Operationalizing The Jones Model through COG

[Bob's World]

All critical causal factors are as viewed from the perspective of the populace in question.

What foreigners think matters not at all; and typically the HN counterinsurgent is blind to what the populace perceives as well, so there take will lead you astray as well.

Current efforts In Population Centric COIN are on promoting "Rule of Law" - my point is that greater enforcement of a legal system percieved by the populace as unjust is tyranny.

While Taliban justice is harsh, it is, by populace assessment, perceived as more "just" than that provided by the GIROA.

So, yes, it must be the pursuit of "justice" ie, how the populace FEELS about the legal system that is the goal.

[William F. Owen]

All critical causal factors are as viewed from the perspective of the populace in question.

What foreigners think matters not at all; and typically the HN counterinsurgent is blind to what the populace perceives as well, so there take will lead you astray as well.

As a statement in isolation, I can agree with all of that.
However you may end up supporting the mutilation of women, death sentence for minors, and Shariah Law - so essentially support the policy the population wants - the Population sets the Policy, not your CoC?

Current efforts In Population Centric COIN are on promoting "Rule of Law" - my point is that greater enforcement of a legal system percieved by the populace as unjust is tyranny.

OK, but there is never one populace with one opinion. Insurgencies/rebellions are usually the product of a minority.

While Taliban justice is harsh, it is, by populace assessment, perceived as more "just" than that provided by the GIROA.

In most cases the Taliban are the ONLY form of justice because they are the only ones doing it - thus people support it.

So, yes, it must be the pursuit of "justice" ie, how the populace FEELS about the legal system that is the goal.

So, if I may, the objective is to force into place a level of control that the population will largely accept. - thus you need to destroy the other competing forms of control?

[Bob's World]

So, if I may, the objective is to force into place a level of control that the population will largely accept. - thus you need to destroy the other competing forms of control?

No, the objective is for the Governance of a particular populace to gain a better understanding and empathy for the concerns of their own populace; and to rededicate themselves to meeting those needs.

The insurgency and the insurgent are merely symptoms that come in many flavors. As you say popualaces are diverse. One can see this in Afghanistan as there are actually multiple insurgencies going on. But they are all in response to the failures of ONE government.

One can chase down all of the many groups that sprout up in response to percptions of poor governance within the various segments of a society; or they can fix the one root cause, the failed government itself. The engagement to work those fixes would then be tailored by the perceptions of the many different communities and populaces involved.


this whole idea of "forcing" and "controlling" strikes to my problems with UK COIN. That last real COIN in the UK was the failed effort against Oliver Cromwell in the 1600s, resulting in the execution of King Charles in 1649.

All subequent "COIN" efforts have been all about maintaining control and legitimacy over the governments of others. That is a very different game altogether. True COIN can only be done by a governemnt within its own borders, with its own populace. Once you take it next door you are doing FID or UW. Current vogue of mixing and merging these concepts is not helpful. States often force controls on the populaces of others, working through governments that they have either placed in power, or at least taken on the role of sustaining in power. THAT IS NOT COIN.

The last US COIN campaign was the government's efforts to resolve the Civil Rights movement in the 1960's.

(Of note, our kinder, gentler approach; rooted in understanding and addressing the legitimate concerns of the insurgent segment of the populace, was much more effective that applied by King Charles in England's last insurgency.)

[Steve the Planner]

I was reading a summary of a big pow-wow at Leavenworth. The summary indicated that they needed good census data on these places.

Sorry, folks, but as a planner/demographer, I simply don't buy into a lot of this stuff about how we can re-shape major themes and events in the non-Euro, non-US spaces by rearranging deck chairs and scattering trinkets around (schools, cash, health clinics).

So much of the world, and particularly Centcom and conflict zones are undergoing massive demographic, economic and social/political transformations on an unprecedented level (for them). Populations exploding (and mostly with youngsters unprepared and unable to engage positively), populations crowding to cities (mostly slums), and face-to-face conflicts between previously rural and isolated villages and cultures with the forces of change, conflict, challenge or oppression.

Last week, I read a WP story about "honor killings" in India, and a family that is in Indian courts now to challenge the practices, after their child was killed for marrying out of love, but against the village elders' "accepted" ancient wisdoms. Even India is decades away from coming to terms with all these issues, as populations press against each other, new versus old cultures collide, and ancient farming techniques come face to face with genetically altered seeds, high-growth production techniques, localized water catastrophies emerging because of the new practices, and old fashioned farmers being driven to suicide due to borrowing to stay competitive with the new techniques.

This is down-right tough stuff, being boiled down in the soup of these populations. Massive new challenges they are trying to sort out (some running for the cover of ancient ways, some deathly fearful of outside influences, and some marching to a new and different tune). Amongst it all, money lenders, schemers, and scammers of every kind are emerging. It only gets worse in immediate post-conflict phases where populations have been shattered by displacements and refugee flows, and "good governance" vanished when pre-existing village and tribal structures collapsed, giving way to gangsters and grafters.

These nasty, brutish conflicts are playing themselves out on a very large scale, and will continue to until, as Dayuhan suggests, they find their way through it. It has nothing to do with COIN, and COIN offers little or nothing to it. At best, in my opinion, the COINISTA thought leadership is just a bunch of ex-soldiers with little serious training in the relevant subject fields, trying to draw quickie inferences for highly complex problems being their grasp or appreciation.

Oh, that's right, Afghanistan is somewhere in there, but compounded by extensive foreign and extra-territorial factors.

Like WILFs comment, the British Empire gave way when the economics changed. They made a fortune for centuries, and ended it when it didn't work anymore. Is the UK really any worse off for having done so? In the big scheme, they have done pretty well for themselves in adapting to modern times, while still giving a nod to limited foreign exploits grounded in that old history (keeping the old folks happy). There is a lesson in that.

Iraq is a very different country, generally on the way to modernization, but in need of serious post-conflict reconciliation and reconstruction. Like it or not, even as a post-conflict success story, Iraq, because of its history, culture and geography, will, like Iran, straddle an unique set of challenges that will always drive others a little crazy.

This is not the same problem set as Afghanistan and its comparable environments who are all in the midst of profound demographic, economic and social changes.

[slapout9]

All subequent "COIN" efforts have been all about maintaining control and legitimacy over the governments of others. That is a very different game altogether. True COIN can only be done by a governemnt within its own borders, with its own populace. Once you take it next door you are doing FID or UW. Current vogue of mixing and merging these concepts is not helpful. States often force controls on the populaces of others, working through governments that they have either placed in power, or at least taken on the role of sustaining in power. THAT IS NOT COIN.

BW, so we (USA) are either doing FID or UW because it is literally impossible for a foreign power to do COIN?

[Bob's World]

BW, so we (USA) are either doing FID or UW because it is literally impossible for a foreign power to do COIN?

"COIN" is just a fancy word for a government doing the best it can to support its own populace. As day to day governance grows more and more out of touch with its populace the populace discontent grows as well, manifesting in subversion and, if left unchecked, ultimately insurgency.

The role of the Government never changes, it is to govern. It is to provide Good Governance. We call that COIN when it is done in the face of growing insurgency. When someone comes in to help you govern, they are "helping with COIN" We call that FID, or IDAD or a variety of things. Too often of late we call it COIN, and push the primary provider aside, because A. we think we can do it better, or faster; and B. because if it’s the same mission, what does it matter who leads?

Because who leads is an essential factor of effective COIN!

Steve the Planner says "Hey England exploited the globe until it was no longer in there interest to do so, so they then just tossed those used and abused populaces aside of their own volition and look, it was all great for England." What about those populaces???? Was it great for them too??

Virtually all of the insurgencies of the past 100 years have been rooted in populaces risking everything to rid themselves of such benevolent European Colonial rule. Oh, sure, England brought them European technologies, and governance; and also exploitation, slavery and disease and the right to be treated as a second class citizen in your own land.

I hear Americans making the same arguments today, how American exploitation brings technology, governance, the rule of law. But it brings those same humiliating second order effects as well. Until we can walk in the shoes of those whose lands we work our national interests in, and treat them with the same respect we treat our own citizenry with, there will be movements to throw off the governments we put in place, or sustain in place over the will of the governed. More and more as the world becomes more globalized and connected those populaces will seek to travel to the homes of those who oppress them and strike them there.

Even now we call those states that dare to reject European forms of governance as "failed states". Read Foreign Policy. Read their definition of a "Failed State." Pure Western arrogance. We define failed as a rejection of doing it our way.

Until you can develop empathy, you cannot understand insurgency. Until you understand insurgency, you cannot understand counterinsurgency. Until you understand counterinsurgency, you cannot effectively travel to the land of another and help him effectively with his insurgency.

Most need to start at square one. Develop empathy.

[Bob's World]

Go to the link below. Just look at the map for a while. As you look at the map, ask yourself, how many of these states that are deemed most troubled have "benefited" from Colonialism?

Look at the factors of "failure"
1. How many are capabilities that we see as critical aspects of Westphalian sovereignty? How many of those same factors were important to those populaces givern the forms of governance they have employed for centuries prior to Western intervention? Are they "failing" or are they evolving to find a form of governance better suited for the populaces being governned?

2. Of the remaining factors, how many are typical of insurgency? How many of these states have leaders that were either selected by foreign powers, or sustained by foreign powers?

3. Of those with "failure", how many have borders drawn by others, and populaces either separated or cobbled together by others?

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/article...p_and_rankings


Q: What does "state failure" mean?

A: A state that is failing has several attributes. One of the most common is the loss of physical control of its territory or a monopoly on the legitimate use of force. Other attributes of state failure include the erosion of legitimate authority to make collective decisions, an inability to provide reasonable public services, and the inability to interact with other states as a full member of the international community. The 12 indicators cover a wide range of elements of the risk of state failure, such as extensive corruption and criminal behavior, inability to collect taxes or otherwise draw on citizen support, large-scale involuntary dislocation of the population, sharp economic decline, group-based inequality, institutionalized persecution or discrimination, severe demographic pressures, brain drain, and environmental decay. States can fail at varying rates through explosion, implosion, erosion, or invasion over different time periods.

[William F. Owen]

"
Steve the Planner says "Hey England exploited the globe until it was no longer in there interest to do so, so they then just tossed those used and abused populaces aside of their own volition and look, it was all great for England." What about those populaces???? Was it great for them too??

No it was not great for them and in a few places they did not want the UK to leave. Generally things went downhill. So what? UK policy is for the furthering of UK interests.

Virtually all of the insurgencies of the past 100 years have been rooted in populaces risking everything to rid themselves of such benevolent European Colonial rule.

OK, let us just assume that might be correct. Does it include the Native Americans? but so what? What causes Revolts and Rebellions is a desire to alter the distribution of political power using violence. Same, same, 3,500 years or more. Policy usually demands that any attempt to do so be resisted, not accommodated or rewarded.

If I understand you correctly Bob, your thesis is rooted in the idea, that if someone takes up arms against a government, they have a good cause and it's the fault of the goverment?

[Bob's World]

Close, but not just anyone.

If a significant distinct segment of a populace does, with the armed aspect being much like the above surface portion of an iceburg, yes. It is the duty and the right of such a populace to rise up in insurgency when the govenance is perceived as despotic by them.

If it's a handful of wingnuts without broad popular support, no.

Does the state have the legal right to suppress a populace exercising this moral right? Yes as well.

But if the state wants to resolve the problem in the best way possible they will recognize their own shortcomings and address them. Too often the state just hides behind it's legal rightness and simply suppresses those who dare to complain. This is the most common form of COIN, and it is bad COIN. It merely suppresses the inevitable, and promotes despotism and governmental arrogance.

We can be smarter, we can be better. In the emerging world where individuals are more impowered than every before we MUST be better and smarter. Before you could get away with it. Now you can't.

[Steve Blair]

OK, let us just assume that might be correct. Does it include the Native Americans? but so what? What causes Revolts and Rebellions is a desire to alter the distribution of political power using violence. Same, same, 3,500 years or more. Policy usually demands that any attempt to do so be resisted, not accommodated or rewarded.

I honestly don't think you can include the Native Americans in an insurgency discussion, at least not in a blanket sense. You could make that argument in certain locations and during specific time frames, but that's about it. The Modoc War, many of the Apache excursions after about 1875, and the Crow Uprising would certainly qualify...but that's under my own interpretation of the Indian Wars (which considers something a possible insurgency after a tribe had been shifted to a reservation).

[Infanteer]

Even now we call those states that dare to reject European forms of governance as "failed states". Read Foreign Policy. Read their definition of a "Failed State." Pure Western arrogance. We define failed as a rejection of doing it our way.

Would you regard Barnett's notion of "Core" and "Gap" states as a sign of this western arrogance?

Until you can develop empathy, you cannot understand insurgency. Until you understand insurgency, you cannot understand counterinsurgency. Until you understand counterinsurgency, you cannot effectively travel to the land of another and help him effectively with his insurgency.

Perhaps we're guilty of "Situating the Estimate" then? We've chosen to take Northern Afghan rejection of the Taliban as a sign that a Western-backed Karzai (and the warlord) coalition would be a suitable alternative and that if we just "do COIN properly" then it should work?

It's hard to empathise one's way out of "Whenever these strange Christian soldiers come around, I get s##t on by my neighbours because it'll either provoke the local yokals to fight or worse, everyone will think I'm on their side".