Palestine and British COIN (catch all)

[Bob's World]

It is not about what the illegal actor wants that is important, it is WHY they want it. That is what determines both the nature of the problem and the nature of the cure. We tend to be far too symptomatic in our analysis. If something looks like problem A, apply solution A. The reality is that several types of problem might look like our symptomatic type A, each demanding a unique solution. This is the principle flaw in the AQAA construct and why the logic behind it has driven our strategic failure to date in dealing with illegal challenges to governance and stability

For example three broad categories of motivation for posing an illegal challenge to governance with very distinct natures demanding equally distinct solutions are:

1. Revolutionary insurgency to coerce change or illegally overthrow a domestic system of governance coming from an internal base of popular support. Largely a form of civil emergency, demanding a lead effort on the part of governance

2. Resistance insurgency to defeat or expel a foreign occupation (either physical or by manipulative policies). Typically a continuation of warfare demanding a lead effort on the part of military to defeat this segment of the population as one has likely already done with the government and security forces.

3. Profit motivated criminal activities designed to exploit some illicit market space with significant popular demand. This demands a blend of law enforcement and law reform to find the mix best for sustainable stability.

All three forms of motivation may be in the same place, the same organizations, and the same individual; and a smart governmental response appreciates the blend and creates an appropriately blended response as well.

[TheCurmudgeon]

It is not about what the illegal actor wants that is important, it is WHY they want it. That is what determines both the nature of the problem and the nature of the cure.

I agree wholeheartedly. I only wish that more people would examine these conflicts from the point of view of the motives of the actors.

It gets even stickier when the motive of the leaders is revolution or resistance, and the motivations of the average fighter is personal self-esteem or revenge.

[Mike in Hilo]

Tequila: Concur. Atlee's gov't was resolved to disengage from the area, for sure. I suggest Stern atrocities reenforced this (and perhaps accelerated the timetable).

While the empire wasn't run democratically, Jewish citizens back home in the UK did have recourse to the processes of democratic government to exert influence....although, arguably, US pressure was more effective in tipping the scales....The difference is striking between the ham-fisted punishment of civilians who abetted the (unsuccessful) Arab Palestine insurgency 1936-39 and the far gentler tactics employed vis-a-vis the Yishuv...

Bill Moore: My argument is indeed as you say...But my generic argument implies "ceteris paribus".....Each case has its variables, and they certainly make a difference.

Cheers,
Mike.

[davidbfpo]

I do wonder if this insurgency in Palestine was successful for the Jewish people as: 1) the British were exhausted by WW2 even before the insurgency resumed; 2) post-1945 the British quickly became the "jam in the middle", often a thankless task and 3) the Jewish cause was massively reinforced by the Holacaust, in terms of legitimacy and potency with other audiences.

I know from talking with Bruce Hoffman he covers how the British response was for a long time police-led, by a colonial force, the Palestine Police, which had local and expatriate members. A very slim Wiki:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine_Police_Force

Following an exchange I have a PDF copy of a biography by one such expatriate member of the Palestine Police. Geoffrey Morton, was a colonial policeman (1930-1954), notably in Palestine:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_J._Morton

Drop me a PM with an email address, it is a large PDF (19 Mb).

[Bill Moore]

I agree wholeheartedly. I only wish that more people would examine these conflicts from the point of view of the motives of the actors.

It gets even stickier when the motive of the leaders is revolution or resistance, and the motivations of the average fighter is personal self-esteem or revenge.

I think you would be hard pressed to make a case that we don't study these conflicts from the view point of the actors. What our liberal views tend to promote are that America is always wrong and inept, and we simply dismiss the nature of war which is a contest between two or more opponents where each attempts to "impose" their will upon the other. Furthermore, the result is never final, so the argument that we need to address underlying issues to get to a final solution can and is often overstated. We have objectives as a country that we have chose to use war to pursue, which means we recognize that our opponent's objectives are at odds with ours and we will have to use force to achieve them. It does not mean we don't understand their ends, in fact it is quite the opposite. If you disagree with why we went to war that is a different manner, but quite different from what you wrote.

This view of war is what has led to the myth that if we just give people jobs they'll quit fighting. PRTs became the main effort and the use of force to impose our will became a secondary manner. We created a condition where both approaches would fail. LTG McMasters is right that we have separated war from its nature, so understandably we seldom accomplish our objectives regardless of its duration and the amount of money we spend. I disagree with Bob that insurgency and COIN, and even CT are not war. They clearly are, but their character is very different than interstate war where the principle objective is to defeat that state's military forces, so we can impose our will upon them. War is inhumane and it shouldn't be our first choice to achieve our objectives. When we chose to use it as a tool, then we need use it correctly. While cruel, it is less cruel than dragging conflicts out forever with no end in sight. This multigenerational approach destroys societies.

[Bob's World]

There is an old saying in the infantry: "Every form of maneuver is frontal assault for the lead squad."

While that is true, and largely unavoidable, once one steps back and looks as the larger picture, the true essence of the maneuver being employed is revealed. But it sure looks and feels like a frontal assault for that lead squad.

This leads to the problem (and point of strategic disagreement I have with my good friend Bill Moore - we argue this over beers as well as on line) - everything that looks like war is not war. War is a specific form of violence between two or more separate political entities. As many brilliant military theorists note, "the nature of war is constant as it is rooted in human nature; but the character of war varies widely" (case by case for myriad factors of history, geography, cultures, technology, etc).

Resistance insurgency (not as USASOC and SOCOM define it in their UW doctrine) is a form of war. For me resistance is a unique form of insurgency that occurs in the context of war between two or more distinct political entities. The people often are the only ones left in the fight in rear areas as the formal forces are pushed back (think partisan warfare against the Nazis in their rear areas as they pushed the Soviets back); or the final gasp of a state once the Government surrenders and the formal forces are defeated (think the French resistance in France following their defeat by Nazi Germany and prior to their liberation by the Allies). This is a form of insurgency that is a form of war. The critical factors are the primary purpose for action, AND the nature of the relationship between the parties involved.

But many of the French and Ukrainian resistance fighters against the Nazi German invasion also had a separate line of insurgency motivation to fight. Revolutionary insurgency motivation against the illegitimate Vichy regime working for the Germans in France; and against the Soviet governance in Eastern Europe.

Revolutionary Insurgency often looks exactly like Resistance Insurgency - but is fundamentally different in nature. Revolution is internal to a single political system, and as such is more accurately a form of democracy than a form of war. Revolutionary insurgency must possess four components or it is something else.

1. It must be political in primary purpose.
2. It must be internal to a single political system.
3. It must rise from a base of support within a significantly aggrieved identity-based population within that political system (i.e., not a coup led by a disgruntled Colonel to quickly topple a government).
4. It must be illegal in form under the laws of the political system where it takes place.

Some key implications of these four core characteristics of Revolutionary Insurgency:
1. The only difference in nature between revolution and democracy is legality.
2. Violence is a tactical choice, and in no way affects the nature of the problem; so revolution can be violent or non-violent, it is still equally revolution if the four core components are present.
3. What is Revolution in Egypt or China (for example), is merely citizens expressing their concerns acting within their constitutional rights in the United States.
4. The fastest way to reduce revolutionary energy is to grant degrees of political empowerment to the population writ large, or extend those empowering mechanisms to the identity-based population acting out that may well be denied equal access to those mechanisms (need for the Voting Rights Act as part of the US response to the Civil Rights Movement). This must be done in a manner that makes sense in the context of the culture of the people involved (the US running elections in Iraq and Afghanistan; and helping to write constitutions for those places based upon OUR culture is not a good example of this).
5. Revolution can become war once the "cell divides" and a new political system emerges around the revolutionary leadership. (Current example, ISIL was a revolutionary insurgency against the governments of Syria and Iraq; but has separated and formed a distinct new political system; and now this is war between distinct states. This calls for an added caution - if we do "defeat" ISIL, the problem does not go away, it just reverts into a powerful, fragmented collection of revolutionary insurgencies).
6. If the primary purpose for action is to make profits through organized crime, and threats to governance are merely a side effect, or supporting line of operation to support that profit motivated illicit business, it is not revolution (or insurgency at all, IMO, as it requires a very distinct solution blending law enforcement and law reform to address, and is about profit, not politics).

I could go on, but I believe I have laid out enough distinctions here to further this conversation. In fact, I will cut and past this to a new thread, as this is much larger than the small issue of Bruce's book pointing out that of course terrorism works.

As to LTG McMasters, clearly he is a smart and successful Army officer. But his perspective is overly tactical and symptomatic, in my opinion; AND he is the lead advocate and front man advocating for the Army in particular and Land Power in general in the face of looming peace and budget cuts. In short, he is very biased in his public statements, he is doing his job; and painting all violence as war demanding a large, warfighting Army is the marketing strategy of the Army that he is implementing. I respect his position, but I also respectfully disagree.

Bill, in DC next two nights if you have time for a beer...

[Mike in Hilo]

Davidbfpo

Couldn't agree more re: some reasons UK pulled its punches. Re: the shadow cast by the holocaust: This lent cachet to British Jewish efforts to influence the UK Government, and most definitely helped move the US Government to exert pressure on the UK.

A couple of books worth reading:

1) The Palestine Triangle, by Lord Bethel, is a mostly diplomatic history of the Mandate during the period 1935-'48 from the British point of view, and is probably a must read;

and,

2) A Job Well Done. A History of the Palestine Police Force 1920-1948, by Edward Horne.. A cautionary note: This last work is a rare book and my copy set me back an arm and a leg....

I am still looking for a military history of the 1936-'39 Arab insurgency from the viewpoint of the UK forces involved (British Army as well as Palestine Police) (Lots of material is available, but it is mostly from either the Zionist or the Palestinian Arab vantage point)....and would be grateful for recommendations...

Cheers,
Mike

[davidbfpo]

Cited in part:

I am still looking for a military history of the 1936-'39 Arab insurgency from the viewpoint of the UK forces involved (British Army as well as Palestine Police) (Lots of material is available, but it is mostly from either the Zionist or the Palestinian Arab vantage point)....and would be grateful for recommendations...

Have you tried the memoirs of those who served in command posts in Palestine? One who did, Archibald Wavell became very senior, of course there is the Zionist Orde Wingate too. Wiki says there were three four commanding generals:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine_Command That led me to another source which names two divisional commanders, Bernard Montgomery and Richard O'Connor:http://www.britishmilitaryhistory.co...&nid=6&start=0

Wiki on Wavell:

In August 1937 he was transferred to Palestine, to be General Officer Commanding (GOC) British Forces in Palestine and Trans-Jordan and was promoted to lieutenant general on 21 January 1938. He left in April 1938.

Link:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archiba...st_Earl_Wavell

Wilf added a thread on Wavell & COIN based on an exercise in the UK, in 1930, which refers to his memoirs:http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ghlight=wavell

I expect more junior officers, say brigadiers, wrote about their time after WW2. If you can identify particular units maybe their journals can help? Alas Wiki only has one ORBAT for the 8th Division in 1939, not for the 9th; it may give clues:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8th_Inf...ted_Kingdom%29

Might be worth starting a RFI on your quest. I think that route gets a wider readership and responses. Have you asked Simon Anglim? Note he did pop up on SWC in 2010 and gives a pointer:http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ad.php?t=11725

[Mike in Hilo]

David:

Thanks very much. I greatly appreciate the information.

Cheers,
Mike.