Posted on 06/05/2007 7:26:11 AM PDT by Tolik
The United States can usually win even postmodern wars abroad if it can play to its strengths — which are marshaling our enormous material, intelligence, and technological advantages to defeat the enemy before he inflicts enough casualties to convince an affluent and comfortable public at home that such losses are simply not worth the envisioned aims.
So how are we doing?
As expected, many of our traditional advantages are being nullified.
How can Americans use air superiority against an enemy that hides among civilians and dares them to destroy infrastructure essential to our friends?
We create sophisticated communications at great cost and investment; the parasitical terrorists simply bore into them and use them at no cost and sometimes with greater effect than do their inventors (e.g., Why are not jihadist websites deemed as dangerous as IEDs, but not attacked in similar fashion?).
Money and know-how can rebuild Iraq along the designs of Western material society — but that only makes it more vulnerable as a single transformer blown up or a pylon brought down can suddenly take away the newly found improved life. It’s not just that a suicide bomber with a $100 vest can destroy $1 million worth of electrical infrastructure, but in the gruesome equation cast the American engineers into the role of the incompetent or sinister by their failure to repair and rebuild faster than an illiterate can destroy.
The globalized media is an American epiphenomenon, but the narrative of the war is still the IED, not the purple finger. We apparently have no way of convincing the world that the primordial enemy commits daily something far worse than the sexual humiliation of the entire Abu Ghraib fiasco. Somehow “thousands have been killed” is never qualified as those mostly butchered and blown up by insurgents — since the loose use of the passive voice lends a general sense that somehow Americans are directly involved in, or responsible for, the killing.
Our soldiers are fighting brilliantly, and history will record they are defeating the enemy while suffering historically low casualties. But if the sacrifice of American youth is not tied — daily, hourly — to larger strategic and humanitarian goals by eloquent statesmen who believe in the mission, then cynicism follows and, with it, despair.
The establishment of consensual government in Iraq, with the concomitant defeat of jihadists, will have positive ripples that will undermine Islamism and help to cleanse the miasma in which al Qaeda thrives. But again, unless explained, most Americans will not see a connection between the ideology of the head-drillers and head-loppers we are fighting in Iraq and those who try to do even worse at Fort Dix and the Kennedy airport. The war to remove Saddam was won and is over; the subsequent and very different war in Iraq that followed is for nothing less than the future of the Middle East — and now involves everything from global terrorism and nuclear proliferation to the world’s oil supply and the future of Islam in the modern world.
We need to confess that the jihadists are not only keen students of insurgency warfare, but good observers of the American psyche. We think their kidnapping, childish infomercials, gruesome tactics, and horrific websites are primordial and counterproductive; but they are more likely horrifically simple in inciting the most basic fears and self-preservation instincts of ordinary people. Precisely because decapitation belongs to a different century makes it more gruesome now, not less. Because the al Qaedists steal many of their talking points from the Western Left does not make them unimaginative as much as eerily familiar. And because we can daily predict the serial barbarity of the jihadists makes it not so much unimaginative as savagely inevitable.
So what to do?
We can quibble and fight about tactics on the ground, manpower numbers, strategic postures toward Iran and Syria, the need to prod the Iraqis, but our problem is more existential. Either stabilizing Iraq now is felt critical to the United States and the West or it isn’t. If the Left is right that it isn’t, then we should flee; if they are wrong, and I think they are, then we must start using our vast cultural and media resources to explain what is at stake — in a strategic and humanitarian sense — and precisely what it is costing America and why it in the long run is worth it, and how we have adjusted to counter our enemies who in the last four years have not won in Iraq or anywhere else either.
By our relative inaction on these critical informational fronts, we are only raising the bar impossibly high for General Petraeus when he reports back to Congress in the autumn. For election-minded Republican senators and representatives (whose defection alone can end the war) the barometer of success unfortunately may be soon not be improvement in six months, but only an impossible demand for absolute victory in 2007.
So more explanation, less assertion; more debate with, rather than dismissal of, critics. And the final irony? The more brutal honesty, the less euphemism and generalities, the more Americans will accept the challenge
Yes, WE need to win the infowar. Non-state actors like terrorists organizations and news networks who profit from 24/7 coverage of terrorist attacks are defeating the regularly constituted strategic communications, public diplomacy, public affairs, and pyschological operations organs of our nation-state's government. Our government, including our military, cannot do what has to be done.
We can be non-state actors, too. We can be info Minute Men. We can help accelerate the extinction of the Dinosaur Media's control of the agenda, and what will be drummed into our conciousness and what will be totaly ignored.
Regulars have failed us. Become an Irregular and do what you can.
Freepmail MizSterious if you're interested.
A good assessment. We have apparently been reactive, not proactive since the fall of Baghdad.
How many Frenchmen died during the Normandy Invasion of WW II? How many peopled decried “collateral damage”? Times and attitudes have changed - and we no longer have a War Department, but a Department of Defense.
“We need to confess that the jihadists are not only keen students of insurgency warfare”
Well not really. Something I’ve noticed for a wlile now, they get a lot of support...when they are over there (where ever over there is), but when they show up here (where ever hre is) the support drops off rather rapidly. Why? because they start telling the locals they can’t listen to music, have the daughters go to school, they start lording it over the locals....etc
The guerilla fighters as fish swimming in the sea of the people
Mao Zedong
” but good observers of the American psyche. We think their kidnapping, childish infomercials, gruesome tactics, and horrific websites are primordial and counterproductive; but they are more likely horrifically simple in inciting the most basic fears and self-preservation instincts of ordinary people.”
We must admit they (at least the leaders) have an inner strength, a “Will to Power” if you will, that is something to behold. This is their strength..and their weakness. A weakness that can be exploited. Remember most of the people they have killed are Muslims. This is something we are not doing enough (let be honest the govenment isn’t doing much of anything on this) to exploit this. We’ve missed so many oportunities in the past..the Bombings in Jordon, Sharm-el-Sheikh, The Bali bombings, even the WTC, after 9-11 we should’ve flooded the Islamic world with flyers and photos of the Muslims that were killed, stories of their families, what these deaths mean to them...etc.
Fighting the War on Terror
A counterinsurgency strategy
James S. Corum
page 26
Counterinsurgency Theories
(snip)
The American and British counterinsurgency experts outlined the following basic principles of counterinsurgency warfare
1 The civilian population is understood as the center of gravity in an insurgency. One cannot fight insurgents effectively without winning the support of the population. Ideally the counterinsurgency strategy should be geared to driving a wedge between the population and the rebels.
2 Successful counterinsurgency requires a comprehensive strategy that combines military, political, and economic action. Since insurgencies grow out of large scale dissatisfaction with the government, the means must be found to address the social, political, and economic problems that provide the fuel for insurgency.
3 There needs to be a unity of effort by government forces, that is close coordination between the military and civilian agencies at every level.
4 Effectively fighting the insurgents, who usually live among and draw support from the civilian population, requires good intelligence. Military and police action without good intelligence is largely a wasted effort. To fight the insurgent one has to find him.
5 Military and civic action campaigns need to proceed simultaneously and be coordinated with each other.
6 The government needs to wage an effective media campaign to reassure the population and undermine support for the insurgent.
7 Military and police powers needs to be applied carefully and with discrimination. A heavy handed approach is wasteful and can cause discontent among the population.
______________________________________________________________________
In addition to the British/American theory of counterinsurgency some officers in the French army developed their own theory
(snip)
The French view, expressed by French army Colonel Roger Trinquier and published as Modern Warfare in 1961 was widely read in both French and English editions. The French model differed considerably from the British/American model. Trinquier, who had long experience in counterinsurgency, outlined some very useful tactics in dealing with urban rebellion, including discussions of how to seal off a city district, collect comprehensive data on the population and register the whole population as a means to identify the insurgents from outside the area, and limit the ability of the insurgents to move within the country.
Trinquier’s theory differed enormously from the Anglo-Saxon model on several key points.
First he saw counterinsurgency primarily in military terms. For Trinquier, establishing military presence and crushing the insurgents by force was the first priority. In contrast with the British and America view that military action had to be carried out simultaneously with civic action programs, Trinquier argued first for military action to crush the insurgents. While civic action programs were important, they would be carried out only after the insurgency had been crushed by force.
Whereas British and American theorists of the 1950’s and 1960’s believed that building up a legitimate government and supporting indigenous institutions were the key elements of counterinsurgency strategy, there is little of this in Trinquier’s work. Essentially, Trinquier believed in strong arming the population into compliance with French rule.
Trinquier’s approach could bring short team success. The most notable example was Algeria, where the French army essentially broke the back of the insurgent movement by 1960. However in the long run, by ignoring the need to build public support for the government, the French approach led to strategic failure. One illustration of the French approach’s lack of political considerations was to policy of torturing and abusing insurgent prisoners in Algeria. Trinquier advocated the widespread use of such means’s of obtaining intelligence information, although he did not advocate the widespread use of such means. He failed to understand the breakdown in army discipline that occurs when moral and legal boundaries are crossed.
(snip)
2 Successful counterinsurgency requires a comprehensive strategy that combines military, political, and economic action. Since insurgencies grow out of large scale dissatisfaction with the government, the means must be found to address the social, political, and economic problems that provide the fuel for insurgency.
Along with this we should be trying to cut communications between leaders and insurgents. Cell phones and the Internet are vulnerable and we do have the experts and technology to interfere. While we do monitor radical Islamic website, they seem never to be attacked.
Anti-Coalition and anti-Iraqi leaders are seemingly free to operate.
Along with this we should be trying to cut communications between leaders and insurgents. Cell phones and the Internet are vulnerable and we do have the experts and technology to interfere.
What a coincidence! From todays Stratagypage (Don’t know if you’ve heard of it or not, but it’s a really good site)
Intelligence: Shut ‘em Down Versus Stake Them Out
June 7, 2007
http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htintel/articles/20070607.aspx
Once more, the debate over shutting down terrorist web sites is raging in the intel community. Most of the useful terrorist information (how to recruit, organize, avoid getting caught, and carry out attacks) is now online. With a little digging on Google (knowledge of Arabic is useful, because most of the useful sites are still in that language), and you can dig up this stuff. But so can intelligence agencies (with, it is believed, some help from certain search engine companies, but no one will talk about that).
The argument comes down to this. The intel operatives want to stake out these web sites, track down who is using them, and see which of these visitors will lead them to a dangerous new Islamic terrorist cell. That’s fine if your job is to identify and find Islamic terrorists. But if you are higher up in the intel food chain, you have analysts telling you that these “informational” sites are making it possible for lots of eager wannabes to turn into lethal terrorists. This view developed as more and more terrorists were arrested, who had attacks in various states of completion, and were getting all their technical information from web sites.
While it is acknowledged that finding terror suspects via terrorist web sites is important, there are other ways to detect these people. But there is no other way to obtain detailed terrorist info that is nearly as effective as the web. At the moment, the two sides are throwing stats and trend lines at each other. If the “shut ‘em down” side wins, they will have to overcome the lawyers as well, because shutting down all those terrorist web sites in a timely manner will mean some collateral damage for the Internet infrastructure firms that are providing the hardware and software.
You should post his townhall column from this week about all the mistakes in WWII. Then send a copy to Historian Newt. He keeps harping on how bad the Iraq war was run.
Entire Iraqi formations were bypassed and simply told to go home. They weren’t even disarmed. In our effort to not offend we set the stage for the insurgency that followed. We concentrated on debaathification and ignored radical Islam.
A good point.
1 I’d like to hear of a war where mistakes were not made. What’s the old saying “No plan survives contact with the enemy” & “In every plan the enemy gets a vote.”
2 Most of those who when home were Shia, as was most of the soldies in the regular Iraqi army. At least until the bombing of the Mosque of the Golden Dome the insurgence were coming from the Sinni’s. Most of the Shia attacks have been targeted at the Sunni’s not the Americans/British.
I wonder if Newt has ever read any Civil War history? (that’s a joke).
As I keep saying, I wish someone would point out a war where mistake were NOT made. Now last time I checked wars were fought by people..and (once again last time I checked) people make mistakes. Well not you and I but then we are the exception that proves the rule.
BUMP!
He certainly does know. The mission was accomplished. In the long war and the war on many fronts...we, our coalition partners, like minded Iraqi's and freedom lovers everywhere(including bloggers) are living, fighting and winning despite the narrowly defined conditions/parameters the "parrot or perish" crowd deem necessary for success.
If the “shut ‘em down” side wins, they will have to overcome the lawyers as well, because shutting down all those terrorist web sites in a timely manner will mean some collateral damage for the Internet infrastructure firms that are providing the hardware and software.
You present both sides well. I was thinking more on the lines of geek attacks on the sites - changing the information presented. It wouldn’t last long, but it would interfere with the operation. Jihadists’ web forums would be easy targets for denial of service attacks.
We have effectively cut Usama off to the point he has been reduced to using couriers. It would be nearly impossible in the Iraq area - too many people with modern communications, but there should be more we can do.
But it left a lot of weapons laying around - how many were sold at the local market?
“how many were sold at the local market?”
Your guess is as good as mine. As I recall Iraqi law allows every family to have one weapon, for self defence.
There was an article in the American Spectator from the summer of 03 where an EOD expert called Iraq one giant bomb dump.
From people I’ve talked to, “a giant bomb dump” would be right.
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