{"id":1254,"date":"2007-08-31T05:44:03","date_gmt":"2007-08-31T10:44:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=1254"},"modified":"2007-08-31T10:39:22","modified_gmt":"2007-08-31T15:39:22","slug":"counterinsurgency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=1254","title":{"rendered":"Counterinsurgency"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A few weeks ago, I wrote my own (admittedly amateurish) impressions of the fallout of the surge in Iraq &#8211; especially the developments congruent with the observations of Robert Kaplan in <em>Imperial Grunts.\u00a0 <\/em>As I put it a few weeks ago, the goals are to:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<ol>\n<li>Keep our troops out among the natives &#8211; even in tiny numbers, the act of showing a presence among the civilians makes a huge difference in\u2026<\/li>\n<li>\u2026Cutting the guerillas off from the people.\u00a0 Make it impossible for the insurgents to get supplies, recruits and support (and, commensurately, to exert control through coercion and terror).\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>Co-opt and exploit local institutions to help you with #2 first\u00a0&#8211; and <em>then <\/em>build new institutions.\u00a0\u00a0 This drives liberals (and, it must be fairly said, neoconservatives) crazy; surely, they reason, imposing democracy and human rights immediately must be a better thing &#8211;\u00a0right?\u00a0 Like most ideals, it\u2019s not always true, of course.\u00a0 It was a former Ranger &#8211; who\u2019d spent a few years training for this exact kind of warfare &#8211; who introduced me to the saying \u201cperfect is the enemy of good enough\u201d.\u00a0 In many parts of the world, the only human right that matters <em>right now <\/em>is the right to not get blown up, beheaded, shot or gang-raped.\u00a0 Once those are taken care of, one can worry about the more finesseful rights of man.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>Build up the local institutions that work.\u00a0 Liberals &#8211; and some neoconservatives &#8211; grouse about this because it involves \u201cpicking and choosing warlords\u201d.\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u00a0This latest set of dispatches from Michael Yon (<em>Ghosts of Anbar, Parts <a href=\"http:\/\/www.michaelyon-online.com\/wp\/the-ghosts-of-anbar-part-1-of-4.htm\">I<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.michaelyon-online.com\/wp\/the-ghosts-of-anbar-part-ii-of-iv.htm\">II<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.michaelyon-online.com\/wp\/ghosts-of-anbar-part-iii-of-iv.htm\">III<\/a><\/em>)\u00a0shows evidence of all of these.<\/p>\n<p>Yon <a href=\"http:\/\/www.michaelyon-online.com\/wp\/ghosts-of-anbar-part-iii-of-iv.htm\">quotes<\/a> selected passages from the Army&#8217;s Counterinsurgency (&#8220;COIN&#8221;) manual:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>From the counterinsurgency manual that every Marine and Soldier should read:<\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>Sometimes, the More You Protect Your Force, the Less Secure You May Be<\/strong><br \/>\n1-149. Ultimate success in COIN is gained by protecting the populace, not the COIN force. If military forces remain in their compounds, they lose touch with the people, appear to be running scared, and cede the initiative to the insurgents. Aggressive saturation patrolling, ambushes, and listening post operations must be conducted, risk shared with the populace, and contact maintained. . . . These practices ensure access to the intelligence needed to drive operations. Following them reinforces the connections with the populace that help establish real legitimacy.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><em>From \u201cCounterinsurgency\/FM 3-24\/MCWP 3-33.5\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Earlier, at the Falahat station, I counted 24 armed Iraqis at one time, but there may have been as many as twice that. So it was just SSG Lee, me, and dozens of armed Iraqis. Some clearly had been insurgents just months ago. Nobody was denying it. Not us, not them. SSG Lee and I could have been killed or kidnapped at any time, yet I felt not a twinge of danger other than maybe watching for an enemy car bomb or sniper, or starting when someone accidentally fired a burst from an AK, which they occasionally do.<\/p>\n<p>The Marines were constantly outnumbered, yet they were pushing out there with the Iraqis, who are picking up more of the weight in many places.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Back in 2005 many Iraqi Soldiers and Police preferred to hide their identities.Today it seems that most Iraqi Soldiers and Police want their photos taken. Their confidence is growing and their attitude toward the terrorists is increasingly one of being more the hunter than the hunted.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Now I started to understand why the Army officers had been telling me the Marines are more advanced in counterinsurgency. Normal Marines have morphed into doing vintage Special Forces work. Many of our Army units are excellent at this work, but the Marines, at least these particular Marines, did seem to have an edge for it.<\/p>\n<p>They were even studying Arabic in their filthy little compound. Lightweight study, but they were showing the Iraqis they were making the effort. The Iraqis appreciated it. I have yet to see an Army unit undertake such a clear effort to learn Arabic.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>They&#8217;re moving out of the big Forward Operating Bases, into <em>really <\/em>small, rough-and-tumble bases big enough for a squad or two of men:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The Marines there live in disgusting conditions. They have two toilets. One is a tube. For more serious business, there are the small plastic baggies called WAG bags. Do your business, seal it up and put it into a garbage can. They don\u2019t complain.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>And most importantly, they&#8217;re out among the Iraqi troops and people &#8211; showing them how to fight&#8230;:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Iraqi Soldiers and Police constantly emulate Marines and Soldiers. When he got back from missions, SSG Lee would work out. The Iraqis would watch and start doing their own exercises. This form of mentoring happens naturally because Lee is just being Lee, and the young Iraqis see it and want to be it.\u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>&#8230;and how to run a town&#8230;:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Iraqis in every province I have traveled all respond to strong leadership. It\u2019s a cultural touchstone. A man like SSG Rakene is not someone they would overlook. Physically, the man is amazingly strong. But what is most amazing is the strength of his moral fiber. Whatever the man talked, he walked. After all of al Qaeda\u2019s false promises, the people here have learned a hard lesson about the true value of character.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>&#8230;and how to beat an insurgency in an area that was their home turf:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>While al Qaeda runs and hides, stuffing its death-cult down the throats of Iraqis in other areas, out in Anbar, once its domain, American Soldiers and Marines are increasingly able to go in small numbers out on patrols with Iraqis. This morning, only two Marines accompanied an Iraqi-led foot patrol several miles through an Iraqi village. It is important to note that at the time of this patrol, Soldiers who had recently been kidnapped elsewhere in combat were still missing. With no backup, our guys are able to\u00a0perform such patrols in many parts of Iraq.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Read all three parts &#8211; Part IV is coming soon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A few weeks ago, I wrote my own (admittedly amateurish) impressions of the fallout of the surge in Iraq &#8211; especially the developments congruent with the observations of Robert Kaplan in Imperial Grunts.\u00a0 As I put it a few weeks ago, the goals are to: Keep our troops out among the natives &#8211; even in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-war-on-terror"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1254","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1254"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1254\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}