In a post this weekend at Firedoglake and the Huffington Post entitled "The Fundamentals of Radical, Transnational Counterinsurgency," Josh Mull spends about 1,200 words talking about "fascism" and "hate speech" and "ethnic cleansing" without really saying much of anything about the "fundamentals of... counterinsurgency." It's a schizophrenic screed penned mostly as a response, it seems, to Ann Marlowe's brief World Affairs piece expressing her entirely unfounded (and un-argued!) opinion that "brutality works." Alma addressed Marlowe's piece here, concluding with this:
I don't mind a healthy dose of provocation in commentaries on Afghanistan and other topics, but this one strikes me, to say the least, as particularly vacuous.
We also dealt (obliquely) with the familiar argument that unrestrained brutality can increase a counterinsurgent's effectiveness here, in a post that Mull links to disapprovingly. How truly evil must this "counterinsurgency" be if it brings us to this? he seems to wonder, a world where
[w]e so believe in this concept of "victory" in Afghanistan that we have honest, thoughtful discussions on whether or not crimes against humanity are a good tactic.
We do?
Was that an "honest, thoughtful discussion" about war crimes? About "whether or not crimes against humanity are a good tactic" (particularly in any moral sense)?
It doesn't help that Marlowe's original bit was so confused and poorly-argued, but Mull's response ends up as a disorienting farrago of aspersions, errors in fact, and ejaculations of righteous indignation. Mull acts as if we're over here fiddling while Rome burns, willfully ignorant to the moral costs of war while American troops rape, pillage, and fire the town, quibbling over tactical marginalia as the pervasive "COIN ideology" gradually corrodes our sense of right and wrong.
Well, I'm not afraid to tell you that this is the purest bullshit.
The affect most plainly evinced by Mull's tone and word choice is that of the jilted faithful; I can't help but think that he's so angry at COIN because it didn't live up to the things he thought it might: war without brutality, war without violence, war without war. Mull writes about a "fine-tuned, population-friendly counterinsurgency strategy," but that's never been on offer; "population-centric" ain't the same thing as population-friendly. And listen, if you think you were sold a bill of goods and you expected that counterinsurgency was all about love and hugs, talking things out, restoring legitimacy and puppy dogs and ice cream, then I can see how you might end up disappointed. But this one ain't on the COINdinistas, it's on those who misplaced their own faith.
Here are some truths, just so that we're all on the same page:
- Violence is a part of COIN, as it is a part of all war.
- Anyone who tells you that COIN is a "kinder, gentler form of war" is a liar.
- Unrestrained brutality is not an effective tactic in COIN, no matter what Ann Marlowe would have you believe.
The reason many of us sit here and have "honest, thoughtful discussions" about the utility of various tactics and operational approaches is that it's important to know how to do this well, so that what's needed can be done, and so that we can do it less. It's important to try to understand action and reaction, knowing as we all do that we'll never faithfully and completely map cause and effect. Discussions of the utility of force or the logic of violence aren't about justifying brutality or subverting the law of war, but rather an effort to better understand the levers and mechanisms through which war can be prosecuted more effectively -- which is really the only way to make the violence and brutality that is inherent in war even the slightest bit more just.
None of this is a substitute for strategic thinking. It's not a substitute for considerations of justice and morality, for thoughtful study of the relationship between our objectives and our actions.
Counterinsurgency is not an ideology. It's a tool, and sometimes it's the right one. But a man who doesn't believe in war can't possibly believe in COIN, either. It's galling (and not a little pathetic) to see the parade of "progressive" pacifists essentially whining about the lost promise of COIN when it's plain to see their own misconceptions are to blame.
