The Insurgent View vs. US Military View

[Cavguy]

Why would anyone in the Army do Strategic Thinking? It's none of your business, except to inform the Political Leadership, to whom you report whether the goals they seek can be aided or achieved by military means. When they say "do it," you do it.

This slide isn't telling the Army to think/develop the strategic plan. But it is suggesting that simply focusing "in their lane" on tactical/operational actions has political/strategic/military effects, and that tactical successes can cause the strategic plan to fail. It also suggests that one's tactical actions in a COIN environment should be viewed broader on its overall effect on the objective than simply by its tactical results.

THE SLIDE
Ok, so what does this tell us? In terms of action and effect, what can you extrapolate from that slide, in terms of different actions?

See above. This slide isn't meant to be a solution, as I mentioned to COL Gentile. It's meant to be a framing slide, thought/discussion generator for issues later in the presentation. One can view it as a reflection of the famous quote of the NVA General to Harry Sumners (although some dispute its accuracy ) - "You know, you never defeated us on the battlefield ... Yes, but it is also irrelevant".

I'm pretty sure the Tamil Tigers would not agree with it. Tactical incompetence lost them their base areas and a lot of other things.

"Pedants will be able to cite exceptions, and thus undermine useful (insightful) theory. Their depredations must be firmly resisted by one simple test: does the theory generally aid understanding of useful military problems? If so, then exceptions are permissible."



On a serious note, it doesn't suggest tactics are unimportant. It does suggest it is only important within the broader context of the objective. which CvC I am sure would agree with.

Niel

[William F. Owen]

This slide isn't telling the Army to think/develop the strategic plan. But it is suggesting that simply focusing "in their lane" on tactical/operational actions has political/strategic/military effects, and that tactical successes can cause the strategic plan to fail.

So if you are saying "doing stupid things is counter-productive" then I'd agree. Who would not? This applies to all forms of conflict. The whole point of the Tactical-Operational-Strategic construct is that actions in one/each generate effects in the others. Yet Corporals cannot really have strategic effect. They can only make Strategy more difficult by undermining it.

It also suggests that one's tactical actions in a COIN environment should be viewed broader on its overall effect on the objective than simply by its tactical results.

Agreed, but all tactical actions have to viewed in a broader context. Commander's intent if nothing else.

"You know, you never defeated us on the battlefield ... Yes, but it is also irrelevant".

And if the US Armed Forces had stayed in RVN, like they did in Korea, the NVA could never have won. High casualty rates, which lead to the sapping of the will to fight/endure, is what caused the US to abandon its commitment to RSVN. Own high casualty rates were, in part, the result of tactical actions and decisions.

"Pedants will be able to cite exceptions, and thus undermine useful (insightful) theory. Their depredations must be firmly resisted by one simple test: does the theory generally aid understanding of useful military problems? If so, then exceptions are permissible."

On a serious note, it doesn't suggest tactics are unimportant. It does suggest it is only important within the broader context of the objective. which CvC I am sure would agree with.

CvC sure as hell would. Tactical success is no less important in Security Operations than Combat Operations. I strongly object to the idea that "tactical success can be counter-productive." If it is in anyway counter productive it is not tactical success!

The circumstances under which the successful and legitimate killing or capture of enemy is "counter-productive" are so small that I doubt they could be usefully codified.

If the enemy makes you believe that doing him harm, will somehow do you harm, he's won! - and you have no legitimate recourse to armed action. - EG: Ghandi - and Ghandi was not an insurgent! He used Politics, without warfare - so not a military problem.

[Bob's World]

If the enemy makes you believe that doing him harm, will somehow do you harm, he's won! - and you have no legitimate recourse to armed action. - EG: Ghandi - and Ghandi was not an insurgent! He used Politics, without warfare - so not a military problem.

This is one area where WILF and I take very different perspectives. I take WILF's position to be that insurgency begins when the violence begins, as does the military mission, with both also ending along with the violence.

I see Insurgency as a continuous spectrum that every populace and governance are continuously operating within. Most well down below Mao's Phase I insurgency in what has been described as "pre-insurgency" or "phase 0 insurgency". Perhaps most accurately it is "pre-violence insurgency".

Not only was Ghandi, and also Dr. King here in the states, insurgents; they were so successful at insurgency that they never had to resort to violence to force the government to address the conditions of poor governance that gave rise to their movements.

On the flip side of that "COIN," I also see the passing and implementation of the U.S. Civil Rights Act as the most successful COIN effort ever executed by the US government as well.

Once either the insurgent or the counterinsurgent resorts to violience to accomplish their ends it recognizes a failure at accomplishing the same peacefully first. It does not mean the earlier effort was not equally insurgency or counterinsurgency.

The critical benefit of taking my perspective is that it puts and keeps the onus for COIN on the civil government, making the case that this is an enduring committment and the essence of their function in relation to the populace: Provide Good Governance. Just becuase their failure may result in violence in no way relieves them of their duty to that end. The military comes in as needed and out again once good governance is restored.

[William F. Owen]

Perhaps most accurately it is "pre-violence insurgency".

You could call it a "Protest Group" or even "Political Party."

[marct]

You could call it a "Protest Group" or even "Political Party."

There's a difference, Wilf? Seriously, if the political goal is to change the current balance of power and resource allocation in a society, then the means will flow along a continuous spectrum from "passive resistance" (a la Ghandi) to outright revolt. When does it become and "insurgency"? I would have to disagree with you that it does so when violence starts. I would argue, instead, that it is when violence becomes the means of choice, so it's not a crisp set, it's a fuzzy one.

Case in point, and keeping with BW's MLK example, are the Rodney King riots in LA an insurgency? How about the actions of James Cromitie, David Williams, Onta Williams and Laguerre Payen (see here)?

The problem, and it is a sliperry slope one, is that whatever term is applied to a group, then the group will start adopting some of the implications of that term.

[Bob's World]

This is one of those important nuances that can make the difference between a successful or failed COIN.

I think there is a difference between a political group and pre-violent insurgency.

The difference for me lies in my definition of causation for insurgency "A perception of poor governance on the part of some significant segment of the populace that they also perceive they have no legitimate means to resolve."

I see a political group as one that is working within a legitimate system to effect change. An insurgency, perceiving that either there is no legimate means, or that the legimate means that exist, for whatever reason, will not work to adddress their concern, works outside that system to effect change. If that fails as well, they will most likely rise up to acts of violence.

A political group (defined as one working within the legimate system) will likely just accept political failure and live with it, or perhaps if it may cause them to move into the realm of "pre-violence insurgency.

A matter of stages, so shades of grey. Again, I see this as a continuous spectrum. Making it too black and white creates unneccessary gaps and seams that the insurgent can exploit

[William F. Owen]

Seriously, if the political goal is to change the current balance of power and resource allocation in a society, then the means will flow along a continuous spectrum from "passive resistance" (a la Ghandi) to outright revolt. When does it become and "insurgency"?

So you mean subversion?

It becomes an insurgency when you use "military means." - physical actions using organised violence. The ONLY reason Ghandi opted for non-violence was that it made the use of military force against him, illegitimate and illegal. - which was the point of my original thesis about the success of tactical actions.

[AmericanPride]

Just a quibble about definitions:

Does "military means" include TTPs considered illegal by the laws of war, etc?

[reed11b]

Considering the large amount of tactical planning and changes that the insurgent forces in Iraq went through from '03 to '07, I would argue that the slide does not apply to the average insurgent at all. I feel that most insurgents are fighting a very tactical battle and that they simply use PR as an additional fighting tool. Perhaps for politicos in the insurgent world that slide is true, but it is also true for US politicos, so where is the utility?
Reed

[Steve Blair]

Considering the large amount of tactical planning and changes that the insurgent forces in Iraq went through from '03 to '07, I would argue that the slide does not apply to the average insurgent at all. I feel that most insurgents are fighting a very tactical battle and that they simply use PR as an additional fighting tool. Perhaps for politicos in the insurgent world that slide is true, but it is also true for US politicos, so where is the utility?
Reed

The utility lies just where CavGuy said it does in his original post...to provoke discussion. It's not intended to be all-encompassing (at least I would HOPE that one PowerPoint slide isn't intended to be that way....), but rather to get folks talking and (hopefully) thinking about what the slide suggests and doesn't suggest. He didn't put it forward as being definitive in any way, and we should keep that in mind when we discuss it.

[reed11b]

The utility lies just where CavGuy said it does in his original post...to provoke discussion. It's not intended to be all-encompassing (at least I would HOPE that one PowerPoint slide isn't intended to be that way....), but rather to get folks talking and (hopefully) thinking about what the slide suggests and doesn't suggest. He didn't put it forward as being definitive in any way, and we should keep that in mind when we discuss it.

OK, understood, however my big beef w/ the slide is that it absolves us of our central role in the Iraqi insurgency by implying that the insurgency always had this long range political/strategic goal and plan. Nothing I have ever seen suggests this to be true with possible exception of AQ. OIF II, III, IV etc. did not need to occur had WE acted correctly. What is needed is an internal review focus, not an external one.
How did we create the insurgency? Too few troops to begin with, bypassing large numbers of fighters and weapons, Disbanding the Iraqi Army, Criminalizing Baath Party membership, The CPA, Bremmer’s free market experiment, Not supporting local experiments in democracy, etc etc….
The too few troops I put as a minor factor, but it did allow a large number of Iraqi soldiers to keep there weapons and contributed to our inability to create law-and –order during the riots and to find and secure the weapons caches.
All of the above were exaggerated by the complete disbanding of the Iraqi Army, leaving a large number of Iraqi Soldiers with at least some military training and no means of making an income to join in the dis-order and later the insurgency. This also made it so that anger or frustration could not be re-directed to the Iraqi leadership since it did not exist. It also created a condition were any Iraqi’s working in the new security forces were automatic stooges of the U.S. since the U.S. created those security bodies.
Criminalizing Baath Party Membership had a similar effect. Most of the professional classes in Iraq, such as Doctors, were required to be Baath members to practice there profession. The majority of Baath party members were also Suni, and this would contribute to there feelings of being discriminated against that would have violent repercussions later as the country nearly slipped into Civil War.
The CPA as a concept was a bad choice, even outside of the myriad of bad choices the CPA made. By not having a truly Iraqi interterm government, it meant that an Iraqi did not have the choice of working for the Nation of Iraq, they could either work for or against the occupying forces. Guess what many Iraqi’s chose? Even a neutered interterm Iraqi government would have been able to deflect anger away from the coalition forces, and would have made support feel more like Iraqi’s pulling themselves back up on there feet rather then an insulting handout.
Breemers free market experiment justified many educated Iraqi’s fears that the US and allies were doing a resource grab. It may also be the key reason that the Iraqi economy, including it’s oil, were so slow to recover.
I could go on, but the point is the insurgency was a reaction to our actions and was preventable from the get-go and was not created by some far thinking insurgent generalissimo. Yes AQ seems to think more on the long-term side, but perhaps a military solution is not ideal for dealing with AQ.
Reed

[slapout9]

OK, understood, however my big beef w/ the slide is that it absolves us of our central role in the Iraqi insurgency by implying that the insurgency always had this long range political/strategic goal and plan. Nothing I have ever seen suggests this to be true with possible exception of AQ. OIF II, III, IV etc. did not need to occur had WE acted correctly. What is needed is an internal review focus, not an external one.
How did we create the insurgency? Too few troops to begin with, bypassing large numbers of fighters and weapons, Disbanding the Iraqi Army, Criminalizing Baath Party membership, The CPA, Bremmer’s free market experiment, Not supporting local experiments in democracy, etc etc….
The too few troops I put as a minor factor, but it did allow a large number of Iraqi soldiers to keep there weapons and contributed to our inability to create law-and –order during the riots and to find and secure the weapons caches.
All of the above were exaggerated by the complete disbanding of the Iraqi Army, leaving a large number of Iraqi Soldiers with at least some military training and no means of making an income to join in the dis-order and later the insurgency. This also made it so that anger or frustration could not be re-directed to the Iraqi leadership since it did not exist. It also created a condition were any Iraqi’s working in the new security forces were automatic stooges of the U.S. since the U.S. created those security bodies.
Criminalizing Baath Party Membership had a similar effect. Most of the professional classes in Iraq, such as Doctors, were required to be Baath members to practice there profession. The majority of Baath party members were also Suni, and this would contribute to there feelings of being discriminated against that would have violent repercussions later as the country nearly slipped into Civil War.
The CPA as a concept was a bad choice, even outside of the myriad of bad choices the CPA made. By not having a truly Iraqi interterm government, it meant that an Iraqi did not have the choice of working for the Nation of Iraq, they could either work for or against the occupying forces. Guess what many Iraqi’s chose? Even a neutered interterm Iraqi government would have been able to deflect anger away from the coalition forces, and would have made support feel more like Iraqi’s pulling themselves back up on there feet rather then an insulting handout.
Breemers free market experiment justified many educated Iraqi’s fears that the US and allies were doing a resource grab. It may also be the key reason that the Iraqi economy, including it’s oil, were so slow to recover.
I could go on, but the point is the insurgency was a reaction to our actions and was preventable from the get-go and was not created by some far thinking insurgent generalissimo. Yes AQ seems to think more on the long-term side, but perhaps a military solution is not ideal for dealing with AQ.
Reed

Now that is some Strategic Thinking...good job reed....you have got to be a Sergeant to write and think with that kind of clarity

[Steve Blair]

I didn't take the slide to be absolving us of anything. I took it as a much more generic piece. But to each his own.

I agree with many of your points, Reed. But it's also important (and often, IMO, overlooked) to realize that we arrived as an occupying force for all intents and purposes. Not a role we've traditionally cared for, so I think a number of the factors you point out were swept under the rug or simply ignored because they didn't fit the "best case" planning. Number of lessons to be taken away there, but I also think that Cav's slide is intended to get folks thinking about those kinds of things beforehand. It may not work, but it's worth a try.

[Bob's World]

OK, understood, however my big beef w/ the slide is that it absolves us of our central role in the Iraqi insurgency by implying that the insurgency always had this long range political/strategic goal and plan. Nothing I have ever seen suggests this to be true with possible exception of AQ. OIF II, III, IV etc. did not need to occur had WE acted correctly. What is needed is an internal review focus, not an external one.
How did we create the insurgency? Too few troops to begin with, bypassing large numbers of fighters and weapons, Disbanding the Iraqi Army, Criminalizing Baath Party membership, The CPA, Bremmer’s free market experiment, Not supporting local experiments in democracy, etc etc….
The too few troops I put as a minor factor, but it did allow a large number of Iraqi soldiers to keep there weapons and contributed to our inability to create law-and –order during the riots and to find and secure the weapons caches.
All of the above were exaggerated by the complete disbanding of the Iraqi Army, leaving a large number of Iraqi Soldiers with at least some military training and no means of making an income to join in the dis-order and later the insurgency. This also made it so that anger or frustration could not be re-directed to the Iraqi leadership since it did not exist. It also created a condition were any Iraqi’s working in the new security forces were automatic stooges of the U.S. since the U.S. created those security bodies.
Criminalizing Baath Party Membership had a similar effect. Most of the professional classes in Iraq, such as Doctors, were required to be Baath members to practice there profession. The majority of Baath party members were also Suni, and this would contribute to there feelings of being discriminated against that would have violent repercussions later as the country nearly slipped into Civil War.
The CPA as a concept was a bad choice, even outside of the myriad of bad choices the CPA made. By not having a truly Iraqi interterm government, it meant that an Iraqi did not have the choice of working for the Nation of Iraq, they could either work for or against the occupying forces. Guess what many Iraqi’s chose? Even a neutered interterm Iraqi government would have been able to deflect anger away from the coalition forces, and would have made support feel more like Iraqi’s pulling themselves back up on there feet rather then an insulting handout.
Breemers free market experiment justified many educated Iraqi’s fears that the US and allies were doing a resource grab. It may also be the key reason that the Iraqi economy, including it’s oil, were so slow to recover.
I could go on, but the point is the insurgency was a reaction to our actions and was preventable from the get-go and was not created by some far thinking insurgent generalissimo. Yes AQ seems to think more on the long-term side, but perhaps a military solution is not ideal for dealing with AQ.
Reed

Reed,

Your knowledge of what occurred is right on. The slide, however is right also. Recognize that it is a generalization and not an absolute, and intended to get a US tactical audience to understand that the guy they are in a firefight with, or hunting down was sent out with a different purpose than they were, and so will react differently than they will to similar circumstances.

But you are absolutely right that there was no insurgency (active phase one insurgency that is) in Iraq due to the suppressive efforts of Saddam's government. We set it all in motion with our regime change operation. Which is why I say we are not conducting COIN in Iraq, but are conducting "post-regime change FID."

To my way of thinking, there are three broad categories of Insurgency, and you have described one. I believe all three exist in Iraq, and none of them include AQ. AQ is not conducting Insurgency in Iraq, they are conducting UW.

There is Resistance (as you describe, those who rose up to drive out the invader/occupier US). There is Separatist (the Kurds, who want to break a piece of the old Iraq off for a new Kurdish state), and there is Revolutionary (both Sunnis and Shia have a go at this; those who reject the current government and want to change it).

But back to the Pyramid. The wise insurgent understands his tremendous tactical disadvantage. So he maximizes his strengths. He hides among the populace, he uses information operations, he targets and disrupts low-level symbols of the government. Not because he wants to wipe out school teachers, mayors and tax collectors. Because he wants to achieve one of the three strategic effects above.

We think we can win by attrition. Kill his fighters and kill the fight. (I am not a fan of the strategy, because those fighters all come from the very populace whose support you are attempting to gain). We need to get a little more strategic ourselves. Target the causes of insurgency and not the symptoms of it. Obviously so long as we are occupying the country this is hard to do with those who are of the Resistance. One more reason to not try to fix the entire government and make it effective. Focus on goodness, focus on communicating that and your clear intent to leave. Make your actions reflect your words. Put the host nation to the fore and let them clearly demonstrate they are in charge, and get the F out.

So yeah, you are right, but so is CAVGUY. Focus on where your understanding overlap and work out from there to where you don't. Too many start by focusing on where they disagree, and there really isn't anywhere to go from there.

[slapout9]

Military Review Article from 1974 on how to Analyze an Insurgency by Roger Darling of the US State Department, this article ties a lot of points made here all together.

Insurgency is a System with 5 main processes.

1-Cause process........Bob's World
2-Intimidation process
3-Resource process
4-Guerrilla action process
5-Collective Psychological process......Cavguy's slide

http://calldp.leavenworth.army.mil/e...00002/art4.pdf

[Ken White]

But you are absolutely right that there was no insurgency (active phase one insurgency that is) in Iraq due to the suppressive efforts of Saddam's government. We set it all in motion with our regime change operation. Which is why I say we are not conducting COIN in Iraq, but are conducting "post-regime change FID."

Agree there was no insurgency -- partly because there was no government to insurge against...

Mostly because of that. What caused the insurgency to develop was, in order of importance to that start:

- A massive Intelligence failure on our part. Saddam told us what he was going to do; arm everyone, release all the prisoners in the jails and go to guerrilla warfare.

- A failure on the part of then CinCCent and the Army to well outline the problems foreseen and, possibly, to allow egos to get in the way of the limited intel that did point to a possible guerrilla fight.

- A failure for over 22 years by the leadership of the Army to really address the issues of IW and the occupation of a foreign nation; this failure led to a failure to have doctrine readily available and to train for those contingencies. This led to Reed's accurate summation of an Army that stood by and twiddled its thumbs and then overreacting as usual and firing at any and everything too promiscuously.

- The CPA and its errant stupidity merely solidified the three foregoing issues and exacerbated all those problems. The installation of the interim government and the subsequent election turned Saddam's IW fight into an insurgency, plus. Got to add in the criminal mischief, the sectarian feud, tribal enmities and all the other things that coexisted with the insurgency.

The first item, Intel failure, is possibly an overstatement but not by much and the error(s) are hard to attribute. The second two items are flatly military error. The fourth item is political and out of the purview of the Armed Forces.

I emphasize that because it was a factor in Korea, in the Congo, in the Dominican Republic in Viet Nam and will always be a factor that the Armed Forces cannot control.

We think we can win by attrition. Kill his fighters and kill the fight. (I am not a fan of the strategy, because those fighters all come from the very populace whose support you are attempting to gain).

You're closer to decision points than I am but I do not get that perception. I do agree that some want to do that -- and I suggest part of that started from somewhere near your current home and the rest came from senior people who've been marginally trained and educated over the past 25 years (the training and education are improving, and rapidly -- but that does not excuse the lapses of senior Flag Officers and civilian leadership from 1975-2002 (with a few rare exceptions like Shy Meyer and John Wickham who the others merely waited out...). My perception is that the majority of the Army (and I include senior folks) does not believe that.

Other'n that, I agree with you...

[goesh]

I don't think insurgent leaders have to be totally focused on strategic political theatre. At the street and village level, every insurgent action is seen as either being in direct oppositioin to the occupying force or in reaction to it. Ambush or car bomb, all can be attributed to the occupiers to some degree and that is theatre wherein everyone is a participant no matter how unwittingly - sort of like geography, it is always there.