Insurgency or Civil War?

[Garrette]

For no particular reason than that I found the links interesting (I've had the first two a while and the last one only recently), I'm posting this.

My own stance is similar to that expressed in the third link, though it's not quite in depth enough for my taste.

This link, Andrew Krepinevich’s article How to Win in Iraq from the Sep/Oct 2005 issue of Foreign Affairs describes the conflict in Iraq as purely an insurgency, one which has been handled incorrectly. For a very good primer on how to wage a counterinsurgency, read this article. Note the amount of space Krepinevich devotes to the political aspect of the solution.


This link, Stephen Biddle’s article Seeing Baghdad, Thinking Saigon from the March/April 2006 issue of Foreign Affairs describes the conflict in Iraq as purely a civil war, and as such one which requires a tack completely opposite that of counterinsurgency. For a very short primer on what is required to fight a civil war, read this article.


This link, Thomas Mackaitis’ monograph The Iraq War: Learning From the Past, Adapting to the Present, and Planning for the Future published in February 2007 by the Strategic Studies Institute (of the U.S. Army War College) describes the conflict as primarily an insurgency requiring counterinsurgent strategies but with a strong potential for civil war and already possessing elements of it. (Note that despite the publication date, it was written prior to the 2006 elections). It is a bit more superficial than I would like, but it still gives a nicely concise history of the war and its handling along with discussions on why the US military has been fighting the way it does. He ends with a prescription and a prognosis. Bear in mind that the perspective is almost purely from a military standpoint and not a geopolitical or even political one.

Since it is long, I will summarize some of the salient points:

• It is an insurgency, but more complex an insurgency than is usually seen. It is also absent some factors which made success probably in previous counterinsurgencies such as the one conducted by the British in Malaya.
• The potential for civil war is high, though it is not inevitable. Strategic politics are the key to averting it.
• The 2005 National Strategy for Winning in Iraq is a good plan but has significant weaknesses. It outlines the proper methods for victory but does not provide the means (primarily a very large increase in the number of deployed troops, and an implied reduction in the bureaucratic tail of troops already deployed).
• After a year of not understanding it was facing an insurgency and not understanding how to conduct a counterinsurgency, the US military, at the low and mid-levels at least, has been remarkably successful at adapting its methods to the environment.
• The U.S. must learn more quickly than it has two important lessons, both of which the British have learned before:
  • Decentralization of decision-making in all things, even down to proper uniform attire
  • The policy of “minimum force”
• Regardless how well the US military begins to fight now, the primary tack must be a political one, and in any case, it may be too little too late

Just thought they would be of interest, particularly if read as a group.

 

[Darth Rotor]

This link, Stephen Biddle’s article Seeing Baghdad, Thinking Saigon from the March/April 2006 issue of Foreign Affairs describes the conflict in Iraq as purely a civil war, and as such one which requires a tack completely opposite that of counterinsurgency. For a very short primer on what is required to fight a civil war, read this article.

From this article, which is well presented (and which I of course agree with, since I have held that the Iraq issue has been a civil war since I got back) this metric is telling:

The four provinces that make up the country's Sunni heartland account for fully 85 percent of all insurgent attacks; Iraq's other 14 provinces, where almost 60 percent of the Iraqi population lives, account for only 15 percent of the violence. The overwhelming majority of the insurgents in Iraq are indigenous Sunnis, and the small minority who are non-Iraqi members of al Qaeda or its affiliates are able to operate only because Iraqi Sunnis provide them with safe houses, intelligence, and supplies. Much of the violence is aimed at the Iraqi police and military, which recruit disproportionately from among Shiites and Kurds. And most suicide car bombings are directed at Shiite neighborhoods, especially in ethnically mixed areas such as Baghdad, Diyala, or northern Babil, where Sunni bombers have relatively easy access to non-Sunni tar

I disagree with this.

The uprisings led by Muqtada al-Sadr's Shiite militia in Baghdad and Najaf have been an exception to this general pattern, but it is the exception that confirms the rule. Although Sadr may still have a political future, so far he has failed to spur a broad-based Shiite uprising against either the U.S. occupation or the Shiite-dominated government. Some Iraqi Shiites do resent the U.S. occupation, and nationalism does feed anti-American violence. But nationalism is only a secondary factor in the war, and its main effect is to magnify the virulence of the Sunnis' violence in what is fundamentally a communal civil war.

Sadr's Shia are doing what the author illustrates the Sunni as doing, which is fighting for their groups interests first, and other matters second. He makes a mistake, I think, of overaggregating Shia.

The creation of powerful Shiite-Kurdish security forces will also reduce the chances of reaching the only serious long-term solution to the country's communal conflict: a compromise based on a constitutional deal with ironclad power-sharing arrangements protecting all parties. A national army that effectively excluded Sunnis would make any such constitutional deal irrelevant, because the Shiite-Kurdish alliance would hold the real power regardless of what the constitution said. Increasing evidence that Iraq's military and police have already committed atrocities against Sunnis only confirms the dangers of transferring responsibility for fighting the insurgents to local forces before an acceptable ethnic compromise has been brokered.

Nicely put.

Second, the United States must bring more pressure to bear on the parties in the constitutional negotiations. And the strongest pressure available is military: the United States must threaten to manipulate the military balance of power among Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds to coerce them to negotiate. Washington should use the prospect of a U.S.-trained and U.S.-supported Shiite-Kurdish force to compel the Sunnis to come to the negotiating table. At the same time, in order to get the Shiites and the Kurds to negotiate too, it should threaten either to withdraw prematurely, a move that would throw the country into disarray, or to back the Sunnis.

A variation on the Clinton approach at Dayton.

Putting such a program in place would not be easy. It would deny President Bush the chance to offer restless Americans an early troop withdrawal, replace a Manichaean narrative featuring evil insurgents and a noble government with a complicated story of multiparty interethnic intrigue, and require that Washington be willing to shift its loyalties in the conflict according to the parties' readiness to negotiate. Explaining these changes to U.S. voters would be a challenge.

Comprehending these changes in the White House inner circle seems the more insurmountable challenge, and the window of opportunity to do this has long since passed, now that "surge" is alive and well in Baghdad.

I'll take on the third one later. Krep hasn't changed his line much in thirty years, has he?

This link, Thomas Mackaitis’ monograph The Iraq War: Learning From the Past, Adapting to the Present, and Planning for the Future published in February 2007 by the Strategic Studies Institute (of the U.S. Army War College) describes the conflict as primarily an insurgency requiring counterinsurgent strategies but with a strong potential for civil war and already possessing elements of it. (Note that despite the publication date, it was written prior to the 2006 elections).

ETA:

Should the Iraqi conflict escalate from insurgency to civil war and partition become a more attractive option to all parties, the country would face a situation not unlike that of
India and Pakistan in 1947. Many mixed areas and enclaves would make partition difficult and bloody. The physical geography of the country has been

The author is two years behind events with this remark. It's a civil war, he just doesn't recognize it.

I find this evidence of his institutional myopia (Army War College)

The insurgency, of course, has not remained static. Considerable evidence suggests that the distinctions Baram makes between various types of Sunni insurgents have become less important than the broader conflict between Sunni and Shiite Iraqis. Since 2006, violence
has been increasingly sectarian.

The sectarian nature, and the inter clan nature was always there. It was reinforced by the explicit de Ba'athification effort, which the author very cleary grasps as a catalyst to a variety of what he terms "insurgent" activity. The civil war began when the US chose sides, which began with the Washington endorsed position to disenfranchise the Ba'athists and thus many Sunnis.

As to another explicit Administration policy regarding contracts, it effects were far reaching. It was explicit Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld policy that led to the danger of an Iraqi working for an American firm. He captures that failure quite well.

Unemployment skyrocketed after the invasion, reaching 67 percent, due in large measure to deliberate U.S. policy.64 In addition to the nearly 500,000 people laid off because of their connection to the previous regime, Bremer let go another 150,000 as an austerity measure.65
Unfortunately, reconstruction efforts have not come close to absorbing the unemployed. Lucrative contracts almost exclusively have gone to Americans, while Iraqi firms have received little of the reconstruction capital flowing into their country.66 While American firms do hire local workers, Iraqis who work for them face intimidation and threats against themselves and their families from the insurgents. Those who fail to head insurgent warnings not to work with the Americans are murdered. The U.S. policy on issuing contracts created further problems because it precluded Russiancontractors familiar with Iraq’s Soviet era energy grid from participating in the reconstruction effort.67

The Cost of War

In 2005, more than one-third of West Point Graduates from the class of 2000 left the army after fulfilling their mandatory 5-year term, the second year in a row to see such declining retention
rates.76 And the divorce rate among army personnel doubled between 2001 and 2004.77 Even the Marines have had to resort to mandatory recalls of inactive reservists because of an anticipated shortfall of 2,500 volunteers for Afghanistan and Iraq.78

One might want to take a look at Navy Jet Pilot retention between 1986 and 1996 to see similar attrition rates, even in a non war environment. Interesting comparison. The pull of family or "something else" beckons a lot of JO's out of the service.

Nonsense triumphalism here.

In the midst of these difficulties, however, U.S. forces experienced one of their most dramatic successes. On June 7, 2006, they conducted a precision air strike against a safe house Northeast of Baghdad, killing Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of al-Qai’da in Iraq.

We'd been trying to put a warhead on his forehead since the spring and summer of 2004. This was no "dramatic success" it was "about damned time."

Overall, his paper is interesting, and his "20 troops per 1,000 inhabitants" rubric not a bad point of departure . . . in 2003, as General Shinseki and his staff had already advised the President and his team, and been sent packing.

Washington ostriches for fifty, Alex.

DR

 

[ImaginalDisc]

Insurgency or Civil War?

Meaningless distinction, or doubletalk meant to distract us from the problem at hand?

 

[Garrette]

Insurgency or Civil War?

Meaningless distinction, or doubletalk meant to distract us from the problem at hand?

Neither.

My question is not meant to encompass all the geopolitical considerations that are the Iraq War Mess.

It is more a military one (with the understanding that the military is never divorced from the political if one wants success), and not trivial.

Counterinsurgencies are fought quite differently from civil-war-suppression.

You may as well ask Jerry Jones if his discussions with the GM over whether to draft a new quarterback or a new cornerback is a meaningless distinction.

 

[Garrette]

Darth,

Thanks for the input. I look forward to further comments on the monograph. My outlook is apparently a bit more myopic than yours, but I keep learning.

 

[Darth Rotor]

Insurgency or Civil War?

Meaningless distinction, or doubletalk meant to distract us from the problem at hand?

The idea is to get the conceptual framework right before you embark on forumulating a strategy meant to achieve a political aim.

If you read the second article of the three, he specifically discusses how treating a civil war incorrectly (as an insurgency, which he broadly models via "nationalist insurgency" along Mao's lines) would lead you to make a lot of strategic errors, and in implementing a flawed strategy, make the situation you are dealing with worse, not better, by the steps you are taking to resolve the problem you think you are facing.

It is sort of like trouble shooting a steering column problem in your car by messing with the alignment and dampers, when you actually have a badly bent front rim! (Yes, I encountered that with my VW Bug back in 1980. New rim solved the entire vibration problem.)

If you misdiagnose the problem, your fix will be ineffective.

DR

 

[Darth Rotor]

Darth,

Thanks for the input. I look forward to further comments on the monograph. My outlook is apparently a bit more myopic than yours, but I keep learning.

Just different, and I think your view is well informed by what you saw on the ground.

I have my own blind spots, I just think the key elements of a civil war were there for the recognizing, if anyone stopped looking for their glasses by the light pole at midnight.

DR