COIN - What exactly went wrong then?

[Elmo]

This is an excerpt from David Kilcullen’s book The Accidental Guerilla. It is from the chapter 4 titled "TERRAIN, TRIBES AND TERRORISTS: PAKISTAN, 2006-2008" and relates the operations being conducted in the tribal agencies. Long but interesting...


Weaknesses in the Army’s Counterinsurgency Approach


Why did the Army do so poorly against the insurgents? Based on field assessments with the Pakistani Army in 2006, and on my reading of media and unclassified analytical reporting since then, I believe there are nine key reasons.

First, Army operations have been enemy-focused, aimed at hunting down and killing or capturing key enemy personnel (“High Value Targets”, HVTs), and at attacking armed insurgents in the field. Army and Frontier Corps operations are focused on insurgent fighters, and aimed at eliminating HVTs and insurgent units. Protecting and winning over the population are strictly secondary to the aim of destroying the insurgents. This is contrary to best-practice counterinsurgency which, as we have seen, is to focus on the population — an approach that, counter-intuitively, has been shown to produce quicker, more effective results than targeting insurgents directly.

Secondly, operations have tended to be large-scale, multi-unit activities. Contrary to best practice, most Army and Frontier Corps operations are at least battalion-size, with the majority of operations being conducted at Brigade level or higher. There has been little attempt at small-unit operations (i.e. company-size and below), local patrolling or presence operations to dominate population centers and the countryside. Instead, more attention has been given to large-scale sweeps.

A third key reason is that, again contrary to best practice, the majority of Pakistan Army and FC units are deployed in static garrison, checkpoint or asset protection tasks. This is exacerbated by a lack of appropriate mobility assets—there is a particular shortage of helicopters and mine-protected vehicles proof against improvised explosive devices (IEDs). Typically, units are deployed in Forward Operating Bases (FOBs) of half-battalion to battalion size, or larger Brigade garrison positions. They adopt a defensive posture, rarely leaving their positions. This leaves few troops available for operational reserves (although some local quick-reaction forces (QRFs) are maintained), meaning that Pakistani forces cannot flexibly deploy troops to deal with insurgent activity (as commanders acknowledge).

Fourth, this has contributed to an overextension of military forces. The lack of reserves and the pattern of large-scale static deployment indicates that the Pakistani Army is especially over-extended—units lack flexibility, have little maneuver room and are forced to rely on kinetic strike (using aircraft and artillery) to react to incidents or deny areas to insurgents. Simultaneously the Frontier Corps has been forced to concentrate troops in high-threat areas, leaving other parts of the FATA unsecured. Several incidences of over-reliance on kinetic means, driven by lack of available manpower, were highlighted in media reporting in 2006, as well as in discussions with field personnel. For example, on 5 June, 2006 a Frontier Corps convoy was ambushed several miles outside Miranshah using a rocket attack and possible IED, the insurgents disappearing after the attack. Two Frontier Corps soldiers were killed in the ambush; the Pakistani Army response was to engage built-up areas in the town of Miranshah with heavy artillery fire, destroying several hotels, markets and houses and killing several civilians in the process. No ground-based follow-up was mounted: the response was primarily kinetic suppression (or retaliation) leading to alienation of the population. Again, this is contrary to counterinsurgency best-practice and is evidence of the tactically precarious position in which the Army finds itself.

Fifth, indeed, the overall pattern of operations is highly kinetic. Because the Pakistani Army has little maneuver reserve except its Special Services Group (SSG) — a “black” Special Operations Force unit trained in Direct Action (DA) – ie, strike operations, rather than Unconventional Warfare (UW) tasks involving close cooperation with the population —it tends to mount kinetic punitive raids in response to information or in reaction to incidents. The Chingai incident of October 2006, discussed above, is a good example of this. But because there is little small-unit patrolling or local presence, such information is often wrong, resulting in collateral damage and civilian casualties that alienate the population. Significant effort is going into medical civic action (MEDCAP), school construction, road-building and health extension , but the “hearts and minds” benefits of these activities are continually undermined by the resentment created by this kinetic focus.

A sixth problem is the discounting, by regular officers the Pakistani Army, of local assets including Frontier Corps, levies and khassadars. Partly this attitude arises from the Army’s kinetic approach, which leads some Army officers to judge local forces as lacking capability due to their limited firepower and mobility. Regular officers have also sometimes tended to discount the value of local knowledge, cultural understanding, and local contacts. Indeed, these characteristics make some regular officers doubt the loyalty of local forces. While this could be ameliorated by training, regular officers have tended to exclude Frontier Corps commanders from planning and maneuver operations, leaving them to static guard duties.

A seventh key problem is lack of helicopters. Only 19 trooplift helicopters were forward-deployed in the FATA in 2006, leaving only about 12 available at any one time due to maintenance requirements. This represents a company-size airlift capability — sufficient to respond to a small-scale insurgent incident but insufficient for extended or large-scale operations. This means that helicopter lift (essential in mountainous terrain with a limited road network, such as the FATA) is limited to SSG raids, because the helicopter base is collocated with the SSG FOB. The traditional mountain warfare security techniques of “crowning the heights”, picqueting routes, and area surveillance become extremely difficult without helicopters, and are therefore rarely done, though these are recognized as essential tactics in mountain warfare against insurgents.

The lack of mine-protected or IED-proof vehicles (especially in FC units) makes convoy movement difficult and dangerous, and is another major problem for Pakistani military operations. Vehicles are frequently attacked by IEDs, and the response is usually to spray the surrounding area with “suppressive” (i.e. untargeted) fire. This tendency is exacerbated because most IED attacks cause casualties, due to the lack of protected vehicles — thus troops are angry and frightened, leading to a harsher attitude to the local population and increased alienation due to over-reaction to IED attacks.

A final, perhaps counterintuitive problem that has hampered the Army’s performance is a desire to copy United States methods. Army and Frontier Corps leaders I dealt with frequently expressed a desire to copy U.S. methods as used in Afghanistan and Iraq. They characterized these as “sting” operations, but seemed to be describing pre-planned air assault raids, based on intelligence, rather than patrol-based area dominance and population security operations. Army leaders argued that such operations would be better as they would “remove forces from contact with the people, decrease resentment and allow a focus on HVTs” . This was worrying for several reasons: U.S. methods, as described in previous chapters, rely on extremely sophisticated surveillance, intelligence, targeting and mobility systems — none of which Pakistan has or is likely to acquire; U.S. methods such as these actually proved counterproductive in Iraq and Afghanistan, and as described in previous chapters the U.S. itself has moved away from them towards a small team presence-based approach. Pakistani officers also seemed motivated in part by the prestige involved in technologically-advanced operations rather than by their effectiveness in countering the local insurgency; and given Pakistan’s strategic focus on India, such capabilities were often more likely to be applied to eastern frontier operations than to current operations in the FATA.

Implications

Based on the above, it is clear that the campaign in Pakistan, since well before 9/11 but even more so since then, is a relatively classic example of the accidental guerrilla syndrome. AQ and other extremists moved into an already disrupted social framework in the FATA during and after the Soviet-Afghan war, infecting an existing problem of poor governance and societal weakness. The contagion effect from their presence (most obviously the 9/11 attacks themselves) brought a western-prompted intervention by the Pakistan Army into the FATA. The use of heavy-handed, overly kinetic tactics by troops who were mainly lowland Punjabis, culturally foreign to the area where they were operating, contributed to a societal auto-immune rejection response. The tribes coalesced and rose up to drive out the intrusion, resulting in the perpetuation of destructive patterns of what Akbar Ahmed called “resistance and control” on the frontier, and undermining the established, if loose, local governance system. Pumping additional assistance to Pakistan, without a fundamental rethink of political strategy, is therefore likely to be highly counterproductive in the long run.

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So how much of Kilcullen's assessment is on-the-spot?

 

[waraich66]

I dont agree with this analysis ,US army has all these advantages but failed to control in Afghanistan,PA can only be sucessfull in FATA and SWAT if local tribes are in favour of army operation.

Yes our army need more sofisticated weapons but still it has capability to defeat talaban and perform better then US and NATO forces.

 

[muse]

Fudamentalist


I don't think Nadja is suggesting the talib cannot be defeated, rather it's an examination of operation in the 2006 frame and whether these were successful - clearly they were not.

What do you make of the point that the poor governance (to the degree it existed) and weak sociketal framework, FATA ideal for AQ -- I think it's clear that insurgents will only go into those areas in which the state has abdicated it's responsibility or is extraordinarily inept.

Insurgents will also seek to exploit what may be called "root causes" that engender alienation of a local population from the state -- one of the implications has to be, in my opinion that the Tribal agencies have ceased to offer any advantage to the state and are a liability.

If counter insurgency is about winning the populace, the Pakistani state would do well to stop the kinds of behaviours that help the state fail and for the citizenry to consider how they state was ever allowed to fail it's own citizenry. Criticism #1 is absolutley spot on, in my opinion. On the other hand; physical elimination of the insurgent is a necessity, ask the Lankan.

If local politics is the path to success, why did it take the pakistani state so long to react to the insurgency - after all we knew that the insurgency was coerseing the local population and assasinating the tribal Maleks, basically ursuping authority and the state did nothing about it (neither did the army).

Criticism #5 - Small unit patrolling was not employed because it could not be employed - the enemy was not found in small units - we have already seen what happens to small units in the presence of large enemy units.

By the way, what about criticism number 6 - does Kilcullen have that right? I don't think so, particularly given the kind of adversay the Talib insurgency is and that it is highly reliant on kinetic operations, it has no operative who are not highly skilled with weapons of all sorts.

 

[muse]

To understand insurgency, read Mao

Many on the forum, especially some who post with regard to the islamist insurgency in Pakistan, may not understand what insurgency is and perhaps mods will provide for a seperate thread to understand insurgency and counter insurgency:

BTW : read anything from Thomas Barnett


Patterns of insurgency and counterinsurgency
Military Review , July-August, 2005 by John A. Lynn

WHETHER OR NOT we welcome the prospect, counterinsurgency operations are in our future. Statebuilding and counterinsurgency are primary tasks for U.S. Armed Forces. As U.S. Marine Corps General Anthony Zinni has noted, "[M]ilitary conflict has changed and we have been reluctant to recognize it. Defeating nation-state forces in conventional battle is not the task for the 21st century. Odd missions to defeat transnational threats or rebuild nations are the order of the day, but we haven't yet adapted." (1) For Zinni, state-building, peacekeeping, and counterinsurgency are not military operations other than war; they are war.

In The Pentagon's New Map, Thomas Barnett argues that to extinguish terrorism we must integrate the entire world into the global economy and thus give everyone a stake in it, which amounts to saying that if the terrorists are on the train they will not want to blow up the tracks. (2) Barnett adds that when incentives fail in a quest for the greater good, we might have to force reluctant regimes to get on board. This would require maneuver forces to execute a coerced regime change, followed by statebuilding to create stability and security in the face of some level of insurgency.

As we anticipate future insurgencies, we gain by examining past examples. Enter the military historian. The past does not supply us with rules, but it does alert us to important issues and dynamics. The past can never substitute for knowledge of the current challenge, but it can help us interpret that challenge.

Basic Model of Insurgency/ Counterinsurgency

The historical model of insurgency and counterinsurgency present in this article is an attempt to make sense of insurgent warfare during the second half of the 20th century to understand threats arising in the 21st. During the Cold War, an insurgency's "home" was usually a country, but an insurgency could also arise within a subdivision of a country. By contrast, an insurgency today is more likely to cross borders, particularly those drawn without respect to ethnic, cultural, or religious realities. The model represents home as a box defined by geographic, ethnic, economic, social, cultural, and religious characteristics. Inside the box are governments, counterinsurgent forces, insurgent leaders, insurgent forces, and the general population, which is made up of three groups: those committed to the insurgents, those committed to the counterinsurgents, and those who simply wish to get on with their lives. Often, but not always, states or groups that aid one side or the other are outside the box. Outside-the-box intervention has dynamics of its own.

In past anticolonial, nationalist, and Marxist "wars of liberation," the ruling government and its insurgent adversaries fought over the crucial, complex issue of legitimacy; that is, which government is thought to be the rightful authority. Governments claim legitimacy based on history, ideology, culture, economics, force--and, at times, political representation. Before the decline of the Soviet Union, Marxist, nationalist, or in the case of Afghanistan, religious ideology buttressed the insurgency's claims to legitimacy, but specific grievances against the ruling regime usually supplied the most compelling arguments for the claim to legitimacy. In any struggle for allegiances, the ruling regime might not be able to co-opt the insurgency's ideology, but it might be able to challenge its claims to legitimacy by addressing and resolving grievances.

However, while instituting reform implies well-meaning progress, reform was, and is, a two-edged sword. When a relatively secure government inaugurates timely reform, it proves its good will and adds to its legitimacy, but hastily improvised reform can be read as evidence of weakness, a last-ditch effort to hold on to power. When an outside power dictates reform, as in Vietnam, reform is often seen as subservience to an alien force and alien principles. Reform to change the box and eliminate grievances does not automatically erode support for an insurgency; it depends on the circumstances. Moreover, reform does not simply take place inside the box; it changes the box itself, often with unknown consequences.

Historically, the critical test of legitimacy is the ability of one side or the other to guarantee the security of the population. To understand this, we must consider the nature of popular support. Those who rely on the government defend its claims of legitimacy. They might have more high-minded reasons for supporting the ruling regime, or they might simply benefit from the status quo in a purely material sense, as a wealthy class of landowners, for example.

On the other end of the spectrum are those strongly committed to the insurgents. This segment of the population denies the legitimacy of the government and accepts that of the insurgents. An insurgency's existence implies a base of popular support that actively aids or at least tolerates the insurgents. Mao Tse-tung spoke of guerrillas as fish in the sea, a metaphor that suggests a great sea of support exists and that fish cannot survive outside it.

The necessity for a base of support always shapes the actions of both insurgents and counterinsurgents. Between the committed segments of the population lies the majority, which is essentially neutral in the partisan struggle. The contesting party--whether government or rebel--that best guarantees security wins the majority's support, however grudging. Here the government's task is more difficult than the insurgents'. The government must demonstrate that it can fight the insurgents effectively while also protecting the population. Insurgents only have to demonstrate they can best protect a population or, far easier, inflict enough mayhem and destruction to demonstrate that the existing authorities cannot. Insurgents can exert leverage by convincing a population that peace will return only if the insurgents gain what they demand. Insurgents can be effective by destruction, and it is always easier to destroy than to create. It requires the genius of a Leonardo Da Vinci to paint a portrait of Mona Lisa, but it only takes the malevolence of a maniac with a boxcutter to rip it to shreds.

Violence is central to war. Insurgents attack government institutions and personnel, counterinsurgent troops, and the progovernment population. Government institutions under attack include administrative offices and agents as well as economic and political infrastructure. Counterinsurgents respond by attacking insurgent leaders (perhaps already formed into a shadow government), insurgent forces, and their committed supporters. But while violence is central, we must make an important distinction between the kinds of violence involved.

In his classic War in the Shadows, Robert Asprey differentiates between what he calls quantitative violence and qualitative violence. (3) Quantitative violence is essentially indiscriminate. We can measure it in quantitative terms, for example, by the number of rounds fired, tons of bombs dropped, or bodies counted. By contrast, qualitative violence discriminates; it targets only particular victims in such a way as to minimize collateral damage while maximizing political effect. In conventional war, troops taking fire from a village would be likely to call in an air strike, but insurgents faced with the same situation would be more apt to target village leaders and kill them, but in such a way as to leave a lasting impression of terror. To put it bluntly, in quantitative violence, how many you kill matters; in qualitative violence, who you kill matters.

Quantitative violence is appropriate against insurgents organized and equipped for conventional war. But, more often, counterinsurgency works best when it identifies an enemy and concentrates only on him. The use of violence leaves a deadly residue. Those who are harmed or whose family and friends have been victimized do not embrace the perpetrators of violence but harbor hatred and seek retribution against them. Killing large numbers of insurgents might not weaken the enemy but simply gain him new adherents.

Insurgents and counterinsurgents vie for the allegiance of a people, but an intervening power does well simply to gain willing compliance with its policy. To speak of winning hearts and minds is probably misleading. The words seem to place kindness and ideology first, but acts of kindness are not a particularly good fit for vigilant armed warriors. Winning people over to new beliefs is at best a long process and a notably difficult task for outside forces coming from different cultures and speaking different languages. But if the model here is correct, providing security goes a long way toward earning allegiance and compliance.

The use of force can provide security, but only when applied with care. Counterinsurgents have to pursue, capture, or kill the bad guys, but poorly conceived attacks that victimize a neutral population undermine security. Restraint--not hurting the wrong people---is the key to success, but restraint is inimical to the warrior spirit. A better word is "focus" (violence aimed at the proper target and striking only it), using sniper fire, for example, not an artillery barrage.

Ruthlessness against a known foe must not be indiscriminate or misdirected, and focused ruthlessness requires bravery. In reserving violence for known adversaries, one becomes vulnerable to enemies who hide in the crowd. The mission to defeat the insurgency has to come before the desire to protect oneself against any possible threat.
Telling friend from foe requires good intelligence. Insurgents depend on information furnished by their own activities, by the proinsurgent population, and by that portion of the neutral population under their influence. Conversely, counterinsurgents depend on intelligence from their own efforts, from the progovernment segment of the population, and from those who believe their security is best served by the counterinsurgents. Intelligence has always been indispensable to successful counterinsurgency operations, and it has always been far easier for insurgents to spot government agents than for counterinsurgents to locate insurgents immersed in the sea of the population.

While not all acts of terrorism qualify as acts of war, terrorism, like war, is violence intended to achieve a political result. Insurgents often employ terrorist tactics as a form of discriminate violence. In fact, the difference between insurgency and terrorism is not so much in the character of the violence used as in its frequency and scale. Terrorists typically work in small cells, or even alone. Guerrillas, being more numerous and enjoying wider support, strike with greater frequency and employ a wider range of tactics than do terrorists. Mao spoke of three phases of an armed straggle: guerrilla war; the coordination of guerrilla and limited main force units in a more intense struggle; and ultimately, conventional warfare. To these we might add a fourth---terrorism--when it is the initial phase of an armed struggle prior to having enough support to mount a guerrilla war. (4)

During the Cold War, outside powers complicated the dynamics of insurgency because outside supporters viewed such conflicts as limited war in Clausewitzian terms. (5) Although victory promised advantages, defeat did not threaten the existence of the outside state; this was not a struggle for survival, even if the war was total, unlimited, and winner-take-all for the adversaries inside the box. Insurgency is a form of asymmetrical warfare not only because opposing sides use different levels of weapons and tactics, but also because they have different levels of commitment.

In the second half of the 20th century, the most effective way to neutralize outside support to counterinsurgents was to turn sentiment in the outside country against the intervention. Support declines when the penalties for withdrawal seem remote and few and the war's expense and loss of life are evident. Many of those who protested the Vietnam War were moved by conscience, but the United States withdrew from Vietnam because of the cost, not the cause. At a certain point, continuing the fight was just not worth it. The same could be said for Soviet withdrawal from the Afghan Civil War.

Outside aid to insurgents is a different matter because those who aid insurgents usually have preferred to send weapons, supplies, money, and other forms of support, rather than to put boots on the ground. In fact, should large foreign forces go into another country to attack its ruling government, that would be an invasion, not an insurgency. It is true that North Vietnam dispatched regular forces to fight in the South in an invasion of sorts, but North Vietnam believed it was fighting a civil war. The critical fact is that the Soviets and the Chinese did not dispatch large numbers of troops. Because outside aid for insurgents is primarily material support, the best way to stop it is by interdicting the flow of equipment, not undermining popular support within the outside power. This fight is more physical than political.

Successful Insurgency

A Cold War insurgency was proof of strong sentiment in opposition to an existing government. Grievances that fueled resistance were widely perceived to be real. Ruling regimes were incapable of alleviating grievances for political, economic, social, or cultural reasons. For example, if economic inequity was the issue, those who held wealth and land supported the government precisely because it maintained their dominance; the government could offer little to the poor and landless without eroding its most important power base. Counterinsurgents faced an uphill battle in defense of a regime with little legitimacy.

If supported by only a small segment of the population, the government and its counterinsurgent forces could be trapped in a self-defeating cycle, a kind of death spiral. To act effectively required intelligence; but the smaller population base cooperating with the government provided only limited intelligence. Lacking intelligence, the government cannot focus its attacks; it conducted large-scale operations, such as sweeps and search-and-destroy missions that were most likely to inflict violence on the general population. As a result, the government eroded the security of its own people and, consequently, its own legitimacy.

When the government acted like an enemy of the population, the population refused to aid the government by furnishing intelligence. Clumsy government assaults against insurgents thus become attacks on its intelligence flow. As a result, the government became even more blind and dependent on the wrong kind of counterinsurgent operations and resorted to illegal actions contrary to its laws and its own people's concept of justice. Arrest without clear cause, imprisonment without trial, torture, and summary executions could produce short-term results, but undermine the government's legitimacy and eventually lead to defeat. For example, French counterinsurgency forces used harsh methods in Algeria, which might have helped in Algeria but eroded support for the war in France. The counterinsurgency most often touted as a success---the defeat of Marxist insurgents in Malaya--adopted as a principle that the government should refrain from disobeying its own laws.

Although brutally repressive dictatorships use terror and torture against their own people and survive by doing so, the United States cannot afford to use such tactics. It is given that whatever U.S. forces do will be subjected to intense media scrutiny: secrets are nearly impossible to keep. Morality should guide us, but even if the cynical might cast it aside, realists would still have to admit that if the United States were to support horribly oppressive regimes, doing so would undercut public support of U.S. foreign policy. During the Cold War, many were willing to overlook our allies' tactics, but even then there were limits. The photograph of a Saigon police official rendering street justice by shooting a suspected Viet Cong in the head became a symbol for war resisters in the United States.

During Cold War insurgencies, support faltered when an outside power's population became sympathetic to the insurgent cause or, more commonly, became alarmed by the high costs of counterinsurgency. Algerians won their independence by outlasting French resolve to compel them to remain within the French orbit. A decade later, Americans turned against involvement in Vietnam in revulsion over mounting casualties in what seemed like an endless war.

The departure of an outside power weakened counterinsurgents by removing forces and material aid. It also gave insurgents momentum, and in war, momentum is worth battalions.

Successful Counterinsurgency

Haunted by failure in Vietnam, Americans often forget that successful counterinsurgencies have occurred, such as the Filipino victory over the Huks (1946-1954) and British success in Malaya (1948-1957). Some say U.S. support of the counterinsurgency in El Salvador during the 1980s was also a victory, but that is debatable. Insurgents might have been held off, but only by providing massive aid to a small, oppressive elite. Those who point to the "Salvador option" as worth following tend to take a cynical view of counterinsurgency. (6) Nonetheless, it is possible to learn lessons from failed efforts, including U.S. involvement in Vietnam.

Ideally, a successful counterinsurgent effort is based not only on effective military action but on real reform by a government that has its people's loyalty. Such reform can alleviate grievances that gave the insurgency legitimacy in the eyes of its supporters, and increased popular support brings increased intelligence, which makes it easier to conduct focused actions against insurgents. This was the case when government forces fighting the Huks increased popular support by increasing the security of the population and conducting counterinsurgency operations in a way that minimized casualties among noncombatants. In both the Filipino and Malayan cases, police and small military unit operations were the rule, not large sledgehammer operations. Military forces learned to act in a way that did not convey the impression that they regarded the general population as enemies. A population that increasingly saw counterinsurgents as providing security was increasingly likely to support them and provide them with vital intelligence.

Focused violence by small numbers of counterinsurgents produced greater rewards with less residue. However, it is debatable whether such a principle justified the use of "murder squads" as in the Phoenix program in Vietnam or in El Salvador. Certainly, an insurgency's leaders are legitimate targets, but for such a policy to be effective, intelligence must be accurate. Sometimes those who identify individuals for attack are simply settling personal scores. In El Salvador, assassination was used to quell legitimate voices of reform, not simply to decapitate the insurgents. In such a case, "focused" action became evidence of authoritarian dictatorship and corruption. And deeper questions existed as well. In a struggle for legitimacy founded on justice, can a government execute its opponents without trial? That was what assassination of insurgent leaders amounted to in El Salvador and Vietnam.

Without undermining their legitimacy, the British effectively weakened the insurgents in Malaya by isolating them from their supporters. This was possible because supporters could be identified as a specific minority--ethnic Chinese working at the plantations. By relocating this population into fortified settlements, the British locked the pro-insurgent population in and the insurgents out, that is, they deprived the fish of the sea. The isolation achieved in Malaya was literal and physical, but in a more figurative sense, counterinsurgents must be able to isolate insurgents from their support base to achieve victory.
For a counterinsurgency to succeed, the majority of the population must eventually come to see insurgents as outsiders, as outlaws. The sea must dry up. When this happened during the Cold War insurgents in decline adopted tactics that only caused the population to resent them. Insurgents became a source of insecurity, not hope. Insurgents needed money, food, and recruits, and if they did not secure them from willing supporters, they extorted them from the unwilling. They changed from noble to ignoble robbers.

 

[muse]

From Smallwars journal -- you may find it interesting



Mao in Mufti?:
Insurgency Theory and the Islamic World
Dr. John W. Jandora

Those readers who recognize the symbolism of the above title may doubt the seriousness of this essay. It is indeed serious, as I will proceed to demonstrate. However, for those who do not recognize the symbolism, my first task is to explain it.

Certainly among older generation Americans, many undoubtedly recall that Mao Zedong was the man who led the Chinese Communists to victory in 1949. Through his position as Party Chairman, he retained a more or less dominant influence in China’s government through 1976. More significantly for this study, Mao was considered to be a practical and theoretical authority in peoples’ wars of liberation – movements to overthrow traditional or colonial-imperialist masters. He converted Karl Marx’s theory of the inevitable revolt of the proletariat (industrial working class) into a strategy for the mobilization of the largely agrarian society of China. Chairman Mao was a source of inspiration for insurgent movements throughout the Third World during the Cold War era (1947-91). The Cold War has ended, but the world community is still beset by peoples’ striving against the established order, and so some see his influence as remaining relevant, albeit in a new milieu.

The difference is one of geographic setting. East Asia’s upheaval has for the most part ended. It has been decades since the Chinese Communists consolidated their control of the mainland, the Malayan Communists were defeated, and the Vietnamese Communists united their own country and disciplined the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. The Communist insurgency in the Philippines has dwindled considerably. The locus of upheaval has apparently shifted westward, with peoples’ struggles enduring in Palestine (Gaza and the West Bank), Afghanistan, and Iraq and recently erupting in northern Yemen and southwestern Pakistan (Baluchistan). It is this geography that evokes the term mufti, which originally alluded to the custom of British officers in Middle East service wearing, on their off-duty time, garb resembling that of a mufti (native authority on Islamic law).

This metaphor raises some serious questions, as the U.S. Government considers the prospect of “staying the course” in its current engagements. Is the resistance activity in Iraq, and secondarily Afghanistan, comparable to the Cold War era insurgencies in East Asia and their “replicas” in other parts of the world? Is the transnational jihadism that originated in the Islamic World comparable to the global subversive activity that was abetted by the Communist International? The answers to those questions largely shape the response to the problems of pacifying Iraq and Afghanistan and winning the war on terrorism.

Among the conflicts in question, there is of course an apparent similarity in the enemies’ strategy, that is, their master plan for victory. Some common axioms are to make the populace a key factor in the arena of conflict, plan for a long war, and engage in all power arenas -- political, economic, and informational, as well as military -- to erode the stronger side’s will to sustain the struggle. There is also similarity of method -- what the military community refers to as “tactics, techniques, and procedures.” Offensive action entails raids and ambushes, hit-and-run and stand-off attacks, and improvised use of weaponry. Protective measures include concealment, blending with the populace, deception, and denial of engagement, compromise, or key assets. Psychological warfare (against non-combatants) involves brutality, intimidation, and disinformation. Sustainment efforts include living “off the land,” smuggling, looting weapons and supplies, and operating secret factories and clinics. (These lists are exemplary, not all inclusive.)

Such observations have rekindled interest in insurgency theory and, by extension, counter-insurgency theory, which is reflected in military-educational, news-journalist, and book-publishing circles. The authors who see analogies between the jihadist and Communist-inspired movements have framed their thoughts in terms of some interesting, albeit contentious, themes. We are engaged in “fourth generation warfare,” which combines the aspects of primitive (first generation) warfare with the practice of Mao. We might consider for Iraq “the Salvador option,” which recalls the Cold War era technique of employing hit/snatch teams against Marxist-inspired insurgent leaders. We face a “global insurgency,” which, in concept, seems to be a substitution of al-Qaeda for Comintern.TP[1]PT Even some who claim uniqueness for conflicts within the Islamic world have modeled them in terms of the three phases of Mao’s protracted popular war – strategic defensive (subversive activity), strategic stalemate (guerrilla warfare), and strategic offensive (war of movement). It would seem that the analogy is compelling, but it should not be. Is there some way to expose the misfit?

The answer to that question takes us into a “fuzzy” area of the international relations discourse – the concept of worldview. SEQ CHAPTER \h \r 1Reference to worldview appears in both textbooks and expository works, yet its meaning and implications are generally taken for granted. Scholars of other disciplines have examined the relations between worldview and philosophy, religion, language, and culture in general. Where precise definition has been attempted, the task is usually undertaken by experts in sociology or anthropology.TP[2]PT Some scholars would argue that worldview is undefinable since its subjective, symbolic nature transcends rationalization. Moreover, the concept does not lend itself to empirical method, and it has to accommodate “counter-culture” and change over time. Despite these caveats, the concept of worldview must be real and meaningful, as it widely occurs in the titles and contexts of myriads of books, scholarly essays, and media articles.

In simple terms, worldview is the intersection of various aspects of man's understanding of his world and life -- as shaped by culture. Worldview is both descriptive and normative; it explains what appears to be as well as what ought to be. The concept is highly complex and involves many cognitive categories. The present task is to focus on those that are most germane to the motivation, legitimation, and measure of victory of some cause – some purposive, collective effort. Hence, I propose the model in the chart below, which includes seven categories and some corollary notions added for clarity. Regarding two terms that may not be self-evident as to meaning, “end state” equals the outcome of the human ordeal, and “agency” is the class of people through which the end-state is achieved. Infusing the categories with the appropriate images creates a basis of comparison/contrast of the mindsets of Communist (Marxist-Maoist) militants vice Islamist militants. Of course, the below scheme is based on abstraction and generalization and does not account for variants among either the Communists or the Islamists. Nonetheless, the two ideals are useful for comparative analysis.



Worldview Notions Communist Islamist

Self-Perception of “We” Workers Muslims
Perception of “They” Capitalists/Exploiters Infidels/Apostates
We/They Relation Necessarily Adversarial Potentially Adversarial
Active Participants All Adults Adult Males Only
Mandate (for Action) Historical Determinism Divine Purpose
True Word Dialectical Materialism Qur’ân
Agency Party Bosses Mujâhidîn
(Spatial) Domain of Adversity Global Global
End State Classless Society Spiritual Salvation
Temporal Precondition Social Justice Social Justice
Orientation Materialist Anti-Materialist


To give more substance to the above notions, it might be helpful to see how some of them are reflected in the words of Mao Zedong and Usama bin Ladin.TP[3]PTP

Active Participants
Mao: “The richest source of power to wage war lies in the mass of the people.”

Usama: “So, then, I urge the (male) youth to think for themselves about jihad, for they are the first of those obliged to pursue it today.”

Agency
Mao: “The secretary of a Party committee must be good at being a ‘squad leader.’”

Usama: “Arab mujâjidîn rose up and left their jobs, universities, families, and tribes to earn the pleasure of God” (in Afghanistan).

End State
Mao: “When human society advances to the point where classes and states are eliminated, there will be no more war.”

Usama: “And life, to which the Qur’an, God, and His Messenger are calling you, should be a life of self respect in this world and victory in the next – a life of jihad for the sake of God Almighty.”

Comparing the primary and corollary notions of the two worldviews reveals the obvious, and perhaps anticipated, dissimilarity: differences with perceptions of we and they; the materialist/non-materialist contrast regarding mandate and end state. Lest some readers be stunned, I should better explain my rendering of the Islamists’ sense of the we/they relation. First, the image for the corollary notion of participant disputes that female suicide bombers (in Palestine) generally act on an Islamist worldview. They more likely respond to Arab codes of honor that enjoin retaliation for harm inflicted on an immediate- or extended-family member. Secondly, the notion of potential (vice inevitable) adversity recalls Qur’anic guidance to seek predominance by peaceful means, unless confronted with force. The caveat is that the Islamists are willing to concede on the necessity for force -- but not on conviction to the true word or the temporal precondition for the end state. The difference with the Communists is that they compromised on the true word, and once they did so, the formula for reaching the end state was negated, as was the necessity of adversarial relations.

The reader will no doubt quickly see the commonality where both worldviews involve a global domain of adversity and attainment of social justice (a fair chance for everyone, not strict equality) as the temporal precondition for the end state. What does this comparison suggest? Awareness that the conflict is global merely clarifies the scope of the challenge. However, the prerequisite of social justice will probably attract the notice of counter-insurgency theorists who see opportunity for an analogous “carrot” versus “stick” approach. The recourse would be the proverbial effort to “win hearts and minds” via aid and development projects. Thus, the analogy would be complete because the “stick” option addresses a very similar set of insurgent “mechanics” -- the strategy and methods mentioned in the first part of this essay. The analogy falters, however, because the apparently common prerequisite of social justice has different implications in each case. The historic fact is that Communism never had much appeal in the Islamic world. Islam itself enjoins social justice -- and tribal code enjoins mutual support among kinsmen.

In contrast with the militant Communist mindset, that of the militant Islamist has an anti-materialistic orientation and a spiritual goal. Thus, an appeal to the “heart and mind” might not suffice because “soul” is a key element of the Islamist worldview construct. Although the patent victory of capitalist-democracy in the Cold War undermined the Communist worldview, that is largely irrelevant in the current conflict with the radical Islamists. Showing a better way to worldly utopia (classless society) hardly counts when the focus is spiritual salvation. But is the focus always spiritual salvation? Perhaps not. Muslims, as any people anywhere, can become pre-occupied with the tasks of making a living. However, when those tasks become too overwhelming, there are many symbols, traditions, institutions, opinion-leaders, and other prompts to remind them that religion offers the best remedy – the true solution. To challenge this “truth” would be very counter-productive. It is nonsense to presume that, since the former Communist societies of Russia and China abandoned Marx’s dialectical materialism, Islamic societies could bypass the Qur’an.

The predominant message of the Qur’an is the imperative of social justice, and Islamic teaching establishes the benchmark for morality and social ethics -- the right conduct of both rulers and ruled. There is presently no secular alternative of any real significance. Thus, the Qur’an, as the true word, is the nucleus of the whole Islamist construct, and that is the key to conflict resolution. The moderate opinion leaders have already pointed out the distortions in the radicals’ use of the scripture. However, much more must be done because the grievances of the radicals are unlikely to vanish. The regional governments face the daunting task of improving technical education, productivity, and income distribution for their respective societies. They might also complement such effort by helping to establish progressive social institutions.TP[4]PT If they ever were to achieve a modicum of social justice, people would probably not need to ask: what is wrong with the world, and what response is enjoined by the Qur’an? Meanwhile, the U.S. might consider as bilateral programs: 1) a developmental assistance campaign that vets, engages, and works through moderate Islamic non-governmental or quasi-governmental organizations, and 2) an information campaign that accommodates the dialectic of Muslim moderates, for example substituting kharijites (translated as deviants in the Arab World’s English press) for Sunni extremists and condemning extremism – not jihad per se. Perhaps the damage of communicating the themes of “clash of civilizations” and “crusades” has already been recognized?

In conclusion, the defeat of Communist insurgency offers no analogous lessons from this comparative worldview analysis. Nor does it do so from the practical perspective of insurgent/counter-insurgent methods. America is not dealing with the same kind of enemy. A fellow Vietnam veteran recently asked why there is no “Charlie in the wire” experience (stealthy, determined assault against an American position) in Iraq. The Viet Cong (“Victor Charlie&#8221 agreed with Mao on the need to concentrate forces for frontal and flanks attacks under certain circumstances. The Iraqi insurgents have yet to follow suit. They probably never will. One reason is that American military technologic advances have made this tactic very risky. Another reason is that the native way of war has for over two thousand years tended to favor stand-off and close-combat avoidance in contrast with the West’s reliance on shock action.TP[5]PT Moreover, the factionalism of Iraqi resistance starkly contrasts with Mao’s concept of a people’s army coming together with a “conscious discipline . . . (to) fight for the interests of the broad masses and of the whole nation.”TP[6]PT We see, for example, Sunni militias, in one instance, contending against the Coalition, in another, fighting other Sunnis who follow Zarqawi, and in yet another, changing alignment. Turning to counter-insurgent methods, the “Salvador option” might make sense for a non-tribal society or for a genuine foreign-fighter dominance. However, in much of the Islamic World it would merely invoke the tribal code of blood-revenge.

So, there is yet more complexity to the insurgency issue -- the mix of radical Islamist, tribal, and partisan (Ba’thists in Iraq) interests. Groups cooperate for the same near term objective, withdrawal of the U.S. and Coalition forces, and tout what seems to be similar jihad lore. Yet they adhere to different principles to legitimate violence, and they pursue different long-term goals. Bringing the conflicts in question to a successful conclusion requires a full understanding of this complexity. One must discern, for example, the alternative means of aggregating power at the macro and micro levels --alliance building vice indoctrination and mobilization of kin-groups vice recruitment of (alienated) individuals. Such understanding should come from situation- and culture-specific analysis, not questionable analogies. Yes, the image of Mao in mufti is absurd.

Dr. Jandora is currently employed as a senior analyst with US Army Special Operations Command. He retired from the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve at the rank of colonel, with active service in the Vietnam and Gulf Wars. He holds a PhD from the University of Chicago, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations. He has resided and worked in Saudi Arabia for several years and has traveled extensively throughout the Near and Middle East.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

TP[1]PT This term is synonymous with the Communist International (organization) that was founded in 1919 (disbanded in 1943) with the aim of revolutionary overthrow of capitalist regimes around the world. Michael Vlahos proposes a more practical concept of “civilizational insurgency,” in “Terror’s Mask: Insurgency Within Islam” (Occasional Paper, Joint Warfare Analysis Department, Applied Physics Laboratory, Johns Hopkins University, May 2002), pp. 4, 6-7, and 27. Although the concept has merit, I disagree with the methodology, especially the analogy with the Reformation in Europe, and the recommendations of the report.

TP[2]PT For some helpful references, see: Michael Kearney, World View (Novato, Calif.: Chandler and Sharp Publishers, 1984), chap. 3; Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays (New York: Basic Books, 1973), chap. 5; and James H. Olthius, “On Worldviews” in Paul A. Marshall et al. (eds.), Stained Glass: Worldviews and Social Science (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1989).

TP[3]PT English translation are found respectively in Quotations from Mao Tse-Tung (Peking: Foreign Language Press, 1966) online version, Mao Tse-Tung Internet Archive 2000; available from TUhttp://www.marxist.org/reference/archive/mao/works/red.bookUT; Internet, Sections 8, 10, and 5 and Messages to the World: the Statements of Osama Bin Ladin ed. Bruce Lawrence, trans. David Howarth (London and New York: Verso, 2005), pp. 205, 147, and 18.

TP[4]PT It might be feasible to create futûwah-like organizations that promote inventiveness and pride of work. I use this term not in its modern but in its medieval sense, which denotes an urban fraternal organization or youth group that follows some code of conduct.

TP[5]PT This thesis is presented in John W. Jandora, “War and Culture: A Neglected Relation,” Armed Forces and Society 25, No. 4 (1999), pp. 541-556.

TP[6]PT Quotations from Chairman Mao, Sect. 9.

 

[muse]

After reviewing the Mao in Mufti piece - examine the video below - whao are good guys, who are the bad guys? what are the grievances? who is addressing the grievances??

Still think you cannot understand what is going on?

 

[waraich66]

To understand insurgency, read Mao

Many on the forum, especially some who post with regard to the islamist insurgency in Pakistan, may not understand what insurgency is and perhaps mods will provide for a seperate thread to understand insurgency and counter insurgency:

BTW : read anything from Thomas Barnett


Patterns of insurgency and counterinsurgency
Military Review , July-August, 2005 by John A. Lynn

WHETHER OR NOT we welcome the prospect, counterinsurgency operations are in our future. Statebuilding and counterinsurgency are primary tasks for U.S. Armed Forces. As U.S. Marine Corps General Anthony Zinni has noted, "[M]ilitary conflict has changed and we have been reluctant to recognize it. Defeating nation-state forces in conventional battle is not the task for the 21st century. Odd missions to defeat transnational threats or rebuild nations are the order of the day, but we haven't yet adapted." (1) For Zinni, state-building, peacekeeping, and counterinsurgency are not military operations other than war; they are war.

In The Pentagon's New Map, Thomas Barnett argues that to extinguish terrorism we must integrate the entire world into the global economy and thus give everyone a stake in it, which amounts to saying that if the terrorists are on the train they will not want to blow up the tracks. (2) Barnett adds that when incentives fail in a quest for the greater good, we might have to force reluctant regimes to get on board. This would require maneuver forces to execute a coerced regime change, followed by statebuilding to create stability and security in the face of some level of insurgency.

As we anticipate future insurgencies, we gain by examining past examples. Enter the military historian. The past does not supply us with rules, but it does alert us to important issues and dynamics. The past can never substitute for knowledge of the current challenge, but it can help us interpret that challenge.

Basic Model of Insurgency/ Counterinsurgency

The historical model of insurgency and counterinsurgency present in this article is an attempt to make sense of insurgent warfare during the second half of the 20th century to understand threats arising in the 21st. During the Cold War, an insurgency's "home" was usually a country, but an insurgency could also arise within a subdivision of a country. By contrast, an insurgency today is more likely to cross borders, particularly those drawn without respect to ethnic, cultural, or religious realities. The model represents home as a box defined by geographic, ethnic, economic, social, cultural, and religious characteristics. Inside the box are governments, counterinsurgent forces, insurgent leaders, insurgent forces, and the general population, which is made up of three groups: those committed to the insurgents, those committed to the counterinsurgents, and those who simply wish to get on with their lives. Often, but not always, states or groups that aid one side or the other are outside the box. Outside-the-box intervention has dynamics of its own.

In past anticolonial, nationalist, and Marxist "wars of liberation," the ruling government and its insurgent adversaries fought over the crucial, complex issue of legitimacy; that is, which government is thought to be the rightful authority. Governments claim legitimacy based on history, ideology, culture, economics, force--and, at times, political representation. Before the decline of the Soviet Union, Marxist, nationalist, or in the case of Afghanistan, religious ideology buttressed the insurgency's claims to legitimacy, but specific grievances against the ruling regime usually supplied the most compelling arguments for the claim to legitimacy. In any struggle for allegiances, the ruling regime might not be able to co-opt the insurgency's ideology, but it might be able to challenge its claims to legitimacy by addressing and resolving grievances.

However, while instituting reform implies well-meaning progress, reform was, and is, a two-edged sword. When a relatively secure government inaugurates timely reform, it proves its good will and adds to its legitimacy, but hastily improvised reform can be read as evidence of weakness, a last-ditch effort to hold on to power. When an outside power dictates reform, as in Vietnam, reform is often seen as subservience to an alien force and alien principles. Reform to change the box and eliminate grievances does not automatically erode support for an insurgency; it depends on the circumstances. Moreover, reform does not simply take place inside the box; it changes the box itself, often with unknown consequences.

Historically, the critical test of legitimacy is the ability of one side or the other to guarantee the security of the population. To understand this, we must consider the nature of popular support. Those who rely on the government defend its claims of legitimacy. They might have more high-minded reasons for supporting the ruling regime, or they might simply benefit from the status quo in a purely material sense, as a wealthy class of landowners, for example.

On the other end of the spectrum are those strongly committed to the insurgents. This segment of the population denies the legitimacy of the government and accepts that of the insurgents. An insurgency's existence implies a base of popular support that actively aids or at least tolerates the insurgents. Mao Tse-tung spoke of guerrillas as fish in the sea, a metaphor that suggests a great sea of support exists and that fish cannot survive outside it.

The necessity for a base of support always shapes the actions of both insurgents and counterinsurgents. Between the committed segments of the population lies the majority, which is essentially neutral in the partisan struggle. The contesting party--whether government or rebel--that best guarantees security wins the majority's support, however grudging. Here the government's task is more difficult than the insurgents'. The government must demonstrate that it can fight the insurgents effectively while also protecting the population. Insurgents only have to demonstrate they can best protect a population or, far easier, inflict enough mayhem and destruction to demonstrate that the existing authorities cannot. Insurgents can exert leverage by convincing a population that peace will return only if the insurgents gain what they demand. Insurgents can be effective by destruction, and it is always easier to destroy than to create. It requires the genius of a Leonardo Da Vinci to paint a portrait of Mona Lisa, but it only takes the malevolence of a maniac with a boxcutter to rip it to shreds.

Violence is central to war. Insurgents attack government institutions and personnel, counterinsurgent troops, and the progovernment population. Government institutions under attack include administrative offices and agents as well as economic and political infrastructure. Counterinsurgents respond by attacking insurgent leaders (perhaps already formed into a shadow government), insurgent forces, and their committed supporters. But while violence is central, we must make an important distinction between the kinds of violence involved.

In his classic War in the Shadows, Robert Asprey differentiates between what he calls quantitative violence and qualitative violence. (3) Quantitative violence is essentially indiscriminate. We can measure it in quantitative terms, for example, by the number of rounds fired, tons of bombs dropped, or bodies counted. By contrast, qualitative violence discriminates; it targets only particular victims in such a way as to minimize collateral damage while maximizing political effect. In conventional war, troops taking fire from a village would be likely to call in an air strike, but insurgents faced with the same situation would be more apt to target village leaders and kill them, but in such a way as to leave a lasting impression of terror. To put it bluntly, in quantitative violence, how many you kill matters; in qualitative violence, who you kill matters.

Quantitative violence is appropriate against insurgents organized and equipped for conventional war. But, more often, counterinsurgency works best when it identifies an enemy and concentrates only on him. The use of violence leaves a deadly residue. Those who are harmed or whose family and friends have been victimized do not embrace the perpetrators of violence but harbor hatred and seek retribution against them. Killing large numbers of insurgents might not weaken the enemy but simply gain him new adherents.

Insurgents and counterinsurgents vie for the allegiance of a people, but an intervening power does well simply to gain willing compliance with its policy. To speak of winning hearts and minds is probably misleading. The words seem to place kindness and ideology first, but acts of kindness are not a particularly good fit for vigilant armed warriors. Winning people over to new beliefs is at best a long process and a notably difficult task for outside forces coming from different cultures and speaking different languages. But if the model here is correct, providing security goes a long way toward earning allegiance and compliance.

The use of force can provide security, but only when applied with care. Counterinsurgents have to pursue, capture, or kill the bad guys, but poorly conceived attacks that victimize a neutral population undermine security. Restraint--not hurting the wrong people---is the key to success, but restraint is inimical to the warrior spirit. A better word is "focus" (violence aimed at the proper target and striking only it), using sniper fire, for example, not an artillery barrage.

Ruthlessness against a known foe must not be indiscriminate or misdirected, and focused ruthlessness requires bravery. In reserving violence for known adversaries, one becomes vulnerable to enemies who hide in the crowd. The mission to defeat the insurgency has to come before the desire to protect oneself against any possible threat.
Telling friend from foe requires good intelligence. Insurgents depend on information furnished by their own activities, by the proinsurgent population, and by that portion of the neutral population under their influence. Conversely, counterinsurgents depend on intelligence from their own efforts, from the progovernment segment of the population, and from those who believe their security is best served by the counterinsurgents. Intelligence has always been indispensable to successful counterinsurgency operations, and it has always been far easier for insurgents to spot government agents than for counterinsurgents to locate insurgents immersed in the sea of the population.

While not all acts of terrorism qualify as acts of war, terrorism, like war, is violence intended to achieve a political result. Insurgents often employ terrorist tactics as a form of discriminate violence. In fact, the difference between insurgency and terrorism is not so much in the character of the violence used as in its frequency and scale. Terrorists typically work in small cells, or even alone. Guerrillas, being more numerous and enjoying wider support, strike with greater frequency and employ a wider range of tactics than do terrorists. Mao spoke of three phases of an armed straggle: guerrilla war; the coordination of guerrilla and limited main force units in a more intense struggle; and ultimately, conventional warfare. To these we might add a fourth---terrorism--when it is the initial phase of an armed struggle prior to having enough support to mount a guerrilla war. (4)

During the Cold War, outside powers complicated the dynamics of insurgency because outside supporters viewed such conflicts as limited war in Clausewitzian terms. (5) Although victory promised advantages, defeat did not threaten the existence of the outside state; this was not a struggle for survival, even if the war was total, unlimited, and winner-take-all for the adversaries inside the box. Insurgency is a form of asymmetrical warfare not only because opposing sides use different levels of weapons and tactics, but also because they have different levels of commitment.

In the second half of the 20th century, the most effective way to neutralize outside support to counterinsurgents was to turn sentiment in the outside country against the intervention. Support declines when the penalties for withdrawal seem remote and few and the war's expense and loss of life are evident. Many of those who protested the Vietnam War were moved by conscience, but the United States withdrew from Vietnam because of the cost, not the cause. At a certain point, continuing the fight was just not worth it. The same could be said for Soviet withdrawal from the Afghan Civil War.

Outside aid to insurgents is a different matter because those who aid insurgents usually have preferred to send weapons, supplies, money, and other forms of support, rather than to put boots on the ground. In fact, should large foreign forces go into another country to attack its ruling government, that would be an invasion, not an insurgency. It is true that North Vietnam dispatched regular forces to fight in the South in an invasion of sorts, but North Vietnam believed it was fighting a civil war. The critical fact is that the Soviets and the Chinese did not dispatch large numbers of troops. Because outside aid for insurgents is primarily material support, the best way to stop it is by interdicting the flow of equipment, not undermining popular support within the outside power. This fight is more physical than political.

Successful Insurgency

A Cold War insurgency was proof of strong sentiment in opposition to an existing government. Grievances that fueled resistance were widely perceived to be real. Ruling regimes were incapable of alleviating grievances for political, economic, social, or cultural reasons. For example, if economic inequity was the issue, those who held wealth and land supported the government precisely because it maintained their dominance; the government could offer little to the poor and landless without eroding its most important power base. Counterinsurgents faced an uphill battle in defense of a regime with little legitimacy.

If supported by only a small segment of the population, the government and its counterinsurgent forces could be trapped in a self-defeating cycle, a kind of death spiral. To act effectively required intelligence; but the smaller population base cooperating with the government provided only limited intelligence. Lacking intelligence, the government cannot focus its attacks; it conducted large-scale operations, such as sweeps and search-and-destroy missions that were most likely to inflict violence on the general population. As a result, the government eroded the security of its own people and, consequently, its own legitimacy.

When the government acted like an enemy of the population, the population refused to aid the government by furnishing intelligence. Clumsy government assaults against insurgents thus become attacks on its intelligence flow. As a result, the government became even more blind and dependent on the wrong kind of counterinsurgent operations and resorted to illegal actions contrary to its laws and its own people's concept of justice. Arrest without clear cause, imprisonment without trial, torture, and summary executions could produce short-term results, but undermine the government's legitimacy and eventually lead to defeat. For example, French counterinsurgency forces used harsh methods in Algeria, which might have helped in Algeria but eroded support for the war in France. The counterinsurgency most often touted as a success---the defeat of Marxist insurgents in Malaya--adopted as a principle that the government should refrain from disobeying its own laws.

Although brutally repressive dictatorships use terror and torture against their own people and survive by doing so, the United States cannot afford to use such tactics. It is given that whatever U.S. forces do will be subjected to intense media scrutiny: secrets are nearly impossible to keep. Morality should guide us, but even if the cynical might cast it aside, realists would still have to admit that if the United States were to support horribly oppressive regimes, doing so would undercut public support of U.S. foreign policy. During the Cold War, many were willing to overlook our allies' tactics, but even then there were limits. The photograph of a Saigon police official rendering street justice by shooting a suspected Viet Cong in the head became a symbol for war resisters in the United States.

During Cold War insurgencies, support faltered when an outside power's population became sympathetic to the insurgent cause or, more commonly, became alarmed by the high costs of counterinsurgency. Algerians won their independence by outlasting French resolve to compel them to remain within the French orbit. A decade later, Americans turned against involvement in Vietnam in revulsion over mounting casualties in what seemed like an endless war.

The departure of an outside power weakened counterinsurgents by removing forces and material aid. It also gave insurgents momentum, and in war, momentum is worth battalions.

Successful Counterinsurgency

Haunted by failure in Vietnam, Americans often forget that successful counterinsurgencies have occurred, such as the Filipino victory over the Huks (1946-1954) and British success in Malaya (1948-1957). Some say U.S. support of the counterinsurgency in El Salvador during the 1980s was also a victory, but that is debatable. Insurgents might have been held off, but only by providing massive aid to a small, oppressive elite. Those who point to the "Salvador option" as worth following tend to take a cynical view of counterinsurgency. (6) Nonetheless, it is possible to learn lessons from failed efforts, including U.S. involvement in Vietnam.

Ideally, a successful counterinsurgent effort is based not only on effective military action but on real reform by a government that has its people's loyalty. Such reform can alleviate grievances that gave the insurgency legitimacy in the eyes of its supporters, and increased popular support brings increased intelligence, which makes it easier to conduct focused actions against insurgents. This was the case when government forces fighting the Huks increased popular support by increasing the security of the population and conducting counterinsurgency operations in a way that minimized casualties among noncombatants. In both the Filipino and Malayan cases, police and small military unit operations were the rule, not large sledgehammer operations. Military forces learned to act in a way that did not convey the impression that they regarded the general population as enemies. A population that increasingly saw counterinsurgents as providing security was increasingly likely to support them and provide them with vital intelligence.

Focused violence by small numbers of counterinsurgents produced greater rewards with less residue. However, it is debatable whether such a principle justified the use of "murder squads" as in the Phoenix program in Vietnam or in El Salvador. Certainly, an insurgency's leaders are legitimate targets, but for such a policy to be effective, intelligence must be accurate. Sometimes those who identify individuals for attack are simply settling personal scores. In El Salvador, assassination was used to quell legitimate voices of reform, not simply to decapitate the insurgents. In such a case, "focused" action became evidence of authoritarian dictatorship and corruption. And deeper questions existed as well. In a struggle for legitimacy founded on justice, can a government execute its opponents without trial? That was what assassination of insurgent leaders amounted to in El Salvador and Vietnam.

Without undermining their legitimacy, the British effectively weakened the insurgents in Malaya by isolating them from their supporters. This was possible because supporters could be identified as a specific minority--ethnic Chinese working at the plantations. By relocating this population into fortified settlements, the British locked the pro-insurgent population in and the insurgents out, that is, they deprived the fish of the sea. The isolation achieved in Malaya was literal and physical, but in a more figurative sense, counterinsurgents must be able to isolate insurgents from their support base to achieve victory.
For a counterinsurgency to succeed, the majority of the population must eventually come to see insurgents as outsiders, as outlaws. The sea must dry up. When this happened during the Cold War insurgents in decline adopted tactics that only caused the population to resent them. Insurgents became a source of insecurity, not hope. Insurgents needed money, food, and recruits, and if they did not secure them from willing supporters, they extorted them from the unwilling. They changed from noble to ignoble robbers.

I think insurgency in Afghanistan and Pakistan should be analysed seperately.
In Pakistan insurgency is weak and individual or personailty based ,for example after death of Ghazi lal mosques insurgency finished also baitullah and sufi's insurgency is also personality based after their capture or death their movement will also die.

But on other hand in Afghanistan AQ and Mullah Omer leading in different fashion based on council.Which is harder to tackle or destroy.

Their roots are in general public and warlords are supporting them

 

[waraich66]

From Smallwars journal -- you may find it interesting



Mao in Mufti?:
Insurgency Theory and the Islamic World
Dr. John W. Jandora

Those readers who recognize the symbolism of the above title may doubt the seriousness of this essay. It is indeed serious, as I will proceed to demonstrate. However, for those who do not recognize the symbolism, my first task is to explain it.

Certainly among older generation Americans, many undoubtedly recall that Mao Zedong was the man who led the Chinese Communists to victory in 1949. Through his position as Party Chairman, he retained a more or less dominant influence in China’s government through 1976. More significantly for this study, Mao was considered to be a practical and theoretical authority in peoples’ wars of liberation – movements to overthrow traditional or colonial-imperialist masters. He converted Karl Marx’s theory of the inevitable revolt of the proletariat (industrial working class) into a strategy for the mobilization of the largely agrarian society of China. Chairman Mao was a source of inspiration for insurgent movements throughout the Third World during the Cold War era (1947-91). The Cold War has ended, but the world community is still beset by peoples’ striving against the established order, and so some see his influence as remaining relevant, albeit in a new milieu.

The difference is one of geographic setting. East Asia’s upheaval has for the most part ended. It has been decades since the Chinese Communists consolidated their control of the mainland, the Malayan Communists were defeated, and the Vietnamese Communists united their own country and disciplined the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. The Communist insurgency in the Philippines has dwindled considerably. The locus of upheaval has apparently shifted westward, with peoples’ struggles enduring in Palestine (Gaza and the West Bank), Afghanistan, and Iraq and recently erupting in northern Yemen and southwestern Pakistan (Baluchistan). It is this geography that evokes the term mufti, which originally alluded to the custom of British officers in Middle East service wearing, on their off-duty time, garb resembling that of a mufti (native authority on Islamic law).

This metaphor raises some serious questions, as the U.S. Government considers the prospect of “staying the course” in its current engagements. Is the resistance activity in Iraq, and secondarily Afghanistan, comparable to the Cold War era insurgencies in East Asia and their “replicas” in other parts of the world? Is the transnational jihadism that originated in the Islamic World comparable to the global subversive activity that was abetted by the Communist International? The answers to those questions largely shape the response to the problems of pacifying Iraq and Afghanistan and winning the war on terrorism.

Among the conflicts in question, there is of course an apparent similarity in the enemies’ strategy, that is, their master plan for victory. Some common axioms are to make the populace a key factor in the arena of conflict, plan for a long war, and engage in all power arenas -- political, economic, and informational, as well as military -- to erode the stronger side’s will to sustain the struggle. There is also similarity of method -- what the military community refers to as “tactics, techniques, and procedures.” Offensive action entails raids and ambushes, hit-and-run and stand-off attacks, and improvised use of weaponry. Protective measures include concealment, blending with the populace, deception, and denial of engagement, compromise, or key assets. Psychological warfare (against non-combatants) involves brutality, intimidation, and disinformation. Sustainment efforts include living “off the land,” smuggling, looting weapons and supplies, and operating secret factories and clinics. (These lists are exemplary, not all inclusive.)

Such observations have rekindled interest in insurgency theory and, by extension, counter-insurgency theory, which is reflected in military-educational, news-journalist, and book-publishing circles. The authors who see analogies between the jihadist and Communist-inspired movements have framed their thoughts in terms of some interesting, albeit contentious, themes. We are engaged in “fourth generation warfare,” which combines the aspects of primitive (first generation) warfare with the practice of Mao. We might consider for Iraq “the Salvador option,” which recalls the Cold War era technique of employing hit/snatch teams against Marxist-inspired insurgent leaders. We face a “global insurgency,” which, in concept, seems to be a substitution of al-Qaeda for Comintern.TP[1]PT Even some who claim uniqueness for conflicts within the Islamic world have modeled them in terms of the three phases of Mao’s protracted popular war – strategic defensive (subversive activity), strategic stalemate (guerrilla warfare), and strategic offensive (war of movement). It would seem that the analogy is compelling, but it should not be. Is there some way to expose the misfit?

The answer to that question takes us into a “fuzzy” area of the international relations discourse – the concept of worldview. SEQ CHAPTER \h \r 1Reference to worldview appears in both textbooks and expository works, yet its meaning and implications are generally taken for granted. Scholars of other disciplines have examined the relations between worldview and philosophy, religion, language, and culture in general. Where precise definition has been attempted, the task is usually undertaken by experts in sociology or anthropology.TP[2]PT Some scholars would argue that worldview is undefinable since its subjective, symbolic nature transcends rationalization. Moreover, the concept does not lend itself to empirical method, and it has to accommodate “counter-culture” and change over time. Despite these caveats, the concept of worldview must be real and meaningful, as it widely occurs in the titles and contexts of myriads of books, scholarly essays, and media articles.

In simple terms, worldview is the intersection of various aspects of man's understanding of his world and life -- as shaped by culture. Worldview is both descriptive and normative; it explains what appears to be as well as what ought to be. The concept is highly complex and involves many cognitive categories. The present task is to focus on those that are most germane to the motivation, legitimation, and measure of victory of some cause – some purposive, collective effort. Hence, I propose the model in the chart below, which includes seven categories and some corollary notions added for clarity. Regarding two terms that may not be self-evident as to meaning, “end state” equals the outcome of the human ordeal, and “agency” is the class of people through which the end-state is achieved. Infusing the categories with the appropriate images creates a basis of comparison/contrast of the mindsets of Communist (Marxist-Maoist) militants vice Islamist militants. Of course, the below scheme is based on abstraction and generalization and does not account for variants among either the Communists or the Islamists. Nonetheless, the two ideals are useful for comparative analysis.



Worldview Notions Communist Islamist

Self-Perception of “We” Workers Muslims
Perception of “They” Capitalists/Exploiters Infidels/Apostates
We/They Relation Necessarily Adversarial Potentially Adversarial
Active Participants All Adults Adult Males Only
Mandate (for Action) Historical Determinism Divine Purpose
True Word Dialectical Materialism Qur’ân
Agency Party Bosses Mujâhidîn
(Spatial) Domain of Adversity Global Global
End State Classless Society Spiritual Salvation
Temporal Precondition Social Justice Social Justice
Orientation Materialist Anti-Materialist


To give more substance to the above notions, it might be helpful to see how some of them are reflected in the words of Mao Zedong and Usama bin Ladin.TP[3]PTP

Active Participants
Mao: “The richest source of power to wage war lies in the mass of the people.”

Usama: “So, then, I urge the (male) youth to think for themselves about jihad, for they are the first of those obliged to pursue it today.”

Agency
Mao: “The secretary of a Party committee must be good at being a ‘squad leader.’”

Usama: “Arab mujâjidîn rose up and left their jobs, universities, families, and tribes to earn the pleasure of God” (in Afghanistan).

End State
Mao: “When human society advances to the point where classes and states are eliminated, there will be no more war.”

Usama: “And life, to which the Qur’an, God, and His Messenger are calling you, should be a life of self respect in this world and victory in the next – a life of jihad for the sake of God Almighty.”

Comparing the primary and corollary notions of the two worldviews reveals the obvious, and perhaps anticipated, dissimilarity: differences with perceptions of we and they; the materialist/non-materialist contrast regarding mandate and end state. Lest some readers be stunned, I should better explain my rendering of the Islamists’ sense of the we/they relation. First, the image for the corollary notion of participant disputes that female suicide bombers (in Palestine) generally act on an Islamist worldview. They more likely respond to Arab codes of honor that enjoin retaliation for harm inflicted on an immediate- or extended-family member. Secondly, the notion of potential (vice inevitable) adversity recalls Qur’anic guidance to seek predominance by peaceful means, unless confronted with force. The caveat is that the Islamists are willing to concede on the necessity for force -- but not on conviction to the true word or the temporal precondition for the end state. The difference with the Communists is that they compromised on the true word, and once they did so, the formula for reaching the end state was negated, as was the necessity of adversarial relations.

The reader will no doubt quickly see the commonality where both worldviews involve a global domain of adversity and attainment of social justice (a fair chance for everyone, not strict equality) as the temporal precondition for the end state. What does this comparison suggest? Awareness that the conflict is global merely clarifies the scope of the challenge. However, the prerequisite of social justice will probably attract the notice of counter-insurgency theorists who see opportunity for an analogous “carrot” versus “stick” approach. The recourse would be the proverbial effort to “win hearts and minds” via aid and development projects. Thus, the analogy would be complete because the “stick” option addresses a very similar set of insurgent “mechanics” -- the strategy and methods mentioned in the first part of this essay. The analogy falters, however, because the apparently common prerequisite of social justice has different implications in each case. The historic fact is that Communism never had much appeal in the Islamic world. Islam itself enjoins social justice -- and tribal code enjoins mutual support among kinsmen.

In contrast with the militant Communist mindset, that of the militant Islamist has an anti-materialistic orientation and a spiritual goal. Thus, an appeal to the “heart and mind” might not suffice because “soul” is a key element of the Islamist worldview construct. Although the patent victory of capitalist-democracy in the Cold War undermined the Communist worldview, that is largely irrelevant in the current conflict with the radical Islamists. Showing a better way to worldly utopia (classless society) hardly counts when the focus is spiritual salvation. But is the focus always spiritual salvation? Perhaps not. Muslims, as any people anywhere, can become pre-occupied with the tasks of making a living. However, when those tasks become too overwhelming, there are many symbols, traditions, institutions, opinion-leaders, and other prompts to remind them that religion offers the best remedy – the true solution. To challenge this “truth” would be very counter-productive. It is nonsense to presume that, since the former Communist societies of Russia and China abandoned Marx’s dialectical materialism, Islamic societies could bypass the Qur’an.

The predominant message of the Qur’an is the imperative of social justice, and Islamic teaching establishes the benchmark for morality and social ethics -- the right conduct of both rulers and ruled. There is presently no secular alternative of any real significance. Thus, the Qur’an, as the true word, is the nucleus of the whole Islamist construct, and that is the key to conflict resolution. The moderate opinion leaders have already pointed out the distortions in the radicals’ use of the scripture. However, much more must be done because the grievances of the radicals are unlikely to vanish. The regional governments face the daunting task of improving technical education, productivity, and income distribution for their respective societies. They might also complement such effort by helping to establish progressive social institutions.TP[4]PT If they ever were to achieve a modicum of social justice, people would probably not need to ask: what is wrong with the world, and what response is enjoined by the Qur’an? Meanwhile, the U.S. might consider as bilateral programs: 1) a developmental assistance campaign that vets, engages, and works through moderate Islamic non-governmental or quasi-governmental organizations, and 2) an information campaign that accommodates the dialectic of Muslim moderates, for example substituting kharijites (translated as deviants in the Arab World’s English press) for Sunni extremists and condemning extremism – not jihad per se. Perhaps the damage of communicating the themes of “clash of civilizations” and “crusades” has already been recognized?

In conclusion, the defeat of Communist insurgency offers no analogous lessons from this comparative worldview analysis. Nor does it do so from the practical perspective of insurgent/counter-insurgent methods. America is not dealing with the same kind of enemy. A fellow Vietnam veteran recently asked why there is no “Charlie in the wire” experience (stealthy, determined assault against an American position) in Iraq. The Viet Cong (“Victor Charlie”) agreed with Mao on the need to concentrate forces for frontal and flanks attacks under certain circumstances. The Iraqi insurgents have yet to follow suit. They probably never will. One reason is that American military technologic advances have made this tactic very risky. Another reason is that the native way of war has for over two thousand years tended to favor stand-off and close-combat avoidance in contrast with the West’s reliance on shock action.TP[5]PT Moreover, the factionalism of Iraqi resistance starkly contrasts with Mao’s concept of a people’s army coming together with a “conscious discipline . . . (to) fight for the interests of the broad masses and of the whole nation.”TP[6]PT We see, for example, Sunni militias, in one instance, contending against the Coalition, in another, fighting other Sunnis who follow Zarqawi, and in yet another, changing alignment. Turning to counter-insurgent methods, the “Salvador option” might make sense for a non-tribal society or for a genuine foreign-fighter dominance. However, in much of the Islamic World it would merely invoke the tribal code of blood-revenge.

So, there is yet more complexity to the insurgency issue -- the mix of radical Islamist, tribal, and partisan (Ba’thists in Iraq) interests. Groups cooperate for the same near term objective, withdrawal of the U.S. and Coalition forces, and tout what seems to be similar jihad lore. Yet they adhere to different principles to legitimate violence, and they pursue different long-term goals. Bringing the conflicts in question to a successful conclusion requires a full understanding of this complexity. One must discern, for example, the alternative means of aggregating power at the macro and micro levels --alliance building vice indoctrination and mobilization of kin-groups vice recruitment of (alienated) individuals. Such understanding should come from situation- and culture-specific analysis, not questionable analogies. Yes, the image of Mao in mufti is absurd.

Dr. Jandora is currently employed as a senior analyst with US Army Special Operations Command. He retired from the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve at the rank of colonel, with active service in the Vietnam and Gulf Wars. He holds a PhD from the University of Chicago, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations. He has resided and worked in Saudi Arabia for several years and has traveled extensively throughout the Near and Middle East.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

TP[1]PT This term is synonymous with the Communist International (organization) that was founded in 1919 (disbanded in 1943) with the aim of revolutionary overthrow of capitalist regimes around the world. Michael Vlahos proposes a more practical concept of “civilizational insurgency,” in “Terror’s Mask: Insurgency Within Islam” (Occasional Paper, Joint Warfare Analysis Department, Applied Physics Laboratory, Johns Hopkins University, May 2002), pp. 4, 6-7, and 27. Although the concept has merit, I disagree with the methodology, especially the analogy with the Reformation in Europe, and the recommendations of the report.

TP[2]PT For some helpful references, see: Michael Kearney, World View (Novato, Calif.: Chandler and Sharp Publishers, 1984), chap. 3; Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays (New York: Basic Books, 1973), chap. 5; and James H. Olthius, “On Worldviews” in Paul A. Marshall et al. (eds.), Stained Glass: Worldviews and Social Science (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1989).

TP[3]PT English translation are found respectively in Quotations from Mao Tse-Tung (Peking: Foreign Language Press, 1966) online version, Mao Tse-Tung Internet Archive 2000; available from TUhttp://www.marxist.org/reference/archive/mao/works/red.bookUT; Internet, Sections 8, 10, and 5 and Messages to the World: the Statements of Osama Bin Ladin ed. Bruce Lawrence, trans. David Howarth (London and New York: Verso, 2005), pp. 205, 147, and 18.

TP[4]PT It might be feasible to create futûwah-like organizations that promote inventiveness and pride of work. I use this term not in its modern but in its medieval sense, which denotes an urban fraternal organization or youth group that follows some code of conduct.

TP[5]PT This thesis is presented in John W. Jandora, “War and Culture: A Neglected Relation,” Armed Forces and Society 25, No. 4 (1999), pp. 541-556.

TP[6]PT Quotations from Chairman Mao, Sect. 9.

Indepth analysis , in simple word to run sucessfully a movement a thinker first prepare a cause and on basis of that cause he develop a team of followers .

When we exam ( LTTE) their leader was much stronger ,he has his own navy and air force but he choses the way of extremisim and terrorism and as result his whole movement vanished after his death.
Problem with these terrorists is that they in the end kill themself with their distructive movement same will happen with TTP ,AQ and Mullah Omar.

 

[muse]

With regard to the Aaj Aur Kal (today and Tomorrow) video, what is the philosophy of history that is being projected? How is that idea linked to our sense of morality? WHO ARE THE GOOD GUYS?? Does the video suggest the leaders of the army are good or bad?? According to the video, where should the army be positioned??

 

[Elmo]

@ Muse: Great find with the article by John. A. Lynn though I would disagree with his contentions about this not being a battle of hearts and minds.


@ Fundamentalist: Agreed the The insurgency in Afghanistan and Pakistan should be analysed separately but we can draw parallels in many ways. Moreover, the insurgency in Pakistan is far from personality based especially vis-a-vis Sufi Mohammad and Baitullah Mehsud. That Sufi Mohammad (TNSM) holds little sway can be adjudged by how often his own son-in-law Fazlullah (TTP) has went against his dealings with the government.



A detailed response/analyses later.

 

[muse]

Nadja


Instead of me opening a new thread, lets use this thread to discuss insurgency and counter-insurgency:


COIN for dummies



Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Lt-Gen (r) Asad Durrani

The writer is a former chief of the ISI



"One should see the whole before the parts" – Fredrick the Great



Indeed, one should. The problem is that faced with imminent threats, the whole was of no use. If the Taliban were all set to break out for Islamabad, the only part that mattered was whether they would take the motorway or come over the Margalla Hills. Some in that case would have 'called-in the Marines', or the Drones. We have neither, so we yelled for the army. Well it is there, once again; this time to root out this evil once and for all. A reasonable desire, but coming from us sounds a bit strange. After all, we are the ones who have been reminding all the rest that insurgencies could not be wiped out by force, and the B-52s were ill-suited to chase the likes of Osama and Omar. I have no idea what chance Fazlullah and Muslim Khan have to escape the crosswire of the F-16s, but the military action does provide us with yet another chance to find out how the "COIN" (counterinsurgency) works.

It is a miracle that it works at all. A bungling state, which was at the root of the problem to start with, is now supposed to make it work- and that against an adversary not only more committed to its cause but also with enough support to challenge the writ of the state. It sill muddles through, succeeding only when the insurgents run out of steam, or by learning on the job.

COIN follows the classic strategic cycle of "battle and manoeuvre". Both the state and the insurgents battle against each other to create a favourable environment for the manoeuvre, which is essentially non-military. They may agree to hold fire to give "peace a chance" or because one of them needs a breather. Improving respective positions for the subsequent phase- fighting or talking remains a constant goal. The process continues till one side concedes defeat or both of them came to an arrangement that they can live with.

During the battle- aptly described as a form of asymmetrical warfare- insurgents have an advantage: they can merge with the masses and are usually more familiar with the area. The state on the other hand is constrained in the use of force to avoid collateral damage. The insurgents have no qualms about offering a truce from a position of weakness. The state even when in trouble is reluctant to lose face and digs itself deeper into the hole. The manoeuvre phase- often merely a "lull in the battle"- is again more skilfully used by the non-state actors. They can position their assets for the ensuing battle more discreetly.

What however harms the state's ability to conduct a successful COIN the most is its propensity to seek truce, or battle, prematurely. Usually, it is because of public pressure; when the casualties start mounting, or if insurgents are seen to be taking undue advantage during the ceasefire.

The much maligned Nizam-e-Adl deal was struck because the military operation was taking too heavy a toll of civilian lives and property. As a stratagem it made plenty of sense, provided the state planned to reposition its assets for the battle that was inevitably to follow. The militants' forays in neighbouring districts were imprudent, but panic in Islamabad was endemic. On a small-scale map, Buner looks uncomfortably close, and the hills in between, or the Indus, not very daunting. Goethe once famously said: "No one ever deceives you; you deceive yourself". If alive, he would have said the same thing about "terrorism". Having terrorised ourselves, we scrambled the army without adequate groundwork, civil and military.

Some aspects of this operation can be debated ad infinitum: could we have organised the evacuation of the population any better? Did we have the right intelligence to use heavy weapons against the Taliban? One can, however, safely assume that many of the militants would escape to fight another day, and at another place. COIN continues.

Would that make us act more patiently in future? Not very likely. If all the conventional wisdom could not prevent us from making waste in haste, some strategic claptrap had no chance. Moreover, who wants to wait for years and decades? What we need is a "Quickie COIN". Let me try to evolve one.

Since we are pressed for time, we should cut the chase. "Whose war is this?" is a pointless debate. Those who have a war to fight do not fight over its "ownership". I suggest we settle this matter after the war. If we win, it was ours. Otherwise, we will dump it on someone else.

Waiting for this government to come and lead the war, is equally futile. Wars are not led from bunkers that add a protective layer every time there is an explosion. The only wait worth its while is for the bunkers or this government to collapse under their own weight.

Moaning and groaning over the root-causes of the insurgency again would be in vain. Root-causes are embedded in history that cannot be rolled back. Those who created the mujahideen rolled back a superpower, which became history. Their successors, the Taliban, are in the process of doing the same to its opposite number. We have to take care of their sidekick, the "Pakistani Taliban".

Now that we have decided to fight this war, we should not make any excuses. That 'our army is not trained for an unconventional war', is a pretty lame one. All armies are trained in conventional warfare and then adapt to the task at hand. No one trains for COIN and then awaits an insurgency.

And for God's sake do not threaten the world that if it did not come to our rescue we would go down the tube and take it along. It is dangerous to put a gun on our head, especially if it fired nuclear shots. What if we were dared to pull the trigger? Invoking external help to fight an internal war in any case was never a good idea. Incidentally, the US has neither the sway nor the intent to arm-twist India to resolve Kashmir. So, do not hold your breath on that account.

Having shed all the extra baggage that was holding us back, we should now get on with the war, which would indeed involve a bit of manoeuvring and some battling. The manoeuvring first.

There are many wars raging in and around Pakistan. Let us try and contain or outsource some of them. Baluchistan is part of the "New Great Game". While the external actors (and there are some big ones there) vie for influence, our spooks should know how to keep them engaged. The eastern front has been mercifully quiet the last few years. Don't let another Mumbai hot it up.

Many of the militants in the Northwest could be persuaded to join their kith and kin in Afghanistan. Some are small time criminals who have acquired the Taliban label to raise their price (I believe we have handled them reasonably well). The rest, including the "rogue groups" (always to be expected in this game) have to be fought down, possibly piecemeal and in the right order. (Bajaur followed by Mohmand, and now Malakand.)

The real battle - and that has to be waged by us, the people of Pakistan - is to 'check and rollback' the insurgency ('contain and counterattack' in military idiom). A few months back, some citizens in Peshawar sent a message to the militants threatening to take over the city. It simply stated that this time around they would be faced with people's power. It had the desired effect, but was not followed up by any solid steps. The locals response to the mosque carnage in Upper Dir again illustrates how best to deal with the insurgents. It can also serve another purpose.

Howard Zinn, an eminent historian of our time, had recently the following to say: "where progress has been made, wherever any kind of injustice has been overturned, it's been because people acted as citizens, and not as politicians. They didn't just moan. They worked, they acted, they organised, and they rioted if necessary to bring their situation to the attention of people in power".

We needed no Zinn to tell us the virtues of a mobilised community. This is precisely what we have experienced during the last two years, reaffirmed by the Peshawaris and the Diris. Any community that can organise a system of civil defence has the best chance of deterring the next sneak attack by the Taliban and, with a little pluck, to drag this leadership from behind their fortresses on to the battlefield.



Email: asad.durrani@gmail.com

 

[Durran3]

You also have to remember that in 2006 there was major political disparity when it came to supporting the military from the politicians and many people in Pakistan as well. I don't think the Military had the same kind of support back than as they have now

 

[muse]

AM

Had argued similarly I and must concede that this may well have been considerably more important than I had first thought.

 

[muse]

See if you can identify the strategy - both of AQ and COIN - How did AQ gain influence??? How did they undercut the govt?? -- What is it that SSS keeps suggesting is a big problem, even though, we assert that is no longerf a problem?? Does SSS have excellent connections with the Islamists???



Pakistan fights for its tribal soul
By Syed Saleem Shahzad

KARACHI - Pakistan's month-long military operation in the Malakand Division of North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), which includes the scene of especially heavy fighting in the Swat Valley, has, per official figures, cost the lives of over 1,300 militants and led to the displacement of 3.5 million civilians.

The battle is far from over.

Under relentless pressure from the United States to get the job done once and for all, Pakistan is opening up new fronts in an attempt to wipe out Taliban militants and the al-Qaeda "franchise" under which they operate.

On Thursday morning, the Pakistan Air Force conducted strikes in Orakzai Agency in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, and ground and air operations have started in the Frontier Regions (Jani Khel - the tribal areas adjacent to the city) of Bannu district in NWFP. Al-Qaeda's shura (council) is believed to operate from Jani Khel.

The military is also expected to move in strength into the South Waziristan tribal area to go after a nexus that includes Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud, Punjabi militants, Uzbeks and al-Qaeda. Clashes are reported to have already taken place.

Washington has reacted positively to the Pakistani initiatives, but garrison headquarters in Rawalpindi, the twin city of the capital Islamabad, are nervous. The top brass are aware of the tough fight their troops have had in Malakand Division and the resentment the operations have caused across the country.

Tuesday's attack on the Pearl Continental Hotel in Peshawar, the capital of NWFP, in which 19 people, including two United Nations staff, were killed and 70 wounded, is a stark reminder of the dangers of fighting the American war in the region.

Contacts familiar with the background to the attack told Asia Times Online it was approved by al-Qaeda and carried out by a nexus of militants that included Hakeemullah Mehsud of Orakzai Agency (a relative of Baitullah Mehsud), members of the Sunni militant group Laskhar-e-Jhangvi from the town of Darra Adam Khel in NWFP and the Omar group from the Frontier Regions of Peshawar.

In a message to Asia Times Online, a senior militant leader maintained that the operation had also aimed to take out US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) officials staying at the hotel. They were said to be in talks with Pakistani officials to work out ways to protect the 90% of NATO supplies for Afghanistan that pass through Peshawar.

This account, however, was disputed by Qudsia Qadri, editor-in-chief of the Pakistani Daily Financial Post, who told Asia Times Online that she stayed in the five-star hotel for a few days until Tuesday afternoon and she had not seen any FBI or NATO officials.

"The occupancy of the hotel was hardly 5%. I met a few foreigners, in the gym and at breakfast, but they were all working with NGOs [non-governmental agencies] to help the internally displaced people of Malakand," said Qadri.

How the attack was conceived

Baitullah Mehsud, al-Qaeda members and Punjabi militants live in North Waziristan and South Waziristan, remote regions on the border with Afghanistan far from Khyber Agency, through which NATO supplies pass, Kurram Agency, a hub of anti-Taliban Shi'ite forces, and Peshawar.

None of these three areas has indigenous Taliban. Therefore, Orakzai Agency, the only tribal area that does not have a border with Afghanistan, was chosen to station Taliban from South Waziristan and other regions.

By the beginning of this year, Orakzai Agency had been taken over by the Taliban and declared an Islamic emirate. The amir (leader) was Moulvi Saeed, but the public face was Hakeemullah Mehsud, a lieutenant of Baitullah Mehsud imported from South Waziristan.

Gradually, they brought in criminal elements, including anti-Shi'ite fugitives of the Laskhar-e-Jhangvi, and placed them in Darra Adam Khel, just on the outskirts of Peshawar. The Omar group was assigned to the frontier regions of Peshawar. With these groups in place, Khyber Agency and Peshawar could easily be accessed - exactly as happened with Tuesday's hotel attack.

The Pakistani security forces are braced for similar attacks now that the battle is being extended into South Waziristan and other tribal areas. At the same time, ethnic and political clashes have risen to unprecedented levels in the southern port city of Karachi, through which most of NATO's supplies enter Pakistan.

In the past week, over 50 people have been killed. The anti-Taliban Muttahida Quami Movement is attributed with most of the killing in a fight against members of a breakaway faction. Retaliation is expected in the coming days, which could result in even heavier bloodshed. The situation could become so bad that the military would have to intervene. The problem is, its forces are already spread thin in the north.

For the time being, these northern areas remain the prime concern, and the militants and al-Qaeda are ready.

Safe havens in the Hindu Kush

The Eastern Hindu Kush range, also known as the High Hindu Kush range, is mostly located in northern Pakistan and the Nuristan and Badakhshan provinces of Afghanistan.

This chain of mountains connects with several smaller ranges, such as Spin Ghar, the Tora Bora, the Suleman Range, Toba Kakar, and creates a natural corridor that passes through the entire Pakistani tribal areas and the Afghan border provinces all the way to the Pakistani coastal area in Balochistan province.

By 2008, al-Qaeda had taken control of the 1,500-square-kilometer corridor - something it had planned to do since fleeing Afghanistan when the Taliban were defeated by US-led forces in December 2001.

Al-Qaeda decided then to build a regional ideologically motivated franchise in South Asia to thwart the strategic designs of Western powers in the area.

While US forces were vainly trying to hunt down al-Qaeda in the Tora Bora mountains, the group was focused on establishing links with organizations such as the Jaishul al-Qiba al-Jihadi al-Siri al-Alami and Jundallah in the Pakistani tribal areas and organizing the recruitment of Pakistanis and Afghans to those organizations. The underlying reason for doing this was to destroy the local political and social structures and in their place establish an al-Qaeda franchise.

The plan worked. Today, in many parts of the Hindu Kush corridor, centuries-old tribal systems and their connections with the Pakistani establishment through an appointed political agent have been replaced by a system of Islamic warlordism.

The old breed of tribal elders, religious clerics and tribal chiefs, loyal to Pakistan and its systems, has been wiped out, to be replaced by warlords such as Haji Omar, Baitullah Mehsud, (slain) Nek Mohammad and (slain) Abdullah Mehsud. They are all al-Qaeda allies, and allow al-Qaeda freedom of movement in their areas within the corridor.

Al-Qaeda members from abroad also use the corridor to enter the Pakistani tribal areas. It is not always safe. Recently, security agencies arrested four Saudi nationals in Mohmand Agency. They were named only as Ahmed, Ali, Mohammad and Obaidullah and had arrived in Pakistan from Saudi Arabia in 2008-09 after passing through Iran. Had they traveled through Pakistani cities towards the tribal areas, they would most likely have been arrested much earlier.

Recently, al-Qaeda broadened its network by forging closer links with the Pakistani-based Iranian insurgency group Jundallah, which operates from around Turbat in Pakistan's Balochistan province.

Pakistan at a crossroads

This situation has brought Pakistan to a crossroads. Al-Qaeda has in many areas devastated the traditional tribal systems and established its franchise in very strategic terrain.

The country's administrative systems and law-enforcing agencies were not designed to cope with such developments. The only response it has been able to come up with is to mobilize the military - a controversial decision that could yet backfire.

There are several reasons why the militants were able to undermine the tribes. The militant organizations are highly organized, battle-hardened, heavily armed and well funded. And importantly, while tribal influence is limited to its own area, its own people, the militant organizations have cross-tribal, cross-border and international linkages. And while the tribes are bound by their tribal traditions and customary laws (riwaj), the militant organizations are not. They have out-gunned, out-funded and out-organized the tribal malik (leader) and his tribe.

Pakistan had planned to prop up the tribes, as the real strength of a country is its people. No government, whether civilian or military, can function or succeed until it has public support behind it.

This it started doing by signing agreements with selected tribes. These included ones with Sufi Mohammad in Malakand to prop up the administrative system. However, international pressure - mainly from Washington - forced Pakistan to abandon this roadmap in place of full-frontal military engagement with the militants.

Up until the latest offensive that began in Swat and which is now being extended, military action usually petered out after securing only temporary success. The government of the day generally lacked the will to go for the kill, and there remained segments within the intelligence apparatus and military sympathetic to the militants.

It now appears the government is prepared for a long fight, but ultimately it will have to take control of the corridor that provides the militants with the space from which to attack, regroup and attack again.

This would have to involve stepped-up cooperation with forces in Afghanistan to jointly patrol the border, and most importantly, a renewed attempt to revive the tribal systems where they have been infiltrated by militants.

Individually, these are mammoth tasks, in combination almost impossible. And as the planes and tanks roll in greater numbers across greater areas of Pakistan, these goals risk being lost in the fog of war.

Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief. He can be reached at saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com

 

[All-Green]

Whereas the Terrorists were eliminating the tribal leadership the entire leadership of MMA was strongly opposing the Army actions...does it not make clear the fifth column support?

If the elected government of the day in the province was not raising any voice then there had to be some sort of mutual understanding with the militants, had MMA been anti TTP there would have been attacks on the homes of the leaders of MMA (like ANP) but ofcourse no such targetting was done...
I think we should really analyze the role of MMA to understand what went wrong at that time and take those TTP supporters to courts who made sure that there was no hue and cry and public unrest over the mass assassinations of thousands of Jirga members, leaders and maliks!
The deliberate blackout by MMA government on all its functional levels has no justification and excuse unless it was to support the militants in creating a power vacuum which the power hungry political Mullahs wanted to grab later on, permanently!