The Rise of the Counterinsurgents

One consequence of the Iraq War is that a set of doctrines -- and in some ways more to the point, a clique of individuals -- associated with the concept of "counterinsurgency" has come very much into vogue across both political parties. At the moment, the counterinsurgents are still a minority faction in the military, but they're on the rise and seem to be the ones with the friends in the press and the political world. What's more, whatever doubts I have about them, they're certainly preferable to the "let's gear up for war with China!" crowd that forms their main opposition within the military.

With that by way of throat-clearing, Spencer Ackerman has decided to do a little new media venture where he writes "The Rise of the Vulcans" or "They Knew They Were Right" before the faction at hand rises to hegemony. Thus, his ongoing series "The Rise of the Counterinsurgents" of which you can read the first edition here.

Comments

I'm not sure why you put scare quotes around the word counterinsurgency, but it looks like you and Spencer are missing a few points here.

There isn't anything new about counterinsurgency -- The Marine Corps has had a manual about it since at least the early 20th Century. The experts who have risen to prominence during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan -- officers such as John Nagl and H.R. McMaster and the Australian David Kilcullen -- had written books and theses on counterinsurgency before these wars began. General Petraeus wasn't a counterinsurgency expert himself, but he was smart enough to empower experts such as these and surrounding himself with them. If Iraq ended up being a tank war, Petraeus would have surrounded himself with experts on that. This is less a sign of the rise of counterinsurgency than the relevance of it at this particular time. As Col. Nagl has pointed out though, as long as the United States maintains dominance in conventional warfare, we can assume future enemies to fight us unconventionally.

Nevertheless, there is no danger of the military going too far and pursuing counterinsurgency above all else. The simple reason is economics: There are more advocates in Congress for building conventional warfare capabilities because building ships and planes creates tens of thousands of high-paying jobs. What sort of spending does counterinsurgency require? Not much: sniper rifles, language lessons, etc. Not so many high-paying jobs generated by that.

Posted by Fred | March 7, 2008 1:24 PM

The real problem with the rise of "counterinsurgency experts" is that many are probably not Fourth Gen War experts, either.

The notion that you can win by just throwing more bodies at an insurgency based on the "20 troops per thousand" equation is badly wrong.

Without "credibility", as the 4th Gen War experts point out, you're still going to lose.

In WWII, Germany and Japan clearly started the war. When the time came to lose and be occupied, given the destruction of an industrialized society, the population wasn't inclined to create an insurgency against the occupying power.

This is by no means the case in the Third World - especially in tribal Muslim societies. In both Iraq and Afghanistan, the US started the war (9/11 was not justification for either). In both countries, the population may have initially believed that a US occupation would be better than the governments they had. They learned quickly that it wasn't. At that point, that an insurgency would form and that the US would lose was a forgone conclusion.

And no amount of "counterinsurgency" methods are going to change that.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | March 8, 2008 3:29 AM

Fine post, excellent links.

Posted by Robert Powell | March 9, 2008 6:16 AM