I'm not sure that targeting will is necessarily a feasible goal. Targeting and mitigating ideology in a fanatical people isn't going to get you very far. To say that we'll target their will infers that adversarial will is based upon logic and reason. When you're an extremist, no amount of logic or reason is going to allow you to look at the other side of the coin.Originally Posted by Bill Moore
However, isolating insurgent groups from their support basin will. One of the only things that seperates the disenfranchised Bubba at the end of your block who hates the government and the insurgent population is the amount of localized support he receives from his neighbors. If Bubba started blowing up mailboxes and putting bombs on the sides of roads, his neighbors will turn him in.
I use the term "support" loosely, as passive support would include those who are so afraid of the reprocussions of action that they do nothing, allowing the insurgent to continue his reign of terror. We need to do a better job, through IO, of debasing the grasp insurgent groups have on the population. Depending on what part of the country we're talking about (Al Anbar having a higher concetration of insurgent supporters), we're only looking at about 5% of the population with an overt support of the insurgency. What we need to worry about is the 80% or so who passively let it happen out of fear of reprocussion to themselves or their families. How do we mitigate this? We show them, through our own actions, that it is more adventageous to them to turn in the wacko down the street than it is to sit by and do nothing.
In this sence, one of the lines of operation in the COIN environment must be Information Operations. By making IO a LOO within the mission development cycle, we're placing as much weight in IO as we would with combat operations. I submit that the four LOOs all units should follow in Iraq are:
1. Combined Combat Operations
2. Development of Security Forces
3. Civil-Military Operations
4. Information Operations
Given we're strangers in a society as unfamiliar with us as we are of them, IO must be an imperitive in COIN operations. Many of the preconceptions Iraqis have of Americans is based upon the information operations that insurgent groups propegate amongst the people of the society. In this sence, the insurgents are winning the IO war. We must make IO as important to us as combat operations are.
One of the most successful IO campaigns I saw in Ninwah province was a series of fliers with pictures of children killed by a homicide car bomber. After that flier went out, tons of tips came in, most actionable. The problem is that after doing this once or twice, we figure that the momentum will continue. Oftentimes we kill our own initiative by resting on our laurels and figuring that one or two fliers is enough, particularly if they produce some sort of temporary action. By constantly reengaging the IO target, we chip away at the base of support the insurgents enjoy until eventually its a moot point.
Certainly there are those whose minds we will not change. They are labled collaborists and must be dealt with appropriately as well. The burden is on individual units to A). Know the enemy their dealing with, B). Determining their base of support, C). Mitigating or neutralizing that support within every means at their availability, and D). constantly pursuing innovative ways to diminish passive support.
As has been written in multiple threads, the only way to do this properly is to understand the culture with which you are working. Obviously, what would be sound logic in the United States doesn't necessarily work in Iraq or Afghanistan. Its up to small unit leaders in both of these areas to get to know their populace, forge relationships with local leaders, and get inside the psyche of those their working around, with, and for.
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