Edward Luttwak is one of the most thoughtful historians around. In Harpers he makes it clear that defeating insurgents is a straightforward task done well countless times by regular forces.
But he is clear that such an option is not likely to be available to a modern democratic state - so he leaves open the question can, in a Messy World, a state engage in such work? Here is the core of his argument:
Perfectly ordinary regular armed forces, with no counterinsurgency doctrine or training whatever, have in the past regularly defeated insurgents, by using a number of well-proven methods. It is enough to consider these methods to see why the armed forces of the United States or of any other democratic country cannot possibly use them.
The simple starting point is that insurgents are not the only ones who can intimidate or terrorize civilians. For instance, whenever insurgents are believed to be present in a village, small town, or distinct city district—a very common occurrence in Iraq at present, as in other insurgency situations—the local notables can be compelled to surrender them to the authorities, under the threat of escalating punishments, all the way to mass executions. That is how the Ottoman Empire could control entire provinces with a few feared janissaries and a squadron or two of cavalry. The Turks were simply too few to hunt down hidden rebels, but they did not have to: they went to the village chiefs and town notables instead, to demand their surrender, or else. A massacre once in a while remained an effective warning for decades. So it was mostly by social pressure rather than brute force that the Ottomans preserved their rule: it was the leaders of each ethnic or religious group inclined to rebellion that did their best to keep things quiet, and if they failed, they were quite likely to tell the Turks where to find the rebels before more harm was done.
His assessment is this. The "terrain" in an insurgency is the "Population". The work is to win the war of intimidation - another way of seeing the term "Hearts and Minds". (See follow on by Dave Dilegge of SWJ for how Hearts and Minds really work)
The insurgents rely on the local population to hide them. They do this not by being nice but by the use of terror. They use exemplary killing and torture to ensure that the local are obedient. No amount of medical help, handing out of gum or having coffee by westerners is going to change this.
There are only two ways to to win.
- We have to understand that Hearts and Minds is actually about intimidation - which is why western democratic states cannot do this
- We have to understand that we have to be arounbd for longer than the bad boys - which is also why western states cannot do this
So being who we are - the only 2 ways of beating an insurgency over time are not available to us.
This then opens the real question.
Are we serious and do we really want to beat these people? If we are and we cannot do the work because of our own political reality at home - what do we do? There has to be more than a new COIN manual!!!!
Or we are not serious and we should not only leave but give up the idea of intervening in failed states at all.
It's a tough dilemma isn't it?
Dave Dilegge 's article starts here
Yesterday morning I was participating in an e-mail discussion when, in passing, the term “hearts and minds” came up. As these counterinsurgency (COIN) components are oft misunderstood or misrepresented – here are several notations on what hearts and minds actually means.
First up, from the very subjective and politically influenced Wikipedia, a hyperbole misrepresentation:
Hearts and Minds was a euphemism for a campaign by the United States military during the Vietnam War, intended to win the popular support of the Vietnamese people.
Many feel that this was no more than pro-war propaganda, and rang hollow compared to anti-war publicity efforts. Over the years, "Hearts and Minds" became a shorthand reference for disingenuous and misguided attempts to use a military to make a subjugated population behave more like its conquerors. The 1974 film Hearts and Minds showed the potential contradictions of the term, and for some the term "Hearts and Minds" remains symbolic of the fictional nature of militarist propaganda.
Counterinsurgency: FM 3024 / MCWP 3.33.5 defines the true meaning of the phrase hearts and minds as the two components in building trusted networks in the conduct of COIN operations:
“Hearts” means persuading people that their best interests are served by COIN success. “Minds” means convincing them that the force can protect them and that resisting it is pointless. Note that neither concerns whether people like Soldiers and Marines. Calculated self-interest, not emotion, is what counts. Over time, successful trusted networks grow like roots into the populace. They displace enemy networks, which forces enemies into the open, letting military forces seize the initiative and destroy the insurgents.
I think Dr. David Kilcullen defined hearts and minds as two components of COIN operations quite nicely during a COIN seminar at Quantico, Virginia, several weeks ago.
In addressing the reality of hearts and minds Kilcullen explained how the following 1952 statement by General Sir Gerald Templer, Director of Operations and High Commissioner for Malaya, has been misinterpreted:
"The answer lies not in pouring more troops into the jungle, but in the hearts and minds of the Malayan People"
General Templer did not mean (or say) that we must "be nice to the population" or make them like us. What he meant, and his subsequent actions played out, was that success in COIN rests on the popular perception and this perception has an emotive ("hearts") component and a cognitive ("minds") component.
Kilculen continued - what is essential here is making the population
choose. The gratitude theory – "be nice to the people, meet their needs
and they will feel grateful and stop supporting the insurgents" – does
not work. The enemy simply intimidates the population when COIN forces / government are not present resulting in lip-service as the population sees COIN forces / government as weak and easily manipulated. In time, this leads to hatred of COIN forces
/ government by the population. On the other hand, the choice theory –
"enable (persuade, coerce, co-opt) the population to make an
irrevocable choice to support COIN forces /
government usually works better. The population typically desires to
"sit on the fence" and not commit to supporting any side in an
insurgency / COIN environment. COIN forces
/ government need to get the population off that fence and keep them
there. This requires persuading the population, then protecting them,
where they live. While this cannot be done everywhere, it must be done
where it politically counts.
The components of "Hearts" and "Minds":
Hearts: The population must be convinced that our success is in their long-term interests.
Minds: The population must be convinced that we actually are going to win, and we (or a transition force) will permanently protect their interests.
Essential to these two components is the perceived self-interest of the population, not about whether the population likes COIN forces / government. The principle emotive content is respect, not affection. Support based on liking does not survive when the enemy applies fear, intimidation trumps affection. Disappointment, unreliability, failure and defeat are deadly – preserving prestige and popular respect through proven reliability, honoring promises and following through, is key. Smacking the enemy hard (kinetic operations), publicly, when feasible (and no innocents are targeted) is also key. The enemy's two key assets are cultural understanding of the target population, and longevity (he will be around when we leave). Close cooperation with the host nation – to design messages and demonstrate long-term reliability – are critical.
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