Small War on Basilan (catch all)

[Dayuhan]

Reports are not entirely consistent. but it seems that a group of 41 Philippine Army soldiers, identified in most reports as special forces, ran into trouble in southern Basilan and took 19 dead and 12 wounded in a 6 hour fight. Apparently 6 were killed after being captured. The incident occurred not far from the site of a 2007 battle in which 23 Philippine Marines were killed, 14 of whom were beheaded. Reports say the army group was responding to the reported presence of an armed group including one of those responsible for the 2007 incident.

The opposing force was reportedly largely MILF, despite an ongoing cease fire and peace talks. The MILF central committee, which is far from Basilan and has limited control over its forces there, claims that their camp was attacked and they responded. The Army says their force was ambushed.

Reports from the field suggest that the Army group encountered a small armed group near an MILF camp, shooting started, and the MILF force and armed locals piled on. That's not at all unlikely. Several armed groups operate there, memberships overlap and blood ties abound, villagers are armed, and the Army is not popular. If something starts and there's a point of advantage (and an opportunity to possibly recover weapons) it's very likely that all kinds would respond.

Manila politicians are already claiming that the MILF leaders ordered the attack (unlikely) and demanding an end to the cease-fire and an aggressive military response. That plays well to the populace: the Christian majority largely sees Muslims as inherently treacherous and violent, and it's widely believed that they can only be controlled by stomping them into submission. The government says the peace process will continue.

I'm no expert on the military side, but there seems to be a repeating pattern of Philippine forces walking into these situations and taking heavy casualties, and a continuing inability to rapidly reinforce or support forces that run into trouble in the field. I have to wonder if US training and material support, which has been in place for quite a while now, is doing anything to address that.

Some links:

http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx...bCategoryId=63

http://www.malaya.com.ph/oct20/news1.html

http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/-depth/10...-forces-troops

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/79953/a...fire-with-milf

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/79823/a...-basilan-clash

[GI Zhou]

I just have this feeling that having seen the Philippine Rangers gearing up to deploy in 1999, that this all too common. Macho bravado is no substitute for good tactics and civil affairs. A sorrier bunch had not seen for a long time.

[Bill Moore]

I'm no expert on the military side, but there seems to be a repeating pattern of Philippine forces walking into these situations and taking heavy casualties, and a continuing inability to rapidly reinforce or support forces that run into trouble in the field. I have to wonder if US training and material support, which has been in place for quite a while now, is doing anything to address that.

Dayuhan, I think you know the JSOTF mission is an advise and assist mission, not a train and equip mission, so the short answer to your wondering is no.

http://jsotf-p.blogspot.com/

The fact of the matter is the Gov of the Philippines has for years under invested in its military and its law enforcement, which I suspect is one reason corruption is rampant and obviously a key reason they're combat ineffective outside of a few narrow parameters.

U.S. laws and policy prohibit us from training and equipping them, unless it is under title 22 authorities (there are some exceptions, but the exceptions are not the norm). We are stuck with a Cold War Security Cooperation/Security Assistance process that undermines our efforts at every turn.

It is tragic so many young men are dying in a conflict that could should have been settled by now; however, there is little incentive to negotiate seriously when the State doesn't have the means to secure the area.

[Bob's World]

Like most insurgencies, the conflict is waged in some remote corner among the disaffected segment of the populace; too often with the military as the agent of the government; but can only be resolved ("won" or "lost" for those who insist on applying the language of war and warfare to what is a political dynamic) in the capital

It will be decisions and paradigm shifts made, adopted and operationalized in Manila that will ultimately bring stability to places like Basilan. OEF-P is a good US operation, but it will never achieve that effect as it is designed to bring some small degree of goodness to that small (ok, not so small) corner of the Philippines where the various manifestations of Philippine insurgency among the Muslim segment of the populace manifest. As we all know, this same insurgency manifests differently in other regions of the country among other segments of the populace, and has been porpoising up and down with varying degrees of activity and violence for hundreds of years.

The root causes of how the central government governs, how the cultural system of elites vs peasants; Catholic vs. Muslim; etc, etc (so many long established roles and perceptions that serve to always allow one small segment of the populace to achieve success while the majority feel trapped or disrespected) go unaddressed.


This is largely true in Afghanistan as well. Village Stability Operations and Afghan Local Police are also great SOF programs among the people in the regions where disaffection with the government is high; yet the true root issues in Kabul and the historic inertia of that culture also prevent any true addressing of the issues that could actually resolve that conflict.

We can mitigate symptoms of such conflicts, or we can exacerbate symptoms of such conflicts, but we cannot truly resolve the actual roots of such conflicts with such engagement. US foreign and US military policies and doctrines need to evolve to grasp this reality. Our history and doctrine on COIN tout temporary suppressions as "wins," or overly focus on military actions that occurred over major political changes that were implemented where more enduring effects were achieved (most famously in Malaya, or perhaps the American Colonies), so we miss the most important lessons to be learned from such operations.

In the Philippines we primarily conduct mitigation operations. In Afghanistan we conduct a mix of mitigation and exacerbation operations (but see that latter group as also contributing to success,( i.e., Ranger raids on Afghan homes to take out low-level Taliban leaders of the resistance movement in Afghanistan proper, or haul off their friends and family to gain more info to capture or kill such leaders; or drone strikes into Pashtun homes in the FATA in efforts to kill senior leaders of the revolutionary core of the insurgency).

We must change how we think about these types of conflicts, and how we think about what our proper role (if in deed, any role is proper in most cases) to best help bring stability and enduring peace to such people should be as well.

Until then Manila will keep sending good young citizens out to do battle with other good young citizens in an effort to not have to take on the hard decisions about who they are and how they govern. Same same in Kabul. And the US will keep sending good young men out help those governments in those Sisyphian-like efforts.

We can do better, but first we must think differently. Until then, there will continue to be avoidable "bad days" like this.

[Bill Moore]

Beating the drum about good governance isn't irrelevant, but this discussion is focused on the AFP's tactical capability period. Yes, good governance could probably rapid resolve the major security challenges in the S. Philippines, but the fact of the matter is there won't be anything resembling good governance in the near term if ever for a lot of reasons.

In the meantime, Dayuhan asked if JSOTF-P's train and equip effort was addressing black and white logistical shortfalls that would enable the AFP to fight more effectively and the answer is no.

Good governance also concerns the government taking care of their security forces.

[Bob's World]

Bill,

Any music without a steady drumbeat usually ends up rambling along aimlessly... Like COIN operations designed to pursue threats or effectiveness...

Certainly governments need to take care of their security forces. Not giving orders like "Deploy down to Basilan and defeat the Muslim insurgents" is one great way governments can do this. Giving them the world's best training and equipment prior to giving them that order is certainly better for the security forces, but does not move said government any any closer to "good governance." More effective, yes, but (drum beat coming) but effectiveness of government does not cure insurgency where poor governance exists; and ineffectiveness of government will not create insurgency where good governance exists. I will keep pounding a stake into the heart of that vampire-like bit of COIN BS until it finally dies.

Personally, I think it is time to fold the tent on OEF-P and right-size our operations there to free up capacity to provide a more balanced approach to the entire theater. But that is a conversation we can have over a couple of beers.

[Dayuhan]

Dayuhan, I think you know the JSOTF mission is an advise and assist mission, not a train and equip mission, so the short answer to your wondering is no.

Yes, I was imprecise with the words... I should have wondered whether US advice and assistance had done anything to address these issues. Of course I already knew the answer was no, which raises the next question: what exactly has all the advice and assistance done?

The fact of the matter is the Gov of the Philippines has for years under invested in its military and its law enforcement, which I suspect is one reason corruption is rampant and obviously a key reason they're combat ineffective outside of a few narrow parameters.

Corruption is rampant because the people involved are corrupt, and because the organizational culture stresses loyalty to other members of the force over effectiveness of the force. Everybody in the ranks knows who's corrupt, who's selling weapons, who has what rackets. They don't tell, because that would be ratting, and not ratting is more important than winning fights. You have to wonder how the guys doing the fighting feel about that, especially knowing that most of the guns and ammunition used against them came from government stock, but that's the way it is and has been for a long time.

If you tripled the budget tomorrow, corruption would just get worse. There'd be more to steal.

It's true that the Philippine military is woefully underresourced, but in incidents like this you have to wonder if what they have is being used effectively. They have aircraft... nothing terribly modern, but an OV-10 or an MG520 can be a useful thing if it shows up. Even if the actual fighting is in dense brush and too close for effective air support, aircraft can be both a physical and psychological deterrent to other forces looking to move in and join the fight, no? The UH-1 is hardly cutting edge but they've delivered reinforcements to many battlefields in many places and I'd think they could do so again (unless generals are using them as taxis at the time). They have artillery... obsolete by modern standards but with effective communication and training I imagine it could be used to provide some support to a unit under attack in the field. If nothing else, you'd think they could have had other units ready to relieve a group that's going into an area with a long-standing reputation for resistance.

Again, I'm no expert on the military side, but over and over again they seem to be sending guys out into the hornet's nest without the capacity to back them up if the hornets get stirred up. That just seems wrong on any number of levels.

It will be decisions and paradigm shifts made, adopted and operationalized in Manila that will ultimately bring stability to places like Basilan. OEF-P is a good US operation, but it will never achieve that effect as it is designed to bring some small degree of goodness to that small (ok, not so small) corner of the Philippines where the various manifestations of Philippine insurgency among the Muslim segment of the populace manifest. As we all know, this same insurgency manifests differently in other regions of the country among other segments of the populace, and has been porpoising up and down with varying degrees of activity and violence for hundreds of years.

It's fair to say that OEF-P covers only a small corner even of the Muslim insurgency.

To some extent yes, but it's also a bit more complicated than that. You can blame Manila for its inability to control the local elites that gain from keeping the conflict going, but you can't overlook the role that the local elites play, or the structure that makes it difficult for central government to overcome or work against local elite interests.

I wouldn't refer to the NPA and the various Muslim groups as manifestations of "this same insurgency". Different things in most ways.

One of the difficult aspects of the Muslim insurgency is that the majority populace is actually much less inclined to accommodation than the government. The government simply reflects the existing cultural bias... they try to compensate to some extent, but generally with little effect.

We can mitigate symptoms of such conflicts, or we can exacerbate symptoms of such conflicts, but we cannot truly resolve the actual roots of such conflicts with such engagement. US foreign and US military policies and doctrines need to evolve to grasp this reality. Our history and doctrine on COIN tout temporary suppressions as "wins," or overly focus on military actions that occurred over major political changes that were implemented where more enduring effects were achieved (most famously in Malaya, or perhaps the American Colonies), so we miss the most important lessons to be learned from such operations.

In the Philippines we primarily conduct mitigation operations. In Afghanistan we conduct a mix of mitigation and exacerbation operations (but see that latter group as also contributing to success,( i.e., Ranger raids on Afghan homes to take out low-level Taliban leaders of the resistance movement in Afghanistan proper, or haul off their friends and family to gain more info to capture or kill such leaders; or drone strikes into Pashtun homes in the FATA in efforts to kill senior leaders of the revolutionary core of the insurgency).

We must change how we think about these types of conflicts, and how we think about what our proper role (if in deed, any role is proper in most cases) to best help bring stability and enduring peace to such people should be as well.

Until then Manila will keep sending good young citizens out to do battle with other good young citizens in an effort to not have to take on the hard decisions about who they are and how they govern. Same same in Kabul. And the US will keep sending good young men out help those governments in those Sisyphian-like efforts.

We can do better, but first we must think differently. Until then, there will continue to be avoidable "bad days" like this.

If "we" means the US, I don't think anything "we" do is going to make any difference at all in the Philippines.

[Ken White]

Yes, I was imprecise with the words... I should have wondered whether US advice and assistance had done anything to address these issues. Of course I already knew the answer was no, which raises the next question: what exactly has all the advice and assistance done?
...
If "we" means the US, I don't think anything "we" do is going to make any difference at all in the Philippines.

All that is sadly correct. Why?

Why can't we use our own rules instead of trying to play by those of others. Why do we play on the turf of others, turf about which we remain almost willfully and stubbornly ignorant. Why don't we play to our strengths; have a few people that know a lot about specific areas and we listen to those people instead of egoistically (a term used due to its absolute appropriateness in these matters...) and arrogantly rejecting their knowledge...

As our interventional failures are known and proven all over the world and not just in the Philippines, why do we keep doing it so badly? Our poor methodology provides little to no success at great cost.

[Steve Blair]

As our interventional failures are known and proven all over the world and not just in the Philippines, why do we keep doing it so badly? Our poor methodology provides little to no success at great cost.

I would posit that one of the reasons is that our interventions are often motivated by emotion and not necessarily long-term calculation. Combine that with a deliberately unstable political system and a military that tends to reject learning and lessons, and you get a bad mix.

[carl]

.I'm no expert on the military side, but there seems to be a repeating pattern of Philippine forces walking into these situations and taking heavy casualties, and a continuing inability to rapidly reinforce or support forces that run into trouble in the field. I have to wonder if US training and material support, which has been in place for quite a while now, is doing anything to address that.

I know nothing about the Philippine Army and Marines so I have some questions. Do they have a well developed NCO corps? Are the junior officers, a junior officer would I assume be leading a 41 man unit, selected for merit or something else? How experienced would he have been? Would the Marine guys who were around in 2007, not just the ones in the fight, still be around the area and if they were would they and the Army talk to each other?

These questions are prompted by Dayuhan's observation that the same thing happened in the almost the same place before.