New Guidance on Counter-Insurgency

[MikeF]

Welcome to the land of moonlight, and shadows..... or maybe you were already there!

I've definitely walked a bit in the dark mostly in circles.

My point is that the military should stick to its core competencies of security and warfighting. From this vantage point, we can act as arbitrators, referees, or peace-keepers. This is where I will probably diverge from Wilf's world. The pop-centric COIN crowd wants to force the military past security to nation-state building tasks. Unless we want an Empire and/or occupation, I would submit that this is an illusion of our own capabilities and a lack of understanding of our own limitations- not to mention the cost of both "lives and national treasure" to quote the late Sen. Kennedy.

So, this gets us back to the question I asked on Friday.

"What should we be doing?"

Bob's World is probably on to something over in the deterence thread. I'm curious to read his upcoming paper.

Most counterinsurgencies struggle because the counterinsurgent is unwilling to recognize and admit his own shortcomings, after all, he is in the right. Far easier to focus on the insurgent, who is by definition a criminal.

So the BW approach is rooted in what I believe to be the underlying principles of human dynamics, group dynamics, and governance that I see at work in these types of conflicts. This is very different than the dynamics that lead to conflicts between states.

The dynamics that drive insurgency are the same ones that drive neighborhood and family disputes. They are deeply personal and not about what "side" you are on; because at the end of the day you are on the same side, you just have an issue that is intolerable to some, and those same few don't feel they have a legitimate venue to resolve it.

This is why I say the US Gov't approach to our Civil Rights Movement in the 60s was our most successful COIN effort by far. It never really slid from subversion into full insurgency, but primarily because Dr. King chose peaceful tactics, and because President Johnson was willing to enact and enforce concessions to address the issues of poor governance that gave rise to the movement.

Another concept is to look at non-state actors to solve non-state problems. Again, I'm intrigued by the work Greg Mortesen has accomplished in Pakistan and Afghanistan in building schools.

v/r

Mike