Plowing Over the Taliban

[Dayuhan]

Again you respond to a post out of context. Do yourself a favour and go (carefully) read Wilf's paper.

I have read it. It makes sense within the parameters it sets, but those parameters are so limited that the conclusions he reaches bear little relevance to any real-world situation. For one thing, he approaches the issue of insurgency purely from a military perspective. Insurgency is in fact largely a political phenomenon and the political aspects of insurgency have to be addressed if the military effort is to achieve anything more than transient suppression of the insurgency. Of course the political aspects are not necessarily the concern of the military, but they are and must be the concern of any counterinsurgency effort.

Even more important, Wilf proceeds from the assumption that the the state is legitimate and the illegitimacy of any armed challenge to the state is beyond question. That assumption is arbitrary and insupportable, and no state involved in insurgency as a third party can afford to make it. A telling passage from Wilf:

The Soviets exercised near-genocidal levels of violence against the Afghan population, as did the Nazis in occupied Russia. Neither was attempting to create an environment where the rule of law prevailed. Control was sought via threat of harm to the civilian population. No one supports people who seek to harm them.

Does anyone seriously believe that the Government that the US and Britain (among others) are seeking to install in Afghanistan "attempting to create an environment where the rule of law prevails"?

Wilf is quite correct that "no one supports people who seek to harm them". What he apparently fails to consider is the possibility that people may be fighting the government precisely because they believe their government seeks to harm them. They may be right. We have to consider those possibilities, and we have to consider the possibility that the people fighting the government may have reasonable grievances that the Government may be able to resolve without violence.

Wilf goes on...

The British Army should provide an environment where law exists, because it is uncontested by another armed force.

That is not what the British or American armies are doing in Afghanistan. They're not trying to "provide an environment where law exists", they are trying to provide an environment where the GIRoA can impose its will in any way it chooses, which has little or nothing to do with the rule of law. If we try to pretend that we're backing good guys in white hats against bad guys in black hats, we're deceiving ourselves: we're backing one set of black hats against another.

Do you understand the concept of Military Support to the Civil Power?

Yes. Do you understand that if the Civil Power is the source of the problem, Military Support to the Civil Power is unlikely to resolve the problem?

Does it really make sense to apply Military Support to the Civil Power without first evaluating whether the Civil Power deserves support, or whether it's a liability?

Looking at the Economist Intelligence Unit's Democracy Index 2010 of the 168 countries covered there are 26 full democracies and 53 flawed democracies. So really there can be little or no reason in these 79 countries for any insurgency. Minorities do not have the right to place demands on the majority under threat of resorting to illegal action or armed insurrection. Wilf's article does not advocate shooting civilians willy nilly (so go read it)...

The Philippines is a flawed democracy (by EIU's definition) so it is difficult to see what can justify an armed insurrection in that country.

When the events referred to began we still had a good old US-supported dictator in place. We referred to him as a bastion against Communism. Strangely, when he took power the Communists had 250 armed men in 4 provinces; when he was finally driven out of power they had 40,000 armed men spread over the country and were rapidly approaching strategic parity. The insurgency has since been substantially degraded, not by killing insurgents but by (albeit sporadically and inconsistently) removing some of the motivations that drove people to join the insurgency in the first place.

With all due respect to those who apply designations like "flawed democracy", there are places in the Philippines - and in many other "flawed democracies - where I'd rebel in a heartbeat if I'd been born into the underclass. I suspect that you would too. Not surprisingly, these are typically the places where insurgency flourishes.