Counterinsurgency strategies

Insurgencies – unofficial underground military and terrorist groups who use unconventional means of waging war, like car bombs and suicide bombers – are going to be with us for the foreseeable future. It is one of the consequences of developing an overwhelmingly powerful military force; insurgency is the only effective avenue we have left opposition groups.

The November/December 2007 issue of Foreign Affairs contains a review essay by Colin Kahl on the new US Army/Marine Counterinsurgency Field Manual, which was issued in its new revised form last December after considerable debate within the military establishment and its think tanks. I recommend this essay.

Looking at the history of insurgencies from the time of the Romans to the present day, only two effective counterinsurgency methods have emerged: (1) the old Roman method of brutally crushing all opposition and ruling the territory with an iron hand, and (2) the very slow process of winning the hearts and minds of the populace so that they themselves turn against the insurgency and deprive it of the indigenous support and cover that makes it possible. In general, America has tried to follow a middle path between these two, combining the worst elements of both. Not surprisingly, this has usually been not only ineffective, but actually counterproductive. In Iraq, for example, we don’t really offer the populace enough stability and safety to win them to our side, and our occasional ham-handed military sweep-and-clear operations produce enough civilian casualties and bad media exposure to help the insurgency recruit more members, yet not enough enemy casualties to really tip the balance.

The thing to remember is that insurgencies don’t have to win to succeed. They only have to produce enough pain for long enough to wear down the resolve and patience of their opponent and make them abandon the field of battle. Moreover, the modern world works in favor of insurgencies. On the one hand democracies are notoriously unable to keep a long term perspective or maintain a patient long-term policy. Voters will tolerate casualties for only so long, especially if there is no visible progress. On the other hand the worldwide media is easy to enlist and manipulate, and the emergence of the internet has simplified the propaganda, communications and organizational tasks of any insurgency.

The new US Army/Marine Counterinsurgency Field Manual tries to address these issues, but however enlightened it is, the military approach will always be hobbled by the constraints and inconstancy and limited time horizons of democratic governments and their constituents, we the voters of America.

It seems to me the only solution here is to improve our skills at winning the hearts and minds of foreign populations, which is not a military task and will not be accomplished by military means, though security forces can certainly help maintain stability at times.

Spending billions producing yet more high-tech weapons systems is not likely to solve the current insurgency problem. Spending a fraction of that money on staffing our intelligence and diplomatic and aid agencies with people who really understand other countries and their languages and their cultures would pay far better dividends.

Unless, of course, the administration in power, in its arrogance, decides once again to ignore their input, as they did with Iraq.