How Insurgencies End

[Steve the Planner]

Sorry for catching up late.

I was busy doing my regular civilian role unraveling local governance failures and financial misdeeds, and unlawful conduct----in US local governments.

The current project just involves millions of dollars of taxes "misspent." Much better than one project I worked on in the mid-80s where I had to move my family into a doorman apartment building.

Governmental responsibility, and good governance is not an end-state, but a continuous conceptual goal, always a work in progress. No project I ever worked on deceived me into the delusional thought that just this one will bring world peace and perfect government, never did, never will. Serious belief in democracy means an understanding of the importance to continue to pursue the goal (Chasing the flame), but doesn't mean you are every going to actually achieve it.

What Bob is talking about is whether one has faith that extreme grievances can be addressed through some venue. Right now, in many areas, the alternative is not the national, provincial structure, and many Afghans do not have faith that that government is either legitimate or responsive to their concerns.

In many areas, too, voting and elections, are not a legitimate path to acceptance or consensus (Duh!). So what is to be done? (by them)

Tom Ricks has been very judicious about Iraq's current election imbroglio, and I really appreciate it. Iraq has had some level of regional and inter-regional conflicts for hundreds of years, and will always have them. If "voting" and provincial governance was a great path to Nirvana, Iraqis would have attained enlightenment centuries ago.

Instead, good governance and stability there was, and probably always will be, hard to establish and harder to maintain. Our passing through did not change that fundamental in Iraq. They will always have a tough row to how. Facts of life. And it will be so 50 and 100 years from now, whether we have any engagement or not.

Can we improve their row? Sure, and in lots of ways, especially technical assistance and quiet and persistent efforts. Strategic patience, as Amb. Crocker says.

Afghanistan is more so. What Kool Aid creates instant, enduring governance in Afghanistan? Some things are just hard.

After WWII, my Dad was part of the Brits' "Great White Fleet" cruise, and wanted to go through the Khyber Pass during a layover, but could go because it was too dangerous. Every couple of years, he would think about it (especially when he was traveling in the region), but never found a "sweet spot"----in 60 years.

Let's not delude ourselves that because someone can make a Powerpoint, the boxes shown can actually be accomplished.

Public policy types, planners, and organizational analysts started working on systems dynamics models a long time ago, but only as guides and analytical devices. They are not "manuals" and construction diagrams. Life doesn't work like that.

[MikeF]

SGovernmental responsibility, and good governance is not an end-state, but a continuous conceptual goal, always a work in progress.

Bingo. Even the United States is merely an idea, a great practical experiment in government and self-determination. My own definition of insurgency is equally as relaxed and broad whereas I don't believe the insurgency ever actually ends, they just fade away for a bit back to a phase zero. Using the example of the US Civil War, I believe those grievances began the day we first introduced slaves onto the continent, and those ideas persist today. A perpetual ebb and flow that sometimes rises in armed conflict.

From BW

Once one stops blaming their neighbors and their populace for their problems, and starts looking real hard at themselves, one can begin to attain a clarity that is truly helpful to developing courses that are apt to lead to truly ending (vice merely suppressing) an insurgency.

This holds true for the government AND the rebel. It is not a one-sided issue. MLK put it another way,

In any nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps: collection of the facts to determine whether injustices exist; negotiation; self purification; and direct action.

Let's take the case of a disfunctional marraige. In this example, the husband (gov't) is a man of high moral conviction and good standing in the community. He loves his family and lives a good life. Conversely, his wife (rebel) is prone to infidelity, careless with the family savings, and perpetually drunk. In holding to his religious beliefs, the man seeks counsel at his mosque from Imam BW. The strict imam tells him to seek purification of his own sins. Allah must be punishing him for a reason. The Good Book is clear that once a man and woman join in union, they are one body. The man persists for ten years loving his broken wife and seeking purification in the eyes of Allah. Eventually, the imam concedes that there are times, when all else has failed, that Allah allows for divorce. The point is it is not always bad governance to blame.

A justified insurgency could be when the roles are reversed.

[Steve the Planner]

I think there is a disproportionate tendency to oversimplify a critical factor---mobility.

Voting with feet is how we fled those tyrants in Europe. If you are an Afghan, whether fleeing corruption, local internal issues, genuine and justifiable fear of both opponents playing war games in their ancestral family plot, or just to commune with allies and supporters, there simply is no defined us v. them, nor any constraint on voting by feed.

OK. You are the baddest tribe at the moment. And during and after you, I have to deal with the other guys. What if I just step next door (Iran, 1 million IDPs; Pakistan, 1.5 - 2 million IDPs), and come back to fight now and again, or another day. Just like Iraqis did to avoid, but continue to oppose Sadaam, and Khomeni did to oppose the Shah.

That's what you are really dealing with here, and not some defined 1860's rebel miscreant pushed to the shores of the Mississippi Delta to be "mopped up" at the end of conflict.

This is the 21st Century and even poor destitute Afghans can just go next door, or contact cousins in London, Paris, Frankfurt or Baltimore (Karzai family's Helmand Restaurant on Charles Street).

Putting real life into play, and the reality that folks are not bounded in these places (either friend or foe), why apply anachronistic assumptions that we know just don't fit.

Insurgents, like IDPs, seldom get their passports stamped. The world is a big slippery place. In that real world, was strategy will effectively bring conflict back to stage zero?

Don't get me wrong. I love all the boy toys (from my old tank to MRAPs and Blackhawks), they just don't seem to be getting the job done. They do make a big bang, though.

In Iraq, SF, especially during the surge, was surgical and EFFECTIVE. The evidence and the circumstance appears to be different in Afghanistan.

[William F. Owen]

I think there is a disproportionate tendency to oversimplify a critical factor---mobility.

........

Sorry Steve, you've lost me. What am I missing here?