The Clausewitz Collection (merged thread)

[Bob's World]

So long as the element of force/violence is used as opposed to other political means I would say you are in the war framework of CvC again just on a micro scale.

I just can't get on board with those who focus on how the opposition chooses to act out as the primary means of determing what one must do to resolve the problem.

To me, it is far more instructive to understand why an opponent is acting out, and design my counter to address his purpose for action rather than his choice of tactics.

For example, MLK or Ghandi could well have opted for violent rather than non-violent methods to address the purpose for their operations. Similarly AQ could have and still could, adopt non-violent tactics to address its purpose. The tactics chosen are important, as the shape the activities employed. But it is the underlying purpose that must be understood to shape how those activities are designed and employed so as to actually affect the root causes of opposition rather than simply flogging away at the symptoms.

Often, in fact nearly always, in insurgency, the failures giving rise to the purpose that is the causation for the insurgent movement lie on the part of the government, and not the populace writ large, the disaffected segment of the populace, nor the outside actor conducting UW to incite and enable the insurgency. Thus the tendency to flog at the symptoms; it allows the F'd up government to hold itself harmless and sustain its victim status while deploying the military to put a WWF beat down on the "symptom", i.e. that segment of the populace that dared to stand up and cry "foul." This, IMO, is why most COIN efforts are so long and drawn out, and why most insurgencies, like weeds in your yard, are merely suppressed for a time and rarely resolved through military action.

To merely apply CvCs thoughts on war and warfare to such internal expressions of dissatisfaction with poor governance by ones own populace is far too common. I just don't see where it is very effective. And many a faded empire speaks to that fact, that was disassembled one COIN "victory" at a time.