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.