Wilf Owen on Killing Your Way to Control
Wilf Owen, noted Clausewitzian and Editor of Infinity Journal has a provocative new piece up at SWJ Blog:
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.
July 5th, 2011 at 5:06 pm
The strategic target that the drafting and final release of FM-324 was aimed at was not combat operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, or anywhere else. It was clearly aimed at co-opting the chattering classes in Washington and other Western capitals so they’d start mindlessly repeating mantras like "protect the population", "hearts and minds", and "clear, hold, and build" instead of "endless quagmire" or other alternatives. It traded illusion for time.
The resolution in Iraq was probably largely the result of an increasing number of trained Iraqi bodies to throw at the insurgents plus Odierno and McChrystal’s strong mix of orthodox and unorthodox slaughter. FM-324 probably put too much emphasis on conquest through love rather than conquest through killing but swinging all the way to the opposite extreme leaves efforts at population control too heavily weighted against politicking. A successful mix of both is required though development of killing capacity is safer and more predictable than the nausea of soft power.
The suppression of insurgencies in Chechnya and Sri Lanka were heavily assisted by suppressing the media. Leaving a desert and calling it peace is probably much easier if reporters are properly cowed.
July 5th, 2011 at 5:20 pm
"The suppression of insurgencies in Chechnya and Sri Lanka were heavily assisted by suppressing the media." Enemy-centric COIN proponents routinely cite the Chechen wars. It took the Russian military over a decade to stabilize a small piece of land with a population of around one million people, to say nothing of the continued attacks that plague the Caucausus in general. There is much evidence to suggest that, had they adopted population-centric methods, the Russians might have quelled the insurgency much sooner.
That aside, Owen in this article displays the same ignorance he’s routinely exhibited in regard to assymetric warfare. One need only take a look at the 4GW critiques (or lack therefore) he posted in the SWJ forums a few years ago. The man has no grasp of the subject matter. Population-centric COIN may be extremely difficult to the extent that its almost never a good idea to attempt it, but this notion that concentrating on killing is any better is absurd.
July 5th, 2011 at 5:47 pm
How are you supposed to effectively hunt down and kill insurgents without good intelligence? For soldiers in a foreign country, this is extremely difficult without the help of the local population. How do you persuade such people, faced with intimidation, to help your cause? By protecting them and thus hopefully gaining their SUPPORT. Then you can take that intel and go after the insurgents.
Poor intelligence leads to messy, ineffective operations that can result in dead soldiers and collateral damage.
July 5th, 2011 at 6:02 pm
In Wilf’s defense, the article does not advocate intimidating the population in a Soviet-style fashion, but demonstrating that you are powerful and intend to win. Then cooperation will come from the usual quarters. If a state cannot do this, then perhaps it ought to revise its guiding policy.
July 5th, 2011 at 6:03 pm
Chuckleberry, since you asked, here is one way to do it.
http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2011/04/the-pacification-of-zaganiyah/
July 5th, 2011 at 6:23 pm
"In Wilf’s defense, the article does not advocate intimidating the population in a Soviet-style fashion, but demonstrating that you are powerful and intend to win." I’m aware of that. I still think its completely off-base.
" If a state cannot do this, then perhaps it ought to revise its guiding policy." Indeed.
MikeF, thanks for the great article. I’m in the process of reading it and will posted my thoughts afterwards.
July 5th, 2011 at 6:28 pm
a.) Yes you need good intelligence. That’s obvious and banal. It does not need saying to the readership of the British Army Review.b.) Killing insurgents does not mean killing civilians.c.) You gain support by winning. You do not need support to gain intelligence. It merely helps and.
July 5th, 2011 at 6:33 pm
To add to my response, A.E., I’m pretty sure Putin and his military commanders demonstrated they were powerful and intended to win going into the Second Chechen War. They had analyzed all of their shortcomings from the previous war and prepared accordingly. As I previously stated, it still took them years and heavy casualties to pacify (that can be argued) a population 1/28th the size of that of Afghanistan and 1/37th the area. If that’s what it takes to beat insurgencies, we may as well stop trying.
July 5th, 2011 at 6:39 pm
"a.) Yes you need good intelligence. That’s obvious and banal. It does not need saying to the readership of the British Army Review.b.) Killing insurgents does not mean killing civilians.c.) You gain support by winning. You do not need support to gain intelligence. It merely helps and."
a) How do you get good intelligence if you don’t secure the population and get them talking? (Mike, I still have to read your article)
b) I’m aware of that and never said as much. However, if killing insurgents is all you focus on there’s going to be problems and increased likelihood of collateral damage.
c) See my question regarding a). HOW do you plan on finding and killing these insurgents? Its not like they’re parading around in the streets with a uniform.
July 5th, 2011 at 6:42 pm
I agree that you gain increased support by "winning." The question is, how do you start winning?
July 5th, 2011 at 7:01 pm
Mike F, I read your article. Here are some of my initial thoughts.
"We learned that relationships are essential to counterinsurgency operations for intelligence and collection value; however, one must remember that the mission comes first and the intent is to influence, coerce, or persuade the subject in order to force him/her to agree to your mission. It is quite naive to believe that you are attempting to win anyone‘s heart and mind during a violent insurgency." Agreed. I never stated that winning hearts and minds is essential to winning over the population. I simply took issue Owen’s enemy-centric emphasis. Securing the population is essential to eventually killing insurgents.
"Throughout the tour, we made it known to the populace that we could be anywhere at any time." An example of securing the populous.
"Rather than attempting to transform an entire society, we simply wanted to affect one behavior initially— that is, stopping the violence and reestablishing security. We were not trying to fix Zaganiyah. They would have to choose to do that on their own time. "
"Locals detesting the al Qaeda occupation pointed out the location of the building. " I’d like to point out that I believe Al-Qaeda itself contributed to such cooperation. If an insurgency becomes murderous and indiscriminate to the extent that it seems it was in Zaganiyah, then the people will eventually turn on it. That’s what arguably led to the Sunni Awakening.
Your article lists some great examples of intel that can be gathered without local support, but it fails to convince me that the population isn’t central to winning eventually.
July 5th, 2011 at 11:16 pm
Chuckleberry, Thanks for reading, and I’m glad you liked it. I did not write an opinion piece or persuasion paper. It is what it is-the first part of one example of how to do the business in small wars. Some may do it better; some may do it worse. But, IMO on the tactical level, it’s METT-TC (mission, enemy, time, terrain, troops, civilians).
July 6th, 2011 at 3:49 am
Chuckleberry: We have many many ways to find the insurgents. Go and read Kitson and Paget. Look at what was done in Northern Ireland, Dhofar, Cyprus and Kenya. This is the most salient and critical part of countering armed rebellions. It’s not easy and It is possible. The idea that intelligence operations require permissive environments is a fallacy.
July 6th, 2011 at 4:52 am
As I beat my dead horse and stroke my pet rock….Strategy=Targeting and Wilf’s article points that out. There is another article over at SWJ that I cain’t find(by an Army General) right now that talks about the F3AE method of collecting Intelligence which is basically how cops find criminals and break up gangs except the military has Drones to help.
July 6th, 2011 at 5:02 am
Article on how to find the right target. Better versions of fthis article are out there but this is the best I could do.
Link to article Employing ISR:SOF Best practices.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0KNN/is_50/ai_n28072547/
July 6th, 2011 at 5:55 am
"Sometimes you bring them the love. Sometimes you bring them the hate.”
July 6th, 2011 at 1:49 pm
"We have many many ways to find the insurgents. Go and read Kitson and Paget. Look at what was done in Northern Ireland, Dhofar, Cyprus and Kenya. This is the most salient and critical part of countering armed rebellions. It’s not easy and It is possible. The idea that intelligence operations require permissive environments is a fallacy."
Its nearly impossible for modern-day counterinsurgents to obtain good intel in non-permissive environments, especially in FOREIGN areas. The rebuttal that Zen posted pretty much sums it up. How you came to be the editor of a journal is beyond me.
July 6th, 2011 at 1:56 pm
"Its nearly impossible for modern-day counterinsurgents to obtain good intel in non-permissive environments, especially in FOREIGN areas."
Says who?
July 6th, 2011 at 1:58 pm
"…which is basically how cops find criminals and break up gangs except the military has Drones to help." Except the military doesn’t speak the local languages in the countries we’re operating in, doesn’t know the culture very well, is viewed as a meddling foreign presence, etc. etc. etc. There’s a world of difference between states waging counterinsurgency against local threats (where strong-arm tactics can sometimes work) and what we’re trying to do.
July 6th, 2011 at 2:09 pm
"Says who?" When I say good intel I mean intelligence that is continuous and can lead to the complete breakdown of an insurgency. Owen’s premise was that by showing strength you’ll draw support. Well, what the hell are you supposed to do if the insurgents don’t fight when you stroll into town? How are you gonna find them, aside from the occassional lucky catch? HUMINT is essential, and without a secure populous or an overly-vicious insurgency, you’re gonna have a hard time getting people talking (especially given language/culture barriers).
The Roman way of COIN (which no one is advocating, I’m aware) may yield results via intimidation and the like, but its obviously not an option in this age.
July 6th, 2011 at 2:17 pm
Hard is not impossible. There is a vast literature on man-hunting in the modern era particularly in non-permissive areas. The best example, IMO, is Israel’s efforts to dismantle the Nazi network in the post-WWII era.
Now that Bin Laden is dead, I suspect that al Qaeda will diminish unless we keep creating the terrorist boogieman.
Now, building a nation and a state where the government controls through the rule of law is a challenge and another conversation in itself.
July 6th, 2011 at 2:30 pm
Almost nothing is impossible if you throw enough time and money at it. The question is whether or not enemy-centric COIN (with an emphasis on solely killing insurgents) is more useful than population-centric COIN (with an emphasis on securing the population in order to weed out and kill insurgents).
Also, I don’t think the comparison to manhunts if particularly apt. Israel and the US were indeed successful in dismantling the Nazi network and to some extent Al Qaeda, respectively, but an insurgency is an entirely different animal (as you alluded to).
July 6th, 2011 at 2:35 pm
IMO, adding anything "centric" to COIN is limiting. Small wars are not a zero-sum game, and the current debate argues strawman against strawman. In the field, we apply a mixture that I describe as love and hate. Sometimes you bring the love; sometimes you bring the hate. The real question is causal- Is security required prior to development? I think it is. Owen’s describes why.
July 6th, 2011 at 2:41 pm
I’m not talking about development. All of us are talking about security. Owens is fanatically opposed to yielding any kind of significance to the local population. I’m of the opinion that you need to SECURE the population in order to eventually kill insurgents more effectively.
July 6th, 2011 at 2:44 pm
And again, I’m talking about this from a US perspective. I’m very much aware that certain tactics may work better when utilized by states fighting local insurgencies.
July 6th, 2011 at 2:50 pm
"I’m of the opinion that you need to SECURE the population in order to eventually kill insurgents more effectively."
Except in the cases where you don’t which is in relation to rational expectation. In Iraq, we never really secured Diyala Province. It was always a secondary effort. But, after AQI took control and pushed the populace to an unacceptable level, the people rebelled against them and begin to tell us what we needed to know.
July 6th, 2011 at 2:51 pm
@Chuck – yessir – yet WiLF implies combat cats are upholding/enforcing Writ of State by their very presence – forcing the insurgents to attempt to unsecure the pop…
July 6th, 2011 at 3:09 pm
Mike, as I said, I think your case was different in that Al Qaeda had pushed the boundary of what was acceptable in the eyes of the people. In such a case, you don’t really need to focus that much on securing the populace because they’re already interested in assisting you.
Again, I don’t think pop-centric COIN is the be all end all. Hell, I think its extremely difficult and most often not worth it. I just think that its silly to completely discredit the vital significance of the people in COIN.
July 6th, 2011 at 3:12 pm
I suppose that ultimately, the people gotta figure it out for themselves.
July 6th, 2011 at 3:16 pm
Courtney, aren’t you proving my point? I stated that securing the population is the key to killing insurgents. They’re more than spectators.
July 6th, 2011 at 4:20 pm
@Chuck – Sir, actually kinda semi sorta disputing previous commentary that WiLF’s K2C "…is fanatically opposed to yielding any kind of significance to the local population. .." In a CvCish way – K2C is making pop security a fait accompli and giving the pop ultimate significance. Some of my – uh – more unhinged sources from the ME shared during the climax of Surge that "…hajing to the Land a twixt the Two Rivers was kinda dumb. Get killed and left on the side of the road for a stranger to bury…" hardly advanced their cause.
July 6th, 2011 at 4:37 pm
Courtney, I wish there were a "like" button for your last comment…
July 6th, 2011 at 5:01 pm
Again, I’m very much aware that killing insurgents is necessary. My point was that you can do it more effectively with information provided by the population. Otherwise it can be extremely difficult to weed them out, especially if they’re deeply embedded in the population and not looking to engage.
You can’t always go into an area all guns blazing. If the insurgents are skilled, there won’t be any targets.
July 6th, 2011 at 6:38 pm
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July 6th, 2011 at 7:44 pm
Chuckleberry, that is why all the great COIN works constatntly refer to "Police Operations" you need an Army that understands Police,TTP’s and can speak the local language.
July 6th, 2011 at 8:34 pm
Exactly. Police don’t focus on killing criminals. They concentrate on keeping the peace.
July 7th, 2011 at 12:08 am
I believe Wilf was making the point that to keep the peace, a fair amount of killing is required—at least those who behave as though they are outside the law. And, the military aren’t the police; different roles—Powell said the purpose of the military was to break things and kill people. If we’re after criminals, send in the FBI, but for insurgents Wilf’s prescription seems historically appropriate.
July 7th, 2011 at 1:30 am
How many COIN proponents don’t acknowledge killing is required? Its obvious that you need to kill insurgents. However, as I’ve stated time and time again, you’ll have a pretty hard time identifying and killing those insurgents without securing the population. I’m not trying to argue for building schools and the like, I’m just trying to argue that to say "the population is not the prize" is atrociously reactionary and misinformed. Owen, no matter how much you want it to, Clausewitz as traditionally interpreted doesn’t hold up to present-day reality. At the end of the day, both of us think that killing insurgents is necessary. The question is, how do you do it most effectively? If Owen’s ideas were at all viable, we would have seen Western powers obliterating insurgencies throughout the 20th century. Oh, but that didn’t work out so well for us, did it? Instead we had soldiers even back in Vietnam attempting to literally separate the populous from the VC via forced relocation. Its obvious that this mindset of simply concentrating on killing insurgents doesn’t work that well, at least not for counterinsurgents in foreign lands. It may have limited successes, especially when wielded by states fighting local insurgencies, but for the US it is pure folly. Insurgents must be identified before they can be killed, and there’s no better way of doing that than securing the population and getting humint. Showing up in town with a slew of high tech weaponry and a mean attitude won’t mean jack **** if you can’t find enough targets. As I’ve stated, if the insurgent has any clue how to wage asymmetric warfare, they won’t engage you on your terms.
July 7th, 2011 at 4:31 am
All, my reference to Police TTP’s was for "finding" the insurgents….Targets….then you kill them not arrest them.
July 7th, 2011 at 5:38 am
Chuck: Why do you feel the need to resort to personal insults? Why is that?a.) READ THE ARTICLE.b.) If you don’t read Clausewitz, don’t comment. Clausewitz students read his work and do go with popular and 90% wrong interpretations.c.) YES you can gather effective intelligence in a non-permissive foreign environment. d.) I am also an adherent and teacher of FOCH’s Core Functions – as in FIND, FIX, STRIKE, and EXPLOIT. – and I have lectured in both Thailand and Israel on applying those against, insurgents, rebels and terrorists.e.) …and Slapout9 gets it right again.
July 7th, 2011 at 5:39 am
ERRATUM = Above should read "do NOT go with".
July 7th, 2011 at 1:20 pm
"Why do you feel the need to resort to personal insults?" I called you out for what you are- a fool.
a) I’ve already read the article and, as I’ve stated, its garbage that goes against common sense and willfully ignores the lessons of the past. All you’re doing is is reinforcing a new BS narrative amongst veterans. "If only we concentrated on killing insurgents!"
b) I do read Clausewitz, but to consider his words some kind of immutable law is asinine. War changes and evolves.
c) Obviously you CAN, the question is what works the best. You still haven’t given any kind of evidence in favor of your argument. You really expect soldiers to go into a foreign town and start doing police work? Really? WHY are you so averse to securing the population to gain humint? Is it because it would contradict the old doctrine you’ve devoted so much of your time to studying?
"I am also an adherent and teacher of FOCH’s Core Functions – as in FIND, FIX, STRIKE, and EXPLOIT." – That’s all well and good, but in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, in order for us to FIND insurgents effectively, you must secure the population. I’m of the opinion that full-blown COIN isn’t worth it anyway, no matter what you focus on. That’s the lesson this country should take away from the Middle East campaigns, not some outdated and falsified notion that a foreign COIN force can kill its way to victory.
July 7th, 2011 at 2:00 pm
"not some outdated and falsified notion that a foreign COIN force can kill its way to victory." In this day and age, at least.
July 7th, 2011 at 11:41 pm
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July 8th, 2011 at 11:04 pm
Zen-
Once again you’ve coxed me out of my hiatus. Unfair! Still such a target of opportunity . . .
Wilf-
You seem to have been elected to the club of "noted Clausewitzians" of which I know only one other . . . that apart from Clausewitzian "scholars" I suppose . . . we compose a fine group.
As you can understand I don’t really have a dog in this fight, being for me ever soooo tactical. Still, Storr rocks which means ya’ll only have to wait another 15-20 years . . . before people start catching on, or maybe not. Not to think it’s any better on the strategic side . . .
—
Gentlemen-
As to Clausewitz – or rather the entire Clausewitzian school of strategic theory – being somehow finished I never cease to be amazed that these same loud claims, or rather boasts, always accompany a total ignorance of the general theory. Funny that. Given the state of the second placed general theory . . . whatever exactly that is . . . I think we have a bright future. That we don’t have much political support, is another matter, but then we are essentially democratic . . .
MSR Roadkill? Is that you?
July 8th, 2011 at 11:37 pm
Seydlitz, Storr does rock—even though he’s not high on Boyd—I read his excellent and very expensive book and found no fault in his thought, sans the Boyd stuff—-I believe Storr compliments Boyd in many ways and if time travel were possible—I would be great to have these two guys meet.
July 9th, 2011 at 12:50 pm
JScottShipman-
I have to admit that I actually haven’t finished Storr’s book yet, only about 2/3 through and this having started it months ago. One has to take it a bit at a time and contemplate what one has read since it is so full of ideas. In all a great achievement . . .
July 9th, 2011 at 5:10 pm
@seydlitz—then you’re in for a treat…the second half was the best. When you’re finished with Storr, if you can find a copy of Robert Leonhard’s The Principles of War in the Information Age—nice complement, although a little dated from a tech perspective. Our modern military would benefit from reading both of these insightful books.
July 10th, 2011 at 1:51 am
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