Longer-term engagement in Haiti: Beware the Insta-Pundits

Revealing just how much our foreign policy discourse has changed over the last decade, the discussion of humanitarian relief for Haiti in the aftermath of the earthquake has quickly turned to considering what if any form longer-term US engagement should take. This is a good thing, but a serious danger lurks as the denizens of security think tanks and policy shops try to quickly develop some expertise on a situation they have, for the most part, ignored. Although there are a handful of Haiti-hands scattered through-out the administration and the foreign-policy firmament, I worry that too many will succumb to the urge to fill in the gaps in their knowledge with what passes for 'received wisdom.'

What do I mean? Check out this briefing from the Center for Defense Studies at the American Enterprise Institute. Not my favorite institution at the best of times, but to get this much wrong in only two and half pages is, well, remarkable. Aristide was removed in 2004, not 2006. Comparing Haiti today to Somalia in 1993 is absurd - I don't think I even have to explain why. And in claiming that the UN peacekeeping mission (aka MINUSTAH) has "been struggling to counter the activities of gangs and other armed groups—the primary power‐brokers in the embattled nation," AEI manages to simultaneously be several years out of date on the security situation, and unfairly dismissive of the UN's successes. I'm picking on AEI because Small Wars Journal linked to the article, but I suspect there are other examples out there.

Between 2005 and 2007, MINUSTAH broke the back of the gangs through intelligence-led joint military-police operations. Following a 'clear-hold-build' pattern, they expanded security bubbles into previously gang-controlled neighborhoods by targeting gang leaders for arrest, stepping up patrols, establishing new police stations and checkpoints, and introducing employment and essential services projects on the heels of security operations. While progress has been slow, the mission has also made important headway on reforming the Haitian National Police. This is not to gloss over the serious problems that persist (and there are plenty), but Haiti in 2010 is not Haiti in 2004, or 1994 for that matter.

Point is, if we want to help prevent Haiti from backsliding, we have to recognize what has changed over the last 6 years. MINUSTAH has had a hard time responding to the earthquake because it has effectively been decapitated by the collapse of its HQ and the death of a significant chunk of its senior staff. It's apparently hamstrung response is not reflective of its role over the last few years, or its potential going forward. Likewise, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Canada and CARICOM have all been seriously engaged in Haiti, and should be viewed as partners for the development of a regional strategy. While greater US engagement could be critical for re-energizing international efforts, in most cases it would be counter-productive to shoulder them aside.

Bottom line: beware the proliferation of insta-pundits peddling stale-dated information, anecdotes rather than careful assessments, and received wisdom that sounds a little too familiar. We get more than enough of all that on Afghanistan.

"To say 'warfare is changing' is banal, obvious, and thus irrelevant."

So says William F. Owen in his most recent jeremiad against the muddle-headedness of people who are stupider than him. (Or, you know, anyone who tries to come up with anything new.) This one's in the latest Armed Forces Journal -- where the motto ought to be "STILTED PROSE GUARANTEED!" -- and decries the new vocabulary of hybrid, asymmetric, and complex war.

War isn’t just transforming — it’s ushering in a whole new language to describe conflict, and this language is used in a way that pays little attention to logic or military history. Thus the forces we used to call guerrillas are now “hybrid threats.” Insurgencies are now “complex” and require “complex and adaptive” solutions. Jungles and cities are now “complex terrain.” Put simply, the discussion about future conflict is being conducted using buzzwords and bumper stickers.

The evidence that the threats of the 21st century are going to be that much different from the threats of the 20th is lacking. Likewise, there is no evidence that a “new way of war” is evolving or that we somehow had a previously flawed understanding. In fact, the use of the new words strongly indicates that those using them do not wish to be encumbered by a generally useful and coherent set of terms that military history had previously used. As war and warfare are not changing in ways that demand new words, it is odd that people keep inventing them.

Odd indeed. One would have to believe that people are just coming up with stuff to make themselves look good, eh? Oh, wait -- this seems to be precisely what Owen believes.

The only thing that can obscure that obvious truth [that there is nothing new under the sun, that every lesson that must be learned by man has been learned before by someone who precedes you, and that instead of all this original thinking nonsense we should just take a closer look at history -ed.] is the application of new words and altered meanings to bend the problem to fit the writer’s purpose — or to pretend that military history is less useful than the insights of those incapable of expressing themselves in plain English.

While we're on the subject of "plain English," let's talk about the sentence I quoted in the title. It's banal and obvious to say "Antartica is cold," but it's hardly irrelevant to someone writing a book report or going to live there. Irrelevance does not follow from obviousness, dude.

Anyway, the Frank Hoffmans of the world can defend themselves far better than I can, so I won't bother with that here. I just wanted to draw your attention to this piece, if only to underline something that I'm reminded of every time I crack the spine of our military journals: conservatism, in the very most literal sense of the term, hasn't died. Now, as ever, it manifests itself as some old guy saying "these Young Turks with their new ideas haven't actually said anything new at all!"