Can Population Security Work if You Abandon Big Parts of the Country?
I ask that honestly. What are the implications for the concept of population-centric counterinsurgency is you choose to abandon big chucks — admittedly sparsely populated — of the country? Doesn’t that create a huge rural reservoir of insurgent support? I mean, I get pop-centric COIN as a concept. I am skeptical of it, even if implemented country-wide. But isn’t the “ink spots” approach at odds with the proposed security-legitimacy connection?
Deadly Attack on Remote Posts Highlights Afghan Risks – NYTimes.com
The commander, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, is pressing for a change in strategy that would shift troops to heavily populated centers to protect civilians and focus less on battling the insurgents in the hinterlands.
I’m relying entirely upon my faulty memory of a briefing over three years ago that included a vignette on Columbia. But didn’t Columbia have good success by abandoning the narco safe havens and working on reinforcing the contested areas?
Well, two things…. first, I think it is an open question about how success the Colombia autonomy arrangements have been. Lots of people think it was a disaster. Second, the Narcos in Colombia are not — as far as I can tell — particularly interested in replacing the government. They just want to be left alone to make money. So you can potentially buy them off that way.
But, my bigger issue is, how does this plan work within the logic of pop-centric COIN? I’ve read Triage — the CNAS publication — but that doesn’t bother to actually explain the logic — though it makes a reasonable case in terms of priority. I just don’t see what the endgame is.
I mean, I get pop-centric COIN as a concept. I am skeptical of it, even if implemented country-wide. But isn’t the “ink spots” approach at odds with the proposed security-legitimacy connection?
No, because you’re accepting that an “ink spots” approach is temporally progressive, that the oil spots or ink blots or whatever you want to call them can be progressively expanded. You’re not ceding territory to the insurgency permanently, but rather consolidating control in pro-government areas so as to deny access to the insurgent and limit his freedom of movement, making it easier to take aggressive action into his strongholds and drive him further from population centers (and/or make him quit).
“Pop-centric COIN” take place within the ink blots and is a method for securing control.
But while you’re consolidating government control inside the ink spots, they are consolidating insurgent control in their “ink spots.” Why assume our ink spots will spread, but theirs will shrink?
And once you have moved on, why can’t the insurgents resume operations in their ink spots? And how do you deal with the massive legitimacy loss from the inital abandonment?
I think the consolidation approach makes sense if you have as a goal the creation of some sort of stable power sharing deal… but it less clear to me why the logic works if the goal is actually “defeating” the insurgents.
But while you’re consolidating government control inside the ink spots, they are consolidating insurgent control in their “ink spots.” Why assume our ink spots will spread, but theirs will shrink?
In short, because we have more resources. Because it’s not particularly plausible that the insurgents will threaten government-held and U.S.-supported areas in any substantive way, while the coalition basically maintains the capability to “drop in” anywhere in the country. Because we have more mobility and more firepower. Because the enemy does not typically operate with open, exposed political cadres and shortens his life expectancy in those istances where he chooses to do so.
I’m not sure that the “legitimacy loss” is as much of a concern as the fact that many pro-government collaborators will be targeted in places from which counterinsurgents withdraw. I think it’s also fair to say that in many of those places, the number of individuals who have felt sufficiently protected to expose themselves as non-neutral is limited.
I think the consolidation approach makes sense if you have as a goal the creation of some sort of stable power sharing deal… but it less clear to me why the logic works if the goal is actually “defeating” the insurgents.
I’m not sure I understand your point here, unless you’re saying that it facilitates a very clear sort of “geographic power-sharing,” which is to say the government conceding control of certain parts of the country in which the enemy operates most aggressively. This is obviously impossible, at least in any formal sense, though you could make the case that this is exactly what happens in an informal sense while control over the ink blots is being consolidated.
Gulliver,
We may have more resources, but they have more time. Plus, the Taliban’s resource requirements are such a small fraction of NATO’s, even a near infinite resource commitment by NATO wouldn’t guarantee that NATO’s “ink spot” would grow.
Keith
The temporal element is what gets me. How long does it take to institutionalize government control. Seems to me that we’re talking at least a decade… but the “rolling COIN” concept seems to suggest we can move on in a year or two — at MOST.
I think that is where our differing assessments may come from. How long do you think we are abandoning regions for? The logic of POPCOIN suggests a decade or more… or have we found a silver bullet to increase government capacity quickly?
Keith — We may have more resources, but they have more time. Plus, the Taliban’s resource requirements are such a small fraction of NATO’s, even a near infinite resource commitment by NATO wouldn’t guarantee that NATO’s “ink spot” would grow.
The Taliban’s resource requirements are much smaller precisely because they operate as guerillas. In order to hold ground or govern, those requirements will balloon, perhaps not to the level required by the coalition but by an order of magnitude.
There’s no guarantee of anything, obviously, but it’s difficult to imagine a scenario where the Taliban could deny even intermittent coalition patrols and shows of force, which is how you begin to contest territory. It’s so obvious as to be taken for granted, I think, that it is much easier for the coalition and Afghan government to contest Taliban-controlled areas (to the extent that any exist) than for the Taliban to contest government-controlled areas.
There is, of course, a difference between freedom of action or intermittent presence and control. But why should we believe, in light of Helmand, that the enemy can deny terrain to the coalition when the decision is made to take it?
Anyway, I’m rambling a little bit now.
Bernard — The temporal element is what gets me. How long does it take to institutionalize government control. Seems to me that we’re talking at least a decade… but the “rolling COIN” concept seems to suggest we can move on in a year or two — at MOST.
I think that is where our differing assessments may come from. How long do you think we are abandoning regions for? The logic of POPCOIN suggests a decade or more… or have we found a silver bullet to increase government capacity quickly?
To be quite honest, I don’t know. And I don’t know how much institutionalization of government control is required before you can expand your blot. I will say that I don’t think it’s necessary to establish responsive government or democratic legitimacy or anything like that. What is essential is that we attain (or retain) the capability to completely deny enemy influence in those areas, which is to say (after Kalyvas) that the government needs to be able to refuse the population access to the insurgents (and vice-versa), eliminating the possibility of denunciations of pro-government individuals and the related campaign of violence and intimidation (which can snowball, of course, into broader neutrality or support for the insurgency).
So I guess my point is that we really don’t need to abandon regions for so long as you seem to suggest, simply because the level of governmental competence, legitimacy, responsiveness, and sophistication in the government/coalition-controlled areas does not need to be that high. Then again, this goes back to conversations we’ve had in the past about legitimacy, grievance, and control. As I’ve conceded in the past, if “POPCOIN” is about making sure everybody’s got a school and a well and a vote and that guarantees they’ll stop shooting at you (or telling the bad guys where you patrol), then I’m not exactly an advocate. The whole thing is a bit more sophisticated than that.
[...] The article is essential reading and I encourage you to give it a once-over. Gulliver, of course, responds. The exchange is the best public debate I can find, and is thankfully free of the [...]