We need less Chemo and Surgery and more "Voom."

[Bob's World]

Dayuhan

We disagree about the nature of AQ, so we will disagree with how to best deal with AQ and the the problems of governance and instability in the places they operate.

Worth considering is that you subscribe to a position that fits fairly closely with the thinking that has driven US reactions since 9/11. How is that working for us?

I am reminded of a favorite question that Ranger Instructors would pose to Ranger Students who were in the midst of hopelessly mucking up some particular task or mission: "Ranger, are you as F'd up as you want to be"?

Its kind of like "when did you stop beating your wife." There is no good answer. "Yes, Sergeant, I want to be this F'd up"? or "No, sergeant, I want to be even more F'd up"?

I think our current position buys too heavily into the sizzle. I try to focus on the steak. Governments are much more comfortable when they can lay responsibility for these types of problems at the feet of some malign actor, some ideology, or some set of environmental or economic conditions beyond their control - and then simply apply the energy of the state to defeat, deny or disrupt those who act out illegally to operationalize such popular discontent.

But without insurgent populaces who are both very dissatisfied with their own systems of governance, and who equally perceive that external Western influence, money and manipulation is a major factor in why their governance is so out of step - there would be no AQ. Getting rid of AQ without addressing that base of energy will only open the way for the emergence of "AQ 2.0." With this much demand, there will be someone to step up and provide supply. We attack supply, and ignore demand; much as we do with the largely illegal drug-related criminal problems that are also growing beyond our capacity to suppress. Our current approaches are simplistic and will break us.

We need simple approaches that are much more honest about what really fuels these powerful illegal challengers. You don't have to agree with me, but that does not make me wrong. All I know for certain is that the current assessment/approach does not work.

You tend to share the assessment/understanding that has brought us to this place, but argue for different tactics. I don't think new tactics will get us there. We need a new assessment. We need a new understanding. Once we have that, new approaches will present themselves, and they will be far less costly and far less intrusive than the ones of the past decade. I suspect they will be far more productive and much more in line norms of what most humans see as acceptable government action as well.

[Fuchs]

But without insurgent populaces who are both very dissatisfied with their own systems of governance,

...or maybe rather just with the other guys' leaders being in power and handing the spoils down to their followers.

[Bob's World]

...or maybe rather just with the other guys' leaders being in power and handing the spoils down to their followers.

Fuchs, revolutionary insurgency does not of necessity bring better governance, more often is simply brings different goverance that is usually far less effective than what existed before.

And, as you note, often the rising power simply falls in on the old system and the only real change is who benefits and who suffers.

All true, yet that in no way undermines my proposition that conditions of insurgency grow when some distinct segment of the overall governed populace comes to perceive the current system as intolerable. Their are many reasons why men fight (most tied to youth and testosterone), but when societies grow restless in this way the most common drivers appear to be those more closely tied to the top of Maslow's hierarchy.

• They do not perceive the governance to be acting in a manner they deem as appropriate
• They do not recognize the right of some system of governance to rule or affect them at all
• They do not feel that they are treated equally as other similarly siuated sub-populaces are
• They do not feel that they receive justice under the rule of law as it is applied to them
• And perhaps most importantly, they do not perceive themselves to have trusted, certain, and legal means consistent with their culture to affect governance driving the perceptions listed above.

I bundle all of this up as "poor governance" (not to be confused with similar terms often used in COIN theory to describe what is more accurately ineffective governance). Effectiveness is nice and can be measured by anyone, but goodness is what fosters natural stability and can only be measured by those subject to said governance.

But as you point out, often when such peceptions drive a populace to act, when they prevail they too often simply flip the table and become equally oppressive (and the cycle begins anew). King George is on record for his amazement that George Washington would not accept the role of "King." Noting that if he turned that down that he was "truly the greatest man of all."

[Fuchs]

All true, yet that in no way undermines my proposition that conditions of insurgency grow when some distinct segment of the overall governed populace comes to perceive the current system as intolerable.

"Government", not "system".

There's no reason to see a cure in democracy if the point of the insurgents is that they want some of their own ideologues in power who wouldn't win democratically.

[Bob's World]

"Government", not "system".

There's no reason to see a cure in democracy if the point of the insurgents is that they want some of their own ideologues in power who wouldn't win democratically.

"Democracy" is only a cure if democracy is what the populace in question sees as appropriate in the context of their culture.

But democracy has many shades and is a term that gets tossed around pretty loosely. We certainly don't have anything close to pure democracy in the US.

The final bullet that I mention is perhaps the essence of "democracy." How a particular society secures and nurtures this line of legal feedback from those who are governed to those who govern is up to them. When some external power comes in and thinks they have the one perfect way to do this and then seeks to impose that system on others, one can almost guarantee they are wrong. Such systems would be de facto illegitimate and a violation of sovereignty. That is a deep hole to crawl out of, regardless of how bad the old system was, or how good you think your new system is.

That is the hole we dug in Iraq and Afghanistan. Easy to dig, hard to crawl out of.

[Bill Moore]

Posted by Bob

All true, yet that in no way undermines my proposition that conditions of insurgency grow when some distinct segment of the overall governed populace comes to perceive the current system as intolerable. Their are many reasons why men fight (most tied to youth and testosterone), but when societies grow restless in this way the most common drivers appear to be those more closely tied to the top of Maslow's hierarchy.
They do not perceive the governance to be acting in a manner they deem as appropriate

And perhaps most importantly, they do not perceive themselves to have trusted, certain, and legal means consistent with their culture to affect governance driving the perceptions listed above.

I bundle all of this up as "poor governance"

Bob,

Your argument is borderline irrational, but most importantly it is completely irrelevant to the issue at hand. First, many in our government have been pushing the same view for years and our current strategy is based on reforming governments (it isn't working). Second, you tend to identify every insurgent as legitimate and automatically default to finding the State government illegitimate which is a serious bias on your part. Poor governance really? When a minority of Islamists want to impose Shari'a law upon all and the government fights to defeat their attempt to subject the people to their extreme views this is poor governance? Really? A government fights against a communist insurgency which only has 15% of populace supporting it, and their goal is suppress the people much more than the current government, yet any effort by the government to defeat them is illegitimate, because only the insurgents are legitimate? Really?

Government's have every right and obligation to defend the status quo. In some situations we support them, in others we support the insurgents (based on our interests), and in most cases we remain neutral (or should). As Dayuhan correctly points out we're not going to fix other people's government's and even if we did AQ would still survive, so as a core of our strategy to defend the U.S. fixing governments to defeat AQ won't work and it is too expensive to sustain, so it isn't feasible to begin with.

While I don't concur with Dayuhan's assessment of AQ, it is still very much alive and it is growing in many parts of the world, his overall approach to dealing with it is one of the most level headed I have seen (it is not the approach we're following now, we're following Bob's approach of trying to fix foreign governments and it isn't work well for us)

Posted by Dayuhan

1. Defend effectively. Monitoring, tracking, infiltrating, and disrupting plots won't eliminate the antagonists, but it can minimize their impact, deprive them of high profile success, and isolate them from supporters who want to see results.

2. Attack effectively. Find and eliminate the key individuals on the operational and the funding/support side by whatever means work.

3. Starve them. Don't occupy territory, don't feed that "expel the infidel from the land of the faithful" narrative. Extended occupations of Muslim territory provide a discrete, specific target for jihadi propaganda and fundraising and should be avoided. We'll never convert the inner circle, they have to be killed, arrested, or driven so far underground that they can't operate. The inner circle can be isolated from their sources of support and recruitment.

Solid points have been ignored since 9/11, but there are at least to categories of starving them. The psychological you address above, and then the financial. They won't conduct effective transnational terrorist attacks without adequate resources.

4. Don't be stupid. There will always someone who will tell us that the cause of all the mess is bad governance in Muslim countries and we can fix the mess by fixing governance in Muslim countries. Trying to do that is just going to get us deeper in the $#!t. It can be argued (though often exaggerated) that the bad governance problem is to some extent something we helped create, but we can't undo the effect of meddling past by meddling again

.

The fact that we're pushing to the point of imposing our values on other States and their societies is what is creating the backlash against us in many cases. It provides propaganda for AQ, and for the emergent AQ 2.0 and 3.0 and all their step children. If our goal is to reform the world, that won't be done peacefully or within a budget we can afford.

[Bob's World]

Bill, pray tell, when have I EVER said the US needs to "fix" the governance of others?

I merely point out the broken part we should be concerned about. Governments and their populaces must make these repairs for themselves. But most government have no interest in making such repairs when they can simply play the "might makes right" card and suppress the illegal actors. As you say, governments have the right to do this. Such is sovereignty. But equally, when the people under such a sovereign system find it to be intolerable they too have both the right and the duty to rise up and challenge it.

You may think the principles contained in our Declaration of Independence to be uniquely American, or concepts that have become somehow quaint or irrelevant with time. America and all we think we stand for is sadly doomed when that becomes the case. If a man or a nation is not what they proclaim to be, then they are little or nothing of value at all.

And your example of Communism is "borderline irrational" as well.

Do you think the people Russia looked to Communism because they wanted to be communists or because they wanted to get rid of the Tsar?

Do you think the people of China looked to Communist because they wanted to be communists or because they wanted to be free of external Colonial powers and their puppet regime?

Do you think the people of Vietnam, Malaya, etc, etc turned to communism because they wanted to be communist or because they wanted to be free of Western Colonial powers and their puppet regimes??

Again, I cannot emphasize enough, revolution does not happen to bring something new, it happens because their is tremendous energy within a significant segment of the populace to remove something that exists and is deemed intolerable.

Do governments have the right to simply ignore the reasonable concerns of their evolving populaces and enforce the rule of law in a war-like way to sustain the status quo? Certainly. But the US and our interests are not well served by dedicating our reputation, our treasure and the blood of our young men and women to such efforts.

Does Dayuhan suggest effective ways to kill the current crop of complainants? Sure. No rocket science there. That may well reduce a particular threat in a particular place for a short period of time. Congratulations. Mark all your tactical metrics Green, give yourself a top block ORE and go home. But such tactical successes are growing the deep roots of strategic failure. Such "successes" validate the anti-American message of organizations such as AQ, and serve to extend the reign of governments no longer wanted by their own people in their current form. It allows such governments to treat their people with impunity and to rely for their sovereignty upon the protection of the US rather than upon the consent of those they govern.

That is not who we are Bill. And those who rationalize such poor behavior in the name of national security are, IMO, dangerously wrong. Wrong about who we are, wrong about how we best secure our interests, wrong about why such conflicts occur and how to resolve them, and wrong about what the long-term results of this reactionary abuse of the sovereignty of so many others in the name of preserving the sovereignty of ourself will bring.

We cannot fix others. We cannot resolve their insurgencies or repair their relationships with their own people. This they must do on their own. But we can work across the DIME spectrum in a neutral way in those few places that are actually critical to our interests to force governments to listen and to help keep violence (state or insurgent) within the bounds of clear red lines.

What you suggest is little different than practices of the last century to take out Union organizers, and to send pipe-swinging goons into a mass of striking workers. To me, that is irrational. And not in a borderline sort of way.