British COIN (merged thread)

[Compost]

When I hear "COIN vs CT" in general it sets my teeth on edge; for certainly that dichotomy of choices is no way to look at a foreign intervention and hope to attain a comprehensive, successful scheme of engagement.

However, that IS how we approached Iraq and Afghanistan, so to drill into how those terms were defined during the course of those operations, what types of operations were conducted under those banners; what types of effects were achieved, etc is indeed something worth laying open for inspection.

The above is from another thread but the real problem was and is the setting of viable goals and objective conops.

A military organization that has COIN as a concept of operation has taken a long step toward poor performance and unwanted outcomes. (CT is fought in a different arena and is not further discussed here.)

Most people probably agree that military power is essentially coercive. Its effective employment is based upon taking the initiative: applying or threatening to apply force where it is damaging or difficult for an opponent to defend. To voluntarily adopt a defensive posture is – regardless of any subsequent pre-emption – to concede initiative to that opponent. Of course ‘counter’ in a name does not necessarily mean an entire doctrine given over to defence. However, ‘anti-insurgency’ as in ‘anti-submarine’ would be preferable. But why insurgency ?

In a dictionary and in thought the term insurgent means ‘ rebel. That is an opponent who is indigenous and whose concerns and activities could be entirely homegrown as in “rebel with a cause”. Insurgent/insurgency does not extend to include foreign nationals, sanctuaries in other countries, weapons suppliers, fund raising or other materiel and propaganda support provided by outsiders. To concede a point, give away a pawn, thoughtlessly or thoughtfully employ inappropriate words is to move closer to failure.

A lot of words to state the obvious. Mindset is important and poor choice of terminology is corrosive. COIN is a malapropism to be avoided like a highly infectious disease.

There was a time when the US military was more aware . For example when use of PAVN/Peoples Army of Vietnam was banned and replaced by NVA/North Vietnamese Army. But despite such overdue corrective action, the USA went down to defeat in Vietnam and the flawed conop of that era’s COIN was only a contributing factor.

The primary cause was the political goal imposed on the military. That goal was seemingly fixated on creating a state which was in large part an image of the USA: a functioning democracy that had obtained internal peace.

A person does not have to read Michael Howard to realize that a state or society can have either of two kinds of peace. In an orderly society, peace can be upheld anywhere by a single policeman (or woman) with a sidearm and radio. That individual has of course to be supported by others with weapons such as shotguns, and backed up by an infrequently needed riot squad.

In a disorderly society, open conflict is suspended and peace exists when a single policeman with sidearm and radio closely supported by a heavily armed police/infantry team can function and survive anywhere. Typically the coercive power of that team has to be supported by an on-call force of infantry/engineers/armour augmented in some instances by artillery/rifled mortars and a few helicopters.

Afghanistan is a disorderly society. It is divided by geography, tribal and religious history and beliefs. The Taliban are alleged to include a large number of religious and societal fanatics. But how can one describe the apparent zeal of the US administration in seeking to rapidly create a functioning democracy and orderly peace ? That administration was either affected by group think/collective stupidity or evangelism which is much the same thing.

To create a functional democracy in Afghanistan would require decades. So instead of COIN fixated on creating a mini-USA, a reset of the political objective and the military conop is long overdue. A major revision would be to focus on the second form of peace and hence peace-making operations in a disorderly society. The debased currency of COIN replaced by PMOPS.

Is there sufficient scope and time to redirect the distribution of sizable proportions of funds and resources directly to the village, district and whatever canton levels exist ? The pre-requisite for such arrangements would be the application of coercion to the autocracy in Kabul. The result would likely be an expanded form of plutocracy but at least that would be moving in the right direction toward what seems to be the eventual target.

There could be other ways in which to revise and realign political and military objectives. Some of those might be more realistic than that outlined above.

What is clear is that the USA and ISAF have to make a binary choice in the near term: ‘get real, or get out’. The pity is that after heavy loss of life and gross material expenditure the present US administration seems intent on getting out.