SW504
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- In small scale wars, non-state combatants are
- less constrained, whether out of desperation or simply because they do not accept the legitimacy of the rule sets.
- Metz's factors for success in counter-insurgency/terrorism: Be able to sustain adequate effort
- for years, even decades.
- Small wars pit a state (or something that looks like a state) against
- non-state actors, ranging from bands of terrorists, militias, and heavily armed criminal gangs to more formal organizations such as warlord armies or mature, quasi-state insurgent movements.
- Conventional, state-on-state conflicts are
- "intra-cultural" (with culture understood in both its organizational and anthropological meanings).
- Metz's factors for success in counter-insurgency/terrorism: Degrade the opponent's strategy
- rather than attrit his force.
- Metz's factors for success in counter-insurgency/terrorism: Design and sustain
- effective methods for both intelligence and counter-intelligence.
- Small war is quintessentially
- asymmetric.
- COIN PARADOX: The best weapons for counterinsurgency
- do not fire bullets. Counterinsurgents achieve the most meaningful success by gaining popular support and legitimacy for the host government, not by killing insurgents. Security is important in setting the stage for other kinds of progress, but lasting victory will come from a vibrant economy, political participation, and restored hope.
- An insurgency's existence implies
- a base of popular support that actively aids or at least tolerates the insurgents. Mao Tse-tung spoke of guerillas as fish in the sea, a metaphor that suggests a great sea of support exists and that fish cannot survive outside it.
- COIN PARADOX: Them doing something poorly
- is sometimes better than us doing it well. Who performs an operation is just as important as how well it is done. "Do not try and do too much with your own hands. Better the Arabs do it tolerably than you do it perfectly. It is their war, and you are to help them, not win it for them."
- COIN PARADOX: Sometimes doing nothing is
- the best reaction. If a careful analysis of the effects of a response reveals that more negatives than positives might result, Soldiers should consider an alternative.
- Principles of Counterinsurgency
- Legitimacy as the main objective, Unity of effort, Political primacy, Understanding the environment, Intelligence as the driver for operations, Isolating insurgents from their cause and support, Security under the rule of law, Long-term commitment
- Trends propelled terrorism's strategic role The reemergence of "stand alone" terrorism-based strategies
- (something which had existed in Russia and other parts of Europe in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries among various radical, anarchist, and nihilist groups).
- COIN operations present
- complex, often unfamiliar missions and considerations. In many ways, conducting COIN operations is counterintuitive to the traditional approach to war and combat operations. Some representative paradoxes follow:
- For a counterinsurgency to succeed
- the majority of the population must eventually come to see insurgents as outsiders, as outlaws.
- Metz's factors for success in counter-insurgency/terrorism: Seamlessly integrate
- all government agencies and elements of power.
- The American conception of conflict reflects a sports analogy
- similarly equipped opponents showing up at the appointed time and place, confining the contest to agreed-upon rules and the defined field of play. Our illusion makes neat demarcations between acceptable and illegal modes of fighting, as well as between combatants and spectators. We expect a common agreement on objectives—the goalposts at the end of the field—and rules of the game, with referees to throw yellow flags for infractions. This perspective is not useful in a second small wars era.
- eight principles that Hoffman contends are necessary to guide the design and conduct of small wars.
- Understanding: End State: Unity of Effort: Credibility: Discriminate Force: Freedom of Action: Agility:
- Asymmetry can be
- political-strategic, military-strategic, operational, or a combination.
- Asymmetry can be discrete
- or pursued in conjunction with symmetric approaches. It can have both psychological and physical dimensions.
- Asymmetry can entail different
- methods, technologies, values, organizations, time perspectives, or some combination. It can be short term or long term.
- Trends propelled terrorism's strategic role:The transnationalization of terrorism as groups
- developed affiliations and networks with each other, some engineered by the Soviets and their allies, others not.
- Metz's factors for success in counter-insurgency/terrorism: Shape operations and campaigns
- with psychological precision to generate the necessary psychological effects.
- Asymmetry can be
- deliberate or inadvertent.
- COIN PARADOX: If a tactic works this week,
- it will not work next week; if it works in this province, it will not work in the next.
- COIN PARADOX: Tactical success
- guarantees nothing.
- COIN PARADOX: The more you protect your force,
- the less secure you are. The counterinsurgent gains ultimate success by protecting the populace, not himself.
- Imperatives of Counterinsurgency
- Manage information and expectations, Use measured force, Learn and adapt, Empower the lowest levels, Support the host nation
- Small wars are almost always
- cross-cultural.
- In simplest terms, asymmetry is acting, organizing, and thinking differently from opponents in order to
- maximize one's own advantages, exploit an opponent's weaknesses, attain the initiative, or gain greater freedom of action.
- Metz's factors for success in counter-insurgency/terrorism: Adapt at least as rapidly
- as and more effectively than the enemy.
- Trends propelled terrorism's strategic role The growing legitimacy of radical terrorism
- at least that perceived as related to "liberation"—among elites and intellectuals in both the Third World and the West.
- What does Metz offer as two foundational principles for successfully countering insurgents and terrorists in the future?
- understand the conflict for what it is; and second, take it seriously.
- Small wars are the
- American military tradition.
- In conventional, state-on-state war, combatants operate with
- common, or at least similar, "rule sets," whether formal ones such as the Law of Armed Conflict and Geneva Conventions or informal ones.
- Historically, the critical test of legitimacy is the ability of one side or the other to
- guarantee the security of the population.
- Why does Metz believe that the U.S. was unprepared to fight a counterinsurgency campaign in Vietnam in spite of a history of fighting insurgencies and other forms of irregular war?
- The United States was organizationally, doctrinally, conceptually, and psychologically unprepared for Vietnam.
- The Chinese term for the "hegemon" translates literally as
- "bully power," and China's strategists believed that the hegemonic position of the United States would drive the other powers to create a multipolar world. This declinist view of American power held that as long as China could "bide its time and hide its capabilities," in the words of paramount leader Deng Xiaoping, it would stand poised to benefit in this emerging world order.
- COIN PARADOX: The more force you use,
- the less effective you are. Restrained force also strengthens the rule of law the counterinsurgent is trying to establish.
- one of the first rigorous attempts by the American military to analyze the nature of small wars and to identify the keys to success arose from
- Marine involvement in the Caribbean and Central America. This thinking was captured in the classic Small Wars Manual of 1940.