Good news -- the insurgency is over! Now we need a new strategy for the Iraq War.

[jcustis]

Quote:
Originally Posted by jcustis
Really?...And so you can say authoritatively that the book they wrote was wrong?

No, you are making a prediction about the future. I said that the institution which produced it had not won a counter-insurgency (within the parameters I gave). That's a statement about the past.

If we could steer this back into the realm of your original comment about COIN manuals and losers for a moment, your statement about the past is still WRONG.

You blew in here again and made a sensational statement, then returned to wordsmithing, so please humor me for a moment as I do not know what you are trying to say.

Are you negating the socio-economic, internal political, and information operations (at a national policy level) effects that factor heavily into lost COIN efforts? That seems to be the thrust of what you are saying when you literally discount COIN manuals as somehow unecessary because the "institutions that wrote them" did not win.

Just what institutions are you talking about?

Why the need to make a sensational statement if all you really meant to say that Iraq is getting worse, or that we need to take actions which represent a drastic departure from the current course?

There seems to be a fixation with the tools used to prosecute COIN and say they are useless, yet you are not recognizing the vast number of other influencing factors that impact on this complex environment. National public will comes to mind above all else, so what does the manual have to do with this?

You also never countered Steve's post regarding your errors in post #169. Kudos that his post #171 fits your views, but do you have any comment on #169? Inquiring minds want to know, and I couldn't stop myself from asking.

[Fabius Maximus]

...I cannot relate your reply to what I said.

Are you negating the socio-economic, internal political, and information operations (at a national policy level) effects that factor heavily into lost COIN efforts? That seems to be the thrust of what you are saying when you literally discount COIN manuals as somehow unecessary because the "institutions that wrote them" did not win.

I'll take a shot at this anyway. I am not negating anything, just making a statement of historical fact (not gospel, history being a slippery thing). Whatever the social-political-info factors, the folks who write these manuals write from an institutional background of losing at 4GW. Nor did I say that COIN manuals are unnecessary. I have written dozens of articles saying just the opposite. But we do need a realistic perspective in order to see our peril. Harsh truths of 4GW.

As for the discussion of winners at the game of foreign occupiers vs. local insurgents, I was summarizing two articles I wrote about this, based on several chapters in van Creveld’s book. Things get dropped in this process of abstraction. Here’s a summary of an upcoming article of mine. I apologize for the length.

Consider only wars since WWII. Many things changed at that time, including Mao’s development of 4GW into a mature form.

For analytical purposes, we can say that since WWII 4GW’s come in two types, reflecting the degree of involvement of outside states (obviously there are many other ways to characterize 4GW’s).

1. Violence between a government and insurgents (both sides can comprise any number of factions; there can be more than 2 sides). Governments often beat insurgents, even insurgents with foreign assistance (although this improves their odds). The local government leads in such areas as making political reforms, setting tactics – and casualties, although it may have important or even decisive foreign aid.

2. Violence between two or more sides, where at least one is led by foreigners. We’ll call these wars of national liberation, locals vs. foreign occupiers (however well-intended, if foreigners lead they’re likely seen as occupiers by the insurgents). Insurgents almost always win these, with three special cases which should not obscure this key point.

First, many 4GW’s are still in progress, such as in Israel (Jewish immigrants taking and holding land, with quasi-cooperation of the colonial ruler) and Palestine (Israel still holds a few pieces). Iraq and Afghanistan.

Second, as always there are borderline cases. Like Northern Ireland -- how foreign are the English? Third, what is the minimum threshold? At what point does it become an insurgency? Do you consider as insurgents the violent leftist groups in Europe and America that operated 1970-2000?

The question frequently occurs of who is the “winner”: the locals or the western power giving assistance (e.g., the Malaysian Emergency). As an example, to help us to see both sides of the question, consider the American Revolution. Lincoln did not say “Four score and seven years ago France brought forth on this…” We could not have done it without France’s aid, but it was our victory.

[slapout9]

FM, believe it or not I posted an article from (Military Review) sometime ago written in the 60's written by a German Professor who said almost the same thing. He said there are 3 types of insurgencies of which 2 out of the 3 will be won by the insurgency only a type 1 could be won by a major power. What was really unusual was the guy died just before the article was published so he could never go into detail on his theory.

[Fabius Maximus]

slapout9, do you have a name, title, or other reference? I would like to see (and cite) this.

One of my early descriptions of this is in a January 2007 article.
Part four of a series about the US expedition to the Middle East

[slapout9]

FM, here is the thread with alink to the article and the discussion that followed. The thread title is everybody wrong?


http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ighlight=wrong


The link is not working,but it is the October 1969 issue of Military Review. Title is "When Counter insurgents Cannot Win" by Otto Heilbrunn

[Fabius Maximus]

Things changed in mid-20th century. Since then..

a. If there is a "real" government, insurgents probably lose -- unless they have significant help from outside, and esp if they have nearby sanctuaries.

b. If there is not a "real" government -- per the usual pol sci list of attributes of gov't to measure legitimacy -- and foreigners lead the war, then the insurgents will probably win (if they can work up to a reasonable size).

Foreigners never lead the war when there is a "real" government. Sometimes insurgencies take generations to resolve.

[RTK]

Things changed in mid-20th century. Since then..

a. If there is a "real" government, insurgents probably lose -- unless they have significant help from outside, and esp if they have nearby sanctuaries.

b. If there is not a "real" government -- per the usual pol sci list of attributes of gov't to measure legitimacy -- and foreigners lead the war, then the insurgents will probably win (if they can work up to a reasonable size).

Foreigners never lead the war when there is a "real" government. Sometimes insurgencies take generations to resolve.

A few questions, FM. I'm trying to understand your above statement. Stay with me on this...

How you've defined "government" above: I'm assuming you're talking about National government. Do your two contingencies above relate to the local or provincial level as well? Would you consider the alliance of sheikhs in Al Anbar a "real" government or outside support and sanctuary?

Outside Support: How do you factor in the Iranian Qods force influence in the above two scenarios. I'd imagine they'd be part of outside support. What other groups would you include in the "outside support" label? Tribes, ethnic sects, the UN, OPEC, etc...?

[Fabius Maximus]

...not as good as the questions, unfortunately.

The two articles I posted on this thread (March 13, Jan 27) discuss these complex questions in detail. Here are highlights.

I try not to reinvent the wheel. Experts have a well-developed literature on what makes a government real. Conceptually it is legitimacy. Practically it means how many attributes it possesses. Excerpt from the March report:

The more of these they possess, the stronger and more durable they are. The most important attributes:

Control of armed forces, or even monopoly of armed force in its borders.
The ability to levy and collect taxes.
An administrative mechanism to execute its policies.
Territory in which it is the dominant political entity.
Control of borders.
Legitimacy (not love) in the eyes of its people.

The national “government” of Iraq has, by most reports, none of these. It lives on oil revenue and US funding. Its ministries are controlled by ethnic and religious groups, parceled out as patronage and run for their “owners” benefit. The only territory it controls is the Green Zone, by the grace of the Coalition’s armed forces. Coalition forces and other foreigners are beyond its control. Coalition forces make critical decisions without its consent, often without even consulting it.

Both articles described how real governments are evolving at the regional and local levels. That's what "Iraq is fragmenting" means.

As for outside influences, the major foreign influence in Iraq is us (media reports often confuse this, writing as if we are Iraq forces). My latest article discusses our role in some detail. Iran, although public sources are inadequate to determine how large a role. Syria and Turkey. The others seem to have a marginal role: NGO's, UN, Kurds in Turkey and Iran, EU, Russia, China, etc. Any of this could rapidly change, of course.

The major wild cards are the Sunni Arab States. To what extent have they helped their brothers in Iraq? Since late 2003 I've written that the extent of insurgent air defenses is the key metric of their external support. From my 27 May 2007 article:

In four years of intense fighting the Sunni Arabs have been unable to obtain any substantial anti-air capability. This shows limited ability to beg, borrow, or steal funds – and also proves that they receive little aid from their brothers in neighboring states, despite claims of the Bush Administration. A serious anti-air capability might not prove decisive against the US, but would have improved their terms of engagement. US forces would either continue as is with greatly increased casualties, or adopt far less aggressive tactics.

[jcustis]

Right...It becomes so clear now.