{"id":4315,"date":"2011-09-19T04:33:37","date_gmt":"2011-09-19T04:33:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=4315"},"modified":"2011-09-20T01:24:18","modified_gmt":"2011-09-20T01:24:18","slug":"r2p-is-the-new-coin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=4315","title":{"rendered":"R2P is the New COIN"},"content":{"rendered":"

Introduction:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/p>\n

The weirdly astrategic NATO<\/strong> campaign in Libya\u00a0intervening on the side of ill-defined rebels against the\u00a0tyrannical rule of Libyan strongman Colonel Moammar Gaddafi<\/strong>\u00a0brought to general public attention the idea of “Responsibility to Protect<\/a><\/strong>” as a putative\u00a0doctrine for US foreign policy and an alleged\u00a0aspect of international law. The most vocal public face of R2P,\u00a0an idea that\u00a0has floated among liberal internationalist IL academics and NGO activists since the 90’s, was Anne-Marie Slaughter<\/strong>, former Policy Planning Director of the US State Department and an advisor to the Obama administration<\/strong>. Slaughter, writing in The Atlantic<\/strong>, was a passionate advocate of R2P as a “redefinition of sovereignty<\/a>”\u00a0and debated her position <\/a>and underlying IR theory assumptions <\/a>with critics such as Dan Drezner<\/a><\/strong>, Joshua Foust<\/a>, <\/strong>and Dan Trombly<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

In all candor,\u00a0I found Dr.\u00a0Slaughter’s thesis to be deeply troubling <\/a>but the debate itself was insightful and stimulating and Slaughter is to be commended for responding at length to the arguments of her critics. Hopefully, there will be greater and wider debate in the future because, in it’s current policy trajectory,\u00a0R2P is going to become “the new COIN”.<\/p>\n

This is not to say that R2P is a military doctrine, but like the rise of pop-centric COIN, it will be an electrifying idea that\u00a0has the potential\u00a0fire the imagination of foreign policy intellectuals, make careers for\u00a0it’s bureaucratic\u00a0enthusiasts and\u00a0act as a\u00a0substitute for the absence of a coherent American grand strategy.\u00a0The\u00a0proponents of R2P (R2Peons?)\u00a0appear to be in the early stages of\u00a0following a\u00a0policy advocacy template set down\u00a0by the COINdinistas, but their ambitions appear to be far, far\u00a0greater in scope.<\/p>\n

It must be said, that unlike R2P, an abstract\u00a0theory literally going abroad in search of monsters to destroy, COIN was an adaptive\u00a0operational and policy\u00a0response to a very real geopolitical debacle in Iraq, in which the United States was already deeply\u00a0entrenched.\u00a0A bevy of military officers, academics, think tank\u00a0intellectuals, journalists and bloggers –\u00a0some of them genuinely brilliant –\u00a0including John Nagl, Kalev Sepp, Con Crane, Jack Keane, David Petraeus, Mich\u00e8le Flournoy, David Kilcullen, Fred and\u00a0Kim Kagan, James Mattis, Montgomery McFate, Thomas Ricks, Andrew Exum,\u00a0 <\/strong>the\u00a0Small Wars Journal<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0and others\u00a0articulated, proselytized, reported, blogged\u00a0and institutionalized a version of counterinsurgency warfare now known as “Pop-centric COIN<\/a>“, selling it to a very\u00a0reluctant Bush administration<\/strong>, the US Army<\/strong> and USMC<\/strong>, moderate Congressional Democrats\u00a0and ultimately to\u00a0President Barack Obama<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The COIN revival and\u00a0veneration of\u00a0counterinsurgent icons like Templer<\/strong> and\u00a0Galula<\/strong>\u00a0did not really amount\u00a0a “strategy”; it was an operational\u00a0methodology that would reduce friction with Iraqis by co-opting local leaders\u00a0and, for the Bush administration,\u00a0provide an absolutely\u00a0critical political “breathing space” with the American public to reinvent\u00a0an occupation of Iraq that had descended into Hell.\u00a0For US commanders in Iraq, adopting COIN doctrine provided “the cover”\u00a0to ally with the conservative and nationalistic\u00a0Sunni tribes of the “Anbar Awakening” who had\u00a0turned violently against al Qaida<\/strong> and foreign\u00a0Salafist extremists. COIN was not even a good theoretical \u00a0model for insurgency in the 21st century<\/a>,\u00a0never mind a strategy, but\u00a0adoption of COIN doctrine\u00a0as\u00a0an American\u00a0political process<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0helped, along with the operational benefits, to avert an outright defeat in Iraq. COIN\u00a0salvaged the\u00a0American political will to prosecute the war in Iraq to a tolerable conclusion; meaning that COIN, while imperfect, was “good enough”, which in matters of warfare, suffices.<\/p>\n

During this period of time and afterward, a\u00a0fierce COINdinista vs. COINtra<\/a> debate<\/a> unfolded<\/a>, which I will not summarize here, except to mention that one\u00a0COINtra point was that COINdinistas,\u00a0especially those in uniform, were engaged in making, or at least advocating policy<\/em><\/strong>. For the military officers among the COINdinistas, this was a charge that stung, largely because it was true. Hurt feelings or no, key\u00a0COINdinistas dispersed from Leavenworth<\/strong>, CENTCOM <\/strong>and military service\u00a0to occupy important posts in Washington, to write influential books, op-eds and blogs\u00a0and establish a think tank “home base” in CNAS<\/a><\/strong>. Incidentally, I mean this descriptively and not perjoratively; it is simply what happened in the past five years. The COINDinistas are no longer “insurgents” but are\u00a0the “establishment”.<\/p>\n

R2P is following the same COIN pattern of\u00a0bureaucratic-political proselytization\u00a0with the accomplished academic theorist\u00a0Anne-Marie Slaughter as the “Kilcullen of R2P”. As with David Kilcullen’s theory of insurgency, Slaughter’s ideas about sovereignty and R2P,\u00a0which have gained traction with the Obama administration and in Europe as premises for policy, need to be taken seriously and examined in depth lest we wake up a decade hence with buyer’s remorse. R2P is not simply a cynical\u00a0fig leaf for great power intervention in the affairs of failed states and mad dictatorships like Gaddafi’s Libya,\u00a0R2P is also\u00a0meant to transform the internal character of\u00a0great powers that invoke it into something else. That may be the most important aspect and primary purpose of the doctrine and\u00a0the implications are absolutely profound.<\/p>\n

Therefore, I am going to devote a series of posts to analyzing the journal article recommended<\/a> by Dr. Slaughter, “Sovereignty and Power in a Networked World Order<\/strong><\/a>“,\u00a0\u00a0which gives a more robust and precise explanation of her ideas regarding international relations, sovereignty, legitimacy, authority\u00a0and power at greater length than is possible in her op-eds or Atlantic blog. I strongly recommend that you read it and draw your own conclusions, Slaughter’s argument is, after all, about your future.<\/p>\n

ADDENDUM – Related Posts<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

Slouching Toward Columbia – <\/strong>Guest post: Civilian Protection Policy, R2P, and the Way\u00a0Forward<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Phronesisaical –<\/strong>Dragging History into R2P<\/strong><\/a> <\/strong><\/p>\n

Dart-Throwing Chimp –<\/strong> R2P Is Not the New\u00a0COIN<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Committee of Public Safety –<\/strong>With Outstretched Arm | The Committee of Public Safety<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Introduction:\u00a0 The weirdly astrategic NATO campaign in Libya\u00a0intervening on the side of ill-defined rebels against the\u00a0tyrannical rule of Libyan strongman Colonel Moammar Gaddafi\u00a0brought to general public attention the idea of “Responsibility to Protect” as a putative\u00a0doctrine for US foreign policy and an alleged\u00a0aspect of international law. The most vocal public face of R2P,\u00a0an idea that\u00a0has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[216,361,46,601,20,126,102,84,87,178,425,78,336,89,159,278,465,270,14,183,218,187,668,669,162,558,381,271,161,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academia","category-america","category-analytic","category-cnas","category-coin","category-counterinsurgency","category-diplomacy","category-fisking","category-foreign-policy","category-geopolitics","category-government","category-ideas","category-intellectuals","category-international-law","category-kilcullen","category-legal","category-legitimacy","category-national-security","category-networks","category-obama","category-philosophy","category-politics","category-r2p","category-slaughter","category-small-wars-journal","category-social-science","category-society","category-state-department","category-swj-blog","category-theory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4315\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}