Building Relationships and Influence in Counterinsurgency: One Officer’s Perspective
Building Relationships and Influence in Counterinsurgency: One Officer’s Perspective
by Eric von Tersch
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It is well understood that to be successful in counterinsurgency, the real goal must be to influence the local population, not just destroy the enemy combatants. It is also clear that non-military elements of power can be as or more efficacious than guns and planes. The difficulty is how to apply those two maxims. More times than not, the application of these two maxims intersect in the position of the apparent host-nation leader, be it at the village, regional, or national level.
The following vignette explains how a U.S. team of advisors managed their relationship with a Provisional Director of Police (PDOP), MG Khalid, in a northern province of Iraq in order to convince the general to move decisively against terrorists and develop his 27,000-man police force so that it had credibility with the Iraqi population.
When the U.S. Infantry Division deployed to Iraq in October 200x, the Division leadership augmented one of its Brigades with a number of additional officers who the brigade commander tasked to develop the capacity of the Iraqi police force. The Army was employing what it termed a Stabilization and Transition Team (STT). That small group of officers, no more than eleven, worked closely with a number of U.S. civilian police advisors hired under a DoD contract, to train and mentor the Iraqi police force. The STT’s focus was primarily on the Provincial-level staff, Provincial-level commander, and the subordinate District commanders, which had responsibility for the 27,000-man police force spread out over an area twice the size of the state of New Jersey.
Download the Full Article: Building Relationships and Influence in Counterinsurgency: One Officer’s Perspective
Eric von Tersch is a retired U.S. Army colonel with service in Army Special Forces and as a Foreign Area officer.
Editor’s Note: The names of most of the Iraqi officers mentioned in the narrative, as well as place names, have been changed since all of the Iraqi officials alluded to are still in positions of authority. Masking the names and locations does not take away from the essential arguments put forward.
