How do you get indigenous counter-insurgent (COIN) forces to have a greater stake in the outcome than insurgents?
While this author's discussion of French counter-insurgency theory and practice is interesting, the French in Mali sound like they simply want to conduct counter-terrorism without caring if the Malian government conducts counter-insurgency, which requires a lot of non-military efforts.
There is a difference between counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency. What was most interesting in the article was the distinction between colonial counter-insurgency, where you want to retain control; and foreign nation support, where you help an allied government.
I often noted that our efforts in Iraq--where we really did liberate the clear majority of the population from the small Sunni Arab minority in charge--would be very different if we were trying to pacify an enemy people. How do you win hearts and minds in that case?
One aspect is that the external COIN force can't easily provide the case for winning hearts, even if minds can be swayed by winning or fear of losing. Says the author:
The host nation should be the author of the political vision that guides the political action. Since Gallieni, this political vision has been identified as the more important portion of the global approach that is at the core of COIN doctrine. Now the intervening force is in the passenger seat.
It follows, of course, that only a legitimate government will succeed. “Only an autochthonous power that is legitimate in the eyes of the host-nation,” the text explains, “can carry out this alternative political project.”
Earlier the author noted that the very intervention by the external COIN force lifts the burden on the host government for carrying out reforms to provide a reason for government forces to fight and die.
That "passenger" role by the external actor can be done if the commitment and sacrifice is at a low enough level. And even as a passenger the external actor can slowly push the government to reform. I've certainly advocated staying in Iraq and Afghanistan exactly because the costs are low and the chance to slowly change the governments are there.
But if the host government will not reform and resists all actions that might allow for a total withdrawal of troops while having a good chance of victory, what can the external actor do? Let them lose when you presumably had a reason to save that government?
The traditional method is to give power to a
local minority to prop up as friendly rulers, which gives them a lot of
incentive to kill to remain in power, outnumbered and hated. That also
gives you a Saddam or an Assad with lots of reasons to die--and kill
without mercy--for the objective.
Perhaps the only way out of that dilemma is to abandon the Westphalian assumptions and support regional forces that will find a reason to support the external actor in opposition to the formal central government of the entire territory. Could adapting my Lexington Rule intended to justify counter-terrorist operations to regional counter-insurgency be a better path?
That certainly fits with my view of solving the dilemma in Afghanistan. Although I did not favor that for Iraq when fighting was taking place given that I feared a separate Sunni Arab state would gravitate toward jihadism. They'd become the new Palestinians. Indeed, with fragmentation in Iraq and Syria, as early as 2012 I worried about eastern Syria and western Iraq uniting under Sunni Arab control. Maybe Mali should not be a single country. The south and north are very different. Maybe the French would be better off building a northern Tuareg government in Mali that will enthusiastically battle jihadis to be an independent or autonomous state.
And the author is quite right that committing greater resources can lead to wanting a greater victory to justify the resources. It would be nice to separate the objectives from the resources committed so ambitions don't get too great. Perhaps that is one reason I have been more willing to declare Iraq a victory than so many.
Anyway, I'm kind of bouncing around and lost a coherent thread. But the article is interesting and raises issues about COIN that I've obviously raised in this blog over the years.
