'Bloodline' Author On The Failures Of U.S. Counter-Insurgency Strategy
As troops close in on Mosul, Rachel Martin of NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday talks with former White House counter-insurgency adviser David Kilcullen. He describes how techniques failed to secure lasting peace in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Comments
Re: our counterinsurgency failures in Afghanistan and Iraq, consider the following from the first and second paragraphs of Sir Adam Roberts' "Transformative Military Occupations: Applying the Laws of War and Human Rights:"
BEGIN QUOTE
Within the existing framework of international law, is it legitimate for an occupying power, in the name of creating the conditions for a more democratic and peaceful state, to introduce fundamental changes in the constitutional, social, economic, and legal order within an occupied territory? ...
These questions have arisen in various conflicts and occupations since 1945 -- including the tragic situation in Iraq since the United States–led invasion of March–April 2003. They have arisen because of the cautious, even restrictive assumption in the laws of war (also called international humanitarian law or, traditionally, jus in bello) that occupying powers should respect the existing laws and economic arrangements within the occupied territory, and should therefore, by implication, make as few changes as possible.
END QUOTE
https://weblearn.ox.ac.uk/access/content/user/1044/ajil_-_roberts_on_tr…
Thus, if post-conflict "stability" is one's goal (and, thus, a short, sweet and successful counterinsurgency--if one is even needed in these circumstances), then one should follow the "make no fundamental political, economic, social and/or value changes" law/guidance -- of jus in bello -- as articulated in the second quoted paragraph above?
If, however, radical, fundamental, comprehensive and complete political, economic, social and value "transformation" of a targeted state and its societies -- this, along a foreign state and society's often alien and profane political, economic, social and value lines -- if this is one's goal (and, thus, [a] a violation of jus in bello and, thus, [b] an unending and failed counterinsurgencies as a result thereof?), then one should attempt the massive (and massively unwanted/massively disruptive?) "transformative" tasks discussed in the first quoted paragraph above?
Bottom Line:
The basis for the failures of our counterinsurgency attempts in Iraq and Afghanistan was/is that same were/are based on a violation of the logic of jus in bello; as outlined in the second quoted paragraph above.