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[ by Charles Cameron — cross-posted with brief intro from Alix Levine‘s blog — topic: Google’s Summit Against Violent Extremism ]

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Google Ideas — the Google “think/do tank” — recently co-hosted (with the CFR and Tribeca Film festival) a conference on countering radical extremism in Dublin, with a mix of “former extremists, activists, academics, survivors, executives and public sector officials” in attendance.  Blog-friend Matt Armstrong was there, live-tweeting with enthusiasm. Dr William McCants of Jihadica and CNA wasn’t terribly impressed with the outcome, and posted at Foreign Policy:

I am not ready to give up on the enterprise of countering violent extremism just yet, but I am less sanguine about its chances of success than I was before I started working on the problem. Google Ideas’ summit has not increased my optimism, but its resources and potential do.

Alix Levine of Cronus Global attended the event, and reported back on her blog. I’ve commented briefly on McCants’ piece on FP, but wrote a longer piece as a comment on Alix’ blog, and am cross-posting it here in the hope that it will stir further discussion…

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I’m comparing Will McCants‘ response to the Google Ideas conference on FP with yours, and I’m glad you wrote as you did.

McCants – whose work I generally admire — opens his comments by quoting Jared Cohen to the effect that the purpose of the conference was to “initiate a global conversation”. McCants then more or less dismisses the conference itself a couple paragraphs later with the words “If these are indeed the conclusions of the conference, Google Ideas needs more thinking and less doing in its approach”.

Conclusions? How does he get so quickly from “initiate” to “conclusions”?

Okay, we all know that a conference can lead to a volume of proceedings read mostly by the authors themselves and a few aspiring students eager to follow-my-leader and dead end there – but this conference was very clearly intended to be the start of something, not the wrap-up.

So your comment, Alix, “Instead of critiquing Google’s effort, it will be more productive and valuable to work in unison with Google on their mission to ‘initiate a global conversation'” seemed to me to bring us back to the actual intent Google had announced for the conference, and you reinforce that when you write, “I hope that more people will join in on the conversation in a meaningful and (gasp) positive way.”

My questions are: how and where do we do this?

There will have been contacts made at the conference that will lead to an exchange of emails, no doubt – but that’s not a global conversation.

Here are some of the problems I foresee:

(a) siloing: the conversation limiting itself to a few constituencies, each of which talks mainly among its own members, leading to

(b) group think: in which the widely assumed gets even more firmly entrenched as “wisdom”, with

(c) secrecy: meaning that potentially relevant information is unavailable to some or all participants, all of which add up to

(d) blind spots: topics and approaches that still don’t get the attention and exploration they deserve.

The solutions would need to include:

(a) networked diversity: by which I mean a structured means of getting the unpopular or minority opinion front and center (compare business brainstorming in which a facilitator ensures even the “quiet ones” get heard, and that even poor ideas are expressed without critique until a later, evaluative stage),

(b) contrariety: meaning that whatever ideas are “easily dismissed” get special attention, with

(c) transparency: meaning that whatever could be redacted and made partially available is made available, not (as in US Govt “open source” material, closely held), so that

(d) oddballs and outriders get to participate…

Jami Miscik who was Deputy Director for Intelligence at the time, caught my attention when she said in 2004, “Embrace the maverick”. Oddballs aka mavericks make the best contrarians, because they start from different premises / different assumption bases. Miscik accordingly invited science fiction and film writers to interact with her analysts at CIA, and found that when they did, they produced 80% already known ideas, 10% chaff, and 10% new and “valid” scenarios. But even then, “science fiction and screen writers” is a box…

Cross-fertilization, questioning of assumptions, passion, reverie, visualization, scenario planning, play – the number of strategies that could be employed to improve the chances of a successful new insight emerging are many and various – unkempt artists probably know some of them better than suits with high IQs and clearances, and Google clearly knows this, too…

But where?

I mean, what Google+ circles do any of us join, to join this global conversation? What twitter hashtag brings us together under one roof? When’s the follow up in my neck of the woods, or yours?

What’s the method for getting the conversation widespread, well-informed – and scaleable, so the best of the grass roots and local ideas can find their way to the influential and informed, and the best insights of the influential and informed can percolate through to the grass roots and local?

Lastly, I’d like to thank Google for getting a dialog going between those with a range of subjective experiences of radicalization, and those whose job it is to understand and thus be able to interdict it. Demonization never got the situation in Northern Ireland anywhere near peace – listening did.

And thank you too, Alix, for your own contribution. Let’s move the conversation onwards.

Fight in Afghanistan to turn east: Petraeus

The outgoing commander of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan says the focus of the war will shift in coming months from Taliban strongholds in the south to the eastern border with Pakistan where insurgents closest to al-Qaeda and other militants hold sway.

With a new job pending as the CIA director, General David Petraeus said on Monday that by the northern autumn, more special forces, intelligence, surveillance, air power will be concentrated in areas along Afghanistan’s rugged eastern border with Pakistan….

Commander: Special operations forces under stress

….Senators pressed McRaven on the impact that the planned U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan would have on special operations troops, asking whether Afghan elite forces would be able to step in.

McRaven said that right now U.S. forces need to continue to monitor and guide many of the Afghan special forces, but some units are highly trained and are increasingly taking on a larger role.

While the number of special operations forces has doubled to about 61,000 over the past nine years, the total of those deployed overseas has quadrupled. There are at least 7,000 special operators in Afghanistan and about 3,000 in Iraq. Those numbers can vary as units move in and out of the war zone, and often the totals don’t include the most elite of the commandos – special mission units such as Army Delta Force and Navy SEALs that may go in and out more quietly and quickly.

….In Afghanistan, special operations forces serve a number of roles. Not only do they mount an aggressive counterterrorism campaign across the country, but they also form teams to train or mentor Afghan forces. In one example, McRaven said that over the past 12 months, the task force he commanded conducted about 2,000 operations, roughly 88 percent of which were at night….

Supply and demand is an economic principle with universal application.

The demands of war have outstripped our supply of tax dollars, so elite units of speed, stealth and striking power are being substituted, in synergy with airpower, paramilitaries and on the spot analysts of the CIA, for whole divisions. In the drawdown from Afghanistan, FID will replace COIN , covert ops will replace surging, class will replace mass.

Mass in an AVF is very, very expensive (so is, incidentally, choosing grandiose political objectives to be achieved by military means). The shift that is happening in Afghanistan, partly by fiscal necessity, is going to become our default defense paradigm for at least the 2010’s. Highly mobile, extremely fast, networked, partially covert, backed by lethal high-tech firepower.

Rumsfeld’s revenge. And Wild Bill Donovan’s. And Art Cebrowski’s.

As a rule, I think recreating a modernized OSS-like community in all but name is a good idea that will pay dividends in terms of tactical and strategic flexibility. I fully expect the bureaucratic gravitational pull and sheer utility in fighting the murky, mutable, Islamist enemy to eventually draw in cyber elements of various agencies, elite law enforcement, DOJ, DARPA, Treasury and State Department personnel in to the mix, albeit sparingly. Such an interdependent and collaborative military and intelligence community is optimized as a striking force against our most immediate or proximate security threats – though definitely not all of our security threats (those who wish to disband all our armored units or unilaterally give up nuclear weapons can stop fantasizing now).

However, there are some caveats that need to be considered, in my view.

First, supply and demand applies here as well.  There’s a high practical barrier to growing the size of our special forces, which are presently badly overstressed. The commonly cited figure for growth is 3-5 % annually, if we want something better in our special forces than the highly conditioned thugs that the Soviets used to roll out in large numbers in their SPETSNAZ divisions. That’s not much and it represents the max that is probably possible without returning to conscription, which theoretically would give the US military the pick of the litter of entire age cohorts, but in reality much less. You have to be highly motivated to become a Navy SEAL or want to jump out of a perfectly good Army helicopter. Unwilling conscripts won’t fit the bill. Right now we are “stretching” our special forces by mixing them with high quality regulars; a hidden cost to this practice is that most of these folk are essentially “officer material” and drawing out the most capable personnel systemically weakens the regular units of their natural leaders.  The tip of this shadowy spear is always going to be small and difficult to replace and not something suited for waging total war (shades of Byzantium).

Secondly, normal use of this kind of force requires a political climate that keeps the antiwar and anti-American factions of the Left marginalized because many operations in the blurry realm between war, terrorism, crime and covert ops will legally require presidential findings to be reported to Congressional oversight committees. If the US Congress had the political composition of the 1980’s, with Vietnam era anti-war types being extremely vocal, especially in the House, much of what we are doing and have done in Afghanistan, Pakistan or Yemen would not be politically possible, including the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. It would require a considerable electoral turn, but friction in the form of modern day Boland amendments, special prosecutors, Church–Pike hearings and gratuitous leaks will make use of these forces impractical and highly risky for any president. Or for the military and intelligence personnel themselves who might face ex post facto prosecution due to the agitation of zealous leftist partisans in Congress and the media.

Thirdly, an emphasis on a special forces dominant force structure may have the unintended consequence of causing the executive branch civilian officials to move even further away from strategic thinking and incline them more toward reactive, tactical, retaliation. Misuse of special forces is the American historical norm.  Special forces are so well suited for “emergency use” that they are frequently employed for every “priority” mission except those that are intended to have a strategic effect, even when a regular military unit of combat infantry is more than adequate for the task at hand (Or for that matter, using non-military options!) The mental focus and threat awareness starts to unconsciously migrate to those problems such a force structure is well-suited to solve and away from those that they are not. Unfortunately, those other security threats might ultimately be a lot more important in the long run to American interests.

America is headed into the Light Footprint Era, ready or not.

Wilf Owen, noted Clausewitzian and Editor of Infinity Journal has a provocative new piece up at SWJ Blog:

 Killing Your Way to Control

The population is not the prize. The population are the spectators to armed conflict. The prize is the control the government gains when the enemy is dead and gone. Control only exists when it is being applied, and it exists via the rule of law. The population will obey whoever exercises the power of law over them. Power creates support. Support does not create power. This is the source
of great confusion.

….In general terms killing the wrong people (civilians) may undermine the political objective being sought. Whether it does or does not will be the policy context. How proportionately, precisely or discriminately lethal force is applied will be dependant on the tactics employed. Thus Rules of Engagement (ROE) are those limitations on lethal force and military activity that armed forces use to ensure that force does not undermine policy.

….All the new counter-insurgency theorists concede, some killing is required but to quote FM3-24 while necessary, especially with respect to extremists [killing] by itself cannot defeat an insurgency. Again this makes no sense, unless as part of a defence mounted to preserve the idea that you cannot kill and capture your way to success. Those who are extremists do not become apparent or may not even exist until the ranks of the enemy have been thinned by death, desertion and surrender. Until lethal force is focused on the enemy, the extremists may not be apparent, and who is and is not an extremist is irrelevant if they are clearly armed and thus a legitimate target within the ROE.

Killing and capturing are important, because lesser forms of operation aimed at disrupting or dislocating while useful, may allow the enemy to survive. Dead and captured cannot return at some later date to re-contest any issue they see fit. Warfare against irregular forces is won in a similar way to warfare against regular forces. The only major differences is that force usually has to be employed far more precisely, discriminately and proportionately. This is because lethal force will be applied close to or within a population that you are politically/legally required to protect. The other difference is that lethal force will be focussed at the individual level. This is a general distinction from that of fighting regular forces where operations would seek to defeat units and formations in part or as a whole.

The case of Algeria, during the 1990’s with the battle between Islamist rebel-terrorists and a radical Arab-socialist dictatorship provides some support for Owen’s ideas regarding killing and the separation of opponents into extremists and moderates. The government, which applied force with minimal constraints, did succeed in killing off the leadership cadres of the FIS, GIA and MIA faster than they could be properly developed, leaving leadership in the hands of either younger, more radical but less experienced men or causing the groups to accept government amnesty. 

Algeria of course enjoyed several advantages that the West lacks in places like Afghanistan – the Algerian rebels were isolated from the outside world and enjoyed minimal foreign support and the Algerian dictatorship conducted operations without regard to the laws of war in a media blackout, getting a pass from the international community because the behavior of the rebels was even worse. In Afghanistan, the center of gravity of the Taliban movement is the support of Pakistan’s ISI whch is using them as proxies to drive ISAF out of Afghanistan and the kind of punitive raiding into Pakistan to decimate Taliban manpower is forbidden by policy.

ADDENDUM:

Spencer Ackerman offers a spirited rebuttal to Wilf Owen:

Please, God, No More Stupid Anti-Counterinsurgency Arguments

…. Where to begin. Sometimes, as in nearly all counterinsurgency fights, the counterinsurgent cannot easily distinguish the insurgent from the civilian. That’s not always because of poor tactical intelligence or ignorance of a foreign culture. It’s because the guy who gives his old cellphone to his cousin so his old neighborhood friend can use it to construct IEDs for the guy paying a good going rate — quick, is he an insurgent or not? If you can’t immediately answer, Owen’s argument falls apart.

Even if you unflinchingly decide the guy’s an insurgent, killing the guy can easily inspire the whole neighborhood to rally to the insurgents’ cause. Quick: do you kill the guy so you can approach the Magic Number of dead insurgents that assures you victory? Or does not killing the guy take you further away from the Magic Number?

I know, I know. Counterinsurgency is OVER. Whatever context, wisdom or experience led people to consider it a least-bad option ought to be ignored. Its unsuitability for Afghanistan has rendered the entire enterprise inert. What, you didn’t read that National Journal piece?  

My only comment here is that Pop-centric COIN is only one brand of COIN that fits some situations better than others. I suspect much of the time in the near future, US military forces will be limiting themselves to FID, largely for budgetary reasons, and the host nation may see COIN differently than our current doctrine prescribes.

Statement to the Nation Delivered by President Harry S. Truman on July 4, 1945

Again this year we celebrate July 4 as the anniversary of the day one hundred and sixty-nine years ago on which we declared our independence as a sovereign people. In this year of 1945, we have pride in the combined might of this nation which has contributed signally to the defeat of the enemy in Europe. We have confidence that, under Providence, we soon may crush the enemy in the Pacific. We have humility for the guidance that has been given us of God in serving His will as a leader of freedom for the world.

This year, the men and women of our armed forces, and many civilians as well, are celebrating the anniversary of American Independence in other countries throughout the world. Citizens of these other lands will understand what we celebrate and why, for freedom is dear to the hearts of all men everywhere. In other lands, others will join us in honoring our declaration that all men are created equal and are endowed with certain inalienable rights–life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Here at home, on this July 4, 1945, let us honor our Nation’s creed of liberty, and the men and women of our armed forces who are carrying this creed with them throughout the world.

What happened 66 years ago still holds true today.

This is the core of what it America is, a civic creed, adherence to which defines the holder as possessor of the exalted title of “American”, without regard to their origins, however humble, their condition, however mean, they can hold their heads above those of kings as a free people, jealous of their liberties and none greater than another under the law.

That was the revolutionary ideal that set the world on fire, long though in the coming to arrive as a reality. It is our greatest legacy to the history of mankind and if we ever lose our vigilance and submit to tyrants, forgetting ourselves in seeking security, Jefferson’s words may yet inspire others to take up the cause on our behalf as we have done so for others:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world….”

Thomas Jefferson, at great age and infirmity, ten days before July 4th, 1826 – the 50th anniversary of the signing of the document that was largely written in his own hand, wrote a letter declining to participate in celebrations, due to ill health; but Jefferson declared:

“May it be to the world, what I believe it will be … the signal of arousing men to burst the chains … and to assume the blessings and security of self-government. That form, which we have substituted, restores the free right to the unbounded exercise of reason and freedom of opinion. All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man. … For ourselves, let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them.”

Amen.