Topic “global insurgency”
Cell phones and Mass
April 1, 2008 | Posted by Kip - 6:00am | 10 Comments
Kip became a member of the AM blogging team entirely on false pretenses, I now realize.
In the beginning, this Iraq/Afghan veteran came to AM and Charlie and said he would be interested on blogging on the confluence of technology and insurgency. And they said yes. And now, such posts account for about one in every 714. Global Guerrilla is just so much better than me at this stuff...
Anyway, the world is flattening in an increasingly interesting way. Industrial mobilization for industrial war left the world awash in arms that when employed among the people prevented industrially organized armies from defeating opponents in the ways in which they had become accustomed. The information revolution came into full bloom later and yet it has further flattened the world. Hierarchical military organizations allowed the complicated practice of the operational art by maneuvering men and machines into mass at the point of decision. Yet today, few opponents will ever present us with this mass due to the benefits of a strategic defense dispersed among the population. The development of large tonnage weapons, particular nuclear weapons, allows for the destruction of a massed army should a decision have to be made between preserving the army and the use of WMD. This further undermines the logic of mass at the theater or operational level (although not at the tactical level).
A dispersed strategic defense with tactical achievement of mass only works if armed men can operate with the will of the populace. The population provides logistics, intelligence, force protection (cover and concealment), maneuver, and moral support.
This makes mobilization of the populace incredibly important, a matter of political will recognized by all Revolutionary War theorists. As such, communication tools such as the cell phone that allow one to cheaply reach a large audience are as important as rifles. The smart phone, one manifestation of this strange new weapon, has the potential of not only as a propaganda weapon for mobilizing the masses but also for mobilizing soldiers. With embedded GPS and software capabilities, it takes the logic of Smart Mobs a step further by allowing flat organizations to achieve tactical mass and command and control while maintaining organizational flexibility and defensive dispersion. Smart phones can allow insurgents to know one another's whereabouts (or to not know them but communicate with one another), rapidly achieve tactical mass at a point of weakness, achieve brief tactical victory, and then immediately broadcast it.
Cleverly employed, the Smart Phone becomes the insurgent's "blue force tracker," except working over a faster, global network. And, with software, the fighter can encrypt his communications even over open networks; he can even post encrypted messages to websites serving as the technological intermediary to enable a dispersed, cellular structure. And, unlike the Army's situational awareness tools, it will not take him decades to develop updates.
In the beginning, this Iraq/Afghan veteran came to AM and Charlie and said he would be interested on blogging on the confluence of technology and insurgency. And they said yes. And now, such posts account for about one in every 714. Global Guerrilla is just so much better than me at this stuff...
Anyway, the world is flattening in an increasingly interesting way. Industrial mobilization for industrial war left the world awash in arms that when employed among the people prevented industrially organized armies from defeating opponents in the ways in which they had become accustomed. The information revolution came into full bloom later and yet it has further flattened the world. Hierarchical military organizations allowed the complicated practice of the operational art by maneuvering men and machines into mass at the point of decision. Yet today, few opponents will ever present us with this mass due to the benefits of a strategic defense dispersed among the population. The development of large tonnage weapons, particular nuclear weapons, allows for the destruction of a massed army should a decision have to be made between preserving the army and the use of WMD. This further undermines the logic of mass at the theater or operational level (although not at the tactical level).
A dispersed strategic defense with tactical achievement of mass only works if armed men can operate with the will of the populace. The population provides logistics, intelligence, force protection (cover and concealment), maneuver, and moral support.
This makes mobilization of the populace incredibly important, a matter of political will recognized by all Revolutionary War theorists. As such, communication tools such as the cell phone that allow one to cheaply reach a large audience are as important as rifles. The smart phone, one manifestation of this strange new weapon, has the potential of not only as a propaganda weapon for mobilizing the masses but also for mobilizing soldiers. With embedded GPS and software capabilities, it takes the logic of Smart Mobs a step further by allowing flat organizations to achieve tactical mass and command and control while maintaining organizational flexibility and defensive dispersion. Smart phones can allow insurgents to know one another's whereabouts (or to not know them but communicate with one another), rapidly achieve tactical mass at a point of weakness, achieve brief tactical victory, and then immediately broadcast it.
Cleverly employed, the Smart Phone becomes the insurgent's "blue force tracker," except working over a faster, global network. And, with software, the fighter can encrypt his communications even over open networks; he can even post encrypted messages to websites serving as the technological intermediary to enable a dispersed, cellular structure. And, unlike the Army's situational awareness tools, it will not take him decades to develop updates.
Meeting the Guerrilla
March 29, 2008 | Posted by Kip - 5:21pm | 2 Comments
Canada's Globe and Mail has this week released a report on the Taliban entitled "Talking to the Taliban" in which its Kandahar correspondent Graeme Smith interprets interviews of an Afghan who he has hired as a "researcher" (based on the description in the story, "source" would likely be a better term).
The 42 interviews conducted with self-professed and Kalashnikov-wielding Afghan Taliban fighters are a must watch for any counterinsurgent in Afghanistan. These videos give us a window into the average Afghan guerrilla fighter, the men who emerge as a result of underlying causes and whose individual deaths will not resolve the conflict. These are the men that in some combination we will have to convince, cajole, capture, or kill (and compromise with) if we are to win in Afghanistan.
The most important thing to emerge is an idea of the Taliban's narrative which focuses for the most part on foreign occupation, which identifies Karzai and Musharraf as "slaves," and which underplays the role of money or opium in the motivations of the fighters. The propaganda also focuses on the importance of ordinary Afghans in supporting the fighters rather than external support. The interviews also identify subtly some areas of discomfort and disagreement, particularly as applied to the question of poppy and the Durrand line. I will personally spend a lot of time replaying them all myself as I believe it is important to understand not only the fighters but also their message (they know they're playing to an audience when the camera is rolling).
The interviews themselves are fascinating. A few of the graphics and maps are quite useful, including the tribal map of Panja-ve (Kandahar-bound or -present USMC, see Appendix B, 3-24; use accordingly--do not then write "SECRET//NO FORN"). That said, much of the reporting by Graeme Smith in the accompanying videos is unsophisticated to say the least. My main beef is that the he is using a worthy in its own right but admittedly unscientific survey to make sweeping conclusions.
For instance, in his final piece discussing suicide bombing he says, that we are "seeing a shift in the Taliban movement" away from past debates on the practice and toward widespread acceptance. Yet not only is the poll unscientific but the fighters are being watched in most cases by their comrades or minders and would be unlikely to digress from a pre-approved plan, even if they felt otherwise.
And while I agree that the Nurzai and Ishaqzai make up a substantial portion of the insurgency, the video is only coming from places where his researcher can get access and therefore are more likely to come from a small group of tribes among whom the researcher can travel. I should also point out that a number of Ghilzai tribes (as well as tribes outside of the Ghilzai/Durrani branches) are more pro-government than pro-insurgency, even as his diagram identifies all Ghilzai as insurgents.
Because the Taliban could not point to Canada on a map or identify who Stephen Harper is, Smith felt them unsophisticated. I believe (and I am really not taking a cheap shot at Canada here-you all deserve hugs) that most of the world could not identify Stephen Harper's job if asked. Moreover, I bet that an interview of Canadians would find them as clueless as to the Nuristani-speaking areas of Afghanistan as the self-identified fighters are to the French- speaking areas of Canada. Several identified the fact that the US and Canada were neighbors, which is probably better than most Canadians could do if asked to identify the neighboring countries of Afghanistan.
Smith's broader point in this is that the Taliban pose no danger to Canadian shores even if they win. These fighters are not part of a global jihad in Smith's opinion because they profess no allegiance to it. This is to mistake the foot soldiers for their leaders. One need only read Al Qaeda's propaganda of the last month to know that it would pursue global jihad from within Afghanistan and Canada would be a target--heck, just look at Mullah Dadullah Lang's second-to-last interview to see that. He seemed to have a pretty decent grasp of geography.
And, lest we forget, it is from Afghanistan that a true salafist jihadi movement of not only global aspirations but also global reach emerged.
The 42 interviews conducted with self-professed and Kalashnikov-wielding Afghan Taliban fighters are a must watch for any counterinsurgent in Afghanistan. These videos give us a window into the average Afghan guerrilla fighter, the men who emerge as a result of underlying causes and whose individual deaths will not resolve the conflict. These are the men that in some combination we will have to convince, cajole, capture, or kill (and compromise with) if we are to win in Afghanistan.
The most important thing to emerge is an idea of the Taliban's narrative which focuses for the most part on foreign occupation, which identifies Karzai and Musharraf as "slaves," and which underplays the role of money or opium in the motivations of the fighters. The propaganda also focuses on the importance of ordinary Afghans in supporting the fighters rather than external support. The interviews also identify subtly some areas of discomfort and disagreement, particularly as applied to the question of poppy and the Durrand line. I will personally spend a lot of time replaying them all myself as I believe it is important to understand not only the fighters but also their message (they know they're playing to an audience when the camera is rolling).
The interviews themselves are fascinating. A few of the graphics and maps are quite useful, including the tribal map of Panja-ve (Kandahar-bound or -present USMC, see Appendix B, 3-24; use accordingly--do not then write "SECRET//NO FORN"). That said, much of the reporting by Graeme Smith in the accompanying videos is unsophisticated to say the least. My main beef is that the he is using a worthy in its own right but admittedly unscientific survey to make sweeping conclusions.
For instance, in his final piece discussing suicide bombing he says, that we are "seeing a shift in the Taliban movement" away from past debates on the practice and toward widespread acceptance. Yet not only is the poll unscientific but the fighters are being watched in most cases by their comrades or minders and would be unlikely to digress from a pre-approved plan, even if they felt otherwise.
And while I agree that the Nurzai and Ishaqzai make up a substantial portion of the insurgency, the video is only coming from places where his researcher can get access and therefore are more likely to come from a small group of tribes among whom the researcher can travel. I should also point out that a number of Ghilzai tribes (as well as tribes outside of the Ghilzai/Durrani branches) are more pro-government than pro-insurgency, even as his diagram identifies all Ghilzai as insurgents.
Because the Taliban could not point to Canada on a map or identify who Stephen Harper is, Smith felt them unsophisticated. I believe (and I am really not taking a cheap shot at Canada here-you all deserve hugs) that most of the world could not identify Stephen Harper's job if asked. Moreover, I bet that an interview of Canadians would find them as clueless as to the Nuristani-speaking areas of Afghanistan as the self-identified fighters are to the French- speaking areas of Canada. Several identified the fact that the US and Canada were neighbors, which is probably better than most Canadians could do if asked to identify the neighboring countries of Afghanistan.
Smith's broader point in this is that the Taliban pose no danger to Canadian shores even if they win. These fighters are not part of a global jihad in Smith's opinion because they profess no allegiance to it. This is to mistake the foot soldiers for their leaders. One need only read Al Qaeda's propaganda of the last month to know that it would pursue global jihad from within Afghanistan and Canada would be a target--heck, just look at Mullah Dadullah Lang's second-to-last interview to see that. He seemed to have a pretty decent grasp of geography.
And, lest we forget, it is from Afghanistan that a true salafist jihadi movement of not only global aspirations but also global reach emerged.
Global Insurgency?
March 14, 2008 | Posted by Kip - 12:31am | 4 Comments
None of us have posted much on Ethiopia's ongoing, US-supported COIN effort in Somalia.
By all accounts, things are getting worse for the Ethiopians and their Somali partners who swept into power in days only to be confronted with a violent, long-term insurgency. Violent deaths as a result of the insurgency put it above the level of violence last year in Afghanistan.
On the other hand, the Navy did actually get to use naval gunfire as a result of this small war.
Reports of the beheadings of Ethiopian-back Somali troops as well as the use of sophisticated IEDs continue to make apparent the sophistication of Al Qaeda's training network and the continued spread of the contents of Iraq's Pandora's box.
By all accounts, things are getting worse for the Ethiopians and their Somali partners who swept into power in days only to be confronted with a violent, long-term insurgency. Violent deaths as a result of the insurgency put it above the level of violence last year in Afghanistan.
On the other hand, the Navy did actually get to use naval gunfire as a result of this small war.
Reports of the beheadings of Ethiopian-back Somali troops as well as the use of sophisticated IEDs continue to make apparent the sophistication of Al Qaeda's training network and the continued spread of the contents of Iraq's Pandora's box.
