of time because that power is zero-sum--if you are not gaining, you are losing. States, nations, emporers, kings, prime ministers, and presidents whether really democratic or nominally so all came into being as a social and poltical evolution that is in no way "hard-wired". England took centuries to evolve into the UK; Iraq as an Arab entity versus an extension of the Ottoman Empire or the earlier Ummayid orAbbasid Dynastyies is somewhere along that path. I believe we are still seeing the equivalent of Angles, Saxons, and Normans in Iraq. It is happening in the 21st century and they have cell-phones and satellite television; it is still tribal in nature.

Best

Tom

[selil]

It seems like a lot of people have defined counter-insurgency doctrine at different levels of war. I’ve been trying to construct a VENN diagram showing elements of low intensity conflict for a project and came up with some things that COIN is not:

COIN is not all out total war.
COIN is not a war of attrition.
COIN is not a resource war.
COIN is not about geography.
COIN is not rehabilitation by force.

I know some will disagree because of course COIN is a little of the above but it isn’t the stated goal. If we plow through the middle of a city with tanks and level it via large kinetic weapons COIN is a discussion for the after the preliminary action and not a primary objective. As to attrition there are elements but rather than fighting a war on the move expending resources until the adversary has no resources in COIN we look at replenishing particular resources and removing others. Geography in COIN is determined on the aspects it presents. COIN and MOUT in Iraq are inextricably linked and the geography is peoples front rooms and courtyards. Regime change is outside the realm of COIN too. The forceful resignation of foreign dignitary by 500lb bomb is not COIN. Rehabilitation of political affiliation is a large Army Task.

Similarly COIN does have some things that it might be. It has linkages to different levels of warfare. COIN appears to have tenuous and in some cases hardened fundamental interests in different levels of warfare.

COIN is a pre-conflict or total war agent of diplomacy.

It would seem that the use of COIN techniques could be used prior to escalated hostilities as a method of reducing the scope of conflict. I see this as the advisory capacity when supporting a government. In this capacity it seems that the ground operator may call upon assets in the military arsenal to persuade others through “bomb” to consider new and innovative methods of participation in local politics. As such COIN operators have a relationship to other war fighters as a selective target designator.

COIN is an on-going conflict agent of change.

In traditional maneuver warfare sea/air/land COIN seems to have a relationship during conflict as a method of mitigating risk to the war fighter. In a time of restrictive rules of engagement it may be that the COIN role is to insure that the population not become tactical targets of opportunity. If the populace is perceived to take up arms then they no longer have any protections under the most restrictive ROE. If they do not take up arms and can be kept off the collateral damage statistic sheet their relevant gripes will be few. Since wars of annihilation are likely not in the current operational calendar COIN has a substantial role and vested interest in being a participant in any traditional maneuver warfare.

COIN is the janitor for the school of hard knocks.

All kidding aside no conflict can be waged with an expectation of no unintended consequences. When force of arms interact with the population those without political will be emboldened to action in absence of corollary forces of self-interest. The role of COIN post traditional military conflict is to create trust where none exists, fix/repair/explain the excesses of maneuver warfare, create alliances, create impediments to insurgency and failing all of that utilize the assets of the larger military arsenal to vanquish those who would not relinquish armed conflict.

I don’t claim any of the previous as singularly my ideas. I have read long and hard on the topic but build my own ideas on the backs of better scholars and writers. I have come to some conclusions though that may be troubling and yet ancillary to the discussion at hand.

COIN can be fought in the boardroom and by advertising agencies.

The ability to bring foreign investment to the table through non-governmental organization (NGO) is boon to the COIN operator. With the advent of hyper-media and worldwide media networks the advertising and primarily corporate interests take on new and substantial roles in COIN. It is only a wonder until we have COIN being tested between corporations as stateless actors in conflict. The ability to shape a message for a populace and have that message added to the common media and intellectual discussion within normal media consumption can not be overstated as a goal.

COIN can be fought at the bank.

In seems that money truly is the root of all evil and the salve for the bruised conscience. The ability to flow or stop money and funding seems to be hugely important. Yet at the operator level few will give a COIN operator the resources to affect that outcome. Unlike the traditional military maneuver answer “bomb it” the COIN operator can say “buy it”. In the hands of the COIN operator dollars can me lives can be objectives are met.

It seems that COIN has a direct relationship to different methods of war, and perhaps levels of war, but that relationship is found truly in my opinion in the scope and time-table of war. COIN as a mission changes depending on the level and scope of the conflict and the currency of the larger military mission. Perhaps there are phases that are readily understood by others, but from my perspective they would be fairly vague and subject to numerous feedbacks as the scope and challenges change.

[Steve Blair]

Tom,

That also tends to be where many of the efforts on the Frontier failed: they were trying to turn the tribes into something they were not at the time (pastoral farmers...though many had been before the introduction of the horse). The efforts that showed the most promise took advantage of existing social structures (stock raising in some examples), but were often over-ruled by the "hardwired" set that wanted to turn all Indians into God-fearing farmers.

Successful commanders at the operational stage on the Frontier tried to make things work within the framework of the tribes they understood. I think that's one of the reasons Crook failed so miserably in Montana and Wyoming: he didn't grasp the scale of what he faced.

To go back to the point about levels of war...I think the real problem has come not from the levels or stages themselves but from a misunderstanding about how they work and inter-relate. Part of the Western, and especially American, mindset seems to be a desire to neatly package or label things...warfare included. This leads to a compartment mindset and fixation on one level or the other without necessarily having a clear grasp of how they relate or shift from one to the other. Calling them dimensions won't really change that, and Boyd's ideas just substitute one set of stratifications for another for those who can't grasp the fluid nature of conflict. Moral and mental relate in much the same way tactical and operational are related...each impacts the other and each requires elements of a different approach or focus. "A rose by any other name" as it were....

[slapout9]

Tom, agree completely that the Mafia is tibal they also used to be known as "The Family" interestingly their down fall came as a result of their ventures into drugs!! but thats another chat

The key point about the Mafia is their strategy is essentially economic based. They don't care what you believe just don't make waves....make money for everybody and we can all get along. A rising tide lifts all boats so to speak. But it is essentially a control or containment strategy not a domination strategy where we will dictate what kind of Guvment you have.

You might be right about Killcullen because it is not sustainable for the long term. I think we are essentailly buying their loyalty and when the money stops they will stop.

So what do you do? Couple of thoughts.

1-The people are NOT the miltary objective they are the POLITICAL objective. The MILITARY objective should be to "seize and control terrain" that has political value, Oil,Electricity,Water,Etc. When you do this you will be using the military to create conditions that will allow for a politcal settlement to be reached and enforced. And it should be tied to our interests not the form of guvment they have.

2-Historic example. We have treated the Amercian Indian far worse then any ethnic minority in the history of our country. We lied and cheated and broke just about every treaty we ever made with them. Until finally some body in the Guvment came up with the idea of giving them an economic advatange and just turn them loose. At least in the south anyway. The casinos, cigarettes (no federal tax) have performed a miracle and it is all under Indian control and they take care of the tribe. The Hard Rock Hotel that Anna Nicole Smith was found at is "Injun Country" that is part of their resort reservation.

3-If we try and use this in Iraq where economic advantage is tied to the tribes you will have a long term funding mechanism which maybe???will lead to stablization.

[Tom Odom]

Sam, from a class I gave last Friday

What does winning hearts and minds mean?

Winning the population:
Is NOT a love story
Is NOT a popularity contest

So what are we trying to win?

Winning the population:
Is about legitimacy and acceptance of that legitimacy
Is relative in that we seek to make the population see the HN government as more legitimate than the insurgent

What’s love got to do with it? Tina Turner Answer: Not a damn, thing!

COIN is Armed Politics

[Tom Odom]

Tom,

To go back to the point about levels of war...I think the real problem has come not from the levels or stages themselves but from a misunderstanding about how they work and inter-relate. Part of the Western, and especially American, mindset seems to be a desire to neatly package or label things...warfare included. This leads to a compartment mindset and fixation on one level or the other without necessarily having a clear grasp of how they relate or shift from one to the other. Calling them dimensions won't really change that, and Boyd's ideas just substitute one set of stratifications for another for those who can't grasp the fluid nature of conflict. Moral and mental relate in much the same way tactical and operational are related...each impacts the other and each requires elements of a different approach or focus. "A rose by any other name" as it were....

Steve, I agree with you for sure in this one. Dave was working the issue of strategic compression and I believe that concept trully applies in its most relevant form when discussing COIN. The fact that COIN is a small unit leader's war best fought within strict framework of ROE and other guidelines to achieve the objectives stated in a campaign plan makes separation of the tactical, operational, and strategic somewhat artificial and antiquated.

Best

Tom

[Steve Blair]

Steve, I agree with you for sure in this one. Dave was working the issue of strategic compression and I believe that concept trully applies in its most relevant form when discussing COIN. The fact that COIN is a small unit leader's war best fought within strict framework of ROE and other guidelines to achieve the objectives stated in a campaign plan makes separation of the tactical, operational, and strategic somewhat artificial and antiquated.

Best

Tom

Agreed 100%+, and it's always been that way. I can dig up any number of examples from my own "pet" period of one officer or sergeant's simple (to him) action having major consequences for policy (both local and national). Even back before the Internet this phenomenon existed...what the web has done is amplified and accelerated it.

But I don't want to drift too far away from Rob's original question....the operational level/framework/COG type stuff.