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Thread: Everything You Know About Counterinsurgency History Is (possibly) Wrong!

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    Council Member rborum's Avatar
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    Default Everything You Know About Counterinsurgency History Is (possibly) Wrong!

    I find it refreshing to hear an historian analyze ideas about counterinsurgency (COIN), if only to break the monotony of listening to COIN practitioners and doctrineers analyzing history. A new article by Professor Jonathan Gumz from USMA West Point makes the point.

    Gumz begins by noting that a flood of new scholarship on COIN has emerged - particularly in military journals - over the past six years. Articles typically include case studies and analyses of past conflict to make their points about the present. They mostly draw bright lines between conventional and unconventional wars and focus on non-European conflicts in the post-WWII era (mostly "Third World national liberation movements as well as to communist insurgencies"). In so doing, Gumz argues, scholars and warthinkers have created, rather than described, an historical COIN narrative to fit the demands of the present. That narrative of past warfare, he believes, is "deeply flawed."

    "This suggests that most of the current professional military scholarship on insurgency is driven primarily by the desire to make arguments about priorities in the here and now, not the relative importance of insurgency in the past."


    The critique does not focus on current COIN doctrine, but rather on attempts at scholarship and historical analysis. First, he notes, the common assumption that insurgency has always been a part of warfare, moots our ability to understand it actual historical origins.

    "One could easily make the argument that professional military scholarship on insurgency has all but gutted the historical specificity of this form of warfare. This takes place because much of the scholarship maintains that insurgency has always been a part of warfare and thus immediately extracts insurgency from its historical moorings."


    A second problematic historical assumption, is that the past efforts to use "development" to further COIN objectives can be simply replicated in modern conflicts.


    "Those who emphasize development-centered counterinsurgency seem curiously unaware of its origins. Instead, COIN advocates believe that development-centered counterinsurgency can simply be plucked from its larger historical context and deployed in the present."


    Gumz' summarizes his indictment of fuzzy - often revisionist- historical analysis in the following way:

    "The current professional literature’s approach to history is a curious one. Where the authors either explicitly or implicitly create a new narrative of insurgency to deploy against what they view as the dominant narrative of conventional warfare, that narrative remains cut off from the broader history of war itself. It remains trapped in a cage of either weakly connected ‘lessons learned’ or in a narrow narrative of American military memory. Modernization and development and their role in counterinsurgency strategy certainly do have a history, one embedded in the post-WorldWar II era, which the professional military literature largely looks past. In so doing, the literature lifts development and counterinsurgency out of its particular time and place. In turn, it falls directly into what one of the most perceptive current counterinsurgency experts, David Kilcullen, warns against and looks to simply apply the correct ‘lessons learned’ from the 1960s."


    So, if these assumptions are inaccurate - or at least overgeneralized - what historical truth is being overlooked?

    Gumz argues that Carl Schmitt's concept of "war autonomy", and its implications are conspicuously absent from the newly-created narrative. War autonomy focused on restricting war to the sphere of the state, and imposing limitations on enmity between opponents. Schmitt called it the ‘bracketing’ of war. There was much debate in the early modern era around such issues as the "question of an insurgent’s legal status, the qualifications of a belligerent, and the loyalty an occupied population owed a military occupation."

    These debates were part of the underpinnings of what would become the foundations of international laws of armed conflict. In its early modern form this was expressed in European public law (the jus publicum Europaeum). Gumz argues that "the appearance of insurgency was linked to the breakdown of bracketed conflict and with it the jus publicum Europaeum at the advent of the early twentieth century....Only with the collapse of the jus publicum Europaeum in the first half of the twentieth century in Europe did insurgency assume an increasingly prominent position in war. ... Insurgency’s appearance has less to do with technological changes or advancing stages of war than with normative changes in war’s boundaries."

    Gumz states at the outset of the article that his analysis "does not offer prescriptions for the present," but he concludes with some possible implications of viewing the history of insurgency in the alternative way he suggests:

    First, we have to avoid using history as a bland cupboard from which to raid lessons learned which serve to confirm ideas already arrived at in the present.

    Such an effort would compel us to abandon notions, deeply embedded in the COIN literature, that we live in an age of irreversible insurgency beyond our control.

    We might go a step further and decide that the lessons to draw from the conflict in Iraq since 2003 should have less to do with counterinsurgency. For that, in a sense, would be to accept an era of collapsed conflict. The new counterinsurgency tactics should be looked upon as temporary solutions to an aberrational situation, instead of charting a fundamentally new path. The real lessons of Iraq, historically seen, have far more to do with avoiding a botched occupation in the first place and thus eliding the problem of insurgency altogether.
    Consequently, understanding how to effectively occupy countries, what not to do so as to avoid an insurgency, should receive at least some attention as we begin to look back on the Iraq conflict.

    Finally, a more historical approach to insurgency should encourage us to abandon some of the dichotomies which distort far more than they clarify. As employed in the current literature, these dichotomies have overwhelmed historical events. They simply slot wars into different columns and thereby undermine attempts to understand the nature of conflicts.


    Gumz, J. (2009). Reframing the Historical Problematic of Insurgency: How the Professional Military Literature Created a New History and Missed the Past Journal of Strategic Studies, 32 (4), 553-588
    Randy Borum
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    Council Member Hacksaw's Avatar
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    Default A Kindred Spirit...

    Is it possible that Gian has found a kindred spirit in Lincoln Hall???

    It must be in the Lusk Resevoir water and Gray Stone Walls
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    Council Member rborum's Avatar
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    Gumz does thank his Department in the acknowledgement, but does not mention COL/Dr. Gentile by name.
    Randy Borum
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    Council Member Van's Avatar
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    Did Gumz address the impact of widespread, instantaneous, personal communications and the absolute (and often asinine) democratization of media?

    Did he talk about virtual sanctuaries in addition to the classic geographical sanctuaries?

    Did he address globalization of insurgent movements enabled by contemporary transportation networks?

    Did he address the impact of the rise of social sciences and their subsequent corruption by political activists?

    Did he address the differences between classic cell structured organizations and contemporary viral or distributed organizations?

    If he failed to address these points, he missed the impact of the second half of the XXth Century on Small Wars (insurgency, irregular warfare, LIC, etc. - pick your buzz word). I'm all about historical-mindedness, but historical models have limits. I would argue that Gumz is being excessively reactionary and conservative in response to the "revisionist" young firebrands. The young guns can be seen as 'cherry-picking' history, but given the dynamics that are present in the world, we have to. No classic model or example comprehensively integrates the factors that shape the current environment.

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    Council Member Ken White's Avatar
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    Default I agree with your premise.

    Quote Originally Posted by Van View Post
    If he failed to address these points, he missed the impact of the second half of the XXth Century on Small Wars (insurgency, irregular warfare, LIC, etc. - pick your buzz word). I'm all about historical-mindedness, but historical models have limits. I would argue that Gumz is being excessively reactionary and conservative in response to the "revisionist" young firebrands...
    However I thought he was using history to show that many of today's adaptations of 'history' are flawed -- thus he would seem to agree with you to this point:
    The young guns can be seen as 'cherry-picking' history...
    As do I agree. However, on this:
    :...but given the dynamics that are present in the world, we have to. No classic model or example comprehensively integrates the factors that shape the current environment.
    I disagree and Professor Gumz seems to as well.

    I agree that no prior example can provide a road map to integrate factors and shape the current environment. However, those young guns you cite are picking some elements of previous insurgencies and attempting to produce such a map. They're highly likely to err due to the factors you cited and a few others applied to an out of date datum for their map. I would in fact submit they have already done so. Err, that is...

    You may recall that three years ago I was trying to slow down Gian -- I owe him an apology, he was closer to it than I was and picked up on it before I did. The COINistas are dangerous not least because they are selectively misapplying history. They mean well. But...

    One of the things I discovered in seven years in TRADOC and a few more in FORSCOM was that there are almost no new thoughts in our doctrine -- the operational rule in the vast majority of training and doctrinal publication writing was to cut and paste the maximum amount. I would like to believe that is changing but my copies of FMs 3-0, 3-0.1, 3.07, 3-07.1, 3-21-75, 3-24 and a few others lead me to believe not much has changed.

    I knew one LTC whose favorite technique was to cut paragraphs out of an existing document, rewrite them in longhand on a legal pad and paste the result in the appropriate location for a 'draft' approval before they went of to the typing pool. It worked. Too well...

    Everyone wants a checklist, makes life simple, don't have to think too hard and if you follow the checklist, no matter how badly you foul up, you get over because you did follow it. Regrettably, warfare can have no realistic checklist...

    History has much to teach and we should pay more attention to it than we do but warfighting, while subject to historical precepts and some constants is not politics or a social science project -- if you get it wrong, people get killed, therefor you have an obligation to approach it with an open mind and a willingness, even an eagerness, to adapt and succeed. Trying things that worked elsewhere under very different conditions -- and with bureaucratically added restrictions that also significantly impact conditions in comparison to past wars -- is what we've been at for the last eight years. How has that worked out for us?

    Every war is different.

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    Council Member William F. Owen's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Van View Post
    Did Gumz address the impact of widespread, instantaneous, personal communications and the absolute (and often asinine) democratization of media?

    Did he talk about virtual sanctuaries in addition to the classic geographical sanctuaries?

    Did he address globalization of insurgent movements enabled by contemporary transportation networks?

    Did he address the impact of the rise of social sciences and their subsequent corruption by political activists?

    Did he address the differences between classic cell structured organizations and contemporary viral or distributed organizations?
    OK, but do any of things pass the "so what test" of operational relevance. Some of those things are not new. All those things may be true, but do they actually have the impact that the "Nouveau-COIN" say they do? Kilcullen goes on about Globalisation. Colin Gray convincingly argues it's irrelevant - and I agree with him. I'd say the same about the Internet. Have any of these things changed the nature of Political goals each side seeks to achieve? If no, then they have little or no military impact.

    The "Nouveau-COIN," is like the MW crowd, they don't just cherry pick, but they are also generally poor military historians, in that they assume there is something distinct called "Counter-insurgency," -which you can study in isolation, and that from that you can develop "COIN Theories."

    The worst thing they try to tell you is that military force isn't the primary method by which insurgencies are defeated, and as evidence cite cases where military force was stupidly or badly applied, or ignore and denigrate it's absolute necessity in creating the conditions where the political solution could be achieved - so none of them read Clausewitz either.
    From this we see, in the last 7 years, is body of literature emerging , that says nothing new or insightful, about so called "counter-insurgency."

    As Ken says "Every War is Different," and in unanimous agreement with that, I say "War is War."
    Infinity Journal "I don't care if this works in practice. I want to see it work in theory!"

    - The job of the British Army out here is to kill or capture Communist Terrorists in Malaya.
    - If we can double the ratio of kills per contact, we will soon put an end to the shooting in Malaya.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Van View Post
    The young guns can be seen as 'cherry-picking' history, but given the dynamics that are present in the world, we have to. No classic model or example comprehensively integrates the factors that shape the current environment.
    As a 'young gun' who has very deep respect and appreciation of the classics: if CvC, Sun Tzu, Thucydides, Machiavelli or Mao Tse-Tung did not say it then its not worth saying.

    I would bet, CvC for example, would argue that technology is little more than an enabler that extends the strategist's understanding of the role of the laws of probability in military combat. It has to be taken into account, but it is not the dominating principle from which we can then argue that everything else, especially friction and fog, can be assumed away as an invalid element in the nature of war and its conduct. It is still humans that fight the wars, and it is still humans who articulate the political objectives which set the war into motion. How they communicate and exploit that objective to a wider audience has changed. How they utilize technology and exploit our so called 'globalized' world has changed. However, wars natural laws of cause (politics) and effect (violence) and the regulating principles that go to make up its objective and subjective character have not changed.

    I am not saying that the various technological innovations and globalization are irrelevant. Far from it, they need to considered within a framework. I would be very confident to argue that all of the 'technological' innovations you have listed can be considered within the framework of what CvC called chance and probability. Technological shifts in warfare and the tools of war are constantly changing how we fight, not why we fight. There is little utility in trying to reinvent the wheel every time a 'buzz concept' comes into being.
    Last edited by Taiko; 07-30-2009 at 05:35 AM.

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    Council Member Tom Odom's Avatar
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    The "Nouveau-COIN," is like the MW crowd, they don't just cherry pick, but they are also generally poor military historians, in that they assume there is something distinct called "Counter-insurgency," -which you can study in isolation, and that from that you can develop "COIN Theories."

    The worst thing they try to tell you is that military force isn't the primary method by which insurgencies are defeated, and as evidence cite cases where military force was stupidly or badly applied, or ignore and denigrate it's absolute necessity in creating the conditions where the political solution could be achieved - so none of them read Clausewitz either.
    From this we see, in the last 7 years, is body of literature emerging , that says nothing new or insightful, about so called "counter-insurgency."
    Once again Wilf you jump on the same soap box and start the "they" and "Nouveau COIN" labeling in the interest of bludgeoning anyone who might have a different idea than you or your near idolic worship of CvC.

    Careful reading of Kilcullen, Nagl etc does not state that COIN is won without force; they do state that COIN campaigns are lost by an overapplication of force. That I definitely agree with and have watched it happend from the ground.

    As for assuming that you can study COIN as a distinct element in warfare, perhaps. It is part of a spectrum of operations and as such boundaries are unclear. That I would say is better than ignoring it or worse banning it as a subject to consider.

    Is all the scholarship of the past 7 years wasted? Hardly and as for the good professor, his own assumptions are equally glaring.

    Tom

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    Council Member William F. Owen's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Taiko View Post
    How they communicate that objective to a wider audience has changed. How they utilize technology and exploit our so called 'globalized' world has changed. However, wars natural laws of cause (politics) and effect (violence) and the regulating principles that go to make up its objective and subjective character have not changed.
    I concur, but while forms of communication have changed, all the "big ideas" such as Protestantism, Communism, and various forms of political Islam all spread via word of mouth. National Socialism, used radio as a mass communication medium, but by the time it did, it already had power.
    The original forms of Zionism were spread entirely by word of mouth, world wide. The modern state of Israel was established, via word of mouth.
    OK, the Rwandan Genocide used the radio. Possible via word of mouth? Many genocide's were.

    The Internet, isn't going to change the "ideas" and it's the ideas that create the conflict.
    Infinity Journal "I don't care if this works in practice. I want to see it work in theory!"

    - The job of the British Army out here is to kill or capture Communist Terrorists in Malaya.
    - If we can double the ratio of kills per contact, we will soon put an end to the shooting in Malaya.
    Sir Gerald Templer, foreword to the "Conduct of Anti-Terrorist Operations in Malaya," 1958 Edition

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    Gumz argues that "the appearance of insurgency was linked to the breakdown of bracketed conflict and with it the jus publicum Europaeum at the advent of the early twentieth century....Only with the collapse of the jus publicum Europaeum in the first half of the twentieth century in Europe did insurgency assume an increasingly prominent position in war. ... Insurgency’s appearance has less to do with technological changes or advancing stages of war than with normative changes in war’s boundaries."
    One could argue the same for conventional war when comparing the cabinet wars of the Monarchists to the revolutionary wars of Napoleon in the 18/19th century. I think its a dangerous game to place any 'normative boundaries' on war. Simply because war is a duel between two or more opponents who will adapt or adjust in order to achieve military victory and meet their political objective. Napoleon exploited the norms of the previous cabinet wars by a using a broadsword instead of a dress rapier, with startling results.

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    Council Member William F. Owen's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tom Odom View Post
    Once again Wilf you jump on the same soap box and start the "they" and "Nouveau COIN" labeling in the interest of bludgeoning anyone who might have a different idea than you or your near idolic worship of CvC.
    ...and once again we are back into this!
    I fail to see how attempting to clearly state my case counts as "bludgeoning," or being consistent counts as a soap box. I would have thought it entirely normal that I should seek to argue against ideas I see as unhelpful or poorly presented.
    "Nouveau-COIN" is a set of ideas, and not necessarily people. I don't worship CvC. I merely suggest folks would benefit from the insights he gives, and revisit some of their ideas in that light. I am no more wedded to CvC than most Physicist are to Newton - and merely because of the subject matter, War.

    Careful reading of Kilcullen, Nagl etc does not state that COIN is won without force; they do state that COIN campaigns are lost by an overapplication of force. That I definitely agree with and have watched it happend from the ground.
    I would agree with 100%. They are correct, and that observation is at least 60 years old. My concern are the statements such as
    • "80% Political. 20% military" -
    • "Can't kill or capture your way to success" -
    • "COIN is armed social work" -
    • "You out govern. You don't out fight."

    Those are the simplistic, context free, and misleading ideas I seek to challenge.

    As for assuming that you can study COIN as a distinct element in warfare, perhaps. It is part of a spectrum of operations and as such boundaries are unclear. That I would say is better than ignoring it or worse banning it as a subject to consider.
    I grew up in an Army doing COIN and with a strong COIN tradition. My grandfather did COIN Operations. At no time have I ever suggested it should be ignored. Quite the opposite. I consider "COIN" as what armies mostly do, which is why the "woolly thinking" is so dangerous. Insurgencies should be studied, but that is very different from creating a distinct field of military study, which holds "COIN" to be a distinct and unique military problem.

    Is all the scholarship of the past 7 years wasted? Hardly and as for the good professor, his own assumptions are equally glaring.
    I don't have a problem with the scholarship. It's the agendas and the ideas that the instances of poor scholar ship has spawned.
    To whit, what great insights have we gained, that did not exist already?
    Infinity Journal "I don't care if this works in practice. I want to see it work in theory!"

    - The job of the British Army out here is to kill or capture Communist Terrorists in Malaya.
    - If we can double the ratio of kills per contact, we will soon put an end to the shooting in Malaya.
    Sir Gerald Templer, foreword to the "Conduct of Anti-Terrorist Operations in Malaya," 1958 Edition

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    Council Member slapout9's Avatar
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    I actually started a thread similar to this back in December 2006"Title was Is Everybody Wrong" based on an old article from Military Review about how some COIN Cannot be won link to thread and article is below.



    http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ighlight=wrong
    Last edited by slapout9; 07-30-2009 at 06:03 AM. Reason: add stuff

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    Council Member Tom Odom's Avatar
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    ...and once again we are back into this!
    I fail to see how attempting to clearly state my case counts as "bludgeoning," or being consistent counts as a soap box. I would have thought it entirely normal that I should seek to argue against ideas I see as unhelpful or poorly presented.
    Consistently on the soap box is a good description. And once again I will respond to the same labels until you go beyond mere labeling. This is a discussion board and discussion is based on full thoughts.

    "Nouveau-COIN" is a set of ideas, and not necessarily people. I don't worship CvC. I merely suggest folks would benefit from the insights he gives, and revisit some of their ideas in that light. I am no more wedded to CvC than most Physicist are to Newton - and merely because of the subject matter, War....
    If "Noveau-COIN" is a set of ideas, who then presents that set that you so often rail against? If no one, then against whom are you arguing?

    As for the simple ideas that bother you,

    "80% Political. 20% military" -
    Actually fairly accurate depending on the war and the situation if applied with thinking.

    "Can't kill or capture your way to success" -
    True unless you are prepared to kill them all.

    "COIN is armed social work" -
    As a metaphor, not bad. Oversimplified and therefore used as a substitute for thought--rather like "war is war" in that regard.

    "You out govern. You don't out fight."
    Again fairly accurate depending on the conflict. Without addressing underlying causes and absent scorched earth tactics, the failure to adress reasons for a conflict extends it.

    If these ideas are offered as a cautionary note in the interest of more study, I applaud their use. If they are simply bumper stickers, then I would agree with your concerns. But I do not agree there is a COIN cabal, mafia, or whatever that is determined to kill all other ideas regarding war in a broader sense. There was, however, a very real conventional school of thought that tried and succeeded in the main force to stamp out any consideration of COIN.

    I consider "COIN" as what armies mostly do, which is why the "woolly thinking" is so dangerous. Insurgencies should be studied, but that is very different from creating a distinct field of military study, which holds "COIN" to be a distinct and unique military problem.
    Again if you do not study COIN as a somewhat separate field, then those who would ignore it will do so by banning its study.

    I grew up in an Army doing COIN and with a strong COIN tradition.
    I also grew up in an Army doing COIN with a strong COIN tradition. But that Army's senior leaders did its best to ignore the tradition until forced to face its demands. Even as the Army was involved in COIN in central America in the 1980s, the institution maintained intellectual blinders to that fact and wore them fairly religiously until the collapse of the Berlin Wall. Even then many kept them on.

    My grandfather did COIN Operations.
    Good than he understood that it isn't simple. This is my third as a participant in one fashion or another. We do care what the populace thinks; we get our best information from them. That does not mean we bake cookies and send flowers to win their favor.

    so none of them read Clausewitz either
    The smartest guy in this realm I ever met is Paul Kagame. He has fought on both sides of the fence. He never mentioned CvC to me. Maybe he read CvC; he cared very much what the populace thought and he still does. He used all elements of persuasion to affect their thinking including lethal and non-lethal.

    Tom
    Last edited by Tom Odom; 07-30-2009 at 07:01 AM.

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    Council Member William F. Owen's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tom Odom View Post
    Consistently on the soap box is a good description. And once again I will respond to the same labels until you go beyond mere labeling. This is a discussion board and discussion is based on full thoughts.
    Well I guess I cannot and should not attempt to alter your perception. If for no other reason than I can learn from it. Anyhoo.... with the my best soap box forward.....
    If "Noveau-COIN" is a set of ideas, who then presents that set that you so often rail against? If no one, then against whom are you arguing?
    Well this may be me deferring to style rather than function. I don't have many problems with people. I have problems with ideas. I know a lot of smart and well intentioned guys, doing military thought and theory, but I don't agree with a great many of their ideas. Not just COIN either. I even go to at it, with Doug MacGregor once in a while.
    As for the simple ideas that bother you,

    "80% Political. 20% military" -
    "Can't kill or capture your way to success" -
    "COIN is armed social work" -
    "You out govern. You don't out fight."
    These may come from a perspective where the US/NATO military action is the cause of the insurgency. The insurgencies currently faced, resulted from the US/NATO overthrowing the Governments. What is more, the insurgencies sprang up, prior to the existence of the governments they currently oppose, so unless that is held to the fore, as explaining those statements, I cannot see them as truisms or insights into countering an insurgency.

    They may ameliorate the feelings that poorly reasoned military action made a very big mess and now someone has to clear it up, but none of those statements is the basis for an historically valid approach to defeating an insurgency, or a sound basis for the conduct of irregular warfare.

    The smartest guy in this realm I ever met is Paul Kagame. He has fought on both sides of the fence. He never mentioned CvC to me. Maybe he read CvC; he cared very much what the populace thought and he still does. He used all elements of persuasion to affect their thinking including lethal and non-lethal.
    I have met very, very few practitioners who have ever read Clausewitz. If they are effective practitioners, they probably should not bother. Moreover I do not thing it necessary that most Officers should actually read CvC.

    However, if you want to use military history as a guide to the present and the future, and teach lessons derived from military history, then he is pretty much essential.
    Infinity Journal "I don't care if this works in practice. I want to see it work in theory!"

    - The job of the British Army out here is to kill or capture Communist Terrorists in Malaya.
    - If we can double the ratio of kills per contact, we will soon put an end to the shooting in Malaya.
    Sir Gerald Templer, foreword to the "Conduct of Anti-Terrorist Operations in Malaya," 1958 Edition

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    Council Member Tom Odom's Avatar
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    Wilf

    Good post.

    One thing:

    These may come from a perspective where the US/NATO military action is the cause of the insurgency. The insurgencies currently faced, resulted from the US/NATO overthrowing the Governments. What is more, the insurgencies sprang up, prior to the existence of the governments they currently oppose, so unless that is held to the fore, as explaining those statements, I cannot see them as truisms or insights into countering an insurgency.
    I will disagree--big surprise I know--for 2 reasons:

    A. Primarily because I have seen those things apply in a non-NATO and non-US environment. By applying I mean applied by the government facing the insurgency.

    B. Rather than truism or insight I see them more as an opening statement of a theme or longer discussion.

    Tom

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    "The Internet, isn't going to change the "ideas" and it's the ideas that create the conflict. " ( WF.O)

    I wish I could be entirely convinced of that. I've been telling myself a long time that it is nothing but man-made metal, plastic, glass and electricity but I wonder at times over cultural perceptions of it, linear V circular thinking and perceptions become fixed rather quickly - a tangent here but a real one.

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    Quote Originally Posted by goesh View Post
    "The Internet, isn't going to change the "ideas" and it's the ideas that create the conflict. " ( WF.O)

    I wish I could be entirely convinced of that. I've been telling myself a long time that it is nothing but man-made metal, plastic, glass and electricity but I wonder at times over cultural perceptions of it, linear V circular thinking and perceptions become fixed rather quickly - a tangent here but a real one.
    The very fact that I'm sitting here in "beautiful scenic" South Minneapolis is proof that the Net has changed things.
    People don't really change, but how they use technology, affects them and society in general....see the printing press

    For the Jihadis this is definitely true. The Jihadi/Salafist forums have been a boon to providing a means of passing information...etc. and giving them a sense of community.

    For more see
    "The Leaderless Jihad: Terror networks in the Twenty-First Century"
    Marc Sageman

    "Global Jihadism: Theory and Practice"
    Jarret M. Brachman

    Available from all the usual sources

  18. #18
    Council Member William F. Owen's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by goesh View Post
    "The Internet, isn't going to change the "ideas" and it's the ideas that create the conflict. " ( WF.O)

    I wish I could be entirely convinced of that. I've been telling myself a long time that it is nothing but man-made metal, plastic, glass and electricity but I wonder at times over cultural perceptions of it, linear V circular thinking and perceptions become fixed rather quickly - a tangent here but a real one.
    I cannot tell you, you are wrong. My father opined that television changed the way people spoke to each other and behaved in general, because people tend to mimic what they believe to be effective behaviours.
    If someone can show me that radio, telegraph, telephones or printing presses changed the essential nature of political and religious/political ideas, then I'll think again. I stand by writing and speaking as being mainly to blame!!
    Quote Originally Posted by Tom Odom View Post
    Wilf

    Good post.
    Thank you, and thanks for keeping me on my toes. Without some useful and constructive disagreement, this could turn into a bit of a "sausage-fest" ...as my wife so delicately puts it.
    I will disagree--big surprise I know--for 2 reasons:

    A. Primarily because I have seen those things apply in a non-NATO and non-US environment. By applying I mean applied by the government facing the insurgency.
    So let's call the US NATO environment a critical context. Would the discussion be the same if the US was intervening at the request of a foreign government?
    B. Rather than truism or insight I see them more as an opening statement of a theme or longer discussion.
    As the basis of a discussion, that may have some merit. Any thesis subjected to rigour, or argued against, is almost certainly useful. I am less convinced, when they are held to be the solution.
    Infinity Journal "I don't care if this works in practice. I want to see it work in theory!"

    - The job of the British Army out here is to kill or capture Communist Terrorists in Malaya.
    - If we can double the ratio of kills per contact, we will soon put an end to the shooting in Malaya.
    Sir Gerald Templer, foreword to the "Conduct of Anti-Terrorist Operations in Malaya," 1958 Edition

  19. #19
    Council Member William F. Owen's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Valin View Post
    For the Jihadis this is definitely true. The Jihadi/Salafist forums have been a boon to providing a means of passing information...etc. and giving them a sense of community.
    Yes, it's a changed how they act. It has not changed why they act. The Iranian revolution made great use of fax machines and cassette tapes. Neither of those things created the revolution, or made it possible.

    The problems that created Political Islam, are nothing to do with the internet. The internet is just a medium, in which discussion takes place and information is exchanged.

    Ask this question. Are people more or less likely to adhere to Scientology because of the internet?
    Infinity Journal "I don't care if this works in practice. I want to see it work in theory!"

    - The job of the British Army out here is to kill or capture Communist Terrorists in Malaya.
    - If we can double the ratio of kills per contact, we will soon put an end to the shooting in Malaya.
    Sir Gerald Templer, foreword to the "Conduct of Anti-Terrorist Operations in Malaya," 1958 Edition

  20. #20
    Council Member marct's Avatar
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    Hi Wilf,

    Quote Originally Posted by William F. Owen View Post
    These may come from a perspective where the US/NATO military action is the cause of the insurgency. The insurgencies currently faced, resulted from the US/NATO overthrowing the Governments. What is more, the insurgencies sprang up, prior to the existence of the governments they currently oppose, so unless that is held to the fore, as explaining those statements, I cannot see them as truisms or insights into countering an insurgency.

    They may ameliorate the feelings that poorly reasoned military action made a very big mess and now someone has to clear it up, but none of those statements is the basis for an historically valid approach to defeating an insurgency, or a sound basis for the conduct of irregular warfare.
    Quote Originally Posted by Tom Odom View Post
    B. Rather than truism or insight I see them more as an opening statement of a theme or longer discussion.
    I agree with both of Tom's points here but, especially, his last one. I'm going to be getting up on my semantics soap box for a bit here .

    Okay, some basic definitions: an insurgency is a political-military action against the "legitimate" government of a state or para-state (depends on how states are defined, but that's another discussion). We (NATO, etc.) are not conducting a counter-insurgency in Afghanistan (or Iraq) at present because we are not the legitimate government of either state.

    The entire issue is muddied because in both cases the "legitimate" governments of both Iraq and Afghanistan were overthrown by foreign (NATO, MNF) conquest. This conquest and the following occupation then gave way to the creation of local governments more in line with those desired by the West, which have been "legitimated" by both international recognition and elections. This has created a situation were the legitimacy of these regimes may be questioned, in large part because a) they were imposed by foreigners and b) they have no longstanding "tradition" of legitimacy inside their respective states (NB: this second point marks a sharp disctinction against, say, the restoration of a previous regime).

    A further complicating factor in these situations is that the foreign "invaders" really have no desire to stay there. Again, this marks a distinct difference with, say, the Colonial wars of the 19th century where the colonial powers often retained some components of local sovereignty. The closest historical analogs that I can think of off the top of my head are the post-WWII occupations of Germany and Japan, although there are some noatble differences.

    All of this is a roundabout way of saying that I think the statement can give us some excellent insights into countering the current insurgencies. I do agree, however, that if taken as a truism, it is problematic.

    Cheers,

    Marc
    Sic Bisquitus Disintegrat...
    Marc W.D. Tyrrell, Ph.D.
    Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies,
    Senior Research Fellow,
    The Canadian Centre for Intelligence and Security Studies, NPSIA
    Carleton University
    http://marctyrrell.com/

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