Deterrence of Irregular Threats

[marct]

Clearly this experience contributed to how I look at things. Being an SF officer made me a more effective prosecutor (I love a good jury trial! The combination of mission, populace, opponent, strategy and tactics, etc. Each trial was like a mini-campaign); and having been a prosecutor makes me a more effective SOF strategist. We are all shaped by our experiences, and I recognize that mine are fairly unique.

I can see that . I think that Merton's Adaptive Typology would help you to formulate your argument, although the descriptors would have to be recast.

Mode of
Adaptation Cultural Goal Institutionalized Means

Conformity + +
Innovation + -
Ritualism - +
Retreatism - -
Rebellion ± ±

The nice thing about using this is that a lot of the work has already been done in Criminology and Psychology on identifying motivations and socialization factors. There's another bonus as well - it is a bottom up model that does not rely on some supposedly objective definition of good (or bad) giovernance.

[Bob's World]

I can see that . I think that Merton's Adaptive Typology would help you to formulate your argument, although the descriptors would have to be recast.

Mode of
Adaptation Cultural Goal Institutionalized Means

Conformity + +
Innovation + -
Ritualism - +
Retreatism - -
Rebellion ± ±

The nice thing about using this is that a lot of the work has already been done in Criminology and Psychology on identifying motivations and socialization factors. There's another bonus as well - it is a bottom up model that does not rely on some supposedly objective definition of good (or bad) giovernance.

We ask juries every day in thousands of courtrooms around the nation to determine if objective criteria of proof and guilt/liabiliity have been met through a process of wholly sujective inputs and analysis. And it works.

Engineers and Metrics gurus are desperate to reduce such subjective inputs to x's and o's; 1's and 0's; etc to produce a "Precise" answer that enables their comfort zone of thinking. We confuse precision and detail for accuracy and validity. Would you trust your lawsuit or crimial trial to any of these hokey, multi-million dollar "easy button" systems?? Not I. Yet we trust the security of our nation to them.

A single 12-person jury of average citizens would probaby tell any commander that the brief he just got from his metrics guys and probalby his intel guys as well, left them riddled with reasonable doubt, and that they could not approve their recommendations.

We need to trust our instincts. Tell the engineers and computer studs to take a knee, and bring in our moms, 3rd grade teachers, the guy at the local mill, the UPS driver, the local banker, etc.

Quite literally, this is not rocket science. This is common sense.

[marct]

Engineers and Metrics gurus are desperate to reduce such subjective inputs to x's and o's; 1's and 0's; etc to produce a "Precise" answer that enables their comfort zone of thinking. We confuse precision and detail for accuracy and validity. Would you trust your lawsuit or crimial trial to any of these hokey, multi-million dollar "easy button" systems?? Not I. Yet we trust the security of our nation to them.

To say nothing about national intel services . I've been teaching a course in applied epistemology for the past 5 years, and one of the hardest things I have to deal with is the interface between qualitative and quantitative across the disciplines. Standards of evidence, validity of logic systems, situational application of analytic techniques, etc., ad nauseum.

Sigh

There's a great paper I usually assign students to read by Carlo Ginzburg from History Workshop - Morelli, Freud and Sherlock Holmes: Clues and Scientific Method. I've noticed that students from a highly quantitative background usually end up going crazy trying to read it . I'd recommend it for anyone trying to think outside the box....

[Surferbeetle]

...free your mind and your ass will follow...still laughing over that one today.

Anyway, as I sit here enjoying the goodness of air-conditioning (ME), in a lighted (EE), office (CE) I wonder if verbal or quantitative models can ever precisely and accurately, or even consistently, describe/predict/represent portions of the world as I strive to be both precise and accurate while target practicing...tight shot group in the bullseye and it's time to reward myself with a beer (damn hillbilly) or when I build a spreadsheet model to represent forces or costs (geek)...

When people tell me they have a simple problem and it's not rocket science damn it, I just try to be patient and listen. Usually I try and find the guys on the ground who have to deal with the situation everyday and see what I can add, if anything. Sometimes my job is just to listen to them because the involved parties already know what needs to be done. Othertimes if it really was simple it would already be fixed, and there is a reason why I am getting the call to come and see if I can do anything to help.

One of the nice things about engineering is that the discipline for the most part uses terms & concepts that we all agree upon and that we are able to bring unity of command to a problem across cultural & geographical distance as well as over time (centuries in some cases)...no small feat as we all know from bitter experience. Fortunately after we get done with the we are sooo cool geek celebration many of us admit that we are not as strong/cool as our calculator, computer, or geek uniform and that indeed we are just people with clay feet who need to get help from many different people and places to try and fix/build something useful...

Hey Marc,

Is this that paper? Your link got me started but I don't have a password to read the whole thing....it looks interesting

[marct]

Hi Steve,

Hey Marc,

Is this that paper? Your link got me started but I don't have a password to read the whole thing....it looks interesting

Yupper, that's it. You know, maybe I should have reworded my rant about quant stuff - it doesn't apply to most of the material world, but it certainly does apply to the pesky humans that live in it !

[slapout9]

A single 12-person jury of average citizens would probaby tell any commander that the brief he just got from his metrics guys and probalby his intel guys as well, left them riddled with reasonable doubt, and that they could not approve their recommendations.

We need to trust our instincts. Tell the engineers and computer studs to take a knee, and bring in our moms, 3rd grade teachers, the guy at the local mill, the UPS driver, the local banker, etc.

Quite literally, this is not rocket science. This is common sense.

There is some Strategic Stuff there. If Strategic plans were written by UPS drivers, 3rd grade Teachers and the guy at the local Mill (what few are left) we would WIN every time. Like I have said before in SBW (Slapout Based Warfare) the greatest metric is this...the side that has the most Ph'D's advising them will LOSE! Exception to this appears to be Ph'D's from Canada....you know like Marct,John Kenneth Galbraith,etc....


Forgot Moms always bring in the Moms.....the female of the species is the most dangerous of all when threatened and they know the difference between fake threats and real threats.

[marct]

Hi Slap,

There is some Strategic Stuff there. If Strategic plans were written by UPS drivers, 3rd grade Teachers and the guy at the local Mill (what few are left) we would WIN every time. Like I have said before in SBW (Slapout Based Warfare) the greatest metric is this...the side that has the most Ph'D's advising them will LOOSE! Exception to this appears to be Ph'D's from Canada....you know like Marct,John Kenneth Galbraith,etc....

Thanks for the exception ! Then again, look at how many PhD's are supporting the Taliban and AQ - gives me hope for the future !

[slapout9]

Hi Slap,



Thanks for the exception ! Then again, look at how many PhD's are supporting the Taliban and AQ - gives me hope for the future !

Don't fall for it marc...it's enemy propaganda They do have a very sophisticated intellectual movement, don't they.

[Dayuhan]

Well I only see Insurgencies as using "military means." Anything peaceful is politics in it's broadest sense. This is why I view military power as instrumental. It's the difference between a GP (the Government) and a Surgeon ( the Military). If you don't have resort to military power to combat military means, it simply fails to make my radar as a military problem.

This is Small Wars, is it not?

I think the weakness of this argument lies not in the assumption that military force is necessary to resolve an insurgency, but in what seems to be a conviction that military force alone is sufficient to resolve an insurgency.

I'd say BW is correct in his assessment that poor governance is a key factor in the development of insurgencies. I think it's also true that at the core of many, perhaps most, insurgencies there is a relatively small group of committed ideologues that may be motivated by factors well outside the problem of poor governance. Poor governance provides the lever by which the ideological core builds support and recruits new ideologues among the populace.

Military force will almost always be necessary to deal with the core ideologues. At the same time, reforms in governance are essential to isolate that core from their base of support and recruitment in the community.

We often hear talk of protecting the populace from the insurgents. That narrative is based on our assumption that the populace sees the insurgents as a threat. If the populace actually sees the government as a greater threat than the insurgents, there is a great deal of work to be done, and it might be time to ask ourselves whether that government deserves our support at all. As a nation founded on a successful insurgency, Americans should be willing to accept the possibility that in some cases the insurgents may have some valid arguments.

If I had to distill an opinion into one sentence, I'd say that successful counter-insurgency would most often depend on a balance between military force carefully targeting the ideological core of the insurgency and governmental reform aimed at isolating that ideological core from its base of community support - and that the most effective balance in any case is likely to be unique to that case. In other words, we need some Wilfs and some BWs on the team at the same time.

[Dayuhan]

I see this as a universal construct to every insurgency that I have studied. I don't believe that the nature of warfare has changed recently, nor do I believe the nature of insurgency has changed recently either. I do, however, believe that many populaces, primarily in the Middle East, were held static with governments that were more the choosing of others than themselves, and that the end of the Cold War set these populaces into motion to seek change (much as the end of WWII set populaces in South and Southeast Asian into motion) and that the new information tools not only render many time-proven tactics fairly ineffective, they also make the insurgent movement itself much harder to simply extinguish through force of arms as they are less likely to lose hope for success. These same info tools allow AQ, which is essentially a club, to act like a state to conduct UW to incite and fuel these many discrete insurgencies to support common causes in addition to their primary nationalist base causes.

I'm curious... where in the Middle East do you see this scenario? I ask because it often seems to me that the post-colonial history of the Middle East has seen this phenomenon less than many other areas, particularly Latin America and Asia.

I'd place the insurrection against the Shah of Iran in this category, certainly. Maybe with a severe stretch the Israel/Palestine mess would fit. Possibly the Muslim Brotherhood and related groups in Egypt, though this seems less a case of a populace seeking to remove a Government imposed by others than of a minority attempting to impose a government that suits a particular and extreme religious perspective. Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States are usually cited as examples of Governments dominated by the West (though that perspective is very much arguable), but none of them host anything approaching a significant insurgency.

There's certainly no shortage of violence in the Middle East, but I can't see much of it fitting the paradigm of popular resistance to governments chosen by others.

I should note in addition that I do not consider Al Qaeda to be an insurgency, and that I disapprove of the notion that Islamic extremism is a "global insurgency", which seems to me to stretch the definition of insurgency well beyond the breaking point.

[Bob's World]

I'm curious... where in the Middle East do you see this scenario? I ask because it often seems to me that the post-colonial history of the Middle East has seen this phenomenon less than many other areas, particularly Latin America and Asia.

I'd place the insurrection against the Shah of Iran in this category, certainly. Maybe with a severe stretch the Israel/Palestine mess would fit. Possibly the Muslim Brotherhood and related groups in Egypt, though this seems less a case of a populace seeking to remove a Government imposed by others than of a minority attempting to impose a government that suits a particular and extreme religious perspective. Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States are usually cited as examples of Governments dominated by the West (though that perspective is very much arguable), but none of them host anything approaching a significant insurgency.

There's certainly no shortage of violence in the Middle East, but I can't see much of it fitting the paradigm of popular resistance to governments chosen by others.

I should note in addition that I do not consider Al Qaeda to be an insurgency, and that I disapprove of the notion that Islamic extremism is a "global insurgency", which seems to me to stretch the definition of insurgency well beyond the breaking point.

A great place to start exploring this line of thought is to review the history of US Cold War engagement in the Middle East. Look to where, and how we manipulated, propped up, supported, etc governments throughout the region as part of a campaign of control with the purpose of containing the southern flank of the Soviets and preserving access to oil (colored with the whole Israel issue to keep it interesting).

Then look at any unclass assessment of where AQ foreign fighters to Iraq come from. It is well worth noting that we are not being attacked by the populaces of our "enemies," but rather by the populaces of our "friends" (and quotes on both of those terms are quite appropriate.

The irony is that those we consider "enemies" are the states that had the hutzpah to break out from our influence during the cold war. For example, the populace of Iran certainly has poor governance; but the also do not blame the US for it, so they do not target us. Saudi Arabia, on the otherhand provides 40% of foreign fighters to Iraq, and 3/4 of the 9/11 attackers. Mull that over, and look at the history of the US-Saudi relationship; as well as the Saudi-Saudi poplace relationship.

Catalytic events that disrupt governmental controls serve to set populaces in motion. Consider the end of WWI; the end of WWII (all of the insurgencies of the 50s and 60s); and then the post-cold war era. The U.S. exerted tremendous influence over the Middle East throughout the Cold War, but at the end of that effort the rationale disapeared, and the populaces began immediately to grow weary. Globalization has served as an accelerant to not only empower nationalist movements, but also to enable AQ to operate as a non-state to conduct UW across the region.

This is why I think the key to success is to identify and "target" the perceptions of populaces that the U.S. either does, or has exerted inappropriate influence (legitimacy) over their governemnt. Bin Laden targets these perceptions and uses it to fuel his movement with the simple message of "You cannot be successful in your nationalist movement at home until we first break the support of the US to that corrupt regime."

We don't need to cut and run, we simply need to address these issues and change the context of our presence, and the focus of our efforts. Elevate the populaces as most important, not the puppets we have propped up. We can supplant AQ as the facilitator of governmental change. We can offer evolution where he only offers revolution. Most perfer the former.

[Bill Moore]

BW, that was one of the more interesting and thought provoking posts I have read in a long time. In general I concur strongly, but in the real world how do we effectively address this and remain on friendly terms with the State?

Elevate the populaces as most important, not the puppets we have propped up. We can supplant AQ as the facilitator of governmental change.

We have to remain on friendly terms, because if we attempt to force them to adapt our values, we'll effectively push them into another camp (China, Iran, Russia, etc.). Deterence cuts both ways.

Great post. I'm going to be thinking about his one for a while. Bill

[slapout9]

Then look at any unclass assessment of where AQ foreign fighters to Iraq come from. It is well worth noting that we are not being attacked by the populaces of our "enemies," but rather by the populaces of our "friends" (and quotes on both of those terms are quite appropriate.

The irony is that those we consider "enemies" are the states that had the hutzpah to break out from our influence during the cold war. For example, the populace of Iran certainly has poor governance; but the also do not blame the US for it, so they do not target us. Saudi Arabia, on the otherhand provides 40% of foreign fighters to Iraq, and 3/4 of the 9/11 attackers. Mull that over, and look at the history of the US-Saudi relationship; as well as the Saudi-Saudi poplace relationship.

Some real,real good thinking here. In LE we call this a clue.

[Ken White]

Yeah, it's a clue -- and it's accurate. It's the result of many things, most not attributable to US errors, though some certainly are. Sure is a clue. Big, glaring obvious one.

The issue is what to do about it.

What's the SBW solution?

What's the Bob's World's solution?

Realistic solutions preferred.

[marct]

BW, great post and some really clear thinking behind it.

Since Ken didn't say that I have to provide a "realistic solution" (only Slap and Bob ), I'm going to provide a totally unrealistic sheaf of solutions.

Sol.1: Go isolationist

Sol.2: Create a Co-Dominium (a la Jerry Pournelle) with the rest of the permanent Security Council.

Sol.3: Require your politicians to prove that they have the intellectual, moral and spiritual strength to lead the US.

Now let's try a (slightly) more serious solution.

It starts by recognizing that the very concept of the post-Westphalian nation state is, at present, untenable in most of the world (i.e. sovereignty, which is its foundation, doesn't exist in large numbers of so-called nations). This has, to a very limited degree, already been recognized by the UN when they allowed the PLO to seat a delegate before the Palestinian Territories were created.

Encourage certain basic human motivations, but in ways that are "positive" to US National interests. For example, the Right of Departure, aka "voting with your feet", has been de facto eliminated by the US over the "Safe Third Country immigration agreements. This is, IMO, a major mistake since it takes the people who self-select to live in the political systems we encourage and make them targets. To use a crude analogy, it's like posting NCO's behind a front line and telling them to kill anyone who tries to run - maybe good practical psychology in a pitched battle, but it is terrible in at the grand strategic level.

Encourage the physical deconstruction of post-colonial "states" that are farces and are constantly engaged in civil wars as an alternative to keeping useless clunkers together (as an historical analogy, Austria became a lot more peaceful after it ceased being the Austro-Hungarian Empire for a very good reason). Apply the principle of imperial deconstruction to the ex-colonial "states".

Think of this "solution" as pop centric COIN on the global level. If a number of people actually want to live in a psychotic, fundamentalist theocracy, let them. But, and this is the crucial point, let them but in a reduced territory and enforce the Right of Departure.

Still doesn't meet Ken's criterion of "reasonable", but it has, IMHO, a better chance than most that are currently running around.

[Rex Brynen]

In the interests to teasing out the ideas that Bob and others have put forward, allow me to be a little contrarian.

Is there really a correlation between attitudes to the US, or US support for regimes, and the number of angry jihadists? If so, how does one explain the large number of Libyans who joined AQI (according the the Sinjar documents, Libya was the highest per capita contributor of foreign fighters, although I recognize that this is in part because Saudis in particular didn't need to use the Syrian route).

Conversely, why so few Egyptians? Jordanians? Moroccans? Most polls show antipathy to the US is considerably higher in these countries than in KSA. Doesn't the large number of militant Saudi Salafi jihaditsts have a lot to do that the Saudi state was established by militant Salafi jihadists? (Indeed, Saudi Arabia, which wasn't colonized by the West, is one of the very few genuinely indigenous regimes in the region.)

Unfortunately we don't have internal polling on regime legitimacy. I suspect, however, that KSA doesn't fare worse than most Arab regimes. Indeed, are the "unfriendly" regimes in the ME considered any more legitimate by their populations than the friendly ones?

What are the strategic implications of switching from a policy of supporting friendly dictators to one of supporting populations in free choice of their government? In Egypt, for example, it might well be a Muslim Brotherhood government that would be much less amenable to US foreign policy interests.

Does the US really have effective levers to promote evolutionary change in authoritarian ME regimes? I wouldn't underestimating the skills these regimes have developed for staying in power--most have been in place for four decades or more now, and indeed the region holds the world record for stable autocracy.

[Dayuhan]

Then look at any unclass assessment of where AQ foreign fighters to Iraq come from. It is well worth noting that we are not being attacked by the populaces of our "enemies," but rather by the populaces of our "friends" (and quotes on both of those terms are quite appropriate....

The irony is that those we consider "enemies" are the states that had the hutzpah to break out from our influence during the cold war. For example, the populace of Iran certainly has poor governance; but the also do not blame the US for it, so they do not target us. Saudi Arabia, on the otherhand provides 40% of foreign fighters to Iraq, and 3/4 of the 9/11 attackers. Mull that over, and look at the history of the US-Saudi relationship; as well as the Saudi-Saudi poplace relationship.

Catalytic events that disrupt governmental controls serve to set populaces in motion. Consider the end of WWI; the end of WWII (all of the insurgencies of the 50s and 60s); and then the post-cold war era. The U.S. exerted tremendous influence over the Middle East throughout the Cold War, but at the end of that effort the rationale disapeared, and the populaces began immediately to grow weary. Globalization has served as an accelerant to not only empower nationalist movements, but also to enable AQ to operate as a non-state to conduct UW across the region.

This is why I think the key to success is to identify and "target" the perceptions of populaces that the U.S. either does, or has exerted inappropriate influence (legitimacy) over their governemnt. Bin Laden targets these perceptions and uses it to fuel his movement with the simple message of "You cannot be successful in your nationalist movement at home until we first break the support of the US to that corrupt regime."

We don't need to cut and run, we simply need to address these issues and change the context of our presence, and the focus of our efforts. Elevate the populaces as most important, not the puppets we have propped up. We can supplant AQ as the facilitator of governmental change. We can offer evolution where he only offers revolution. Most perfer the former.

This drives a number of questions. First, we're shifting the goalposts a bit. We were discussing the factors that drive insurgency, now we're talking about the factors that drive the export of foreign fighters... two very different things.

Yes, Saudis represent roughly 40% of the foreign fighters in Iraq, and that sounds a lot. But 40% of what number? In sum we are talking about a few hundred individuals, and it is difficult to see that as a reaction of a populace to misgovernment. I'm not sure that it's accurate to say "we are not being attacked by the populaces of our "enemies," but rather by the populaces of our "friends"", because we are not being attacked by a populace, we are being attacked by a small cadre of committed radicals. If the populace is truly disaffected, why do we not see anything resembling an insurgency in Saudi Arabia? Surely AQ would promote such an insurgency in Saudi Arabia if it could. If it hasn't, that means it can't.

When you say that "The irony is that those we consider "enemies" are the states that had the hutzpah to break out from our influence during the cold war.", it is worth noting that the second largest contingent of foreign fighters in Iraq is from Libya, which is a prominent member of the group that "had the hutzpah to break out from our influence". The pattern is not entirely consistent.

Re this comment: "We can supplant AQ as the facilitator of governmental change.". I have to ask, is AQ really seen as a facilitator of governmental change by more than a small minority of the Saudi populace? I'm not sure that it is. I see no evidence that any significant portion of the Saudi populace - including those that support AQ efforts abroad - wants to be ruled by AQ or wants to see AQ gain significant influence in the Saudi government. Again, if this was the case we would be seeing something resembling insurrection in Saudi Arabia... and we're not.

I don't see any particular evidence that the changes in Saudi government sought by AQ have any particular appeal to the populace at large. Neither do I think that anything we would consider "reform" would undercut AQ - more likely it would get them even more upset.

Does AQ represent a Saudi insurgency - a populace disaffected by bad government - or a small cadre of committed ideologues pursuing an extremist agenda with limited popular appeal? I'd have to suggest the latter.

A few other points relevant to the discussion:

We need to recall that the precedent for Saudi financial and personal support for jihad against a foreign military presence in Muslim nations was established with the full consent and encouragement of the US and the Saudi government. It's easier to create a precedent like that than it is to un-create it.

The mess that was Saudi Arabia in the 90s was exacerbated by bad government, but it was largely driven by external factors. The oil glut and price crash of that period had a devastating impact on the Saudi economy. The first Iraq war and the uncertain resolution of that war left a prolonged American military presence that was easily exploited by radicals claiming that the Americans were keeping oil prices low, keeping the Saudis marginalized, etc. The Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan left a large cadre of unemployed jihadis and a group of jihad leaders that were ill equipped to return to civilian life. That's a mix that even effective government would be hard pressed to manage.

I see a distinct reluctance among Americans to acknowledge what the Saudi Government has done with its recent oil windfall. The proceeds of the first great oil surge were invested almost entirely abroad; not so the second time around. The Saudis have put hundreds of billions into housing, hospitals, infrastructure, factories, job generation. Civil Service salaries have surged. The money is being spent locally, it is extremely visible, and there has been a real impact on popular sentiment. The hard core religious ideologues will not change their view, but the populace at large is a whole lot less disaffected than it was in the late 90s.

What do we want the Saudi government to do? They can't go back in time and rectify the errors of the past, any more than we can. If we want them to adopt western-style democracy we're bound to be disappointed; they won't do it and there is little popular demand for it. If we want them to invest more in meeting the needs of their people, they are already doing that.

Elevate the populaces as most important, not the puppets we have propped up. We can supplant AQ as the facilitator of governmental change. We can offer evolution where he only offers revolution.

We do not prop up the government of Saudi Arabia, and they are not our puppet. They don't need us to prop them up. Maybe they did at some point in the past, but that point is long gone: at this point we are more likely to be requesting their support (particularly in managing the oil price/supply balance and maintaining their investments in US debt and equity markets) than they are to be requesting ours. They certainly don't need our financial support, more the other way around. If they are threatened with external aggression we will support them whatever their shortcomings, because there is a compelling strategic need to do so: their enemies are also ours, and we cannot afford to see that much oil in the hands of enemies. What exactly are we asking the Saudi government to do?

Where exactly do you propose to elevate the populace, rather than the government, and how do you propose to do that?

[Bob's World]

BW, that was one of the more interesting and thought provoking posts I have read in a long time. In general I concur strongly, but in the real world how do we effectively address this and remain on friendly terms with the State?



We have to remain on friendly terms, because if we attempt to force them to adapt our values, we'll effectively push them into another camp (China, Iran, Russia, etc.). Deterrence cuts both ways.

Great post. I'm going to be thinking about his one for a while. Bill

I totally agree we can't just cut and run, and that such engagement is tricky, but then we already meddle so much, it really won't be more meddling; but really more to changing to meddling that is more relevant to our times and more likely to be appreciated by the people at home and abroad.

As to values, my analysis of that came to this conclusion: That a value is a principle with a judgement applied to it. We make the mistake of taking our values on the road instead of our principles, and no one likes to be judged. So we can go out and say we stand for self-determination of governance; and also for the premise that all men are created equal; but not then demand that the apply the judgment value to what those principles mean in the U.S. today as the gold standard. Every populace is different, and that's ok. The same factors of globalization that accelerate change will accelerate the development of values around the world as well. We can't force everyone to be like us and should not try. On the other hand, no government can stop the tide of "values exchange and comparison" going on among the people around the world. We should just stand for them having the conditions to allow self-determination of values as well. To avoid being hypocrites, we need to hold to our own values though. So "Hold values; stand on principle; but withhold judgement.'

If I was a foreign country leader I would bone up on the US Declaration of Ind and Constitution, and then every time the US sent an envoy to see me I would counter his every proposal with something along the lines of "yes, that seems to work very well for your country, but tell me, how does this square with the words of Thomas Jefferson, and your own country's history on this topic?" Better yet, the guys in DC should bone up on the same documents.

As to this role as mediator; look to the Deterrence chart I developed, with the range of encourage and prevent engagement categories. Carrots and Sticks (but then balanced across the related actors, not blindly focused on the one you are currently talking to). We have the leverage to invade countries, but we should not. We have the leverage to bring governments and representatives of their populace to the table to address such issues, but we do not. Easier to just drop a bomb. The King of Saudi Arabia has threatened to shut off the oil. I'd pull a big silver old school stop watch out of my pocket and just click start and set it on the table. When he asked what I was doing I would simply tell him that I was timing how long he could do that, particularly after I announced to the world (and his populace) what he was doing and why. We have some irrational fears that hamper us from doing the right thing; yet boldly go out and do things far scarier without blinking. Americans are tough to figure, and I am one.

[Bob's World]

This drives a number of questions. First, we're shifting the goalposts a bit. We were discussing the factors that drive insurgency, now we're talking about the factors that drive the export of foreign fighters... two very different things.

Yes, Saudis represent roughly 40% of the foreign fighters in Iraq, and that sounds a lot. But 40% of what number? In sum we are talking about a few hundred individuals, and it is difficult to see that as a reaction of a populace to misgovernment. I'm not sure that it's accurate to say "we are not being attacked by the populaces of our "enemies," but rather by the populaces of our "friends"", because we are not being attacked by a populace, we are being attacked by a small cadre of committed radicals. If the populace is truly disaffected, why do we not see anything resembling an insurgency in Saudi Arabia? Surely AQ would promote such an insurgency in Saudi Arabia if it could. If it hasn't, that means it can't.

When you say that "The irony is that those we consider "enemies" are the states that had the hutzpah to break out from our influence during the cold war.", it is worth noting that the second largest contingent of foreign fighters in Iraq is from Libya, which is a prominent member of the group that "had the hutzpah to break out from our influence". The pattern is not entirely consistent.

Re this comment: "We can supplant AQ as the facilitator of governmental change.". I have to ask, is AQ really seen as a facilitator of governmental change by more than a small minority of the Saudi populace? I'm not sure that it is. I see no evidence that any significant portion of the Saudi populace - including those that support AQ efforts abroad - wants to be ruled by AQ or wants to see AQ gain significant influence in the Saudi government. Again, if this was the case we would be seeing something resembling insurrection in Saudi Arabia... and we're not.

I don't see any particular evidence that the changes in Saudi government sought by AQ have any particular appeal to the populace at large. Neither do I think that anything we would consider "reform" would undercut AQ - more likely it would get them even more upset.

Does AQ represent a Saudi insurgency - a populace disaffected by bad government - or a small cadre of committed ideologues pursuing an extremist agenda with limited popular appeal? I'd have to suggest the latter.

A few other points relevant to the discussion:

We need to recall that the precedent for Saudi financial and personal support for jihad against a foreign military presence in Muslim nations was established with the full consent and encouragement of the US and the Saudi government. It's easier to create a precedent like that than it is to un-create it.

The mess that was Saudi Arabia in the 90s was exacerbated by bad government, but it was largely driven by external factors. The oil glut and price crash of that period had a devastating impact on the Saudi economy. The first Iraq war and the uncertain resolution of that war left a prolonged American military presence that was easily exploited by radicals claiming that the Americans were keeping oil prices low, keeping the Saudis marginalized, etc. The Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan left a large cadre of unemployed jihadis and a group of jihad leaders that were ill equipped to return to civilian life. That's a mix that even effective government would be hard pressed to manage.

I see a distinct reluctance among Americans to acknowledge what the Saudi Government has done with its recent oil windfall. The proceeds of the first great oil surge were invested almost entirely abroad; not so the second time around. The Saudis have put hundreds of billions into housing, hospitals, infrastructure, factories, job generation. Civil Service salaries have surged. The money is being spent locally, it is extremely visible, and there has been a real impact on popular sentiment. The hard core religious ideologues will not change their view, but the populace at large is a whole lot less disaffected than it was in the late 90s.

What do we want the Saudi government to do? They can't go back in time and rectify the errors of the past, any more than we can. If we want them to adopt western-style democracy we're bound to be disappointed; they won't do it and there is little popular demand for it. If we want them to invest more in meeting the needs of their people, they are already doing that.



We do not prop up the government of Saudi Arabia, and they are not our puppet. They don't need us to prop them up. Maybe they did at some point in the past, but that point is long gone: at this point we are more likely to be requesting their support (particularly in managing the oil price/supply balance and maintaining their investments in US debt and equity markets) than they are to be requesting ours. They certainly don't need our financial support, more the other way around. If they are threatened with external aggression we will support them whatever their shortcomings, because there is a compelling strategic need to do so: their enemies are also ours, and we cannot afford to see that much oil in the hands of enemies. What exactly are we asking the Saudi government to do?

Where exactly do you propose to elevate the populace, rather than the government, and how do you propose to do that?

I describe a general condition. Like Colonialism gave rise to the insurgencies in the Far East - clearly each country and each populace is unique in its experience and approach. We are wise not to conflate these things, and the devil is in the details; but we are also foolish not to step back and try to understand the macro picture as well of the general dynamic at work.

As to foreign fighters, I use this as an indicator, not some hard metric. We need to use indicators more. An increase of foreign investment capital in Mindanao is a far better indicator of progress than how many MILF were rolled up by the PNP, or when the last bombing was, or how many medical events the US sponsored, right?

All of the states you list provide fighters. Interesting, an indicator. Each is unique. True. Many are small minorities. Equally true and also very important. We over state the problem. A dozen member of an insurgent group in Algeria that is getting ready to stand down change their name to AQ, and the intel guys go nuts and declare US Jihad on Algeria AQ. Perfect, just what Bin Laden would want us to do: conflate the threat, engage Algeria inappropriately and and force their hand to either attack their own populace more, or to allow us to run ops that violate their sovereignty. In other words, build the the Caliphate ourselves through our il-guided actions.

One word: Testosterone. Prisons are full of young men. So are "terrorist" camps. If 95% of the Sioux Indian tribe are on the reservation, but Crazy Horse and a handful of testosterone fueled young bucks wipe out a couple of mining camps in the Black Hills, a supply convoy and a cavalry patrol; we blame the entire tribe and declare war.

So, like I said: Attack the perceptions. Co-opt and dis-empower much of AQ's message by taking on the role of mediator of evolution of self-determined governance and less overt Western influence over Middle Eastern politics. By focusing out attention on the bad actors themselves; or on taking positions 180 from anything Bin Laden says, we set ourselves up for failure. Stop trying to Control everything, the Cold War is over, we don't have to. Problem is an entire generation of senior leaders grew up believing that is what right looks like. It used to be. It isn't now.

We need to seek new answers, now work harder to force old answers to still work.

Oh, and as to Saudi Arabia, that county has been in a constant state of Insurgent Causation, but every time a movement dares to emerge from the shadows it is crushed brutally. They have tried Shia based ideology movements, communism-based ideology movements, etc. Then comes Bin Laden, and he says: "You can't win at home until you win on the road." People listen. The leaders there have also been very savvy about letting their most dissident populace go and fight abroad. A safety valve. I doubt it is very hard to get out of Saudi Arabia to go to Pakistan or Syria to get into the pipeline, and I suspect that many that go to raise trouble, or carry funds, are known and tracked by the officials.

I wrote a short piece on this that no one would touch. I'll paste it here, as it talks to this in better detail.

[Bob's World]

This is interesting. Whether the numbers or big or small, one should ask "why" (outside the context of all of the "terrorist" "Islamist" rhetoric, but in the context of history, politics, human nature, and culture, that really matter)