The US in Afghanistan: Follow Sun Tzu rather than Clausewitz to Victory

Dayuhan;

Based on your thinking nothing is ever new—if that is the case then why do we take so long to relearn everything when in fact we should have already known about it.

That is the thinking that a number of people are rasing lately–if in fact evey BCT reserve or active duty has an average of 3-5 rotations in Iraq or Afghanistan and or in both then they should be sleepwalking COIN–but that is not occurring so the idea that one learns from the past is not necessarily correct.

The following is a good example—of what one could call exactly what is predicted to happen in open source warfare and was also predicted to happen in the two recent quantum research projects. But why should we pay attention to this as we have based on your statemments seen this countless times in the past.

While regular readers know all about my lack of advocacy for the HVT campaign, I dont want to read too much into this report. Mujahids account isnt reason enough to abandon the HVT campaign if its working. My claim isnt (and has never been) that we are replacing bad actors with worse actors, or that the SOF operators arent highly qualified and useful warriors, or that it wouldnt be a good thing to have more Taliban commanders dead. My claim has heretofore been that it is a mostly ineffective strategy and misuse of highly skilled operators who should be matrixed to infantry Battalions (as in the Marine Corps, i.e., Force Recon and Scout Sniper).

Nor have I been a proponent of the ridiculous reconciliation program. There is absolutely no point of similarity between the Sons of Iraq program – implemented when the Iraqi insurgents were losing badly – and the supposed Taliban reconciliation program.

However, there is an interesting revelation that comports with a theme I have been following, that is, the increased religious radicalization of the Afghan Taliban given the protracted nature of the campaign and the prolonged exposure to foreign (Arabic) religious influences. The longer this thing draws out, the more we are facing (what was once) a national insurgency that has now become a transnational insurgency.

Think about it long enough and one hears Kilcullen’s footsteps of “conflict ecosystem” getting closer to the truth than many want to accept.

Yes and while one can argue it is nothing new then who else has provided some form of explanation for what is being seen in Iraq, Somalia, Yemen, Afghanistan, in the various “stans’, and to a degree even in China.

Note while waiting for the family to wake up on Christmas morning…

One of the problems with much of the prevailing buzzword-laced shallow analyses of modern insurgency is that it places too much emphasis on the insurgent, and on the undemonstrated hypothesis that today’s insurgents are somehow different. This distracts from more important factors.

For example… the Niger Delta was discussed briefly above. The problem there is not that some 47G super-empowered openly sourced global guerrillas are threatening to shake the foundations of the global oil industry. The problem is that Nigeria has one of the worst governments on the planet, and really bad governments, now as ever, are likely to produce insurgency and likely to be unable to manage it. Any realistic medium-term oil supply assessment has to factor in the likelihood that the Nigerian government will implode, not because the insurgents facing it are exceptional (they aren’t) but because it deserves to implode. The problem isn’t the insurgents, it’s the government.

Similarly, we don’t have problems in Iraq and Afghanistan because of some quantum leap in insurgent capacity, we have them because of old fashioned bad policy decisions on our part.

It’s completely backwards to say that Mexico’s narcotics gangs (insurgency is a stretch) threaten US security. More accurate to say that a completely failed US drug policy has created an existential threat to Mexico’s security. The problem – and the solution – are not in Mexico but in the US.

None of these pictures involves anything really new or revolutionary. We don’t need to “get” 92G warfare or apply the tools of quantum physics to manage them. A little bit of clear thinking would go a long way: as always, we need to know our enemies, know the environment, know ourselves. We need to realistically assess our own capacities, including political will and financial resources. We need to realistically assess the probable outcomes of our actions. We need to stop listening to people who tell us what we want to hear. None of these things are new. We do them all badly. That’s not new either.

Merry Christmas.

Taken from a John Robb interview Jun 2010—that does in fact point to a major shift in theories and I still do not get why the IC has heartburn over open source warfare?

Just how many examples on a daily basis do we need and how many qunatum physics research projects validating the theory do we need to have in order to finally accept the concept?

How often do we need AQ using the same terminology to finally admit the theory is valid?

The new theories of warfare I developed on the blog proved both predictive and very popular. As a result, I spent a lot of time on the speaking circuit in Washington DC (DoD, CIA, NSA, etc.). Of course, since my work was on a blog everyone could read it, even the guerrillas themselves.So, it was a little surprising although not unexpected when I got an e-mail in 2009 from Henry Okah, a leader of MEND (the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta). He invited me to Nigeria and stated that he was an avid reader of my blog.

It was a moment out of history, as if the UK’s General Liddell Hart (the originator of blitzkrieg armored warfare) got a note from Germany’s tank General Heinz Guderian in 1939, thanking him for his work. Here’s why: MEND’s campaign against Shell (the oil company) and the Nigerian government between 2006 and 2008 was a great example of how I thought 21st Century warfare would be fought. The organization structure was loose and organized along the lines of an open source movement. Lots of small autonomous groups joined together to take down the country’s oil infrastructure by targeting vulnerable points in the network (Nigeria is a major global oil exporter). During 2007, they were able to take out one million barrels a day of oil production. This shortfall was the reason oil prices rose to $147 a barrel. Those high prices had a negative global economic impact: the start of a global recession and a spike in default rates in US sub-prime mortgages (due to higher driving and food costs). That spike in sub-prime mortgage default rates radically accelerated the demise of our grossly over leveraged global financial sector, which in turn led to the financial panic of 2008.

In short, MEND’s disruption campaign, yielded tens of trillions of dollars in global economic damage for tens of thousands of dollars spent on making the attacks. That’s a return on investment (ROI) of 1,000,000,000%. How do nation-states survive when an unknown guerrilla group in a remote corner of the world can generate returns on that magnitude? They don’t.

The United States is suffering both the economic decline of its industry and the ongoing dismantling of the social welfare apparatus supporting the citizenry. In your opinion, will this inevitably lead to some form of armed insurgency in America?

Yes. The establishment of a predatory and deeply unstable global economic system – beyond the control of any group of nations – is in the process of gutting developed democracies. Think in terms of the 2008 crisis, over and over again. Most of what we consider normal in the developed world, from the middle class lifestyle to government social safety nets, will be nearly gone in less than a decade. Most developed governments will be in and out of financial insolvency. Democracy, as we knew it, will wither and the nation-state bureaucracy will increasingly become an enforcer for the global bond market and kleptocratic transnational corporations. Think Argentina, Greece, Spain, Iceland, etc. As a result, the legitimacy of the developed democracies will fade and the sense of betrayal will be pervasive (think in terms of the collapse of the Soviet Union). People will begin to shift their loyalties to any local group that can provide for their daily needs. Many of these groups will be crime fueled local insurgencies and militias. In short, the developed democracies will hollow out.

How big of a domestic threat is there from the narco-insurgency in Mexico and the growing power of Latin American gangs in America?

Very big. A threat that dwarfs anything we face in Afghanistan (a useless money pit of a war). It’s not a threat that can be solved by conventional military means, since the problem is that Mexico is a hollow state. Unlike a failed state like Somalia (utter chaos), a hollow state still retains the facade of a nation (borders, bureaucracy, etc.). However, a hollow state doesn’t exert any meaningful control over the countryside. It’s not only that the state can’t do it militarily, they don’t have anything they can offer people. So, instead, control is ceded to local groups that can provide basic levels of opt-in security, minimal services, and jobs via new connections to the global economy – think in terms of La Familia in Michoacana.

The real danger to the US is that not only will these groups expand into the US (they already have), it is that these groups will accelerate the development of similar homegrown groups in the US as our middle class evaporates.

Anon, I’m actually a fan of John Robb’s writing and some of his theories, but the reality is open source warfare in various forms has existed for many years. I developed some interest in the Spanish Civil War which happened in the 1930s after visiting a Salvador Dali museum in Florida where they displayed a few of his paintings about the war.

If people are looking for a parallel to Afghanistan they won’t find one, but this conflict does offer some parallels to the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Although the Spanish Civil conflict was mostly confined to Spain and its territories, it involved the participation and support of many nations, if not most world powers at the time, and non-state actors.

The Nationalists were supported by Germany, Italy and several other nations, and by large businesses and indidivuals who believed in their cause.

The Republicans were supported by the USSR, other countries, the international Marxist movement, and several non-state actors. They even formed an International Brigade for all their foreign fighters. Around 2,000 communists from the U.S. alone joined their ranks, with thousands of others from other nations around the globe. It was a commi jihad.

Furthermore the Republicans and Nationalists were each somewhat loose coalitions of several factions that sometimes cooperated and sometimes not so much, and in addition to the nationalists and Republicans there were other groups in the fray with their own agendas.

One could say it was a complex situation, but I don’t recall anyone back then saying it was more complex than other wars, because back then military professionals understood all conflicts were complex.

This is the core to open source warfare—when will we finally get it?

In March 2010, a Taliban commander admitted that Iran has been training teams of Taliban fighters in small unit tactics. “Our religions and our histories are different, but our target is the same – we both want to kill Americans,” the commander told The Sunday Times, rebutting the common analysis that Shia Iran and Sunni al Qaeda could not cooperate due to ideological differences.

My definition:
Ecology of an Insurgency:

The scientific study of the way that living “organisms” in this case “organism” is defined as an insurgency cell, group, or organization interact with their environment and predators (the counter insurgent).

Ecosystem of an Insurgency:

An insurgent ecosystem is a system whose members (members defined as being either an insurgent group or groups) benefit from each other’s participation via symbiotic (mutually beneficial and self-sustaining) relationships.

The main goal of an insurgency ecosystem is to generate common ventures. It forms when many small and potentially diverse (origin, tribe, religious belief, etc.) insurgent groups join together to fight a common predator (the counter-insurgent or state).

Insurgent ecosystems attract and retain members (groups) due to network effects:

• The benefits of the ecosystem (shared ventures) are so great that groups wont leave it (although temporary departures to avoid targeted pressure from counter-insurgents are possible).
• The ecosystems features (i.e. immediate access to shared resources) make it easy for new groups to form and participate.
• The growth of the ecosystem results in an exponential increase in benefits (i.e. more segmentation and specialization) for all of the member groups. IE Attacks by one group creates opportunities for other groups. The buying of resources (ie small arms, explosives) creates a market for groups to sell into and makes it easier for other groups to get access to the resources.
• An ecosystem can have groups directly fighting each other through direct battles – but it can also have indirect fighting (or competition) between groups for access to resources (people, money, strategy etc).

Once an ecosystem is established in a particular region/area, it becomes very difficult for the counter insurgent to eliminate it. The presence of multiple groups means that the counter insurgent must divide its efforts. Operationally, a focus on one group leaves other groups to operate freely and success against one group yields very little overall benefit. Removing leadership does not mean that the group will cease to exist. The leadership may be replaced by other parts from the same group or other groups. Or a new group will move into the space left open by old group. Strategically, the diversity of the groups in the ecosystem (different reasons for fighting) means that it isnt possible to address a single set of issues or grievances at the national level that would reverse the insurgency (via negotiated settlement, repatriation, etc.).

John Robb’s early writings on open source warfare—have we in fact reached critical mass?

Friday, 24 March 2006
STARTING AN OPEN SOURCE WAR
Open source war is a byproduct of globalization. It different than conventional guerrilla warfare in that the guerrillas don’t have a center of gravity (a unifying ideology). In open source war, the guerrillas aren’t loyal to a single group but rather dozens of different groups, each with their own motivations for fighting. The benefits of this organizational type, once it reaches critical mass, are numerous (and once it is entrenched, it is almost impossible to defeat). The good thing is that it is difficult to initiate, cross the chasm in adoption, and reach critical mass.

“What I’ve learned is that in order to get Karl” by MAC

Or be a Cop. “The use of force to impose your will”(against people or property)CvC definition of War and it is also the definition of a crime, from Robbery to Rape to stealing their stuff. Strategy is nothing but “Criminal Behavior” that is why most people don’t understand it, because most people are not criminals (fortunately). Just my opinion. CvC was the first criminal profiler…(imagianry smiley face icon should go here!)

Back to the topic: Clausewitz is inferior from Boyd’s Pattern of Conflict, slides 41 and 42

Critique
•Clausewitz overemphasized decisive battle and underemphasized strategic maneuver.

•Clausewitz emphasized method and routine at the tactical level.

Clausewitz incorrectly stated: “A center of gravity is always found where the mass is concentrated most densely”–then argued that this is the place where the blows must be aimed and where the decision should be reached. He failed to develop idea of generating many non-cooperative centers of gravity by striking at those vulnerable, yet critical, tendons, connections, and activities that permit a larger system to exist.

•Clausewitz did not see that many non-cooperative, or conflicting, centers of gravity paralyze adversary by denying him the opportunity to operate in a directed fashion, hence they impede vigorous activity and magnify friction.

Likely result

•Operations end in a “bloodbath”–via the well regulated stereotyped tactics and unimaginative battles of attrition suggested by Clausewitz.

Backwards Observer;

Great quote–have to give it some thought though.

Back to the Chinese—they have been involved far deeper than the IC wants us to believe.

Was on the receiving end of Chinese made proximity fuzes w/air burst ability that were clearly not in Saddam’s inventory in 2003 and it was 2005/06 when they rained in on us.

There was the feeling that the fuzes had come from the black market and had been smuggled in but this DoS Cable indicates to me that the Chineses are going head to head indirectly via surrogates and the US government is not so sure how to respond politically to the challenge–nor does it want the public well informed about the indirect/direct challenge.

Anonymous:

Here’s something to consider from “How We Know What Isn’t So: The Fallibility Of Human Reason In Everyday Life” by Thomas Gilovich:

(locations 1466-1467 on kindle for mac)

Anonymous:

As I think you will agree, the problem is today that people don’t read enough into things. As we know from watching television personalities, the important facts are the ones that nobody else can see. If we become adept at divining these, then the conclusions we arrive at don’t matter. The results will speak for themselves.

In fact, having given more thought to the direction you seem to be heading, my hunch is that the massive PLA buildup in Af (see my previous post) is being directed by rogue western intelligence assets who were left one chopstick short of a rice bowl in the last defence reshuffle.

These patriots know that the massive US debt is the real problem weakening our efforts to bring peace to the globe. Initiating a war with the PRC is the only way to gracefully default on this debt. jmpo

Anyone have anything more on this recent report from Aviation Week;

From Aviation Week (courtesy of Tigerhawk):

Chinese advisers are believed to be working with Afghan Taliban groups who are now in combat with NATO forces, prompting concerns that China might become the conduit for shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles, improved communications and additional small arms to the fundamentalist Muslim fighters.

A British military official contends that Chinese specialists have been seen training Taliban fighters in the use of infrared-guided surface-to-air missiles. This is supported by a May 13, 2008, classified U.S. State Department document released by WikiLeaks telling U.S. officials to confront Chinese officials about missile proliferation.

China is developing knock-offs of Russian-designed man-portable air defense missiles (manpads), including the QW-1 and later series models. The QW-1 Vanguard is an all-aspect, 35-lb. launch tube and missile that is reverse-engineered from the U.S. Stinger and the SA-16 Gimlet (9K310 Igla-1). China obtained SA-16s from Unita rebels in then-Zaire who had captured them from Angolan government forces. The 16g missiles have a slant range of 50,000 ft. The QW-1M is a variant that incorporates even more advanced SA-18 Grouse (9K38 Igla) technology.

So far, there has been a curious absence of manpad attacks on NATO aircraft in Afghanistan. One reason is that the Russian equipment still in place is out of date and effectively no longer usable, the British official says. Another may be that the possession of such a weapon is a status symbol, so owners are reluctant to use it. However, the introduction of new manpads could change that equation.

Although there have been no attacks using manpads, “we act as if they exist,” notes the British officer. “We know they are out there,” he says, alluding to the proliferation of increasingly advanced missiles on the black and gray markets.

In fact, NATO officials know they exist, at least in Iraq, according to the classified U.S. State Department document. U.S. officials were instructed to provide the Chinese government with pictures of QW-1 missiles found in Iraq and ask how such missiles were transferred.

it is Left and Right of the Boom if I recall.

Anonymous, ya lost me. That’s what I get for being a Mr. Fancypants. You’re welcome to explain, but whether I’m able to understand your vision is neither here nor there. As slapout’s link to “More Deadly Than War” suggests, you’ll probably get more traction these days talking about John Birch than you will sourcing John Robb. Just my pointless opinion.

Forget it, Anonymous…it’s Chinatown.

slapout9;

This network theory that you just shoot the number 3 guy and the whole network will collapse is crazy….who is it that even thought that up?

Answer—JIEDDO/COIC and the concept of Attack the Network.

slapout9;

You are correct guerrilla warfare is not new even newer forms of terrorism and revolution are not new but if we look at the evolutionary processes then in fact they are totally new.

If we go back to say the 70s and start with the BM German group that split into June 2, through the Red Brigades, through say the Nov 17 Greek group and then focus on the Habash/PFPL, Black Sept on to the PKK they all demonstrated similar organizational techiques and they shared their tactics via newpapers and flyers/handouts distributed at major European universities and they were totally political in nature—jump forward 40 years and yes there are new insurgencies, terrorist groups and malcontents, BUT it is the speed at which they respond and the pressure they can bring to bear either on a major country such as the US/UK France/Germany, a semi failed country ie Yemen/Iraq/Afghanistan or a failed country such as Somalia and it is the speed that they share on their successful TTPs that has us constantly in a reactive mode coupled with the ever evolving IED technology that has us spending billions to counter a 600 USD trigger device coupled with a regenerative power not seen previously in the older guerrilla wars. It has reached a point that in the recent FEDEX/UPS bomb shipments that actually failure of the attack is being viewed as a major success by AQ—which is totally opposite of the older guerrilla wars which were all about winning against the state.

That is indicating to at least me that the current COIN and COIN techniques ie attack the network etc. are failing—ie the recent SOF kill/capture stats for Helmand province can only give the Marines a respite of 4 weeks before the next IED cell is in attack mode–that cannot be explained by older guerrilla experiences thus the need to rethink the causes of what is being seen. I experienced first hand the decimation of VC units in VN only to see them backfilled by NVA—that is not the case currently in Afghanistan or Iraq where regeneration is out of dicontented ranks of hundreds if not thousands of willing supporters all kept in the know via modern technologies.

Therefore the third way is actually upon us since 2004-it is open source warfare and I am sorry but many still think it is a crazy concept. Because to actually purport to support an open discussion on OSW would in fact challenge the core elements of 3-24 and our training for the last five years.

Just wish JIEDDO/DARPA had paid more attention to their BBA responses as the complexity research project was extremely well based and it did in effect answer/validate “open source warfare”. We can laugh at complexity science as a answer to COIN, but in fact Kilcullen openly talked about it in his famous “conflict ecosystem” article from 2004/2005–strange how the world goes around.

“In case it helps understand the scope of this work within physics and beyond: The discussion of how teams of peacekeepers might be deployed, is a conclusion from the model that we developed, and was published in the following peer-reviewed physics journal: “Anomalously slow attrition times for asymmetric populations with internal group dynamics”, Physical Review Letters 103, 148701 (2009); by Zhenyuan Zhao, Juan Camilo Bohorquez, Alex Dixon and Neil F. Johnson. The model and analysis for conflict and terrorism, was published in: “Common ecology quantifies human insurgency”, Nature (December 17, 2009:); by Juan Camilo Bohorquez, Sean Gourley, Alex Dixon, Mike Spagat and Neil Johnson. Mathematical details of the model are given in the publication “Relating the microscopic rules in coalescence-fragmentation models to the cluster-size distribution”, European Physical Journal 72, 289 (2009); Blazej Ruszczycki, Zhenyuan Zhao, Ben Burnett and Neil F. Johnson. Extensions are examined in depth in “Statistical Physics and Modern Human Warfare”, in Mathematical Modeling of Collective Behavior in Socio-Economic and Life Sciences, Eds. Naldi et al., Birkhäuser Boston (2010), DOI: 10.1007/978-0-8176-4946-3_14 p.365; Alex Dixon, Zhenyuan Zhao, Juan Camilo Bohorquez, Russell Denney and Neil Johnson. Finally, the possible spread of influence within this model, is examined in the publication “Effect of social group dynamics on contagion”, Physical Review E 81, 056107 (2010); Zhenyuan Zhao, J. P. Calderón, Chen Xu, Guannan Zhao, Dan Fenn, Didier Sornette, Riley Crane, Pak Ming Hui, and Neil F. Johnson.

Backwards Observer and other commenters on this topic;

I have often talked about the evolutionary development of Salafi insurgencies and pointed to John Robb’s “open source warfare” as an explanation of the evoluntionary speed in their development and then I coupled it to using Kilcullens’ “conflcit ecosystem” as the analysis tool.

I also would often write about a complexity science (quantum physics) research project that was relased about a year ago by the research team around Sean Gourley which if one read thoroughly with their 15 characteristics that they had discovered one would in fact assume that they had indirectly validated “open source warfare”.

Needless to say the SWJ comments were never that positive about either concepts –now comes the interesting aspect.

A formal White Paper was submitted to both JIEDDO and DARPA integrating the quantum research with the “eoclogy of an insurgency” in response to several announced BBAs with absolutely no response—now much to my surprise the following article will in fact show a far deeper interest in the research and talk of the acceptance of power laws which had been discovered in 15 different insurgencies by the Gourley research.

If the article is half way accurate then in fact at least JIEDDO and the University of Maryland now have to honestly admit that the Robb theory of “open source warfare” is both valid and the curve has been truly missed since Robb briefed DoD on the theory between 2004-2006. Even worse that the concepts around Attack the Network may in fact have been totally wrong.

NOW can we get a formal discussion going on this topic as it is the third COIN way forward that I have also written about and it would go a long way towards understanding the staying power of AQI and the Taliban and it would go along way in explaining while COIN has basically failed.

http://www.miller-mccune.com/culture-society/the-physics-of-terror-25955/

Bill M. :

My possibly mistaken impression of the article was that it was written offense a outrance to initiate a discussion on Sun Tzu. Having read your instructive comment, perhaps it was at least partially effective on that score.

As far as your observation, “He would recommend that they really open your eyes and ears so they could hear and see the people as they are, not as we want them to be.” Sometimes it seems that “the people as they are” generally exhibit a profound reluctance to open their eyes and ears. Strangely, this reluctance does not extend to their mouths, or perhaps, as in my case, the typing finger.

Also, the one take in reply to Anonymous above is basically what I’ve gleaned as an interested reader of the gentlemen of SWJ; Mr. White, Clausewitz Guy, et al. Any bumbling misinterpretation, however, is mine alone. Vaya con Dios!

I’d certainly agree that not all insurgents are terrorists, and not all terrorists are insurgents. I’m not sure that this:

activity by insurgents who reach out to deliver a little B**** slap on those external powers perceived as enabling the reign of the government they are rising up against at home

is the only explanation for AQ’s terrorism: there are other agendas on the table, and AQ is by no means simply reacting to US actions. They have a proactive agenda of their own.

Terrorism often comes about when would-be insurgents fail to generate enough popular support to sustain more conventional insurgent methods. Not everyone who objects to what they perceive as bad government can pull together enough support to generate a viable insurgency: Timothy McVeigh in the US, Baader-Meinhof or the Red Brigades in Europe, AQ in Saudi Arabia never drew enough support for their anti-government agenda to approach a threshold that could be classed as insurgency, either because the rest of the population felt reasonably well governed or because the populace did not see the alternative offered by the would-be insurgent as viable.

AQ has been singularly ineffective at leveraging insurgency. They have managed to find shelter and support in friendly countries (Taliban Afghanistan) or in contested areas with no clear governance (rural Yemen, Somalia, the Af-Pak frontier). They have tried, repeatedly, to exploit resentment toward Muslim governments, but it hasn’t worked very well for them. The only narrative that has really worked is that of jihad against the foreign invader in Muslim land, which is why they are so desperate to keep foreigners engaged in Muslim lands.

There is a valid parallel between the Islamists of today and the anarchists of days gone by. Both felt compelled to change government to suit their own views, both found that their own views generally had insufficient popular support to drive actual insurgency. In both cases terrorism – a natural tactic for groups with a committed core but a limited following – was the result.

All things aside, how can you really defeat an insurgency if they have safe haven, as they do in Pakistan? We are trying to break their backs, but we cannot kill our way out of this. Our enemy is attrition, and the muj know this. Its too tribal, the terrain is hell, human as well as environmental.

DAS,

We will have to agree to disagree. I think we have interpreted the Sun Tzu and Clausewitz differently as we certainly have differing view points. There is much more to Clausewitz than force on force attrition but if you persist in viewing Clausewitz from only that perspective it will be difficult for us to have a discussion. I will stand by my argument that the “we-they” that many perpetuate is unhelpful to the study of war and conflict. I would sugggest deeper study of the classics.

DAS:

This should not be an “either-or” debate. Clausewitz and SunTzu have more in common than they have differences (I am convinced that Clausewitz read the French translation of the Sun Tzu).

Remember what Clausewitz and the Sun Tzu were trying to do. He was wrestling with understanding the nature of war and he was trying to help students of war develop military genius. We do not base strategy on Clausewitz. We try to understand and describe the nature of war (and I would say the trinitarian concept does more to explain the entire spectrum of conflcit and war from insurgency to high intensity state on state war).

Likewise the Sun Tzu was not offering a strategy. It was was offering advice and guidance for Generals and “the sovereign”.

As I previously mentioned, Mao based his concepts on Clausewitz (understanding the political nature of conflict) as well as the American Revolution – certainly the greatest insurgency ever conducted.

But to say that any of the people you mention about just follows Clausewtiz or the Sun Tzu or that we should follow one or the other, I think misses the point. Each actor develops strategy based on the desired ends and the capabilities and resources available, developing it in the unique context in which the conflict is taking place, understanding the threats and opportunities that exist. Neither the Sun Tzu nor Clausewtiz offer a template or checklist for strategy but to develop effective strategy both Sun Tzu and Clausewitz (and many other theorists) should be thoroughly studied. The “we-they” “my theorist is better than your theorist” is as counter-productive as the COIN versus CT debate of the Irregular Warfare versus Maneuver Warfare/Conventional War debates.

Anon,

Ok, so you like the “ecosystem” description of a dynamic that is well understood by those of us who study and work in this area. You fail to mention your proposal for actually mitigating the problem of such an ecosystem. Naming a disease is step one in a 100-step process to curing it. I concur that the SOF (a very small slice of highly resourced SOF, btw) efforts to take out key personnel may motivate new recruits as fast as it takes out old ones. Cutting up starfish and throwing them back into the sea, so to speak. Feels good while you do it, the immediate results are objective and satisfying, but in the long run it makes the problem worse.

One must understand WHY the ecosystem exists. What is it about this environment that supports this type of ecosystem? For me, the key to that causation, that essential life support to the ecosystem, is the government itself, its policies and how it emplements those policies upon its populace. I also argue that these insurgent ecosystems exist in low levels in every society; but that it is only when GOVERNMENT causation increases that they grow, not when INSURGENT/UW activity increases. The populace is the medium in which all of this takes place, when the government creates conditions of insurgency in that medium, the ecosystem of insurgency thrives.

First off, to follow Hungadunga Thrice’s comments, the CVC vs. S. Tzu barn dance aside, I also thought it was a thematically bold article.

Anonymous:

Here’s one take on what you seem to be saying: The insurgency is composed of decentralised cells whose relatively limited size allows them to adapt faster and perform more creatively than a large, hierarchical, bureaucratic organisation.

The high adaptive nature of the insurgent cells is enabled by current communications and information sharing technology. These cells are also able to recruit from a large pool of motivated talent on their home ground.

The cells cannot perform decisively, but can raise the pain threshold in ways that have the potential to incapacitate the state apparatus, such as it is. Although nimble, if a cell is identified and targeted by the bureaucracy, it’s more or less done. Problem is the cells regenerate too quickly.

Does that more or less correlate?

Backward Observer:

Third way in simple terms.

While we argue over which version of COIN, which COIN author/researcher/think tank is correct, which version/idea of attack the network is in or out or which link analysis tool to use or social network analysis methodology to use the core issue is and remains exactly what two totally dimetrically opposed individuals have been writing about since 2004—Kilcullen and his “conflict ecosystem” and John Robb with his “open source warfare” theory. Even Mao would approve with his guerrillas swimming in the ocean of the people concept.

What has astounded me since 2005 has been the evolution of insurgency tactics, techniques, and procedures coupled with an evolutionary IED development process that has us playing catch-up since 2003 and to the tune of billions to counter and we still are not ahead of the IED development curve-we are simply playing catchup. Yes the US military has faced a massive IED fight previously in their history ie Vietnam which we seemed to have forgottten about but nowhere has there been any research into the evolutionary process in the development of IEDs in Iraq or Afghanistan. We seemed to have forgotten that IED development is as unlimited as the mind of a human bomb maker can be.

What is different and it is different is the ability of the insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan to resist the killing or capturing of critical nodes ie leaders, bombmakers, financiers, suppliers or for that matter entire cells thus in fact bringing our Attack the network concepts to a plus minus zero in successes and the IEDs still keep coming as do the insurgent attacks.In Iraq we must now be in about the third or fourth leadership generation of AQ and they are still in the fight–we are at about the second headed to the third generation on the Taliban side with no impacts to be seen.

I keep going back to a document discovered in 2006 that was written by the leader of the Islamic are of Iraq indicating IED circuit board/cellphone trigger developments only two months after we were in Baghdad–Mao had made the same developments but maybe 5-8 years into his fight. So we are seeing a evolutionary speed factor of about 4-5 times that of previous historical developments thus the comment that the past is not pointing to reasons why things are happening in the future.

We need to truly relook the Robb “open source warfare” theory as now even AQ has accepted and is using virtually the same terminology as Robb uses and we need to rethink the Kilcullen “conflict ecosystem” as the tool for understanding that “open source warfare”. what is nice is that both concepts are relatively straightforward and easy to explain–tghe singlew hangup is that it challenges current thinking in the COIN community. It is a sign that Robb might haved gotten it right when you enemy adopts the same terms as they feel it fits perfectly to what they are doing—that is not a good development.

So yes there is a third way forward but it requires a strong rethink on our part and a willingness to challenge previous concepts and admit that maybe we fact have gotten it wrong for seven years.

We are now in the process of shifting back to MCO with a little COIN in what many are calling a hybrid model for the future and that is not going to be pretty as the MCO skills have massively been degraded and how to you mix the two when in theory you have not gotten COIN right in the first place.