The American Approach to Counterinsurgency

[SteveMetz]

*cough* China *cough*

I also have quibbles with the idea that some sort of wholesale transformation of a culture is necessary to win at counterinsurgency. What wholesale transformation/Westernization of society was required to defeat the Malayan Communists, the Huks in the Philippines, or the South Korean Communists 1945-1950? To beat UNITA or the Hutu genocidaires in the Congo, or bring GAM to the peace table in Aceh, or to defeat the GIA/FIS in Algeria? Or indeed, any number of South American insurgencies?

You plan on doing counterinsurgency support in China?

But, your point is an interesting one. Let me tell you how I addressed (or, depending on your perspective, danced around) the Malaya issue during my talk yesterday.

In 2003 I was part of a team led by Steve Biddle (then a colleague of mine at the Strategic Studies Institute, now at the Council on Foreign Relations) which examined the conventional campaign of March-April 2003. Steve's conclusion was that the Iraq military and political leadership was so incompetent that the operation neither validated or invalidated defense transformation. It was an inadequate test.

I contend that Malaya was the same. The insurgents were, to put it in technical terms, absolute blundering boobs. The Brits probably could have beaten them with a couple of dozen drunk Manchester soccer fans (although that would have entailed significantly more human rights abuses). It may be an inadequate test, yet we have derived a whole theory of counterinsurgency from that conflict.

I don't know enough about your other two examples. I am reminded, though, that the Huk conflict write large took several centuries (if you remember that the Spanish and we fought them before the Filipino government did). And, Korea did, in fact, undergo a systemic and cultural change.

So, what I'm getting it is that if the insurgents are morons, our doctrine and strategy are perfectly adequate. I'm not sure, though, that it is for truly serious insurgents.