Economics and Irregular Warfare

[jmm99]

In a week, some folks will be celebrating the 65th anniversary of the founding of the Propaganda Unit for National Liberation. This armed unit was set up on 27 Dec 1944 and consisted of a picked group of some 34 officers and soldiers. It was commanded by one Vo Nguyen Giap.

Starting as an armed propaganda unit, its purpose in life was to train and educate local cadres and guerrilla units in both the political and military efforts. It also dabbled in targeted killings. It later developed into PAVN.

Bill Moore (with whom, John McCuen would agree) sets out the counter to such as the PUNL, as this:

Let's focus first on how to deal with the active insurgency. From your previous post,

Quote:
What is needed is organizational techniques to match the rebel drive--effective intelligence coupled with a discriminating use of force capable of obtaining compliance from the population.

IMO we need to focus on this first, then rapidly shift into infrastructure development as security conditions permit, and infrastructure development must be tied to political mobilization. To defeat an insurgency, which is political warfare at the grass roots level, you have to organize the populace at the grass roots level to counter the insurgents. Building a school and a road or giving out jobs without tying it to actively counter organizing politically against the insurgents is, again IMO, in COIN is simply a neutral activity at best.

In the essence of methodology, this is fighting fire with fire. The political narratives will differ in substance.

Do we need an elaborate system to do this ? E.g., while I recognize the ideal suggested by Steve:

from Steve
In Surferbeetle's ideal world a single school is part of a larger educational system or chain in which long-term concerns about an adequately educated populace, academic standards, teaching standards, dependable funding, building codes, safety codes, etc. have a place. Schools are a resource intensive activity which require timelines greater than 12 months.

I suggest that a less elaborate approach to civil affairs is more feasible.

The following could be realized by using a few benches sitting in the shade of a pleasant grove:

1. A school, where the important factors are who the teacher is and what the teacher teaches.

2. A court, where again the important factors are who the judge is and what the judge decides.

3. A council, where again the important factors are who the elders are and what they legislate in accord with what the local concept of governance is.

Since we are dealing with a semi-permissive environment, the folks who assist in establishing these very basic local institutions have to be an armed political action team capable of self-defense. And, since we'll posit the presence of larger groups of bad guys, that team needs its own set of protective Dobermans cruising the neighborhood.

No quick fix suggested - it took the PUNL 10 years to develop into PAVN which won at DBP in 1954.

My suggestion boils down to KISS - and work from the lower level upwards.

No snow yet today (6 feet fallen since 2 Dec, which means about 2 feet of settled ground cover - here, the benches would have to be in igloos. )

Mike

[Dayuhan]

I suggest that a less elaborate approach to civil affairs is more feasible.

The following could be realized by using a few benches sitting in the shade of a pleasant grove:

1. A school, where the important factors are who the teacher is and what the teacher teaches.

2. A court, where again the important factors are who the judge is and what the judge decides.

3. A council, where again the important factors are who the elders are and what they legislate in accord with what the local concept of governance is.

Since we are dealing with a semi-permissive environment, the folks who assist in establishing these very basic local institutions have to be an armed political action team capable of self-defense. And, since we'll posit the presence of larger groups of bad guys, that team needs its own set of protective Dobermans cruising the neighborhood.

These are all excellent and useful ideas, but they all hang up on one of the basic realities of our current COIN problems: we're not fighting our insurgencies, we're fighting someone else's. Most communities are not comfortable with the idea of furriners setting up schools or holding influence over what is taught, or setting up courts and holding influence over decisions, or setting up councils and holding influence over who sits on those councils and what is debated. Even if we try to be impartial, the perception that these institutions represent foreign influence is bound to be present. To the extent that resistance to foreign influence is a part of the insurgent narrative, this sort of activity may actually support that narrative.

Of course it's best if this sort of organizing is done by the Government we're supporting, but it often isn't... or if it is, it is aimed less at building durable institutions with popular support than at supporting individuals or groups that suit the convenience of the governing elite.

It's easy to say that the governments we support need to govern effectively, but that falls into the "good morning, Captain Obvious" category. If they had the will and the capacity to govern effectively they probably wouldn't be facing insurgencies in the first place.

This is the hole we have dug for ourselves: we are heavily invested in Governments that cannot stand, but that we cannot allow to fall. If we try to govern in their place, we undercut their vestigial authority and credibility. If we allow them to govern on their own, they won't. If we try to assist them, we come up against the reality that our agenda (development of effective institutions) is generally very different from theirs (personal gain).

It's a gnarly problem. The only solution I can think of would be to not have gotten into this position in the first place, but it's a wee bit late for that.

[jmm99]

As to this:

from Dayuhan
These are all excellent and useful ideas, but they all hang up on one of the basic realities of our current COIN problems: we're not fighting our insurgencies, we're fighting someone else's.

I see no "Made in USA" label on what I wrote:

from JMM

I suggest that a less elaborate approach to civil affairs is more feasible.

The following could be realized by using a few benches sitting in the shade of a pleasant grove:

1. A school, where the important factors are who the teacher is and what the teacher teaches.

2. A court, where again the important factors are who the judge is and what the judge decides.

3. A council, where again the important factors are who the elders are and what they legislate in accord with what the local concept of governance is.

Since we are dealing with a semi-permissive environment, the folks who assist in establishing these very basic local institutions have to be an armed political action team capable of self-defense. And, since we'll posit the presence of larger groups of bad guys, that team needs its own set of protective Dobermans cruising the neighborhood.

or on what Steve added:

from Surferbeetle

We could also discuss a five-year master plan for the AO on those same benches. Lets consider the demographics of who will be participating in these four separate events upon the multi-use benches.

1. Teachers/Teachers Assistants who are educated, vetted, paid, and supplied by an agreed to educational system.

2. Judges/Lawyers/Police who have been educated, vetted, paid, and supplied by an agreed to judicial system.

3. Politicians who have been educated, vetted, paid, and supplied by an agreed to political system.

4. Engineers/Tech’s/Blue Collar Workers who have been educated, vetted, paid, and supplied by an agreed to engineering system.

Capacity building (aka raising/training a local technocrat army) allows us to focus scarce resources upon the systems which sustain benches or buildings as the situation dictates.

Strictly a generic framework for one portion of a civil affairs program.

Unless the foreign armed political action workers happen to have solid language and cultural training and education, as well as considerable in-country experience, I can't see how they could execute very well at the very basic level I'm talking about.

Taking Steve's four systems (educational, judicial, political and engineering), I'm positing those systems to be indigenous, which would require foreign "assisters" to learn the local systems and to adapt to them - not the other way around.

You hit the problem for external intervenors (goes beyond GOs and includes NGOs), with this:

from Dayuhen
Of course it's best if this sort of organizing is done by the Government we're supporting, but it often isn't... or if it is, it is aimed less at building durable institutions with popular support than at supporting individuals or groups that suit the convenience of the governing elite.

It is often in the enlightened self-interest of "governments" in failed or failing states - also applicable to the various armed groups that may well be roaming around - to preserve what we (liberal democracies) see as instability and insecurity; and to use what they see as a rational distribution of instability and insecurity to serve their own ends. Credits: Marc Legrange.

The fundamental issue is whether to intervene or not, which is a basic policy issue for Politik. Frankly, we (US) have intervened over my lifetime in a number of situations where the governments we supported were greater or lesser mutts - and where FID assistance sometimes morphed into much larger GPF commitments. In a number of those situations, the narratives of the insurgents have had greater appeal to me than the narratives of the "host governments" - realizing that the folks behind insurgents had their own agendas which did not correspond to the narratives that were being propagated. In short, in many cases, a Third Way would have been the more preferred solution to me - not really feasible since then we (US) would have been waging unconventional warfare against both the "host governments" and the insurgents.

For Politik, the reason for intervening will determine the initial desired end state and also the parameters of the Political Struggle and the Military Struggle to reach that end state. The possible reasons for intervention are not likely to be totally consistent with one another. For example, in SOCOM's 2008 Strategic Appreciation, we have for Africa this (p.23):

U.S. INTERESTS

The group viewed the dynamics of Africa through the prism of United States national interests. Specifically:

- Maintaining access to African resources

- Ensuring homeland security (with a particular focus on disease; violent extremist organizations [VEOs]; transnational criminal organizations [TCOs]; and weapons of mass destruction [WMD] proliferation and transportation)

- Supporting human development (political, economic, and social) as a means toward establishing stability in Africa

The United States must review its African selective engagement policies in light of national interests. Simply stated, the United States cannot effectively engage all the challenges that exist across the entire continent.

It is easy to posit a situation (or find one in existence) where the first interest (access to resources) might well be better or more easily secured by support of a "government" that does not support "human development" or "stability".

Once Politik decides to intervene, the civilian and military subordinates of Politik don't have the luxury of reversing the decision, but must try to make the best of what may be a bad situation.

Regards

Mike

[Surferbeetle]

Hi MikeF,

Meant to post this one here the other day, OBE. Merry Christmas.

From the WSJ by Ann Marlowe, Fighting a Smarter War in Afghanistan

No substantial business sends its sales force out to sell a product without supplying them with market research. But we are doing just that to our troops in Afghanistan. We've spent an estimated $173 billion in fiscal year 2009 selling a product to Afghans—cooperation with their government—without much idea why some people buy it and others don't.

On the platoon and company level, where American troops conduct ground-level counterinsurgency (COIN) in the Afghan Pashtun belt, we're fighting a good war. During five embeds with the Army from 2007 to last month, I've seen lieutenants and captains survey their area of operations, collecting information on the economy and patterns of work and travel. They regularly sit down with local elders to collaborate on development and security measures.

The problem is that valuable data are collected, but then aren't analyzed, or not at the level where the rubber meets the road. What's more, experienced soldiers leave. So most of our soldiers are operating with bare guesses about where the leverage points are in their local populations.

The good news is that more sophisticated methods are now being introduced in Afghanistan. Col. Pamela J. Hoyt heads the first team tasked with analyzing data in Afghanistan for the generals who set policy.

"What we have found, as you state, is that data is not in one repository with easy access," Col. Hoyt wrote to me in a Dec. 15 email. She's developing a database using previous surveys as well as "a model to evaluate if the Afghan National Army can achieve their growth objective given historical recruiting, attrition, and re-contracting rates, and increased recruiting levels."

[Surferbeetle]

From the Nov 12th 2009 Economist: Iraq's mobile-phone revolution Better than freedom?

During recent years of civil strife, when many stayed indoors, mobile phones were the lifeline. They also became a tool of commerce. Reluctant to risk their lives by visiting a bank, many subscribers transferred money to each other by passing on the serial numbers of scratch cards charged with credit, like gift vouchers. Recipients simply add the credit to their account or sell it on to shops that sell the numbers at a slight discount from the original. This impromptu market has turned mobile-phone credit into a quasi-currency, undermining the traditional informal hawala banking system.

The market’s growing size is making some bankers wonder if phone credit should be traded on a public exchange. This may not be practical, but more regulation would be welcome. Criminal rings are among the parallel currency’s busiest users. Kidnap gangs ask for ransom to be paid by text messages listing a hundred or more numbers of high-value phone cards. Prostitutes get regular customers to send monthly retainers to their phones, earning them the nickname “scratch-card concubines”, while corrupt government officials ask citizens for $50 in phone credit to perform minor tasks. Viewed as cash substitutes, scratch cards have also drawn the attention of armed robbers. In one case, a gang emptied out the card storage of Iraq’s biggest mobile operator, Zain, which is based in neighbouring Kuwait.

Not to be left out of the bonanza, Iraq’s cash-strapped government now says it will sell a fourth mobile-operating licence, after raising $1.25 billion from each of the last three. That is less than its vast oil reserves promise to put into the state’s coffers but a lot easier to negotiate. And Baghdad is not the only place where mobile-phone commerce thrives. The UN says it has plans to deliver aid to Iraqi refugees in Syria in the same way.

From the Feb 22nd 2008 Economist: Bringing the poor online, It won't be as easy as providing mobile phones

THE mobile-phone industry returned from its mammoth annual trade show, 3GSM, held earlier this month in Barcelona, gloating over its successful year. More than 3 billion (almost half the world’s population) now have mobiles, and the price of a phone has sunk as low as $25. There are now more mobile-phone subscribers in poor countries than rich ones. That would have been unimaginable a decade ago.

Mobile phones have improved poor people’s lives tremendously, from providing political news and health-care information in remote areas to fuelling commerce. Enthusiasm over bringing technology to the world’s poor has been matched in the computing industry, with many companies now selling low-cost laptop computers (so far around $200, but poised to drop much further). But the next digital hurdle—providing internet access—will be much harder to surmount, for both economic and geographical reasons.

Mobile-phone usage is inexpensive because the networks are cheap and easy to build. Equipment is priced low due to rabid competition (particularly from Chinese makers). The capital expenditure differs, too: coverage is built piecemeal as subscribers swell, bolstered by generous vendor financing. And almost all subscribers are on pre-paid plans, so operators collect money before the first call is connected.

[Dayuhan]

I see no "Made in USA" label on what I wrote:

Have we the capacity to make it elsewhere?

All this talk about creating, selecting, vetting, developing assumes capacity and will. If the host nation government had that capacity and will there wouldn't be an insurgency in the first place. The reason we're involved in these situations is that the capacity and/or will are not present in the host government... and the harsh reality is that in most cases we can neither fill that gap with our own capabilities (which would require us to govern the territory in question ourselves) or to force or persuade others to fill it.

It is often in the enlightened self-interest of "governments" in failed or failing states - also applicable to the various armed groups that may well be roaming around - to preserve what we (liberal democracies) see as instability and insecurity; and to use what they see as a rational distribution of instability and insecurity to serve their own ends. Credits: Marc Legrange.

One might debate how enlightened this position is, but yes, this is the problem I'm talking about. Complicating the issue is the reality that different units of government (e.g. national vs local) may have very different agenda and priorities, and that individuals within these systems are likely to have agendas and priorities of their own. All of these agendas are likely to be very different from ours, and none of the parties involved may be at all interested in pursuing the sort of capacity building that we're discussing - though they will very likely feign such interest if they think it will get them some of our material support. This is why asking military or civilian forces to assist in "nation-building" in a failed or failing state with the assumption of local capacity is like sending a starving man to sit on a pile of canned goods with instructions to assume a can opener. In a failed or failing state the local capacity is by definition absent. If the capacity was there the state wouldn't be failed or failing.

It is easy to posit a situation (or find one in existence) where the first interest (access to resources) might well be better or more easily secured by support of a "government" that does not support "human development" or "stability".

Conflict over access to resources is actually easier to posit than to find examples of, despite vast amounts of rhetoric to the contrary. In today's world you don't need to control territory to gain access to resources; in fact physical control is often as much obstacle as advantage in resource access. If resources are the issue it's usually easier to cut a deal with whoever has the territory and simply buy the stuff... or, as base resources are generally fungible, to let the Chinese take the risks and buy our own stuff from somewhere else.

In our current situation access to resources is less likely to be the motivation for intervention than a perceived need to deny territory or support to hostile forces.

Once Politik decides to intervene, the civilian and military subordinates of Politik don't have the luxury of reversing the decision, but must try to make the best of what may be a bad situation.

This is all too true, and ultimately the key to managing these situations lies with more realistic decision making at the political level. This of course is small consolation to those in the field, but I don't know if it will help them any more to lay out a program based on assumed capacities that in most cases will not actually exist.

[Surferbeetle]

Dayuhan,

...your excellent analysis of the heterogeneity of motivations, opportunities, populace/culture/language, governance and economics (access, competition, etc.) have brought our situation into crisp focus.

Your are also truly on target to emphasize that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. The question of this being too much to expect of our political construct I would like to defer for the moment.

Instead, for those of us who have gone and will go again, please turn your analytical skills for a moment to the how-to of building something of lasting value with broken and worn out tools for the situations we are in. My particular focus has been upon Iraq of late however an analysis of Afghanistan would be just as interesting.

[Bill Moore]

Surferbettle your post,

The market’s growing size is making some bankers wonder if phone credit should be traded on a public exchange. This may not be practical, but more regulation would be welcome. Criminal rings are among the parallel currency’s busiest users. Kidnap gangs ask for ransom to be paid by text messages listing a hundred or more numbers of high-value phone cards. Prostitutes get regular customers to send monthly retainers to their phones, earning them the nickname “scratch-card concubines”, while corrupt government officials ask citizens for $50 in phone credit to perform minor tasks. Viewed as cash substitutes, scratch cards have also drawn the attention of armed robbers. In one case, a gang emptied out the card storage of Iraq’s biggest mobile operator, Zain, which is based in neighbouring Kuwait.

triggered an old idea about the black economy (illegal/illicit economic activity). Obviously the thrust of our economic assistance is to boost the white (legal) economy, but in countries where there is limited State control (such as Iraq and Afghanistan) the black economy emerges rapidly, and I suspect these models become deeply rooted (part of their economic culture) and thus are hard to eradicate.

I remember many of the coalition development efforts in Southern Iraq were controlled by the Shi'a militia's (sometimes directly, sometimes clandestinely by coercing from the shadows). They controlled what contractors got the jobs, and no doubt the militia's collected their taxes and got the message out that if you want to make money you need to side with us. All others will be paid a visit by your friendly militia thugs.

Several points worth studying IMO.

- How much of our economic aide in these countries actually supports the efforts of our foes? I just looked a graph today that showed a correlation between CERP spending and reduced violence, but is that the real picture, or did we simply forfeit control to the enemy, thus there is no need to fight?

- Once black economy models are established (such as the illicit business transfers on the cell phones, selling gas illegally on the side of the road, narcotics trade, human smuggling, kidnap for ransom, etc.) is it even feasible to displace this black economy with a legal economy?

- There are estimates that up to one third of the world's economic activity takes place in the black economy which equates to over a trillion dollars that governments have no control over. What does the ever increasing convergence of crime and extremism mean to those of us who develop and execute plans in an attempt to defeat terrorists and insurgents?

- Are there cases where our economic development efforts actually undermine successful black economic development, thus push the populace away from us and the HN? For example, attempting to eradicate the poppy plant and replace it with some form of unskilled labor or with a replacement crop that isn't worth as much?

There is a lot more to economic development than meets the eye when you're operating in these chaos zones.

[Surferbeetle]

Surferbeetle your post, triggered an old idea about the black economy (illegal/illicit economic activity). Obviously the thrust of our economic assistance is to boost the white (legal) economy, but in countries where there is limited State control (such as Iraq and Afghanistan) the black economy emerges rapidly, and I suspect these models become deeply rooted (part of their economic culture) and thus are hard to eradicate.

Bill,

Speaking of which you might enjoy this short article at Foreign Affairs by Nikolas K. Gvosdev entitled The Soviet Victory That Never Was, What the United States Can Learn From the Soviet War in Afghanistan (H/T to the Nixon Center)

The Najibullah government was able to survive because Najibullah recognized the futility of the earlier Soviet strategy in Afghanistan. Afghans, he knew, would not fight and die for the Soviet Union. But, he realized, Afghans could be co-opted to work with the government to defend local and clan interests. Najibullah allowed regional leaders -- and, in some cases, former mujahideen commanders -- to form their own militias and, with mixed results, to join the regular army. The most successful of these was the Uzbek militia led by General Abdul Rashid Dostum, which formed the 53rd infantry division of the Afghan army.

The departure of Soviet troops -- “the foreigners” -- weakened ties among various mujahideen factions. Najibullah’s government used long-standing rivalries, along with selective and generous bribery, to drive wedges between militant groups and then take advantage of the fighting that broke out as a result. At the same time, Najibullah received weaponry, food, and fuel from the Soviets, which gave his forces a significant advantage in terms of battlefield firepower and resources. The Afghan military flew the latest Soviet aircraft and had hundreds of Soviet-made Scud missiles in its arsenal.

The government in Kabul also dropped many of the more radical social-engineering programs previously championed by the Afghan communist leadership. It moved away from Marxist ideology and embraced Islam as the state religion, making an effort to put many of the country’s mullahs on the government payroll.

Finally, Najibullah constructed a nationwide patronage network to dispense the government largesse provided by the Soviet Union. In particular, he kept open the Salang Road -- a critical supply route linking Kabul with the country’s south -- by striking a series of deals with local villages and elders, who agreed to prevent mujahideen from mounting attacks on supply lines in exchange for a percentage of the goods flowing from the Soviet Union.

In short, Najibullah relied on time-honored practices of Afghan statecraft. He resembled a communist version of Mohammad Nadir Shah, who had ruled the country after the overthrow of King Amanullah Khan in 1929. Both the shah and Najibullah pushed for quiet modernization rather than reform from above, placated local interests while using divide-and-rule techniques to break up the opposition, and focused on strengthening the state’s army and security services.

I remember many of the coalition development efforts in Southern Iraq were controlled by the Shi'a militia's (sometimes directly, sometimes clandestinely by coercing from the shadows). They controlled what contractors got the jobs, and no doubt the militia's collected their taxes and got the message out that if you want to make money you need to side with us. All others will be paid a visit by your friendly militia thugs.

There were similar things going on up north, but being run by different actors. Certain roads were slick with smuggled oil.

There is a lot more to economic development than meets the eye when you're operating in these chaos zones.

If you find any case studies that you think would shed some light please pass them along and I will do the same.

[Ross Wherry]

Bill, Apologies for coming late to the discussion. I'm retired AID after Colombia, Afghanistan, Iraq, and others. A jarhead, I don't know how AID let me in.

Surferbettle your post,

- How much of our economic aide in these countries actually supports the efforts of our foes? I just looked a graph today that showed a correlation between CERP spending and reduced violence, but is that the real picture, or did we simply forfeit control to the enemy, thus there is no need to fight?

- Once black economy models are established (such as the illicit business transfers on the cell phones, selling gas illegally on the side of the road, narcotics trade, human smuggling, kidnap for ransom, etc.) is it even feasible to displace this black economy with a legal economy?

- There are estimates that up to one third of the world's economic activity takes place in the black economy which equates to over a trillion dollars that governments have no control over. What does the ever increasing convergence of crime and extremism mean to those of us who develop and execute plans in an attempt to defeat terrorists and insurgents?

- Are there cases where our economic development efforts actually undermine successful black economic development, thus push the populace away from us and the HN? For example, attempting to eradicate the poppy plant and replace it with some form of unskilled labor or with a replacement crop that isn't worth as much?

There is a lot more to economic development than meets the eye when you're operating in these chaos zones.

Re CERP and less violence -- why chance a fight when the resources are being given away at no risk? And over and over again!

Re black economic activities -- Some activities, eg, human trafficking, drug smuggling, kidnapping are indeed criminal and wrong. Cops and maybe the Coast Guard are the correct response. But selling gas by the side of the road? Ripping off electrical service? "Facilitation" at the port? These are all highly profitable outcomes of government policies that allow perversion of licit economic activities. Cops can't solve them -- it's gotta be the folks who negotiate "reform" with the host government.

Re pushing the population away -- a great example is the takedown of the Cali cartel in Colombia. We caught the big fish, but the little fish scattered like drops of mercury and kept on exporting. The loss of the cartel leaders -- the big local property investors -- set the city back 20 years. And Calenos know what country did the job. Killing the coca or poppy plant in the field makes us the clear source of the farmer's incipient poverty. More better we got good at taking out the processors/warehouses.