Abu Muqawama retains its autonomy and the views and beliefs expressed within the blog do not reflect those of CNAS.
One author in the Indian Defense Review has drawn lessons from Sri Lanka's campaign against the LTTE. They are a far cry from FM 3-24. But are they better? Or even an alternative we Americans and our allies could opt for?
SECOND FUNDAMENTAL: GO TO HELL
Following from the first, the second principle of Rajapaksa’s ‘how to fight a war and win it’ is telling the international community to “go to hell.” As the British and French foreign ministers, David Miliband and Bernard Kouchner, found out during their visit. They were cold shouldered for suggesting that Sri Lanka should halt the war and negotiate with the LTTE. As Rajapaksa said during the post-interview chatter “we will finish off the LTTE, we will finish terrorism and not allow it to regroup in this country ever; every ceasefire has been used by the LTTE to consolidate, regroup and re-launch attacks, so no negotiations.” Eliminate and Annihilate – two key operational words that went with the “go to hell” principle of the ‘Rajapaksa Model’. After Colombo declared victory the Sri Lankan Army Commander Lt Gen Sarath Fonseka used words used by Rajapaksa. That the SLA will not allow the LTTE to “regroup”.
FIFTH FUNDAMENTAL: NO CEASE-FIRE
Rajapaksa’s brother, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who consistently maintained that military operations would continue unhindered. “There will be no ceasefire,” was Gotabaya uncompromising message. The clear, unambiguous stand enabled other prominent personalities in the Rajapaksa cabinet to speak in a uniform voice. “Human rights violations during war operations and the humanitarian crisis that engulfs civilians caught in the cross fire have always been the trigger points to order a military pull-back,” asserted Mahinda Samarasinghe, Minister for Human Rights and Disaster Management. “The LTTE would always play this card in the past. They would use the ceasefire to regroup and resume the war.”
President Rajapaksa was clear that he did not want to go down that route. That was the traditional way of fighting the LTTE – two steps forward, four steps back. The Rajapaksa brothers’ commitment to a military solution was cast in stone. And it was anchored in a deft political arrangement. But first it is important to reveal the idea behind the political arrangement. “It was to ensure that there would be no political intervention to pull away the military from its task of comprehensively and completely eliminating the LTTE,” says a senior official in the President’s Office. “Prabhakaran was aware of the political contradictions in Sri Lanka and so was confident that the SLA will not indulge in an adventurous, all guns blazing, a full onslaught against the LTTE.”
Since your title is presumably a rhetorical question, there's no point debating it.
I will say that the case of the LTTE, which was a rare "cut off the head of the snake" opportunity not generally presented by terrorist groups (what'd happen if we killed Usama amid 1000 civilians? nothing especially great, I assume), might lend itself to a different sort of analysis once you accept the Grozny (now Sri Lanka) solution with all its ethical baggage.
Alex,
You get to be first, because I was going to write, "Is this a strawman?"
ADTS
Didn't we already try the Second Fundamental?
You aped my SWJ post this morning without so much as a link. Blog plagarist!
Louise Richardson has some very interesting thoughts on this approach in "What Terrorists Want." In a nutshell, she argues that a violent and oppressive crackdown on the population can lead to the quashing of an insurgency. However, she goes on to point out that where this approach has succeeded, it has been implemented by totalitarian - or at least quasi-totalitarian - governments. She argues that this is not a tenable strategy for a democratic government.
Also, unlike American counter-insurgency operations, the forces oppressing the Tamil population in Sri Lanka (and other examples given by Richardson in South America) were government forces that could claim (albeit tenuously in some cases) to be the legitimate governing body of the population. It seems to me that for America - or any other western democracy - to take such an approach would be doubly disastrous: it would cause enormous political issues for the democratic government at home and its forces on the ground would be seen by the population as (ruthless) conquerors as they would have no claim to power.
1) Sri Lanka had a STRONG backing from the Sinhalese majority to conduct their annihilation and decapitation campaign. This came after over 25 years of brutal violence at the hands of the LTTE. The US, on the other hand, has a weakening support base for the Afghan War. Thankfully, the US has not been hit with another attack since 9/11. On the flip side, people are slowly forgetting the threat posed by al-Qaida and it is therefore harder to sell any further escalation of the war in Afghanistan, let alone a "go to hell" campaign.
2) Lets not forget that these were Sri Lankans fighting Sri Lankans (albeit largely divided by ethnicity). It is a hold different ball game when an occupuying country like the US is waging a counter-insurgency against people indigenous to the land. This also goes back to the whole issue of the host country's interests aligning with ours.
3) A major blow for the LTTE was the defection of the Karuna faction. This led to the Government of Sri Lanka gaining crucial intelligence that was pivotal in changing the counter-insurgency game in favor of the Sri Lankan Army. Unfortunately, it does not appear as tho al-Qaida or the Taliban will be breaking up in a similar fashion anytime soon.
4) Terrain matters. The Sri Lankans had a major advantage in that they could corner the LTTE into an extremely compact space because of the fact that Sri Lanka is an ISLAND. In contrast, the US plays a never-ending game of hide and go seek with militants who simply cross the border into Pakistan and/or exploit the rugged, mountainous terrain along the Afghan-Pakistani border.
Well, obviously we can't (won't) emulate the model.
But as I mentioned in the SWJ thread on this... I think it is worth exploring the implications of this case.
If you accept the underlying logic of insurgency in 3-24, this sort of outcome shouldn't be possible. The more indiscriminate the violence, the more delegitimized the government becomes and the more undecided should flock to the colors of the insurgent. Yes, no, maybe?
I mean, we don't think that 3-24 is a second-best option right? It isn't just something we do because we don't have the stomach for the Sri Lanka model. Or is it?
How do you tell the story of Sri Lanka from within the logic of 3-24? And if the answer is that Sri Lanka is different, what precisely made it so? And how can we differentiate Sri Lanka-style insurgencies from the ones that are best addressed by pop-centric COIN?
Bernard hits on the key and essential criticism of FM 3-24. That it is narrowly conceived and for it to work one must accept its underlying theory that links cause to effect. This is why population centric coin as prescribed by FM 3-24 has become a religion. It requires faith in the theoretical link between cause and effect for it to work. Exum and Kilcullen's op-ed of a few months ago argued that killing civilians in Pakistan or Afghanistan for that matter automatically creates more insurgents/enemies for us to fight. Or consider the extended essay “The Defense of Jissr al-Doreaa” where the authors tell us that an Iraqi village’s pacification was at least partly due to the American unit becoming more culturally aware and nicer to the locals. But how do we know that the effects are actually produced by the causes that these authors tell us are so? We do have to believe that the theory is in place and is operating to link these causes to effects.
Bernard's point about analyzing the Sri Lanka case to understand how insurgencies work, and what causes their defeat is important because it exposes the narrowness and theoretical limitations of FM 3-24. This is not an argument to do Sri Lanka or Tamerlane by American forces. But it is a call for a new and critical view of American Counterinsurgency doctrine, practice, and the intellectual climate in the army that seems to be based more on faith than critical thinking.
gian p gentile, perceptive comments. I am sympathetic to COIN . . . but in these cases you might be right.
It seems that the ANA and ANP might be partially sympathetic to the Sri Lankan view of how the fight the Taliban; and at least a little skeptical of the COIN view of Abu Muqawama. How exactly will Abu Muqawama and McChrystal persuade the ANSF about the virtues of their new COIN document; let alone follow it? How exactly will Abu Muqawama persuade the ANSF to lay off firing their weapons? The ANSF "LOVE" to shoot their weapons.
COL Gentile -- Would you consider the narrowness and theoretical limitations of AirLand Battle to be exposed by the clearly falsified assumption that destruction of enemy formations equates to "victory"?
All doctine must be built on a general "if x, then y" construct. All action must in some sense be based on an anticipation of how such action will impact desired end-states. All methods of operation depend on the linkage of cause and effect through theory.
@ Bernard
''If you accept the underlying logic of insurgency in 3-24, this sort of outcome shouldn't be possible. The more indiscriminate the violence, the more delegitimized the government becomes and the more undecided should flock to the colors of the insurgent. Yes, no, maybe?''
Excellent point. I'm going with maybe. I think that the more indiscriminate the violence the delegitimized the government becomes holds true to a point, but if a government takes violence past a certain threshold maybe it shocks the population into submission. Also I think that it is too early to call Sri Lanka a success. We don't know what the second order effects that their hyper kinetic strategy will have on the population going forward. How patriotic are all those orphaned children whose mothers and fathers were killed by the government going to be when they become young men and women?
Oh, and lets not forget the Fourth fundamental: Regulate the Media.
>>All doctine must be built on a general "if x, then y" construct. All action must in some sense be based on an anticipation of how such action will impact desired end-states. All methods of operation depend on the linkage of cause and effect through theory.<<
Well, yeah, of course. But then the question becomes under what conditions we can expect these linkages to hold? I can't speak for Gian on this, but I suspect that there are many cases where the operational conditions assumed by 3-24 hold and that it therefore is an appropriate doctrine. What I wonder is whether this represents the full universe of historical cases, the full universe of future likely cases, or even the specific case of Afghanistan.
Again, I hate to go back to Clausewitz, but his discussion of "centers of gravity" is particularly insightful. No, not the summary version where he says -- army, capital, then allies -- but rather his empirical discussion of then-recent case. Nuanced, subtle, resistant to generalization, and requiring of deep knowledge and critical insight. Then again... as the old saw goes, we teach Clausewitz but we practice Jomini.
Neil, maybe you both aped Jim Dolbow on the USNI blog? But is "aping" service specific?
Yeah, we would have to tell a lot of people to "go to hell" if we used this approach. At the top of the list would be Pakistan - after we invade the tribal regions to root out the fleeing Taliban. This is not an option that we reject simply on the moral and ethical objections. This is not an option because it won't work in Afghanistan period. Didn't the Russians try and do this in the 80s. How did that go?
http://news.rediff.com/slide-show/2009/aug/20/slide-show-1-how-india-hel...
The only take home lesson is what US already knows, "control the borders" which it can't in case of Afghanistan
I'm happy to observe that even in the fair isle of Serendip, the fundamental axiom of the American century holds true. In any text or document, without any compromise of meaning, the words "international community" can be replaced with "State Department." Who doubts this exercise must first try it.
With this edit, the "second fundamental" underscores the difficulty of any American approach incompatible with the feelings of said fine agency. "COIN" - which by its very use of English arrogantly defines itself as the way to counter an insurgency, "the" presumably being short for "the only morally acceptable" - is no more and no less than the mind of Foggy Bottom, translated into Arlingtonese.
The goal of American foreign policy is to win friends abroad. The way to win friends abroad is to give them nice things they need. To defeat an enemy, turn him into a friend. If you agree with these statements, you may be a Foreign Service officer.
The choice between Kilcullen and Rajapaksa, let alone Kilcullen and Tamerlane, is a false dilemma. The real choice is between Kilcullen and Lord Curzon. If you even find yourself asking "what would Lord Curzon do," the answer is almost certainly a successful strategy for taming the wild Pashtoons. It will also be a lot less violent than Rajapaksa, and at least as politically incorrect as Tamerlane.
For example, I'm pretty confident that Lord Curzon would (a) dissolve the bathetic GiRoA; (b) place Afghanistan under martial law; (c) create military formations in which foreign officers command Afghan soldiers; (d) create civilian bureaus in which foreign managers supervise Afghan clerks; (e) seal the borders; (f) assign biometric ID to every Afghan; (g) make every Afghan responsible to some Afghan chief, who is responsible to the foreign administration; etc, etc, etc.
You'll note that none of these options involve slaughtering the Pashtoons, defiling their women and selling their brats as kitchen slaves. Nonetheless, they would be received with roughly the same enthusiasm at State. Hence, they are not to be found in FM 3-24. (One might do better with FM 27-5 (1943).)
Roughly speaking, the difference between the COIN approach and the Lord Curzon approach can be found in the words "hearts and minds." When a COINdinista says "hearts and minds," what he means is "hearts." While the heart can indeed lead the mind, only the latter is connected to the arms and legs. So why not speak directly to it? The way to speak to an Afghan's mind is to convince it that your side will win, and the opposite side will lose. The easiest way to do this is to demonstrate the capacity to govern through compulsion, not consent. History, not to mention G. Gordon Liddy, records that the latter generally follows the former.
If Lord Curzon's way is the right way, which it is, and if it is not an option, which it is not, what is the right thing to do in Afghanistan? Who knows. However, I know what my daddy told me to do when I can't do something right.
Gian, Bernard,
What makes you think the Tamil insurgency is over forever and for good? In all likelihood it is hibernating just as ethnic conflict is hibernating in the Balkans, Tibet or any number of other places. Ethnic conflicts rarely end without destroying the people and culture you've conquered.
To quote Bernard Final: "Again, I hate to go back to Clausewitz,"
I never hate to go back to Clausewitz. Rather than go to his COG discussion, more fundamentally, I'd go to his discussion of the trinity and the basics of war. Just as the real strength of revolutionary and Napoleonic France was due to how its changed society concieved of and waged war, the "pop-centric" COIN of FM 3-24 is about how we (US, the West) fight in accordance with our values and to achieve our idea of a legitimate political solution at the end of the conflict. There are other approaches, such as the Sri Lankan, but I believe we would be hard pressed to successfully carry them out. On the other hand, these alternate approaches may work for other societies.
By using FM 3-24 as our guiding doctrine for foreign internal defense--supporting someone else's COIN fight, we are defacto imposing a political solution on them through the method we advise them to undertake a military campaign. That is a significant effect of a doctrinal pub. The solution that eminates from 3-24 may or may not stick.
The very valid points about Sri Lankans killing Sri Lankans fits the bill here.
If the US was to adopt a rigour no holds barred stratagem apropos to fighting an indigenous insurgency out of New England or Nebraska, they they’d have a better time selling it as internal issues and there fore the ‘you can all go to hell’ doctrine.
Mencius – maybe it because it’s Friday and I’m sick of work but all of a sudden I like this version of COIN a bit more. Seems a little more direct than pop centric.
Only problem is that on Monday I’d be a little disappointment in myself for being indulgent and giving in to the dark side!
Phil: Right, there are many interesting and relevant argument made by the great Claus, but I was narrowly addressing his warnings about "if x, then y" arguments.
Andy: Agreed. In fact Galula warns on that precise point. My response... there is no strategy to guarantee the future.
"But how do we know that the effects are actually produced by the causes that these authors tell us are so? We do have to believe that the theory is in place and is operating to link these causes to effects."
COL Gentile:
I share much of your skepticism toward 3-24 and related matters. But just as a matter of epistemology - assuming you're still reading this thread - isn't your critique universal to all presumptions of causality, at least in the social sciences? Causality can't be touched, tasted, heard or smelled. Social scientists and/or historians do what they can to identify causality, but to use this as a criticism - at least your first sentence - seems a bit unfair. It works better - and I think what you're trying to say - is that one accepts this version of causality only if one accepts the COIN community's "Matrix," which I think you're driving at in your second sentence.
No real question, and perhaps no observation worthy of note, but a thought.
ADTS
What a brilliant idea: and when the American people rise up and say "Enough!" to your decades-long war in Af-Pak, you can tell them to go to hell, too. Right?
You people are such a joke.
David,
I suppose you're absolutely, totally, 100% sure which side is the path of light.
But if not, you might consult Luke 6:44. Or this TED talk...
ADTS;
thanks for your most thoughtful response. Your formulation makes sense with reference to the matrix and believing in it which then informs understandings of causality. But I do think that there is a theoretical thread of population centric counterinsurgency that weaves the matrix together and holds it in place. I often compare this use of theory to link cause and effect to what the airpower zealots like Douhet, Mitchell, and many others used in the 1930s and 1940s to argue how the physical destruction created by bombs dropped from planes would produce this greater effect as with the case with the Americans and the notion of the break-down of the "industrial web" of the enemies economy and industrial base which would in turn, somehow lead toward political collapse as well. But again, to accept that these things would happen, one had to accept the underlying theory of airpower that linked cause to effect.
To Gulliver's point. Well a simple understanding of physics allows airland battle to work as a tactical and operational doctrine. If one was able to effectively coordinate and synchronize maneuver, fires, and intelligence in the face of a hostile enemy force in time and space, then some kind of physical destruction would occur. Now what happened after the physical destruction of the enemy force occurred and how destruction is linked to political effect there a theory of war would come into place? But at the tactical level of war, for airland battle doctrine to work, you do not need an elaborate theory of causation to accept its utility. You do with population centric Coin. Another way to look at this is to read side by side the Defense of Jissr al-Doreaa and the classic Defense of Duffer’s Drift. In the latter you do not need a theory of causation to understand that when the protagonist and his men get shot in the face by bullets fired from boer commando’s guns, people die and are maimed. Or when the Duffer’s Drift protagonist wants to keep the Boer locals from talking to the Boer commando’s he locks them up on a hilltop so that they physically cannot speak. Again one does not need an elaborate theory for all of this in Duffer’s Drift to work. But in Jissr, you do. Read the two side by side and you might see what I am getting at here.
As to Bernard’s point yes there is much history, especially much more recent scholarship, that shows quite effectively that the idea of hearts and minds working in places like Malaya with the British and in Morocco with the French have been overturned. That is to say the idea that in Malaya it was Templer’s hearts and minds campaign that broke the insurgencies back has been deeply questioned by new scholarship that shows in fact and based on new primary sources that the insurgencies back was actually broken by brute military force and a massive resettlement campaign. One can see the same thing with the French in Morocco where their commander there, Layautey, made it seem to the French public that he was all about “peaceful penetration,” “organization on the march” and “progressive development” (all of these terms implying hearts and minds, or more persuasion over coercion) when in fact what broke the rebellion in Morocco was the French colonial army’s reliance on the traditional method of the razia and killing rebels whenever possible and often times civilians as well.
COL Gentile:
Thank you for your thoughtful response as well.
Respectfully,
ADTS
COL Gentile:
I guess I can't let your paragraph go, even if (once more) (or because) I appreciate its content, as well as the time it took you to compose it. I imagine you draw upon your dissertation and subsequent book to form the analogy between the COIN matrix and the "airpower matrix."
Two thoughts: First, presumably you are familiar with Stephen Peter Rosen's (superb) "Winning the Next War" (measures of airpower effectiveness were impossible to formulate, or even wrong, through the end of WW II) and Robert Pape's "Bombing to Win" (airpower fails to succeed as a tool of coercion, and/or of winning wars). My question to you, if for nothing more than brain candy, would be: what causes (military only?) "matrices" (sic) to evolve and persist, or to even (perhaps in the case of air power) reemerge?
The second question is perhaps more stark, but hopefully not to the point of being obnoxious. Again as a matter of epistemology, we all have our own matrices, both personal and communal. What matrix do you propose for the US military besides, (1) We ought to be ready for both HIC *and* LIC, and (2) population-centric COIN is a myth (based on recent scholarship - which, I would add, is just another, not necessarily superior attempt to discern causality based on discovery *and perhaps necessarily imperfect interpretation* of mere facts? It is, perhaps, unfair to ask someone to formulate a matrix on his (or her) own, to say the least. The emergence of group consensus (dare we call population-centric COIN groupthink?) is a complex matter to say the least? But I'd ask, if you care to answer, what do you think are the influences that lead you to question the matrix? Why are you a maverick? Do you think being an armor officer (to lay out a perhaps elementary hypothesis) leads you to be less tolerant of population-centric COIN accounts?
Respectfully once more,
ADTS
COL Gentile:
I just couldn't resist adding (once more) to my original response. You might find the following interesting. I was at a talk at which Stathis Kalyvas (of whom AM, among others - including myself to an extremely high degree - is a fan) spoke. He was asked what policy recommendations he would provide GEN Petraeus. Kalyvas's response was, "I don't give COIN recommendations, because [my] recommendation would be, 'Instill fear.'"
Pardon the following run-on, but:
Interesting in light of the recent scholarship, especially given that Kalyvas is a political scientist rather than a historian, working from and deriving a *theoretical* model of control and colloboration during civil war, rather than working from the proverbial dusty archives in which historians reside (even if Kalyvas's book is to be lauded for how amazingly rich it is empirically, to the point of being awe-inspiring), eh?
The convergence of the recent scholarship on the canonical COIN cases, and a more abstract theoretical model of insurgency and civil war (e.g., Kalyvas) - the corpus of the anti-matrix (sic once more)?
ADTS
ADTS:
Very nice, very thought provoking. I was about mission complete with my morning trots around various blogs and was about to start lesson prep for colonial warfare when I came upon your most thoughtful posts.
I do draw on my work on the USSBS which was the topic of my doctoral dissertation for Bart Bernstein at Stanford University, and my critical view of Coin today. There are many similarities between airpower theory and coin theory to be sure. One of interest of late to me has been the use of metaphors to explain the theory. For airpower zealots the metaphors like "severing the snakes" head which implied that the physical destructiveness of bombs dropped from the sky could decapitate state leaders, and with Coin the fascinating post by Exum this morning that copied his cousin's letter from Iraq and the metaphorical playfulness of understanding coin counterfactually with Star Wars and the Empire.
I am of course familiar with the works that you mention. As to your question of what causes these matrices to evolve like airpower and coin well a very interesting one to be sure. Here is a shot at it. There does seem to be a deep seated desire on the part of airpower zealots and coin zealots to prove that their new way of war is revolutionary and must be accepted as war de jour and war in the future. They also desire to show difference from what war has been and what it will be but at the same time both groups always co-opt traditional warfare and its tropes to make theirs, even though they argue for its radical difference, to seem like traditional combat. Douhet of course spoke of great aerial battles, Galula and the French Revolutionary War School spoke of Revolutionary War battles, and more currently Mansoor's memoirs reads of a Coin campaign written with the backdrop of Red 1 on Omaha. They evolve and harden into matrices because in order for them to be believed there has to be a construct built around them to prove that they exist. This is why narratives, metaphors, tropes, etc become so important when explaining them. That too is combined with the "young turk" mentality of their proponents that they have divined the true nature of modern war, that it is revolutionary, and that to understand and practice it you must listen to them as the experts. The end result is the matrix and its trapped characters of true believers.
I am a huge fan of Kalyvas's work! In fact a major in the history department here just heading out the door to deploy as an advisor to Iraq and I had an interesting discussion on K's book "The Logic of Violence in Civil Wars." K's point about "fear", to be sure is most interesting. In fact, if you read Callwell an implicit point he makes would be that of fear too, although he couches it in the broader concept of the imperial force maintaining greater will and initiative. There have been other battalion and brigade commanders in Iraq who have written down their thoughts have also highlighted in their mind the importance of "fear" in Coin, but to the chagrin and criticism of Coin experts like Tom Ricks.
Naturally good political science is informed and based on good history; and of course good history is informed by good political science. As Bart Bernstein told me once when I was a grad student under him, all historians at one point or another whether they realize it or not apply some sort of loose theory to their doing of history. Kalyvas's excellent work is based on good history. Bruce Cumings’s excellent books on the Korean war are based on sound political science theory.
Thanks for the great discussion. Please excuse me asking, but are you a political scientist (not that there is anything wrong with that!!) or historian?
gian
COL Gentile:
I am a political scientist.
As a sidenote, as a freshman in college I attended a talk Barton Bernstein gave (I was a precocious* lad). I forget the topic, but even as an 18-year old (maybe I was still 17, even), I was blown away (to be colloquial) by his ability to lecture. That same freshman year, I also heard Cummings talk (again, I was, to be boast, precocious*). I was not as impressed by his lecturing ability, but as I grew older, I became more aware of - and impressed by - the revisionism he had achieved.
You're also right about Kalyvas's book being grounded on good history. I was struck by how honest he was, when we discussed it, about the iterative nature by which he composed the book - moving from theory to empirics and back and forth. My general sense is political scientists try to act more like pure deductivists in describing how they arrived at whatever conclusion they reached. And one cannot read the sizable tome - with its small-font pages! - without an awe-inspired "Damn!" at his ability to accumulate from, say, ten different sources the same idea or quote, e.g., say, "We own the day, but Charlie owns the night" (Sheehan 110); "For it was the rebels who controlled the night, even while we still controlled the day" (Galula 217);" ad nauseum. And to think the man started his career studying parties and elections in Europe!
I would most definitely concur that "loose theory" appears everywhere. I think I wrote a bit about that in the halcyon days of yore, when AM was hosted on blogspot.com rather than its present White House-neighbor location - with "Cynic" perhaps? My point - based on my reading primarily of Yuen Foong Khong's "Analogies at War" and also, I suppose, some of Robert Jervis's work ("Perception and Misperception in International Politics"), which provided some of the underpinnings for Khong; I think Khong in turn explicitly acknowledged his reliance on Jervis and also possibly, Neustadt and May's "Thinking in Time" (which I have not read) - was that even historians who claim superior insight and knowledge because they are ostensibly not wedded to "theory" inevitably harbor preconceptions about cause and effect, also known as theory. I think that sentence - tortured as it may be - or at least its last clause, may also say a lot about the matrix. Furthermore, it is important to remember that analogies are only analogies and no two cases are ever identical (I'm tempted here just to write down the wonderful title of Biddle's Foreign Affairs piece, "Seeing Baghdad, Thinking Saigon"). I've always thought it fun (so to speak) of history professors [ not that they're the only ones who can do this :-) ] to take some general proposition of a political scientist and ask, on an exam, whether it applies to a specific case. Whether the matrix is too all-encompassing, reducing all of COIN to a single FM, is perhaps a worthy question.
Similarly, I've been struck by how much the population-centric COIN mentality emphasizes that insurgency arises out of grievance, when scholarship focuses today on the pleasantly paired idea of "greed and grievance" (which, incidentally, Kalyvas notes are observationally equivalent - if a poor man [insurgent?] steals from a rich one [counterinsurgent?], is it because he's poor [grievance], or because he's greedy [greed], obviously). That people are acting out of grievance implies one only has to nation-build and grievances will disappear as the nation-state allocates prosperity and creates ways to aggregate decisions and dispense justice in a fair and acceptable and accepted (democratic?) manner; surely this is a cause behind which the American people can rally, should one be a tad cynical, because we are creating a nation-state (to borrow Karnow's phrase about a country with a perennial COIN problem) "In Our Own Image." But if insurgents rather than counterinsurgents are the ones with legitimate grievances*, or lack "legitimate" grievances and/but act primarily or completely out of greed, then the policy prescriptions become somewhat different, and less palatable? I suppose people motivated by greed might become satiated by the benefits provided by a democratic nation-state. But expand the definition of greed from purely materialistic ones, to a more complex or expansive one that includes the pursuit of political power, or perhaps better yet, accept that insurgency is nothing more than the pursuit by what *we* would consider irregular means for political power - no more, no less. Then there is moral equivalence between the insurgents and counterinsurgents, which is to say, both are simple power-seekers, which, in turn, raises questions about why we choose to back one over the other. I may be going too far, or simply rambling, but ***to what extent did the realities of policy prescriptions - what we can and cannot do or even think about insurgents [bad guys] and counterinsurgents [good guys] - impact the formulation of a theory of counterinsurgency?***
Thank you once more for your comprehensive response.
ADTS
* One can also substitute for precocious, "NERD!"
**I asked an NDU professor and an MCU professor (not "Charlie") who also function as COIN advisors and practioners, both of whom seemed intelligent and capable, about this and received responses that were, to my ears, less than satisfying. One replied, in essence, "Sometimes we [the supporting nation or US] have to tell the host-nation [the counterinsurgents] to tone it down a bit [reduce the grievances]." My reply to one, only partially verbalized because I sensed the conversation was finished, was, "But what if the grievances *are* legitimate? And does the fact that we have to tell the host-nation about their grievances imply that perhaps we ought not support the host-nation?" I suppose one can argue - and I realize in this paragraph (and possibly elsewhere) I might be impinging on your ability to comment without discussing policy - that just because each side presents grievances does not mean the grievances presented are equal. But this is a more complex argument, and one which to me seems more prone to hair-splitting and slope-slipperiness.
COL Gentile:
Once more, I am sufficiently provoked that I cannot "let it go." Let me excise your third paragraph and parse as follows:
1) prove that their new way of war is revolutionary and must be accepted as war de jour and war in the future. 2) desire to show difference from what war has been and what it will be but at the same time both groups always co-opt traditional warfare and its tropes to make theirs, even though they argue for its radical difference, to seem like traditional combat.
3) They evolve and harden into matrices because in order for them to be believed there has to be a construct built around them to prove that they exist. This is why narratives, metaphors, tropes, etc become so important when explaining them.
4) That too is combined with the "young turk" mentality of their proponents that they have divined the true nature of modern war, that it is revolutionary, and that to understand and practice it you must listen to them as the experts. The end result is the matrix and its trapped characters of true believers.
Are there any genuine "revolutions in military affairs" (assuming such things exist) that you would identify (e.g., perhaps, the invention of the tank, or the combination of it with the radio and the airplane as well as, of course railroads) and did they possess the same characteristics? Did Guderian et al's perhaps justifiably revolutionary (or, maybe, not justifiably revolutionary?) movement display the same traits as ill-founded movements like the matrix theory of population-centric COIN? I don't know enough about the introduction of the tank, or whether it was evolutionary or revolutionary, or even whether Guderian should be considered the man responsible for its integration into combat. **I do wonder, though, if one can distinguish between "true" and "false" matrices.**
ADTS
ADTS:
As I said on another thread, a busy day ahead but I will respond to your recent most thought provoking posts soon.
Bluf, though, there is I think a difference between a Fuller and a Douhet. One is grounded in physics (ie, tank moves on ground, tank shoots, tank hits enemy target, object is destroyed), the other in half-baked and hopeful theories of cause (bombs from planes in sky destroy buildings on ground ) to effect (and therefore produces breakdown of industrial web) that has to exist for the whole thing to work. Same with Coin, not same with airland battle. More to follow soon.
gian
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