Category: Counterinsurgency

Being Knowledgeable

~ Matt Armstrong

There are two good stories in the Primary Sources section of this month’s Atlantic (subscription required). The first is a summary of a recent Pew survey that indicates

most knowledgeable Americans were those who got their news from the Web sites of major papers and those who watched programs like The Colbert Report or The Daily Show; they correctly answered 54 percent of the questions about current affairs, while regular viewers of local TV news and network morning shows got only about 35 percent right….

And while it’s hard to know which sources provide the best information, the report notes that well-informed people gather their news from an average of 7.0 sources—more than the average of 4.6.

The second is about being knowledgeable about the “enemy”. To understand any adversary you need to get inside their head. This is true for sports, business, and war (which are all related concepts sharing a common vocabulary of course). In a story about detecting lying, a behavior frequently accompanying by tells, those who worked with the subject culture, in this case kids, scored higher than those who did not.

The researchers selected a group of preschoolers and left each of them seated alone in a room, asking them not to peek at a toy that was behind them, out of their view. The researchers videotaped their actions, then asked each child, “Did you peek?” The responses were shown to 64 adults selected from summer courses at Rutgers University, who were asked to determine whether each child was telling the truth. The adults’ scores varied widely—they were right 12 percent to 84 percent of the time—but their average score was just 41 percent; chance alone would have given them 50 percent. (Most adults, including parents, erred on the side of suspicion, believing some children were lying when they were being honest.) But one group of adults—those who work with children professionally, including teachers and child psychologists—routinely outperformed the rest of the sample. More than a third of the professionals detected the liars at least 60 percent of the time; only one nonprofessional was able to match that rate.

On the “money/fantasy machine”

~ Matt Armstrong

Last night it occurred to me that I actually did know what John Robb was talking about when he lumped me in with the “counter-terrorism money/fantasy” in Washington, and it isn’t the creature Dan and Curtis think it is.

Talking with the “conference crowd”, or reading their work, on terrorism, there are certain themes that remain constant despite evidence to the contrary, that conform to popular thinking in Washington. This ideologically insular world is the “money/fantasy” machine, repeating nearly the same mantra over and over, that contributes to the stalled, to put it mildly, strategy in the [insert your favorite name for conflict/war/condition here].

Robb and I are alike in that we’re both creating new awareness (attacking is too strong but might be a better word) of the realities of today’s environment. I’m not in the conference crowd he’s referring to, but an outsider that only occasionally gets inside the ring, and less often than I would imagine Robb does.

To change the thinking, sometimes you need to subvert from within. Robb’s book is an attack on the popular wisdom and ultimately seeks to change the conference crowd by adjusting the preconceptions of the crowd’s clients, the thought leaders of the crowd, or both. Debunking existing “myths” most effectively requires understanding the existing conceptions. And that’s different from modifying insurgent/terrorist behavior how?

Unwarranted Attack on Petraeus Aide (SWJ Blog)

~ Matt Armstrong ~ 1 Comment

Read Unwarranted Attack on Petraeus Aide on the Small Wars Journal Blog. Be sure to read the SWJ Editor comment as well. Diana West’s confused attack on Kilcullen is not entirely surprising, although it’s completely out of line and wrong, considering the failure of the Administration to create a viable, real, and consistent message regarding the enemy. West writes as if she understands the threat, which she clearly does not. But can you blame her based on the info she’s been fed? Sweeping generalizations abound in domestic and foreign information operations, public affairs, press relations, public diplomacy, whatever you want to call it. Clearly, she’s drunk the punch without asking questions. It seems to me, she would have become a Nazi if she “had been a German during a certain world war”.

Bringing in the locals

~ Matt Armstrong

Modern warfare is an environment were civilians may turn against us for a variety of reasons, becoming motivated to directly or indirectly attack our national security. These attacks may be against our homeland, our overseas assets, or our forces. Indirect attacks may include passive or active financial, physical, moral, and social support of those were move up the spear to the tip, or attacks against the same support of American policies. It also includes failure to notify our troops of IEDs or insurgents because they’ve become disinclined to do so. Seems like basic stuff, but for some, you just need to remind them of certain realities.

Local populations may feel disenfranchised by the recent history by a previous regime or by the toppling of their benefactor. They may also feel a lack of empowerment in basic needs, such as providing for their family or participating in socio-political-economic processes. By bringing in the locals, empowering them to take ownership in their rebuilding process, notably in the security realm but also in the political-economic areas as well, success increases. James Dobbins highlights this, as does virtually all the state-building, and nation, literature, as well as common sense. A people that does not participate in their state does not value it or see it as their own.

To this end, when operating in conflict/post-conflict environments were the host state needs to be rebuilt, certain tools are missing from our tooklit that demonstrates our commitment to the mission to the host, facilitates capacity building, and deepens host nation commitment, and capability, to the mission, and perhaps most importantly, enlists the locals into their own success. John Nagl posts paper he authored on the Small Wars Journal Blog about one these tools. In a paper titled Institutionalizing Adaptation: It’s Time for an Army Advisor Corps, published by the Center for a New American Security, John Nagl (of Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife) writes:

The most important military component of the Long War will not be the fighting we do ourselves, but how well we enable and empower our allies to fight with us. After describing the many complicated, interrelated, and simultaneous tasks that must be conducted to defeat an insurgency, the new Army / Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual notes “Key to all these tasks is developing an effective host-nation (HN) security force.” Indeed, it has been argued that foreign forces cannot defeat an insurgency; the best they can hope for is to create the conditions that will enable local forces to win for them.

Nagl recommends processes that demonstrate American commitment and rebuild security infrastructure from the inside out. Working with host nation forces who

offer significant cultural awareness and linguistic advantages over US forces, and also are likely to be far more acceptable to the local public whose support is essential to victory in any counterinsurgency campaign.

The short paper is a framework of operations and a stepping stone for expanding our capabilities in future conflicts. Unlike Post-World War II reconstruction that included years of prep work and yet encountered missteps and failure, yet had time to recover over years of effort, future conflicts will have ever shrinking time windows for success with the brighter light of formal and informal media shining on failures.

As this expands to fill the necessary posts beyond the military, say in State and Commerce, we should encourage more academies, such as DHS’s new academy, to educate those who commit to serve in a Civilian Response Corps-like entity.

Tactics and Strategy: adding to the Brave New War commentary

~ Matt Armstrong ~ 2 Comments

There is a difference between tactics and strategy, a point that seems lost on some. John Robb discusses the former in Brave New War: the tactics of the enemy as well as recommendations, implied and explicit, on how to  deal with current and future attacks. These are all very good, and I especially like his bazaar model, which all contribute to the discussion. However, this book has been highlighted as a resource on strategy on how to combat the “enemy”. This book simply does not do that. It does not provide a strategic solution to current or future threats. Matching a threat and attempting to stay ahead of the threat does nothing to actually eliminate or neutralize the threat.

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Speaking of pirates

~ Matt Armstrong

First Slate mentioned pirates, and Jules Crittenden commented on it. Almost immediately after that, Arms & Influences said he was reading a pirate book.

My turn. I’ll reiterate my strong recommendation to read The Sea Rover’s Practice: Pirate Tactics and Techniques, 1630-1730. My previous review is here (not that my reviews are masterpieces, and this was my first in a very, very long time).

Recently, I had the very fortunate opportunity to exchange email with the author, a former Navy SEAL. What I learned surprised me: I was one of the few scholars who found parallels between then and now in terms of privatization of force and insurgent warfare. (Maybe mom was right.)

If you’re interested in historical examples of privatized force and insurgent warfare remarkably similar to today, pick up this book. If you’re interested in a book that draws from period diaries of actual pirates (how cool), along with detailed discussion of their daily operations and tools, pick up this book. If you think 1648 was a magical milestone in the evolution of “state” ownership of warfare, don’t both because this will burst your bubble.

Separating IO and PA

~ Matt Armstrong ~ 1 Comment

To no one’s surprise, the nearly religious separation between information operations and public affairs continues in Iraq today. I just read MountainRunner buddy David Axe’s interview of BGen Robert Holmes, Deputy Director of Operations for CENTCOM at BlackFive:

DAVID AXE: [I]s there like an IO surge, then, to sort of accompany the new tact we’re taking in Iraq?

GEN. HOLMES: Well, I think all along your information operators, if you will — and we have to draw a line there, and I think you can particularly understand — the military, what we would look at as operational capabilities for information operations include certain things like, you know, psychological operations and then some other things with regard to I think Internet ops and things like that, which some of those I can’t get into, one, because they part of ongoing operations, and just for the operational security involved, I can’t go into it.

But I can tell you the focus is to use the information battlespace against our adversary. They use it; they use it quite well. They’re very agile and adept at using it. In some cases they can use it to — they’re not bound to the things — the policies and the values that we hold with regard to truthful information. So we go into that battlespace, if you will, if you don’t mind me calling it that, fully knowing that this is an enemy that is extreme, it is violent, and it’s going to use information to serve its purpose. On our hand, we look at how we counter that violent information or that propaganda with truthful information.

Now, having said that, I definitely understand the lines drawn between military psychological operations and, you know, we are — have policy and doctrine that allows us to do that, to tell “good news” stories, if you will, in the country where we have combat operations going on. And I also understand the line then drawn between our public affairs folks which, you know, are there for a certain reason.

Now, have we stepped up IO? We have quite a robust process in place to look at the information in media space; we look at cyberspace and see what we can do to engage our adversary there. MNF-I — and I’m sure you’re familiar with, you know, their strategic effects cell under the past leadership of General Bill Caldwell, and now Admiral Fox has stepped up into that role, and they’re very, very prolific, very active, very agile right there in Iraq.

We’re looking now at what we do to counter the Taliban as we see them in Afghanistan, particularly right now with their propaganda campaign about the collateral damage. And then we’re looking all across the region so that we communicate effectively, at least from our role as the combatant commander, those priorities that the commander has laid out for us.

Now, we cannot do that in isolation from what our national policies are, what our national priorities are with regard to security and stability and setting conditions for peace. So we’re interlocking, if you will, with the State Department’s Office for Public Diplomacy and Strategic Communication under Ambassador Hughes. And we’re setting the conduits up from our components and then here at Central Command, as the combatant command, with the Department of Defense in joint staff activities and then interlocking right into Ms. Hughes’ office.

That may have been a long answer, but it’s sort of a — I felt like I needed to share all of that with you, so that you’d see that it’s not just a huge hoopla in public — in PR, but it’s a well- focused effort to counter the enemy’s use of information and that part of — in our present asymmetric war. And information is a huge part of that.

Damn straight it was a long answer. The short of it, no. He’s stuttering and dancing around, with all due respect. We already know effective preemption is too much to ask for, so what are they doing? Well, they’re trying to “interlock” with Karen Hughes’ office….

I STRONGLY URGE YOU TO READ THE ENTIRE BLACKFIVE POST as well as the very informed comments if you are interested in the effectiveness of IO as well as the breadth of the potential impact of IO beyond Iraq.

I leave it to you to draw lessons from the post.

Critiquing Brave New War

~ Matt Armstrong ~ 3 Comments

Mamma always said I was special. According to John Robb, on his personal blog not Global Guerrillas, I am the only one to criticize Brave New War:

Knew it was going to happen. Oh well. To tell you the truth, I kinda expected more push-back to an outsider like me from the “conference crowd” guarding the walls around the counter-terrorism money/fantasy machine in [Washington]. This guy is the only one to do so publicly.

Am I trying to protect the “money/fantasy machine”? I don’t really know what he means by that (a little help?). Whatever it is, it sure sounds bad and I would probably agree the “money/fantasy machine” needs to be whacked. Regardless, my issue with the book pivots on a failure to include and factor in purposes and support systems into the analysis of his guerrillas. Insight into these two not insignificant data sets can’t be dismissed or ignored, but that is just what BNW does.

For more discussion on BNW, see the Small Wars Council board discussion that’s just starting up here (free subscription may be required, if you’re not already frequenting SWC and you’re interesting in COIN/Small Wars, you’re ignoring valuable insights).

Other reviews of Robb’s BNW may be found here:

  • New York Times
  • Scripps Howard News Service
  • DN-I Net
  • Washington Times / UPI

    • The War over Image

    ~ Matt Armstrong ~ 3 Comments

    This was going to be the Monday Mash-Up… but it suddenly evolved into a thematic post

    On war as information, read Jonathan Winer’s post at Counter Terrorism Blog titled “Battle of the Brands“.

    Still thinking about perceptions? Considering a few posts on the reactions to torture policy. Read the Armchair Generalist who quotes from an article on retired Generals Charles “Not like Yesterday” Krulak and Joseph Hoar. And read Abu Muquwama’s post on the same.

    Last bit on perceptions, a little something called “wave tactics” from Lt. Gen. Mattis.

    As he met recently with U.S. Marines at several locations across the sprawling Al Anbar province, Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis explained what he termed “wave tactics” to combat the Sunni Arab insurgency in its longtime stronghold. Mattis…is urging his troops to show respect to ordinary Iraqis and exercise restraint in the use of deadly force to prevent civilian deaths and injury…”Mad Dog” ordered his troops to be aggressive in fighting Iraqi forces but to show “soldierly compassion” toward civilians and prisoners. And last week, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, sent a message to troops not to let their frustration or anger override their training and judgment. His message followed a Pentagon survey that showed only 55% of soldiers and 40% of Marines would report a colleague for abusing civilians.

    Abuse by our soldiers is counterproductive and simply unacceptable. Consider Sun Tzu and Mao’s admonition against it (and their statements for the opposite behavior) and even the the basis of our Third Amendment (among others).

    On a related note, Michael Tanji notes the US Army is training gangsters. From the article he quotes:

    The gang’s initials and main symbol, the six-pointed star, have been tagged on concrete blast barriers, armored vehicles, and even remote firebase guard shacks. In an astonishing study of just three Army bases over the past four years, a Department of Defense detective identified more than 300 active gang members. Some experts estimate that up to 2 percent of the soldiers on active duty–perhaps as many as 20,000–have sworn allegiance to one gang or another.

    Unfortunately, the gang issue isn’t new and largely, if not entirely, the result of lowered standards for entry. Are these the guys we want fighting our information war?

    Updating the Blogroll

    ~ Matt Armstrong ~ 1 Comment

    Two new additions to the blogroll:

    First, Abu Muqawama (“Father of the Resistance”). Recommended for the counterinsurgent in you. His post today Insanity in Afghanistan is spot on. How would you respond to this question:

    How do these events affect your efforts to win the hearts and minds of the people in Afghanistan?

    Do you think you’d respond like this?

    I — well, to the extent that people understand that we’re working there on — working on their behalf, I think in the long run they understand that these actions — any loss of innocent life isn’t intentional on our part and that we certainly hope that they understand that.

    I’m not exactly sure how this differentiates our tactics from the bad guys’. Is it intent? or that we’re apologetic? Notable line: “we certainly hope that they understand that.” Implied message: because we know we’re not making it clear.

    (Thanks Phil for this recommendation.)

    Second addition is Seth Weinberger’s Security Dilemmas where he’s writing on international relations and domestic politics.

    Back to Phil at Intel Dump, here’s his description of MountainRunner:

    An eclectic blog which covers a wide range of security subjects from contemporary counterinsurgency to technology and procurement.

    “Procurement”??  

    World famous book, now available in paperback

    ~ Matt Armstrong ~ 1 Comment

    The book read by Jihadis (it’s apparently been found in Taleban training camps in Pak), the President, at least two SecDefs, and “21 of 25 Senate Armed Services Committee” members can now be yours for less than $10.20 plus shipping (or free shipping if you buy 3 copies). It’s FM 3-24, the Counterinsurgency manual of the US Army and Marine Corps.

    It is a pain going through the soft copy sometimes…

    (Hat tip John Nagl blogging at SWJ)

    Monday Mash-Up

    ~ Matt Armstrong ~ 1 Comment

    A day late but not a dollar short (remember you get what you pay for). Here’s the Monday Mash-Up, delivered on Tuesday.

    • Another kind of AMC
    • Animating the Bayeaux Tapestry (h/t A&I)
    • If you’re reading this you probably won’t be surprised that a recent Pew Survey Finds Most Knowledgeable Americans Watch ‘Daily Show’ and ‘Colbert’– and Visit Newspaper Sites

      A new survey of 1,502 adults released Sunday by Pew Research Center for the People & the Press found that despite the mass appeal of the Internet and cable news since a previous poll in 1989, Americans’ knowledge of national affairs has slipped a little. For example, only 69% know that Dick Cheney is vice president, while 74% could identify Dan Quayle in that post in 1989.
      Other details are equally eye-opening. Pew judged the levels of knowledgeability (correct answers) among those surveyed and found that those who scored the highest were regular watchers of Comedy Central’s The Daily Show and Colbert Report. They tied with regular readers of major newspapers in the top spot — with 54% of them getting 2 out of 3 questions correct. Watchers of the Lehrer News Hour on PBS followed just behind.
      Virtually bringing up the rear were regular watchers of Fox News. Only 1 in 3 could answer 2 out of 3 questions correctly. Fox topped only network morning show viewers.
      Told that Shia was one group of Muslims struggling in Iraq, only 32% of the total sample could name “Sunni” as the other key group.

    • Child Mortality in Iraq 150% worse than in 1990. But it’s more than Saddam starving his people:

      “Some 122,000 Iraqi children died in 2005 before reaching their fifth birthday. More than half of these deaths were among newborn babies in the first month of life,” Save the Children said, listing “armed conflict and social instability” among the principal reasons for Iraq’s child mortality rate.

      Remind me again how we achieve moral legitimacy over a population that is suffering like this?

    • Air Force Fleet Wearing Down

      Compared to 1996, the Air Force now spends 87% more on maintenance for a warplane fleet that is less ready to fly. The average Air Force warplane is 23.5 years old.

    • Trying to bring the fight home to American bases

    News from the Small Wars Journal Empire of Knowledge

    ~ Matt Armstrong ~ 2 Comments

    Monday Mash-up

    ~ Matt Armstrong
    • Listened to General David H. Petraeus on NPR this morning. Good interview as part of the overdue public affairs campaign that the Administration itself is probably wise to stay out of. (includes good awareness building of the complexity of the operation, that includes attributes of COIN, CT, and counter-gang/crime operations)
    • Dance Dance Revolution for Middle School fitness? (free sub req’d) Pathetic. Where’s the range of motion? Stability exercises? Upper body fitness? Endurance? Get them outside… argh.
    • Opinio Juris finds SCOTUS’s ruling in Hamdan v Rumsfeld case to be flawed:

      The Court’s holding and reasoning in Hamdan are unclear on one crucial issue: whether the United States is legally engaged in an armed conflict with the al Qaeda terrorist organization. Why is this issue so important? Well, the entire legal strategy of the Bush administration depends on it, both internationally and domestically, as vastly different rules of international and constitutional law apply in war and outside of it…

      …the Court (1) cites an authority in support of a proposition to which it is actually contrary; (2) quotes that authority selectively; and (3) ‘borrows’ both the citation and the quotation from the Jinks, Goodman and Slaughter amicus brief. The story doesn’t end here, however, as the Justices did not only filch citations from the brief but also relied on it substantively. Yet, as I’ll show in my next post, they did so while failing to distinguish between the several alternative arguments presented in that brief. Instead of opting for one of them, they made an unintelligible mish-mash of all of them, leading to contradictions within the Opinion of the Court itself.

    • The United States continues to be self-evident in the eyes of the government. We’re not talking about who we are and what we stand for, but the promotion of the US as a tourist destination. How else do you explain “the U.S. Department of Commerce has budgeted $3.9 million this year for marketing the country to international tourists. Malaysia will spend $117.9 million; Tunisia, $43 million; and Turkey, $80 million”? New York and Las Vegas spend “spend tens of millions” to attract tourists. DoC must think they don’t need to… wrong. I suppose it’s part of a larger strategy as the US continues to make it difficult and uncomfortable for people to get into this country.
    • PIPA released a public opinion poll that, among other things, reiterates that the United States is still well regarded and admired for its science and technology. For more discussion on the survey, see Marc Lynch’s post, but you at least go to the PIPA page to see the charts yourself.

      There is strong support for enhancing the role of Islam in all of the countries polled, through such measures as the imposition of sharia (Islamic law). This does not mean that they want to isolate their societies from outside influences: Most view globalization positively and favor democracy and freedom of religion

    • Eddie shared an excerpt of John McCain on Fox rejecting Tenet’s position on torture. This reminded me of an exchange on this blog last year on Powell letter’s to McCain on morality (more here).

    A Failure in Generalship

    ~ Matt Armstrong ~ 4 Comments

    A quote from an earlier interview with the author of the article at the center of the storm, Lt. Col. Paul Yingling:

    if I had to condense [my advice] into a pithy little bullet it would be: don’t train on finding the enemy; train on finding your friends and they will help you find your enemy

    No time to write on this, but here are some important links on the story:

    An observation from the SWC discussion notes LTC Yingling speaks from inside knowledge:

    you have an officer that has been deemed worthy by the very system that he is criticizing (…LTC Yingling does have a masters degree in Political Science from the University of Chicago, so he isn’t the standard mold rewarded by the system).

    he’s already served on three operational deployments, with his last one being a major cog in the wheel of the most successful brigade to have conducted counterinsurgency operations in Iraq as deemed by the Army itself.

    Another Brick in the Wall, Part II: Response to the Urban Tourniquet

    ~ Matt Armstrong

    The discussion over “gated communities” continues with David Kilcullen’s description of the “Urban Tourniquet”. Kilcullen’s response to the wide-spread condemnation of the tactic, while clear in its justification, does not fully address the two key issues raised in my own commentary a few days ago: the continued failure to participate in the information campaign and the apparent failure of the wall to integrate multidisciplinary and cross-institutional efforts.

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    Discussing The Just Prince, an Arab Muslim manual of leadership by Muhammad ibn Zafar

    ~ Matt Armstrong ~ 2 Comments

    The approach to state-building in Iraq is anchored in Western concepts of governing. Many, myself included, would argue this was an acceptable approach in the Golden Hour after the initial resistance was crushed or crumbled before resistance could organize and the shock wore off. In this power vacuum, the United States was dealing with a largely secular state that had a strong sense of national identity (see Adeed Dawisha’s excellent book Arab Nationalism in the Twentieth Century for details). However, as the Golden Hour slipped away and the opportunity to rebuild was squandered and religious men, fakers, and criminals stepped into the vacuum, the framework for discourse changed. The Western Machiavellian mindset was being displaced by a retreat into religion and tribalism, neither of which are “accepted” by the Machiavellian power model.
    Especially today, four years into the occupation of an Arab country at the cross-roads of Sunni and Shia, Arab and Persian, and West and East, we should reconsider how power is spoken, framed, and understood. Other authors have written on this, some I have reviewed previously, and some I will review in the future.

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