Do Soldiers Fight for a Cause?

[Kiwigrunt]

Somewhere there is also the unwritten law of common sense, I think we were all familiar with it at one time. If you know where we misplaced it please let me know.

Here are the remains.....

[M-A Lagrange]

They can't get clear answers in a timely manner on their left and right limits to determine what is and isn't permissiable by law (who's law, what law, but wait, we have another law that allows this...).

There are in deed few grey areas in law of war. You have the 1907 La Haye law of war + disarmament treaties + Geneva Convention and additional protocols. That is all! And it is enough. US laws are not recognised internationally, it is a fact. After you can play on the weapons you use like Israel but I would not advise to risk too much on that side.

Then comes the judgements of international court for Yougoslavia, Rwanda and the Court of Rome… Their articles, especially the Status of Rome gives the definition of their jurisdiction and mandate. (Definition of a war crime, genocide, crime against humanity...). And previous judging will tell you where lies the responsibility of the soldier and the commander during operation. One of them even states and gives the juridical definition of what is a conflict.

The basic is the definition of a combatant is: an organised group of armed persons with a chain of command. No need of uniform, no need of doctrine, political statement or what ever. The simple thing is that does apply to all is war zone. You are conducting military operations: then you are in a war zone. You are conducting a civilian counter terrorist operation: then you are in a civilian zone. It is quick and short but if you have this in mind, then it helps a lot to avoid doing stupid stuff.

The problem comes to unarmed active supporters. They do not fall under the definition of combatant. They fall under Geneva Conventions as civilians to be treated with respect but, as stated in the Geneva Convention: civilian judiciary still applies.
Someone that is conducting active intelligence or logistical support to insurgents or terrorist groups or bandits is accountable in front of a civil trial.
Also, the active participation of civilian and mercenaries are included into Geneva conventions.
As I said previously, killing the person is not forbidden as you may extend the definition of active participation to military operation but could be counter productive. But putting such people on trial offers them a tribune, you will react. Yes and that is the point because it also gives you a tribune to show that you do respect rule of law (what you are fighting for, your cause).
Common sense as a lot to do here. You kill a woman with 10 kids because one of them (including the woman) is giving details on your movements… Then the symbol is worst than the benefits. You arrest the one that is involved (including the woman) then the benefits and the symbol are on your side.

But I would agree with Slapout 9: targeting the physical properties is easier and much easier to handle legally.
But here again, you destroy the computers of a cybercafé... fine. You kill all the heads of cattle of a family/village... Not fine. You cannot destroy what is the basic source of survival of people. Also, this will be interpreted as collective punishment which is banned by GC + Law of War.
Israel applied that policy (more or less...) concerning palestinian state capacity to function. They did destroy physically all walls, computers, chairs, tables...
Common sense again… Make sure the symbol stay on your side. Closing a shop with legal documentation and having immediate presentation to a judge with hard evidence will have a deeper positive impact than destroying the place.
I would say that for civilian, the statement 10-2=20 does also apply. As simple as that.
And do not forget that where ever you are, the domestic laws of the host country are the one which will apply first after Geneva Convention and La Haye law of war.

[War Hammer]

I think the main difference here is that the insurgent movement trains its fighter to be ideologically motivated and in the political goal for which he is fighting. And the ideological training takes up a substantial portion of the training. How much political or ideological training do Western or COIN soldiers get?

I think the Taliban has survived this long because of their ideological training and belief in the cause for that they are fighting. I like this quote from Professional Soldiers forum

"Somewhere a True Believer is training to kill you. He is training with minimal food or water, in austere conditions, training day and night. The only thing clean on him is his weapon and he made his web gear. He doesn't worry about what workout to do - his ruck weighs what it weighs, his runs end when the enemy stops chasing him. This True Believer is not concerned about 'how hard it is;' he knows either he wins or dies. He doesn't go home at 17:00, he is home.
He knows only The Cause.

Still want to quit?"

NousDefionsDoc
www.professionalsoldiers.com

[jmm99]

An excellent quote from a QP. And, an equally good question by you:

How much political or ideological training do Western or COIN soldiers get?

as to which, I also would like to see an answer and some discourse.

My follow up question would be: Positing the premise that the political effort is an important effort in the total "COIN" picture[*], who is to execute that effort ?

And, a followup to the followup: In concrete terms, of what should that political effort consist ?

--------------------------
[*] Some have said 80% political, 20% military. My personal view (somewhat legally, but not legalistically, oriented) is that we must deal with a spectrum, as here illustrated:

Politics-Military Struggles.jpg

Here is a fill in the blamks matrix, which may be useful:

Levels of War Matrix.jpg

Cheers

Mike

[Bill Moore]

In the case of the U.S. assisting another nation, you would have to develop a matrix for each player, the HN, coalition members, U.S. forces, and the various insurgent groups for a decision maker.

I want to play with your matrix using a couple of different countries (I'll get back with you), because I think it can be useful to identify relevant strengths and weaknesses that need to be addressed.

I think I could make an argument that the U.S. is weakest at the operational, and especially the strategic level, when it comes to the moral (cultural) and mental (political) aspects of the current conflicts we're in. The policy folks that carelessly push democracy, liberal human rights agendas, free markets, and other behavioral changes upon societies that consider these ideas offensive, apparently don't consider he consequences of their actions to determine if they're effective or not, but those of us who have to push these agendas know full well how they create an additional degree of destabilization.

Perhaps surprisingly at the militarily I think we think we have a better appreciation at the strategic level, since at the tactical level we're generally victorious, but we don't understand that has those victories have little to do with achieving our objectives in this conflict (at least with the strategy we have been using). It is hard to grasp that strategically you're in a rough spot, when you just finished conducting your fourth successful raid in one week.

I look at our enemy in one country (neither Iraq or Afghanistan) and I can see they have no capability at the strategic level and very little at the operational level, and at the tactical level they have lost the moral and mental high ground, yet they hang in there? Something to do with family ties, something to do with corruption at every level, something to do with a poorly trained and equipped military force that can't or won't finish the fight, and other factors. The matrix is helpful, but it is only that.

[jmm99]

Exactly:

In the case of the U.S. assisting another nation, you would have to develop a matrix for each player, the HN, coalition members, U.S. forces, and the various insurgent groups for a decision maker.

I want to play with your matrix using a couple of different countries (I'll get back with you), because I think it can be useful to identify relevant strengths and weaknesses that need to be addressed.

That would be great. And, agreed on this:

The matrix is helpful, but it is only that.

Regards

Mike

[MikeF]

In the case of the U.S. assisting another nation, you would have to develop a matrix for each player, the HN, coalition members, U.S. forces, and the various insurgent groups for a decision maker.

Someone in the Phillipines (JSOTF or PACOM) already did that to figure out a general measure of when and how to interdict. X axis was skill of the military (low to high). Y axis was will of the military (low to high). Depending on where the country's assessment fell, a commander could determine the appropriate mission.

For example,

1. Great Britain- High, High. We conduct joint training exercises with them to enhance BOTH militaries.

2. Phillipines- Medium, Medium. We conduct FID.

3. Iraq- Low, Low. We conduct occupation OR we decide not to engage b/c of cost-benefit analysis.

Mike

[slapout9]

In the case of the U.S. assisting another nation, you would have to develop a matrix for each player, the HN, coalition members, U.S. forces, and the various insurgent groups for a decision maker.

I want to play with your matrix using a couple of different countries (I'll get back with you), because I think it can be useful to identify relevant strengths and weaknesses that need to be addressed.

I think I could make an argument that the U.S. is weakest at the operational, and especially the strategic level, when it comes to the moral (cultural) and mental (political) aspects of the current conflicts we're in. The policy folks that carelessly push democracy, liberal human rights agendas, free markets, and other behavioral changes upon societies that consider these ideas offensive, apparently don't consider he consequences of their actions to determine if they're effective or not, but those of us who have to push these agendas know full well how they create an additional degree of destabilization.

Perhaps surprisingly at the militarily I think we think we have a better appreciation at the strategic level, since at the tactical level we're generally victorious, but we don't understand that has those victories have little to do with achieving our objectives in this conflict (at least with the strategy we have been using). It is hard to grasp that strategically you're in a rough spot, when you just finished conducting your fourth successful raid in one week.

I look at our enemy in one country (neither Iraq or Afghanistan) and I can see they have no capability at the strategic level and very little at the operational level, and at the tactical level they have lost the moral and mental high ground, yet they hang in there? Something to do with family ties, something to do with corruption at every level, something to do with a poorly trained and equipped military force that can't or won't finish the fight, and other factors. The matrix is helpful, but it is only that.

Bill Lind uses that matrix in his lectures on 4GW. Talks about it a lot in some of his post on DNI.

[jmm99]

Could you supply links to items discussed if you have them somewhat readily on hand. RSVP.

Thanks

Mike

[MikeF]

Could you supply links to items discussed if you have them somewhat readily on hand. RSVP.

I'll have to dig it up. I'm off to watch "Men who stare at goats," so find your zen and maybe I can send it to you telepathicaly.

[jmm99]

Your mind is linked via my version of Vulcan telepathy - nothing particularly odd that I've found so far.

That being said, you owe us a non-telepathic review of that movie in its thread.

Have fun at the theatre.

Mike

[Bill Moore]

Posted by Mike F,

Someone in the Phillipines (JSOTF or PACOM) already did that to figure out a general measure of when and how to interdict. X axis was skill of the military (low to high). Y axis was will of the military (low to high). Depending on where the country's assessment fell, a commander could determine the appropriate mission.

Mike, every JSOTF and JTF has their models for determining where to inderdict, but I think the matrix that JMM proposed is not so much a targeting tool, but rather a tool to help provide context and identify the strengths and weaknesses of the various players. To some extent that will help inform the targeting process, but I think it is bigger than a targeting model. More to follow, but I want to use historical cases rather than ongoing missions to avoid potential OPSEC damage.

[slapout9]

Could you supply links to items discussed if you have them somewhat readily on hand. RSVP.

Thanks

Mike

Mike, try this link and then use their search thread. Lind has a lot of material there. The one I was thinking of dealt with a lecture to The Royal Marines if I remember correctly, but you should be able to find something there.

http://www.d-n-i.net/dni/

[MikeF]

Mike, every JSOTF and JTF has their models for determining where to inderdict, but I think the matrix that JMM proposed is not so much a targeting tool, but rather a tool to help provide context and identify the strengths and weaknesses of the various players. To some extent that will help inform the targeting process, but I think it is bigger than a targeting model. More to follow, but I want to use historical cases rather than ongoing missions to avoid potential OPSEC damage.

Bill,

No OPSEC or targeting tool here- just a heuristic tool to better understand FID/SFA. I should have been more explicit about that. I only mentioned the unit b/c it wasn't my original thought.

I like it b/c it helps visualize what you need to do. For instance, will you just conduct training of units in rear areas? Will you deploy forward to assist with command and control? Will you combat advise and follow in with the indigenous force clearing the room?

Lots of variables to consider.

Mike

[jmm99]

Bill Lind definitely discusses the same kind of matrix in e.g., his "FMs", 2009 fmfm_1-a.pdf & 2009 fmfm_3-25_counterinsurgency.pdf - both at DNI. It may go back to Boyd for all I know. I didn't source it when I saved it.

In any event, it's pretty generic and it's what's put into the boxes that counts.

The colored Political-Military Struggle chart is my concoction. The idea came from a cartoon on a long-term Dow chart showing the Bear and the Bull wrestling.

[slapout9]

Bill Lind definitely discusses the same kind of matrix in e.g., his "FMs", 2009 fmfm_1-a.pdf & 2009 fmfm_3-25_counterinsurgency.pdf - both at DNI. It may go back to Boyd for all I know. I didn't source it when I saved it.

In any event, it's pretty generic and it's what's put into the boxes that counts.

The colored Political-Military Struggle chart is my concoction. The idea came from a cartoon on a long-term Dow chart showing the Bear and the Bull wrestling.

jmm99, I have know idea who the source is either. Just new Lind talked about it and had some experience with it. But as you say it is what goes in the box that matters.

[Dayuhan]

There are some fundamental differences between the insurgent and a soldier in a western army, and they have an obvious impact on motivation.

An insurgent generally signs up to fight in a specific fight - the one going on in his area. Whether his primary motivation is ideological, religious, financial, etc, he knows when he signs up what fight he'll be fighting.

The Western soldier joins an army that could be deployed to any number of places in the world in the service of any number of causes. The causes we fight for today may not be the causes we fight for tomorrow... beyond generalities like "fighting for your country", western armies fight for whatever cause their government decides to send them to fight for, causes that may at sometimes be less than obvious or less than compelling to the individual soldier. This would have a fairly obvious impact on cause identification in a western army, it seems to me.

[War Hammer]

Dayuhan good point about the Western soldier having to deployed for multiple causes.

For the most part I believe Western armies are taught that men fight for their brothers in battle and not causes. Our enemy trains to fight for a cause. What makes for this discrepancy?

Here is another question. Why do the "Band of Brothers" idealists and SLA Marshall followers fall over themselves when anyone suggests that soldiers do fight for a cause? Who is S.L.A. Marshall to say that the Viet Cong didn't fight for a cause because he interviewed WW2 American vets in Europe who say that they didn't.

I'm not saying there is anything wrong with the "band of brothers" mentality. Rather that there is much evidence that needs to be considered.

S.L.A. Marshall and others never interviewed Evans Carlson's 2nd Raiders Battalion which was ideologically motivated. The 2nd Raiders training ideology flies in the face of everything that the "Band of Brothers" mentality espoused by S.L.A. Marshall. The brotherly bond of the 2nd Raiders was made stronger by their GUNG HO political meetings which were modeled after the Red Chinese self-criticism meetings.

[War Hammer]

Institutionally guerrillas spend a vast majority of training time on ideologically training. This probably goes for the guerrilla that focuses on direct action (i.e. not mobilizing the populace) to those that do focus on mobilizing the population (i.e. Maoist guerrillas).

The West does not. Institutionally we cannot even begin to say we politically train our soldiers on a top down or even bottom up way in the political goal of the war. Evans Carlson to al-Suri in "Global Call to Jihad" have stated that ideologically motivated guerrillas spend a large amount of time training in the political goal of the war.

The secret here lies in the Clausewitzian trinity. The political goal, the reasonable object of the war, unleashes the hatred and animosity in the people. The political goal of the French Revolution unhinged the political fanaticism of the French populace brought all of their destructive power into war.

Why else were the Marxists so attracted to Clausewitz? For he told the secret of the creative nature of war, the power of the people, to create new forms of war that could destroy capitalist institutions. This is what the Red Chinese refer to as the "Spiritual Atom Bomb." The unleashing of the inner spiritual power of war that exists in all human beings. At least thats what the Red Chinese and Vietnamese believed.

A lowly Chinese or Vietnamese farmer, powerless, against oppressive capitalism will become a true soldier when he realizes the political goal of the war. Then all of his energy will be concentrated on destroying the enemy (as all of his thought process is concentrated on the political of the war). Using this same logic we could say that a Taliban fighter unleashes his inner hatred by realizing the political goal of the war. By unleashing his inner hatred, he unleashes his inner creativity to fight and he is motivated to do nothing but fight the war.

Consider these two quotes from SLA Marshall and Evans Carlson

Men do not fight for a cause but because they do not want to let their comrades down.

General S.L.A. Marshall

Hope for glory will carry some men a long way in battle; pride in the outfit and the desire not to let your buddies down is an even more important force; but the force which impels men to carry on when the going is tough and victory appears to be remote is a deep spiritual conviction in the righteousness of the cause for which he fights...

Brigadier General Evans Carlson U.S.M.C.

[M-A Lagrange]

I was willing to open a new threat but I thought this wuld just fit in that one.

Reading Chaliand Strategy and civilization, it came to me that the common point of various military domination cross history has been, part from weaponry, has always been cohesion.
From Antiquity to WWII, history shows that most of the most efficient armies were based on cohesion. Spartans could count on the guy next to them as he was the neighbor. So could the Suisse carre. This was transcended through the French Revolution and the conscription leading to national armies and the blood bath of WWI and II. The liberation wars were based on the right of people to be free but also on the raise of national identity or, as some would like in the case of African wars, a "racial" identity (Sedar Shengor negritude).
Some how, it seems to me that professional armies always had a counter productive impact on the long run as they loose this feeling of group based on shared identity.
21st century is defectively characterized in western warfare by professional armies. At the opposite, opponents, insurgents as we call them nowadays, are characterized by non professional armies but by strong sense of common identity.
Difficulties faced in Iraq or A-stan seems somehow coming from this lost of identity perception from West.
My first gut feeling is that coalitions do not have common identity nor have pluri-national military organizations as NATO despite having a comon cause.
I do experiment it on daily base through the UN system. Out of the basic UN critic, I feel that it is mainly based on the difficulty, if not impossibility, to achieve cohesion due to the lack of identity. A gap that cause does not replace or compensate.


I really wonder how this community perceives the impact of professionalism vs group/national identity in today and future engagements.