James Madison - Greatest COIN leader in History

[Bob's World]

D. It definitely must be not only Karzai-led, but the US must stay out of the picture as far as possible. As I was reading the Kabul newpaper as I flew out on leave, it was full of articles discussing the Peace Jirga. There was some very positive articles. Karzai's efforts are the key to success, and the key for the US is to resist any and all urges to shape or control the same. If this works, then our efforts with the remainder of the insurgency have a hope of taking hold as well, allowing a drawdown to begin next year as planned.

[Dayuhan]

D. It definitely must be not only Karzai-led, but the US must stay out of the picture as far as possible. As I was reading the Kabul newpaper as I flew out on leave, it was full of articles discussing the Peace Jirga. There was some very positive articles. Karzai's efforts are the key to success, and the key for the US is to resist any and all urges to shape or control the same. If this works, then our efforts with the remainder of the insurgency have a hope of taking hold as well, allowing a drawdown to begin next year as planned.

Do you think the Taliban have any interest in any outcome short of their return to power? Certainly they have an incentive to put on a show of negotiation if that produces a US drawdown... but would that be a serious effort to reach an accommodation or a strategic move aimed at eventually muscling Karzai out of the picture? What chance does the Karzai regime have of surviving without a continued US presence?

[Bob's World]

Personally, I think the Taliban see greater opportunity in working with Karzai than in working with Pakistan. Time will tell.

By taking the Karzai deal they have a chance to work toward a solution that is a just them (who knows, the world has changed, they will need to reform as well to a stance more acceptable for their populace as a whole, after all, we are in the mix now and enaged in this); where as to continue the fight is to always be beholding to Pakistan.

So yeah, I think they might take the deal.

[Dayuhan]

who knows, the world has changed, they will need to reform as well to a stance more acceptable for their populace as a whole, after all, we are in the mix now and enaged in this

I'm not sure that our presence in the mix is much of an incentive for the Taliban to reform, especially if they see us backing out of the mix.

Time will indeed tell. Not that any of us can predict what the Taliban or any portion thereof might do, but I suspect that the Taliban might take the deal and then change the deal down the line, or just not take the deal. If they believe that they hold the upper hand, why should they deal?

[Entropy]

Col. Jones, I have two main problems with your thesis:

To begin - a question: How do you reconcile the irreconcilable? How do you address, through governance, populations with mutually exclusive and irreconcilable desires? This is an issue I've brought up several times that you haven't yet addressed.

The Balkans is a case that illustrates the this point well. I would submit that keeping Yugoslavia together without oppressive force was not possible. Only the gun worked and you're right in the sense that the gun will usually only work for a relatively short period of time. I submit that there was no "good governance" that could have accommodated everyone and kept Yugoslavia whole. Tito opening a dialog with his people to improve governance would only have hastened collapse. Yugoslavia isn't an isolated case - there are certainly other "nations" that are only kept whole through the threat of force. That is a problem that I don't believe "good governance" can solve unless good governance includes dissolving governance altogether and restructuring political boundaries.

Your call for oppressive governments to hold talks on grievances with the populace might work in some cases, but would fail in states where internal irreconcilable differences exist.

Secondly, the most important aspect of governance is the ability to actually govern. The ability to govern requires the power to implement and enforce governance, whatever it is, and prevent competitors from implementing theirs. Without that power there can be no governance, much less "good" governance. "OK" governance backed by credible power to actually govern is going to beat "good" governance backed by weak power.

While I agree there is a lot of bad governance out of Kabul (strongly abetted by the constitution), the government, more fundamentally, lacks the capability to govern at all. The Kabul government couldn't become an oppressive regime even if it wanted to. It's complete dependency on the the US and other foreign powers is only the most glaring sign of its weakness. Weakness = bad governance, even when a government is trying to do good.

More on a deal with the Taliban tomorrow....

[Bob's World]

Col. Jones, I have two main problems with your thesis:

To begin - a question: How do you reconcile the irreconcilable? How do you address, through governance, populations with mutually exclusive and irreconcilable desires? This is an issue I've brought up several times that you haven't yet addressed.

The Balkans is a case that illustrates the this point well. I would submit that keeping Yugoslavia together without oppressive force was not possible. Only the gun worked and you're right in the sense that the gun will usually only work for a relatively short period of time. I submit that there was no "good governance" that could have accommodated everyone and kept Yugoslavia whole. Tito opening a dialog with his people to improve governance would only have hastened collapse. Yugoslavia isn't an isolated case - there are certainly other "nations" that are only kept whole through the threat of force. That is a problem that I don't believe "good governance" can solve unless good governance includes dissolving governance altogether and restructuring political boundaries.

Your call for oppressive governments to hold talks on grievances with the populace might work in some cases, but would fail in states where internal irreconcilable differences exist.

Secondly, the most important aspect of governance is the ability to actually govern. The ability to govern requires the power to implement and enforce governance, whatever it is, and prevent competitors from implementing theirs. Without that power there can be no governance, much less "good" governance. "OK" governance backed by credible power to actually govern is going to beat "good" governance backed by weak power.

While I agree there is a lot of bad governance out of Kabul (strongly abetted by the constitution), the government, more fundamentally, lacks the capability to govern at all. The Kabul government couldn't become an oppressive regime even if it wanted to. It's complete dependency on the the US and other foreign powers is only the most glaring sign of its weakness. Weakness = bad governance, even when a government is trying to do good.

More on a deal with the Taliban tomorrow....

Bottom line is that one can't make sustaining any particular status quo a non-negotiable going in position.

The Balkans naturally broke into to sustainable parts based on the critical criteria of religion that shaped the "teams" when the violence there first erupted. Perhaps someday those states may come back together for reasons of security or economics as issues evolve and change. To have attempted to force a unified solution may have been impossible 10 years ago.

Forcing a unified solution in Iraq probably complicated things there, and is probably complicating things in Afghanistan as well. We get too wrapped around the axle on how we define a sovereign, functioning state and try to create conditions that meet a model that in truth, (controlled borders) we can't even meet ourselves.

Even in the US we had to begin with articles of Confederation for creation, and then evolve to a Constitution for growth and survival, and even that was severely tested in Civil War. It was all self-imposed, so we worked through it. Imagine if France would have forced a model on us as the price for their assistance against England? Anything forced by an stronger outside power would have lacked legitimacy and also damaged the legitimacy of our own leaders and we probably would not have made it.

So I would be cautious as to how we define "irreconcilable"; as we may just mean someone who refuses to share our vision for their country.

As to capacity for governance, that will come with time. Good Governance is not about effective governance. Like parenting, a young couple that starts off with Good Parenting will make mistakes, learn, and grow into effective parenting. We are too quick to over-value effectiveness of governance. Plenty of populaces around the world do very well and are very satisfied with ineffective governance. Our own model designed by the COIN-master Madison is designed to be ineffective on purpose to facilitate "Goodness."

[Entropy]

So I would be cautious as to how we define "irreconcilable"; as we may just mean someone who refuses to share our vision for their country.

I am not limiting things to us vs them or the government vs the governed or even competing visions. In fact, I'm specifically talking about irreconcilable differences between populations themselves. Yugoslavia, again, is a useful example. It wasn't, in my view, a governance problem, but one in which various populations were so at odds with each other that they were willing to resort to murder and ethnically cleansing. They weren't merely revolting against an established government.

Now it's likely the instruments of government may be dominated or controlled by one of those factions, but one shouldn't, in my view, perceive that as a governance problem since the root cause is the conflict between the populations.

Which brings me to:

OK, not sure if that is helpful. Frankly I have admit that I am typically a bit baffled when pundits have thrown on the table with no real explanation as to what they mean that the conflict is Iraq/Afghanistan "is no longer an insurgency, its a civil war."

Ok, I'll bite. WTF? What do you base this assessment on (asking no one in particular), and how does the making of this assessment help you resolve the problem? I mean, if you can clearly define that situation A. is an insurgency, and therefore is cured with process A.; and that situation B. is a civil war, and is therefore cured with process B.; fine. That is helpful.

To begin, I've never said that Afghanistan "is no longer" an insurgency. My position is that it's been in a civil war all along. The conflict in Afghanistan before the US invasion wasn't between an established government and "insurgents." There was no established government and so the conflict was a clearly a civil war. We may like to believe our invasion settled that conflict, but I don't think that's the case. Someone has to explain to me how a foreign power's intervention and taking sides in a civil war magically transforms the conflict into an insurgency. Similarly, our intervention supporting the separatists in Kosovo did not settle the conflict and we should expect violence to return there at some point in the future.

So, our Afghan invasion did not deal with the underlying causes of the civil war. We established what we believe to be a legitimate government and then labeled any opposition to that government "insurgents" and defined the conflict as "insurgency." Our strategy flows from that mindset - that this is, first and foremost, an insurgency and therefore counterinsurgency is the proper remedy. That we hold this view does not make it reality and blinds us from other strategies that might better serve our interests.

For an illustration, look at our experience in the Korengal and Nuristan. These are areas and peoples that have never been under any kind of significant central control. Yet because they didn't recognize the authority of our client in Kabul, we called them "insurgents" and sent men with guns to convince them that they should cede their sovereignty to our client. We were shocked and dismayed when they continually and violently rejected our proposals which confirmed our mindset that they were insurgents and therefore were an enemy who must be forced or enticed into compliance and loyalty to Kabul's authority. Take off the "insurgency" blinders, examine some history, and the alternative explanation becomes clear - these people are independent, self-governing entities that violently oppose any attempts by outsiders to control or diminish that independence.

As I was reading the Kabul newpaper as I flew out on leave, it was full of articles discussing the Peace Jirga. There was some very positive articles. Karzai's efforts are the key to success, and the key for the US is to resist any and all urges to shape or control the same. If this works, then our efforts with the remainder of the insurgency have a hope of taking hold as well, allowing a drawdown to begin next year as planned.

I'm surprised to hear you say this. A newspaper in Kabul represents a very narrow slice of Afghanistan. Do not place too much importance on what Afghan's elites believe. Don't assume what they say is really what they believe either. I'm also not sure how we can resist urges to shape and control when the purpose of all the extra forces we've put into theater is ostensibly to shape and control events.

[Bob's World]

"There was no established government and so the conflict was a clearly a civil war. "

I'm not sure how accurate your assessment is, or how universal this definition of Civil War vice Insurgency is.

What makes a government "established"? A vote? Foreign recognition?

Afghanistan is unique in that there always tends to be about half of society excluded from full participation in governance and opportunity at any given time; thus making this what I assess as the easiest country in the world to conduct UW in. There is alway a ready, orgainized team in the wings waiting for ANYONE to come along and help them turn the tables one more time.

The dynamics at work though, are those of insurgency rather than warfare, so I find the insurgency construct to be far more helpful than adopting a civil war construct. If the Northern alliance vs the Taliban was Civil War (and a miltary victory forced the change, so there is some merit to that assessment) it quickly morphed into an insurgency led by the Taliban vs the Karzai government that continues today.

Its complicated. That's why Karzai's reconciliation efforts are so key, in that he has to bring the excluded half in from the cold to turn the corner on stability.

[Dayuhan]

What makes a government "established"? A vote? Foreign recognition?

That's the key question, isn't it?

We've recently shown a tendency to assume that any government we install is "the government" and anyone opposing it is "an insurgent". Those definitions are debatable.

In Iraq we faced an armed competition to fill the vacuum left by the removal of Saddam. To us that was insurgency, because we had already proclaimed one of the competing factions as "the government". To those who had never acknowledged that faction as the government, this wouldn't have made much sense.

A definition of what makes a government a government will likely be complex, but for starters I'd say it needs to be acknowledged as a government by its populace, and it has to govern. The situation in Somalia, for example, can't be reasonably called an insurgency because there is no government.

In Afghanistan, I'm not convinced that the paradigm we hold up - Taliban vs GIROA, US "doing FID" in support of GIROA's COIN - accurately reflects either popular perception or the reality on the ground. Possibly I'm wrong; I hope so.

[Pete]

Far be it from me to cast doubt on the genius and statesmanship of James Madison, but the U.S. Bill of Rights owes its inspiration to an earlier document, the English Bill of Rights of 1689. By enumerating the rights of Englishmen it paved the way for William of Orange's ascent to the English throne. Indeed, like the American Bill of Rights it forbids excessive bails and cruel and unusual punishment. A different light is cast on the meaning of the Second Amendment when compared to the equivalent clause in the English Bill of Rights: "That the subjects which are Protestants may have arms for their defence suitable to their conditions and as allowed by law ... " The text of the English Bill of Rights can be read by clicking here.

[Entropy]

If factions fighting for control of a country after the collapse of the previous government is not a civil war, then I don't know what is.

Additionally, the Taliban predates the insurgency. The Taliban didn't rise up against Karzai's government because of injustice or because Pashtuns and their affiliates are being repressed or because the interests of their people could not be represented in goverment. Their agenda (and that of HiG and Haqqani) isn't explicitly tied to poor governance - they have other goals.

Sure Afghanistan is complicated, and I don't mean to imply there's no insurgency at all there, but if you limit yourself to an insurgency mindset, then you're missing a lot of the picture. For example:

Afghanistan is unique in that there always tends to be about half of society excluded from full participation in governance and opportunity at any given time; thus making this what I assess as the easiest country in the world to conduct UW in. There is alway a ready, orgainized team in the wings waiting for ANYONE to come along and help them turn the tables one more time.

Half the population excluded from governance? Most Afghans have always had governance at the local level. Exclusion from national-level governance is just as likely to be by choice as not and that's also an effect of Afghanistan's factionalism, internal division and lack of national consensus. Consider again the example of the Korengalis, Nuristanis and many others. They have governance. The don't need or want anything from Kabul or anyone else unless it's on their terms and in their interest. Others want something from a central government, but only under conditions anathema to someone else. In short, in a complex, multicultural society with a history of violence, asking for centralized governance is probably asking for too much.

The insurgency mindset pushes us to see things in terms of national-level governance, hence we get the "government in a box" for Marjeh, the long and failed efforts in Kunar and Nuristan to sell governance to those didn't want it, and what looks to be a similar strategy for the upcoming operation in Kandahar. Always the assumption is that solutions and governance must be provided and Kabul/Karzai must be seen to be the providers. I understand your theory is much more nuanced, but the effect of an insurgency mindset on actual Afghanistan strategy is clear.

Finally, it's good to see that some people are beginning to question long-held assumptions (see here and here with h/t to Bernard Finel).

[Bob's World]

Far be it from me to cast doubt on the genius and statesmanship of James Madison, but the U.S. Bill of Rights owes its inspiration to an earlier document, the English Bill of Rights of 1689. By enumerating the rights of Englishmen it paved the way for William of Orange's ascent to the English throne. Indeed, like the American Bill of Rights it forbids excessive bails and cruel and unusual punishment. A different light is cast on the meaning of the Second Amendment when compared to the equivalent clause in the English Bill of Rights: "That the subjects which are Protestants may have arms for their defence suitable to their conditions and as allowed by law ... " The text of the English Bill of Rights can be read by clicking here.

The problem England fell into was that they saw colonials as being less than true Englishmen. This fed poor perceptions of Legitimacy, Respect, Justice and Hope.

Much of what America's founders pulled together was drawn from those who had gone before. Few good ideas are truely new.