Quote Originally Posted by Mark O'Neill View Post
The idea of trusting, arming and using your opponents has plenty of precedence.

Witness the use of 'turned' guerillas by the Rhodesians, or PLAN members turned by the South African Koevet. (For easily accessible / available texts about this, check out most of the stuff by Peter Stiff - just take a pinch of salt if you do not subscribe to the belief that the Apartheid era RSA government was just 'misunderstood').

My understanding is that this works well tactically and operationally, but ultimately fails at the Strategic level. Given that an insurgency is ultimately about issues the insurgent has with the governance of the state, this suggests that it is not the answer in the long run, but a tool to be used in conjunction with others.

(Another observation - what happens if the insurgents win is not pretty for those previously co-opted by the state.)

Doug,

you have intimated here (and previously) that you might not be facing an insurgency. Have you had derived any other opinion (that you can share) on a 'label' for what you are grappling with?

Cheers

Mark
Mark,

Not sure I agree that it ultimately fails at the strategic level. An argument can be made that counterinsurgents must first erode the capability of the insurgents for violence in order to have "space" to undertake political and economic reform. Turning former insurgents CAN provide this space. The issue is whether the state using the space for reform or simply assumes "problem solved," thus allowing the insurgents to eventually reform.

Along the same lines, here's an entry I added to my blog yesterday:

Centers of Gravity and Insurgency

When Americans stumble into insurgency, we bring along our own perspectives and prejudices, however inapplicable. This shapes our approach, sometimes in paralyzing ways. No where is this more glaring than in our emphasis on "legitimacy," defined as publish acceptance of authority, and in our tendency to define public support as the "center of gravity" in the conflict.

In reality, most people caught up in insurgency are and remain fearfully passive, wanting only for both sides to leave them alone. Any public support won through "hearts and minds" efforts is fleeting, an expedient chimera.

The decisive factors--the true "centers of gravity"--are the ability of each side to sustain its flow of recruits and to infiltrate the opponent. Stop an insurgent movement from recruiting and from infiltrating the security forces and it loses. Inversely, an insurgent movement wins when it collapses the will and coherence of the security forces, thus staunching the government's ability to recruit.

In Iraq, protecting civilians is a laudable goal. But it is not the key to success. The key to success is sustaining the flow of recruits, the will, and the coherence of government security forces, and stopping infiltration into them by the insurgents.