Page 44 of 54 FirstFirst ... 344243444546 ... LastLast
Results 861 to 880 of 1063

Thread: COIN Counterinsurgency (merged thread)

  1. #861
    Council Member Bob's World's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2008
    Location
    Florida
    Posts
    2,706

    Default

    One of the most deadly flaws in our CT/COIN approach to the events of 9/11 is to not recognize the two levels of conditions of insurgency that the many national, regional and transnational groups are relying upon and emerging from.

    As the Arab Spring clearly attests, many population groups around the greater middle east (around the world as well, but I'll restrict this to the Sunni Muslim populations targeted by AQ as this is about our post 9/11 activities) have deep grievances with the systems of governance that affect their lives. Some of these systems are formal and national. Some are informal and more regional. Some are formal and international. Some are informal and international. Some grievances are real, some are largely perceived. The key in studying and thinking about these populations and what conditions of insurgency might exist is that the perspective of anyone or any group other than the actual population in question is moot. We need to deal with that reality. So do many of the governments we support around the region. We also need to deal with the fact that while effective government and the provision of governmental services are nice, they will not buy a government out of trouble when that same government is offending some population in more fundamental ways.

    So, for the US to appreciate is that there are many pockets of nationalist or regional (in places like Yemen, Somalia or the Maghreb where borders mean little and populations straddle multiple systems of governance) revolutionary insurgency. So simply helping those governments build security force capacity in an effort to sustain the status quo makes a certain tactical logic, particularly in the context of how we have framed AQ and the degree of colonial bias still infused into our doctrine. But all this can do is help suppress the current set of actors emerging from these populations, while at the same time enabling said systems of governance to continue on with the family of sins that brought them to this place to begin with. It also serves to validate a one of three primary points in AQ’s UW sales pitch: "You can't win at home (get your own government to listen to you and evolve) until you break the support of these powerful external players, such as the US, to those regimes." In fact, it is our very support that contributes the most to making those governments "apostate."

    For AQ each of these pockets of revolutionary insurgency energy is a playground for their larger UW campaign. What our Intel community has broken out into several different branches of AQ (AQAP, AQIM, etc, etc) are more accurately simply separate theaters of operation for AQs larger UW campaign to change the overall governance of the region. To call these separate segments of AQ and to include the local revolutionary actors under the AQ umbrella for ease of CT targeting is a strategic disaster of the highest order. It may "mow the grass," but it also "poisons the soil" at the same time.

    What is this poison soil? Well, that gets to larger perspective. We can all appreciate how a resistance insurgency to a physical occupation occurs. The many famous resistance movements across Europe to German occupation during WWII are recent examples. The resistance to US occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan are more recent examples. But does it require a physical occupation for conditions of resistance insurgency to grow?? I don't think so. I think what we have are broad conditions of resistance insurgency to an occupation by policy, if you will, of the US-led efforts and programs put in place over the post-WWII era to contain the Soviets and to lend stability to energy markets and critical lines of communication. These are the conditions of insurgency that AQ relies upon to recruit individuals for acts of transnational terrorism. When we simply help defeat revolutionary insurgents, and when we bundle revolutionary insurgents accepting help from AQs UW teams as also being AQ and conduct CT against them, we make these conditions of insurgency and this source of causation worse.

    We need to reframe the problem. We need to separate, not conflate diverse actors. We need to put a much finer point on our CT efforts, and we need to recognize that security force capacity is only a mitigating effort in dealing with revolutionary insurgency, but is in no way a cure.

    To do this will be far less expensive that efforts of the past 12 years. It will be far less offensive to people everywhere (to include our "war weary" population at home), and will bring US foreign policy back much closer into line with how we see ourselves (rather than what we have become). Oh yeah. And it will also be far more productive at the strategic level. We need to stop promoting generals and admirals for great tactical success in the face of strategic failure. Flag officers are supposed to be strategic leaders; we need to hold them to a strategic standard.
    Robert C. Jones
    Intellectus Supra Scientia
    (Understanding is more important than Knowledge)

    "The modern COIN mindset is when one arrogantly goes to some foreign land and attempts to make those who live there a lesser version of one's self. The FID mindset is when one humbly goes to some foreign land and seeks first to understand, and then to help in some small way for those who live there to be the best version of their own self." Colonel Robert C. Jones, US Army Special Forces (Retired)

  2. #862
    Council Member
    Join Date
    Oct 2005
    Posts
    3,169

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by jmm99 View Post
    Now we have two good links to a good article.

    The muddy statements are all in the COIN section - they're bolded in the following:


    The unbolded statements are understood by me; I don't get the three bolded items; or perhaps, my mind doesn't buy them as stated.

    Regards

    Mike
    Mike, my first cut at the items in bold. I actually appreciate you prompting me to go back to the article and think about further. Bill

    2. The merit in COIN cannot sensibly be posed as a general question. p.6 pdf

    This makes perfect sense to me, although my interpretation of Collin’s intent may be off the mark. He emphasized that "our" decision to intervene is always a political decision first, and of course that is tied to policy ends. He wrote, “
    Whether or not it is sensible for an outside polity to intervene in other polities’ insurgencies is a question that can only be posed in the particular.”
    Bottom line whether or not the U.S. should intervene in another nation’s insurgency is not a general question. It isn’t as clear as it could be, but he points at the strategic context, and that not all insurgencies are the same in that respect. If we first focus on the strategic context we should be able to come to a resolution on the appropriate tactics and doctrine for that particular engagement. (bold is my highlight)

    We clearly don’t do that now, we have a generic doctrine that is not tailored to the situation (even if the doctrine plainly states it should be). Instead we respond with actions tied to buzz phrases such as good governance, winning hearts and minds, providing jobs, targeting insurgent leadership, protecting the populace, developing their security forces, etc., which in turn translate into metrics we monitor and report on that make it appear we’re winning until we lose. Understanding the policy goals and strategic context first, and then determine the tactics. This approach is so easy to grasp because it is so logical, yet so hard to do.

    He makes other great points in this section, but to address them now would distract from the question at hand.

    3. In COIN, all war and its warfare are about politics no more or less than in strategic behavior applied to other missions. p.7 pdf

    The statement is oddly written, and no doubt some of our members will disagree with his points to varying degrees (myself included), but overall I concur with his arguments and feel appropriately scolded :-).

    He points to the conceptual confusion in our COIN discussions between two principle poles of COIN theorists. The first pole believes the political factors (and I’ll add economic since we tend to blend the two) related to legitimacy are more essential than the military ones in countering an insurgency, while the second pole believes insurgency is primarily a military challenge which includes protecting the population. He points out both poles are correct unless they’re taken to their extremes where one disregards the other. The means and methods in COIN will vary case to case, with varying degree of military effort dependent upon the situation, but the take away is all war and warfare is political (to include state on state war, terrorism, insurgency, etc.), so to claim that COIN is more political than other forms of conflict is illogical.

    I like his final comment in this section,
    “Conceptual creativity that sees the light of day in wars that allegedly are irregular, hybrid, complex, difficult, fourth generation, and the rest of the products of fertile imaginations must not be permitted to obscure the simple and usable verities that war is war and it is always about politics. Theoretical elaboration of the claimed structure of allegedly different kinds of wars is usually an example of conceptual construction on sand.”
    My only disagreement is that this fails to capture how insurgents superbly integrate their militant operations to principally achieve political effect instead of win battles. This doesn’t counter anything Collin said, but our military leaders often seem to miss this point after 10 years of being involved in insurgencies.

    5. Counterinsurgency is not a subject that has integrity in and of itself. p.9 pdf

    Collin writes, “
    It is highly misleading to write about COIN as if it were a technique, a basket of operational and tactical ways and means, utterly divorced from specific historical political circumstances. There is and can be no “right way” to do COIN,”
    He advises us not to conflate COIN to a point where it has standalone, context free merit, which in my view we have already done with all the cottage industries and Think Tanks that have emerged since 9/11 focused on COIN, which was just recently reinforced with yet another RAND study on COIN that is largely focused on tactics.

    He adds that we shouldn’t restrict ourselves to our current COIN playbook (doctrine?), and instead, we should “
    draw upon the full range of our strategic understanding and of historical experience far beyond our own
    .” The questions we should ask are whether we should intervene? and if so how? and to what end? This is much larger than a basket full of tactics and best practices. I think this essentially captures the point that COIN is not subject that has integrity my itself, instead it must be viewed in a larger strategic context.

    Don't know if I just muddied the waters more or helped the mud settle.

  3. #863
    Council Member TheCurmudgeon's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    Woodbridge, VA
    Posts
    1,117

    Default All war is political to whom?

    Bill M.

    What is the political component of a humanitarian intervention? Or is humanitarian intervention not war?

    Not scolding, just trying to wrap my head around this. If, in Syria, we send in troops to create safe zones, but not to tip the scales of the conflict towards the rebels, what is our political aim and who is it against?
    Last edited by TheCurmudgeon; 10-03-2013 at 03:11 AM.
    "I can change almost anything ... but I can't change human nature."

    Jon Osterman/Dr. Manhattan
    ---

  4. #864
    Council Member
    Join Date
    Oct 2005
    Posts
    3,169

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by TheCurmudgeon View Post
    Bill M.

    What is the political component of a humanitarian intervention? Or is humanitarian intervention not war?

    Not scolding, just trying to wrap my head around this. If, in Syria, we send in troops to create safe zones, but not to tip the scales of the conflict towards the rebels, what is our political aim and who is it against?
    Humanitarian interventions are tied to political goals/policy, more so when military forces are employed to conduct them, or quite simply we wouldn't be intervening as a nation. There were underlying political objectives for Haiti and Somalia, as there are for Syria and the region.

    I'm not showing my cards on what I believe is right for our response to Syria, but simply providing some of the political policy objectives I have seen or heard reported in the media that can be tied specifically to supporting the humanitarian aspect of the crisis, but note our strategy is much larger than intervening strictly for humanitarian purposes, so it is not possible to develop a military strategy based simply on the humanitarian crisis without considering the larger context involving Assad, Iran, Russia, Turkey, Al-Qaeda, economic system disruption, weapons of mass destruction (the main issue at the moment), Hezbollah, etc.

    Possible political objectives related to the humanitarian aspect:

    - Encouraging a desired international order where man-made humanitarian disasters are no longer acceptable.

    - Maintaining global U.S. leadership of the international order.

    - Maintain an acceptable degree of stability by containing the conflict to the extent possible.

    - Weaken Al-Qaeda's messaging and attempt to exploit the situation in surrounding countries.

    - Politically compelled domestically to intervene based on our nation's belief (this would be the case if Sen McCain could gain traction).

    - Maintain influence with a potential follow on government in Syria.

    I don't know what all the reasons are, but it is imperative for those developing the supporting military strategy to understand the overall political/strategic context and not simply respond with a doctrinal approach as some of our COINdistas would do if we were responding to an insurgency.

  5. #865
    Council Member
    Join Date
    May 2008
    Posts
    4,021

    Default Bill,

    I'll read through the three sections more carefully to see if I can more out of Gray than I did.

    Regards

    Mike

  6. #866
    Council Member TheCurmudgeon's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    Woodbridge, VA
    Posts
    1,117

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Bill Moore View Post
    I don't know what all the reasons are, but it is imperative for those developing the supporting military strategy to understand the overall political/strategic context and not simply respond with a doctrinal approach as some of our COINdistas would do if we were responding to an insurgency.
    Bill,

    I don't disagree with your statement. For Soldiers of Western powers, places where the idea of the state and what is political is less fuzzy, or just more compartmentalized, I agree. But to say that all war is political is to westernize war. It commits the same sin that we do when we attempt to build nations in our own image - it does not take into account that other people in other cultures may not see things the same as we do.

    In the introduction to "The Changing Character of War" Strachan and Scheipers discuss an attempt to define war:

    So, the seminar series at the beginning of calendar year 2004, the first term of the programme’s existence, was designed to address the big question of what is war … After a series of talks by subject specialists both in the areas where the programme lacked research expertise as well as areas in which it possessed it, we agreed on five criteria. First, war involves the use of force, although there can be a state of war in which active hostilities are suspended, and some would argue that the threat of the use of war (as in the Cold War) constitutes war. Fighting is what defines war, a point made by Clausewitz, and echoed in this book by Barkawi and Brighton. Second, war rests on contention. If one party attacks another, the other must respond for war to occur, or else what follows will be murder, massacre, or occupation. This reaction means that possibly the most important feature of war is reciprocity: part of the problem with much operational thought in the 1990’s was that it had forgotten that the enemy has a vote and that his response might be ‘asymmetrical’ or even unpredictable. Third, war assumes a degree of intensity and duration to the fighting: scale matters, and skirmishers and border clashes are not necessarily war. Fourth, those who fight do not do so in a private capacity, and fifth, and consequently, war is fought for some aim beyond fighting itself. Both of the last two criteria tend normatively to be associated with states and their policies, but they do not have to be defined in these ways, and wars have been pursued – for example, by Germany and Japan in 1945, beyond the point at which they seem to be able to deliver worthwhile results.
    emphasis added.

    We define war to be political. It is not necessarily a definitional component of war and it may not be the way our enemy sees it.

    For purposes of examining the motives behine war I defined it as "deadly or potentially deadly organized violence committed by a subset of one group, whose actions are morally sanctioned by that group, against a discrete and identifiable other group with a specific objective or goal." The motivation need not be "political".

    Of course your other option is to torture the definition of what is political. If I fight a holy war is that political. Were the Crusades political? War is a social act, yes. But political? Only in our western minds.

    Why does it matter? Because when we define war this way we tend to homogenize our enemy and impart onto them our motivational scheme without seeing the conflict from thier perspective. We sterilize the act of war, turning it into a political fight rather than an emotional response to the acts of another. We make war logical. I think this is one of the primary mistakes of COIN. Because if war is political, then we can pacify the population by providing what we feel a political entity ought to provide. We can “govern” our way out of a fight. I think this is one of the major mistakes of COIN – and one that we perpetuate as long as we assume the enemy sees war the same way we do.
    Last edited by TheCurmudgeon; 10-03-2013 at 01:02 PM.
    "I can change almost anything ... but I can't change human nature."

    Jon Osterman/Dr. Manhattan
    ---

  7. #867
    Council Member
    Join Date
    May 2008
    Posts
    4,021

    Default Is this "war" ?

    under this definition:

    "deadly or potentially deadly organized violence committed by a subset of one group, whose actions are morally sanctioned by that group, against a discrete and identifiable other group with a specific objective or goal." The motivation need not be "political".
    Lt. Fuzzstick is the obnoxious commander of a platoon of border police. Lt. Ruffstuff commands a platoon of border police on the other side of the border. The two platoons (and their commanders) have been exchanging trash talk for months. Lt. Ruffstuff (after getting together with his platoon to explore all COAs) decides to send a section of his platoon to neutralize an outpost of Lt. Fuzzstick's command. That mission is executed as planned.

    I'd suggest that:

    1. The Fuzzstick-Ruffstuff event meets the definition of "war" as proposed in the quote.

    2. Strachan probably would find this "border skermish" not to be "war", although his five "rules" do not explicitly explain why this is so.

    3. The Fuzzstick-Ruffstuff incident might well fall into the category of a limited "armed conflict", with application of some "in war" rules.

    4. Definitions in this area (e.g., "group") can't be precise; and matters have to be addressed on a case by case basis.

    Finally, I'm frugal (cheap) and I'd look to the FREE ICRC materials on "war" (Hague) and "armed conflict" (Geneva), which have more clout, rather than to Strachan at $80 - but to each their own .

    As to politics, group politics beget group policy, which begets "war" (aka "armed conflict" in most instances). "War" has two general components: political action and military action. Nothing is "Western" or "Eastern" about that. China is a good example of positing a broad swath of "political warfare".

    One might formulate something of a continuum (roughly based on the degree of violence sustained by, and the size of, the groups involved) reflecting the balance between political action and military action. For example, in an all-out nuclear war, political action would seem immaterial. In the early stages of an insurgency, the incumbant should be looking more at political action than military action. State to state conventional warfare would be in between.

    I still have to go back to Gray.

    Regards

    Mike
    Last edited by jmm99; 10-03-2013 at 05:08 PM.

  8. #868
    Council Member TheCurmudgeon's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    Woodbridge, VA
    Posts
    1,117

    Default

    Jmm,

    When I refer to Western I am more referring to the post Westphalian "state" that we like to pretend exists worldwide, and that we have drawn lines all across the globe to divide the world up into political "states".

    So, if war is political, what do we call it when pre-political hunter-gatherer tribes engage in organized violence - a rugby match? The reason we call it political is because that is how we see the world.

    I think it also allows us to step back from the violence. We are not murdering human beings, we are executing policy. It is clean and guiltless. Cold and logical. Yet, you have to enlist "the passion of the people" if you want to execute a war. I think we go to great lengths to create logical models of "rational actors" that we then try unsuccessfully to overlay on a world that is emotional and irrational.

    Let me offer another view on the matter, one that takes us very far afield into the evolution of the human brain. When you look at the hunter-gatherer wars, ... err ... I mean "rugby matches", you see that one of the major purposes of these fights is to steal women from another group. The addition of women to one's group means more children and hence, the survival of the group. Moving forward a few thousand years, one of the questions that is often raised in modern wars is "why is rape so often associated with war?" Could it be that even though we have become more "civilized", when we engage in the primordial act of war we trigger associations that were created through hundreds of thousands of years of evolution?

    OK, that was a wild theory, but it brings us back to the point that war is not the creation of politics nor must it be political. War existed long before we had politics. Now you will find some theorists, like Douglas Fry who will argue that war only came into being after humans became horticulturalists and stopped hunting and gatherering. Others dispute that, citing the fact that all members of the ape family engage in similar acts of murderous organized violence. Either way, war existed long before any realistic form of organized politics. We are attempting to retrofit war with a modern reason for its existence and make ourselves feel better about it in the process.
    Last edited by TheCurmudgeon; 10-03-2013 at 06:43 PM.
    "I can change almost anything ... but I can't change human nature."

    Jon Osterman/Dr. Manhattan
    ---

  9. #869
    Moderator Steve Blair's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2005
    Location
    Montana
    Posts
    3,195

    Default

    I think part of that goes back to how you define politics. There's going to be nation-state politics, but there's also social and tribal/group politics that predate all that. Any hunter-gatherer society is going to have its own variation of politics (be it a social need to avenge kin losses, jockeying for position within the group, or something else), and denying that is dangerous.

    One of the things that played into many of our Indian conflicts was the Anglos' almost total lack of understanding of tribal politics. We expected to see "chiefs" that corresponded to our own leaders and never grasped the depth of tribal politics. The Kiowa, for one example, were almost addicted to tribal politics, with various factions vying for power at any given point in time. Their raiding could be (at any time) a response to tribal losses, an attempt to show (or save) face within the various factions, or the attempt by a younger leader to move up in a culture that valued raiding success and rewarded it with political leverage. The Navajo were similar.

    We blunder when we don't understand local politics, no matter where they're found or where they center.
    "On the plains and mountains of the American West, the United States Army had once learned everything there was to learn about hit-and-run tactics and guerrilla warfare."
    T.R. Fehrenbach This Kind of War

  10. #870
    Council Member
    Join Date
    Oct 2005
    Posts
    3,169

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by TheCurmudgeon View Post
    Bill,

    I don't disagree with your statement. For Soldiers of Western powers, places where the idea of the state and what is political is less fuzzy, or just more compartmentalized, I agree. But to say that all war is political is to westernize war. It commits the same sin that we do when we attempt to build nations in our own image - it does not take into account that other people in other cultures may not see things the same as we do.

    In the introduction to "The Changing Character of War" Strachan and Scheipers discuss an attempt to define war:

    emphasis added.

    We define war to be political. It is not necessarily a definitional component of war and it may not be the way our enemy sees it.

    For purposes of examining the motives behine war I defined it as "deadly or potentially deadly organized violence committed by a subset of one group, whose actions are morally sanctioned by that group, against a discrete and identifiable other group with a specific objective or goal." The motivation need not be "political".

    Of course your other option is to torture the definition of what is political. If I fight a holy war is that political. Were the Crusades political? War is a social act, yes. But political? Only in our western minds.

    Why does it matter? Because when we define war this way we tend to homogenize our enemy and impart onto them our motivational scheme without seeing the conflict from thier perspective. We sterilize the act of war, turning it into a political fight rather than an emotional response to the acts of another. We make war logical. I think this is one of the primary mistakes of COIN. Because if war is political, then we can pacify the population by providing what we feel a political entity ought to provide. We can “govern” our way out of a fight. I think this is one of the major mistakes of COIN – and one that we perpetuate as long as we assume the enemy sees war the same way we do.
    These are great points, and no doubt we view war and warfare through a Western lens and that implies a high degree of bias (whether we're aware of it or not). Mike provided a legal definition, but in most of the non-Western world people have little use for our legal definitions.

    I'm of the opinion that once we define something as complex and varied as war and warfare in order to scope it, we created a false paradigm that will not only bias our perception of events, but result in inappropriate strategies based more on our definitions than what is really happening. Of course that is a minority opinion in military circles where doctrinal knowledge is considered supreme, and you can't have doctrine (the way we write it) without defining the undefinable.

    Instead of trying to define war and warfare, I think we need to define political. I found an answer I like (admittedly it fits my bias), but it may bastardize the term as you understand it.


    http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_does_political_mean

    Political means involving or characteristic of politics or parties or politicians, of or relating to your views about social relationships involving authority or power, of or relating to the profession of governing. Political refers to relationships of interest within a community, whether that community is large or small.
    This expands it well beyond the Westphalian definition of states down to the community level and discusses authority and power, which most conflicts are about (I believe). This would address the political agenda of the Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda, the various thug groups in West Africa, the intertribal warfare in Afghanistan, and to some extent even major level cartels. A lot of the politics is based on ethnic issues, what religious group should control the area, who should primarily benefit from economic exploitation, etc. These policy objectives will shape the militant strategy as part of the overall strategy, and in some cases there will only be a militant strategy to achieve their political end. We have to understand their political end and strategy and how it conflicts with ours to effectively develop a strategy that achieves our ends.

  11. #871
    Council Member
    Join Date
    Oct 2005
    Posts
    3,169

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Steve Blair View Post
    I think part of that goes back to how you define politics. There's going to be nation-state politics, but there's also social and tribal/group politics that predate all that. Any hunter-gatherer society is going to have its own variation of politics (be it a social need to avenge kin losses, jockeying for position within the group, or something else), and denying that is dangerous.

    One of the things that played into many of our Indian conflicts was the Anglos' almost total lack of understanding of tribal politics. We expected to see "chiefs" that corresponded to our own leaders and never grasped the depth of tribal politics. The Kiowa, for one example, were almost addicted to tribal politics, with various factions vying for power at any given point in time. Their raiding could be (at any time) a response to tribal losses, an attempt to show (or save) face within the various factions, or the attempt by a younger leader to move up in a culture that valued raiding success and rewarded it with political leverage. The Navajo were similar.

    We blunder when we don't understand local politics, no matter where they're found or where they center.
    We were typing at the same time apparently, so I needlessly duplicated your answer. I'm in line with your reasoning as you can see.

  12. #872
    Moderator Steve Blair's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2005
    Location
    Montana
    Posts
    3,195

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Bill Moore View Post
    We were typing at the same time apparently, so I needlessly duplicated your answer. I'm in line with your reasoning as you can see.
    No worries. It's good to have multiple examples.
    "On the plains and mountains of the American West, the United States Army had once learned everything there was to learn about hit-and-run tactics and guerrilla warfare."
    T.R. Fehrenbach This Kind of War

  13. #873
    Council Member TheCurmudgeon's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    Woodbridge, VA
    Posts
    1,117

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Steve Blair View Post
    I think part of that goes back to how you define politics. There's going to be nation-state politics, but there's also social and tribal/group politics that predate all that. Any hunter-gatherer society is going to have its own variation of politics (be it a social need to avenge kin losses, jockeying for position within the group, or something else), and denying that is dangerous.
    I would concur. Aristotle desribed man as a political animal which others interpreted as a social animal. Perhaps the two are truely indistinguishable on a very basic level. Still, moving forward to the present, the way we use the term political especially in regards to war and policy creates a false impression that I feel is dangerous. This false impression is that 1) there must be a poitical basis or reason(including a political body and a policy objective) for a war (or insurgency) to start, and 2) there is a political solution to the conflict. I am not sure that this is always true, unless you are willing to stretch the definition of politics to include all things social.
    Last edited by TheCurmudgeon; 10-03-2013 at 07:43 PM.
    "I can change almost anything ... but I can't change human nature."

    Jon Osterman/Dr. Manhattan
    ---

  14. #874
    Council Member
    Join Date
    May 2008
    Posts
    4,021

    Default Curm...

    Your response to my message simply ignores what I said - and rattles on about things I didn't say. Your choice, as we all have. My choice is simply not to respond to your message's rubbish.

    Regards

    Mike

  15. #875
    Council Member TheCurmudgeon's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    Woodbridge, VA
    Posts
    1,117

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Bill Moore View Post
    I'm of the opinion that once we define something as complex and varied as war and warfare in order to scope it, we created a false paradigm that will not only bias our perception of events, but result in inappropriate strategies based more on our definitions than what is really happening. Of course that is a minority opinion in military circles where doctrinal knowledge is considered supreme, and you can't have doctrine (the way we write it) without defining the undefinable.

    Hmmmm, so is COIN actually the Graduate level of Warfare

    Quote Originally Posted by Bill Moore View Post
    These policy objectives will shape the militant strategy as part of the overall strategy, and in some cases there will only be a militant strategy to achieve their political end. We have to understand their political end and strategy and how it conflicts with ours to effectively develop a strategy that achieves our ends.
    Here is the key. To wrap ourselves up in defintions is to defeat ourselves. To understand the enemy and what it is they want is, in my mind, the first step in developing a strategy to end the conflict (although, not necessarily "win" the "war".)
    "I can change almost anything ... but I can't change human nature."

    Jon Osterman/Dr. Manhattan
    ---

  16. #876
    Moderator Steve Blair's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2005
    Location
    Montana
    Posts
    3,195

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by TheCurmudgeon View Post
    I would concur. Aristotle desribed man as a political animal which others interpreted as a social animal. Perhaps the two are truely indistinguishable on a very basic level. Still, moving forward to the present, the way we use the term political especially in regards to war and policy creates a false impression that I feel is dangerous. This false impression is that 1) there must be a poitical basis or reason(including a political body and a policy objective) for a war (or insurgency) to start, and 2) there is a political solution to the conflict. I am not sure that this is always true, unless you are willing to stretch the definition of politics to include all things social.
    Perhaps, but I think you're doing the discussion a disservice by using the Westphalian "state" (your quotes) argument to try to box politics into a modern construction. Politics are social interactions at the root anyhow, as much of politics relates to trying to gain some sort of social status or protection (or to secure same for your clan/family/group). By chaining the concept of politics to a state construct you're really limiting the ability to grasp the whole picture and make mistakes like the whole "chief" thing I mentioned in an earlier post far more likely. Maybe we should go back to the older "socio-political" construct, since (after all) politics are created by social institutions and social methods.

    Drawing back to the Indian Wars example, there was a political reason for the Kiowa starting their campaign of aggressive raiding in Texas in 1874...but it was driven by social considerations. One of the main leaders within the peace faction of the tribe had a relative who was killed during a raid. His social obligation to avenge that loss led him to start raiding, which shifted the political balance within the tribe from the "peace" faction to the "war" faction. That's a simplified explanation, but it serves to illustrate the point. Combine that with the fear and uncertainty generated by a government census taken earlier that year (an activity that went against some Kiowa social taboos and created social and political pressure on the various leaders within the tribe's structure) and the whole situation exploded.

    Within the tribal political situation the whole thing makes sense, but viewed from outside it did not. Now I may be missing your point, but I think at the end of it that group dynamics are politics, and that our loss of understanding of that (if we ever actually had that understanding) is causing all sorts of havoc. Personally, I blame talk TV...
    "On the plains and mountains of the American West, the United States Army had once learned everything there was to learn about hit-and-run tactics and guerrilla warfare."
    T.R. Fehrenbach This Kind of War

  17. #877
    Council Member TheCurmudgeon's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    Woodbridge, VA
    Posts
    1,117

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by jmm99 View Post
    Your response to my message simply ignores what I said - and rattles on about things I didn't say. Your choice, as we all have. My choice is simply not to respond to your message's rubbish.

    Regards

    Mike
    Mike,

    My apologies.

    I thought you were on the right track. I thought you were still playing with the continuum idea. I did not realize you were looking for a response until I read this message.

    If you are asking me if the conflict between Lt. Fuzzstick and Lt. Ruffstuff is war, then I would say yes. From this you could extrapolate that if Fuzzstick and Ruffstuff were the heads of two rival street gangs and they engaged in the same type of activity it would still be war. I realize that by using that definition I move beyond what most people would see as war - it cannot be war because they do not represent the "government" in the area - gangs are not political entities - but when I start to pull things apart I keep coming back to the same components in the my definition. The reasons people engage in deadly violence does not really seem to make a lot of difference.

    Now, using Bill Moore’s definition that “[p]olitical refers to relationships of interest within a community, whether that community is large or small”, then the interests of a gang over turf could meet that definition. It all gets very fuzzy around the edges. This is why I tried to strip away the modern accouterments and look at conflict from as primitive an aspect as possible (my”rubbish” as you so eloquently describe it.) When we start to layer too many additional criteria over the top of these concepts I think we box ourselves into solutions that may not solve anything.

    But all that is secondary. I am sorry. I did not mean to offend.
    Last edited by TheCurmudgeon; 10-03-2013 at 08:34 PM.
    "I can change almost anything ... but I can't change human nature."

    Jon Osterman/Dr. Manhattan
    ---

  18. #878
    Council Member TheCurmudgeon's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    Woodbridge, VA
    Posts
    1,117

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Steve Blair View Post
    Perhaps, but I think you're doing the discussion a disservice by using the Westphalian "state" (your quotes) argument to try to box politics into a modern construction. Politics are social interactions at the root anyhow, as much of politics relates to trying to gain some sort of social status or protection (or to secure same for your clan/family/group). By chaining the concept of politics to a state construct you're really limiting the ability to grasp the whole picture and make mistakes like the whole "chief" thing I mentioned in an earlier post far more likely. Maybe we should go back to the older "socio-political" construct, since (after all) politics are created by social institutions and social methods.

    Drawing back to the Indian Wars example, there was a political reason for the Kiowa starting their campaign of aggressive raiding in Texas in 1874...but it was driven by social considerations. One of the main leaders within the peace faction of the tribe had a relative who was killed during a raid. His social obligation to avenge that loss led him to start raiding, which shifted the political balance within the tribe from the "peace" faction to the "war" faction. That's a simplified explanation, but it serves to illustrate the point. Combine that with the fear and uncertainty generated by a government census taken earlier that year (an activity that went against some Kiowa social taboos and created social and political pressure on the various leaders within the tribe's structure) and the whole situation exploded.

    Within the tribal political situation the whole thing makes sense, but viewed from outside it did not. Now I may be missing your point, but I think at the end of it that group dynamics are politics, and that our loss of understanding of that (if we ever actually had that understanding) is causing all sorts of havoc. Personally, I blame talk TV...
    I agree that we would be better off using the idea of socio-political influence rather than just political. You provide a good example of why this is.

    Based on your example I would ask which was the more powerful motivator, 1) personal revenge, 2) social duty, or 3) doing what was required to maintain his position as chief? Is it even possible to separate the three in this type of tribal setting? What would have happened if he chose not to act – would the tribe have acted without him? Was his personal decision to act really a decision at all? (these are rhetorical)

    As you point out is it essential to understand the events from the tribe’s perspective. It may allow one to be more creative in designing strategies or solutions. I don’t know. But I am curious.
    Last edited by TheCurmudgeon; 10-03-2013 at 08:51 PM.
    "I can change almost anything ... but I can't change human nature."

    Jon Osterman/Dr. Manhattan
    ---

  19. #879
    Council Member Bob's World's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2008
    Location
    Florida
    Posts
    2,706

    Default

    Definitions are like doctrine. Necessary evils that both guide and restrict our thinking and actions in equal parts.

    For me, insurgency is more about governance than politics. A fine point perhaps, but as others have pointed out it is often informal systems of governance that are at the root of the problems feeding the growth of conditions of insurgency in some population.
    Robert C. Jones
    Intellectus Supra Scientia
    (Understanding is more important than Knowledge)

    "The modern COIN mindset is when one arrogantly goes to some foreign land and attempts to make those who live there a lesser version of one's self. The FID mindset is when one humbly goes to some foreign land and seeks first to understand, and then to help in some small way for those who live there to be the best version of their own self." Colonel Robert C. Jones, US Army Special Forces (Retired)

  20. #880
    Moderator Steve Blair's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2005
    Location
    Montana
    Posts
    3,195

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by TheCurmudgeon View Post
    I agree that we would be better off to work off using the idea of socio-political influence rather than just political. You provide a good example of why this is.

    Based on your example I would ask which was the more powerful motivator, 1) personal revenge, 2) social duty, or 3) doing what was required to maintain his position as chief? Is it even possible to separate the three in this type of tribal setting? What would have happened if he chose not to act – would the tribe have acted without him? Was his personal decision to act really a decision at all?

    As you point out is it essential to understand the events from the tribe’s perspective. It may allow one to be more creative in designing strategies or solutions. I don’t know. But I am curious.
    The first issue is the concept of "chief." The position in the sense you're using it is an Anglo construction that didn't exist within the Kiowa. Theirs was a political society based more on blocs of power and influence. One bloc might gain ascendency for a time based on events, only to lose that authority later. It's worth nothing that some of the leaders Anglos called "chiefs" shifted from the "war" to "peace" factions and back again depending on need.

    During the Red River War only a part of the Kiowa people "went to war." Another faction, who gravitated around the remaining leaders of the "peace" faction, sat out the conflict. This wasn't unusual in the Plains tribes, actually. In the case of the leader I used as an example, available evidence suggests that his main motivator was social duty and cultural pressure. In a society where status was often earned by raiding exploits, if he failed to act he became "less of a man" in some senses. That would cause him to slip in the eyes of other warriors, and possibly be scorned by younger men who were anxious for opportunities to earn their own raiding honors.

    Another example of this kind of tension can be found in the Nez Perce. Although Joseph is usually held up to be the "chief" of the tribe, Looking Glass was the primary force behind their flight and the main military leader. Joseph was more of a political leader and couldn't resist the pressure applied by Looking Glass and those of his faction. The Modocs are another example, and perhaps an even more tragic one. The leader hung as the main "chief" (called Captain Jack by Anglos) was in fact the primary driver behind that tribe's "peace faction," and the warrior who could be considered most responsible (from the Anglo point of view) for the conflict changed sides partway through and was spared. In both cases the role of the individual, as well as their actual ability to act within social constraints, was limited and poorly-understood by the Anglos (both then and now).

    The handful of consistently successful commanders on the Frontier seem to have understood this social system (although in some cases how they arrived at that understanding is unclear). Mackenzie seemed to have grasped the revenge pressure within the tribes, and his campaigns usually targeted property and not warriors (arguably James Carlton made the same connection in the 1860s, although "Kit" Carson was one of his regimental commanders and might have served as something of a cultural tutor). Crook seems to have grasped some of this when dealing with Apaches, but he failed badly on the Northern Plains.
    "On the plains and mountains of the American West, the United States Army had once learned everything there was to learn about hit-and-run tactics and guerrilla warfare."
    T.R. Fehrenbach This Kind of War

Similar Threads

  1. Capture, Detain and COIN: merged thread
    By SWJED in forum Military - Other
    Replies: 109
    Last Post: 08-23-2017, 12:57 PM
  2. French & US COIN and Galula (merged thread)
    By Jedburgh in forum Training & Education
    Replies: 49
    Last Post: 09-18-2016, 09:54 PM
  3. Replies: 0
    Last Post: 04-21-2009, 03:00 PM

Tags for this Thread

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •