Modernization/Development Theory, CORDS, and FM 3-24?

[TheCurmudgeon]

Madhu,

In response to the quote from the Gentile article:

"All three groups—airpower theorists, adherents of the French Revolutionary War School, and the proponents of the new U.S. COIN doctrine—inverted the way military forces had traditionally fought wars. The first actions in wars fought between nation-states normally involved large battles between the military forces ofthe opposing sides. Depending on the nature of the war, at some point as the war progressed the civilian population might to some degree become involved in the fighting. But the airpower and counterinsurgency theorists reversed this process so that the first step in war would be to involve the people. For the airpower theorists, involvement would mean bombing them from the sky. For the counterinsurgency theorists,involvement would be securing the population with military force in order to get at the insurgents. After this involvement between the people and the military, in either of the two cases, military forces might be engaged along the lines of more traditional warfare."

I disagree with this assessment. What Douhet (Air Power) was arguing was that a nation's will could be broken directly through bombing. It was revolutionary for two reasons. First, it recognized the power of the airplane to circumvent conventional ground defenses. But second, and more importantly, it recognized that modern nations draw their power directly from the people - popular sovereignty. Break the people's will and the country collapses. COIN is based on a similar concept often oversimplified into the statement that the population is the center of gravity in a fight. It is not a matter of sequencing. If the will of the people is broken there will be no subsequent military engagement.

The problem with COIN as applied in certain parts of the world, in my opinion, is that you are applying rules that might work in a nation that is based on popular sovereignty to a country where legitimacy is based on more traditional systems like tribal or religious affiliations. It proceeds ab initio from a false assumption.