Kinder/Gentler . . . One More Time Posted by Michael Cohen

Spencer has responded to my earlier post with this comment (among others):

In many, many relevant texts, including FM 3-24 and its cousin, FM 3-07 on Stability Operations, strategic emphasis is placed on the perspectives of a given population as the locus for success or failure in an operation. What follows from that is an understanding that ensuring those perspectives go in the direction you’d like them to go requires meaningful attention to the interests of that population, competitive with an enemy force — with “meaningful” defined by that population. That will mean different things at different times, but most importantly it will mean the provision of many things simultaneously: security, justice, economic development, and political expression in matters relevant to that population’s interest. If there is a core insight here, it’s that all of these things matter and must exist in supplement or the whole enterprise risks destabilization or unsustainability. Welcome to counterinsurgency.

This is an important point and one that merits greater explication. I hope that Spencer reads my article in this month's World Policy Journal (along with every other sentient American with a vague interest in COIN) because as I make clear pretty much every major COIN fight in the 20th century - even the most brutal ones - was accompanied by the "economic development, political expression" or so-called civic action that he describes. Nothing that is described in FM 3-24 from that perspective is remarkably different from these efforts. (Moreover, I think it's incorrect to argue that "other modes of warfare do not view the perspectives of a population as decisive." What was the firebombing of Japan and Germany if not an effort to weaken the morale of the populations in both countries - as well as destroy their economic base?)

What is fundamentally consistent, however, about these conflicts is that civic action was accompanied by coercion and violence against civilian populations. Take Vietnam for example. There were plenty of efforts to provide economic development, security, political expression - but there was also the strategic hamlet program and Phoenix, which were coercive and violent efforts to separate the population from the insurgents. (Indeed, the omission of Phoenix from FM 3-24 does not seem accidental, because it fundamentally undermines the carrot-based COIN strategy that is described in that book). Of course our efforts in Vietnam were unsuccessful; but yet a combination of coercion and civic action were successful in Malaya, Kenya and the Philippines.

But in Afghanistan (and in FM 3-24) the US military is taking a very different approach. It's all carrot and no stick against civilians. This of course is great for civilians, but its also ahistorical and has no precedent of past success. As I argue in the article:

In the end, nations inclined to embark on these campaigns in foreign lands would be wise to remember that even the best intentions of occupiers have generally bumped head-first into the shoals of bloody reality. Counterinsurgencies are as violent, coercive, destructive, and brutal as any other type of conflict. To ignore the fundamental elements of COIN operations—and to believe that an approach characterized by humanism and protection of civilians will succeed—is simply misguided.  

Moreover, on a strategic level, a COIN mission in Afghanistan focused exclusively on using carrots is likely doomed to failure:

The current U.S. mission is predicated on the goal of building up the confidence of the population, providing security, and expanding the legitimacy of the government in Kabul. But since that government lacks basic capacity, this is a goal that cannot be accomplished in the near-term. Yet the clock is ticking on America’s troop presence there—President Barack Obama has made clear that U.S. forces will begin coming home in June 2011. There seems to be a critical mismatch between strategy and tactics. A carrot-based approach that aims to build up the confidence of the Afghan people in the U.S. military, NATO, and their own government is the sort of mission that might have worked at the beginning of the war in Afghanistan—not eight years later.

In short, the Pentagon has chosen a mission in Afghanistan that minimizes its most obvious military advantage and accentuates practices for which it has neither the will, resources, nor core competency to implement successfully.  

The simple fact is that the carrot-based approach being used by ISAF in Southern Afghanistan is fundamentally NOT in the tradition of modern counter-insurgency. It even differs in fundamental ways from what the US military and proxy armies did in Iraq. And because of the many limitations on trying to fight a population-centric COIN war I fear that it will fail and will not only harm US interests, but will risk destabilizing Afghanistan over the long-term.

And on that note I will leave readers with one thought for the weekend. GO WINGS! And may the carrot be eschewed for the stick against the Coyotes this weekend.

Comments

[r4i sdhc]

Very well written post.I would like to say the US has not a foreign policy which is followed the ideas.I would like to say all the histories of Cuba, Haiti, Panama,and Mexico are bathed in blood from US adventures in colonialism.

[ghd straighteners]

The simple fact is that the carrot-based approach being used by ISAF in Southern Afghanistan is fundamentally NOT in the tradition of modern counter-insurgency. It even differs in fundamental ways from what the US military and proxy armies did in Iraq. And because of the many limitations on trying to fight a population-centric COIN war I fear that it will fail and will not only harm US interests, but will risk destabilizing Afghanistan over the long-term

[ghd straighteners]

The simple fact is that the carrot-based approach being used by ISAF in Southern Afghanistan is fundamentally NOT in the tradition of modern counter-insurgency. It even differs in fundamental ways from what the US military and proxy armies did in Iraq. And because of the many limitations on trying to fight a population-centric COIN war I fear that it will fail and will not only harm US interests, but will risk destabilizing Afghanistan over the long-term

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