Center for a New American Security

I have been reading an advanced copy of James Arnold's new survey of counterinsurgency campaigns and came across this quotation from Thomas Bugeaud, the 19th Century French counterinsurgency theorist-practitioner. This is Bugeaud, speaking to his officers upon taking command:

Gentlemen, you have much to forget.

Hang around this blog long enough and you will hear us talk a lot about not only David Galula and Roger Trinquier but also the earlier generation of French theorists -- Lyautey, Bugeaud, and Gallieni most especially. The intellectual debt that David Galula himself owed to the ideas of Gallieni in particular has not been lost on the French. (Thanks, Judah. I now know how to say "ink spot" in French.) We now eagerly await Thomas Rid's forthcoming article on the evolution of French COIN doctrine...

This blog has a fantastic network of spies who monitor the effect COIN doctrine is having on countries outside the United States. Our friend Stephanie Pezard sent along this speech that French defense minister Hervé Morin gave at the CSIS. (Another friend, Thomas Rid, aparently managed to even swing himself an invitation. He's cool like that.) A translation of the speech is available here on .mp3.

Now, one must remember that David Galula -- whose writings have been so influential on the development of U.S. COIN doctrine -- was first published in English and not his native French. It was not until just last year that Galula's Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice was published in French for the first time. (And with an introduction written by David Petraeus! Amazon.fr reports it is en stock. Which is more than you can say for my book.) During the speech, though, Morin referred to Galula's book as "the latest Bible," claimed he read the book over the course of a weekend, and said:

[This] writing should inspire, in depth, our action toward the Afghan population. This goes also through a strong respect for for the Afghan people -- for their traditions, for their faith -- and we must do everything we can to avoid side effects -- collateral damage -- which of course is giving strength to the recruiting for the Taliban...

Obviously, that sounded a lot better in French. But leaving out the fact that Gian Gentile is now deep in the basement of West Point's library, furiously translating his articles into French, this represents a milestone for population-centric COIN theory. For much of the 20th Century (and even the later years of the 19th Century), French small wars theorists have heavily influenced the way in which we in the English-speaking world have thought about countering insurrections. Now things have come full circle in the most ironic of ways, with Americans popularizing and interpreting a French thinker for the French themselves.

These are happy days -- though it bears keeping in mind that France is not exactly hurting for living Frenchmen in the first ranks of theorist-practitioners.

Abu Muqawama had an email conversation with an American policy-maker yesterday in which it was revealed that both of us share an admiration for the writings of the late Raymond Aron. Then, this morning, Anne Applebaum of the Washington Post wrote of those politicians -- like President Bush, in Israel last week -- who invoke Hitler and the specter of National Socialism to end debates rather than broaden them. This got Abu Muqawama thinking about how Aron might have thought of our contemporary efforts to draft the 20th Century fascist phenomenon in to condemn political Islam by way of the label "Islamo-facism." (A term first used by Maxime Rodinson to describe the Iranian Revolution of 1978 -- "le fascisme islamique.")

Abu Muqawama was then drawn to the distinction Aron drew between communism and fascism: "there remains a difference between a philosophy whose logic is monstrous, and one that lends itself to a monstrous interpretation."

Bearing in mind Aron was a careful student of Marx but a harsh critic of Marxism, that distinction he draws between communism and fascism seems relevant. And it probably applies, in Abu Muqawama's estimation, to political Islam as well. Abu Muqawama does not think that even a great defender of liberalism like Aron would have had much tolerance for those who invoke the Nazis to condemn political or even radical militant Islam.

Abu Muqawama will have to go back, though, and see what Aron wrote about the Iranian Revolution. (Though he is not sure that would provide much insight into contemporary events, as the revolution would probably be seen as a "monstrous interpretation" rather than the result of an ideology/religion monstrous in and of itself.)

Update: Holy cow. Leading Aron scholar Daniel J. Mahoney just posted a comment. Check it out. This is worse than when Kilcullen writes in.