Indian War parallels

[Bill Moore]

I think the Cold War parallels are numerous, while the parallels to the Indian Wars are extremely limited, and as you stated the few that exist are mostly at the tactical level and even that is a reach. Regardless the war against radical Islam or the war on terror, is neither the cold war nor the indian wars, and drawing conclusions from loose parallels in either could lead to dangerously wrong conclusions.

[goesh]

Proffering trinkets and sugar to the Natives to bring them in closer to the forts and to sign treaties is no different than offering Democracy to a paternalistic culture wherein half the population, the women, are essentially chattel property and non-power holders in the economic and political arenas, a culture with no backdrop of representative governance and a religion that essentially forbids personal income tax. It's a tough sell, like giving Indians pocket watches and turning them into farmers. Our Westward expansion and our strategic, geopolitical maneuvering are close cousins. Hell, we still can't sort out the Imams/Medicine Men from the warriors. We're still combatting spirituality with science but what I see of the COIN mentality in this forum is encouraging. Some of these guys in the old days would be married to Indian women and eating dog and buffalo tripe from time to time. I mean, have any of our men even been in a Masjid in Iraq - you know, take off the boots, wash the face, hands, feet then sit quietly in the back? I don't know, you tell me. To a Jihadi, the God of our troops is nailed to a cross and telling you to turn the other cheek. That's part of the reason they view death in combat so differently than we do and it impacts their tactics and our anticipation of their moves as well. We've fought this fight before, many times.

[120mm]

Actually, I think damned few of the parallels are operational and tactical. All the ones that count are strategic.

1. Intergenerational struggle - check
2. Culture clash of completely and utterly incompatibles - check
3. Incoherent strategic goals of "our side" - check
4. Love them one day, murder them the next - check
5. Out of control "loose cannons" in the enemy camp who generate overresponse by "our side" - check.
6. Implacability of the conflict - check.
7. Inequity of the concept of "humane treatment" - check.
8. An enemy divided within itself - check.
9. Inevitability of one side destroying the other regardless of what batch of "neato, nifty good ideas" are generated by the "egg-heads" - we'll see.

Where the conflicts differ, here, is that Islam is not restricted to race - also, American Indian populations were not self-sustaining and self-replacing, whereas the Islamic parts of the world are growing.

I have an airplane historian friend who can argue for days that a J-3B Cub is a "completely different airplane" from a J-3C Cub. This is a similar argument from my point of view.

[tequila]

120mm - The major conflict issue in the Indian Wars is missing. The West is not attempting to physically conquer and destroy the Islamic world as it was the Western tribes. AQ believes this to be the case, but other than in the Palestinian territories the Muslim world generally doesn't buy AQ's case yet. Indeed, the No. 1 IO mission is to ensure that this remains the case. No. 2 IO mission is to convince the wider Muslim world that AQ is not the defender of oppressed Muslims but rather the Islamic Jacobin radicals that they really are. We are, I believe, far away from accomplishing this feat and getting further away every day.

Unfortunately the problem with IO nowadays is that it is near impossible to control the media environment, especially with regards to a wider global population. In the U.S. case control is not even an option --- simply gaining entry to the necessary media markets is a problem. At some basic level policy changes will have to be made in order to have an effect --- a better form of BS is not going to do a damn thing.

Goesh - I have yet to encounter any Islamic text which asserts that personal income tax is illegal. Are you referring to interest on savings?

Regarding women's rights and democracy, I point you to Western culture's rather recent conversion to the same. The West had democracy far before it had any concern for women's property rights. The Napoleonic legal code in Egypt actually removed the property rights for women they had previously held under sharia law. Turkey, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Indonesia headline culturally Islamic countries where women have held the presidency or prime minister's chair, which has never occurred in the U.S. Japan and Korea, are textbook examples of how a country can achieve modernity and democracy while at the same denying women equality in the cultural and economic spheres.

[120mm]

Good point, tequila. I hadn't put that into the equation.

But there is the oil issue. Extractive economies almost never benefit any but a few. In the end, we will have figuratively "stolen" the value of their land, which I guess is similar to stealing their land.

An interesting question will be how will the "end times" of oil production affect the Middle East?

[tequila]

But there is the oil issue. Extractive economies almost never benefit any but a few. In the end, we will have figuratively "stolen" the value of their land, which I guess is similar to stealing their land.

This forms a part of the terrorist manifesto, but it is not convincing to many IMO. The vast majority of the Islamic world does not live in oil states. I would argue that the key "evidence" of imperialism for the vast majority of Muslims is represented in Israel's policies towards the Palestinians and the occupation of Iraq. However, there are many other things to factor in, especially since as Kilcullen has noted the disaggregation of conflicts and issues represents a crucial part of our IO message. For instance, anti-Americanism in Pakistan is a far different animal with different motivations than anti-Americanism in Saudi Arabia, for instance.

I disagree with those who argue that things like this represent Muslim disgruntlement with the West.

[goesh]

Tequila - Zakat/alms is a personal responsibility, a Quranic obligation as you know and income tax would create double-dipping out of the individual's pocket, since in Democracy, the state assumes varying degrees of responsibility for orphans, the infirm, cripples, etc. From a mere economic perspective, the more booty/plunder that can be obtained, the more can be given via Zakat - an economic consideration in the expansion of the Ummah.

Western women have had the right to be President/PM for quite some time and it pretty much coincides with industrialization. The Islamic world hasn't yet resolved the issues of honor killing and clitorectomy for example, even in areas that are semi industrialized. In the epitome of industrialization in the Islamic world, Saudi Arabia, women can't even drive cars. Rigid paternalism is sanctioned in Al Qu'ran, there is no way around that. The prescription for divorce, punishment for adultery, property division, the authorization for multiple wives etc are fully paternal.

Regarding the Indian wars, genocide, resource depletion, reconciliation, placation and aculturation were all employed in varying mixes in the 260+ years of conflict. There was no one set prime directive. Tactically, the most successful forces were the mountain men/free trappers who adopted Indian ways and some of their spirituality. How else could small parties of 'infidels' move so freely and successfully so deep in Indian country? More and more, COIN/CAPS it seems is the only way to go in Iraq.

[tequila]

Zakat/alms is a personal responsibility, a Quranic obligation as you know and income tax would create double-dipping out of the individual's pocket, since in Democracy, the state assumes varying degrees of responsibility for orphans, the infirm, cripples, etc. From a mere economic perspective, the more booty/plunder that can be obtained, the more can be given via Zakat - an economic consideration in the expansion of the Ummah.

Zakat can also be collected and administered by the Islamic state. Muslim states throughout history generally have found little difficulty in collecting taxes. You can find a decent discussion of taxation and Islamic history in Ibn Khaldun's Muqaddima. Note once again that income taxes are an innovation in Western practice, only lately levied, just as women's rights are comparative latecomers in the history of liberalism.

The Islamic world hasn't yet resolved the issues of honor killing and clitorectomy for example, even in areas that are semi industrialized. In the epitome of industrialization in the Islamic world, Saudi Arabia, women can't even drive cars. Rigid paternalism is sanctioned in Al Qu'ran, there is no way around that. The prescription for divorce, punishment for adultery, property division, the authorization for multiple wives etc are fully paternal.

Honor killing is most often found in clan, tribal, or caste-based societies and are hardly restricted to Muslim countries. They are, for example, a major problem in democratic India among all religious groups. See also, for instance, a recent occurrence in Catholic Italy. The same goes for female genital mutilation, which largely continues as a sub-Saharan African practice and is common in Christian as well as Muslim countries in Africa - for example Ethiopia, where the Coptic Church sanctifies the practice.

[Steve Blair]

I think the Cold War parallels are numerous, while the parallels to the Indian Wars are extremely limited, and as you stated the few that exist are mostly at the tactical level and even that is a reach. Regardless the war against radical Islam or the war on terror, is neither the cold war nor the indian wars, and drawing conclusions from loose parallels in either could lead to dangerously wrong conclusions.

I have yet to see many good arguments for the Cold War parallels aside from some vague mutterings about clashes of ideology and the geographic scope of the conflict.

I don't draw conclusions; rather, I look for similar mindsets that could lead to future mistakes. It has always baffled me why people seem to think that if you're looking at history you're automatically looking to draw conclusions. This isn't directed at you, Bill, but at folks in general who try to make that leap. We do not exist in a vacuum.

[Bill Moore]

I'll take a quick stab at some parallels:

1. Global in scale and a competition between two ideologies.

2. Like the cold war, there were some hot spots, and victory in the hot spots for the big players (U.S. and the USSR) was so much a physical victory (win a battle), but rather a psychological victory where we both aimed to defeat the support base at home. The communists defeated ours during Vietnam, we defeated theirs during Afghanistan. Neither were important in themselves.

3. Like the cold war several countries that would not normally be important strategically to our national interests like Algeria, Somalia, etc. have become very important (it is like a another Domino Theory), one falls to radical Islam, then another, etc.

4. It is a moral fight on the international front.

5. Political Islam is not communism, but like the Cold War it is an effective ideology at mobilizing populations (or segments of the population) around the world. It is subversive in nature, and initially starts off as terrorism, and gradually evolves into a full scale insurgency (much like a Maoist approach).

6. Like the cold war each side attempts to win more players over to their global coalition. We have the coalition of the willing and they have the Al Qaeda associated movements.

7. Like the cold war a large part of the war will be fought covertly.

Very loose parallels admittedly, and the more I look at the less I like it. I do think are important lessons that we take from the Cold War though (ones most if not all on this site know), and that is the importance of maintaining support of the critical audiences whether they be in our own citizens or in England or in Spain. The damn them, we'll do it on our own approach won't work. Coalitions are critical (why do you think the Al Qaeda makes such as effort to sever them?), and if we have to compromise on some issues to keep the coalition together, then we have to compromise. Realpolitic isn't pretty.