Do Two Wrongs Make a Right?
As the Arab world continues to heat up, the United States draws down from Iraq, and Afghanistan remains contested, the much needed debate continues on modern counterinsurgency.
by Carl Prine
I worry that one of our brightest scholars is defending an increasingly dubious position, toil made even more annoying by his constant need to pose as a neutral observer in these increasingly shrill debates over COIN, the Iraqi “Surge” and the “strategy” in Afghanistan. And he’s most certainly not.
Prine Is Wrong (Mostly): a Reply to a Critic
by David Ucko
I didn’t care for Prine’s review of this article, but Prine remains a vital voice in the debate on counterinsurgency. His passion in challenging the conventional wisdom and detailed understanding of the topics on which he writes usually provide for breaths of fresh air in a debate too stodgy, insular and self-referential. His wide area of expertise, stretching far beyond Iraq to large parts of sub-Saharan Africa and probably beyond, allows him to draw from a far wider canvas than most others.
See Also
Counterinsurgency Doctrine: In Context
by Frank Hoffman
Counterinsurgency after Afghanistan: A Concept in Crisis
by David Ucko
COIN is Dead: U.S. Army Must Put Strategy Over Tactics
by Gian Gentile
The sad truth is that EVERYBODY is wrong (I happily include myself in that shotgun blast).
Some, however, are more wrong than others.
If, however, I could create just one criterion for admission to the COIN debate arena is that one first demonstrate some fundamental understanding of insurgency. That seems an obvious matter and a simple request, and yet far too many skip mission analysis, pull a doctrinal or historic definition off the shelf, and then dive right in to figuring out and professing how to counter something they don’t yet seem to fully appreciate.
I don’t need people to demonstrate that they are “right” (whatever that means), only that they can talk beyond a handful of questionable cliché’s that are so readily bandied about regarding COIN (sanctuary is ungoverned space, control the populace, separate the insurgent from the populace, etc, etc etc.).
Carl has a brilliant wit that we are all jealous of, yet that does not make him any more right than anyone else.
Some have served many COIN tours, yet that gives them no special insights as to the strategic, fundamental nature of insurgency either. (Hard to appreciate insurgency when one has a grill full of insurgents.)
Studying European efforts to suppress those who dared to challenge the “goodness” of the governments they so generously provided to some “backward” populace is a poor measure as well.
Same for those who take a wholly military perspective and see insurgency as a messy form of war and warfare, where victory comes when the insurgent is defeated, rather than when the reasonable grievances of the populace are addressed.
Insurgency is simple, but to get to that simplicity one has to wade through a great deal of confusing, biased, emotional data. I just wouldn’t put too much stock in any assessment based primarily on any snapshot of effects from the two most recent conflicts that the US has muddled its way into.
I suspect that Bob is right and we’re all wrong, and would add we’re debating the wrong points. First, it is arguable if we were even doing COIN as an occupation force. Second, there were many factors influencing Iraq beyond our efforts, and any attempt to view the situation myopically as our surge and pre-surge as the predominant reasons (action-effect) for the outcome may be misplaced. This reeks of EBO hubris and disregards the major undercurrents taking place within Iraq’s society (influenced by internal factors and externally by us and others).
I think it would be better to focus our studies/critiques on the pre-surge to determine how we managed to pull defeat out of the jaws of victory. The surge was simply a branch plan due to a failed strategy. Personally I think the surge was needed, but the fact that it was needed met we failed. The lessons we need to focus on in my view are what could we have done to avoid a surge? Perhaps not disbanding the Iraqi Army? Avoiding the de-bathication effort? Having a clearer end state for transition (with viable branch plans developed in case plan A failed, which it did)? Perhaps if we didn’t insist on a complete social and political re-engineering of Iraq?
While not popular, I think we need to relook at the irregular warfare concept with a clean slate. We started off by being told IW was a war/conflcit between people and states, and our response would be either stability operations, COIN, UW, CT and FID. This demonstrated a lack of imagination and justified existing rice bowls within DOD, but did little to advance our ability to develop viable strategies to address irregular conflicts. Sun Tzu is often quoted as having said, “tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat, ” and to me it seems this debate on whether to surge or not surge is simply a debate over tactics and misses the strategy altogether.
I recommend taking a few steps back and looking at the conflict more holistically to see what the real lessons are, especially as they may relate to the Arab Spring, which is what Mike F. suggested we posted this blog post.
Mike, I don’t think too many lessons from OEF-A or OIF are relevant to the Arab Spring, since there was nothing resembling an Arab Spring when we invaded Iraq or Afghanistan. Perhaps the one key lesson is “not” to get involved in a major way, because the risk is too high (almost guarunteed) of it becoming another quagmire where we once again are looking for an exit strategy. The fact is we can’t control as much as we would like to, and any control we impose via force (a surge) will be temporary at best and breed resentment. On the other hand we can quietly provide support behind the scenes without taking “ownership” of the situation, and it if it doesn’t work out, then it doesn’t work out (we have many examples throughout history where situations in other foreign nations didn’t turn out to our liking, and the consequences were never as dire as predicted by some). We need to stay away from any option that requires us to spend billions of dollars and employ a large number of conventional forces (then it becomes both a political and media circus and the circus creates it own direction that usually has little with the original objectives) unless it is clearly in our national interests to do so, and in that case, we still need to focus on how to achieve the most expedient transition point. I recommend purging the false lessons of development and social reform from Iraq and Afghanistan. We can assist any nation develop after the conflict (although our track record in peace time development isn’t that stellar either), and they’ll reform themselves over time politically and socially if we stay engaged economically and politically instead of defaulting to our other failed policy of imposing sanctions because we disagree with their behavior (the policy of zero leverage). Of course that approach worked wonders for us in Cuba, Iran and other places, but there may be a better way.
In your view, why would we intervene with military force in the Arab Spring? What would be our objectives? I guess you could argue that NATO support to Libya was successful in toppling Qadafi, but we can’t control what happens next. What happens if the Islamists take over Egypt? All those that claimed the Arab Spring as a defeat for Al Qaeda seem to forget that AQ wanted to remove these regimes and install Islamist governments, so it is too early to make any victory claims at this point. Sometimes the devil you know is better than the one you don’t. Either way it isn’t our fight.