Boots and brains: finding our way in irregular warfare

Chechens toughest foes Canadians confront in Afghanistan

The article linked above is a little old but still worth reading on a number of levels: as an indicator of the rapid ‘re-fanging’ of the Canadian Army (hurray at last!); as a pointer to the increasing presence of non-Afghan Jihadists in Afghanistan; and as an example of practical counterinsurgency which would seem to suggest that the latest irregular warfare doctrine is close to the mark. It was the last that caught my eye in light of Theo’s earlier post ‘Does territory matter?’

Although the province of Kandahar, which they are responsible for, is huge, the Canadians have returned again and again to the same few villages and towns in Panjwai/Zahri.

“The concept of holding ground or facing an enemy that you can see is not here. This is a counter-insurgency,” said General Hainse, the Canadian at Sector South headquarters. “This is about the getting the consensus of the indigenous people.”

Sgt. Pete’s approach was to “walk a lot. Our rotation is very pro-active. Anything we achieve is through having a presence. The only way to make progress is to keep boots on the ground.”

Asked how progress could be measured in a war without fronts and where the enemy melted into the regular population in a second, he replied: “Success is sometimes geography-based. Sometimes it is result-based or clan-based. It is based on information we receive although we certainly do not believe everything we are told.

“What we get at first is a guarded response. We do not encounter open hostility except, of course, when we are getting shot at.”

Answer: Yes, territory matters, very much so. But the concept of it has expanded and fractured. The landscape with which the counterinsurgent is concerned is both physical and psychological. The physical landscape possesses terrain features which soldiers are trained to understand and exploit, eg., high ground, dead ground, impassable areas etc. The psychological landscape also has terrain features, clan, religion, ethnicity which also must be understood to be exploited. This comes through, in more complicated terms than the Canadian Sergeant employed but the gist is the same, in the Department of Defense’s new Irregular Warfare Joint Operating Concept:

Irregular warfare is about people, not platforms. IW depends not just on our military prowess, but also our understanding of such social dynamics as tribal politics, social networks, religious influences, and cultural mores. People, not platforms and advanced technology, will be the key to IW success. The joint force will need patient, persistent, and culturally savvy people to build the local relationships and partnerships essential to executing IW.

…

The foundation of IW activities are those that produce a positive psychological effect on the populace in order to gain their support and weaken their support of an adversary. Assessing psychological effects on contested populations must take into account existing cultural and social norms. Some planning considerations are:

• The people will desire a strong degree of security.

• The people must feel as if they can influence the social and political order.

• The people will want meaningful economic activity that enables them to provide a living for their families.

• The people will want to maintain a society that reinforces their cultural preferences and allows them to feel pride in their citizenship.

Without this focus on the will of the population, IW will degenerate into a struggle marked by brutal suppression and intimidation to force the people to submit to the will of the belligerents.

I think there is nothing is more important in irregular warfare than having a ‘map’ of the psychological and cultural landscape. We’d never dream of sending our armies to fight somewhere without a map of the physical terrain. But we are only beginning to equip them with the kind of information they need to win the psychological fight after years of plunging them headlong into terra incognita. No wonder we’ve blundered. IW is fought with boots and with brains. More of both would be nice.

Update: From the comments, well, comment, a link to a great post which speaks to one premise in this post: Imaginary Chechens Attack!