Quote Originally Posted by William F. Owen View Post
Well if you use bad history and extrapolate ideas from bad history, you're stuffed. I sometimes feel no one in the US POP-COIN community has even vaguely studied the Malayan campaign.
It's not all doom and gloom - I still have faith that the gods of necessity will drive the tactical forces on the ground to evolve the best practices. It just seems to be taking a while as we always address problems with power-point manifestos, never tackling the cause.

Adding to the discussion, I think the below is relevant when pushing funds into a military problem. It's a take on how an insurgent could view the lavishing of money to win 'hearts and minds'. It's an extract from a larger doc that contains "information obtained from a Viet Cong document captured on 22 March 1968 by C Company, 3 RAR. The report was prepared by the Propaganda and Training Section of Ba Bien Province and provided information on Allied forces propaganda activities during the first half of 1967."

I'm not trying to draw Vietnam/ Afghan parallels, but it is the other side of the "COIN" when it comes to throwing around money and resources (it's based on American propaganda, but the author includes the the spending of money as part of a COIN mission under this title).

Assessment of the Enemy Propaganda Themes

After studying the enemy propaganda themes in Ba Bien during the first six months of 1967, we discovered the following wicked tricks:

1. Propaganda activities were considered as important tasks, so the enemy spent a lot of money, resorted to all means (including television) and concentrated all the main efforts of politics, military, culture, and economy, on propaganda activities.

2. All of the enemy pacification groups, which consisted of cadre subordinate to political, military, cultural and economic branches, attended the six-month training course, so that they were able to play their roles well.

3. The enemy knew how to select villages as experimental sites to launch burning and destroying activities, and to extend “their main objective areas”, from which they would exploit experiences to improve their operations.

According to their branches, each cadre was specifically assigned to carry out his mission. But, they all focussed on the main requirements which placed emphasis on propaganda for pacification and its tasks to serve this objective.

4. They performed missions step by step and gained experience after each action phase, with the purpose of improving their skills.

5. After carefully studying the social class, way of life, and activity of each individual and each family, they classified their objectives in order to facilitate their propaganda activities.

6. The cunning enemy tactical psychological warfare was employed to coincide with the field situations and the people’s aspirations.

7. In support of propaganda activities, the “three together” tactic was carried out at the first step, with the objective of gaining the sympathy of the population as a basis for propaganda, although they lacked a just cause.

8. They perseveringly drummed propaganda themes into the minds of the people and stayed close to them, although they always met obstacles and difficulties.

9. In addition to several forms of propaganda, whispering, deception, word of mouth, et cetera, they conducted propaganda activities by telling stories and talking with each family and each inter-family group, then they widely spread persuasive propaganda among children.

Thanks to that method, the enemy achieved satisfactory results. Their new and malicious tricks were proven by the following evidence...

The Enemy Demagogic Schemes

Whenever Australians killed persons, they paid for the victim’s funeral ceremony, and told their relatives that, “we are sorry to have shot them by mistake”. This fact gives a minority of people satisfaction, therefore they thought that those victims died just deaths. Thus, the enemy was malicious because at the same time they killed the people with their bloody hand, they gained favour with the people.

In addition to demagoguery, the Chieu Hoi scheme, and deceptive propaganda for peace, the enemy achieved the following results:

Our people felt sympathy for the enemy and were grateful to them for building hospitals and schools, organising popular education, digging wells, selling pigs to the people at a low price, cementing pigsties, distributing United States supplied items, taking children to Cap St Jacques (Vung Tau) for a change of air, carrying patients to Saigon for treatment, et cetera. For instance: When United States trucks came, the people crowded around to get supplies. A number of cadre’s daughters and sisters, who had been seduced and were in love with the enemy political action team members, wrote letters to their parents requesting their approval, under the pretext that they would motivate their lovers to defect to our ranks. As for phoney peace, the enemy psychological warfare activities instilled in a number of people the ideal that Americans with their good will of peace extended the war because we of North Viet Nam refused peace negotiations. For the relocation of the people, the enemy constantly launched sweep operations and air attacks with an attempt at inspiring a fear of death among the people, in order to influence them into moving to his controlled areas. In some villages, the enemy activities induced results during the past six months.

After realising that the enemy propaganda themes lacked a just cause, the majority of the people unmasked their cruel schemes, and despised them. For these reasons, the enemy studied a lot of wicked tricks, and wasted money to appease and deceive the people, so that they could gain the results they desired. Therefore, we should objectively judge these problems and constantly intensify ideological indoctrination of the people. However, the enemy still suffered basic failures. It was not easy for them to accomplish the requirements of “winning sympathy and reason” and of “eradicating resentment”. The enemy could not use “iron, blood, and fire” war materials to oppress the people’s patriotism, because it was like “pouring oil on the fire”.

If “search and destroy” military tactics failed, “pacification” plans would be frustrated. Basically, the enemy’s nature was “aggression”, and a lack of a just cause.