War is War

[Bob's World]

Well, I said 3 minute of research, but even if the dates were inaccurate the key points were not. The conflict was shaped by terrific military operations (all combat is not war even though all war requires combat); favorable terrain (no legal borders with poorly governed populaces next door to dash across and take sanctuary within); but was resolved when the political thorn (British colonialism) was taken out of the Lion's paw (the Malayan populace).

When I talk to Brits they see their colonial period as a largely economic venture that did little harm and brought a lot of good to a wide area. Very benign, and very differently than how Americans see that same era and activities; and I suspect other former colonies not made up of British immigrants see it in a harsher light still. They say they rolled it back country by country of their own accord and not due to any outside pressure. Just good business. This struck me, as many Americans I speak to about our operations about the globe, manipulating governments to enable economic and security activities are seen as being far different and far less abusive that what people suffered under the British Empire. Americans pride themselves in being so clever and good as to reap all of the benefits of an Empire without actually being Imperialists. This is our vision of ourselves. I suspect others share different images of America.

What is my point? My point is that the conditions of insurgency are determined from the perspectives of the affected populaces. The Brits then (and other European Colonial powers) did not fully appreciate how those people felt about that experience as they assessed if from their own perspective. Hell, leaders in England could not even empathize with the leaders in the American Colonies, and they shared the same ancestors, heritage, language, religion and King. Similarly, America today does not fully appreciate how our post-WWII actions are perceived; so when there is push back we write it off to a hand full of radicalized bad actors rather than assessing it as a clear metric that we may be off track and need to redesign our program of engagement.

Most histories on COIN dwell on the military operations that took place, the various programs with the populaces, the ideology, tactics and leadership of the insurgent organizations involved, etc. One has to read between the lines to extract clues as to WHY did this really happen, HOW did these people feel, What were the early signs of brewing trouble and HOW could these conflicts have been avoided; and so on.

But, it is only after policy and government has failed that such situations call for military assistance, and once that assistance is applied it dominates all thought. The military helps the civilian leadership more by taking less of this upon themselves. We enable civil leadership to simply throw up their hands and say "oh my, some evil men have radicalized part of the populace and they are waging illegal acts of terror and war against the state, please go defeat them so that we can get back to business as usual."

We've (the military of various countries) done this in most of these insurgencies around the global as they pop up; and on a larger scale we have done it with Al Qaeda as well with their efforts to employ UW to leverage several such movements to serve their goals and agendas.

If we keep doing the same thing, we will keep getting the same result. The only insurgencies that we have ever truly resolved are the ones where we ultimately (aside from the military action) actually fixed the governmental issues that were causing the problem. Many times I suspect that was as much accident as planned, or seen as minor supporting effort to the military "war". Now there will always be those like Mr Global Scout within the military community who act like someone just stole his football and ran off with it when they propose that COIN is not war, and that combat operations cannot resolve an insurgency. There will also always be those like Mr. Dayuhan who say (reasonably) that we have no more right demand adjustments of governance than we do to invade with our armies. That's fair, but it does not change the fact that the status quo strategic approach to insurgency is not very effective, and the "new" tactics of nation building do little to address that fact. In fact, nation-building approaches in many ways make the issues of causation even worse, and are certainly even more onerous and expensive on the intervening power.

I'll try to lay out a few short steps that I think the military community should do to begin turning this corner:

1. Hold Civilian Leadership accountable.
- Do not declare that COIN is war, but rather that it is a civil emergency
- Demand the retention of civilian leadership throughout that emergency and apply military resources through the same processes that we would for any other civil emergency.
- Hold Host Nations accountable as well. Clearly state that they are the COIN force and that the intervening forces are the FID force. Then stay in your lanes.
- Make it clear that the military is not required because some radicalized threat appeared of its own volition; but that the slow failures of civilian leadership over years have led us to this sad place, and those failures must be understood and addressed as the main effort, while the military wages a supporting effort to allow that to occur. Be hard on civilian leadership, god knows they're being hard on us.

2. Rewrite military doctrine to capture this change, shifting COIN and FID from the "War" section over to the section of military doctrine where military support to civil authorities for domestic emergencies, and that for security assistance activities.

3. Point out to the White House and Congress that the military is being called upon with ever greater frequency and intensity to manage the friction coming off of our foreign policy. Tell our senior leaders to stop sitting back and worrying about when the military is going to finally end the war so that they can get back to business as usual, but rather when are they going produce the body of new policy and law that goes after addressing these root causes more effectively so that the military can get back to the business of deterring war and preparing to wage the same. This is not the fault of any one administration or Congress; these conditions grew from 45-89, and have been producing violent product with greater frequency and intensity ever since. It is, however, the responsibility of the current administration and congress to fix it. We may be able to pass the bill for these conflicts to future generations, but we should not pass them the problem as well with just a military band-aid slapped on it.

3. Stop allowing the Intel community and the Ideology experts to lead our understanding of these problems around by the nose. These are issues of governance; threat groups and the ideologies they apply are mere symptoms of how the problems are currently manifesting. Rely more heavily on political and social scientists and historians.

4. Make a critical planning assumption that however we assess the problem is likely to be heavily biased to making our own actions far more benign than they are perceived to be by the populaces these conflicts are emerging from. Do not write that all off to radicalization.

5. Make the following four areas the focus of our assessments and activities:
A. Ensuring that we are not somehow disrupting or co-opting the populaces of other lands control over their governments in such a way that they come to believe that those governments no longer draw legitimacy from sources they recognize and accept.

B. Worry less about the rule of law and more about justice under the law. Ensure our own actions are not merely legal (particularly when we are perceived to shape the laws that apply, and ignore the ones we don't like) but that we are also perceived by those on the receiving end as just. To those in the wings as well, as they are the ones whose support we will need, or who will wonder if they are next.

C. Take a strong stance on status-based discrimination. Be it race, religion, ethnic, political or regional. Understand where such discrimination exists and be doubly cautious in our engagements in those places as they have ready-made populace bases for insurgency.

D. Encourage off-ramps. Work with governments to establish and employ procedures and processes tailored for their respective cultures that guard against abuses of government and identify and protect individual rights. Ensure mechanisms for voicing concerns to governance are perceived by the populace as trusted, certain and legal. Again, be doubly cautious in working with any government that refuses to create such off ramps, as their populace has no choice but insurgency to effect change.

6. Recognize AQ for what it is; a political group that employs terrorist tactics and the tools of globalization to conduct a UW campaign to seek their goals. Do not conflate all of those separate insurgent/dissident groups into a monolithic "global insurgency." Break the problem down to its components, and then focus on the issues above, rather than a simple threat-based approach aimed at the groups that participate.