Civilian Casualties, Religion, and COIN Operations

[Ron Humphrey]

and I can prove that. I still do not fully understand your point as stated in the paragraph of yours that you and I quoted.

Very sorry for that I shall do my best to more clearly state that which I so enthusiastically attempted early this morn

It's about balance.

No govt. will see much peace as long as it is based and led by purely political goals without regard to the human quality amongst its populous that is those things which culturally/ religiously/ or socially are held in high esteem.

Yes you can have a govt that couldn't careless but the point is as long as thats the case there will always be major undercurrents against which they must prepare.

In the same vein no govt can or will find itself at peace if it is purely and wholly directed by a given set of values (take your pick) to the exclusion of any others which may not precisely conform to the govt expectations.

Values may not necessarily define a person but they will always have an effect on how they interact with those in authority over them.

Probably just made it worse but I have at least attempted not to

(Note: Regarding times of peace the implied long term peace in the above should be seen to refer to multiple decades to centuries and beyond. )

[Ron Humphrey]

It seems prudent to add a little bit more

Accepting that the statements made are rather absolutist they still seem fairly correct.

It is probably important however to follow with this-

The reality of human variances in manner/thought/ and deed means just about no society ever exists in complete peace but it does seem at least from my studies that those which experience the least amount of violent conflict are those which focus on ensuring that to the greatest extent possible the majority of groups which make up their populous at least feel as though they can live as they believe without having to fight governmental processes to do so.

[Ken White]

is going to be inaccurate, out of date and will fail to do justice to the nuances.

Any characterization of people in groupings or categories is going to be inaccurate, able to be taken out of context and will fail to do justice to the nuances.

Combine those two thoughts. then go forth...

Ken, I might be misunderstanding you, because in your later comments, I tend to agree with you. But with all due respect, I think your categorizations above badly underestimate the complexity of the situation in Afghanistan and fail to reflect the reality on the ground.

I don't underestimate the situation in Afghanistan, the categorizations above may state grossly simplified categories to make a point in a semi light hearted vein they are incapable of underestimating or overestimating or even estimating anything. Aside from having a long ago but still educational peacetime tour in the area, recall I even went out of my way earlier to point out my son had two tours there, a Grandson in law also has two and I know folks there now as well as others who've been. I'm not pulling this stuff out of my back pocket. I have more respect for everyone on this board than that.

Dealing with Afghans (or even Iraqis, for that matter), cannot be broken down into eight simple categories. Relationships in these places are more fluid than you're suggesting. So, assuming I haven’t just misread you (which I might be doing),

You didn't misread but you seemingly took a simplistic set of points for a scholarly dissertation on population centric operations. Aside from people in general being infinitely more complex than that -- you cannot categorize them other than in generalities. With a tour in the ME and pretty broad travel there, I'm aware of the nuances and the fact that nothing in the ME -- or South Asia -- is as it seems. The national sport in that area is haggling, they're masters at it and no westerner will ever match them -- foolish to try.

I have some questions for you:

Do you kill civilians who actively assist the Taliban by offering shelter to their fighters? How do you know whether or not they were coerced into it? What about those who provide the Taliban with weapons? What about civilians who actively assist one Taliban group, but offer you information about another Taliban group? What about farmers who eagerly sell opium to warlords known for attacking Americans? How do you distinguish between those who support the warlords and those who are coerced into supporting the warlords?

Assuming 'you' is GPF acting on intel provided in all cases, in order: No; That's one reason why you don't; No (willingly provided, sold or were coerced or just taken? No way to ever be sure even with a brilliant 'Terp and half an MI Det along); Take the info with a grain of salt and check it out while compensating them in some way thus keeping a possible information source; No; You can't.

Once more, as I said way above: "IOW who to kill is obvious, who not to kill is far less obvious and avoiding killing them while it increases your risk is necessary."

What if U.S. forces offend the honor of a local tribe one day, and the next time U.S. forces come around, the locals fire at them? Leaving immediate self-defense aside, are they to be killed?

Did you punish or report the offending US elements and make sure the local tribe knew of the punishment? You must hav known about it if you know that's why they're shooting at you. If not you were wrong and are therefor responsible for your unit being fired upon and you have to make a judgment call. Enjoy.

Are they considered the "enemy?"

First thing you need to do is purge the word enemy from your COIN lexicon, that's an MCO construct and is woefully un-population centric; in FID, there is no enemy, there are good guys and bad guys, a few of each. There are a great many in between who will go with the flow. The trick is to kill the bad guys, not kill the good guys and kill as few of the floaters as possible. Bad guys shoot at you; good guys and floaters do not, thus they're easy to tell apart.

What if they start planting land mines on the approaches to their village to keep U.S. forces out?

Do not step on or drive over them. Tell the point Squad to start probing, the second and the guns to overwatch and the third to standby to go anywhere and do anything, if you have a 'Terp, tell him to ask them to come out and guide you in to save work, call it in -- wait a minute,why are you asking me this; you should know all that stuff...

And what about the ever-present problem of receiving seemingly-good-but consistently-bad information from locals who are motivated by tribal rivalries and/or profit—and not by America’s desire to win the “Global War on Terror?”

Take it with a grain -- no, a truckload -- of salt, write it down, make sure your Company intel guru gets it (you do have one, right?) and logs it, report it, keep it in mind and don't act on it unless you get corroboration unless it poses immediate danger to US troops, then act -- but sensibly and with good judgment.

There are an infinite number of categories that inhibit the process of knowing who to kill. I’ve never once fired my personal weapon or ordered anyone else to fire theirs without (at least) first being drawn upon by the enemy. That’s because we had no idea who to kill otherwise.

That may be why I said try to kill anyone who shoots at you and try to avoid killing all the others. Are we not saying the same thing in a different way? The 'at least' BTW is a good touch, inaccurate harassing fire need not be answered -- should not be, really (showing disdain is good); probing fire at night must be answered cautiously if at all and absolutely not with an automatic weapon. As an aside on that count, re: the local who fired on you and may not have lacking an insult by us -- shoot back. In that part of the world to not do so is to appear weak and that's more dangerous than being weak. You should also never relax -- most irregular forces will avoid contact with an obviously tough and ready element and wait for easier pickings if they can.

This is why the U.S. military is moving toward a population-centric approach. Sure, it’s not the way I was brought up in the infantry.

That's because all the things learned the hard way before you were born were purged from the system. Speak to several Chiefs of staff Army about that -- I sure tried to tell a bunch of their senior minions and two of them it was a dumb idea. The US Army was doing population centric operations all over the world for a good many years; some us got to be pretty good at it -- good enough to realize we learned something new every day and that no one had all the answers.

But when you don’t have adequate intelligence or language skills within American units--and you haven't grown up in the "neighborhood"--being focused primarily on killing the right people is a recipe for disaster in places like Afghanistan--as Michael C rightly notes. We’re just not equipped. If you want to kill the right people, you must first secure the population, give them confidence, and then let the intelligence come to you. Only then should you start looking for fights.

We can disagree on that. You cannot provide security unless you look for fights in the right places and the intel is good enough to tell you that -- and I'll bet big buck few if any GPF units have set up ambushes on the known infiltration / exfiltration trails due to risk aversion. The population will have no confidence in you as long as they get night visitors and you are not the visitor.

Killing people who are trying to kill you is never wrong; killing anyone not actively trying to do that is almost never right. If you re-read my post, you'll note that's what I said. I also pointed out that was true in ANY war, population centric or not, something you also seem to have missed.

We have tons of intel, perhaps too much, the problem is in the distribution and utility; the bottom line is that at Bn level and below, you'll almost never have what you can consider adequate Intel. Fact of life. Nor will there ever be enough good interpreters -- that also is a fact of life. I hear your complaints, heard others voice them in 1950, 52, 61, 65, 66, 68, 70 in more than five countries all while doing the Grunt population centric shtick. I even picked up a first edition Galula from the SWC Bookstore in '64. not a great book IMO. Truly sorry to hear things haven't gotten better -- but sadly not at all surprised. Goes with the territory, I'm afraid.

I have no doubt you’ll pick this apart--and maybe I'm misunderstanding you--

Found out the hard way on these boards it's better to read a comment and if it raises red flag, leave it and come back and read it again later. Then go answer it point by point to insure you didn't miss or elide an important item. All of us react to adverse stimuli and then tend to miss the thrust for a tree or two.

but if there’s one thing on which we could probably agree, it’s the idea that these situations are best dealt with by avoiding them like the plague in the first place. We certainly agree this:

Yes, we can, we can probably agree on a number of other things as well. We're all products of our experiences and we're all better for sharing an learning. Closer to 80 than I'd like and I'm still learning new stuff every day...

[William F. Owen]

The biggest critique seems to be that population-centric COIN hides behind catch phrases and offers no real solutions to our modern fight.

It's not quite that simple, but you are mostly right. Now I can speak for my fellow "heretics" - of which Ken and Gian seem the most high profile - but my beef with "Nouveau COIN" is it's wooly social and cultural agendas, which somehow seeks to deflect the military away from being a military instrument. What does "POP-centric" mean anyway?

We also did constant hearts and minds. What I want to know is, where are the resources to get intelligence from the population without doing population-centric COIN?

Hearts and Minds is not a definable set of actions. Nor is POP-centric COIN. They are bumper stickers. How you gather intelligence from within a population is a very well worn path. As concerns laying the ground work, obviously not harming the population is pretty crucial, but after that I'd rather spend money on informers, than I would building a school a the village probably doesn't need.

If the British Army has manuals or recommendations on gathering intelligence, finding and identifying the enemy and operations to kill them, what are they? It seems like the whole of the military has disregarded the approach, both the UK and the US.

I can only speak for the UK, but they don't do manuals. There was never any official manuals for Operations in Northern Ireland. None! There was/is massive corporate knowledge found in the minds of various retired officers. yes, someone needs to write it all down. - and yes, something that were/are clearly best practice may not be being done.

As for a scenario, take the Helmand Province and the current Marine operation there. What is the better option then avoiding civilian casualties as they are right now? Without trying to give support to the population, how do we get intelligence to kill the Taliban, HiG and AQ groups there?

Avoiding civilian casualties is the only option and should always have been. To me it's amazing that it wasn't! You don't seek the support of the population. You seek not to do it harm, and to help it, when it asks. "We need food." "My daughter is ill." "My house needs repair." Help, when you can. Medical teams should visit villages, when possible, and when safe.

That is a whole world of difference from giving them things they never had, and never asked for, as part of trying to make them like you. Strangers giving gifts are most likely despised by Pashtuns.

[Surferbeetle]

Most civilians want nothing to do with war and instead are focused upon raising a family and living life. Effective FID/SFA/COIN recognizes this simplified generalization by sheltering civilians from violence, enabling just governance & associated services, minimizing the generation of additional troublemakers, and hunting down existing troublemakers.

All of us who step onto a battlefield in a professional capacity have forfeited the ‘right’ to reasonably expect to be able to return home. Soldiering is not about trying to avoid spilling your coffee while at a quiet 9 to 5 desk job. For my nickel, Ken has clearly and succinctly shared a way of thinking, with his proposed eight categories, which is worthy of consideration by those who soldier. Much of it jives with my experience that soldiers must accurately anticipate the wide range of behaviors which people exhibit when under stress and have a viable plan of action to capitalize upon those behaviors.

There have been some comments about ‘drawing down’ on our own on other threads. Officers have the additional responsibility of imposing order upon the daily continuum, which ranges from apparently peaceful to very dangerous and during which all participants may be either ready, tired, mad, scared, sick, certain or uncertain or some mix of all of them. We all get paid for our ability to be extremely violent when required however ‘drawing down’ on our own is failure of leadership plain and simple. There are other solutions, you just have to be tough enough to follow through on them.

The question of how to better target, distinguish and discriminate on the battlefield is a daily question and it is my observation that effective leadership is central to resolving it. We do what we are trained to do in tough situations. Teaching our troops what we have learned upon the battlefield before we deploy is important because they will try and use what they have been taught (battle tested or not). Part of the answer is clearly articulated ROE that all have been trained upon. Part of it is learning everything that we can about our AO. Part of it is effective unit training and part of it is participating in CTC exercises. Once I am down range part of it may involve putting that wild-eyed kid in my vehicle, and taking him along with me when the situation allows so that I can keep an eye on him while modeling some good behavior. Part of it is asking myself ‘what would my family think of what I am currently doing?’ For me it means recognizing that anything is possible, relying upon my training and experience, recognizing that I don’t have all the answers, and doing what I must do as the situation unfolds.

[rborum]

You don't seek the support of the population. You seek not to do it harm, and to help it, when it asks. "We need food." "My daughter is ill." "My house needs repair." Help, when you can. Medical teams should visit villages, when possible, and when safe.

Very interesting point, and a much more nuanced view than is typically captured within the polarized "Kill the enemy" vs. "Support the population" debate.

[marct]

Hi Wilf,

It's not quite that simple, but you are mostly right. Now I can speak for my fellow "heretics" - of which Ken and Gian seem the most high profile - but my beef with "Nouveau COIN" is it's wooly social and cultural agendas, which somehow seeks to deflect the military away from being a military instrument. What does "POP-centric" mean anyway?

Sometimes, you and I are much closer than would appear . I have a real problem with the wooly socio-cultural agendas as well, both because they are driven by poor social science and because they stem from a particular cultural position.

What does "pop-centric" mean? Depends on who is talking.... If I am being snarky, then I would say that it is a feel-good piece of rhetoric - along the lines of "Support the Troops, not the War" - used by people who are pathetically psychologically driven to have people "like" them (and vote them back into office!). I really don't think that anyone here holds that position .

On a more serious note, it should, IMHO, mean a series of tactics (both carrot and stick) designed to wean the populace away from a particular set of behaviours that have been politically defined as "unacceptable". The problem with this, of course, is that these behaviours are defined by politicians....

Avoiding civilian casualties is the only option and should always have been. To me it's amazing that it wasn't!

Here I have to partly disagree with you, Wilf, although I do agree with the "should". Historically, warfare is about the prcise application of force designed to break the enemy's will to resist and sometimes that means the complete destruction of the enemy's society (Carthage, Assyria, NAZI Germany, Koisan, etc.). One way to do this is to annihilate the enemy; it is a strategy that I find abhorent, but it is one that has been used over and over again and, sometimes, it "works". It is also a very "pop-centric" strategy, at least in the sense that there will be no insurgency if there is no population left. As a stratgey, it is only viable IFF the culture / society that chooses it supports it (it also tends to backfire in that societies that use it tend to have it used on them, but that's another post...).

[Tom Odom]

What does "pop-centric" mean? Depends on who is talking.... If I am being snarky, then I would say that it is a feel-good piece of rhetoric - along the lines of "Support the Troops, not the War" - used by people who are pathetically psychologically driven to have people "like" them (and vote them back into office!). I really don't think that anyone here holds that position

Hardly feel good and it is useful. Using it here, daily.

On a more serious note, it should, IMHO, mean a series of tactics (both carrot and stick) designed to wean the populace away from a particular set of behaviours that have been politically defined as "unacceptable". The problem with this, of course, is that these behaviours are defined by politicians....

It is already and has been used in that fashion to a degree. That is part and parcel of seeking support of the population.

One way to do this is to annihilate the enemy; it is a strategy that I find abhorent, but it is one that has been used over and over again and, sometimes, it "works". It is also a very "pop-centric" strategy, at least in the sense that there will be no insurgency if there is no population left.

That is a strategy of targeting the population; works sometimes, sometimes it backfires as it did in Rwanda.

Then again to be snarky, I am just someone doing it, rather than using cute phrases like Noveau COIN to label something in simplistic terms.

Tom

[William F. Owen]

Sometimes, you and I are much closer than would appear . I have a real problem with the wooly socio-cultural agendas as well, both because they are driven by poor social science and because they stem from a particular cultural position.

Was never aware that we were not that close!

Here I have to partly disagree with you, Wilf, although I do agree with the "should". Historically, warfare is about the prcise application of force designed to break the enemy's will to resist and sometimes that means the complete destruction of the enemy's society (Carthage, Assyria, NAZI Germany, Koisan, etc.).

I was/am only talking about Irregular warfare, where the population concerned is either your own or the one which you want to defer to the Governments authority. Not killing them and taking a lot of care not to, is probably wise. It's a political choice, not a moral one.
When it comes to the population of an actual, or de-facto enemy state, you should do everything to break the enemies will. You should not target civilians, but you should not let civilians prevent you from destroying legitimate targets.

[marct]

Then again to be snarky, I am just someone doing it, rather than using cute phrases like Noveau COIN to label something in simplistic terms.

One of the reasons we love ya, Tom !

Just out of interest, given the current changes over there, how is it being conceived of now? Are Coalition forces moving out of more direct contact with the populace? All I'm getting is media spin stuff.

Cheers,

Marc

[marct]

Hi Wilf,

I was/am only talking about Irregular warfare, where the population concerned is either your own or the one which you want to defer to the Governments authority. Not killing them and taking a lot of care not to, is probably wise. It's a political choice, not a moral one.
When it comes to the population of an actual, or de-facto enemy state, you should do everything to break the enemies will. You should not target civilians, but you should not let civilians prevent you from destroying legitimate targets.

Just out of interest, where would you draw the zone (or line) between an insurgency and a de facto enemy "state"? I suspect that we would both agree that Hezbollah is a de facto state, but what about, say, Deseret, the 2nd Riel Rebellion or the Bar Kochba Revolt?

[William F. Owen]

Just out of interest, where would you draw the zone (or line) between an insurgency and a de facto enemy "state"? I suspect that we would both agree that Hezbollah is a de facto state, but what about, say, Deseret, the 2nd Riel Rebellion or the Bar Kochba Revolt?

Well obvioulsy I draw the line with regard to the political objective my military action is seeking to achieve!!

...but seriously. That's basically it, and it depends whose view is used. The question is really, how do you want to influence the civilians, in regard to the political outcome? Do you even care? Is it your people rejecting your authority or some one else's people rejecting your authority?

In Iraq, and A'Stan, you/we want them to support a Government acceptable to the wider international community, so the aim is to destroy any other entity capable of presenting a political alternative - which is why I don't care what the populations wants. It's irrelevant to the outcome we/you are forcing upon them.

[Tom Odom]

One of the reasons we love ya, Tom !

Just out of interest, given the current changes over there, how is it being conceived of now? Are Coalition forces moving out of more direct contact with the populace? All I'm getting is media spin stuff.

Cheers,

Marc

Marc,

I will have to demur on that. Besides it would be wrong to interject practice into discussions of theory, n'est pas?

Tom

[marct]

I will have to demur on that. Besides it would be wrong to interject practice into discussions of theory, n'est pas?

No worries, Tom. I'll ask again if we ever get to sit down over a couple of pints . As for interjecting practice into theory, it should always be there - otherwise we theoreticians end up looking like even bigger idiots than we already are .

Cheers,

Marc