Identifying fear

[Kiwigrunt]

I just stumbled across this quote by Eric Hoffer:

You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you.

Then my thoughts drifted towards ‘terrorists’ and the extent to which this quote might apply to them.

So here’s a pretty loose hypothesis, with a whole range of questions.

Let’s assume that we could clearly identify the means he uses to frighten us, beyond what we see on the surface. (I can already see lots of questions here, like, is he actually frightening us or are we doing it ourselves?). What might they be?

Now would that be what would frighten him the most?

Would we be capable (beyond politically willing) of inflicting that on him?

So this is more about dealing with the enemy rather that the ‘nation building’ aspects, as intricately connected as they probably are.

Philosophise away….


P.S. I don’t have any particular opinions here myself and don’t expect anything concrete to come out of it. This thread could just be an entertaining time waster.

[Schmedlap]

I can think of lots of propaganda that he puts out to rally peers and lots of statements of defiance he makes to win support of fence-sitters, but I can't think of anything he does to try to frighten us.

[Uboat509]

I can think of lots of propaganda that he puts out to rally peers and lots of statements of defiance he makes to win support of fence-sitters, but I can't think of anything he does to try to frighten us.

9/11 was designed to frighten us but it failed. The Madrid train bombing was designed to frighten the Spanish and it worked.

IEDs could also also be looked at as a fear tactic of sorts. From a purely doctrinal perspective, IEDs are a failure. They are rarely, if ever, present in great enough numbers to truely deny terrain. They are rarely, if ever, tied into a broader tactical plan, ie. as canalizing or delaying obstacles etc. More often than not, they are not overwatched or covered by fires. They have certainly failed entirely to close to inflicting enough casualties on Coalition Forces to render them combat ineffective. The bulk of them will fail to cause any casualties at all, either because they detonate improperly, fail to detonate or get spotted and destroyed or safed. The combined total of all casualties caused by IEDs is less than the casualty counts from some battles in other wars we have fought. Yet despite all that, IEDs are generally considered our greatest threat and huge resources have been poured into defeating this threat. We have vehicles in our inventory that exist specifically as a response to IEDs and would likely be of limited or no value against a peer competitor. Why? Because, despite their failures from a doctrinal standpoint, they have served very well to create fear. Fear that is out of proportion to the actual effect that they have. Fear that seems to get magnified the further you get from the battlefield. I have met more than one civilian who honestly believed that assignment to Iraq or Afghanistan was all but a death sentence, by IED.

[Dayuhan]

9/11 was designed to frighten us but it failed. The Madrid train bombing was designed to frighten the Spanish and it worked.

I don't believe that 9/11 was designed to frighten us. I believe it was designed to goad us into committing forces to an environment where we could be worn down in a war of attrition.

One thing I think the AQ inner circle really fears is irrelevance: a day when Muslims no longer hate or fear the west, when the word "jihad" inspires as little passion as the word "crusade" inspires among modern Christians. A jihadi is nothing without a jihad.

IEDs could also also be looked at as a fear tactic of sorts. From a purely doctrinal perspective, IEDs are a failure... Because, despite their failures from a doctrinal standpoint, they have served very well to create fear. Fear that is out of proportion to the actual effect that they have. Fear that seems to get magnified the further you get from the battlefield. I have met more than one civilian who honestly believed that assignment to Iraq or Afghanistan was all but a death sentence, by IED.

Not that I know anything of doctrine, but I suppose whether anything is a doctrinal success or failure depends on what your doctrine is. AQ's, I suspect, is that they cannot defeat us in combat, but they can erode our home-front will to fight if they can impose a steady stream of casualties while denying us any convincing evidence of success. I think IEDs are less aimed at creating fear than at creating the perception of a quagmire, of an endless war where we sacrifice lives and money while gaining nothing. From that perspective I'm not sure that IEDs have been a complete failure.

[Firn]

The point about critical thinking is right.

One might quip that the whole fighting against the coalition forces in Afpak region, as well as partly in Iraq is in effect a great strategic delaying action, planned or not, which also undermines and stresses a lot of social and political relations all around the globe. (This does not mean that Kosha Pasthun fights for this very reason).

Terror as an instrument designed to cause fear and conflict is also still high on list of many.

Firn


P.S:

The Madrid train bombing was designed to frighten the Spanish and it worked.

This is acutally disputable.

[Schmedlap]

Uboat,

Maybe I'm relying too heavily on personal experience, rather than big-picture data, but my experience was that an IED was usually integrated into a broader plan, primarily being used to disable the vehicle in hopes of getting us out of the vehicle and exposed to their small arms and RPGs. On those occasions, the lack of casualties was more attributable to their awful marksmanship than to the poor utility of an IED. There were also occasions when they were detonated next to a house that was rigged to blow up, knowing that our MPCOA is going to be to get out of the kill zone and enter the nearest building. They also barricaded doors and windows near the kill zone to trap us in their fields of fire after exiting the vehicle (this might have explained why they included excessive propellants in the mix - in order to set the vehicle on fire and force us to exit). It was a common tactic to set up decoy IEDs to distract us and a real IED to kill us when we thought we were a safe distance from the decoy. There were secondary IEDs to kill Soldiers who attempted to evacuate casualties. We had roads in our AO that were littered with completely obvious, uncamouflaged real IEDs and decoy IEDs for the sole purpose of making travel on the roads impractical.

I could go on, but to get back on topic - I don't think the IED, 9/11, or Madrid were attempts to scare us. The IED was the response to the very wise observation that our public had a weak stomach for casualties. Who cares about "doctrinal perspective"? It was a simple, wise plan that worked very well and almost sent us home Vietnam-style. I don't see how fear plays into that. It's just cost-benefit.

[Uboat509]

Uboat,

Maybe I'm relying too heavily on personal experience, rather than big-picture data, but my experience was that an IED was usually integrated into a broader plan, primarily being used to disable the vehicle in hopes of getting us out of the vehicle and exposed to their small arms and RPGs. On those occasions, the lack of casualties was more attributable to their awful marksmanship than to the poor utility of an IED. There were also occasions when they were detonated next to a house that was rigged to blow up, knowing that our MPCOA is going to be to get out of the kill zone and enter the nearest building. They also barricaded doors and windows near the kill zone to trap us in their fields of fire after exiting the vehicle (this might have explained why they included excessive propellants in the mix - in order to set the vehicle on fire and force us to exit). It was a common tactic to set up decoy IEDs to distract us and a real IED to kill us when we thought we were a safe distance from the decoy. There were secondary IEDs to kill Soldiers who attempted to evacuate casualties. We had roads in our AO that were littered with completely obvious, uncamouflaged real IEDs and decoy IEDs for the sole purpose of making travel on the roads impractical.

I could go on, but to get back on topic - I don't think the IED, 9/11, or Madrid were attempts to scare us. The IED was the response to the very wise observation that our public had a weak stomach for casualties. Who cares about "doctrinal perspective"? It was a simple, wise plan that worked very well and almost sent us home Vietnam-style. I don't see how fear plays into that. It's just cost-benefit.

If it was simply cost benefit, there would have been a whole lot less of an issue. We have a history of throwing money at problems to fix them. The issue was that people were afraid that it would be their loved one or their friend who would be killed. Fear does not have to mean that I am afraid that I will be killed, it can mean that I am afraid that someone I care about will be killed.

I only mentioned the "doctrinal perspective" to illustrate that the goal of their operations was not the traditional goal of military operations. They were not trying to drive us out by force of arms. I doubt very much that even the most hard corps of them believed that they could drive us out by force. I don't believe that it was intentional at first, they were just fighting with the weapons they had, but, inadvertently or not, a mystique was created around the concept of the IED. It got to the point that many people seemed to believe that if you go to Iraq it is not a matter of if you will be killed or horribly maimed by an IED, but a matter of when. The response to IEDs far outstripped the actual tactical effect.

As for 9/11 and Madrid, what else were those for other than to sow fear? Reporting that has been made open source shows that they were surprised by our response to 9/11. And why shouldn't they have been? As Ken has pointed out numerous times, our response to attacks against us in the Middle East had been tepid at best. Look at our response to Beruit, Mogidishu, Khobar Towers, the USS Cole, and so on. Why would they have expected us to act any differently after 9/11?

I'm not in a position to argue about whether or not the Madrid bombings actually worked as they were intended but the perception is that they did and in this case perception trumps whatever the reality may have been.

[Ken White]

As for 9/11 and Madrid, what else were those for other than to sow fear?

major economic damage in both cases (in which they were quite successful...) and to elicit an excessive response.

Reporting that has been made open source shows that they were surprised by our response to 9/11. And why shouldn't they have been? As Ken has pointed out numerous times, our response to attacks against us in the Middle East had been tepid at best. Look at our response to Beruit, Mogidishu, Khobar Towers, the USS Cole, and so on. Why would they have expected us to act any differently after 9/11?

I think a lot of that surprise was at the effectiveness of OEF 1 and disbelief that OIF would occur, IOW, the type and location of both responses was not what they had expected due to our previous responses and that knocked them off balance for a bit. They did get an excessive response but it was not the one they had expected and somewhat prepared for.

Had we better prepared our response capability in the 90s as many wished, we could have surprised them even more...

[Fuchs]

9/11 was designed to frighten us but it failed. The Madrid train bombing was designed to frighten the Spanish and it worked.

I disagree.

The two TWC attacks (9/11 and the garage car bomb) were directed against a prestige object. They look to me (and I am not really original here) as attacks designed to
a) ruin American complacency and pride by destroying a symbol of success and superiority
b) boost Arab (at that time not yet global Muslim) confidence and self assurance by exposing the vulnerability of America.

The Cole attack supports this. The attacked target was an expression of power (and power projection!) and a strong point, not a weak spot and not useful for instilling fear in America.

The post-9/11 attacks on non-US targets were likely designed as a pay back, meant to discourage European/Australian/Canadian support for the US.

The post-9/11 attacks on US targets finally seem to be designed for economic and even more fear effect because the completely exaggerated reaction to 9/11 showed AQ the effectiveness of such an approach.
Fear drives people crazy, the US even invaded a Muslim country for no reason, thus alienating many Muslims who weren't alienated before.
The continued attempts to attack the West are also serving to improve the morale of counter-Western radicals.


The Spanish removed a lying and unsuccessful government that did not rule in the interest of the people. AQ helped to expose that government by provoking some of its lies. The worked as a catalyst to the government change in Spain - it's too much to assert that AQ frightened the Spanish into changing their policy.

[Seabee]

9/11 was designed to frighten us but it failed. The Madrid train bombing was designed to frighten the Spanish and it worked.

Do you mean at a Govt or population?

I would suggest that many knee jerk things implimented post 9/11 could be seen as fear on a govt level. a huge increase in road deaths as fear on a population level.

The Madrid bombing forced the govt to revise a policy that the population was against BEFORE the bombing... but you can travel through and from Spain without no fly lists or "do you want KY jelly on the rubber glove or do you prefer to be searched "Au natural" sir?"

best
Chris

[JMA]

I can think of lots of propaganda that he puts out to rally peers and lots of statements of defiance he makes to win support of fence-sitters, but I can't think of anything he does to try to frighten us.

IEDs?

[Ken White]

IEDs?

LINK.

IEDs are his Artillery, they're just another weapon. They don't scare any more troops than would artillery. They do fascinate the media and the uniformed, though.....

[William F. Owen]

Now would that be what would frighten him the most?

Would we be capable (beyond politically willing) of inflicting that on him?

So this is more about dealing with the enemy rather that the ‘nation building’ aspects, as intricately connected as they probably are.

Philosophise away….

It's a war, therefore you have to seek to destroy the enemy. Focus on the enemy and all else flows from that. He fears being killed or captured, and even if he is willing to day, (like the Japs on Oki) then simply grant his wish.

If you have an army that cannot do that, then you probably shouldn't be playing.

[Uboat509]

This strikes me as an overly simplistic concept. The problem with that quote is that it assumes that the enemy has not applied any critical thinking to their tactics, that they do not observe what has worked and what has not or that they do not do research to determine what tactics that they will use. It would be nice to be able to assume that our enemies do not apply critical thinking, and in fact, some of them clearly do not. But some clearly do. Our enemy has proven on multiple occasions that he can be cunning and adaptive. Failure to consider that will, inevitably bite us in the back. I'm not sure just how useful quotes like this are.

[Dayuhan]

Said it before, but one of the things I just do not get about the US Army is their idea of "Strategy" - as being discussed here.

Policy changes as strategy is applied. It's not a set of rules of even a doctrine. It's a Crack Whores household budget - which shows Wienberger and Powell don't get it, but I'll leave that for now - The US Army cannot and should not attempt Strategy or any input into policy.

Military Power is a tool. It's not the policy, so basically, yes you can occupy any land you so wish, IF you are skilled enough to do at a cost that makes it sustainable within the policy. Lack the skill, and you fail the policy.

Some SWC folk seem intent on saying "OMG! We must not occupy" when the exam questions is "How can it be done well."

I know this is all very obvious, but it seems that it does need saying. - Apologies to anyone who feels it's TOO obvious.

It would be a sorry sort of civilian government that did not consult with its military before designing strategies that involve military action, and a sorry sort of military that failed to give an honest and thorough assessment in reply.

From a purely military standpoint it may be pointless to question political strategy; I don't see that we face any such constraint here.

If we speak of occupation, the capacity of the military to occupy is only half the question. Occupation is (one hopes) a means to an end, not an end in itself. If we lack the capacity to achieve the political objective of the occupation with the means available and within an acceptable time frame, the occupation will fail to achieve its objective regardless of the skill (or lack thereof) of the occupying military force. This may not be an a question the military commander in the field needs to address, but it's a question policy makers need to consider. They also have to weigh the collateral cost of occupation - which in this particular war are extremely high - against the intended benefits. Overall, I'd say that given the war we're fighting, occupation is a thing to be avoided at all costs. In a different sort of war it might be otherwise.

It's a war, therefore you have to seek to destroy the enemy. Focus on the enemy and all else flows from that.

Possibly I've got this wrong, but it was my understanding that wars are fought in pursuit of political objectives. In the current case we're fighting a war that was initiated by our enemies in pursuit of their own objectives, which leaves us pursuing our own political objectives while trying to prevent our enemy from achieving theirs. If we focus on destroying the enemy to an extent that leads us to lose track of the political objectives, we place ourselves on course to win every battle and lose the war. We have already been there and done that, I don't think we want to do it again.