Quote Originally Posted by Bill Moore View Post
BW, I don't disagree with many of your points, but I don't think they apply as widely as you apparently do. I offer the following to see how your theory stands up against these criticisms.



1. Defeating the insurgent requires defeating the insurgency, which in the West is usually more than military in nature, but in some parts of the world they are effective at suppressing an insurgency with a repressive military approach. Syria and Iraq both put down insurgencies with brutal military operations. You can argue that the underlying motivation of the insurgents still exists, but they were effectively defeated and could not act on their desire to force political change. There were no effective insurgencies within the USSR, PRC, Cuba or North Korea. Brutality and total control may not be politically correct, but it works. We ignore it because it isn't the Western way of waging war (nor should it be), but I offer these examples to simply challenge your theory that such an approach doesn't work.

2. As for information being available worldwide 24/7 at the speed of light or sound, I think this is a critical consideration, but it is over hyped. India probably has more information techs than any other country, but I read that less than 15% of the population had access to the internet. What information is available to the people in Burma, DROC, etc.? In many places information is spread the old fashion way, at the grass roots level, face to face.



In some cases, and maybe most, there is some truth to this argument, but more accurately it is the perception of the insurgents that the government has failed. Therefore, those key "leaders" that fan the flames of discontent are critical, and the fact remains that some insurgencies are based on personality cults. Populations are not prone to raise up against their government without leadership to motivate it to do so. Someone(s) must provide a plan that convinces the population they can force change effectively, otherwise why assume the risk? Frustration in many countries is simply not acted upon.



I'm going to narrow my counter argument to Islamist insurgencies. It "appears" to me that the majority of people in Muslim countries have no desire to live under Taliban like rule. Most Islamist insurgencies have failed over the years because they do not have a viable political plan (unlike the communists who were very good in this respect). The real underlying issue in many of these cases is that the government fails at the most basic level, and that is providing security for its people. I think the way you phrased your arguments points at the government always being at fault, and too easily dismisses the power of coercion (terrorism at the village level, join us or suffer dearly). While the government may not be ideal, that isn't always the issue, the issue is much more immediate (safety). That is why our find, fix, finish approach is deeply flawed. The first line of operation "must" be providing security to the population, then as you state establishing or re-establishing legitimacy between the gov and the governed, THEN the find and destroy the enemy piece is relatively easy. We let some individuals in the SOF community shape this fight the wrong way (focus on capture/kill), defeating an Islamist insurgency should have been relatively easy. We got it right in Iraq late, and Afghanistan we don't have it right.



In some cases this is correct, but in a place in Afghanistan where the people are begging to live in relative peace (the term relative is important), the insertion of security forces is critical. I think we tend to rely too much on our dated UW and COIN doctrine which was designed to counter communist insurgencies, what we're facing now in "some" parts of the world is different, and our approach needs to be modified accordingly.

Food for thought, eager to see your responses.

First, while I do believe there are fundamental underlying principles rooted in the relationship between the governed and the government; every case is different based on the "environmentals": terrain, weather, culture, nature of the government, dissident leadership, effective ideologies, outside influence to either side, etc.

So, yes, if you run a dictatorship form of governance you can simply keep crushing the opposition every time it raises its head. But when you lose the wherewithal to do this look out, because if never went away, and ever act of repression intensified the brew. We often are the ones who take that lid off and look inside. Yugoslavia and Iraq both come to mind. All that released pressure blew up in our faces. Number one country we should be looking at today is Saudi Arabia. The King plays us like a fiddle and crushes rebellion at home under our conveniently provided label of "terrorists." He also doesn't do much to stem these nationalist dissidents from acting on their belief that they must break the support of the US to the King in order to have success at home. Thus why 15 of 19 9/11 attackers and 40% of foreign fighters in Iraq being Saudis. We make it all about us. Typical American hubris. We're just in the way.

Next on key leaders and ideology. I chalk this up to the difference between "causation" and "motivation." The American Revolution is a good case study for this. Causation was largely the British belief that a British citizen born in the Colonies was a lower class than one born in England. Certainly this rubbed the upper class in the colonies harder than it did the average working Joe, and without the efforts of men like Sam Adams, Thomas Paine, and Patrick Henry to stir up the emotions; or men like John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin to provide the intellect that designed a new form of governance; or men like George Washington, denied the opportunity to serve in the Regular Army due solely to his place of birth, to lead a long fight; we would have most likely been like the rest of the commonwealth. Acts like the Stamp Tax, the Boston Massacre, and Concord Square served as catalysts and also aided the words in providing motivation to the masses. When everything comes together things flare up quicker and perhaps with more violence, but when the underlying conditions persist, populace driven change is inevitable.

Perception is in fact key. Facts and truth are early casualties, and it is perception that drives such conflicts. Today's communications accelerate this tremendously, and where computers are rare, cell phones are often quite common. Still some dark spots out there, Burma is a good example, and North Korea a better one. But they are exceptions.