Counterinsurgency Doctrine and Readings - Page 3

cato · 02-27-2007, 13:23 PM

A Bell for Adano, by Joh Hersey. Not an academic COIN read, per say, but it highlights the timeless nature of winning hearts and minds. A great read.
Cato

**Shek** · 04-14-2007, 13:51 PM

An article from RUSI that was just republished in Military Review

Quote:

http://usacac.army.mil/CAC/milreview...07/Kiszely.pdf

Learning about Counterinsurgency

Insurgency, it seems, is with us to stay—for a while, anyway. There are a number of reasons why insurgency—the use of subversion and armed conflict by an organized movement to overthrow a constitutional government—has become a form of conflict much in evidence at the start of the twenty-first century, and why it is unlikely to become less so in the years immediately ahead.1 Among the most obvious reasons are the erosion of the sovereignty of nation-states, the increase in the number of failed or failing states, the rise in intra-state conflict, the advent of transnational insurgency, and the perceived ability of terrorists to achieve their aims—“to coerce or intimidate governments or societies to achieve political, religious or ideological objectives.”2 Equally obvious—to insurgents, at least—is the technological battle-field superiority of the world’s most powerful armed forces, and the resultant folly of taking on such armed forces on the conventional battlefield. Even if general Sir Rupert Smith may be overstating the case by declaring that “war no longer exists,” he is surely right that war off the conventional battlefield, or “war amongst the people,” is by far the more likely activity.3 There is, of course, nothing new about insurgency—the nineteenth and twentieth centuries provide plenty of examples of this type of warfare—and, therefore, no shortage of opportunities to learn lessons. But how well do militaries, in general, learn the lessons of counterinsurgency? What factors affect this learning process? And what might the answer to these questions tell us about how armed forces should approach the subject of learning about counterinsurgency in future? This article sets out to answer these questions.

***

In summary, therefore, while it is easy to see the solution to improved learning about counterinsurgency purely in terms of improved training, this study concludes that this would be fallacious, and that at the root of the challenge lie questions of culture and education.

Lieutenant General Sir John Kiszely is the director of the Defence Academy of the United Kingdom. In 2002, he served in Iraq as the deputy commanding general of the Multi-National Force-Iraq. Previous assignments include service in Bosnia as the Commander, Multi-National Division South West, and later as the deputy commander of the NATO force. LTG Kiszely has also served in Northern Ireland, Germany, Cyprus, and the Falkland Islands. He received his commission from Sandhurst in 1969.

**Shek** · 04-14-2007, 20:38 PM

If I come across a .pdf version of this, I'll try to post it.

Quote:

Ten Counterinsurgency Commandments From Afghanistan
by Greg Mills

From Afghanistan to Sri Lanka, Colombia to Kashmir, Congo to Iraq, the question of how to deal with insurgency is being asked. Finding the answer has so far involved scrutinizing past campaigns from Algeria to Zimbabwe, and especially Malaya and Vietnam.

These have produced a set of lessons, centering at their most creative on the importance of public diplomacy in winning hearts and minds, and the need to slowly extend governance and prosperity through "ink spots" of relative stability, employing unity of effort by nations and institutions. In Afghanistan, during the tenure of the ninth International Security Assistance Force (ISAF IX) deployed between May 2006 and February 2007, this evolved into Afghan Development Zones (ADZs), providing a focus of development spending and security effort.

But scrutinizing the past has limited benefit in dealing with the modern, complex insurgency. The nature of the insurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan has changed from the time of Malaya and Vietnam, for example, from two dimensional (national/colonial government vs. the insurgent) to three dimensions, where the insurgent faces a national government but with a complex range of multinational governmental and nongovernmental actors involved in the security and development effort. Additionally, the globalized, media-savvy nature of today's insurgents contrasts with their bottom-up, cellular organizational structure. The former allows them unparalleled access to sources of support, recruits and marketing, while their operational structure both provides security and assists it in replicating itself and its actions without active leadership oversight. Thus domestic insurgencies have to be confronted internationally and in many dimensions with unprecedented demands for intelligence gathering and analysis, interoperability and flexibility, and cultural sensitivity and understanding.

In both Afghanistan and Iraq, security, governance and development instruments are unlikely by themselves to offer the solution to end the ongoing violence. Both countries increasingly serve as a magnet and spark for radical Islamists. While there is a need to employ such instruments
towards wider objectives, it has not been made clear what those objectives are beyond winning the war on terror.

Contemporary Constraints

Although the nature of the modern insurgency is generically different from the historical experience, some of the problems faced by security agencies in dealing with it remain the same as those of an earlier generation.

Putting Boots on the Ground. Past insurgencies have been won by troop saturation, ensuring a visible force presence and enabling borders to be sealed. While high-tech surveillance offers a modern force multiplier, there remains no substitute for boots on the ground. In Afghanistan as in Iraq, in an insurgency you cannot afford to concentrate and sequence combat power as you can do in general war. The enemy has shown that it can instantly react to adjustments and exploit the opportunities that arise when force levels are reduced or when coalition troops move out of an area. It is what officers refer to as the balloon effect: You squeeze one end, and the enemy moves to the other.

Securing Adequate Intelligence. To paraphrase George Orwell, today we have information on everything but knowledge about much less. High-tech capability helps the intelligence-gathering exercise and can be a force-multiplier, but has its limits. The lack of knowledge of the situation in remote areas such as the Panjwayee district in Afghanistan's southern Kandahar province illustrates the limitations of digital Intelligence, Surveillance, Target Acquisition and Reconnaissance (ISTAR) systems such as eavesdropping, satellites, Predator and other "eyes in the sky". The modern insurgency is, in the words of an American officer stationed in Afghanistan, "a bottom-up human intelligence fight" in spite of all the digital assets.

Operating in a Multinational Environment. In Afghanistan many of the European nations simply pay lip service to their commitment. This is reflected in resource constraints and political operating caveats. The adverse impact of this on operations has been limited by the redundancy within the coalitions. But it requires searching for the golden thread of expertise within the multinational environment, usually found among those native English-speaking countries.

Unity of Effort. Having a single actor with the authority to direct effort down all the lines of operation remains key to success today, as it was when the British used a committee system to achieve unity of effort in Malaya. In Afghanistan there exists a complex web of influence, with detailed and ongoing funding and development interaction between donors, the Government of Afghanistan, NGOs, and the international military. Iraq initially offered a much easier situation, where the U.S. was the clear leader, prior to Iraq's national elections. Even then, however, the required synergy was not achieved, owing to the dual military (answerable to the Department of Defense) and civilian (answerable to the administration) reporting lines, the interagency process notwithstanding.

Public Diplomacy and Development. Getting the right message across with cultural nuances, and linking security and development, is as important--and difficult--to do today as it was in Vietnam. Moreover, as King's College scholar-soldier John Mackinlay has observed, one needs to exploit and dominate the virtual war zone, merging the strategic and tactical realms of operation with the same ease as one's opponents.[1]

Some military commanders are aware of these challenges and trying to address them. While he was the commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan (a role he served in from May 2006 until February 2007, when he was replaced by U.S. General Dan McNeill, COMISAF X), General David Richards observed:

We have to deal with the strategic disjuncture between commitments and resources, between postmodern plans and the needs of a largely feudal society, and between the need for close cooperation between the governmental and nongovernmental communities and the reality of dealing with vested institutional interests; and also with the discontinuity between short-term Western political ideals and the importance of long-term, sustained commitment. Hence our strategic, but pragmatic approach to deal with Afghanistan's insurgency, linking development and security intent.
It is what one senior American officer in the Combined Joint Task Force 76 based at Bagram Air Base north of Kabul described in 2006 as a "Clear, Hold, Build and Engage" strategy--clear the area from the enemy, hold the territory, build infrastructure and resources, and engage with the local community. The success of this approach will depend on ensuring better coordination and faster delivery among international and local actors, realizing political and capacity constraints, and, ultimately, allowing Kabul to take responsibility and control on its terms.

Strategy Formation

First, one needs to ask the right questions. For example, accepting that most people would aspire to a better life in the same way we define that presupposes the existence of a civil society within which political, social and economic bargains can be negotiated and struck. This is much less likely where societies are divided along racial, religious, ethnic, geographic and rural-urban schisms.

Political acceptance of such realities is key in convincing Western electorates of the stakes and in accepting the inherent risks and developing policies that allow soldiers to carry out their tasks. Risk-aversion undermines the effectiveness of the multinational forces much more than the (lack of) equipment at their disposal. Countries have to contribute enough--in both policy and materiel terms--to ensure not just the safety of their troops, but the success of the overall mission.

It is therefore imperative to take stock of our instruments and limits. The containment and armored mindset of international forces in Somalia in 1992, for example, created a contradiction of perceptions: The forces were simultaneously feared but appeared fearful, creating resentment, anger and vulnerability.

The greatest asset the West has in Afghanistan is its long-term commitment. Yet the longer it remains front-and-center in the campaign against the Taliban and other antigovernment forces, the longer it will be part of the political landscape and the focus of Afghan ire, a sentiment based less on rationality and the record of ISAF than on deep-rooted national chauvinism and frustration at the inevitable slow pace of delivery.

In this, the military and aid workers alike have to take care not to look like the new imperialists. Unlike the diplomatic imperialists of old, today's versions are often products of a hyper-competitive world, brash and pushy to a fault. In a country such as Afghanistan where servility is required, this does not go down well. Foreigners anxious to get the job done have to take extreme care not to get ahead of and out of step with local politicians, slowed as they are by a bargaining, consensus-seeking culture. To move these politicians at a faster rate could only isolate them from their local constituents. And there is a constant need to balance short-term action (e.g. infrastructure spending) with longer-term needs (e.g. education and gender rights) and to manage both this tension and public expectations.

Aid workers vigorously oppose what they view as the militarization of development. Many are reluctant to permit the military to carry out development tasks, even though they cannot themselves operate in many areas of Afghanistan (or Iraq for that matter) without a military presence and protection. The contradictory nature of this relationship is complicated by the paramilitary attitude and apparel adopted by many aid workers. The irony is that the military is trying to facilitate development while mindful that this is not its core business. Unlike their aid counterparts, almost all military leaders are sensitized to accede to local ownership. This is more the role and spirit of proconsuls of old, always aware of the need for subtly and guile.

Use Soft Power Wisely

In counterinsurgency, any action taken in one area will have an effect in another. Attacking the drug trade in Afghanistan will ratchet up insurgency activity. Therefore, instead of embarking on an all-out war on drugs, which could undermine President Hamid Karzai's administration, we have to recognize that this sector drives Afghanistan's political economy. Dealing with it goes beyond just providing sequenced alternatives to entrepreneurs. Blundering ahead on narcotics and efforts to demobilize the drug-funded militias will assuredly destabilize the government in a country where drugs make up more than half of the economy. Indeed, opium is the only commodity in which Afghanistan is currently globally competitive. An alternative plan would aim to separate counternarcotics and counterinsurgency strategies, by reducing pressure on small-time farmers (thus not forcing them into the hands of the insurgents) and allowing Kabul to take the lead in a manner that avoids creating further problems and undermining its already limited power and credibility. One method to assist the latter is to offer an amnesty period, with a carefully sequenced public diplomacy campaign in the build-up to the deadline, and then begin high-profile prosecutions of the barons rather than the small-time farmers.

The death of one insurgent creates many more in societies where blood ties and nationalist zeal are stronger than ideology. This demands understanding what security means for local communities, which relates directly to the manner in which soft power is employed.

The term "soft power" is American,[2] used by those who want the U.S. to better exploit its economic and cultural advantages in the battle for hearts and minds. But it is others, notably the Iranians, who are showing mastery at putting it into practice in places such as Lebanon and also among the Shia of Iraq. While the international community spends a fortune on inserting a massive peacekeeping force in Lebanon, Iran will likely continue to focus on funding the rebuilding of Hezbollah communities, captivating communities and ensuring religious patronage among Lebanon's Shia. While the Iranians assisted in arming Hezbollah with advanced wire- and laser-guided anti-tank weaponry and large numbers of ground-to-ground missiles in the August 2006 war with Israel, their real advantage will likely come through the use of soft power in the reconstruction phase.

Where the West would have elaborate procedures to ensure that its aid money was being properly spent, Iran can resort to blunt but likely more effective, and certainly faster, tactics. While the West speaks of "effects-based operations" in post-conflict societies, in reality it conducts value-based operations, focusing on delivering assistance in a manner that adheres to Western liberal governance norms and standards of transparency and accountability.

Nor are the Iranians alone in using soft power to win over communities. The Muslim Brotherhood has been doing it for years in Egypt. Where communities lack medical care, the Brotherhood offers free consultations. Its ability to exploit the government's failings and meet social needs, if only in part, explains why the Brotherhood is such a powerful political force in Egypt today.

By comparison, aid delivery in a country like Afghanistan is a tortuous affair. Bureaucratic procedures ensure that the ratio of expenditure (on security forces, consultants, administration etc.) to aid is higher and delivery tedious.

Because the West spends according to its own rules, local actors are seldom able to use the money to their own advantage and in the way their system operates and understands, as patronage and for political power as much as for socioeconomic development. This is not, however, because all local politicians are corrupt: It's simply the way the system works. Without it there would be a much greater likelihood of systemic instability.

Another feature of so much Western aid is how little credit its donors receive from the recipients for what is, whatever its problems, genuinely massive assistance. The link between the new school or mini-power station and the foreign aid workers in their four-wheel drives is rarely made, and many in the aid community regard aid as something that is essentially neutral. This is not how Hezbollah and their backers see it, and they want and make sure they receive every drop of political credit. Such effective use of soft power is hard to counter. Arguing against the supply of guns to terrorist organizations is one thing, but, whatever their motives, if the Iranians also seek to influence societies by funding reconstruction, how can we protest? In the contest for hearts and minds, policymakers may be over-focussing on their opponents' guns rather than their butter. Also, foreign actors have to realize the advantages that accrue to Iran from allowing Hezbollah to take the credit, as difficult as this strategy may be, especially for those aid agencies and NGOs needing to demonstrate project roll-out to ensure funding flows and for those in the military geared towards delivering visible action and effect within a limited deployment timeframe.

Know Your Enemy

Finding the means to "outbid" insurgents and gain the support of the society in which they operate and find succor requires understanding the difference between their and your means and ends.

Among the military there is confusion between short-term tactical actions and the wider strategic counterinsurgency aim. Development, governance and security "effects" must be linked to a political objective, and there has been little clarity in this. This is the reason why, for example, officers in the Afghan theater are increasingly frustrated by talk of "anti-coalition forces" and the global "war on terror". Historically, insurgencies are countered through political deals that military means have helped to cut. Seldom, if ever, are they defeated militarily. A coalition of anti-Western forces is a rhetorical expediency waiting to be exploited. These shifting alliances are often little more than marriages of convenience. In Afghanistan, while the Taliban have loyalty predominantly to the Pashtun ethnic cause, Gulbuddin Hikmetyar's Hizb-i Islami Gulbuddin movement seems geared less to its purported brand of radical Islam than gaining power for its veteran mujahiddin leader.

For both, Al Qaeda is likely less of an ideological soul mate than a cash-rich friend of convenience, not least given the lack of Afghan love for Arabs. Just as Afghanistan itself is riven by ethnic divisions, there are additional layers of complexity and fidelity within each group. Each of the groups has different, sometimes competing loyalties at the tribe, sub-tribe, clan and family level. Hence to counter insurgency, one must fundamentally split and coopt these groups, all the time denying them sanctuary in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Reaching a political accommodation rests not only on a clear understanding of all these levels through bottom-up intelligence, but also on sophisticated political engagement by local and external leadership. Erudite statesmanship would envision and articulate a common good, and unpick the ties that bind the insurgents rather than conveniently lump them together as "terrorists."

Of course, political accommodation is much more difficult in an environment where violence is a condition of society and a way of life. Where the bearing of arms is not only commonplace but considered a sign of manhood and disarmament contrary to a way of life, security means different things. Where the West cannot play by the rules of the insurgent and wage terror against terror, the weak effectively deter the militarily strong.

At its heart, countering insurgency demands dealing not only with asymmetric means but also asymmetric ends, which can be achieved by understanding the culture of the insurgent. This is a responsibility not only of the military, but of other elements of government, the NGO world and, critically, the media, which has to stop portraying progress in countering insurgencies as only a rising body count of which they are critical. While incremental development and security progress is essential in maintaining morale and momentum, this aspect of change is the task of a generation.

Ten Commandments For The Future

These foregoing observations can be distilled down to ten counterinsurgency commandments.

First, do not confuse short-term tactical imperatives and process with longer-term goals. The difference is between tools (military, media, diplomatic, governance, and development) and the overall objective (political accommodation).

Second, focus on dealing with constraints to economic growth--not humanitarian assistance or the provision of security--as the essential condition for development. Thus, the military and other allied agencies always have to consider what the basis of growth in particular regions could be--what can be made and sold and how to remove constraints to realizing this. Countering insurgency means separating ordinary people from the warlords, drug lords and insurgents and giving them a viable economic choice.

Third, in identifying areas for development spending, reinforce existing success. As Jalalabad's thriving economy illustrates, the market never lies. Place resources where there is already activity and consolidate success. Don't attempt to plant things where they will never grow.

Fourth, understand the difference between asymmetric means (where one side uses its weakness to military advantage) and asymmetric ends (where both sides do not want the same thing). There is a presumption that both sides want the fighting to end. This may not be the case, and highlights cultural differences in the attitude towards war as a way of life. Messages need to be tailored accordingly.

Fifth, accept the way local systems operate: the international community might not like it, but it has to accept local solutions. Avoid coming in with a design and dogma that will "show" the locals how things should be done, which is too often a prerogative of new military commanders wanting to make a difference. Not only avoid trying to impose your own preferred solutions, but also do not attempt to impose images of your own society, for example as paragons of multiculturalism, even if such images coincide rhetorically with those of Kabul's elite--not least since these practices are often mythologized and, if not, are seldom successfully transplantable. Be aware of local political and capacity limits. Do not set too many operating guidelines (and then micromanage them), but rather a few clear "red lines" of transgression which should not be crossed. Since success will depend on Kabul's taking responsibility and setting the political parameters, we cannot make it politically awkward for them to do so. The most important red line is to prevent the use of Afghanistan as a base for terrorist activity.

Sixth, policies and the message to the local population have to capitalize on fatigue from war, economic and physical insecurity, and future anxieties. To do this and to undercut the appeal of the Taliban as a stability alternative, the benefits of the current system have to be both of widespread benefit and highly visible. Progress on signature development projects-wide-scale, well-delivered agro/irrigation projects that touch communities and spotlight leader/official involvement, for example--would be powerful examples.

Seventh, never confuse numbers with effects. Beware of the body-count trap, the mismatch between aid commitments and expenditure, and especially the difference between numbers of troops and police and those available for operations. The latter example applies notably to the Afghan security forces, which suffer from poor pay, a ghost payroll, and dubious methods of training, personnel recruitment and allegiance. As Robert Cassidy has argued, "There are no magic and inherently quantifiable metrics that we can slap on a PowerPoint matrix _ ones that might precisely measure our path to victory in counterinsurgency."[3]

Eighth, understand the basis of local power beyond numbers. This demands understanding the intricacies and allegiances that bind local power structures and those who broker them.

Ninth, beware of international consultants bearing high-altitude plans that, for all the will in the world, scarcely ever survive the realities of local capacity. Development is more than just goals, targets, strategy, frameworks and plans. Kabul's capacity to deliver will never match up to needs, promises, and intentions. Avoid forcing local partners to agree to things they know they will never be able to deliver on, thereby undermining their standing. Development is more than top-down governance; rather, it centers on bottom-up realities.

Tenth, integrate but calibrate. Learn the lesson offered by officers such as Andr‚ Beaufre and David Galula--don't try to do everything at once.[4] The footprint of security presence, along with governance and development activity, should match the resources available. Be prepared to let some areas go while concentrating on those things and places you choose to. A "Clear, Hold, Build and Engage" strategy demands focus of effort and consolidation of gains, without which the insurgent "balloon" will simply distort and not, as intended, deflate.

All the above illustrates the critical importance of not just beating an insurgency and winning a battle of ideas, but the central role of leadership in managing myriad analytical inputs and weaving multinational and multiagency responses into a coherent whole. The theater commander has to simultaneously manage military concerns with political sensitivities and development detail. The professional officer is also today's proconsul, tempering aggression with diplomacy, defaulting to politics and development needs.

Command requires caring for the lowest ranks and politely enquiring after their welfare, and being polite yet honest with political masters. It is leadership not for ego's sake or to self-indulge, but to manage complex and difficult environments and find solutions.

Notes
[1] See John Mackinlay, Defeating Complex Insurgency: Beyond Iraq and Afghanistan. London: RUSI Whitehall Paper No. 64, 2005.
[2] The term was coined by Joseph A. Nye. See his Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature of American Power (1990) and Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics (1994).
[3] See Robert M. Cassidy, Counterinsurgency and the Global War on Terror: Military Culture and Irregular War (London: Praeger, 2006).
[4] See Andre Beaufre, An Introduction to Strategy (New York: Praeger, 1965) and David Galula, Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice (1964).

Greg Mills heads the Johannesburg-based Brenthurst Foundation and was, from May-September 2006, seconded to ISAF HQ in Kabul as a special adviser to the Commander. His publications include From Africa to Afghanistan: With Richards and NATO to Kabul (Johannesburg: Wits University Press, forthcoming May 2007).

You may forward this, provided that you send it in its entirety, attribute it to the Foreign Policy Research Institute, and include their web address (www.fpri.org). If you post it on a mailing list, please contact FPRI with the name, location, purpose, and number of recipients of the mailing list.

mike nickeas · 08-01-2007, 17:01 PM

zraver is correct in many respects, Iagree with his argument that the US (and many western governments) have lost the ability or wherewithall to conduct military action without appearing to get blood on their hands. A lot of emphasis is placed on political expediency at home rather than giving the soldiers on the shop floor the ability to apply measured but firm force, this then leads to the mother of military perils.....the loss of your soldiers respect for their own command structure (military as well as civil).

I know from experience that currently the Wests ability to carry the war to the enemy is all told, we have aircraft, artillery, infantry, naval power etc. ad nauseam, however, it is the enemy who pretty much chooses when to engage us in contacts and more often than not it is by IED's and the like.

We are fighting a insurgency / counter insurgency war with huge armies that were essentially formed and trained to meet the warsaw pact type of enemy force head on on the plains of europe, but that enemy has by and large disappeared (although it could be argued that they are re-appearing) and we are now fighting the enemy in totally different conditions.

We all know that most US and UK soldiers are pretty brassed off with almost continual tours, very little R+R time to unwind and less time training for new theatres, skills etc. to meet the needs of their respective countries military commitments. This is leading inevitably to low moral, troops leaving before their stated career end, reservists filling the gaps and feelings of futility. Gone are the days when soldiers blindly fought for 'king and country', they are better educated, have access to the media and more contact with home.
they should be given the tools to do their jobs robustly.

Stan187 · 08-09-2007, 05:14 AM

An interesting quick read that makes a good point, I think.

The Counterinsurgency Fight: Think Globally, Lose Locally
By James T. Quinlivan and Bruce R. Nardulli

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This commentary appeared in Washingtonpost.com on April 27, 2007.
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For nearly 50 years, many Americans saw the communist states as a vast monolith, able to act as one in the service of a single unified doctrine. Because that monolith was able to reach anywhere in its attack on democracy, America's leaders believed it needed to be confronted everywhere. As a result, the United States tried to confront the monolith around the globe at immense expense in blood and treasure.

In retrospect, that view and the policies it led to were mistaken in many ways. Beneath the flag of international communism marched a motley array of nations, parties and personalities with a welter of conflicting beliefs, interests and loyalties, most united only in their dependence on the Soviet Union or the People's Republic of China. Sometimes — very occasionally — they could act in concert. More often, they could lend empty rhetorical support to political causes as a coalition of those wanting to appear willing while not acting.

The United States was least successful in dealing with Global Communism when America approached it as a monolithic opponent. The U.S. was most successful when it developed a sense of the nuances that differentiated the interests of the communist states and worked to exploit those differences by dealing with the special features and needs of each country individually.

Having learned to exploit the different situations of a seemingly united opponent to win the Cold War, the United States now seems poised to start at the wrong end of the learning curve in facing a new challenge.

Confronted with insurgents in some countries and a true global terror network operating in others, some people want to view these opponents as a monolithic force, waging a global insurgency to conquer the Middle East, bring the world to its knees and destroy freedom. This view argues for a global counterinsurgency —? a relentless attack against Islamic insurgents wherever they surface. The view is as seemingly logical as the Cold War belief in a worldwide communist conspiracy for global domination — and just as wrong. The belief is also harmful, for four major reasons.

First, as in the Cold War, the belief in a global insurgency can lead the United States to make local commitments on the basis of vague overarching global principles. This commits America to send more troops, sustain greater military casualties, and spend more money than it possibly could in multiple conflicts at times and place of the insurgents' choosing. The United States needlessly opens itself up to unlimited claims for assistance from regimes around the world, and equally unlimited accusations of hypocrisy when it fails to provide such assistance.

Second, a U.S.-led global counterinsurgency makes it more difficult for the United States to defeat insurgencies. Successful counterinsurgents fight as patriots in the service of their own country — not as United States clients. Their legitimacy in the eyes of their countrymen springs from their own actions and not their association with the United States and its views. When America demands that governments it helps to wage counterinsurgencies embrace American values and remake their nations in the American mold, those governments are often seen as U.S. puppets handing over their sovereignty and independence to American neo-colonialists. The insurgents are then viewed as patriots resisting foreign domination, and they are strengthened.

Third, equipping Americans with a mindset that places prominence on the global common features of insurgencies at the expense of fine-textured local features makes the U.S. military less effective in combating insurgencies. In contrast, viewing each insurgency as local and different from others emphasizes the importance of the particular complexities and nuances of each insurgency. These include local history, terrain, demographics, culture, religion, power-sharing arrangements, leadership personalities and a host of subtle but critical idiosyncrasies not collected by intelligence satellites.

Fourth, belief in a global counterinsurgency leads to mismanagement of counterinsurgency campaigns because it undercuts the leadership of governments allied with the United States and of American military commanders battling an insurgency. Instead of allowing those on the ground to determine how to come up with an custom-tailored plan to battle a local insurgency, the global counterinsurgency theory leads to each individual insurgency being viewed as part of a hugely complicated mosaic that can only be understood by the high-level U.S. officials with access to a vast array of exotic and often top-secret intelligence resources.

As we are seeing today in Iraq and Afghanistan, America has been unable to defeat insurgencies with the sheer power of the U.S. military. While the presence of al Qaeda and its jihadist affiliates is a common feature in both countries, ultimately it will be the local conditions, population, unique features and personalities of each nation that will determine the outcome of the insurgencies against the U.S.-backed governments. The larger lesson is to retain the clarity of a "local" versus "global" perspective in dealing with the future insurgency challenge.

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astralis · 08-15-2007, 11:34 AM

washingtonpost.com

Fight Less, Win More

By Nathaniel Fick
Sunday, August 12, 2007; Page B01

On a highway north of Kabul last month, an American soldier aimed a machine gun at my car from the turret of his armored Humvee. In the split second for which our eyes locked, I had a revelation: To a man with a weapon, everything looks like a threat.

I had served as an infantry officer in Afghanistan in 2001-02 and in Iraq in 2003, but this was my first time on the other end of an American machine gun. It's not something I'll forget. It's not the sort of thing ordinary Afghans forget, either, and it reminded me that heavy-handed military tactics can alienate the people we're trying to help while playing into the hands of the people we're trying to defeat.

Welcome to the paradoxical world of counterinsurgency warfare -- the kind of war you win by not shooting.

The objective in fighting insurgents isn't to kill every enemy fighter -- you simply can't -- but to persuade the population to abandon the insurgents' cause. The laws of these campaigns seem topsy-turvy by conventional military standards: Money is more decisive than bullets; protecting our own forces undermines the U.S. mission; heavy firepower is counterproductive; and winning battles guarantees nothing.

My unnerving encounter on the highway was particularly ironic since I was there at the invitation of the U.S. Army to help teach these very principles at the Afghanistan Counterinsurgency Academy. The grandly misnamed "academy" is a tiny collection of huts and tents on Kabul's dusty southern outskirts. Since May, motley classes of several dozen Afghan army officers, Afghan policemen, NATO officers, American officers and civilians have been learning and living side by side there for a week at a time.

The academy does much more than teach the theory and tactics of fighting the Taliban insurgents who are trying to unseat President Hamid Karzai and claw their way back to power. It is also a rare forum for military officers, civilian aid workers, academics and diplomats -- from Afghanistan and all 37 countries in NATO's International Security Assistance Force -- to unite in trying to bring good governance, prosperity and security to Afghanistan. The curriculum is based on the Army and Marine Corps' new counterinsurgency doctrine, released in December. Classes revolve around four so-called paradoxes of counterinsurgency. Unless we learn all four well, we'll continue to win battles in Afghanistan while losing the war.

The first tenet is that the best weapons don't shoot. Counterinsurgents must excel at finding creative, nonmilitary solutions to military problems.

Consider, for example, the question of roads. When U.N. teams begin building new stretches of road in volatile Afghan provinces such as Zabul and Kandahar, insurgents inevitably attack the workers. But as the projects progress and villagers begin to see the benefits of having paved access to markets and health care, the Taliban attacks become less frequent. New highways then extend the reach of the Karzai administration into previously inaccessible areas, making a continuous Afghan police presence possible and helping lower the overall level of violence -- no mean feat in a country larger and more populous than Iraq, with a shaky central government.

Said another way: Reconstruction funds can shape the battlefield as surely as bombs. But such methods are still not used widely enough in Afghanistan. After spending more than $14 billion in aid to the country since 2001, the United States' latest disbursement, of more than $10 billion, will start this month. Some 80 percent of it is earmarked for security spending, leaving only about 20 percent for reconstruction projects and initiatives to foster good governance.

The second pillar of the academy's curriculum relates to the first: The more you protect your forces, the less safe you may be. To be effective, troops, diplomats and civilian aid workers need to get out among the people. But nearly every American I saw in Kabul was hidden behind high walls or racing through the streets in armored convoys.

Afghanistan, however, isn't Iraq. Tourists travel through much of the country in relative safety, glass office towers are sprouting up in Kabul, and Coca-Cola recently opened a bottling plant. I drove through the capital in a dirty green Toyota, wearing civilian clothes and stopping to shop in bazaars, eat in restaurants and visit businesses. In two weeks, I saw more of Kabul than most military officers do in a year.

This isolation also infects our diplomatic community. After a State Department official gave a presentation at the academy, he and I climbed a nearby hill to explore the ruins of an old palace. He was only nine days from the end of his 12-month tour, and our walk was the first time he'd ever been allowed to get out and explore the city.

Of course, mingling with the population means exposing ourselves to attacks, and commanders have an obligation to safeguard their troops. But they have an even greater responsibility to accomplish their mission. When we retreat behind body armor and concrete barriers, it becomes impossible to understand the society we claim to defend. If we emphasize "force protection" above all else, we will never develop the cultural understanding, relationships and intelligence we need to win. Accepting the greater tactical risk of reaching out to Afghans reduces the strategic risk that the Taliban will return to power.

The third paradox hammered home at the academy is that the more force you use, the less effective you may be. Civilian casualties in Afghanistan are notoriously difficult to tally, but 300-500 noncombatants have probably been killed already this year, mostly in U.S. and coalition air strikes. Killing civilians, even in error, is not only a serious moral transgression but also a lethal strategic misstep. Wayward U.S. strikes have seriously undermined the very legitimacy of the Karzai government and made all too many Afghans resent coalition forces. If Afghans lose patience with the coalition presence, those forces will be run out of the country, in the footsteps of the British and the Soviets before them.

I stress this point because one of my many gratifying moments at the academy came at the start of a class on targeting. I told the students to list the top three targets they would aim for if they were leading forces in Zabul province, a Taliban stronghold. When I asked a U.S. officer to share his list, he rattled off the names of three senior Taliban leaders to be captured or killed. Then I turned and asked an Afghan officer the same question. "First we must target the local councils to see how we can best help them," he replied. "Then we must target the local mullahs to find out their needs and let them know we respect their authority." Exactly. In counterinsurgency warfare, targeting is more about whom you bring in than whom you take out.

The academy's final lesson is that tactical success in a vacuum guarantees nothing. Just as it did in Vietnam, the U.S. military could win every battle and still lose the war. That's largely because our primary enemies in Afghanistan still have a sanctuary in neighboring Pakistan. Rather than make a suicidal stand against the allied forces invading Afghanistan after Sept. 11, 2001, many Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters melted away to create a parallel "Talibanistan" in the lawless tribal areas of western Pakistan. Last fall, Gen. James Jones, then NATO's supreme commander, testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the Taliban leadership now operates openly from Quetta, a Pakistani border city that's long been a hotbed of Islamic militancy. Karzai reiterated this point during his visit to Camp David last week.

Chasing terrorists and the Taliban around Afghanistan leads to little lasting progress as long as they can slip across the border to rest and regroup. Since 2001, the United States has tolerated this quiet reconstitution of the Taliban in Pakistan as long as Islamabad granted us basing and overflight rights, tepidly pursued al-Qaeda's leadership and cracked down on A.Q. Khan's nuclear-proliferation network. The Durand Line, which separates Afghanistan from Pakistan, is a mapmaker's fantasy. Without political reform, economic development and military operations on both sides of the border, we can do little more than put a finger in the dike that's keeping radicalism and instability in Pakistan from spilling back into Afghanistan.

On the last afternoon of the course, I asked my students to define victory in Afghanistan. We'd talked about this earlier in the week, and most of their answers had focused on militarily defeating the Taliban or killing Osama bin Laden. Now the Afghan officers took the lead in a spirited discussion with their U.S. and NATO classmates. Finally the group agreed on a unanimous result, which neatly expresses the prize we're striving for: "Victory is achieved when the people of Afghanistan consent to the legitimacy of their government and stop actively and passively supporting the insurgency."

Winning that consent will require doing some difficult and uncomfortable things: de-escalating military force, boosting the capacities of the Karzai government, accelerating reconstruction, getting real with Pakistan. It won't be easy. But the alternative, which I glimpsed while staring down the barrel of that machine gun, is our nation going zero for two in its first wars of the new century.

ncfick@gmail.com

Nathaniel Fick, a former captain

in the Marines, is a fellow at the Center for a New American Security and the author of "One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer."

S-2 · 08-15-2007, 14:33 PM

Fick's article is also posted in the OEF section of the board.

Interesting mix at the COIN academy where he's been instructing.

**Shek** · 08-16-2007, 06:29 AM

If you'd like to read the article that is the basis of Fick's paradoxes, here's the link, http://usacac.army.mil/CAC/milreview...pr06/Cohen.pdf, and I've also attached the .pdf version as well.

soutie · 08-31-2007, 05:05 AM

as agreed Iraq is a different situation to lets say Africa ,Counterinsurgency you have to identify where they come from ,illiminate the bases and lines of comunication ,you cannot do that with large cumbersome forces.

The Selous scouts .32 battalion did COIN ops with great success ,for Example white soldiers serving in the scouts had to speak the lingo better than the locals ,they where trained with ex terrs as it where.

With blackened faces and dressed as Zipra and Zanu these guys moved around the country ,talking to the locals ,gathering information about the whereabouts of other groups.The intelligence these guys picked up was invaluable ,they had a high kill rate and causes suspicion and fear between Zanu and Zipra fighters .Maybe you will agree with me that you have to win the hearts and minds of the locals but it is difficult to do this when the terrs are cutting of eyes and ears of the sellouts as it where because they where nice to the Makiwas,so the best way to fight this is to dress like them talk like them and kill them.

Les Terribles to me where the best counter insurgency unit in Africa ,i do not know the inner workings of 32 battalion ,i spent some time with them ,lets just say i was glad i was on their side ,but Iraq is a whole different story ,we all know the insurgents are coming from Iran.

But i would like to see a unit like 32 battalion operating in Afghanistan ,we know where they come from and where they are hiding move in small groups dress like them grow beards like them speak like them and then eliminate them.

08-01-2007, 17:01 PM	#34 (permalink)
mike nickeas Patron Join Date: 07-28-07 Location: Liverpool Posts: 202 Country:	zraver is correct in many respects, Iagree with his argument that the US (and many western governments) have lost the ability or wherewithall to conduct military action without appearing to get blood on their hands. A lot of emphasis is placed on political expediency at home rather than giving the soldiers on the shop floor the ability to apply measured but firm force, this then leads to the mother of military perils.....the loss of your soldiers respect for their own command structure (military as well as civil). I know from experience that currently the Wests ability to carry the war to the enemy is all told, we have aircraft, artillery, infantry, naval power etc. ad nauseam, however, it is the enemy who pretty much chooses when to engage us in contacts and more often than not it is by IED's and the like. We are fighting a insurgency / counter insurgency war with huge armies that were essentially formed and trained to meet the warsaw pact type of enemy force head on on the plains of europe, but that enemy has by and large disappeared (although it could be argued that they are re-appearing) and we are now fighting the enemy in totally different conditions. We all know that most US and UK soldiers are pretty brassed off with almost continual tours, very little R+R time to unwind and less time training for new theatres, skills etc. to meet the needs of their respective countries military commitments. This is leading inevitably to low moral, troops leaving before their stated career end, reservists filling the gaps and feelings of futility. Gone are the days when soldiers blindly fought for 'king and country', they are better educated, have access to the media and more contact with home. they should be given the tools to do their jobs robustly. __________________

08-09-2007, 05:14 AM	#35 (permalink)
Stan187 WAB BOUNCER *Senior Contributor* Join Date: 11-24-06 Posts: 2,266 Country:	An interesting quick read that makes a good point, I think. The Counterinsurgency Fight: Think Globally, Lose Locally By James T. Quinlivan and Bruce R. Nardulli -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This commentary appeared in Washingtonpost.com on April 27, 2007. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- For nearly 50 years, many Americans saw the communist states as a vast monolith, able to act as one in the service of a single unified doctrine. Because that monolith was able to reach anywhere in its attack on democracy, America's leaders believed it needed to be confronted everywhere. As a result, the United States tried to confront the monolith around the globe at immense expense in blood and treasure. In retrospect, that view and the policies it led to were mistaken in many ways. Beneath the flag of international communism marched a motley array of nations, parties and personalities with a welter of conflicting beliefs, interests and loyalties, most united only in their dependence on the Soviet Union or the People's Republic of China. Sometimes — very occasionally — they could act in concert. More often, they could lend empty rhetorical support to political causes as a coalition of those wanting to appear willing while not acting. The United States was least successful in dealing with Global Communism when America approached it as a monolithic opponent. The U.S. was most successful when it developed a sense of the nuances that differentiated the interests of the communist states and worked to exploit those differences by dealing with the special features and needs of each country individually. Having learned to exploit the different situations of a seemingly united opponent to win the Cold War, the United States now seems poised to start at the wrong end of the learning curve in facing a new challenge. Confronted with insurgents in some countries and a true global terror network operating in others, some people want to view these opponents as a monolithic force, waging a global insurgency to conquer the Middle East, bring the world to its knees and destroy freedom. This view argues for a global counterinsurgency —? a relentless attack against Islamic insurgents wherever they surface. The view is as seemingly logical as the Cold War belief in a worldwide communist conspiracy for global domination — and just as wrong. The belief is also harmful, for four major reasons. First, as in the Cold War, the belief in a global insurgency can lead the United States to make local commitments on the basis of vague overarching global principles. This commits America to send more troops, sustain greater military casualties, and spend more money than it possibly could in multiple conflicts at times and place of the insurgents' choosing. The United States needlessly opens itself up to unlimited claims for assistance from regimes around the world, and equally unlimited accusations of hypocrisy when it fails to provide such assistance. Second, a U.S.-led global counterinsurgency makes it more difficult for the United States to defeat insurgencies. Successful counterinsurgents fight as patriots in the service of their own country — not as United States clients. Their legitimacy in the eyes of their countrymen springs from their own actions and not their association with the United States and its views. When America demands that governments it helps to wage counterinsurgencies embrace American values and remake their nations in the American mold, those governments are often seen as U.S. puppets handing over their sovereignty and independence to American neo-colonialists. The insurgents are then viewed as patriots resisting foreign domination, and they are strengthened. Third, equipping Americans with a mindset that places prominence on the global common features of insurgencies at the expense of fine-textured local features makes the U.S. military less effective in combating insurgencies. In contrast, viewing each insurgency as local and different from others emphasizes the importance of the particular complexities and nuances of each insurgency. These include local history, terrain, demographics, culture, religion, power-sharing arrangements, leadership personalities and a host of subtle but critical idiosyncrasies not collected by intelligence satellites. Fourth, belief in a global counterinsurgency leads to mismanagement of counterinsurgency campaigns because it undercuts the leadership of governments allied with the United States and of American military commanders battling an insurgency. Instead of allowing those on the ground to determine how to come up with an custom-tailored plan to battle a local insurgency, the global counterinsurgency theory leads to each individual insurgency being viewed as part of a hugely complicated mosaic that can only be understood by the high-level U.S. officials with access to a vast array of exotic and often top-secret intelligence resources. As we are seeing today in Iraq and Afghanistan, America has been unable to defeat insurgencies with the sheer power of the U.S. military. While the presence of al Qaeda and its jihadist affiliates is a common feature in both countries, ultimately it will be the local conditions, population, unique features and personalities of each nation that will determine the outcome of the insurgencies against the U.S.-backed governments. The larger lesson is to retain the clarity of a "local" versus "global" perspective in dealing with the future insurgency challenge. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- __________________ In Iran people belive pepsi stands for pay each penny save israel. -urmomma158 The Russian Navy is still a threat, but only to those unlucky enough to be Russian sailors.-highsea

08-15-2007, 11:34 AM	#36 (permalink)
astralis Lei Feng Protege *Foreign Service* Join Date: 08-23-05 Location: Washington, DC Posts: 2,879 Country:	washingtonpost.com Fight Less, Win More By Nathaniel Fick Sunday, August 12, 2007; Page B01 On a highway north of Kabul last month, an American soldier aimed a machine gun at my car from the turret of his armored Humvee. In the split second for which our eyes locked, I had a revelation: To a man with a weapon, everything looks like a threat. I had served as an infantry officer in Afghanistan in 2001-02 and in Iraq in 2003, but this was my first time on the other end of an American machine gun. It's not something I'll forget. It's not the sort of thing ordinary Afghans forget, either, and it reminded me that heavy-handed military tactics can alienate the people we're trying to help while playing into the hands of the people we're trying to defeat. Welcome to the paradoxical world of counterinsurgency warfare -- the kind of war you win by not shooting. The objective in fighting insurgents isn't to kill every enemy fighter -- you simply can't -- but to persuade the population to abandon the insurgents' cause. The laws of these campaigns seem topsy-turvy by conventional military standards: Money is more decisive than bullets; protecting our own forces undermines the U.S. mission; heavy firepower is counterproductive; and winning battles guarantees nothing. My unnerving encounter on the highway was particularly ironic since I was there at the invitation of the U.S. Army to help teach these very principles at the Afghanistan Counterinsurgency Academy. The grandly misnamed "academy" is a tiny collection of huts and tents on Kabul's dusty southern outskirts. Since May, motley classes of several dozen Afghan army officers, Afghan policemen, NATO officers, American officers and civilians have been learning and living side by side there for a week at a time. The academy does much more than teach the theory and tactics of fighting the Taliban insurgents who are trying to unseat President Hamid Karzai and claw their way back to power. It is also a rare forum for military officers, civilian aid workers, academics and diplomats -- from Afghanistan and all 37 countries in NATO's International Security Assistance Force -- to unite in trying to bring good governance, prosperity and security to Afghanistan. The curriculum is based on the Army and Marine Corps' new counterinsurgency doctrine, released in December. Classes revolve around four so-called paradoxes of counterinsurgency. Unless we learn all four well, we'll continue to win battles in Afghanistan while losing the war. The first tenet is that the best weapons don't shoot. Counterinsurgents must excel at finding creative, nonmilitary solutions to military problems. Consider, for example, the question of roads. When U.N. teams begin building new stretches of road in volatile Afghan provinces such as Zabul and Kandahar, insurgents inevitably attack the workers. But as the projects progress and villagers begin to see the benefits of having paved access to markets and health care, the Taliban attacks become less frequent. New highways then extend the reach of the Karzai administration into previously inaccessible areas, making a continuous Afghan police presence possible and helping lower the overall level of violence -- no mean feat in a country larger and more populous than Iraq, with a shaky central government. Said another way: Reconstruction funds can shape the battlefield as surely as bombs. But such methods are still not used widely enough in Afghanistan. After spending more than $14 billion in aid to the country since 2001, the United States' latest disbursement, of more than $10 billion, will start this month. Some 80 percent of it is earmarked for security spending, leaving only about 20 percent for reconstruction projects and initiatives to foster good governance. The second pillar of the academy's curriculum relates to the first: The more you protect your forces, the less safe you may be. To be effective, troops, diplomats and civilian aid workers need to get out among the people. But nearly every American I saw in Kabul was hidden behind high walls or racing through the streets in armored convoys. Afghanistan, however, isn't Iraq. Tourists travel through much of the country in relative safety, glass office towers are sprouting up in Kabul, and Coca-Cola recently opened a bottling plant. I drove through the capital in a dirty green Toyota, wearing civilian clothes and stopping to shop in bazaars, eat in restaurants and visit businesses. In two weeks, I saw more of Kabul than most military officers do in a year. This isolation also infects our diplomatic community. After a State Department official gave a presentation at the academy, he and I climbed a nearby hill to explore the ruins of an old palace. He was only nine days from the end of his 12-month tour, and our walk was the first time he'd ever been allowed to get out and explore the city. Of course, mingling with the population means exposing ourselves to attacks, and commanders have an obligation to safeguard their troops. But they have an even greater responsibility to accomplish their mission. When we retreat behind body armor and concrete barriers, it becomes impossible to understand the society we claim to defend. If we emphasize "force protection" above all else, we will never develop the cultural understanding, relationships and intelligence we need to win. Accepting the greater tactical risk of reaching out to Afghans reduces the strategic risk that the Taliban will return to power. The third paradox hammered home at the academy is that the more force you use, the less effective you may be. Civilian casualties in Afghanistan are notoriously difficult to tally, but 300-500 noncombatants have probably been killed already this year, mostly in U.S. and coalition air strikes. Killing civilians, even in error, is not only a serious moral transgression but also a lethal strategic misstep. Wayward U.S. strikes have seriously undermined the very legitimacy of the Karzai government and made all too many Afghans resent coalition forces. If Afghans lose patience with the coalition presence, those forces will be run out of the country, in the footsteps of the British and the Soviets before them. I stress this point because one of my many gratifying moments at the academy came at the start of a class on targeting. I told the students to list the top three targets they would aim for if they were leading forces in Zabul province, a Taliban stronghold. When I asked a U.S. officer to share his list, he rattled off the names of three senior Taliban leaders to be captured or killed. Then I turned and asked an Afghan officer the same question. "First we must target the local councils to see how we can best help them," he replied. "Then we must target the local mullahs to find out their needs and let them know we respect their authority." Exactly. In counterinsurgency warfare, targeting is more about whom you bring in than whom you take out. The academy's final lesson is that tactical success in a vacuum guarantees nothing. Just as it did in Vietnam, the U.S. military could win every battle and still lose the war. That's largely because our primary enemies in Afghanistan still have a sanctuary in neighboring Pakistan. Rather than make a suicidal stand against the allied forces invading Afghanistan after Sept. 11, 2001, many Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters melted away to create a parallel "Talibanistan" in the lawless tribal areas of western Pakistan. Last fall, Gen. James Jones, then NATO's supreme commander, testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the Taliban leadership now operates openly from Quetta, a Pakistani border city that's long been a hotbed of Islamic militancy. Karzai reiterated this point during his visit to Camp David last week. Chasing terrorists and the Taliban around Afghanistan leads to little lasting progress as long as they can slip across the border to rest and regroup. Since 2001, the United States has tolerated this quiet reconstitution of the Taliban in Pakistan as long as Islamabad granted us basing and overflight rights, tepidly pursued al-Qaeda's leadership and cracked down on A.Q. Khan's nuclear-proliferation network. The Durand Line, which separates Afghanistan from Pakistan, is a mapmaker's fantasy. Without political reform, economic development and military operations on both sides of the border, we can do little more than put a finger in the dike that's keeping radicalism and instability in Pakistan from spilling back into Afghanistan. On the last afternoon of the course, I asked my students to define victory in Afghanistan. We'd talked about this earlier in the week, and most of their answers had focused on militarily defeating the Taliban or killing Osama bin Laden. Now the Afghan officers took the lead in a spirited discussion with their U.S. and NATO classmates. Finally the group agreed on a unanimous result, which neatly expresses the prize we're striving for: "Victory is achieved when the people of Afghanistan consent to the legitimacy of their government and stop actively and passively supporting the insurgency." Winning that consent will require doing some difficult and uncomfortable things: de-escalating military force, boosting the capacities of the Karzai government, accelerating reconstruction, getting real with Pakistan. It won't be easy. But the alternative, which I glimpsed while staring down the barrel of that machine gun, is our nation going zero for two in its first wars of the new century. ncfick@gmail.com Nathaniel Fick, a former captain in the Marines, is a fellow at the Center for a New American Security and the author of "One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer." __________________ Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present. -Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

08-15-2007, 14:33 PM	#37 (permalink)
S-2 *Military Professional* Join Date: 09-11-06 Location: Portland, Oregon Posts: 2,041 Country:	Fick Fick's article is also posted in the OEF section of the board. Interesting mix at the COIN academy where he's been instructing. __________________ "This aggression will not stand, man!" Jeff Lebowski

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02-27-2007, 13:23 PM	#31 (permalink)
cato Regular Join Date: 07-29-05 Location: Los Angeles Posts: 129	A Bell for Adano, by Joh Hersey. Not an academic COIN read, per say, but it highlights the timeless nature of winning hearts and minds. A great read. Cato

08-31-2007, 05:05 AM	#39 (permalink)
soutie *Military Professional* Join Date: 01-05-07 Location: spain Posts: 415	as agreed Iraq is a different situation to lets say Africa ,Counterinsurgency you have to identify where they come from ,illiminate the bases and lines of comunication ,you cannot do that with large cumbersome forces. The Selous scouts .32 battalion did COIN ops with great success ,for Example white soldiers serving in the scouts had to speak the lingo better than the locals ,they where trained with ex terrs as it where. With blackened faces and dressed as Zipra and Zanu these guys moved around the country ,talking to the locals ,gathering information about the whereabouts of other groups.The intelligence these guys picked up was invaluable ,they had a high kill rate and causes suspicion and fear between Zanu and Zipra fighters .Maybe you will agree with me that you have to win the hearts and minds of the locals but it is difficult to do this when the terrs are cutting of eyes and ears of the sellouts as it where because they where nice to the Makiwas,so the best way to fight this is to dress like them talk like them and kill them. Les Terribles to me where the best counter insurgency unit in Africa ,i do not know the inner workings of 32 battalion ,i spent some time with them ,lets just say i was glad i was on their side ,but Iraq is a whole different story ,we all know the insurgents are coming from Iran. But i would like to see a unit like 32 battalion operating in Afghanistan ,we know where they come from and where they are hiding move in small groups dress like them grow beards like them speak like them and then eliminate them.

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