Revising FM 3-24: What needs to change?

[marct]

My reading of the doctrine - 3-24 and its predecessors - does not presume any sort of inevitability.

I suspect I was presenting my ideas badly, John . The "inevitability" I was referring to is in an underlying assumption that the economy drives the society and that "consciousness" is, at its root, the result of the labour process. The Marxist form of this is from the preface to A Contriobution to the Critique of Political economy (emphasis added).

In the social production of their life, men enter into definite relations that are indispensable and independent of their will, relations of production which correspond to a definite stage of development of their material productive forces. The sum total of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which rises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the social, political and intellectual life process in general. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness.

This is the "inevitability" that I see underlying both Brown's work and, also, Barnett's - the assumption that the economy or "mode of production" is driving the requirements that lead to situations were a COIN fight s "inevitable". In the doctrine itself, I believe that a filtered version of this assumption shows up in the assumptions about how infrastructure and economic reconstruction will be pursued.

Now, I'm certainly not trying to say that a certain amount of economic determinism isn't useful - it is, at least in terms of basic population level sustenance. What I am trying to say is that the basic assumption of "inevitability" is axiomatic and underlies the doctrine.

My understanding of insurgency is that it is far more complex and that while it may seek to achieve incorporation into the global economy on favorable terms, it also may have nothing to do with the global economy or even reject it entirely.

Agreed on insurgencies per se. Certainly as a general phenomenon, insurgencies tend to be related to social grievances, many of which are somewhat related to economic aspects. Actually, Algeria is a really good example of one that had little to do with "economics" per se; it was much more ideologically (or possibly "pathologically"! at the start) driven. I wasn't so much addressing insurgencies as I was the specific COIN doctrine.

One could argue that AQ, as a global insurgency, wants to turn the entire global order on its head starting with religious freedom/diversity, moving to a political endstate (or series thereof), and finishing off with adapting modern technology to 7th Century Islamic polities.

I certainly wouldn't argue with that interpretation . As the Great Philosopher Stan once quipped "They're a buncha wackos!".

If I am correct, then Brown really has little to say that is useful - which was my start point based on her inability/unwillingness to determine the facts of what she is wrting about and her lack of understanding of concepts, starting with military doctrine. (She seems to think it is some kind of quasi religious dogma whereas, an old Military Review article captures it best in its title, "Doctrine Not Dogma.")

I guess I really didn't like her piece very much - must be pretty obvious.

Naw !!! Honestly, I didn't really like her piece either, for many of the same reasons - I find her piece to be as predictable as one of David Price's.

[John T. Fishel]

I never thought you could just dismiss Marx's analysis out of hand, although I do think that the Marxists never advanced it much beyond old Karl himself, You really couldn't understand El salvador without a copy of The Communist Manifesto in your ruck and Das Kapital in your office.

On your last 2 points LOLOL!!!! (I really did when you cited old philospher Stan)

Cheers

JohnT

[Gian P Gentile]

All great points and well articulated.

Rank Am; thanks for posting these articles, i had not seen some of them. I did not "own" Adimiyah while I was but the Ameriyah. Still I had a sense of Adamiyah becauae of its largely sunni nature and a senior goi person I worked closely with was from the area.

John T: I appreciate your most articulate responses to my question and my initial responses to your earlier posts. I will read them carefully today and hopefully get back to you soon on them. As with many other folks, one has to ration blogging on the weekends.

gian

[Rank amateur]

AM has an excellent post on what I was discussing.

Are the SoI SOL?.

Yes, more SoIs have been integrated, but not nearly enough. And every step appears to require twisting Maliki’s arm to the breaking point. With Maliki's newfound (over)confidence in the capabilities of the ISF, moreover, he is growing less amenable to this kind of tactical pressure every day. There is a genuine possibility that the prime minister will basically tell the “thugs,” “criminals,” and “terrorists” in the SoI to go screw themselves.

According to doctrine "breathing space" is supposed to lead to reconciliation. In Iraq, the opposite is happening. The less violence there is, the more incentive Maliki has to tell his oppenents to "screw themselves."

Paetreus would have more leverage over Maliki if Maliki still needed us to restrain Sadr, but

a) Maliki snookered us into taking care of that problem for him according to Maliki's timeline.

b) According to doctrine - and correct me if I'm wrong - you can't go wrong by clearing and holding, but as we've seen by clearing and holding Sadr City we lost political leverage.

What is strategic failure with respect to Iraq?

Follow on question; Is our objective political reconciliation? If so or if not, why?

Since we stayed to promote democracy and avoid civil war, I think most people would consider a civil war or the end of democracy a strategic failure.

I've admitted before that I have no idea what our objective in Iraq is.

[marct]

Hi RA,

According to doctrine "breathing space" is supposed to lead to reconciliation. In Iraq, the opposite is happening. The less violence there is, the more incentive Maliki has to tell his oppenents to "screw themselves."

Hmmm, I think the underlying meaning is that the "breathing space leads to a reconciliation, not "reconciliation" per se. As an example, the "breathing space" between the 2nd and 3rd Punic Wars led to "a" reconciliation .

Paetreus would have more leverage over Maliki if Maliki still needed us to restrain Sadr, but

a) Maliki snookered us into taking care of that problem for him according to Maliki's timeline.

b) According to doctrine - and correct me if I'm wrong - you can't go wrong by clearing and holding, but as we've seen by clearing and holding Sadr City we lost political leverage.

Okay, this will probably get me flamed, but here goes....

If you don't want "the natives" to decide for themselves, then just declare Iraq to be under the legal jurisdiction of the US as an administered territory. If you are serious about building Iraq as a self-determining nation state, then live with the consequences of that choice, one of which will be the power brokers there manipulating the snot out of you. State building has consequences, and one of those consequences is a reduction in US power to tell "the natives" what to do - it's called "sovereignty".

Seriously, RA, I do not mean to take a dump over you, and I am truly sorry if you take it that way (which I hope you won't because it certainly isn't personal!). I just think that the idea that you can create a nation that does whatever it is told is ridiculous and that you have to expect to be manipulated.

Marc

[Ken White]

You said:

...According to doctrine - and correct me if I'm wrong - you can't go wrong by clearing and holding, but as we've seen by clearing and holding Sadr City we lost political leverage.

Doctrine is a only a guide. It is designed for an ideal situation, too rigid adherence will get you killed. Situations are rarely ideal; that is particularly true in the ME. You can go quite wrong by clearing and holding terrain (or positions in all senses of that word) that you don't need to hold or that will invite more problems than said holding solves. Getting tied down holding things is, contrary to some theorists ideas, an invitation to inflexibility and stasis. It is sometimes necessary, usually not.

Like any other operational or tactical effort, "clearing and holding" is a time / place / population sensitive matter and, as I've frequently said before, any idea of 'controlling' a population should be discarded -- it is just not going to happen lacking G. Khan like efforts -- and we're are not going to do that. Nor should we.

Iraqis are going to do what they are going to do, they'll do it on their timetable and not ours and a lot of people need to accept that as reality -- possibly including some in high places and some with enhanced reputations from wandering about in the Blogosphere and reading goat entrails.

Westerners have tried to manipulate the ME for over a thousand years -- with virtually no success unless they used brutality and then the ME just waited them out. That isn't going to change. Kipling said it well with these two:

"Asia is not going to be civilized after the methods of the West. There is too much Asia and she is too old."

"Now it is not good for the Christian's health To hustle the Aryan brown, For the Christian riles and the Aryan smiles, And it weareth the Christian down. And the end of the fight is a tombstone white With the name of the late deceased-- And the epitaph drear: "A fool lies here Who tried to hustle the East."

To my other question; "Is our objective political reconciliation? If so or if not, why?" You replied

Since we stayed to promote democracy and avoid civil war, I think most people would consider a civil war or the end of democracy a strategic failure.

Most might do so if they only read the media and listened to politicians, both categories of which are relatively clueless. Even some self appointed experts who have become Bloggers fascinate me with their take on things. In any event, your answer raises another question; Is that why we stayed or is that why we said we stayed?

My guess is that it's the latter. While a democracy would be nice as would lack of a civil war, my belief is that the former was and is never much more than a mild hope and the latter is likely inevitable to some degree at some time and probably sooner rather than later. I'd also submit that, other than to be nice guys, both those issues are really of small importance to the US; thus I don't believe that a lack of democracy or a major sectarian schism up to civil war level will adversely affect the US strategically -- though there would be obvious PR problems.

I've admitted before that I have no idea what our objective in Iraq is.

Nor do I in totality but I'm pretty well convinced that a lot of self appointed knowledgeable people (other than self appointed me, of course ) are either not as clued as they'd like to think or are not paying attention to reality -- or to the very significant differences between ME and western thinking processes and perceptions.

To attempt to judge the politics in Iraq by what is seen or said (particularly in English -- but even in published or transcribed Arabic) is to be deluded; it's what goes on behind the scenes and under the table that will make determinations and those things will only leak out slowly -- or be revealed when the Iraqis (and others -- including us) want to reveal them.

Marc gets it, as he says:

"...If you are serious about building Iraq as a self-determining nation state, then live with the consequences of that choice, one of which will be the power brokers there manipulating the snot out of you. State building has consequences, and one of those consequences is a reduction in US power to tell "the natives" what to do - it's called "sovereignty".

I could be wrong but I believe that statement is not only quite accurate; I believe that it was absorbed early on and up-front by the decision makers, plural, in DC -- regardless of all the political theater and rhetoric. We made an early decision to let Iraq be sovereign; it is and we've known that for five years. They'll do what they want and we'll play along and nudge where we can. That's cool (even if Congress is too dense to understand that).

[Rank amateur]

I just think that the idea that you can create a nation that does whatever it is told is ridiculous and that you have to expect to be manipulated.

Marc

but that's not what I'm saying. Let me stick to simple basics. Insurgency is an attempt to achieve political goals through violence. Insurgents know they can't win militarily but they keep their recruitment rate high by making the population angry at the government. They keep their loss rate low by hiding in the population. By recruiting more then they lose, they survive a long time and if they're violent long enough, they figure people will give them what they want.


To effectively counter an insurgency - and this is somewhat metaphorical, but literally true in a simple insurgency - you build a wall around the population. The insurgents can no longer hide among the people, making them easy to kill. To make sure that people don't sneak out of the wall and join the insurgency, you pacify people with job creation/hearts and minds etc inside the wall.

In Iraq - as the Washington Post article states, and as AM reiterates - the more walls we build around the Sunnis, the less incentive the Shi'ite government has to make life inside the walled Sunni enclaves livable. Therefore, a new insurgency erupts inside the walls. (Precisely because we don't control how the Iraqi government spends their money.)

In other words, as the political scientists point out, because the goals of the government and the counter insurgent aren't aligned we can - under certain circumstances - get a new insurgency: insurgency 2.0.

We need to better understand those circumstances. The manual needs more game theory.

Game theory is a branch of applied mathematics that is used in the social sciences to mathematically capture behavior in strategic situations, in which an individual's success in making choices depends on the choices of others.

Put another way, every time we create an inkspot, Maliki will change his strategy. Iran, the Sunnis and the Kurds will also change their strategy. One, or more of those people may decide to turn to violence. Therefore more clearing and holding could be - under certain circumstances that are difficult to comprehend, but that can be predicted with a high degree of accuracy - be counterproductive.

Just like we need help from anthropologists, we need help from game theorists.

[marct]

Hi RA,

In other words, as the political scientists point out, because the goals of the government and the counter insurgent aren't aligned we can - under certain circumstances - get a new insurgency: insurgency 2.0.

Pretty often you would get new "insurgencies". But I honestly don't see why you would expect anything else . Maliki is exercising the sovereignty inherent in his position, and the MNF doesn't have sovereignty in Iraq - nor are they under Maliki's command and/or control. In game theoretic terms, this is a multi-player version of the Prisoner's Dilemma with one player (the MNF) having a de facto "get out of jail free" card.

Therefore more clearing and holding could be - under certain circumstances that are difficult to comprehend, but that can be predicted with a high degree of accuracy - be counterproductive.

I don't see why you characterize them as "difficult to comprehend". Really, they stem from the structures imposed on Iraq. If a confederate system had been constructed - the tri-partite split - you would have had a different set of structures and different forms of insurgencies.

I think you do have a very valid point when you note that the government and the counter-insurgents (by which I assume you mean the MNF) goal are different. But I certainly don't find this surprising - it's totally predictable from the way the initial Phase IV was (mis-)handled. In the post-Westphalian construction of the state, a model that was an assumption of the architects of the invasion, such a conflict is inevitable since the MNF does not hold sovereignty.

[Ken White]

...if they're violent long enough, they figure people will give them what they want.

IF...

...you build a wall around the population. The insurgents can no longer hide among the people, making them easy to kill. To make sure that people don't sneak out of the wall and join the insurgency, you pacify people with job creation/hearts and minds etc inside the wall.

Is that permissable in today's world? Even if it is, who can afford the troops and construction effort to do that in a nation of 26M bods?

In Iraq - as the Washington Post article states, and as AM reiterates

Er, uh, well, knowledgeable sources. Sort of...

... the more walls we build around the Sunnis, the less incentive the Shi'ite government has to make life inside the walled Sunni enclaves livable. Therefore, a new insurgency erupts inside the walls.

Possible but certainly not a given among westerners, almost assuredly not a given in the ME where things do not operate on western standards of reward and thought processes do not tend to short termism.

...(Precisely because we don't control how the Iraqi government spends their money.) In other words, as the political scientists point out, because the goals of the government and the counter insurgent aren't aligned we can - under certain circumstances - get a new insurgency: insurgency 2.0. (emphasis added / kw)

Your solution to the problem highlighted is? Under certain circumstances the sky can be green.

Put another way, every time we create an inkspot, Maliki will change his strategy. Iran, the Sunnis and the Kurds will also change their strategy. One, or more of those people may decide to turn to violence.

Well, yeah; all sides change their 'strategy' or techniques to counter opponenets, always have and always will. That is a violent part of the world...

...Therefore more clearing and holding could be - under certain circumstances that are difficult to comprehend, but that can be predicted with a high degree of accuracy - be counterproductive.

Is it me or did you just do a 180 degree turn?