Insurgency/counterinsurgency educate me

[loosecannon]

The US seems to be getting their asses kicked in the insurgency/counter insurgency game for some 40 years now.....

But historically it seems like occupation has always been a pretty easy task for you know, occupiers. If you can become an occupier the rest is downhill right?

Am i missing something here? Has something profound changed?

Has there been some advent in the asymmetric sciences or technologies that are true game changers?

BTW Israel seems to be losing their edge as well. And in similar ways.

School me.

 

[blu]

the rules have changed. if we did in iraq or afgh what past occupiers did, there would be millions more dead. playing nice and for "heart and minds" is quite the new thing.

 

[Toome]

The US seems to be getting their asses kicked in the insurgency/counter insurgency game for some 40 years now.....

But historically it seems like occupation has always been a pretty easy task for you know, occupiers. If you can become an occupier the rest is downhill right?

Am i missing something here? Has something profound changed?

Has there been some advent in the asymmetric sciences or technologies that are true game changers?

BTW Israel seems to be losing their edge as well. And in similar ways.

School me.

Did you go to college? If you did, maybe it's not too late to get your money back.

I think you need to understand the difference between military and political defeat. Make no mistake about it, the US military owns the battlefield...any battlefield...been that way for a pretty long time. Clearly, your understanding about what really happened in Vietnam is erroneous.

Insurgencies and counterinsurgencies are political in nature. It's not about taking land; it's about political power; and its roots are the hearts and minds of the people who live on the land. Outsiders are always at a distinct disadvantage because they have to learn how to deal with thousands of years of custom, tradition, superstition, culture and religion. It's why we were so successful in South and Central America and not so successful in Southeast and Southwest Asia.

To add a twist to the problem, US popular opinion plays a major factor. Like it or not, we are an X-box society: we expect to reach the top level within a couple sessions and have no tolerance for long-term strategies. Counterinsurgencies are exclusively all about long-term strategies. The insurgent has the easier task. Again, it's why we were so successful in South and Central America; we ran insurgencies. It's why we were so successful in Afghanistan in 2002: we ran a text book insurgency. It's a matter of being black or white on the chess board, and being able to think three and four moves ahead and anticipating your opponent's moves as well. Then you have someone sitting behind you second-guessing your moves every step of the way.

None of this affects the ability of putting steel on target. It affects the will to put steel on target.

Take a walk in the woods at night with the Devil, and you'll learn these things, kid.

 

[zzzz]

The US seems to be getting their asses kicked in the insurgency/counter insurgency game for some 40 years now.....

But historically it seems like occupation has always been a pretty easy task for you know, occupiers. If you can become an occupier the rest is downhill right?

Am i missing something here? Has something profound changed?

Has there been some advent in the asymmetric sciences or technologies that are true game changers?

BTW Israel seems to be losing their edge as well. And in similar ways.

School me.

I will try to explain in this little space some elements of insurgency and why it appears we have problems with insurgency.

Insurgency or guerrilla warfare has always been a thorn in the side of occupying forces. Caesar and Augustus during the Roman occupations had to endure continual insurgent strikes. The Germans and Japanese in WWII had guerrilla operations staged against them in all the occupied areas. It is not a new problem and it will always be present when ever a country is occupied.

The change in today’s insurgency is twofold.

1. The modernization of the media gives the populace immediate information on casualties and the effects of attacks on occupying troops and friendlies.

2. The ability of the individual with modern explosives and detonating devices allows an insurgent to inflict greater and greater damage than in the past and to survive those attacks.

An insurgent needs the media to influence public opinion. Without news reports, the isolated attack usually has no military significance, other than to the possible morale of troops. So the insurgent needs the media to report attacks. The force multiplier of modern weapons allows an insurgent to inflict damage and causalities to a wider area and survive that attack with remote detonating devices. In the past an attack usually resulted in the insurgent getting killed, today that is changing. If an insurgent survives they learn from the attack and the insurgent base is not diminished.

All of this makes insurgency appear to be a modern element of occupancy. It is not. It has always been there but the lack of media coverage, either through censorship or technological difficulties prevented the news of the attacks getting to the populace. Today it is instantaneous, CNN is on the spot within hours if not minutes. Do you think Caesar allowed news of uprisings to get back to Rome? Hitler? The main change in insurgency is the media access and the ability to report it.

 

[loosecannon]

Did you go to college? If you did, maybe it's not too late to get your money back.

you sound like a dickhead impugning my intelligence simply because i asked a question.

And no I didn't attend a military academy like my Dad, my Brother, my Uncle and my Grand dad did.

think you need to understand the difference between military and political defeat..

there you go again....later

 

[blu]

[ame=http://www.amazon.com/Marine-Corps-Counterinsurgency-Field-Manual/dp/0226841510/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1282006272&sr=8-1]Amazon.com: The U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field…[/ame]

[ame=http://www.amazon.com/Accidental-Guerrilla-Fighting-Small-Midst/dp/0195368347/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1282006272&sr=8-2]Amazon.com: The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big…[/ame]

[ame=http://www.amazon.com/Counterinsurgency-Warfare-Theory-Practice-Classics/dp/0275993035/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1282006272&sr=8-4]Amazon.com: Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice (PSI Classics of the Counterinsurgency Era) (9780275993030): David Galula: Books[/ame]

also read the works of che guerra , his counter insurgency writings are studied in military schools across the world

 

[loosecannon]

I will try to explain in this little space some elements of insurgency and why it appears we have problems with insurgency.

Insurgency or guerrilla warfare has always been a thorn in the side of occupying forces. Caesar and Augustus during the Roman occupations had to endure continual insurgent strikes. The Germans and Japanese in WWII had guerrilla operations staged against them in all the occupied areas. It is not a new problem and it will always be present when ever a country is occupied.

The change in today’s insurgency is twofold.

1. The modernization of the media gives the populace immediate information on casualties and the effects of attacks on occupying troops and friendlies.

2. The ability of the individual with modern explosives and detonating devices allows an insurgent to inflict greater and greater damage than in the past and to survive those attacks.

An insurgent needs the media to influence public opinion. Without news reports, the isolated attack usually has no military significance, other than to the possible morale of troops. So the insurgent needs the media to report attacks. The force multiplier of modern weapons allows an insurgent to inflict damage and causalities to a wider area and survive that attack with remote detonating devices. In the past an attack usually resulted in the insurgent getting killed, today that is changing. If an insurgent survives they learn from the attack and the insurgent base is not diminished.

All of this makes insurgency appear to be a modern element of occupancy. It is not. It has always been there but the lack of media coverage, either through censorship or technological difficulties prevented the news of the attacks getting to the populace. Today it is instantaneous, CNN is on the spot within hours if not minutes. Do you think Caesar allowed news of uprisings to get back to Rome? Hitler? The main change in insurgency is the media access and the ability to report it.

OK, so you are saying three things:

1) that media itself makes insurgency more effective by advertising the attacks.

I dunno if I buy that. That is definitely true of suicide bombings that are terror opps. Like the Shia and Sunni hit squads targeting one another. Or the Taliban attacking the actual intelligence HQ of their own nation in Pakistan.

But maybe you are right and i just don't see it.

2)that media makes the impacts of an insurgency seem larger than they are.

OK, that sounds real. I dunno why that matters. But in the case of VN we quit essentially because we became convinced we were at a stalemate. They may in fact have driven us out via the media.

3) IEDs. Garage door remotes.

Sure, and also suicide bombers. Or extremely effective human guided bombs that cost a pittance vs computer guided weapons that cost tens of millions.

I am not fully convinced tho that that is all of it, or "it" tho. Empires have always been able to make occupation stick. They have always been able to subdue civilian populations with only a handful of exceptions.

If you can win the military victory the civilian population is a cake walk.

We seem to be completely floundering in that capacity for about 40 years now.

 

[loosecannon]

the rules have changed. if we did in iraq or afgh what past occupiers did, there would be millions more dead. playing nice and for "heart and minds" is quite the new thing.

Ghengis Khan was ruthless and would murder whole populations if they didn't submit to his demands.

But he also imposed extremely moral rules of engagement and just rule of law.

On the other side of the coin occupiers often succeed because they offer more than they demand, benevolent dictators. Like Rome.

The deal is that empires that succeeded found a way to get it done.

We don't seem to be getting it done. At all.

A classic example is the advertised expectations of the Rumsfeld JCS who expected that once we overcame Saddam's elite Republican Guard units that occupation would be a cake walk and victory would be secured within a matter of weeks.

Bush himself later called the swift defeat of Saddam's forces a catastrophic success.

 

[loosecannon]

Amazon.com: The U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field…

Amazon.com: The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big…

Amazon.com: Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice (PSI Classics of the Counterinsurgency Era) (9780275993030): David Galula: Books

also read the works of che guerra , his counter insurgency writings are studied in military schools across the world

I know this an unfair summary, but at face value what you seem to be positing is that insurgency has become so hardened by a systematic approach or a kind of scientific insurgency that it is equal to the strength of empires.

While i openly admit to not having a good grasp of the whole history of empire vs insurgency this sounds like a dramatic sea change to me.

Nation states prefer to battle nation states with mechanized warfare.

What if it turns out that that nation states and mechanized armies are in fact no stronger or more capable than equally organized insurgencies? Insurgencies that span national boundaries and may in fact have no geographic boundaries at all.

What if the power to destroy via mechanized military might has been surpassed by asymmetrics?

Don't dismiss it without considering that Wikileaks and a few informants has defied the ability of the US to maintain their shroud of secrecy over state secrets.

Is the will stronger than the science and the institution?

Although I'm still a Muslim, I'm not here tonight to discuss my religion.....So, you're dealing with a man whose bias and prejudice are making him lose his mind, his intelligence, every day. He's frightened. He looks around and sees what's taking place on this earth, and he sees that the pendulum of time is swinging in your direction. The dark people are waking up. They're losing their fear of the white man. No place where he's fighting right now is he winning. Everywhere he's fighting, he's fighting someone your and my complexion. And they're beating him. He can't win any more. He's won his last battle. He failed to win the Korean War. He couldn't win it. He had to sign a truce. That's a loss.

Any time Uncle Sam, with all his machinery for warfare, is held to a draw by some rice eaters, he's lost the battle. He had to sign a truce. America's not supposed to sign a truce. She's supposed to be bad. But she's not bad any more. She's bad as long as she can use her hydrogen bomb, but she can't use hers for fear Russia might use hers. Russia can't use hers, for fear that Sam might use his. So, both of them are weapon-less. They can't use the weapon because each's weapon nullifies the other's. So the only place where action can take place is on the ground. And the white man can't win another war fighting on the ground. Those days are over The black man knows it, the brown man knows it, the red man knows it, and the yellow man knows it. So they engage him in guerrilla warfare. That's not his style. You've got to have heart to be a guerrilla warrior, and he hasn't got any heart. I'm telling you now.

I just want to give you a little briefing on guerrilla warfare because, before you know it, before you know it. It takes heart to be a guerrilla warrior because you're on your own. In conventional warfare you have tanks and a whole lot of other people with you to back you up—planes over your head and all that kind of stuff. But a guerrilla is on his own. All you have is a rifle, some sneakers and a bowl of rice, and that's all you need—and a lot of heart. The Japanese on some of those islands in the Pacific, when the American soldiers landed, one Japanese sometimes could hold the whole army off. He'd just wait until the sun went down, and when the sun went down they were all equal. He would take his little blade and slip from bush to bush, and from American to American. The white soldiers couldn't cope with that. Whenever you see a white soldier that fought in the Pacific, he has the shakes, he has a nervous condition, because they scared him to death.

The same thing happened to the French up in French Indochina. People who just a few years previously were rice farmers got together and ran the heavily-mechanized French army out of Indochina. You don't need it—modern warfare today won't work. This is the day of the guerrilla. They did the same thing in Algeria. Algerians, who were nothing but Bedouins, took a rine and sneaked off to the hills, and de Gaulle and all of his highfalutin' war machinery couldn't defeat those guerrillas. Nowhere on this earth does the white man win in a guerrilla warfare. It's not his speed. Just as guerrilla warfare is prevailing in Asia and in parts of Africa and in parts of Latin America, you've got to be mighty naive, or you've got to play the black man cheap, if you don't think some day he's going to wake up and find that it's got to be the ballot or the bullet.

Malcom X ~1964

Malcolm X, 'The Ballot or the Bullet'

the very next sentence is ironic:

l would like to say, in closing, a few things concerning the Muslim Mosque, Inc., which we established recently in New York City. It's true we're Muslims and our religion is Islam, but we don't mix our religion with our politics and our economics and our social and civil activities—not any more We keep our religion in our mosque. After our religious services are over, then as Muslims we become involved in political action, economic action and social and civic action. We become involved with anybody, any where, any time and in any manner that's designed to eliminate the evils, the political, economic and social evils that are afflicting the people of our community.

 

[zzzz]

I will try to explain in this little space some elements of insurgency and why it appears we have problems with insurgency.

Insurgency or guerrilla warfare has always been a thorn in the side of occupying forces. Caesar and Augustus during the Roman occupations had to endure continual insurgent strikes. The Germans and Japanese in WWII had guerrilla operations staged against them in all the occupied areas. It is not a new problem and it will always be present when ever a country is occupied.

The change in today’s insurgency is twofold.

1. The modernization of the media gives the populace immediate information on casualties and the effects of attacks on occupying troops and friendlies.

2. The ability of the individual with modern explosives and detonating devices allows an insurgent to inflict greater and greater damage than in the past and to survive those attacks.

An insurgent needs the media to influence public opinion. Without news reports, the isolated attack usually has no military significance, other than to the possible morale of troops. So the insurgent needs the media to report attacks. The force multiplier of modern weapons allows an insurgent to inflict damage and causalities to a wider area and survive that attack with remote detonating devices. In the past an attack usually resulted in the insurgent getting killed, today that is changing. If an insurgent survives they learn from the attack and the insurgent base is not diminished.

All of this makes insurgency appear to be a modern element of occupancy. It is not. It has always been there but the lack of media coverage, either through censorship or technological difficulties prevented the news of the attacks getting to the populace. Today it is instantaneous, CNN is on the spot within hours if not minutes. Do you think Caesar allowed news of uprisings to get back to Rome? Hitler? The main change in insurgency is the media access and the ability to report it.

OK, so you are saying three things:

1) that media itself makes insurgency more effective by advertising the attacks.

I dunno if I buy that. That is definitely true of suicide bombings that are terror opps. Like the Shia and Sunni hit squads targeting one another. Or the Taliban attacking the actual intelligence HQ of their own nation in Pakistan.

But maybe you are right and i just don't see it.

2)that media makes the impacts of an insurgency seem larger than they are.

OK, that sounds real. I dunno why that matters. But in the case of VN we quit essentially because we became convinced we were at a stalemate. They may in fact have driven us out via the media.

3) IEDs. Garage door remotes.

Sure, and also suicide bombers. Or extremely effective human guided bombs that cost a pittance vs computer guided weapons that cost tens of millions.

I am not fully convinced tho that that is all of it, or "it" tho. Empires have always been able to make occupation stick. They have always been able to subdue civilian populations with only a handful of exceptions.

If you can win the military victory the civilian population is a cake walk.

We seem to be completely floundering in that capacity for about 40 years now.

Today, to wage an insurgency effectively requires media coverage. You pick your targets to achieve the greatest publicity or terror impact. The purpose of the insurgency is to remove the occupier or the government in charge. Insurgents are not powerful enough to remove these forces by force they must influence public opinion enough to get the occupiers to leave.

Let’s look at Afghanistan. The Russians invaded with a large force but could not subdue the insurgency. Over time the insurgents inflicted a steady stream of causalities and the Russian population got tired of seeing their kids come home maimed and dead for nothing. The Russian government was forced by their population to withdraw. Now the insurgents would not have been able to succeed without outside (US) help and a safe base of operations in Pakistan. This was essentially the same thing that happened to us in Vietnam and is now happening in Afghanistan again. If the insurgency has a safe place to recoup, rearm and train it is impossible to stamp it out. That is why we cannot achieve victory in Afghanistan and why we did defeat the insurgents in Iraq.

 

[loosecannon]

Let’s look at Afghanistan. The Russians invaded with a large force but could not subdue the insurgency. Over time the insurgents inflicted a steady stream of causalities and the Russian population got tired of seeing their kids come home maimed and dead for nothing.

Well maybe, I can only rely on the entirely incredible internet an incredible news sources.

But the general theme in MSM media and others is that the Russians were defeated militarily because the taliban and their precursor AQ cousins were provided with shoulder fired rocket launchers via the US. The soviets lost their helicopter air advantage and had to quit under mounting economic pressure. Not public pressure, they were the USSR after all, at that stage. Public sentiment hardly mattered.

The US is therefore shocked to discover via wikileaks that the taliban again is attacking US air strike forces with shoulder fired rocket launchers.

BTW and for whatever it is worth: I heard just today that the floods in Pakistan have completely disrupted US supply lines into Afghanistan via Pakistan setting back our whole war plan 6 months or more. The floods destroyed six essential bridges and before those are replaced winter will cancel all delivery of fuel and munitions overland anyway.

That means our whole effort in Afghanistan is stymied and reliant on air supply until late spring.

 

[Toome]

Did you go to college? If you did, maybe it's not too late to get your money back.

you sound like a dickhead impugning my intelligence simply because i asked a question.

And no I didn't attend a military academy like my Dad, my Brother, my Uncle and my Grand dad did.

think you need to understand the difference between military and political defeat..

there you go again....later

It's not the question but the way it was asked. Came across as sophomoric and as if you're baiting us into a preconceived agenda.

Good topic, by the way, dickwad. Worth a serious discussion. I'm not convinced that's your goal.

 

[loosecannon]

Did you go to college? If you did, maybe it's not too late to get your money back.

you sound like a dickhead impugning my intelligence simply because i asked a question.

And no I didn't attend a military academy like my Dad, my Brother, my Uncle and my Grand dad did.

think you need to understand the difference between military and political defeat..

there you go again....later

It's not the question but the way it was asked. Came across as sophomoric and as if you're baiting us into a preconceived agenda.

Good topic, by the way, dickwad. Worth a serious discussion. I'm not convinced that's your goal.

no actually it was my goal, but it isn't yours.

as for baiting you into a preconceived agenda I really don't know what the answer to the question is.

But in part it may have something to do with this:

Unlike other preachers, Mr al-Banna had a novel message - Islam was not only about praying and fasting; it was an entire way of life.

Al-Banna founded the Muslim Brotherhood in 1928 with a small group of people who wanted to rid Egypt of British control and cleanse it of all Western influence, arguing that colonialism had robbed their nation of its Muslim identity.

BBC News - Muslim Brotherhood: Secret of its success

The west is "threatened" by Islam largely because Islamic identity rejects domination by western colonialism as a rule.

I spose approximately the same scenario was playing out in VN, a robust populist rejection of colonialism.

We hate them for their freedom in some respects. They just hate our influence over their lives and cultures.

 

[Toome]

as for baiting you into a preconceived agenda I really don't know what the answer to the question is.

But in part it may have something to do with this:

Unlike other preachers, Mr al-Banna had a novel message - Islam was not only about praying and fasting; it was an entire way of life.

Al-Banna founded the Muslim Brotherhood in 1928 with a small group of people who wanted to rid Egypt of British control and cleanse it of all Western influence, arguing that colonialism had robbed their nation of its Muslim identity.

BBC News - Muslim Brotherhood: Secret of its success

The west is "threatened" by Islam largely because Islamic identity rejects domination by western colonialism as a rule.

I spose approximately the same scenario was playing out in VN, a robust populist rejection of colonialism.

We hate them for their freedom in some respects. They just hate our influence over their lives and cultures.

I rest my case.

 

[Bill Angel]

Let’s look at Afghanistan. The Russians invaded with a large force but could not subdue the insurgency. Over time the insurgents inflicted a steady stream of causalities and the Russian population got tired of seeing their kids come home maimed and dead for nothing.

Well maybe, I can only rely on the entirely incredible internet an incredible news sources.

But the general theme in MSM media and others is that the Russians were defeated militarily because the taliban and their precursor AQ cousins were provided with shoulder fired rocket launchers via the US. The soviets lost their helicopter air advantage and had to quit under mounting economic pressure. Not public pressure, they were the USSR after all, at that stage. Public sentiment hardly mattered.

The US is therefore shocked to discover via wikileaks that the taliban again is attacking US air strike forces with shoulder fired rocket launchers.

BTW and for whatever it is worth: I heard just today that the floods in Pakistan have completely disrupted US supply lines into Afghanistan via Pakistan setting back our whole war plan 6 months or more. The floods destroyed six essential bridges and before those are replaced winter will cancel all delivery of fuel and munitions overland anyway.

That means our whole effort in Afghanistan is stymied and reliant on air supply until late spring.

Isn't it possible that the floods in Pakistan will hurt the Taliban and Al qaeda more than the flooding will hurt the military efforts of the US and Coalition Forces? The US and Coalition can, as you point out, move supplies and troops by air, but the Taliban does not have an air force to rely on.