Basic Principles of Counterinsurgency…“Nonsensical?”

Today’s New York Times article by David S. Cloud quotes Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld as recently saying “…it was impossible to know precisely whether wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were resulting in more terrorists being killed than they were creating.”

The article points out that Secretary Rumsfeld avoided any specific remarks about the declassified version of the April 2006 National Intelligence Estimate because he wasn’t even sure which parts of the NIE had been declassified due to the fact that he had been traveling.

Apparently, in the midst of a major war, he was unable to access the highly controversial and politically charged, 4-page document available at every media outlet, web site, and blog that could get its hands on it. Of course, he might have just asked his boss for a copy.

Nonetheless, Secretary Rumsfeld did go on to clarify his personal position: “The implication that if you stop killing or capturing people who are trying to kill you, then therefore the world would be a better place, is obviously nonsensical.”

This writer has never heard anyone in a position of significant responsibility advocate letting terrorists go freely about their business. Most rational people agree that once terrorists are properly identified and located they must be quickly captured or killed.

What Secretary Rumsfeld and other key supporters of the Bush Administration even refuse to consider is that their understanding of counterinsurgency is seriously flawed. Rather than intelligently discussing the fact that alienating the populace plays directly into the hands of the enemy, administration supporters attack those who disagree with them as “nonsensical.”

If the US were only killing those people who were trying to kill us (and their direct supporters), and if we were not abusing and alienating so many other innocent people we would be making better progress in the war. A recent poll conducted by the Program on International Policy Attitudes from the University of Maryland indicates that we are not.

The poll, taken during the first week of September indicates that the majority of Iraqis believe American forces are provoking more conflict than they are preventing. What’s more, the poll found that support for attacks on American forces is increasing. Some 61% of the respondents now say they approve of attacks. That number was only 47% in January.

It should be obvious that this is a direct result of the flawed US counterinsurgency policy and our badly managed actions in Iraq to date. Some of these new supporters have certainly gone into the ranks of active jihadists—and soon the Bush Administration will have to admit that we are responsible.

“Nonsensical” is an understatement when describing an administration that patently ignores over fifty-years of experience and in-depth counterinsurgency research by subject matter experts in the military, esteemed research institutions, and academia. The Army War College, the Naval Post Graduate School, and other US government-sponsored sources are producing thoughtful criticism and workable alternatives to the current strategy for the war on terror, but the Bush Administration is not listening.

James S. Corum, a 2004 Iraq war veteran and current Professor at the US Army Command & General Staff College, points out that history has shown that rather than a military operation, successful counterinsurgency has predominantly had more in common with large scale policing. This is the exact opposite of the current US approach, which relies on firepower and attrition. In fact, Professor Corum advocates that in order to be successful in counterinsurgency the military still plays a vital role, but that role should be in support of the police.

Other experts like Professor Hy Rothstein, a thirty-year veteran of the army Special Forces and currently at the Naval Post Graduate School are not confident that a counterinsurgency model is enough to stabilize Iraq at this point. It may be too late, or at least exponentially harder to develop a credible relationship with the Iraqi people to draw their sympathies away from the various insurgent, religious, and ethnic factions. At this point Iraq may require the US to maintain a large troop presence for years in order to sustain any semblance of security long enough to rebuild the many burnt bridges with the populace.

One thing they would agree on, however, is that it is never too late to emphasize the humane and moral treatment of the vast majority of people caught in the middle of an insurgency who are not currently a threat. Unfortunately, these people will eventually sympathize with and likely support an insurgent group they don’t even agree with ideologically, simply due to an ill-conceived US military strategy that continues to abuse and humiliate them.