DEBATING COUNTERINSURGENCY
Recently, the excellent Small Wars Council had a vigorous thread on the ideas of State Department adviser and counterinsurgency expert, LTC David Kilcullen of the Australian Army. Intitated by Fabius Maximus, a regular constributor at Dr. Chet Richard’s DNI, It quickly became one of the most popular threads on the board.
Subsequently, Fabius Maximus published an article at DNI, “Why We Lose.
Part four of a series about the US expedition to the Middle East” where Fabius refined his critique of Colonel Kilcullen’s ideas about COIN in the context of 4GW theory and the war in Iraq. An excerpt:
“Begin at the beginning …
With admirable clarity, at the opening Kilcullen defines his subject.
{Counterinsurgency} is a competition with the insurgent for the right and the ability to win the hearts, minds and acquiescence of the population.
As noted, Kilcullen, and I, are not drawing distinctions between guerrilla warfare, to which this statement applies, and insurgency. With that in mind, we can then ask whether it is possible for us “to win the hearts, minds and acquiescence of the population”?
The answer is “no,” and the rationale is critical to appreciating why Kilcullen’s lessons learned for tactical commanders may mislead politicians who try to generalize it to a war-winning strategy (just implement his tactics and we win) or even worse, to grand strategy. For the explanation, we must look at the different types of 4GW.
The Two Forms of 4GW
As a simple dichotomy for analytical purposes, we can say that 4GW’s come in two types, reflecting the degree of involvement of outside interests (obviously there are many other ways to characterize 4GW).
1. Violence between two or more local groups, who can form from any combination of clans, governments, ethnicities, religions, gangs, and tribes.
2. Violence between two or more sides, where at least one is led by foreigners – both comprising, as above, any imaginable combination of factions.
4GW victories by governments are usually of the first kind, local governments fighting insurgencies. Often foreign assistance is important or even decisive, but the local government leads in such areas as political reform and tactics. Western governments have “won” a few type two insurgencies, but only by assisting the locals – with the locals carrying the primary burden. That is, the foreign interest may lead, but the local government must implement.”
Fabius’ crtique should be read in full. I have selected this part to highlight because I believe that attempting to disaggregate the overarching concept of 4GW into a dichotomy ( and perhaps, eventually, a typology) is a necessary step in finding the recurring, related, yet distinct, patterns of state vs. non-state conflict. In that respect, Fabius made a valuable contribution to moving the 4GW discussion forward.
At the invitation of Dave Dilegge, editor of The Small Wars Journal, Colonel Kilcullen has written a response to Fabius Maximus which has been posted on the thread at the Small Wars Council under the administrator’s handle ( Grand Vizier), which I excerpt here:
“…”Fabius”, I’d be very happy to engage with you in a more detailed discussion of my ideas, of which “28 articles” is actually not a particularly representative sample: I wrote it in response to specific requests from several deployed company commanders when I was in Iraq in January-March 2006, and as I write at the start of it (bottom of page 1 on the internet version) “there are no universal answers…what follows are observations from collective experience: the distilled essence of what those who went before you learned. They are expressed as commandments, for clarity, but are really more like folklore. Apply them judiciously and skeptically.”
In other words, in 28 articles I’m not expressing my latest “experimental” or strategic thinking, but rather trying to provide a quick compilation of ready-reference tactical ideas based on extant “classical” COIN thinking, and where possible drawn from proven experience from the field. I’m fundamentally a practitioner rather than a theorist, and my aim was mainly to meet an immediate need from colleagues in the field.
… have to say, however, that as a practitioner I don’t believe any of these discussions are ready for prime time. What the guys need in the field are workable frameworks and basic assumptions that help them in their day-to-day. So (especially in “28 articles”) I have tried to help where I can without claiming COIN as the silver bullet solution to problems that are actually far more complex. I try to keep the speculative stuff for forums where it won’t confuse guys whose average day is way more complicated and dangerous than mine.
Do I believe that the admonitions I make in the paper can be carried out by the average company commander? Actually I have huge confidence in the adaptability and agility of the guys in the field and have been impressed, again and again, as I have served with them in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere. But even if the advice is not strictly achievable, I still think it’s worth giving since it helps turn the “ship of state” in the right direction.”
Again, as with the article by Fabius, Colonel Kilcullen’s reply is something far better read in full than in a short snippet offered here. Kilcullen’s expertise, a rare combination of academic preparation ( he has a PhD. in Anthropology), field experience in waging unconventional warfare and in high level policy making, provides a level of insight into problems we face in Iraq and Afghanistan rarely seen in online discussions of this type.
Thanks again to Fabius Maximus and to Colonel Kilcullen for their contributions and to Dave Dilegge and Bill Nagle for their tireless efforts at SWJ/SWC in bringing important matters of defense policy to greater public attention.
UPDATE:
John Robb enters the discussion with comments and analysis.
