COIN Counterinsurgency (merged thread)

[Bill Moore]

I suppose this is a good time to clarify. COIN – counterinsurgency – is a type of operation. Population-Centric COIN is a strategy. I believe it is because the political end-state (stable, legitimate government) is identical to the operational end-state (stable, legitimate government). The key is legitimacy. It is, by definition, the recognized right to govern. Take that out of COIN and all that is left is tactics and operational concepts.

Here is a question/admonition I received by e-mail followed by my response.

My response:

Disregarding for a moment that our intent in fighting the insurgency may have less to do with supporting the government and more to do with killing the insurgents (think, Pakistan), the ultimate objective should be to have the population accept the government as legitimate. That legitimacy will drain the pool in which the insurgent swims, to use the old Maoist metaphor.

All this could just be an academic exercise, but I believe that if we lose focus on legitimacy we lose.

Gentile is wrong when he claims that nation building equals population centric COIN. That is his primary error … it always has been and always will be. An external party cannot "create" a nation. We can "create" a government. We have done this effectively in the past. We can even “create” a democracy, we did it in Japan after WWII.

I have to disagree that legitimacy must be the goal, because quite simply it simply isn't possible in some cases. However, you can't conduct population centric COIN without it, so what are the options and that is what those of us in the SWJ really need to explore to give our decision makers practical options to protect our interests instead of pursuing pie in the sky idealism.

Post WWII differed so much Iraq and Afghanistan it is almost a completely irrelevant comment. More importantly we had a different defense structure back then that had strategic thinkers and practical planners who actually thought deeply about the post war occupation missions and cultural aspects involved. Leaving the Emperor in place gave the occupation force legitimacy that we never had in our two recent adventures. It is counterfactual, but I can't help but wonder how the Japanese would have responded if we charged the Emperor as a war criminal? In the end we didn't threaten their xenophobic culture, while in Iraq and Afghanistan we turned it upside down. Big difference when it comes to stability or nation building.

To set the record straight I'm not opposed to pursuing democracy over time, but not at the tip of the bayonet. First we need to establish order and recognizable form of governance that conforms to the occupied nation's norms. Next gradually help them build out their government institutions and economy. Then over time through diplomacy begin to nudge them towards democracy, simultaneously one would hope the populace is becoming increasingly educated and aware of the outside world and also spurs their government to behave in ways that is seen as legitimate. We thought we could wave our magic wand in Iraq and replace the Baathists almost overnight. I think we woke up from that dream, but I'm not sure?

[Fuchs]

Fuchs, certainly yes Iraq and Afghanistan are/were both occupations - but that is not a mission with task and purpose, it is simply a fact of our physical status.

It's much more.

Clausewitzians submit to the view that warfare is a continuation of policy and meant to reduce the opposition's ability to resist enough to force an advantageous result of the conflict on them.

An occupation is no such thing. An occupation aims at running the country at least for some time, and whatever armed resistance appears may be long-lasting, but has to be suppressed in order to execute the occupation policies as intended.


'COIN' in a foreign country is about suppression, and there appears usually to be a conflict between the COIN and the purpose and premises of occupation.
An occupation can live with a small degree of suppressed armed resistance as long as critical policies can be carried out in parallel (such as setting up a puppet government with sufficiently loyal and effective security forces). COIN goes farther; it strives not merely to suppress, but to defeat the armed opposition.


I wrote quite the same interpretation half a decade ago already:

These {ISAF mission} statements are lacking an important part or a war mission: They do not tell that ISAF's mission was to defeat an enemy or to at least force warring parties to end warfare. ISAF is by official design not meant to win or end the war, but to add security and stability to Afghanistan till the Afghan government takes over.
It was meant to be an Afghanization project from day one (unlike OEF-A).

The clausewitzian understanding that war is about breaking the will of an enemy (if necessary by disarmament or death) is completely missing in ISAF's mission.


The job of ISAF is - as I read it - not to defeat the Taliban or any other group, but to assist the government (forces) and to provide security. It's a kind of policing job.

ISAF is more about buying time than about defeating an enemy.

[carl]

They still don't come close to being as radicalized and violent as the Nazis or the Imperial Japanese Army who killed tens of thousands.

I disagree. They are every bit as murderous as the IJA, the Nazis and Communists who murdered millions and millions. The difference is they don't have the capability to murder millions yet, only thousands. If they could, they would.

This is not a minor point. It has to do with our clearly recognizing the nature of the evil we face, an important thing. The takfiri killers have never shown any hesitation about killing as many as they can when they can. Their only limitations are ones of practicability. If 9-11 isn't proof enough of that the attack on the Yazidis in 2007 is.

[TheCurmudgeon]

Both Fuchs and Bill have points that seem to go back to a problem with definitions.

Fuchs raises the issue of the ISAF mission which says nothing about countering an insurgency. It is support for a government that is in trouble. Bill raises the issue of the occupation. It would seem to me that it might be more appropriate to classify missions by their objective.

Therefore, I am going to classify some operations that ARE NOT COUNTERINSURGENCIES.

Military Government: There are occupations/military governments. This is the post invasion scenario where the victorious military is standing in the power vacuum they just created. De facto, by international law, they are the government and must act accordingly. There is currently no doctrine for this type of operation.

Stability: This is the ISAF mission. Provide the security resources and capabilities to allow the host nation to become stable. This could be after a natural disaster or after a war. But in this case there is a partially functioning government.

Offensive Operations. The first is where our national security interest is not in helping the Host Nation but in fighting the insurgents. This is an “Enemy of my Enemy is my Friend” situation. An example of this might be Vietnam although that was much more an open war. Some might call this a proxy war. But the ultimate objective is not so much stabilizing the Host Nation as it is defeating the insurgent forces.

That leaves ... A pure Counterinsurgency is an attempt to support the host nation in their attempt to defeat the insurgents.

Any thoughts?

[slapout9]

That leaves ... A pure Counterinsurgency is an attempt to support the host nation in their attempt to defeat the insurgents.

Any thoughts?

Which is essentially Counter Guerrilla Warfare? Which is what the experts beleived we would face at the end of WW2 and the beginning of the Cold War/Nuclear Era. Cannot fight and win a Nuke war so go Guerrilla....Yes...No...Maybe?

[TheCurmudgeon]

Which is essentially Counter Guerrilla Warfare? Which is what the experts beleived we would face at the end of WW2 and the beginning of the Cold War/Nuclear Era. Cannot fight and win a Nuke war so go Guerrilla....Yes...No...Maybe?

Perhaps...?

I mostly disagree. There were many efforts by the two superpowers to increase their spheres of influence. Terrorism was the preferred method in Europe, largely because there was no hope of gaining legitimacy for a communist government. In those parts of Europe where communism was imposed, it required a police state and occasional incursion by Russian tanks to keep the population at bay.

In other parts of the world communism had things to offer. Places where there was still a peasant class. South America or Southeast Asia for example.

To call it Counter Guerrilla warfare is to oversimplify an insurgency. There is far more sociology in it than Bing West would admit.

[Bob's World]

I don't think one can debate what COIN is until one first understands what insurgency is. The military tends to see insurgnecy through a military lens, so calls it a form of war, with the defeat of the insurgent and the sustainment of an uncoerced government as the measure of victory. That is one perspective, but it is not a very accurate one.

I think we should begin by re-assessing how we think about a variety of labels we attach to various "threats" that vex us so.

"Insurgency" is best thought of as a condition that comes to exist within some population generating both the energy and the desire to force political change through illegal (and often violent and war-like) upon some system of governance negatively impacting their lives. To be an insurgency this condition must be political in primary purpose, the activities taken must be illegal, and it must be based within a domestic population (internal, illegal, political, & populace-based)

"Insurgent" is one who acts out to operationalize these conditions of insurgency.

"terrorism" is a tactic. An effort to generate fear to coerce some party to do something they otherwise would not, but that the terrorist wants them to do. Governments tend to think of this as only something illegal actors do (much the way many people of color think only white people can be racist). Governments employ terror as a routine tool of statecraft. (and yes, anyone can be racist)

"terrorist" is an actor with any role in the chain of events leading to a deliberate act of terror. It is a thin line between a bin Laden sitting around a rug discussing attacks with his council and the President of the United States reviewing a file of photographs in the Oval Office and directing a drone strike into some sovereign country to execute some person (and those around him) deemed to be a "terrorist." It is a line we should be more careful not to dance too close to.

So what is COIN? We say we counter the insurgency - but typically we largely ignore the insurgnecy and seek to defeat the insurgent and exercise greater control over the population where the insurgency exists. That seems unlikely to be very effective in a durable kind of way. History bears that out.

Actually insurgency is the "counter." It is counter-poor governance. It is counter-illegitimate foreign presence. It is a response to governance perceived as inappropriate to the degree of intolerable, and where no effective legal means exist to effect the desired changes. Typically it is much more to drive some offending system of governance out - not to bring some superior system of governance in.

So COIN is really a counter to a counter. Just realizing that would be a tremendous start to getting to a more effective understanding of what COIN is and how to best go about it. Bottom line is that we need to step back a bit. The insurgent will always be the illegal actor, and the counterinsurgent will always be the legal actor. But right and wrong are other matters entirely, and typically lay divided between the two parties.

[TheCurmudgeon]

Bob,

I agree with your overall concept of defining what an insurgency is before you can determine how to “fight” it. I also agree that the military has a tendency to see all problems as ones best solved with an adequate amount of high explosives. But I think that your assessment is limited by a review of insurgencies without comparing them to places where there is not an insurgency.

For example, many places suffer from governments that “negatively impact their lives” as a result of “poor governance.” I would argue that many of the people in the U.S. are suffering from both those conditions. Still, most people in the U.S. are not ready to take up arms, even if we claim revolution as our historical right. The failings of the government must be such that they evoke a powerful emotional response. You probably don’t get that from intermittent electricity or trash removal. Good governance is important, but I don’t believe it is the cause of insurgency (although I have no data to prove it).

Legitimacy, which by definition is the population’s perception of a right to rule, is not necessarily key. Many people could believe that the government is illegitimate and still not take arms up against it. But gaining legitimacy will likely stop the political aspects of the insurgency.

Things I believe contribute to an insurgency can be:
1) a factional society where there is a perception that one faction is unjustly being treated better than another faction (Sunnis are getting more than Kurds).
2) A homogenous society that has experienced a continual growth in economic success leading to greater freedoms and then has that suddenly reversed (the Davis J-Curve), although I am not wed to this idea.
3) A disjoint between the values of the people and the values of the government (Contradicting legitimacy – i.e. the people want a religious leadership and the government is secular and democratic)

This is only a list put together off the top of my head, but this is more in line with what I believe causes an insurgency. It has to be guttural, and there have to be no other mechanism to solve the problem.

So, I would say Bing West is wrong, Insurgency is Sociology.

[slapout9]

So, I would say Bing West is wrong, Insurgency is Sociology.

If Insurgency is Sociology then would agree with Galula that COIN is "Build (or rebuild) a political machine from the population upward"

[Bob's World]

If Insurgency is Sociology then would agree with Galula that COIN is "Build (or rebuild) a political machine from the population upward"

Never forget that Galula grew up and lived as a Frenchman in foreign colonies. His mission then was to sustain French control and to get resistance and revolution to manageable levels. He said the insurgency was always against the puppet regime, not against France. We share his blind bias of our own goodness, but we do not share his mission.

We need to figure out what OUR mission is, and then derive approaches to do that.

[TheCurmudgeon]

Never forget that Galula grew up and lived as a Frenchman in foreign colonies. His mission then was to sustain French control and to get resistance and revolution to manageable levels. He said the insurgency was always against the puppet regime, not against France. We share his blind bias of our own goodness, but we do not share his mission.

We need to figure out what OUR mission is, and then derive approaches to do that.

Bob's right, our mission and Galula's are not the same. And no, I don't believe that you have to build or rebuild anything from the ground up. But unless you identify the key driving factors of an insurgency FROM THE INSURGENT'S POINT OF VIEW, not ours, then the you cannot hope to effectively counter it.

Interstate war is fundamentally different from intrastate war. Intrastate war is a serious collapse of social institutions. Hence my belief that we have more to learn about the nature and causes of insurgencies from sociology than we do from the history of all the interstate wars.

[Bob's World]

Bob's right, our mission and Galula's are not the same. And no, I don't believe that you have to build or rebuild anything from the ground up. But unless you identify the key driving factors of an insurgency FROM THE INSURGENT'S POINT OF VIEW, not ours, then the you cannot hope to effectively counter it.

Interstate war is fundamentally different from intrastate war. Intrastate war is a serious collapse of social institutions. Hence my belief that we have more to learn about the nature and causes of insurgencies from sociology than we do from the history of all the interstate wars.

Well, I'd say you need to understand from the aggrieved population's point of view, not the insurgent. After all, one needs to resolve the insurgency, not just defeat the insurgent de jour. Also, not buying the collapse of institutions, more often the bias of those running those institutions to favor some populations and exclude or oppress others.

[TheCurmudgeon]

Well, I'd say you need to understand from the aggrieved population's point of view, not the insurgent. After all, one needs to resolve the insurgency, not just defeat the insurgent de jour.

I agree, a pourly worded sentence on my part.

Also, not buying the collapse of institutions, more often the bias of those running those institutions to favor some populations and exclude or oppress others.

I would argue that by favoring some of the population or excluding or oppressing others, the institution has collapsed. It is a rather complex argument and not of great value here. I don't believe it would add any clarity (as someone else around here noted, any fool can make things more complicated...), so I will simply agree there is more to it than a failure of the insitution to provide to the entire society what it was designed to provide. I will try not to be so obtuse.

... that's two for Bob, zero for the Curmudgeon.

[slapout9]

Insurgencies dont really sound to sociable to me(bad joke). Almost sounds like seperate but equal is a viable option? I know that is a PC incorrect question but building walls sometimes works. I think that was part of the COIN plan for the Irish problem. I do believe that Race, Religion and Language are the new flashpoints in the world.

[TheCurmudgeon]

Insurgencies dont really sound to sociable to me(bad joke). Almost sounds like seperate but equal is a viable option? I know that is a PC incorrect question but building walls sometimes works. I think that was part of the COIN plan for the Irish problem. I do believe that Race, Religion and Language are the new flashpoints in the world.

I don't believe that Race, Religion or Language (as associated with National Identity and ethnicity) are "New" flashpoints. They have been the factor that distinguished "us" from "them" since the beginning of recorded history. In common parlance, this is known as "factionalism."

What I believe what has changed is the push for democracy and elections. Combining open competition for power in in a factionalized society creates the conditions for instability and ultimately, insurgency.

This is from a paper called "A Global Forecasting Model of Political Instability"

The real surprise came from the predictive power associated with the addition of a single element of this scheme. By distinguishing partial democracies according to the presence or absence of factionalism in political participation, we found we could substantially improve the fit of our models. As measured by Polity, factionalism occurs when political competition is dominated by ethnic or other parochial groups that regularly compete for political influence in order to promote particularist agendas and favor group members to the detriment of common, secular, or cross-cutting agendas. Factionalism typically occurs in new democracies, where party systems are weak and political participation is more likely to flow through networks rootedin traditional identities or other parochial interests, but it can emerge in established democracies as well. Factionalism is also the most common form of participation in autocracies that do not repress political competition, either by design or incapacity. Recent examples include Bolivia and Ecuador, where the mobilization of indigenous movements has produced stand-offs over the appropriate uses of mineral wealth; Venezuela, where polarization along class lines has produced mass protest and a failed coup in recent years; and Bangladesh, where personalist rivalries have dominated national politics since a return to democracy in 1991.

The link between factionalism and instability may sound unsurprising, so much so that one might wonder whether factionalism itself is simply part and parcel of the instability that ensues. Our analysis suggests that it is not. Only about half of countries coded with factionalism develop instability in our data; thus knowing a country is factional in its political competition still gives you no better than a 50-50 guess about its stability status two years hence. It is only when factionalism is combined with a relatively high level of open competition for office (executive recruitment scores 6-8 on the 8-point scale) that extremely high vulnerability to instability results, and even then, factionalism does not inevitably lead to instability.1

And while I disagree with the authors' reliance on "institutional" factors as the key to stability in a democracy, their concluding paragraph makes clear that there are unitended consequences to democracy promotion:

The key elements of stable democracy are to combine fully open access to political office with fully institutionalized and functional political competition. It is these conditions, not elections as such, and certainly not a mythic and utopian notion of “democracy,” that should guide policymakers seeking greater stability in the world. Where these conditions obtain, even amidst seemingly inhospitable conditions for stability or democracy, as in sub-Saharan Africa, the relative odds of ethnic wars, revolutions, and genocides have been dramatically lower. Where these conditions are absent, even if conditions of economic development and trade seem favorable, the relative odds of near-term instability, especially for factionalized partial democratic regimes, loom exceedingly large.

[carl]

Never forget that Galula grew up and lived as a Frenchman in foreign colonies. His mission then was to sustain French control and to get resistance and revolution to manageable levels. He said the insurgency was always against the puppet regime, not against France. We share his blind bias of our own goodness, but we do not share his mission.

We need to figure out what OUR mission is, and then derive approaches to do that.

Mr. Galula was born in Tunisia of Jewish parents and all his ancestors were North African I believe. So that to my mind puts him in a somewhat different category than that connoted by the phrase "a Frenchman in foreign colonies."

I read also that he got most of his ideas from his time in China observing war between the Reds and Chiang's forces. That conflict was hugely different from the fights the French were involved in so I think his ideas and observations are not so parochial.

Also a lot of people who know what they are about think there is much of value in what he wrote, for us and anybody else.

[Bob's World]

Mr. Galula was born in Tunisia of Jewish parents and all his ancestors were North African I believe. So that to my mind puts him in a somewhat different category than that connoted by the phrase "a Frenchman in foreign colonies."

I read also that he got most of his ideas from his time in China observing war between the Reds and Chiang's forces. That conflict was hugely different from the fights the French were involved in so I think his ideas and observations are not so parochial.

Also a lot of people who know what they are about think there is much of value in what he wrote, for us and anybody else.

I am a huge fan of Galula myself - but my facts are straight and my point of understanding the context of his experience and the difference of his missions are critical ones.

[slapout9]

Mr. Galula was born in Tunisia of Jewish parents and all his ancestors were North African I believe. So that to my mind puts him in a somewhat different category than that connoted by the phrase "a Frenchman in foreign colonies."

I read also that he got most of his ideas from his time in China observing war between the Reds and Chiang's forces. That conflict was hugely different from the fights the French were involved in so I think his ideas and observations are not so parochial.

Also a lot of people who know what they are about think there is much of value in what he wrote, for us and anybody else.

carl,
Just my opinion but I think the problem with Galula(which is generally an outstanindg theory for normal revolutions) in the most "recent" application was a far more Radicalized Muslim Element then when he first used his theory. The present Radical Muslims are not subject to any form of rational political control. The Islamic leadership has to step in with the power of Allah and tell these creeps that this is not what Islam is all about. Until that happens we should just let them meet the Christian Marines and all become martyrs.

[slapout9]

I don't believe that Race, Religion or Language (as associated with National Identity and ethnicity) are "New" flashpoints. They have been the factor that distinguished "us" from "them" since the beginning of recorded history. In common parlance, this is known as "factionalism."

What I believe what has changed is the push for democracy and elections. Combining open competition for power in in a factionalized society creates the conditions for instability and ultimately, insurgency.

This is from a paper called "A Global Forecasting Model of Political Instability"

Interesting stuff but.......IMHO the Strategic Question is why do people join gangs? And the answer is..... for protection and prosperity. Take away those two reason and the system will collapse. That is why the Bloods and The Crips are still here. We cannot provide protection and we cannot provide prosperity. But we sure can do it for the 1%. Is there a lesson to learn there?

So likeI keep saying Jeremy Bentham was a smart guy, just do the greatest good for the greatest number and things will generally be OK. In America that is a good job with rising incomes and then people can create their own Social Justice without causing everyone else problems. I suspect that could be an achievable Military/State department supported objective for COIN.


Sorry for the ramble but I do that stuff sometimes

[Fuchs]

Interesting stuff but.......IMHO the Strategic Question is why do people join gangs? And the answer is..... for protection and prosperity.

Not quite. They only provide the hope for prosperity to most members - and many gangs are even unable to do this.

Gangs also emulate the kind of hunter-gatherer clans that we used to be and that are still hardcoded into our brain.