Counterinsurgency and Complexity

Not only is the news of 27 dead and around a hundred wounded in a triple car bomb attack in Iraq that ranks as the deadliest in months a tragic turn in its own terms, but the apparent cause and location of the attacks highlights the extreme complexity of the situation: "At least 27 people died and about 100 were wounded Wednesday when three car bombs ripped through a southern Iraqi city where rival Shiite groups have been battling for control of oil and power."

George Packer reported the other day about a conversation with two of the soldiers who penned this brave August 2007 op-ed. According to Packer, "They hope to write, with other soldiers, a book about counterinsurgency that would examine the Army’s new field manual against their experience fighting the complex array of warring factions in Iraq—not to refute it but to improve it."

One point that keeps striking me in this regard is that the counterinsurgency manual mostly contemplates a much simpler dynamic than the one in Iraq: a government challenged by an insurgency, with a population stuck in the middle. The task is to judiciously apply military, political, and economic levers to ensure that the government wins the loyalty of the public, and then squeeze the remaining isolated insurgents. Iraq appears to be like that in some places and on a local scale, but it doesn't correctly describe the overall dynamic -- the sundry local conflicts don't "add up" to one insurgency challenging one legitimately constituted authority. I know the folks running MNF-Iraq realize this, and think they've come up with an answer to it, but it seems to me that the differences between this kind of situation and the kind of textbook insurgency that the field manual deals with are extremely large and quite significant, whereas the official plan to cope with these challenges involves a large degree of hand-waving and wishing-for-the-best.

Comments

".....whereas the official plan to cope with these challenges involves a large degree of hand-waving and wishing-for-the-best."
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Insert that phrase for just about any aspect of Bush's governance. Global warming, the economy, immigration, you name it.

Posted by steve duncan | December 12, 2007 11:09 AM

It's worse than that.

In other insurgencies--the Huks, the shining path, vietnam--there was a clear opposing party as well. You were either for Mao or against Mao.

In this case, you've got an occupying power--and nobody to treat with on the other side. So there is no end in sight, no way to attain any poltical goal, other than permanent occupation by a foreign power.

Posted by jayAckroyd | December 12, 2007 12:34 PM

This is what I love about this blog: Here's a guy who has never been to Iraq, who doesn't speak a word of Arabic, who doesn't know a single Iraqi, who doesn't have a day of military experience, who has never had any military study or training (I know, I know, he took a seminar once), and yet he can critique the tactical details of Gen. Petraeus's operations. Truly, you can always tell a Harvard man.

Posted by y81 | December 12, 2007 2:22 PM

The Iraq war will not go away with a bang or a helicopter leaving the embassy roof. It will fade and the discussions will and topics will become mundane as the time goes on. This was a disgusting day, but in a country of 25 million filled with 10's of thousands of Bathist part members, al qaeda, criminals, and shia terrorists you will still get horrible events like this. Its tragic for the people killed, but we are not leaving Iraq, the Iraqi people will not accept another dictator, and widespread breakdown similar to Somalia or Lebanon will not occur. We will be in Iraq for our lifetimes, get over it.

Posted by robert verdi | December 12, 2007 6:58 PM

"We will be in Iraq for our lifetimes, get over it."

No, we won't. The Iraqis won't stand for it.

The one thing that now unites at least eighty percent of Iraqis is hatred for the United States - which apparently exceeds even the dislike they had for Saddam - who never abused them to the degree the US did.

"A detailed opinion poll carried out by ABC News, BBC and NTV of Japan in August found that 57 per cent of Iraqis believe that attacks on US forces are acceptable."

Meanwhile:

"Iraq will never allow the United States to have permanent military bases on its soil, the government's national security adviser said, calling the issue a "red line" that cannot be crossed.

"We need the United States in our war against terrorism, we need them to guard our border sometimes, we need them for economic support and we need them for diplomatic and political support," Mowaffaq al-Rubaie said.

"But I say one thing, permanent forces or bases in Iraq for any foreign forces is a red line that cannot be accepted by any nationalist Iraqi," he told Dubai-based al Arabiya television...

The United States has around 160,000 troops in Iraq, officially under a United Nations mandate enacted after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

Iraq formally asked the United Nations on Monday to renew that mandate for a year until the end of 2008. It made clear it would not extend the mandate beyond next year and the mandate could be revoked sooner at Iraq's request."

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | December 12, 2007 8:57 PM