Strategic Development and Irregular Warfare: Lessons from the High Water Mark of Full-Spectrum COIN

Jeff
Good luck on the Crusade
RC

Jeff,

I believe at the outset it is best to agree on a fundamental – otherwise we risk talking past each other. First and foremost IMHO Islam is not the solution, for the simple reason it is not the problem. I don’t know how long you spent working in AF & PAK but if you spent a couple of years or so in both and you believe Islam is central to any problems or solutions, your experience and mine are worlds apart.

IMO most of the problem, and as such any solution, stems from our failure to confront irresponsible governance. I hazard to suggest we agree on that. However where we are most likely to disagree is the location of the nefarious governance that propagates the misery in AF & Iraq.

Despite the abundance of corrupting political constructs in AF and Iraq it is my experience that Machiavellian influences, deeply rooted in the governments of PAK and the KSA, are what drives much of the death & destruction in the region.

Iran’s governing elite is of the same ilk as the pair above but because of their international pariah status since 1979 the more destructive effects of their toxic leadership has been limited to Gaza wherein the Israeli’s RMA/MICkey Mouse approach feeds and sustains the Ayatollah’s UW monster.

Currently we are doing our best to change that and IMO it will only be a matter of time before other nations get to enjoy the same misery the hapless & hopeless Palestinians currently endure.

Oil was always cited as the necessary evil that forced us to indulge the excesses endemic to these autocratic nation states. Unfortunately our dependency, and the vast profit it generates, has created a dominate ruling elite within PAK, KSA & Iran that are universally despised across the entire Muslim world. We are the main providers of their ill-gotten wealth and it should come as no surprise we are as equally despised.

I too fear the effects of the fallout from these nefarious states and agree wholeheartedly the ramifications represent a serious threat to stability in the West and various emerging economies. However I do not believe it is the economic migrants, who are currently fleeing the region in their millions, that represent a threat to the peace and prosperity that we and others currently enjoy.

Fracking appears to offer the means by which we can break the shackles that have bound us to the region since the end of the colonial era. But rather than facilitating the dawn of an era of ME oil free political and economic sobriety, we appear hell-bent on exchanging that costly addiction for nuclear proliferation.

Our efforts to shake off our ME oil dependency and distance ourselves from the region’s toxicity has initiated a political paranoia within the petro-dollar dependent states. PAK technology, KSA money and a Shite persecution complex threatens a nuclear arms-race between sworn enemies that will ramp up with alarming speed and attain megaton status on an unprecedented timeline.

When that happens the governance problems that have plagued the region for more than half a century will be remembered as the sweet nothings of a Shangri-La.
Many folks fail to comprehend how hard-nosed and bloody-minded the decision-makers of these countries can be when it comes to matters they consider to be existential to their hold on political power.

Happily for us a perfect example of this Machiavellian mind-set can be ‘enjoyed’ at:

http:///www.aljazeera.com/programmes/130451504.html.

LTG Durrani’s address to the Oxford Union in April 2015 captured the mind-set of the archetypal General Staff officer found in abundance in the GHQs of Riyadh, Tehran and Islamabad. So convinced of the existential importance of their judgement they consider the death of their fellow citizen’s as a necessary evil – including the massacre of school-children.

If you watch Durrani closely he is completely at ease with the reality of a rogue element within the ranks of Pakistan’s proxy force causing death and destruction in Pakistan. He remained steadfast and argued that the attainment of a strategic objective (removing foreign influences in the region that are not of Pakistani origin) was of more importance than the horrendous consequences for his fellow Pakistanis.

Likewise the loss 15,000 of his own troops was acceptable ’collateral damage’. He essentially was of the opinion that if that’s what it takes to ensure the “world’s sole superpowers got its comeuppance” then the strategy did the world, as well as Pakistan, a favor.

Though he did not say as much, it is not difficult to imagine ( in light of his openly expressed view that Pakistanis who are slain are “collateral damage”) the nature of his sentiments towards the people killed on 9/11 and his attitude to the killing of uniformed US military personnel and their allies since.

From a STAB/DEV POV I would draw your attention to the good General’s attitude to the heroin industry. As you are well aware as a cash crop the growing of heroin is, by considerable margin, the most profitable agrarian industry for unscientific, non-mechanized farming, on infertile soil where there is abundant cheap manual labor.

Durrani allowed his somewhat studied ‘Grand Strategy’ persona to slip somewhat when he expressed his support for the 2 million households that rely on producing heroin paste for a living. He alluded to a moral argument that growing heroin producing poppy was essential for the Afghan population owing to the fact the Western Aid would invariably dry up when the STAB/DEV caravan moved on.

The communal self-destructiveness of the heroin industry bolsters provides a insidious boost to the vestatio objective to create a ungoverned and ungovernable geographical space so as to provide a strategic buffer-zone.

Pakistan and the KSA proxy armies need something to burn to remain effective. The heroin processing refineries are all in Pakistan. The poppy-growing itself flourishes in an environment where governance, electricity, education or mechanization need not exist. Owing to the high value per kilogram of opium paste the transportation by tractor trailer, pack animal or man pack of the paste remains a perfectly profitable logistical option. In other words a narco-army need not concern themselves with ‘collateral damage’ to their own breadbasket when they sow the seeds of despair.

In Iraq the wanton destruction of infrastructure would make less sense but the Gulf States have more than enough capacity to rebuild no matter how much infrastructure was destroyed. Likewise the lives of the Shite populace does not bother them in the slightest. In fact I dare suggest a single light pole or a traffic sign would be assigned a valued higher by the KSA GHQ.

Like I said earlier there are hundreds of serving General Staff officers in Islamabad, Riyadh and Tehran and thousands if you count the retired. They don’t concern themselves with God, Revolution, Resistance, STAB/DEV and the like when they plan Grand Strategy. As Durrani repeated stated the moral dimension is of very little or no use whatsoever. These men are extremely patriotic. Any situation wherein a moral decision to spare a hundred thousand innocents posed a tiny risk to what they adjudged to be a national security risk would be dismissed out of hand as a dereliction of duty.

In a country wherein millions of infants die drinking filthy water every year, and very few foreigners give a damn, you can perhaps appreciate Durrani et.al. intellectual POV that the lives of several thousand foreigners will attract near zero gravitas when the strategic risk of the whole country is question.

You might have noted the indignant tut-tutting of the mostly young audience within the Oxford Union when Durrani made his remarks regards collateral damage and diplomatic duplicity. He paused for a moment and cast the audience with his best General Staff cold fish-eye gaze and retorted:

‘If you can’t ride two horses at once, don’t join the circus.”

We expend enormous resources seeking, understanding and neutralizing psychopaths such as al-Zarqawi, deluded Messiahs such as OBL, Mullah Omar , al Baghdadi and terrorist networks such as Haqqani and LeT. Whereas when it comes to those GHQ Staff who oppose us we appear to accept they reside on another planet and only understand an alien language.

The Pak General Staff have neutralized the much larger Indian Army with MAD, defeated the Soviet Union with a Resistance Army and fought ISAF to a standstill with a UW Proxy (the latter funded by us no less ).

If nothing else this suggests to me they are much smarter than we are.
LTG Durrani is no maverick. He is not atypical. He comes from a General Staff system that embeds an attitude to casualties that has much in common with the General Staff of WW1. We do not frighten them in the slightest and we certainly do not intimidate them.

So what?

We don’t even know the right questions leave alone the right answers. We obsess over religion, legitimacy, governance, revolutionary and resistance energy, education, health etc. and ignore the 800 lb gorilla sitting in the room.
To use a burning orphanage analogy - we busy ourselves trying to feed, clothe, educate the pitiful and the wretched. With that done we busy ourselves repairing the roof, painting the walls, connect the grid, water, mow the grass whilst congratulating ourselves on a job well done.

The Durrani’s of this world duly take note and dispatch someone to kick in the front door, roll a blazing drum of oil down the main hallway and stand back and watch with impunity as it all burns to the ground.

The first thing we should do is get some of our own LTGs to fly to Islamabad, Riyadh and Tehran and ask what we need to do to stop them killing our troops and our allies. I would be very surprised if we did not get an extremely frank and honest answer.

RC

Hi Jeff -

I agree. Serving with you on the governance side at ISAF, I also saw that, while our involvement was important, our goals were too ambitious. We played important roles in keeping the boss up to speed, troubleshooting, and coordinating efforts. However, our efforts were too diffuse to be effective. STAB efforts, whether GOV or DEV, in the COIN context, should be modest, focused, and coordinated with the needs of the local people.

The IC as a whole pushed far too many projects that served their own agendas. The Germans and Japanese seemed to love building facilities, regardless of whether they were needed at that time. Kajaki neglected the reality that we didn't own the grid that it fed. DoS pushed formal governance, instead of effective, responsive local governance. In short, too many of our efforts focused on the desires of the IC or the Karzai government, rather than the needs of the people. (I can't tell you how many times I said, "I don't work for President Karzai. My job here is to work for the people of Afghanistan and ISAF.")

In the future, we should spend the limited resources available to STAB on efforts that respond to the needs of the people and military efforts. If that means jirgas and shuras instead of formal courts, micro hydro instead of big dams, or gravel roads instead of highways, perhaps that's less sexy, but more effective. We spent too much money on foreign contractors for big projects and too little on local employees on small, locally responsive projects. I'm reminded of the hapless project officer in Phil Klay's "Redeployment" who needs funds for a women's health clinic, but can only get funds for teaching Iraqis to play baseball. Fictional, yes, but also remarkably familiar.

Marty

Our author of this thread (Jeff Goodson), below, made the following central observations and posed the following and related important questions:

"A different and more important question, I believe, is the extent to which development can help to sustainably undermine an insurgency that is, at its core, religious. The holy war that the Muslim fanatics are waging against us, for example, seems clearly less susceptible to weakening by traditional socioeconomic development efforts than other non- or less-religious insurgencies may have been in the past. And therein lies the key question and challenge: How best to fight the global holy war that is being waged against us, and how socioeconomic development plays into that strategy."

"To me one of the biggest issues related to irregular warfare doctrine (including COIN doctrine) is the extent to which it is or can ultimately be effective in warfare that is driven by religious or political ideology. In your opinion, to what extent does a fix for this require new military doctrine for, call it say "counter-ideological" (CI) warfare? And in the interim, what is the best strategic approach to dealing with ISIS and other of those "few nation states" that you describe?"

But are we barking up the wrong tree here -- in suggesting that the insurgencies/conflicts that the author is concerned with might be best understood as being, "at their core," religious, related to a "holy war" and/ or re: ideology?"

Might these insurgencies, instead, be seen more correctly as being related to, as per S.P. Huntington, "identity" and "civilization?" In this regard, see the following excerpts from his (Huntington's) famous "Clash of Civilizations:"

"First, differences among civilizations are not only real; they are basic. Civilizations are differentiated from each other by history, language, culture, tradition and, most important, religion. The people of different civilizations have different views on the relations between God and man, the individual and the group, the citizen and the state, parents and children, husband and wife, as well as differing views of the relative importance of rights and responsibilities, liberty and authority, equality and hierarchy. These differences are the product of centuries. They will not soon disappear. They are far more fundamental than differences among political ideologies and political regimes. Differences do not necessarily mean conflict, and conflict does not necessarily mean violence. Over the centuries, however, differences among civilizations have generated the most prolonged and the most violent conflicts." ...

"Third, the processes of economic modernization and social change throughout the world are separating people from longstanding local identities. They also weaken the nation state as a source of identity. In much of the world religion has moved in to fill this gap, often in the form of movements that are labeled "fundamentalist." Such movements are found in Western Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism and Hinduism, as well as in Islam. In most countries and most religions the people active in fundamentalist movements are young, college-educated, middle-class technicians, professionals and business persons. The "unsecularization of the world," George Weigel has remarked, "is one of the dominant social facts of life in the late twentieth century." The revival of religion, "la revanche de Dieu," as Gilles Kepel labeled it, provides a basis for identity and commitment that transcends national boundaries and unites civilizations."

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/1993-06-01/clash-…

Huntington, here, appears to suggest that religion -- much like culture, language and tradition -- are only aspects of (and thus only rallying points for?) conflicts which are to be more-correctly understood as being "civilizational" in nature.

Thus, to consider our author's questions above -- re: IW, COIN, etc., and the viability of socio-economic development in service of same --

a. More from the (holistic?) "civilizational" aspect suggested by Huntington? And

b. Less from the (subordinate part?) aspect of religion, "holy war," and/or ideology -- as posed by our author here?

Jeff, it would be a pleasure to continue this exchange . The issues that surround insurgencies, militant Islam, and our understanding of global development are the great intellectual challenges for our foreign policy and warmaking in this century.

Jeff,

I appreciate adages purported by Sun Tzu and Clausewitz were perhaps not something you factored into your STAB/DEV plans but I was wondering to what extent did you consider the individual motives of those committing violence (Sun Tzu - know your enemy as you know yourself) and the nature (as opposed to the characteristics) of the violence you were immersing your STAB/DEV efforts into (CvC - understand the war that you are getting into). IMHO if you were taking guidance on the nature of these fundamentals from the military, you were on a hiding to nothing.

Ironically because the nature of poverty, illiteracy, poor infrastructure, health, communications etc. is the same across the globe, it is my contention you and your fellow STAB/DEV veterans could have given the military well-grounded advice in sync with Sun Tzu and CvC views of understanding the problem – based on numerous strategic economic, heath and infrastructure successes across nearly every country on the globe spanning many centuries. These peacetime achievements founded on the importance of focusing on the root-cause of chronic societal problems and the futility of resourcing the acute symptoms they exude.

For reasons that escape me the military obsess over two misleading characteristics in the ‘Global War on Terror’ when explaining their failures. One being worship of the supernatural (God) and the other Revolution & Resistance energy (RRE). One has its origins in the intellectual trauma inflicted by the shock of 9/11 and the supposed spirituality of the perpetrators and the other is a cognitive aliment leftover from our defeat in Vietnam.

At every turn, when an explanation for the military’s failures in AF and Iraq is offered, we often hear Islamic this and Muslim that and the insurmountable resolve imbued within those declaring inspiration from a supernatural deity.

There is no better manifestation of this viewpoint than LTG Flynn’s (now safely retired) recent interview on Al Jazeera TV. Flynn decided to act as a Recruiting Sargent for those wishing us harm and made the case for the supernatural. In the Al Jazeera interview he managed to insult the spiritual convictions of the majority of 1.5 billion people who abhor the violence in Iraq and AF. I can’t imagine what benefit he hoped to provide for the innocent men, women and children slaughtered yesterday, today and tomorrow by airing his views on Arab TV but there you have it.

Using a STAB/DEV analogy I would describe LTG Flynn’s diatribe (IMO shared by many of our past and present military leaders) as being akin to the Surgeon General of the US reflecting upon the ‘War on Drugs’ whilst on CBS and declaring that he, the Surgeon General of the US, has been at war for 15 years with the Catholics south of the US/Mexico border and until the Mexican, Colombian, Guatemalan etc. governments deal with the extremist element lingering within the Catholic faith the USG’s costly efforts in the Global War on Drugs will continue to fail.

The point I’m trying to make is any STAB/DEV effort that felt compelled to fit within the sentiments shaped by either of those strategic sentiments is doomed. I imagine as a STAB/DEV veteran the folly of the fictitious Surgeon General’s scenario is painfully obvious but the folly of the other (IMO actually describes the reality) is perhaps not so obvious.

The second trauma inflicted upon the military’s intellect came about with the defeat in Vietnam and it often argued by those folks who are convinced our failures should not be placed upon the altar of indomitable ‘God’ worship but on an indomitable governance problem - ala Vietnam.

The argument goes the lack of responsible governance causes an overwhelming Revolutionary energy that only reasoned political governance can hope to quell. Very few people would disagree with that. Furthermore, and this is where we come in, any foreigner who attempts to bolster a regime who’s governance is so inclined will add Resistance energy to the existing Revolutionary energy and thus throw petrol on the fires of political grievance and as in Vietnam, millions perish in the ensuing shit-storm and we lose. Makes sense to me.

Many folks would suggest that when it comes to explaining our failures the RRE argument provides a more plausible excuse than the supernatural excuse – hence it’s appeal to the more ‘intellectual’ advocate.

In Vietnam we were blinded by the threat of a Communist Domino Effect (for many sound anti-Communist reasons) and failed to recognize the RRE deeply ingrained within the Vietnamese desire for independence. This fierce Vietnamese nationalism was seared into the natives by their ancient hostility towards Chinese imperialism and, to a far lesser degree, their opposition to the succession of French, Japanese, French again and finally US occupation of their homeland.

Our belated realization of this oversight (very incisively captured in McNamara’s strangely emotive ‘Fog of War - 12 lessons’ valedictory) has rendered a whole generation of vain-glorious military thinking that if we are failing once again; it is not because of own lack of understanding of the nature of the conflict, but because we are attempting to overcome the same indomitable RRE that doomed our efforts in Vietnam.

To use ‘When all you have is a hammer, everything becomes a nail’ analogy - oft cited when describing single-mindedness – since 9/11 we have burdened our military (and STAB/DEV folks such as yourself) with a ‘God’ hammer, polished up the ‘RRE’ hammer acquired in Vietnam and inserted them alongside the RMA-MICkey Mouse pile-driver in our strategist’s intellectual tool-kit.

IMO if we are attempting to understand how events came to be in AF and Iraq the foremost and most critical shortcoming we need to accept is the leaders that oppose us are more intelligent than we are. Not in the traditional academic sense perhaps, but in the matters governing an Operational Environment wherein violence dominates the Ways, Means and Ends.

This does not for a moment mean that when political violence dominates the environment, the smart win and the less smart lose. However what it does mean, if we enter such an unforgiving cauldron of violence and we believe ourselves to be smarter - when in fact the opposite is true (as I believe is the case) – we are on a hiding to nothing.

We find this difficult to accept and point out no end of distinguished military qualifications from a host of prestigious institutions and the grade school level intellectualism of our opponents. We seem to give very little weight to the fact that the peoples of the Euphrates and the Punjab have witnessed countless existential wars over thousands of years. We fail to appreciate emerging triumphant after the hostilities cease is an instinctive skill that may not require dusty text books and regimental spit and polish.

Further compounding this notion is the delusion that because our battle-winning hardware is so superior to their hardware, our warfighting philosophy and methodology should likewise be superior.

IMO all of this is compounded by the fact that our predominately WASPish command structure find it difficult to accept brown-skinned people are leading our Good ol’ Boys around the battle ecosystem by the nose
.
At the end of the VN War, and for a few brief years thereafter, it was widely acknowledged by most who had experienced Vietnam at the sharp end, that we had been outthought as well as outfought. Unfortunately the important sentiment that the ‘other’ could be intellectually as well as martially superior has been completely lost.

The trauma inflicted upon our most influential political, industrial and military institutions by the realization that the little yellow-skinned ‘Gook’ had not gone the same way as the little yellow-skinned ‘Jap’ lives on as a bleeding intellectual wound. The effect of the defeat was so profound that rather than learning from this racist curse, the collective mindset of our military intelligentsia was left intellectually stunted. Like a Vietnam Vet who, having miraculously survived his company being overrun, cannot cope with any re-examination of the events that inflicted his PTSD.

The leadership of our brown-skinned opposition is perfectly aware of the stunting effect this trauma exposes in our military application. At every opportunity they highlight God worship, fierce tribalism, ancient codes of honor, archaic traditions etc. so as to pander to the noble savage image our confirmation bias engages when attempt to examine the problem.

Our opposites ensure their charges jump around in sandals, shoot with their eyes closed, wear Viet-Cong chic pajamas, make bombs out of hillbilly explosives and cooking pots and yell exaltations to supernatural beings at every opportunity in a concerted effort to ensure we remain comfortably cocooned, deluded and unguarded.

Thru a hell-yeah RMA-MICkey Mouse lens we dismiss all of these “stone-age” or “16th century” characteristics as the peculiarities of a lesser foe and fail to recognize they are a charade to mask our entry into the Pandora’s Box of Irregular Warfare. So afflicted and assured of our comparative magnificence we boldly march forward into a nightmare.

Strangely, we draw no cautionary lesson from the apparent ‘backwardness’ of our opponents and the historical lessons from the Spartan, Theban, Macedonian, Roman, the Mongol, the Mogul past from wherein the military commanders we eulogize draw much of their inspiration for forward-thinking.

Obviously when you spend 5 trillion and the enemy spends as little as one percent of this amount, it takes more than a few clever folks living in a cave to kick your ass up around your ears. As the long dead ‘leadership’ of the Quetta and Haqqani Network suggests someone else is driving the beast that has consumed so much of our blood and treasure.

But that's another story.

So what the hell has this got to do with STAB/DEV I hear you ask?

If you are not motivated by the supernatural nor RRE but a desire to render a geographical space ungovernable you need to destroy something of value so as to create a sense of hopeless despair amongst the native population.

The Romans called it vastatio, the Normans called it harrying, and the French chevauchee, the Mughals ganimi kava, and Sherman call it a march to the sea (how quaint), Fruitcake blow up 2000 year temples. It is method of subjugation that is as old as time and has nothing whatsoever to do with God nor RRE. All of these operational arts fall within UW – sometimes called hybrid or non-linear warfare - but it is an ancient form of military subjugation whatever the name.

Today this man-made plague is being inflicted upon the natives in eastern AF, eastern Ukraine, western Iraq, and southern Syria and in a cleverly inverted manner the Spratly Islands.

If all you have is a mud brick house and a few mangy goats on some godforsaken mountainside it is difficult for the perpetrator to inflict misery upon such folk who have virtually nothing. Even if the farm is wiped out the rudimentary nature of the dwellings, crops, infrastructure etc. means everything can be rebuilt from the materials within the rubble and the surrounding habitat. At very little expense (but a lot of sweat) those who manage to survive the destruction can rebuild their traditional lifestyles and much goes on as before.

This is where your STAB/DEV efforts change this equation and provide the opportunity for the latter day Horseman of the Apocalypse to destroy people’s political will-power.

If for the first time you have access to clean water system, a small medical center, a school-house, all weather road, 5 ton SWL bridge, power poles, telecom towers etc.it is, as you rightly point out, a genuinely uplifting experience. In places such as AF, the introduction of utilities and services that most westerners take for granted, can initiate an expansive human experience that is liberating and empowering. Unfortunately the creation of this uplifting effect is an essential condition the nefarious harbinger of ganimi kava needs to impact so as to subvert the native population’s will to their political ends.

Once it becomes apparent STAB/DEV has begun to elevate the native population’s aspirations the men of violence need to blow up the shiny new mosque, school, water system, temple, statue, dam , bridge whatever and kill or enslave all of those closely associated with these entities and in so doing bring people hopes crashing down. All of the native population (despite what they may say outwardly) understands this is a disaster. Furthermore, for people who have very little the speed and ease at which the violence can destroy what STAB/DEV may have taken years to bring to a fruition, gives the Taliban, IS whoever an omnipresent aura that is as soul-destroying as it is intimidating for the native population.

Like I said earlier, unlike the strategic success enjoyed world-wide in economics, health and welfare our military has not enjoyed much strategic success since the end of WW2. Whilst your STAB/DEV folks appear to be keeping up your end, the military appear all at sea when it comes to recognizing the nature of their problem.

If the recent confirmation hearings for the JCoS represents a bellwether for the future I believe your STAB/DEV task is not going to get easier any time soon.

Dunford listed Russia, China, Iran, North Korea and IS as the nation states posing the major threats for the future. Despite being responsible for killing thousands of our own troops in the recent past and continuing to kill hundreds of our allies every month neither Pakistan nor the KSA rated a mention.

In summary it is the strategic need for a few nation states to inflict collective despair that drives the violence and not God worship nor RRE. IMO if we fail to recognize this those who wish us harm will continue to ghost straight thru our defenses and destroy all we hope to achieve.

Phew,

RC

In support of my argument below, that "strategic development" has:

a. More to do with fundamentally transforming the state and societies of Afghanistan more along modern western political, economic and social lines,

b. Less to do with providing "basic services" and, thus,

c. More to do with inflaming/enhancing -- rather than quelling/countering -- the insurgency,

Consider this from Page 22 of the 2010 U.S. Dept of State document entitled "Afghanistan-Pakistan Stabilization Strategy:"

"Advancing the Rights of Afghan Women and Girls:"

"Women’s empowerment is inextricably linked to the achievement of our objectives in Afghanistan – including improvements in Afghanistan’s security, economic opportunity, governance, and social development. Afghanistan cannot prosper if half of its citizens are left behind. Consequently, the President’s strategy for Afghanistan includes assistance to women to build their capacity to participate fully in Afghan society. This is a key component of efforts to strengthen Afghan communities against the reach of extremists. Our goals are to help the Afghans:

- Improve the security of women and institutions that serve women;
- Support women’s leadership development in the public, private, and voluntary sectors;
- Promote women’s access to formal and informal justice mechanisms;
- Enforce existing law and Constitutional rights of women;
- Improve women’s and girls’ access to education and healthcare;
- Strengthen and expand economic development opportunities for women, especially in the agriculture sector; and
- Increase women’s political empowerment and participation.

Support for these goals is integrated throughout all U.S. programs in Afghanistan ... "

http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/135728.pdf

Now, consider the following from David Kilcullen's "Counterinsurgency Redux:"

"Politically, in many cases today, the counterinsurgent represents revolutionary change, while the insurgent fights to preserve the status quo of ungoverned spaces, or to repel an occupier — a political relationship opposite to that envisaged in classical counterinsurgency. Pakistan’s campaign in Waziristan since 2003 exemplifies this. The enemy includes al-Qa’ida (AQ) linked extremists and Taliban, but also local tribesmen fighting to preserve their traditional culture against 21st century encroachment.17"

Footnote 17: "Discussion with Mahsud informant, Northwest Frontier Province, June 2006. The informant noted that each Mahsud family has contributed one fighter to the anti-government insurgency in ordero "to protect their traditional ways" while Waziri tribesmen have joined the fight in a less organized but more fanatical manner. These patterns of behavior are highly consistent with the cultural characteristics of these tribes. See Olaf Caroe, The Pathans, St Martin’s Press, London, 1958 pp. 390-413, and Akbar S. Ahmed, Resistance and Control in Pakistan, Revised edition, Routlege, London, 2004 pp. 11-29."

http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/uscoin/counterinsurgency_redux.pdf

So:

a. As per the State Dept document above, does not sound like the provision of "basic services," and

b. As per the Kilcullen document next under, does not sound like "quelling/countering" the insurgency (just the opposite).

A simple question:

But first a proposed foundation:

1. A main cause of insurgency, throughout the world, during the Cold War, I believe, is thought to have been related to:

a. Initiatives undertaken by the Soviets, and/or their affiliates, to radically transform other states and societies, more along communist political, economic and social lines, and to

b. Native disagreement with, and corresponding resistance to, these such radical politico-socio-economic "development" initiatives. And/or to

c. The natives simply not being able to make, and/or adapt to, such radical, rapid and often profane political, economic and social changes as the Soviets, and their affiliates, required.

2. Likewise today, a main cause of insurgency, throughout the world, would seem to be similarly linked to:

a. Our -- and our partners' -- post-Cold War efforts to radically transform outlying states and societies; in our case, more along modern western political, economic and social lines. And to

b. Native disagreement with, and corresponding resistance to, these such politico-socio-economic "development" initiatives. And/or to

c. The natives simply not being able to accommodate, and/or adapt to, such radical, rapid, and often profane state and societal changes as the West today requires.

(In this vein, to understand how a term such as "global insurgency" might have been used to describe the phenomenon of common native resistance to/inability to adapt to Soviet political, economic and social "development" initiatives during the Cold War, and how the term "global insurgency" might be [and, indeed, is?] being used to describe the similar phenomenon of native resistance/inability to adapt that the West faces today and re: its "development" efforts.)

Now to the question:

Given these common insurgency scenarios (in both cases, related to attempts made by a foreign power, to achieve politico-socio-economic "development," in the native land of another; this, properly being seen, then as now, as a/the "root cause" of insurgencies),

Then does it make sense, in these such scenarios, to suggest that, in either the Soviet/the communist case during the Cold War, and/or the United States/the West case today, that pouring more "politico-socio-economic development" fuel -- on the "resistance to politico-socio-economic development" fire -- is a reasonable and intelligent way to (a) gain "legitimacy," (b) enhance one's irregular warfare capability, (c) quell these such insurgencies and/or (d) achieve "stability?"

Note: As further evidence of the commonality of these "resistance to politico-socio-economic development" insurgencies (against the Soviets and its affiliates during the Cold War and against the United States and its partners today), should we note that -- in both cases -- it is (1) the more-conservative (more resistance to change) elements of the native population that are seen to be the foreign power's "natural enemy," and it is (2) the more-loosy/goosy liberal (more conducive to change) elements of the native population that are seen to be the foreign power's "natural ally?"

<blockquote> The Mandate: STAB/Development had three specific mandates:

Integrate socioeconomic development into the military Campaign Plan;
Analyze, facilitate and troubleshoot strategic development projects; and
Provide the best counsel to COMISAF on strategic development issues. </blockquote>

This is the heart and soul of why we suffer with COIN. "Integrate socioeconomic development into the military Campaign Plan" sounds, smells, and feels backwards. Considering that the Campaign Plan was the most important of any of the plans our government had in that country, it might make sense on the face of it. But here's the heart of the COIN problem: socioeconomic stabilization/development is the plan into which a military campaign needs to be integrated. The other way around it becomes a tactical task in support of an operational objective identified in the plan. Or worse, it becomes a disjointed activity pot where money is spent and things are done, but in retrospect no one would be able to explain why any of it was done except that it seemed like a good idea at the time because reasons. It is a fundamental failure of our planning process that considers the act of governance in an occupation/counterinsurgency a supporting activity to the fight.

What this means is that the STAB/Dev (which I am familiar with only through this article) looks a lot like a special staff on civil affairs with a GO in charge and therefore having weight. Some success is to be expected with resources and rank. The question is in if that success is meaningful to the strategic purpose being pursued. A hampster in a wheel is always successful when success is measured by time spent spinning.

It is not a critique of the organization, which seems to have been created with an explicit purpose and served that purpose well. It is a critique of the purpose it self. COIN as we have imagined it is industrial scale community policing with its centers of gravity, communal grievances, cultural understandings and what not. All of that is important in community policing to gaining short term trust, which would lead to rooting out of enemy elements. But the socioeconomic element is none of those. It is the foundational engine of a society's daily life and in the same way NYPD doesn't go around funding small business dev as part of their community policing plan, a military conducting COIN per US doctrine shouldn't either. It is utterly pointless except as a bribe for short term good will.

All that to say that money, time, and political will are problems with everything always. But fixing any of them would do nothing for COIN or our campaign plans as they are ill conceived from the start.

Questions:

Scenario:

An event (such as 9/11) provides us with both an opportunity -- and a perceived need -- to transform certain outlying states and societies more along modern western political, economic and social lines. I.E., to "develop" these outlying states and societies as per our 21st Century Global Development goals. http://fas.org/irp/offdocs/ppd/global-dev.pdf

"Development is thus indispensable in the forward defense of America’s interests in a world shaped by growing economic integration and fragmenting political power; by the rise of emerging powers and the persistent weakness of fragile states; by the potential of globalization and risks from transnational threats; and by the challenges of hunger, poverty, disease, and global climate change. The successful pursuit of development is essential to advancing our national security objectives: security, prosperity, respect for universal values, and a just and sustainable international order."

The government and the populations within these outlying states and societies, however, have no great desire for, no great inclination re: and/or no general ability to achieve such transformations/ developments as we seek to facilitate. Quite the opposite.

Given this scenario, then:

a. What role does warfare (irregular or other) play? And

b. What role does "development" play?

c. Which is master? And

d. Which is slave?

As a proposed answer to these questions, and re: this particular scenario, let me suggest that:

a. "Warfare" (slave?) must be used to (1) bring down and hold at bay the opposing regime and to, likewise, (2) bring down and hold at bay the opposing populations. This, so that

b. "Development" (master?) -- over many, many years -- may be forced upon these folks.

Thus, in the scenario outlined above, can we say that "development" -- imposed via "warfare" (irregular or other) -- should be considered, for example, as being "strategic" or, rather, as "anti-strategic?"

This, given the fact that "development," imposed in this manner, is likely to provide us with more (worldwide?) enemies than friends?

And still today there are the issues with stability doctrine.

In particular the underlying conceptualization and assessment tachniques.

https://www.academia.edu/8322142/POLISHING_COINs

Take care.

Joe C.

From the conclusion:
QUOTE: There are, however, three inherent limitations that will always work against COIN: time, money, and political will. What is needed going forward is a refined “COIN light” approach that can better target specific elements on the critical path to defeating insurgencies that are of lesser scope and magnitude than the one in Afghanistan. END QUOTE

I do not think that money was a problem in Afghanistan and Iraq. I think we were spending it as fast as we could print it.

I think "COIN light" should come under the rubric of FID of which development is also a part of because traditionally in FID the USG (military and civilian agencies) support the host nation's internal develop and defense plans (now just called "action plans" in the doctrine so I think people forget about internal defense and development and think FID simply means training defense forces).