COIN v CT

[William F. Owen]

I am picking this up from here

Something here got me to thinking,

The distinction between COIN and CT, however, is poorly understood. For one, there is no hard and fast dichotomy between the two – a fact that Kaplan and other longtime defense correspondents largely understand but which policy-makers must understand as well. If what Kaplan writes is true, and policy-makers are stuck thinking of their policy options as either/or propositions, we are in more trouble in Afghanistan than I thought.

In the UK there is pretty much clear blue water between Counter-Terrorism and Counter-Insurgency, when it comes down to the detailed discussion, and even general understanding. It's never occurred to me that there should be a confusion between the two.

Do the lines between the two blur? Sure, but when anything blurs, you re-focus. Very little in Warfare is a hard and fast separation, so I am extremely curious as to how this even becomes a problem, because once considered within a context, most of the problem goes away EG: Suicide bomber on NY train = Terrorist. Suicide bomber in Baghdad Market = Insurgent. Given context, I can't see the problem, even at the higher strategic level. 9/11 = Terrorism (no military means or intent). Something in A'Stan = Insurgency - (use of military means with military intent).

What am I missing?

[davidbfpo]

Wilf,

Some of this was discussed in the thread 'COIN comes home': http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ead.php?t=5424

In the UK CT community junior staff can now often be heard talking about "hearts & minds" and even Frank Kitson's writings. In an odd way as some read on CT they encounter COIN and absorb that knowledge without realising there is "clear blue water" between them. Whether senior staff do this is unknown.

I suspect that in the USA there is a far greater relationship between law enforcement and the military - than the UK - simply from reservists being aclled up to serve (National Guard etc). Another thread about Salinas illustrates that: http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...hlight=salinas


davidbfpo

[William F. Owen]

Wilf,

Some of this was discussed in the thread 'COIN comes home': http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ead.php?t=5424

In the UK CT community junior staff can now often be heard talking about "hearts & minds" and even Frank Kitson's writings. In an odd way as some read on CT they encounter COIN and absorb that knowledge without realising there is "clear blue water" between them. Whether senior staff do this is unknown.

Well someone needs to grip the junior staff and quickly. Wrong language and you'll have the wrong solution to the non-existent problem!
From the community I talk to, (and davidbfpo knows one of them!) I submit:
Terrorism is a police concern, the subject/object being the criminal use of violence, for political aims.
Insurgency is a military concerns, the subject/object being the military use of violence, for political aims.

Now I fully accept there are regions where the distinction is difficult or maybe even not useful, but we can all think of clear and consistent examples of those which are Insurgency tactics and those which are terrorism. However, I also think someone really needs to examine WHY the distinction matters. I have no doubt that there is one, merely in terms of tactics and legal responsibility, but once that is addressed, I am not sure we can get much farther.

I just see this a a recurring cycle, of
Wheels v tracks - you need both.
War v COIN - you need to be good at both.
COIN v CT - why important?

at least 9mm v .45 was measureable, once you got past all the teary-eyed emotional stuff!

[wm]

Terrorism is a police concern, the subject/object being the criminal use of violence, for political aims.
Insurgency is a military concerns, the subject/object being the military use of violence, for political aims.

Given this division of the subject matter (with which I agree BTW), the distinction becomes important when one deploys one's military forces to another country as part of an FID effort for example. It may very well be the case that this force gets called on to do CT work because the host nation does not have adequate police to do the job and one's own military is being (mis)used as police as a result.

I suspect one wants to be able to see the difference between CT and COIN as a way of trying to prevent mission creep or misuse of deployed forces. Within the US, it is somewhat easier (at present anyway) to keep the two distinct both because of laws about what our military is allowed to do or is prohibited from doing on US soil and because we don't have an active insurgency ongoing within our boundaries. Once one gets to Afghanistan, I think the distinction is much harder to discern.

[gh_uk]

I would offer that it is not really surprising that there has been a blurring over recent years. Use of terms like illegal enemy combatant (along with the 'advanced interrogation' of persons such as KSM) etc have hardly been helpful in maintaining distinctions. KSM was pretty clearly a terrorist but has not been treated as such (as opposed to individuals like his nephew Ramzi Yousef).

Individuals who have been involved in what (I would argue) are insurgent/guerrilla activity have been classed as terrorists, and in some cases vice versa. I think, at least from the UK perspective, that the crossover/interaction between insurgent elements in Afgh/Pak and those involved in terrorist activity in the UK may also contribute to this trend.

Are individuals from the UK Pakistani community who travel to Afgh/Pak to fight against ISAF terrorists or insurgents? On balance I'd say the latter, but if the UK police nab them at the airport, they'll be charged under CT legislation. And those same individuals may well go with the intent of fighting there but return to commit a terrorist act in the UK. (The recent stories about UK forces hearing Brummie accents on Taleban radio channels is a case in point).

The use of military means and tactics (such as assassination using armed drones) to eliminate individuals suspected of using what Wilf categorizes as 'criminal' violence for political means must also have had an impact - (i.e. the use of military counter-insurgency style tactics to counter/suppress a terrorist threat) - so it is not surprising that this is feeding back into policy thinking.

What about the Israeli perspective? Palestinian use of suicide attacks against civilian targets (which I'd class as terrorist) countered with assassinations/ airstrikes. Not really a policing led approach (though I'd acknowledge the Israelis have a lot of Palestinian terrorists/insurgents locked up as well).

The distinction is being lost, at least in part, because the counter-measures being used to combat the two have converged somewhat, because political expediency has called for it and because those individuals involved are sometimes interchangeable.

In terms of why the distinction matters, isn't it to do with conferring a degree of legitimacy on those you are combating? PIRA always sought to claim it was a legitimate military organization, with POWs, uniforms etc - the British always sought to class them as terrorists and therefore criminal. Hence such things like the hunger strikes and police primacy.

[Entropy]

In a place like Afghanistan, I don't think it's possible to completely separate CT and COIN - maybe it is in the western world, but the line is practically indistinguishable there. CT is really an intelligence-driven enterprise - the difficulty isn't killing/capturing/disrupting terrorists and their networks, it's discovering and unraveling those networks and for that good intelligence, usually HUMINT, is required. Favoring CT in Afghanistan at the expense of other efforts like COIN would hurt that intelligence effort, IMO and thereby hurt the CT effort. Few are going to risk their heads (literally) to provide information to US CT forces unless there is some significant benefit for them.

[Bob's World]

Will engage on this later, because this is a critical topic, and is far more complicated and confused than it needs to be. In the end, both missions are very difficult to implement, but when cast in the proper light are very easy (I think) to understand.

Both of these operational terms have been horribly abused, misused, and twisted, colored by the Iraq experience, and captured for political purpose within the US over the past several years. In short, I would argue that NEITHER is the proper operation to make as the focal point for moving forward in Aghanistan, but explaining why will take more time than I have currently.

[William F. Owen]

I would offer that it is not really surprising that there has been a blurring over recent years. Use of terms like illegal enemy combatant

Concur.

Are individuals from the UK Pakistani community who travel to Afgh/Pak to fight against ISAF terrorists or insurgents? On balance I'd say the latter, but if the UK police nab them at the airport, they'll be charged under CT legislation.

While quite correct in what you say, it does not support the concept of why the distinction is useful. Yes, they get nabbed under CT legislation, but if they take to the field in A'Stan, then they are insurgents.

What about the Israeli perspective? Palestinian use of suicide attacks against civilian targets (which I'd class as terrorist) countered with assassinations/ airstrikes. Not really a policing led approach (though I'd acknowledge the Israelis have a lot of Palestinian terrorists/insurgents locked up as well).

The Israelis do not differentiate between the two, because they do not see it as useful to do so. This is sort of my point. Yes you can differentiate between the two. Why do you want to? There might well be cases where it is useful, but that is driven largely by context.

PIRA always sought to claim it was a legitimate military organization, with POWs, uniforms etc - the British always sought to class them as terrorists and therefore criminal. Hence such things like the hunger strikes and police primacy.

PIRA wanted to be an Insurgency, but could never be effective as one. They had to limit themselves to "terrorism." UK was very concerned never to let the PIRA become an insurgency.

[gh_uk]

While I am by no means a legal/theory expert on this (there are those on here who are, and I welcome correction on any of the following), does the need to draw a distinction not come down to the relatively basic premise that, for the most part, we (as in Western democratic states) do not (or at least until fairly recently did not) on the whole kill people unless a) we are in a state of war with them (i.e. the armed forces of another state/ organised insurgents) or b) they pose an immediate danger to life (e.g. armed police officer confronting an armed suspect, soldier in Ulster with yellow card ROEs) or c) they have gone through a judicial procedure and are executed under due process - in those states with the death penalty.

As above, terrorists engage in illegal, criminal violence for political means and must be treated/punished as such - arrested, convicted and sentenced wherever possible.

Simply using military force against such individuals suggests that you are engaged in some form of 'war' with them, which in turn implies some form of legitimacy on their part to be engaged in said warlike state. Failing to treat them as criminals implies some form of legal or moral equivalency between the state and those it is combating.

Isn't this part of the reason behind the Bush administration's legal and semantic gymnastics - it tried to create a means of detaining suspects as effective POW's without any of the legal niceties while labeling them as terrorists, but denying them the due process this should have entailed.

I realise that in the context of the last 8 years this might all sound a tad naive but does the above make some sense?

While quite correct in what you say, it does not support the concept of why the distinction is useful. Yes, they get nabbed under CT legislation, but if they take to the field in A'Stan, then they are insurgents.

My point on this is that I wonder if this is part of the reason for Davidbfpo's point - that those in policy realms beginning to use COIN-speak and concepts in relation to CT - that the apparently seamless interchange of status between some UK citizens (insurgents/terrorists depending on, as you put it, their immediate geographic context) is leading to a convergence of the COIN/CT approaches/thinking in Whitehall?