Paper: Rethinking Role of Religious Conflict in Doctrine

[Bob's World]

I recently was engaged by man who "has several Ph.D.s" in Theology" who was intrigued by a paper of mine (Published here on SWJ) on the role of ideology in insurgency. He was fascinated by the paper but was adament that I had made the issue far too secular due to my background and approach to the problem.

"Are you sure that it is not you making the issue far too religious based on your background and experience" I countered?

At this point he called, and apparently it was table stakes and I didn't have adequate sheepskin to cover the bet so he felt he won that hand...

It was a good coversation though. What I told him in essence is that religion and culture are absolutely critical to ones understanding of the environment in which insurgency occurs, and it is these environmental factors that make every insurgency unique. That the goal of my work was to delve past these environmentals and attempt to get to the pure essence of insurgency at a fundamental level; and that to my thinking at that level ideology is simply a tool requried of every insurgency, and selected for its utility in rallying the populace to the cause, while at the same time taking positions that the sitting government was either unable or unwilling to adopt. But that a wise insurgent would discard any ideology that either failed to rally the populace or that was compormised by the counterinsurgent; and pick a new one to continue on to his political ends. That religion was used so often simply because it works.

It also works for expanding colonialism around the globe (be it christian or Muslim, or whatever); and for conventional warfare as well. The ultimate multi-tool.

[slapout9]

Bob's World, Marx kinda thought the same way as you. Find a contradiction between the classes and exploit it (propaganda) until you create an armed conflict.

[M-A Lagrange]

Steve

I have mouths to feed is a pretty standard human motivator even if some of the nuances change.

I'll say it's a full universalism in the Levis Strauss sense of the term. We all live on that.
My point was rather than religion will give you a color but environment will be a strong determinant in the way you build a society. At little as Montesquieu (If I do not mistake) definition of environment influence on society. Or object anthropology in some extend. Those people are managing risks and environmental insecurity. Sometime my field approach is closer to US anthropology than French one.

Mike,

An extreme example would be an all-encompassing dictatorship which ignores all external constraints - a North Korea on steroids - where one man calls all of the shots in all three rings >>> a single ring. Again, that construct would be theoretical, not real.

As usual you dragging us back to reallity. In some extend, Mugabe is close to North Korea on Steroids. What we witness is the capacity of a man to virtually control everything and when it's not working (Like the ZAPU or MDC) just manage to get them included in his machine.
Zim has changed but when I was there, military, judiciary, political powers were all in his hands openly or through underground grovernment. He even tried (and almost succeded) to get his hands on economy. Bob (Mugabe) had almost the capacity to terrorise anyone, even the vice president and the head of security departments.
But he was no religious. Or, as some may say , he was religious has he is a hardcore communist.

In the process of Nation Building as we do implement it, I see more and more room for a single ring society controled by a party and not a man.

[Steve the Planner]

For all the talk about religion and tribes, I know they were underlying factors---as were clans, families--- but if you looked at a lot of what the Kurds, for example, were focused on, it was almost purely political/administrative in nature---shifting political and voter balance one nahia at a time.

That conveys a very sophisticated and highly directed administrative and political understanding.

What were the reactionaries doing? Mostly focused on disruption of economic and infrastructure systems.

Was their affiliation and focus religious in nature? No. It was administrative/political.

By contrast, I am trying to follow the events in the many Afghanistans to understand the nature and purpose of the different actors.

At the risk of over simplification:

At present, the national government seems to be focused on controlling the structure and direction of international aid flows, and does so with support/cooperation of drug manufacturing/distribution systems; which have grown to become some of the largest in the world. I'm not reading a lot of religious zeal behind that.

A lot of knowledgeable people have described the various opponents as (1) competing sets of organized opposition whose internal differences are not marked by religion; (2.) an overall diminished focus on harsh religion (Sharia) to the extent that it reduced public support; and (3.) an overall and very sharply focused administrative/political purpose, including the targeting of elections, the appointment of shadow governments, and the "exercise" of power in areas like RoL, security assurance, and economic activity flows.

OK, Mullah Omar has, behind all this, a religious intent, but the focus, ways and means, all seem overwhelmingly driven by administrative/political purpose.

If I was just a dumb political strategist, I would think about what I can control, and what isn't worth the effort right now.

Leaving the central government and its drug systems aside for a moment, can I, through intimidation and asymetrical efforts, gain credible administrative/political control in other areas?

If I launch a "nationwide campaign," say through shadow government, can i define the scope of my support in different areas, and, from that, develop the next plan for, say, a spring push to consolidate gains?

If I avoid the central cities, but establish sufficient functional control of regions, corridors, etc..., do I have everything I need at this stage, to lay the foundation for the next?

Maybe also, through skillful negotiation and profitable business arrangements, I can prosperously co-op the drug folks, and/or partner with them so we can all work together (even if my religious convictions abhor drugs)?

One of my big assets, unlike my opponents, is that I can pop-up at will (since I am not burdened by their administrative/political/security baggage, and, I have no regard for the "democratic" effort to win their hearts and minds. If my stick is big enough (civilian deaths), they will side with me out of fear vs. free choice (Who cares?).

Besides, I am a stateless person anyway, as my Pashtun lands (the real Afghanistan) were long ago, and arbitrarily carved up by the big powers who play the big game over our heads (Who cares about their versions of nations and power structures anyway?).

Moreover, the arbitrary national lines are a substantial asset to my operational strengths as my associations, allegiances and lines of operation are beyond them, while they pose major constraints on my opponents.

Despite my religious opposition to these technically sophisticated and amoral foreigners, I will also use technology where ever I can if it works for me. Streaming video, pop music, Drone feeds, GoogleEarth, etc...

But, because I am much more like one of the people, it is very easy to use their backwardness and distrust of foreigners and new things as a wedge between us. I'll even pull out the Quran card if I have to, and blame the peoples' deaths on the inevitable and holy struggle against the infidel foreigners. (It seems to work well).

XXXX

Again, a great generalization that could be 180 degrees different in any particular place, but, like Iraq, I see a great deal of administrative/political purpose, and not a lot of religion going on.

Now, if I was serious about undermining that, I would not have religious intents, just a huge respect for the role of religion in those people's lives, and try to fit my efforts into their frameworks and narratives.

But my focus would be the same as theirs--administrative/political/economic. And max out the use of technology and education.

Two bits on religion in this conflict.

[jmm99]

MA:

this:

from MA
In the process of Nation Building as we do implement it, I see more and more room for a single ring society controled by a party and not a man.

but, even in SovCom and ChiCom governance, you can distinguish between the Dip/Pol, Law and Op rings. Though the Politburo, legal system and military were all supposed to be based on Communist party principles, each had their own take on how those principles should be applied in their particular arena.

No doubt Communist principles shaped all three rings; but again those principles had to yield to reality. For example, in law, two areas were never resolved during the SovCom era: (1) International law is primarily based on nation-state interaction; whereas Marxist-Leninist theory calls for the "withering away" of the State; and (2) Russian legal history (actual) proved that the development of property law and contract law arose from individual transactions; whereas Marxist-Leninist historical theory called for a "primitive communism" in both property and contracts.

The Putin-Ivanov duo (both lawyers) dumped Marxist-Leninist theory in both of these areas, but not in others - their own synthesis, so to speak.

I certainly do agree that autocracy (whether by one person or one party) remains with us; particularly in unstable societies, because it is the quickest short-term way to get things done - and also satisfies the egos and greed of the one person or members of the one party.

An interesting fact is that a strong autocracy (with an effective state security service) is as (or slightly more) strong against insurgencies than a strong democracy. The strong autocracy can be established with a generation; a strong democracy takes generations. Since we like to see our desires implemented within our own lifetimes (not too many real futruists out there), you can see why "nation-builders" tend to autocracy.

COL Jones:

It is much easier for autocratic "nation-builders" to use religion (or other strong ideologies) in furthering their goals. As Bob says:

from BW
That the goal of my work was to delve past these environmentals and attempt to get to the pure essence of insurgency at a fundamental level; and that to my thinking at that level ideology is simply a tool requried of every insurgency, and selected for its utility in rallying the populace to the cause, while at the same time taking positions that the sitting government was either unable or unwilling to adopt. But that a wise insurgent would discard any ideology that either failed to rally the populace or that was compormised by the counterinsurgent; and pick a new one to continue on to his political ends.

I would call this "manipulation of the slogan" (rather than "manipulation of the ideology") because often the proponent of the slogan has either no real ideology; or, more important, a different underlying ideology than the slogan that is used and discarded.

E.g., Mao and the ChiComs used many slogans (in their "from the people, back to the people" agitprop campaigns). But, their brand of Marxist-Leninist ideology did not change. Dave Galula goes into this briefly in his section on "Manipulation of the Cause" (Mao is the example). John McCuen goes into more detail in many places.

I conclude, Marse Robert, that you and I use different terminology for many of the same things - which is why you drive me up a wall.

Regards

Mike

[slapout9]

The Putin-Ivanov duo (both lawyers) dumped Marxist-Leninist theory in both of these areas, but not in others - their own synthesis, so to speak.

Yep, this where I believe people are starting to get the idea of Corporate Communism. It can be powerful stuff to.....Tali-Bankster Board of Directors with Nazi CEO's

[M-A Lagrange]

Mike,

An interesting fact is that a strong autocracy (with an effective state security service) is as (or slightly more) strong against insurgencies than a strong democracy. The strong autocracy can be established with a generation; a strong democracy takes generations. Since we like to see our desires implemented within our own lifetimes (not too many real futruists out there), you can see why "nation-builders" tend to autocracy.

You are right, we are in the process of supporting and creating "sustainable dictatorship" (Have to develop the concept with a friend who created the slogan). But somehow I stay an idealist and would like to build real nations based on a real democratic process. I would say a purely political process which is neither linked with religion nor with economy (why a socialist regime could not be democratic. I said socialist in the european way, not communist).

Enlighted authocracies have been put in place in West Africa by the French in the 60 and 70 for the same reasons as USA does it nowadays in Afghanistan and Iraq. I am not sure that it was a success: look at Ivory Coast and the use of nationalisn and religion to fuel the civil war. Mugabe mantra on the Brits are colonising us convince only him in Zim... Not even talking about Darfur and the pseudo muslim/christian animist/arab/african war.

I would be even worst than you, the problem of Nation Building (the all in one solution/plug and play of COIN) is that some would like to see it happen in the duration of a presidential mandat, 2 max.
The problem is certainly there in the first place.

M-A
PS: in my job, we are not smart enough to do intelligence, we do information gazering...

[graphei]

I finally got a day off from work to read this paper (gracias to marct for e-mailing it to me) and I thought I'd just put out some of my observations as a Scholar of Religious Studies, but first a wee rant.

[rant on]
I did read the FM 3-24 not too long ago and I was somewhat surprised that religion/religious violence was glossed over. It seemed to be an awfully big disconnect- at least from my perspective. We're fighting a global religious insurgency and it gets passed by? It's one thing to say, "This is important, but it's out of the scope of our current study. Someone else with more funding needs to study it." vs "We're not sure what to do with it, because we're not really sure what it is, so we're gonna sweep it under the rug."

I found Kilcullen's statement against the critics who are falling for "the propaganda of the munafiquun" to be short-sighted, and frankly ignorant. No one likes it when their baby- I mean book, gets ripped on, but such is life. If you can't handle a critique of your work by peers, then a life as an academic was not a wise choice, Doctor.

You're dealing with an enemy that is banking on your ignorance of their religion. An Intro to Islam class and a few courses on the political/ethnic realities in the Middle East isn't cutting it. There are tens of thousands of perfectly reputable scholars of Religion in this country. I know some who tried for months to get involved in HTT's and were told their degree in Religious/Islamic Studies wasn't relevant. "They" wanted Anthropologists. Now, let me be clear here. I am not saying Anthropologists are not useful in this fight (someone has to do statistics and be anal about methodology ) or that they are incapable of doing research on religion, but when Big Brother is turning away people with in depth knowledge on Islam- there is a big, big problem. Hell, if I got a call tomorrow that said, "Hey, you wanna go to Afghanistan and be on a HTT?" I'd put the Corps on hold and go.
[rant off]

Okay, now that I got that off my chest.

Lauder's article was fairly solid. One thing I didn't really agree with him on was his term "violent new religious movements". I would argue that there is nothing 'new' about these movements. They've been around for a very long time in one form or another. At one point early on when referring to Mircea Eliade on time, Lauder explains these insurgencies simmer for decades or centuries, and he is very correct. This current bout of religious violence in the Middle East has been simmering for roughly 200 years and calls of jihad have been fairly cyclical throughout. Many of these 'new' groups legitimize themselves by creating a link between their current efforts and those in the sacred, or mythologized (for those of you who dig Foucault) past. In other words, revival is a very big deal. There is this belief in Islamic thought that the best and most true Muslims existed in the first couple generations under the Rashidun (a.k.a. Rightly Guided Caliphs. The further you move away from that point in time, the more corrupt things become and the true believers must act to save the world. While all religions have some concept of this floating through, in the Abrahamic traditions periods of revival are often accompanied by violence. Ya know, gotta purge those bad influences before the Judgement Day rolls around.

One thing that I thought Lauder brought up that made me happy was the concept of the violence as an act of ritual performance (yay for Juergensmeyer). It really provides an insight into what we're up against and taps into Eliade's notion of the sacred and profane and is explained more on page 16. Defeat isn't defeat. It's a trial by God to see who is truly devout. Death isn't Death. It's a spiritual victory over the unbelievers and apostates. We're dealing with people who have totally rejected or have no concept of secularism. Treating them and this situation like just another political/ethnic insurgencies is like pouring water on a grease fire and demonstrates that we just don't get it. What happened to reading Sun Tzu's Art of War and knowing your enemy?