How Insurgencies End

[MikeF]

This blog has totally ignored the the ecological based research released in Dec 2009 in Nature which actually would answer the question-when will it end as it would tell you how it even began and describe it's actual ecosystem.

Outlaw7,

SWJ and SWC have discussed the conflict ecosystem throughout many threads and articles over the last couple of years. Specifically, one can look at Dr. David Kilcullen's Conflict Ecosystem as one that many of us can agree or at least relate to.

I haven't read or seen the Nature article that you are referencing. If you have a chance, please include a link so that I can check it out.

Thanks,

Mike

[Rex Brynen]

Outlaw7,

SWJ and SWC have discussed the conflict ecosystem throughout many threads and articles over the last couple of years. Specifically, one can look at Dr. David Kilcullen's Conflict Ecosystem as one that many of us can agree or at least relate to.

I haven't read or seen the Nature article that you are referencing. If you have a chance, please include a link so that I can check it out.

Thanks,

Mike

This is the article: Juan Camilo Bohorquez, Sean Gourley, Alexander R. Dixon, Michael Spagat, & Neil F. Johnson, "Common ecology quantifies human insurgency," Nature 462, 911-914 (17 December 2009). (subscriptions required)

• You'll find Gourley's TED talk based on some of the findings here.
  
• You'll find a strong methodological critique of the work by Drew Conway, Thomas Zeitzoff, and Joshua Fouston at Registan.net here.

Frankly, I find the research both methodologically flawed and unimpressive, especially in that it imputes a measure of insurgent fragmentation from a mathematical formula based on the nature of attacks, rather than from any actual measure of insurgent fragmentation. From a policy or intel point of view, I don't think it's that useful at all.

[Outlaw 7]

Rex:
your response is interesting in that while you named four or five individuals who differed with the research-- outside of Drew Conway absolutely none are quantum physics types. What is interesting outside of the initial coverage with their research release being mentioned in about 10-15 articles, magazines, blogs in the various Social Sciences --outside of the 4 or 5 who differed there was a surprising lack of critique from others-in fact a number of Harvard types were impressed with the research and indicated that it opened new areas of research. Lately in one major Sociology blog the 15 characteristics of an insurgency have been relisted and there was indications of renewed interest in those characteristics.

You failed to mention that as far as I and probably you know there has been no other research project in this area that went over six years in length, covering 56,000 inputs on 11 different insurgencies---and even Drew had to admit that it was time to move in the direction the research was moving in and he in some aspects was debating the math not the direction being taken. So while some have differed with the results no one seems willing to explain the results themselves.

If one looks at the history of intelligence-- we started initially with hand jammed link analysis and matrixes, then with the computer age we moved to the link analysis tools-Analyst Notebook, Palantir, and Axis Pro, then when that was not providing answers we moved on to the Carnegie Mellon tool ORA for now the "hot buzz word-social network analysis". So do you honestly think the progressive development/evolution of new ideas/tool has stopped with the ORA tool---I beg to differ.

What you fail to mention is that social network analysis is really only a 1D slice of an ecosystem. So what does one want to use to see the rest of the ecosystem? The next logical progression is in empirically based ecology focused research of the insurgency---but where are the tools as I see nothing out there or do you know of any? How is in fact SNA going to tell you what the communication paths are, how the communications are flowing internally, how are IO/rumors impacting the individual/group, just what are the results of particluar cause and effect scenarios, what is the third degree level of impact going to be, etc.

I also challenge you that the definitions I use in ecology of and ecosystem of an insurgency are in fact not the same as the authors you mention are using as I doubt that any of the authors you mention are in fact using the 15 characteristics as defined in the released research. If in fact they are using the same definition and are referring to the 15 characteristics then I stand corrected, but I will not stand corrected as they are not using them---to use them would to a degree accept the premise of "open source warfare". Which we all know has been "cussed, discussed and found wanting" in comments in this blog a number of years ago, but stangely more and more of the terms are finding their way back into comments by senior leadship and in recent articles ie DoDBUZZ.

AND you seem to avoid answering the initial paragraphs I provided from the RAND article concerning splitter groups and how they will react---using the research the answers are clear--when using a SNA tool I am not sure what you answer would be.

Again this is all about intelligence and to argue my comments concerning the research were not begs the question of just how much did you understand the recent Gen. Flynn article which requires some reading between the lines.

Just a side comment--when looking at the ecosystem of an insurgency what strikes one as the most active element in that system?---the attacks--it has been always about the attacks---the attack if empirically analyzed provides some of the deepest info on the actual organization--but hey who wants to do that as there are not many tools for the intel analyst to use to reverse engineer the attack right? Think about it.

By your initial remarks on the methodology/math I am assuming that you have a degree in quantum physics and have a long number of years in the field?

[Steve the Planner]

In outlaw speak, conflicts are not closed systems.

The so-called "splinter groups" may, in fact, be the main opposition. They just no longer reside in the battlespace, but substantially drive and direct it.

Where do you begin and end measuring a system, let alone determine how it really ends?

The big tribe chief puts its big ass on the chair and everybody else scatters waiting for him to choke on a hot dog, and they are back in the chair in 24 hours.

Not any different from the old crows at Nightwatch realize. There is not even a measurement, for example, of what comprises "corruption" in many places in Afghanistan. If "business as usual is: we get in charge, we keep the spoils, corruption is: we get in charge, and don't keep the spoils.

What is the framework for all this whiz band quant analysis that has no actual quant foundation?

[Outlaw 7]

Steve:

Check this link from today:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationwo...5.story?page=1

What I was indicating is can social network analysis give troops on the ground the necessary answers on the items identified below taken out of this article---my answer is no---so if the standard military wide link analysis tools, and social network analysis tools cannot do it as well then maybe it is time to really look at quantum analysis ecology focused approach especially research that can provide answers to understand a way forward with this particular sentence taken from the article.

The assessment also reported "fissures" among insurgent groups, particularly at the local level. As a result, insurgents often have difficulty coordinating their operations. Soc if ial network analysis cannot tell you how to exploit the fissues---for that matter it cannot even tell you the fissures--and social network analysis can not defintiely tell you engage with a plan what will be the outcome of that plan.

1. The insurgency has easy access to fighters, small arms and explosives for roadside bombs, the report notes, giving fighters a "robust means" to sustain military operations.

2. "A ready supply of recruits is drawn from the frustrated population, where insurgents exploit poverty, tribal friction, and lack of governance to grow their ranks," the report said.

3. The report also notes that insurgents' tactics are increasing in sophistication and the militants have also become more able to achieve broader strategic effects with successful attacks. The Taliban continue to use threats and targeted killings to intimidate the Afghan population.

4. At the same time, Taliban shadow governments, which can include courts and basic social services, have strengthened, undermining the authority of the Afghan government, according to the report.

5. Taliban leaders also have undermined the credibility of the central Afghan government by leveling accusations of corruption -- many of them accurate -- against local and regional officials, the report said. Information operations and media campaigns are a particular strength, the report said.

These previous sentences go to the heart of my definition of ecology of and ecosystem of an insurgency--which from my previous blog response are not being used by any current author.

[Dayuhan]

If my policy maker tells me to force defeat on them, then the destruction of their armed force - in line with policy - is my objective. I'll let the policy maker negotiate the peace.

Development of effective policy requires input from a variety of sources, including those who will be responsible for implementing the policy… and given the importance of developing effective, reasonable, and achievable policies in pursuit of political goals, why should we confine discussion purely to the military aspects of insurgency? How is a discussion of insurgency generically, or of any specific insurgency, complete without assessments of the policies adopted and of possible alternatives?

yes, we get it. The US conducted UW and threw out the illegitimate government the Pakistanis installed and installed the illegitimate Karzai government. That is history. It also creates a presumption of Illegitimacy for the Karzai government that is VERY difficult to overcome. Voting has not made a dent in overcoming that presumption.

Saying the Pakistanis installed the Taliban might be an oversimplification, but if we take it at face value it raises some interesting questions. The Taliban, for all their deficiencies, did manage to establish effective control over a significant portion of Afghanistan despite minimal resources and very limited external support. Even with far greater resources and much more foreign assistance, the Karzai government has been unable to do the same. Are the Pakistanis that much better than we are at installing governments? Or possibly they were backing a faction that already had substantial local support, rather than trying to create a new faction from scratch? Or possibly our very visible intervention and our very visible presence has worked against the effort to build perceived legitimacy, reinforcing the perception that the GIROA is a creation of and a representative of an occupying foreign power? Possibly none of the above, but if the Taliban were in fact installed by the Pakistanis it's worth asking how they largely succeeded where we have not.

I suspect that voting, and many other aspects of the system we installed in Afghanistan, were intended less to establish legitimacy in the eyes of the Afghans than to establish legitimacy in the eyes of Americans. Our habit of building systems that conform to our preferences instead of building from existing local systems may be part of our problem

Mr. K is pushing for a big "Peace Jirga" and making all kinds of public statements and positions to try to create a perception of legitimacy. I wish him well in that endeavor, because it, more than any military action by the coalition, is the key to strategic success in Afghanistan.

How would you define “strategic success” in Afghanistan? I ask because I feel that there’s been a substantial level of goal escalation in Afghanistan. We didn’t go there because the government was “illegitimate”, which is hardly for us to determine. We didn’t go there to build liberal democracy or establish representative government. We went there to deny refuge to AQ. The other goals emerged later. They are admirable goals, but I’m not sure we’ve the capacity to achieve them and I can’t help wondering if we’d have been better off staying focused on the original purpose.

[MikeF]

Outlaw and others,

I would suggest that we take this most interesting debate on the open, organic nature of insurgency as a system to a new thread IOT allow the continuation of the meaningful discussion between Bob's World, Wilf, and Dayahun in this thread.

In outlaw speak, conflicts are not closed systems.

In the small wars community, this truth was confirmed some forty years ago after RAND's Leites and Wolfe closed system of an insurgency modeled after the observations of Vietnam. Dr. Gordon McCormick built off this model opening it up to a model of counter-insurgency which he labeled the Mystic Diamond. Dr. David Kilcullen expanded on these ideas to create his conflict eco-system.

In truth, all human interactions are open, poruous systems...In other words, no man is an island, and he is constantly constrained or encouraged by his culture, history, family, ethnicity, religion, etc...

And no, Outlaw7, I have no experience in quantum physics although I excelled in discrete dynamical systems prior to venturing into Economics with an emphasis in econometrics for whatever that's worth. I heart math I suppose .

[Dayuhan]

Surveys of insurgencies and models derived from the study of insurgencies (whether derived from quantitative or more subjective study) can be useful and interesting: they keep us alert to patterns and give an idea of what we might need to look for in any given case. If we assume that any given model or the conclusions of any given study will necessarily apply to any specific case, though, we set ourselves up for a world of misery. Every case is unique, and at the end of the day we need to study all that's available to study and then base decisions on the actual characteristics of the situation at hand. Using models and studies is smart. Relying on them to do our thinking for us is perhaps less so.

[William F. Owen]

Development of effective policy requires input from a variety of sources, including those who will be responsible for implementing the policy… and given the importance of developing effective, reasonable, and achievable policies in pursuit of political goals, why should we confine discussion purely to the military aspects of insurgency? How is a discussion of insurgency generically, or of any specific insurgency, complete without assessments of the policies adopted and of possible alternatives?

Strategy is the use of all instruments of power. However, without military power, the rest are generally useless. If you do not get the military bit right, you can do nothing else. Solving an insurgency means getting the military bit right, before anything else. Do some armies do it badly? Yes. That does not alter the reality.

There is a common fallacy that development helps end insurgencies. It simply is not true. Let's stop using the silly word insurgency.

Is there any coherent historical evidence that building public amenities has ever defeat an irregular force conducting a rebellion or revolt?

In Oman the strategy was quite clear. Destroy the rebellion, then do the development. Development was essentially a reward for backing the government.

In Northern Ireland, the UK spent billions on social development. The housing standards of the Catholic community improved dramatically, yet this made no actual difference to the IRA's armed struggle, or its stated objectives.

[Bob's World]

This thread is a pretty good "ecosystem" for why insurgencies tend to simmer along for years....

You have a dozen smart people all talking past each other. And while this is occuring, the insurgent out working among the populace; targeting manifestations of the squabbling COIN force (the HN government at all levels, civil and security; their puppet master external FID forces, civil and military, et. al.) wherever they are most easily and visibly affected; cajoling and coercing support from the populace as necessary; all the while working to build perceptions of their own legitimacy, to provide justice, to provide respect to the disrespected (your tribe is excluded from success under this government? Join the Taliban and be somebody!); addressing feelings of hopelessness (you don't have a vote that counts? here, take this IED, or this ICOM radio, or this AK and "vote" with it and be heard!).

No, insurgencies don't end when the insurgent wants them to Outlaw, they end when the populace in the main feels that governance is good. The new insurgent's spark falls on wet tender, and the old flame of insurgency sputters and dies.

Security is a critical enabler, and development is nice as well; but neither will end an insurgency; in fact, if they are applied without justice and respect by a government perceived to be illegitimate they will actually make the insurgency worse.

Securtiy without Justice is Tyranny.

Development without equity is Apartheid.

Governance without Legitimacy is Despotism.

And a populace experincing the above without a voice is Hopeless.

THIS is what causes insurgency. Apply the facts and cultures of your many various case studies to this Devil's brew and test them for yourself.

Legitimacy, Justice, Respect, Hope. This is what's in Bob's kitbag for COIN.

Bring your large foreign armies only if you want to control the outcome of some foreign insurgency; but when you do that understand that THAT isn't COIN. That is a decision that the Foreign Poliy of your nation as manifested in some country is more important than the will and good governance of the populace of that same nation. Not saying don't ever do that. I'm just saying call it what it is, or you might just wind up buying into your own spin.

[Dayuhan]

Strategy is the use of all instruments of power. However, without military power, the rest are generally useless. If you do not get the military bit right, you can do nothing else. Solving an insurgency means getting the military bit right, before anything else. Do some armies do it badly? Yes. That does not alter the reality.

There is a common fallacy that development helps end insurgencies. It simply is not true. Let's stop using the silly word insurgency.

Is there any coherent historical evidence that building public amenities has ever defeat an irregular force conducting a rebellion or revolt?

I agree that underdevelopment is overrated as a cause of insurgency, and development overrated as a remedy. Poor design or implementation of "development" projects, in fact, have often provoked or exacerbated anti-government violence.

It is hard not to notice that insurgencies do most frequently emerge in underdeveloped environments. That does not necessarily mean that underdevelopment causes insurgency. It seems to me more likely to suggest that many of the same factors that produce underdevelopment - including but not limited to weak or absent justice systems, unaccountable and abusive elites, and persistent use of state power for personal gain - also drive insurgency.

People don't take up arms against a government for no reason, and the reasons tend to be fairly direct and fairly personal. A farmer might grumble and complain that an irrigation system no longer works or the road he uses to get his crop to market is impassable, but he's not likely to start ambushing soldiers. Throw him off his farm, that changes.

People fight their government because they're angry or scared, often both. If you can determine why they are angry or scared and remove the cause of the anger and fear, you may not need to get the military bit right because you may not need to employ it in the first place.

To break it down to the level of the individual insurgent (ultimately what it's all about), suppose a clan takes up arms against the government because the provincial police chief's son raped one of their daughters and the justice system proved inoperative. Do you send in the military to shoot the whole clan, or do issue a contrite apology, fire the police chief, and haul his son off to the local dungeon?

Before you think of sending troops in to suppress an insurgency, why wouldn't you ask why these people are fighting (not the leaders, but the people actually doing the fighting), and whether that cause can be removed without having to send in troops?

[Dayuhan]

And while this is occuring, the insurgent out working among the populace; targeting manifestations of the squabbling COIN force (the HN government at all levels, civil and security; their puppet master external FID forces, civil and military, et. al.) wherever they are most easily and visibly affected; cajoling and coercing support from the populace as necessary; all the while working to build perceptions of their own legitimacy, to provide justice, to provide respect to the disrespected (your tribe is excluded from success under this government? Join the Taliban and be somebody!); addressing feelings of hopelessness (you don't have a vote that counts? here, take this IED, or this ICOM radio, or this AK and "vote" with it and be heard!).

One of our weaknesses in these fights is often our tendency to focus on the insurgent organization, their driving ideology and their command structure. The insurgents, on the other hand, are acutely aware of and able to gain leverage from local grievances that we often overlook.

In my neck of the woods, when the new People's Army wants to move into an area, they don't come in preaching Communism - that would be pretty pointless. They focus on local grievances and local issues, which generally proliferate in poorly governed countries, and use those as a lever to gain the local support and recruit the troops that they need.

Resolving those local issues will not convert the core ideologues. It can, however, isolate them from their sources of support, remove their recruitment leverage, and whittle them down to a force that is either manageable or will simply die off for want of influence. The local grievances may not be the ideological core of the insurgency, but they are what allows the insurgency to spread and survive.

No, insurgencies don't end when the insurgent wants them to Outlaw, they end when the populace in the main feels that governance is good.

Agreed, but I'd substitute "adequate" for "good". People are actually fairly tolerant of mediocre governance (otherwise the whole world would be rebelling) and generally have to be pushed pretty hard before they take up arms and rebel. A bit of hope, a possibility for improvement, any sign that there's a chance things will work out without a fight, people can manage. Push their back up to and through the wall, they will fight back. As long as people feel that governance is theirs, not someone else's, is not a direct threat to them, and that there's some hope for improvement, they aren't that likely to engage in armed resistance.

In many areas ownership of governance is as or more important than quality: people's tolerance for bad governance is a lot higher when they feel that the government in question is theirs. That's something intervening powers often overlook.

[Surferbeetle]

Dayuhan-Steve,

Thanks for the article/case study; still working my way through it but it's well written and there is much to think about.

For the math & ecosystems crowd:

The SWJ thread Mathematics of War might be of interest.

Thermodynamics is an interesting subject which has spawned many ideas and mathematical descriptions outside of it's typical application. Following that pathway the definitions of closed and open systems are instructive to consider:

Closed System from wikipedia

In thermodynamics, a closed system can exchange heat and work (for example, energy), but not matter, with its surroundings.

...while an open system can exchange all of heat, work and matter

I find it to be of greater use to consider the concept of Control Volumes when considering the flow or ponding of water through pipes or channels or the flow or ponding of insurgents through a village or province. A control volume is just an imaginary cube in which one can slow time and reduce the number of variables moving through it in order to think about what is occuring in the space. When using this concept it is important to state assumptions concerning which variables are being examined and how they interact. Just because one assumes that only a few variables can predict how the system responds to inputs does not mean that this simplification accurately models reality.

For my money, Governance is but one variable in the open system that is conflict. I use the heuristic that all models are wrong, but some are useful.

Ecosystem models from wikipedia

[William F. Owen]

I
People fight their government because they're angry or scared, often both. If you can determine why they are angry or scared and remove the cause of the anger and fear, you may not need to get the military bit right because you may not need to employ it in the first place.

People fight to alter the political power that effects their lives.
If you can solve the problem with politics, then great.

To break it down to the level of the individual insurgent (ultimately what it's all about), suppose a clan takes up arms against the government because the provincial police chief's son raped one of their daughters and the justice system proved inoperative. Do you send in the military to shoot the whole clan, or do issue a contrite apology, fire the police chief, and haul his son off to the local dungeon?

Huh? Sorry, is that a question?
OK, so what's the political danger of prosecuting the Police chief? What tribe or clan does he belong to? Solving that problem is entirely political. It's not a military problem. What would you do in New York City?

....but if the clan comes through the jungle carrying weapons, then you inflict harm upon them, until they surrender.
What is so hard to understand about the simple dynamic of using armed force against armed force that threatens the state or "your" control of the state?

[Dayuhan]

What is so hard to understand about the simple dynamic of using armed force against armed force that threatens the state or "your" control of the state?

What I don't understand is why we should assume that the only possible response to armed force is the use of armed force, rather than starting with an attempt to determine whether the problem can be resolved through political measures short of armed force.

Sometimes people resort to violence because they have real grievances and have been given no recourse other than armed force. When that is the case, why escalate an armed confrontation into what can become a prolonged and destructive conflict if you can resolve the issue by addressing the grievance? And if we look at it from our usual position of assisting foreign power, shouldn't we be reluctant to provide military assistance to assist a government in the suppression of armed resistance that it has provoked through its own conduct?

[William F. Owen]

What I don't understand is why we should assume that the only possible response to armed force is the use of armed force, rather than starting with an attempt to determine whether the problem can be resolved through political measures short of armed force.

Why should I reward the use of political violence? Would you let a murder go unpunished?
If they haven't given them what they wanted when they didn't have guns, why would you when they did?
If someone assembles an armed force to be used to extract political concessions, the first demand you make is for them put down their arms or else. It's good housekeeping.

Sometimes people resort to violence because they have real grievances and have been given no recourse other than armed force.

Sometimes and maybe....and if the Government thought their grievance legitimate, then they should have dealt with it. It's almost always political suicide to reward violence.

[Dayuhan]

Sometimes and maybe....and if the Government thought their grievance legitimate, then they should have dealt with it. It's almost always political suicide to reward violence.

Sometimes a Government doesn't recognize that a grievance exists until somebody gets up and says so with a gun. A lot of the Governments we deal with in these cases aren't exactly notorious for their responsiveness in dealing with the concerns of the public.

There are plenty of countries out there where filing a court case against an influential person, or going to the press with a grievance, or leading a peaceful demonstration, or any number of things that Westerners take for granted can get you killed. Not surprisingly, such places often produce insurgencies.

It can also be political suicide to refuse to accept that the violence you face was provoked by your own actions, something any number of ex-dictators - many of them once our "allies - could attest to. From the perspective of a nation that doesn't face an insurgency but often meddles in those of others, that just means we need to be more careful than we sometimes have been about who we support.

[Steve the Planner]

From KGS Nightwatch: (Re: the Pentagon report)

"Comment: NightWatch has studied Afghanistan for more than 30 years and based on that body of experience it challenges the assertions of the study as jejune, as reported. First of all, no baseline study of Afghan attitudes towards corruption has ever been performed. We do not know how Afghans define corruption, even. Further, it is remarkable that any analyst or agency would pretend to assert that there is some kind of homogeneity in the attitudes of the residents of any district in Afghanistan without reference to tribal leadership.

Louis Dupree came as close as anyone to defining corruption in Afghanistan. It does not mean honest government, as understood in the west. The meaning is closer to overreaching for personal advantage without spreading the benefits to the tribe. The idea of "fighting" corruption is American political cant, not anything related to Afghanistan.

The idea of supporting the central government is an alien import. Legal and institutional reforms? are pretty meaningless in a country that is illiterate. Again, there is no baseline for measuring support for the government, whatever that means. If the dominant tribal elder in a district benefits from Karzai's cronies, the district will support the government. It is astonishing that someone in Washington could conclude that 29 of 400 districts support anything.

This kind of sophistry, as reported, is symptomatic of the problems about which the US intelligence chief complained in January. Bold assertions are meaningless and lack context without definitions and baselines.

For example, in 1996 more than 100 mortar, rocket and direct fire attacks occurred daily in Kabul when Hekmatyar was prime minister. That is a baseline datum for how bad security can get in Kabul during a civil war. The Taliban and all other anti-government forces have never come close to achieving that level of insecurity in ten years.

The arrival of Americans did not reset the baseline for violence or political loyalty in Afghanistan. The insurgency is not a function of the American definition of corruption. Such a suggestion misleads policy makers. It is much more about foreign soldiers occupying Afghan tribal lands. In other words, there would be fighting and insurgency to drive out the invaders even if the government in Kabul were as clean as a hound's tooth, to quote CIA Director Casey. It is ignorant to suggest otherwise."

My take:

Beetle's comment about control volumes suggests you identify some variables that, if managed, could have a result of lessening the detrimental impacts and undesired externalities.

The stream modeling analogy which he and I are familiar with goes like this: in natural conditions, rain falls in the watershed, trickles through the trees and soil to meander through gentle stream. Cut down the trees, channelize the drainage, and any rain event become a force---gushing down the stream, tearing out embankments, and carrying away a lot of soil to build up in choke points somewhere else.

Two obvious choices: recreate the natural pre-development circumstance (not desirable) or mitigate and or manage the peaks and surges into the stream and/or their detrimental consequences.

In Afghanistan, with few exceptions, there never was a bucolic prior period to recreate, and no guidepost to a steady state. Just detrimental peaks and externalities to be limited and managed.

Translate that to Afghanistan and the questions are: Where is the watershed? Afghanistan itself, and areas surrounding in many directions. What variables are controllable? Here, the answer seems to be corruption, governance, and development? How, if controlled, can these variables be employed where to alter what? What are the limits and capabilities of these variables to the detrimental impacts and externalities you are trying to effect? What are the costs, resources, trade-offs and consequences of applying them?

The real question, since resources and resource commitments are highly constrained for the Afghanistan problem, is: If only limited efforts are going to be applied, can they have much positive effect?

It seems to me that, for Afghanistan, the limited questions and answers always drive both the choices and the results. Given that I can only control a piece of the watershed, and only have a few resources that can actually be employed, what if I just do one or two of these things in an area? Can it make a significant and sustain able difference?

In Iraq, the shear volume of resources and commitments often overwhelmed a problem, especially where Iraqis themselves (as in development) were a resource that was seldom even tapped, and they were also (for better or for worse) an active and malign "stabilizing" force (ethnic cleansing).

Certainly an empowered Non-Pashtun military force, like Shias, would have scores to settle, but there is no significant internal dynamic in Afghanistan today driving activity except the Taliban and corruption; the "voice" of peace, stability, good governance and prosperity is, at best, a quiet one with, as yet, little influence.

On the other hand, the RAND study, by excluding Iraq, Iran, misses two prime examples where the "watershed" was, in fact, in the immediate and adjacent countries, as in Afghanistan. It is not just that there are influences from Pakistan, or India or Iran or Tajikistan. Ten to twenty percent of the population of Afghanistan (and many of the active and influential ones) are next door.

It is that all of these are part of the problem set---Afghans are in those countries too, and a part of influencing the system: Stomp the bugs on the floor all you like, the bugs are in the wall.

Having said that, when Ireland was crushed by oppression, disastrous land and agricultural management and famine, it's best and brightest left. You are dealing with an equivalent "remnant population" of the mostly the weakest and most unempowered, seeded with a most predatory survivor "leadership," and yet, influenced, like Irish in America, from afar.

Study the four (paper) walls of Afghanistan all you want; the solutions are really in the whole watershed, and cannot be found in just the remnant population.

It "ends" when conflict and instability are moderated to a tolerable range.

[William F. Owen]

From the perspective of a nation that doesn't face an insurgency but often meddles in those of others, that just means we need to be more careful than we sometimes have been about who we support.

Dam Straight!
All I am saying (endlessly it seems) is that military force is an instrument of Policy. You can "what if" that statement to death, but it does not change the instrumental nature of military force, when it comes to defeating an armed insurrection, rebellion or revolt.

- and yes, as Clausewitz so wisely teaches, when you apply violence in support of an objective, that may alter the objective.

[Dayuhan]

All I am saying (endlessly it seems) is that military force is an instrument of Policy.

That's why a discussion of insurgency (or revolt, rebellion, whatever) that focuses exclusively on the military aspect and neglects policy is incomplete to the point of being irrelevant.