Ill-Defined Problem Sets: A Discussion

[MikeF]

After re-reading and thinking through the practical application of the complex problems a commander must deal with on the ground, I chose four exercises for discussion. I have either dealt with directly or been involved with each type of problem set, and there is no immediate solution. Additionally, from what I've read in past literature, there is not much guidance towards these issues. The intent is for council members to explain how they would deal with each problem. If there is interest, I will explain my solutions down the road.

Examples:

1. Corrupt governance.
2. Interdicting in denied areas, shadow govt's, or enemy safehavens.
3. Coping with corrupt police or army counter-parts.
4. Reconciling greivances on the tribal level.

Further explained...

1. Corrupt governance...As introduced by MarcT

Let me take an example of this. Let's suppose that a critical "problem" in gaining support for an HN government centres around a local perception held by the populace that the governor of the area is "corrupt" (in quotes to indicate a level of corruption beyond the culturally accepted limit). Let us further suppose, for the sake of this example, that that condition is true. Gaining the support of the local populace for the HN "government" will be increasingly difficult as the depredations of the local governor go on unchecked. The local governor is, in effect, one of the greatest recruiting tools for the insurgents in the area. How are you going to define the problem in a manner that would allow a local (foreign) commander to "solve" it?

2. Interdicting in denied areas, shadow govt's, or enemy safehavens.

The majority of literature suggests that one should bypass or ignore these areas during the initial clearance phases. I used to agree; however, after my last tour working mostly in these types of areas, I found the secondary and tertiary effects to be overwhelming towards the greater goal of resurrecting governance and building support for the host nation. For example, if the enemy ventures on a coercion campaign of beheadings, they are likely to kill the key sheiks, religious leaders, and other spheres of influence. Furthermore, the educated middle class typically chooses to flee. What is left is a headless society. So what do you do? If you attack early on into an enemy's stronghold, then you will likely take high casualties. If you wait, then the society could be significantly traumatized and take years or generations to mend.

3. Coping with corrupt police or army counter-parts.

If you're counterparts are part of the problem (i.e. Shias seeking revenge towards Sunnis or vice-versa), then your actions are extremely limited and there may be a negative reaction for every action you take (one step foward and two steps back). What do you do?

4. Reconciling greivances on the tribal level.

So, you've successfully neutralized the local insurgency in your AO. Good work. Now, you're dealing with tribal issues dating back for centuries. The security you've facilitated is temporary and mostly based on the fact that you and your men are the baddest sheiks on the block. Now, what do you do?

I hope these are helpful, and I look foward to y'alls discussion

v/r

Mike

[jmm99]

Mike,

Great sequence of four questions, but which of the following four roles should we play:

1. Political officer of the incumbant goverenment, focused on the Political Struggle.

2. Military officer of the incumbant goverenment, focused on the Military Struggle.

3. Political officer of the assisting goverenment, focused on the Political Struggle.

4. Military officer of the assisting goverenment, focused on the Military Struggle.

How one deals with a problem could differ significantly based on Where am I ? and What am I ?

So, is this really a 16-sided exercise set ?

Regards

Mike

[marct]

So, is this really a 16-sided exercise set ?

Why limit it? What about the insurgent groups? What about civilian, sub-state groups such as a tribal lineage?

I'm not trying to be difficult here, well, more than I usually am , but one of the dangers of dealing with simulations lies in the rules of the game / problem-set that define who may and may not be actors.

[George L. Singleton]

Mike:

In Afghanistan and Pakistan,where in years past I lived and served, the practice of "backshees" [my phonetic spelling???] is that all, everyone, gets pay offs and kick backs for and from whatever they do vocationally.

This said, and it is true, how do you or we differentiate between everyday grassroots corruption and high level corruption, which corruption is true on all sides, the non-Taliban governance officials as well as the Taliban?

More critique, disagreement, whatever on this topic could be helpful to one and all as the advertised effort to clean up corruption to me seems highly unlikely to be achievable due to these folks hundreds of years of precedent of instutitionalized corruption, corruption as defined by a Westerner, job security and old age pension set asides as defined by locals over there from bottom to top.

After re-reading and thinking through the practical application of the complex problems a commander must deal with on the ground, I chose four exercises for discussion. I have either dealt with directly or been involved with each type of problem set, and there is no immediate solution. Additionally, from what I've read in past literature, there is not much guidance towards these issues. The intent is for council members to explain how they would deal with each problem. If there is interest, I will explain my solutions down the road.

Examples:

1. Corrupt governance.
2. Interdicting in denied areas, shadow govt's, or enemy safehavens.
3. Coping with corrupt police or army counter-parts.
4. Reconciling greivances on the tribal level.

Further explained...

1. Corrupt governance...As introduced by MarcT



2. Interdicting in denied areas, shadow govt's, or enemy safehavens.

The majority of literature suggests that one should bypass or ignore these areas during the initial clearance phases. I used to agree; however, after my last tour working mostly in these types of areas, I found the secondary and tertiary effects to be overwhelming towards the greater goal of resurrecting governance and building support for the host nation. For example, if the enemy ventures on a coercion campaign of beheadings, they are likely to kill the key sheiks, religious leaders, and other spheres of influence. Furthermore, the educated middle class typically chooses to flee. What is left is a headless society. So what do you do? If you attack early on into an enemy's stronghold, then you will likely take high casualties. If you wait, then the society could be significantly traumatized and take years or generations to mend.

3. Coping with corrupt police or army counter-parts.

If you're counterparts are part of the problem (i.e. Shias seeking revenge towards Sunnis or vice-versa), then your actions are extremely limited and there may be a negative reaction for every action you take (one step foward and two steps back). What do you do?

4. Reconciling greivances on the tribal level.

So, you've successfully neutralized the local insurgency in your AO. Good work. Now, you're dealing with tribal issues dating back for centuries. The security you've facilitated is temporary and mostly based on the fact that you and your men are the baddest sheiks on the block. Now, what do you do?

I hope these are helpful, and I look foward to y'alls discussion

v/r

Mike

[MikeF]

Mike:

In Afghanistan and Pakistan,where in years past I lived and served, the practice of "backshees" [my phonetic spelling???] is that all, everyone, gets pay offs and kick backs for and from whatever they do vocationally.

This said, and it is true, how do you or we differentiate between everyday grassroots corruption and high level corruption, which corruption is true on all sides, the non-Taliban governance officials as well as the Taliban?

More critique, disagreement, whatever on this topic could be helpful to one and all as the advertised effort to clean up corruption to me seems highly unlikely to be achievable due to these folks hundreds of years of precedent of instutitionalized corruption, corruption as defined by a Westerner, job security and old age pension set asides as defined by locals over there from bottom to top.

George,

It took four tours to the Middle East to absorb what you are saying and comprehend the true limits of my own abilities as a ground force commander. My initial questions were intentionally weighted to encourage response and debate amoung other members of the council. I'm pretty sure that I'm not the only one that has been in such a dilemma.

With that said, on the ground level, when one is supposed to "control" their environment while working within the constraints of indigenous culture, to include bribery, pay-offs, kick-backs, and simple corruption, I would suspect that a commander must determine an appropriate acceptable level.

When the local government surpasses the norm, actions must be taken. For example, in Diyala, Iraq (circa 2006-2007) Iraqi Army and local police units were being used by the elected government to cleanse the Sunni populace. Simultaneously, the Sunnis sided with al Qaeda as to check the government. Both sides were wrong- they were embattled in a civil war.

We were simply trying to maintain the peace.

I suppose that is what makes these examples interesting- Americans intervening in internal affairs trying to provide a least-bad solution.

I'm not sure if this applies to Afghanistan, but my intuition tells me that many of the issues in Afghan are Mullah Omar v/s Harmad Karzai.

With that, I'll wait for y'alls response.

v/r

Mike

[MikeF]

I've struggled during the past two years to accurately describe our small portion during the "Surge." I'm finally starting to tell the story....This is the beginning of my entrance into the realm of wicked, irregular, or undefined problems..... Telling this tale has been extremely difficult for me.

I hope others will continue to share their experiences and answer the first set of questions so that we can all learn a bit...

v/r

Mike

Boss, what do you want me to do now?

Late May 2007, Zaganiyah, Diyala River Valley, Iraq

We watched the video over and over again. Today should have been a day of relief. After sixty days of siege, fighting through twelve attacks a day, sorting through hundreds of deep-buried improved explosive devices (DBIEDs), houses rigged to blow (HBIEDs), and suicide bombers, our persistance paid off. Last night, we killed the primary bomb-maker in the Diyala River Valley.

Intuitively, we knew violence would go down. The enemy's ability to disrupt or block the roads would be severly hampered by this kill. Soon, I could reopen the only ground line of commucation (LOC) leading back to the outside world. We would no longer have to rely solely on air assets for mobility and resupply. I would continue to put the squeeze on Ali Latif al Zuharie, the regional al Qaeda leader of this end of the Diyala River Valley. Killing his sole bomb-maker is the equivilent of taking out his star quarterback.

The siege was working. Continued pressure on the remaining insurgents would result in their destruction, surrender, or eggressing into safer areas. My area of operations was quickly becoming a non-safe area for those that continued to rebel or revolt violently from the elected government. The Islamic State of Iraq would soon dissolve from this area. Reading off the COIN playbook, I would begin restoring local indigenious security, essential services, governance, resettling displaced families, and arbitrating tribal, clan, and family reconciliation.

Today should have been a good day, but my boss and I sat transfixed at the images playing out on the computer screen. Frame by frame, I pointed out terrain features verifying the location. LTC Poppas, my squadron commander, would take a copy back to show the Brigade and Division Commanders. They would offer assets, support, and guidance, but at the end of the day, I would be responsible for determine the appropriate course of action and execution.

I thought that I had seen it all, but for some reason, during this deployment, every time you solved one problem, two more popped up. The situation became messier, more confusing, and more wicked every time I pulled back a layer of the onion. During the Thunder Runs, I sped through the Republican Guards last stand brilliantly firing tank rounds and machine gun fire to dissolve any resistance. This time, we fought through the trenches in Turki Village throwing grenades back and forth to neutralize an al Qaeda training camp. We fought through villages abadoned from al Qaeda's ethnic cleansing. We dealt with regular war, irregular war, and everything in between. I thought that I had seen it all, but it all hit home when we watched this video.

Maybe I observed too many deaths. Maybe I lost too many of my own men. Maybe not.

During this time in Iraq, everyone became numb to death. I remember back in 2003 when we first saw the beheadings of Daniel Pearl. I felt sick, but now, the beheading videos seemed normal. This time was different.

After we killed the bomb-maker, during the sensitive site exploitation, we uncovered numerous videos of his accomplishments. First, we found the pornography. Pornography may seem a paradox to your purist beliefs of al Qaeda, but he was no Islamist. Honestly, in my four tours, I've only met three true Muslims. This man was a former Ba'athest explosive expert under Saddam currently working for the highest bidder. We watched hours of him and his wife on tape trying to emulate the sexual exploits of Pamela Anderson's epic ventures. So much for the purity of the Jihad. Next, we found the attacks overrunning the Zaganiyah security forces from 10 November 2006- ten days to the day when Alpha troop left Zag. Finally, we watch the video. This video was different.

It started with the capture of one of our local Iraqi Army brothers. He was a Shia from Kharnabhat, an adjacent town trapped in a zero-sum perpetual feud with the Sunnis from Zaganiyah. The soldier was beaten and drug into the town's square: the cemetary 100 meters from my current patrol base. The entire town of Zaganiyah crowded the area to watch the spectacle. Protected by a black mask covering his face, Ali Latif al Zuharie served as the prosecutor, judge, and jury.

"For crimes against humanity, for disobeying Allah and supporting the infidel backed government, this man is sentenced to death." demanded Ali Latif.

"Allah Achbar, Allah Achbar (God is Great, God is Great)," the crowd cheered.

Ali Latif presented his sword and beheaded the soldier, and the crowd succombed in ecstacy declaring how great god was as the soldier's head flopped to the ground.

I stopped the video. I could no longer take watching my neighbors engage in such tragedy. I knew these people. I spent time with them. I drank tea and smoked cigarettes with them. I cried and laughed with them. I thought I knew them. I no longer knew anything.

"Boss, what do you want me to do now" I asked my squadron commander.

"Mike, I don't know." he replied.

It was the first time that I ever found LTC Andrew Poppas indecisive.

[Ron Humphrey]

A,B,C,Z

Honestly the truth is you may find few aside from the august (said old guys) who feel even marginally up to the task of giving you the type of directions which you would go in the given areas. It's rather difficult to truly face the tasks we (the American people) have asked you guys to undertake although perhaps that's the point. If we're not ready to accept and give greater consideration to the facts as they may well be on the ground before you are sent in then there will likely be quite a few important questions which have to be answered on the ground at a much higher price than might have been otherwise.

So for now I like others will wait to absorb the wisdom of others in helping to direct you down the path and hopefully learn quite a bit in the process.

ps: in reference to your last post

Did you confront any of those you recognized from the video and when(if) they answered was there a notable shame or was it more like someone talking about a dream they had?

[MikeF]

Thanks for taking the time to read the thread Ron.

ps: in reference to your last post

Did you confront any of those you recognized from the video and when(if) they answered was there a notable shame or was it more like someone talking about a dream they had?

Eventually, I'll tell the whole story. My initial reaction was that everyone in that town was simply evil and needed to die. After I let the anger pass, I tried a tactic that would typically be frowned upon in a cultural awareness class on Iraq- I used shame.

I brought every leader from that town into our patrol base, and I forced them to watch the video. I hovered over them as they cried and swore "Wallah, Wallah (I swear, I swear)." After the video ended, I told them that I was disgusted to be around them, they were not true Muslims, and they would probably burn in hell.

Then, I told them that they had no right to be around me or my men, and I kicked them out...

I suppose that is probably a politically incorrect answer, but it worked. I was able to gain more wasta (power) over them in subsequent talks.

A,B,C,Z

Honestly the truth is you may find few aside from the august (said old guys) who feel even marginally up to the task of giving you the type of directions which you would go in the given areas. It's rather difficult to truly face the tasks we (the American people) have asked you guys to undertake although perhaps that's the point. If we're not ready to accept and give greater consideration to the facts as they may well be on the ground before you are sent in then there will likely be quite a few important questions which have to be answered on the ground at a much higher price than might have been otherwise.

So for now I like others will wait to absorb the wisdom of others in helping to direct you down the path and hopefully learn quite a bit in the process.

That is the point. It is important to remember that my company was only a small player during the "Surge" working as a supporting effort in denied areas. This thread is not supposed to be about our deeds; I was simply able to start telling the story. Some commanders have told their story (Neil Smith pops to the top of my head), and I'm hoping that others will share their experiences so that we can all learn.

I'm sure that my brothers in Afghanistan are currently facing similar situations or worse, and the least I can do from my armchair is discuss how I worked through my issues.

SWJ is one forum where we can discuss relevant issues in a non-partisan manner. The only issue surfaces when some try to replace theory with practice. Every think tank wannabe has an opinion until you talk facts. I hope to avoid that.

v/r

Mike

[marct]

Really good problem-sets, Mike.

So, you've successfully neutralized the local insurgency in your AO. Good work. Now, you're dealing with tribal issues dating back for centuries. The security you've facilitated is temporary and mostly based on the fact that you and your men are the baddest sheiks on the block. Now, what do you do?

Okay, very rough stab at the simplest one.

First, assume that you cannot resolve / reconcile the grievances.

Second, assume that there is some cultural recognized and accepted form of reconciliation and resolution.

Third, ask what it is.

Or, in other words, and to modify a core US Army meme - "Ask, don't tell" !

Why is this simple?

(NB: I didn't say "easy" )

All cultures have some form of reconciliation mechanism which involves the use or threat of violence and some form of ritualized pattern of action / event to stop violence. Sometimes there are multiple ritualized event sequences fighting for cultural dominance.

Because these conflict / grievance resolution forms vary significantly from culture to culture (and often within cultures), you need to find one or two that match with the vast majority of the current players, whether or not they match with your perception of how to do it. This latter point is the key - you cannot impose a solution on "them", they have to evolve one that meets your minimal requirements. This can lead to some pretty strange mechanisms (e.g. cricket games were used in the Trobriands as a substitute for raid / counter-raid, i.e. clan feud, events).

Now comes the truly hard part: once you have worked with them to establish a local solution, you have to sell it on three fronts:

1. MNF forces have to be convinced that it will "work";
2. Local groups have to agree to enforce it; and
3. The HN government has to at least officially tolerate it.

Cheers,

Marc

[MikeF]

Thanks for the initial responses. I'll provide a bit more of my train of thought on this thread. I've spent some time this summer travelling and talking to junior leaders with little or no combat experience. I was struck by the gap between what I've seen in combat and their perceptions of combat from training.

I enjoyed reading The Defense of Jisr al-Doreaa: With E. D. Swinton's "The Defence of Duffer's Drift" (Paperback). IMO, it can serve as a good primer for a leader preparing for deployment, however, it is simply a book about the different ways to do a raid. It does not cover the more difficult, "wicked" problems that many face on the ground.

So, I thought I'd try this out and see if it is helpful. If so, then I may consolidate it into an essay for SWJ. I would like council members to respond from their vantage point- this is not a simulation . If you're an academic (cough, cough Marc ) tell us what you would recommend to a ground commander as a SME advisor. If you are military, tell us how you handled these scenarios in the past.

Obviously, there are no right answers. The initial post from Marc and George Singleton reflect that. In the end, a commander will use his intuition and METT-TC, but I'm hoping that some of the answers here may help a young commander on the ground sorting through the business.

During my time at NPS, one of the best exercises I joined in had a small group of military and academic professionals. The military included SF, Seals, Navy EOD, and Regular Army with combat experience in Iraq, Afghan, Phillipines, Colombia, and Central America. The Academics ranged from various fields in social sciences plus a couple computer and Operations Research dudes. Sometimes our individual experiences blinded us towards finding an appropriate solution, and sometimes our unique experiences allowed us to provide the best solution, but overall, the discussions led to better insight for everyone involved.

So with that, I'll be quiet and let y'all speak.

v/r

Mike

[jmm99]

Being a descendant of simple thinking CFM types, I thought 16 sides were enough - that using up the fingers and most of the toes.

I admit to thinking about Vietnam, where a mirror image could have been built up - if one accepts that NLF was autonomous from GNV (not I), you would have had NLF (as host) and GNV (as assisting) - not an insurgency in their eyes, but unconventional warfare (NLF as guerrilla force in occupied area) in a Resistence War (their term).

And, there, you could throw in the paramilitary Saigon gangsters; and the two paramilitary religious groups; and the Buddists and Generals for a bit of extra political flavor. So, yeh, reality is very complicated, but let's do the basic drills first.

So, now I have to pick a role (note there are no lawyers in my four roles) - and see if I have anything intelligent to say.

Remember the Windmill, where we kept it simple; as opposed to the Plaines where we made it complicated for ourselves.