It's the Tribes (merged thread)

[marct]

Hi Sam,

I agree that it is a simple concept, until you bring it down to a "what should we do" level of thinking. Just because we think we know a concept doesn't mean that we can apply it.

So, that is the reason that I asked which are the noble tribes of Iraq.

Get's us back to Clausewitz doesn't it ? Yeah, I agree that the devil is in the details when it comes to applying the concept. Personally, I don't know who the ones in Iraq are... then again, I've never claimed to have that granular level of knowledge .

The entire issue, though, does raise some interesting points. For example, even without knowing the specifics in an area, and what the actual meaning(s) of those specifics is/are (i.e. what does it actually mean today in terms of operations), if you have the concept, you can get the data either by asking people who know (that's the Socratic in me!) or by looking for structural similarities / analogs. Of course, figuring out what it means is crucial and how it gets transformed is critical to actually using it .

The flip side is getting hung up on concepts and structures that are much less operationally relevant and focusing on them to the detriment of the long term goal. One of the problems that I've noticed with a lot of political / military writing about cultural phenomenon is the implied assumption that culture is static rather than constantly being negotiated (another problem is the naive idea that "We" aren't ruled by it, but "They" are - hah! We should get Rob Thornton in on this one ).

Anyway, I've got to get back to work (sigh).

Cheers,

Marc

[tribeguy]

Hi Sam,



Get's us back to Clausewitz doesn't it ? Yeah, I agree that the devil is in the details when it comes to applying the concept. Personally, I don't know who the ones in Iraq are... then again, I've never claimed to have that granular level of knowledge .

The entire issue, though, does raise some interesting points. For example, even without knowing the specifics in an area, and what the actual meaning(s) of those specifics is/are (i.e. what does it actually mean today in terms of operations), if you have the concept, you can get the data either by asking people who know (that's the Socratic in me!) or by looking for structural similarities / analogs. Of course, figuring out what it means is crucial and how it gets transformed is critical to actually using it .

The flip side is getting hung up on concepts and structures that are much less operationally relevant and focusing on them to the detriment of the long term goal. One of the problems that I've noticed with a lot of political / military writing about cultural phenomenon is the implied assumption that culture is static rather than constantly being negotiated (another problem is the naive idea that "We" aren't ruled by it, but "They" are - hah! We should get Rob Thornton in on this one ).

Anyway, I've got to get back to work (sigh).

Cheers,

Marc

Marc! I can't let you off that easily. Hear me now and believe me in 10 years, the noble tribes are MOST operationally relevant. Hence the question, what do Abu Umar Al-Baghdadi I, II, and III have in common!

The idea of being able to ask those who know invites undisciplined and agenda warped answers, especially in Iraq, which is the land of actual conspiracies - not theories.

Here's what I mean about operational relevance. It's the tribes:

Defeating Al-Qaeda's Tribal Engagement Strategy in Iraq

Creating an insurgency is easier than fighting against one in Iraq, particularly if the grievances used to justify violence remain unaddressed by the Iraqi government.

One such grievance comes from tribal leaders who are ignored by the Iraqi government. Influence, or "wasita," is crucial for tribal leaders to ensure that they receive their share of resources from the government. Tribal leaders who are ignored by the government are shamed, and their legitimacy as sheikhs is threatened. Amongst the sheikh's many responsibilities is to ensure that his tribe is secure, prosperous, and growing. He also must ensure that his tribe is strong and can defend its territories from neighboring tribes who may wish to take resources from his tribe. If the government doesn't recognize a sheikh, what does that say to the sheikh's tribesmen? If the sheikh isn't important, then just how important is the tribesman? What can the tribesmen expect from the government if it doesn't recognize and communicate with his sheikh? Is this the message that the Iraqi government should be sending to its citizens?.....

And finally, (insert deep breath here), our counterinsurgency strategy is linear, and our targeting is essentially a "whack a mole" strategy.

The issue isn't the mole - they are problems, but the problem is actually in parts of the soil that the mole is digging in to screw up the Iraqi lawn.

The soil is the tribal system, and parts of it (some sub tribes) are very sympathetic to AQ and other ACF elements.

Our intel does a great job of who, what, when, and where. That's the essence of whack a mole, but it really applies best to fighting a conventional enemy.

In COIN, why is the key. And individuals are not. Groups, and by that I mean sub tribes, are the key.

Here's a snippet from a recent talk that was held between some "old school" iraqis and their "new school" officers.

Old school: There are sub tribes of the X tribe now in Y location - they are going to make trouble there.

New school: what should we do?

Old school: we need to destroy that sub tribe, entirely.

New school: but that is a violation of human rights!

Old school: if you want the government to stay in power, you have to send a message to the rest of the sub tribal shaykhs not to follow in this direction.

Note that we, the Americans, should just let the Iraqi government do what it must to stay in power.

I do not suggest that destroying sub tribes is what US forces should do. Quite the opposite, it runs against what I believe in.

However, if that is what the Iraqi government has to do, I think we need to just turn a blind eye to it.

What are your thoughts, Marc?

[slapout9]

where is the free first chapter?

[marct]

What are your thoughts, Marc?

At the moment, focused on a presentation I have to give on Tuesday and another on a paper for mid-June. As i said, I'm up to my eyebrows in work right now .

[tribeguy]

Work always gets in the way. Thankfully, my work intersects with my interests. I am sure it does for you as well.

I am looking forward to your posts. Right now I am preparing a top down analysis of the Iraqi tribal system by province, region, Qadha', and Nahiya. While the source data is somewhat dated, I am interested in evaluating it to see where it supports events on the ground.

I just finished translating 'Abd 'Aun Al-Rudhan's encyclopedia of iraqi tribes - it has 14193 sub tribes in total - with locational data included. However, this work will be misunderstood and misinterpreted by those who don't understand how Iraqi scholars study and analyze their own tribal system. That's why I wrote the book.

It's not "my method," but rather, is my attempt to describe theirs. I think it is much more intuitive than our western attempts, having studied those extensively.

The Brits, God bless them, produced a lot of tribal data, but they over emphasized the role of "confederations" and super confederations. At the local level, the major tribal entities are almost dead identities. Sub tribal identity is much more cohesive, but those are much more numerous.

A British scholar with great understanding said that it was their most important yet most difficult challenge to understand and interpret Middle Eastern Tribal systems. He didn't have the benefits of database software, unfortunately. Our challenge is to first understand the nature of the tribes themselves, and then somehow incorporate this into an analytical system that allows for some degree of predictive power such that we can at least identify the myriad of most likely short, intermediate, and long term futures with respect to how the tribal system will interact and react with the governments that purport to represent them.

Again, I am looking forward to your input.
Very Resepctfully,

Tribeguy

[Scott Shaw]

I was able to watch Sam pitch his first class yesterday on his theory. 1. Sam is amazingly intelligent. He is a speaker, writer, and reader of Arabic. 2. His presentation is very animated – he’s excited about this topic. 3. He is very well read on his sources having personally translated many of them.

Yeah – he had a shameless plug for his book and I’ll buy a copy if just to read what he translated since my Arabic reading isn’t so good. If you can get over the plug (and you really should), as davidbfpo above pointed out, he brings a level of specialism that is not found elsewhere that I know of.
His basic point – and Sam if I got this wrong, then tell me – is that there are tribes in Iraq (the Noble Tribes) that drive the society (drive may not be the right word, so I’ll go “Where the Noble Tribes go, so goes the country.)

As far as what Tom Odom says above, the “necessary” of what Sam does can be explained in the question, “What motivates Iraqi X to do what he is doing?” I served as a MiTT Chief for a year in addition to commanding a rifle company in Baghdad. The full tribe name of the Iraqis that I worked with can explain some of what they did (in retrospect since I was not aware of the importance of sub-tribe/clan until yesterday). It’s deeper than just “Mr Maliki” or Saddam Hussein al-Tikriti – what about the albu Nasirs that Saddam belongs to? How do you talk to them? How about the fact that there are Malikis all over the country and their power base is much larger than that of any other tribe cross province (there are more of certain tribes in certain provinces, but cross province – the Malikis take it.

Scott

[Steve Blair]

Interesting, but any close reading of the Army's operations on our own frontier would have pointed out the importance of understanding tribal organization and interior politics. Sad how we always have to reinvent the understanding wheel every few years....

[slapout9]

Interesting, but any close reading of the Army's operations on our own frontier would have pointed out the importance of understanding tribal organization and interior politics. Sad how we always have to reinvent the understanding wheel every few years....

Absolutely, on another thread we were talking about the Revolutionary War and Indians. George Washington was a land surveyor by trade and he had numerous contacts and knowledge of the Indian tribes that certainly were of benefit during our own Insurgency. But we seem to have forgotten that as Steve points out.

[tribeguy]

True - the Brits had some true genius - Sandeman is amazing. Those who were in charge of Transjordan were also very skilled and shrewd at tribal administration.

Alas, many of those lessons are indeed long forgotten.

We Americans truly want to do the right thing, but we often listen to the wrong people when it comes to getting counsel on tribes.

There are many in academic circles who are discourged from studing tribalism - it's not PC. It's seen as culturally judgemental. So, for the last 50 years, glorious academia has fallen short in tribal studies. Yes, there are some fine works out there, but their scope is generally quite small.

Worse yet, our soft science student corps generally doesn't speak foreign languages, and especially middle eastern ones. So, the chinese wall between academia and middle eastern studies is built with the brick and mortar of our making.

Now, I am not a fan of all things British, but hats off to your brave forefathers (and to you too for raising the point!).

I agree, also, with Tom about HTS. But, good things are happening there - and they are getting much, much better. More on that to follow - the system is starting to emerge on the Iraq side of the house. I am very hopeful in that regard. I'm not too sure about the Afghan side of the house quite yet. The Afghan side works very hard, but the data sets available for them prevent predictive analysis at this point. Predictive capability (or at least educated guestimation) is being developed on the Iraq side of the house, of that I am quite confident.


V/r,

tribeguy

[Tom Odom]

Scott

I appreciate your comments. No dispute on the importance of the tribes.

But as I said before, the premise that everyone is ignoring the tribal aspects of what goes on here in Iraq is wrong and in the context of plugging a book misleading.

Thanks again

Tom

[Scott Shaw]

Tom,

I didn't copy the whole of what I meant to post - what I wanted to get at was at what level are we thinking about tribe/sub-tribe/clan and the effects of it. I really think that at that company/battery/troop level, our guys ought to be thinking about it (thus the need for the company level intel support team - and a smart Commander) to understand motivations. I know that the MNC-I/MND/BCT staffs are, but from what I know of staffs in 2004-2005 from personal experience and from the students I taught as an SGI and from what I saw in 2007-2008, I know that many (and I hate generalizations too) battalion staffs are not. Too bad for us and too bad for our Soldiers - and their families. I just think that extensive tribal knowledge at the battalion and company level goes a long way.

Scott