VAN CREVELD'S PREDICTION

Iraq’s insurgency is made up of dozens of different groups, each with their own motivation for fighting. Under this big tent, no one group is dominant. Even the foreign Jihadis under Zarqawi are but a single digit percentage of the total insurgency. Despite this fragmentation, the insurgency appears to act as a single entity: it probes for weakness, improves its methods, and mounts campaigns. The major reason for this is that Iraq, unlike most of the places we have fought insurgencies, is a relatively modern urbanized environment. It has a cell phone grid, a modern highway system, and Internet connectivity. People have the ability to both communicate and travel quickly throughout the entire country. This high level of connectivity makes possible for the insurgency to combine and recombine into new organizational networks that are similar to what we only see in advanced western settings.

This infrastructure has allowed the insurgents to leapfrog to a new organizational form that is more survivable, inclusive, and innovative than traditional hierarchies (I call this open source insurgency). It appears that the US military has finally taken actions to mitigate this advantage. It announced yesterday that it had bombed (with precision strikes) eight bridges across the Euphrates River inside western Iraq to stop insurgents from using them. As the US army spokesman said:

"One of the vulnerabilities of this insurgency is freedom of movement. We took out portions of these bridges to deny terrorists, foreign fighters and insurgents the capability to cross north to south or south to north across the Euphrates River."

This is the first major attempt to slow down the insurgency's rapid decision making loops and as a localized tactic, it may even enjoy some success. However, strategically, it is political and moral kryptonite. It is also a sign that the coalition has become in the words of Martin van Creveld (who provides fantastic insight into the decline of the state in his book, The Transformation of War) as weak as the insurgents (it needs to destroy Iraq in order to save it).

In other words, he who fights against the weak - and the rag-tag Iraqi militias are very weak indeed - and loses, loses. He who fights against the weak and wins also loses. To kill an opponent who is much weaker than yourself is unnecessary and therefore cruel; to let that opponent kill you is unnecessary and therefore foolish. As Vietnam and countless other cases prove, no armed force, however rich, however powerful, however advanced, however well motivated is immune to this dilemma. The end result is always disintegration and defeat...That is why the present adventure will almost certainly end as the previous one (Vietnam) did. Namely, with the last U.S. troops fleeing the country while hanging on to their helicopters' skids.

NOTE: The response of Valdis Krebs to this event is worth highlighting: " Smart to focus on key bridges in the bad guys' network. Not real smart to destroy them... two reasons.

1) They are also key in the good guys network.
2) They are rich sources of data! Want to unravel the insurgency? Need to understand their internal dynamics... which they give away every day through their activity... watch, listen, pay attention, and soon you will understand... more, but not all.

Once you understand, various disruption tactics can be reviewed from a position of wisdom. It takes network thinking to fight a network!"

Comments

[Adam]

I'd agree that bombing the bridges (what, no engineers any more?) is pretty much a sign that its over. Any idea of the US holding onto a technically operational nation called Iraq has now gone.

Who remembers when it was the insurgents blowing up the infrastructure so that the US didn't get to use it? Now its the US blowing the infrastructure because they cannot stop the insurgents from using it.

Even so the Iraqis will soon adapt. Pressure will increase on the remaining bridges, first from trade, and people travelling then from bombings. If the US has pulled back from 12 bridges, leaving just 4, it will be far less traumatic to reduce the number to 1. Then 0.

Am I the only one having a flashback on the Vietnam moment of "we had to destroy the village to save it"?

[Marcello]

"what, no engineers any more?"

That is interesting actually.Personally I would want to use people on the ground to do that job to reduce the possibility of civilian casualties due to a bomb going astray and such.I suspect that the area is so infested by guerillas that sending engineers there would have been too much trouble.
Are there different takes on the matter?

[CK]

Doesn't destroying the Euphrates river bridges also impede the mobility of the most expensive military in the world? Or will they supply the bases north of Baghdad by chopper or c-130 low altitude drops?

[Jeff Vail]

I think that this is truly a fascinating post and development. I agree with the assertion that this is best characterized as "open source insurgency", but I think that it is important to understand that it is heavily influence--even trending towards--the pattern of rhizome: a decentralized, non-hierarchal, networked pattern of organization found in nature among bamboo, aspen, etc. The interesting part about rhizome is that it doesn't work like hierarchy. It is an EMERGENT phenomenon. Hierarchy processes information mechanically, it is machine intelligence, much like a computer. Rhizome, however, is emergent intelligence, much like the human brain. There is no (or little) conscious coordination between the various nodes in the insurgency, just like there are no controlling neurons in our brain, and yet the human brain and the iraq insurgency is capable of information processing feats that are beyond the abilities of the most capable computer.

Using that analogy: if you open up the human brain and kill 8 critical neurons, it will have no substantial impact on the ability of the brain to produce emergent information processing. Conversely, if you open up a computer, and destroy 8 critical transistors in your Pentium 4, the computer will be severely damaged, possible rendered non-functional. The fact that the US decided to destroy some of the very links that it depends on is evidence that they neither understand their enemy or themselves. Sun Tzu had some critical words for that...

John: can you provide a link to the announcement of the destruction of the 8 bridges? Thanks...

[John Robb]

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/ALI657489.htm

One of many links.

[Steve L]

End game for the Iraqi adventure? Au contraire, the ball is very much still in play. The corporation, nation-state, and tribe all need energy to survive. The Middle East holds significant amounts of energy and the rest of the world, in particular the US, China, and Europe, will do whatever it takes to ensure its uninterrupted flow to the critical nodes in their societies.

Let’s do a quick fact-finding fly-by of some of the current issues in this adventure….

American 2006 Senate Elections. http://www.cookpolitical.com/races/report_pdfs/2006_sen_ratings_sep15.pdf

Iraqi Elections
http://www.economist.com/countries/Iraq/profile.cfm?folder=Profile-Forecast

Standing up the Iraqi security apparatus:
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/news/2005/10/mil-051005-dod01.htm

US Economics & Energy
http://www.economist.com/countries/USA/profile.cfm?story_id=4454404
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/usa.html

Iraqi Economics & Energy
http://www.economist.com/countries/Iraq/profile.cfm?folder=Profile%2DEconomic%20Structure
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/iraq.html

Disabling eight bridges, which link Syria and Jordan to Iraq, is not an endgame. Tactical maneuvers such as these are ongoing, but they do not always hit the press. The bridge on the road from Mosul to Irbil is another real-time example of these same tactics. Reviewing American tactical history, we controlled the bridges on the way into Baghdad and WWII’s Operation Market Garden is a grand example of bridge control http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Market_Garden

[Marcello]

"Tactical maneuvers such as these are ongoing, but they do not always hit the press."

It may well be a tactical maneuver but its implications are not pretty for the coalition.It points towards a defensive stance and surrendering ground control to the enemy, that is if ground control existed in first place.The way it was carried out, bombs instead of demolition crews weighs further towards this conclusion.
When you are attacking you want to capture bridges intact.In some cases you might blow them to cut off enemy escape routes.When you
blow bridges to prevent enemies from pouring in it usually means that the shit is hitting the fan.

[Steve L]

Marcello,

True. Massive military formations, strongpoints, large battles, etc are costly to all concerned and no guarantee of success.

A magician misdirects our attention whilst setting up the trick.

On a map Iraq does not look to be that large, on the ground however it's big, the borders are porous and you don't need a passport or anybodys permission to travel if you are a guerrilla or a bootlegger.

My guess is the intent of this operation is more directed at influencing economics and popular opinion, as well as channeling the bridge crowd towards the limited number of iraqi border patrol folks than stopping the determined guerrilla who will get through anyway.

[John Robb]

This isn't the border Steve, this is inside Iraq.

[Steve L]

John,

Do you have a link for which bridges are open and which have been closed?

I have enclosed a link for a map that might help in our discussion:

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/images/oif_mil-comm-routes-map_may04.jpg

The voting begins on 15 October.

Lets key in on highways 1, 10, & 12.

Notice Ramadi and Fallujah...Sunni's can be directly impacted by their ability/inability to cross the Euphrates:
http://www.cidi.org/humanitarian/hsr/iraq/03a/ixl128.html
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/news/2004/11/mil-041120-usmc01.htm

The Iraqi, Jordanian, and Syrian economies as well as the opinions of their public are dependent upon being able to cross the Euphrates.

Syria and Jordan receive a significant amount of bootleg oil/petroleum products via truck. Cutting bridges that cross the Euphrates channels this traffic. If a strategic message needs to be sent to these regimes the remaining crossing points can be closed. Perhaps they will increase their assistance in controlling the border...
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/report/2004/isg-final-report/isg-final-report_vol1_rfp-08.htm

[SteveL]

For all of us who gravitate towards quantitative data, thorough analysis, and solutions that work, enclosed is a sweet piece of work:

http://www.rand.org/pubs/testimonies/2005/RAND_CT250-1.pdf

More Iraqi border guard info:

http://www.turkishpress.com/news.asp?id=39498

http://www4.army.mil/ocpa/print.php?story_id_key=8029

[Ken]

Another reason why the guerrillas are so decentralised may be that the country is NOT as modern as you seem to be suggesting. Mobile 'phones arrived with the Americans and the internet was in the hand of only a few prior to the war - as Salam Pax noted.

What may have happened is that the only national structure, the Baath Party, was destroyed by the war. Waiting in the wings were the original structures that governed people's lives, namely their clan and tribe. It is these bodies that are leading the fight and that is why their is no central body.

If I am correct then bombing bridges makes no sense because the guerrillas don't use them. They are local men fighting a local war.

I suppose that it may impede the activities of any foreign fighters, but nobody believes that they are anything other than a minority.

[befuddled]

A bit off topic, but I wonder about the role of this kind of hallucination, err prediction. This is the 4th or 5th time this year alone that this guy has announced total victory and he and a handful of similar "strategists" guide the perception of many.

http://fallbackbelmont.blogspot.com/2005/10/letter-to-zarqawi_07.html

Just trying to get some ideas about bigger context.

[John Robb]

Ken, the guerrillas are using cell phones to coordinate attacks and outsourcers in the IED business even advertise their services on the Internet. Even whithout knowing that, one look at Zarqawi's media output should lead you to think otherwise.

[John Robb]

Befuddled, he is clearly confusing partisan ideology with strategy. This quote: "Implicit within Zawarhiri's message is an admission that the insurgency is headed for defeat unless it changes it's policies and thereby its fortunes," is clearly not supported by the article he cites. My read of the article is that the US withdrawal seems to be an expected outcome since they are already planning for what comes after.

[TM Lutas]

If the cell phone infrastructure came with the americans (it did) it's quite likely that the US can take it out (it can). So why doesn't it? It doesn't because the US is aided by cell phone tips more than the insurgency.

Search and destroy sweeps are being replaced over the last few months by clear and hold operations with Iraqis doing the holding. So far, the Iraqis seem to be holding just fine. If that trend continues, this insurgency is toast. The insurgency is adapting. So are we. I think we're adapting faster.

[Adam]

Just to point out that the cell phone infrastructure did not come with the US. Its just that the US offically put in a GSM network.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/07/23/those_ghostly_iraqi_mobile_networks/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/10/01/love_me_tender_bidding/
(and countless other stories at the same location. Its a UK based technical e-magazine)

So the US can "take out" the infrastructure, that they put in at the cost of billions. But a chunk of it is based in Jordan and Kuwait and they might not want their modern economies destroyed simply to be nice to the Americans. And then the insurgents will have to use satellite phones which are pretty easy to pick up these days.

[Adam]

TM,

"The insurgency is adapting. So are we. I think we're adapting faster."

I don't believe it. Lets take the example of deciding whether we're winning or not. A fairly basic, important question I think we'd all agree. 2 years after September the 11th, in October 2003 Rumsfeld wondered:

"Today, we lack metrics to know if we are winning or losing the global war on terror. Are we capturing, killing or deterring and dissuading more terrorists every day than the madrassas and the radical clerics are recruiting, training and deploying against us."

A sound question. It took 2 years to ask, but a sound question nevertheless. So whats happened since? Well in September 2005 2 years after asking that question, and 4 years after September 11th the US government has asked some people to look at it.

http://blogs.washingtonpost.com/earlywarning/2005/10/the_terrorist_b.html

If 4 years delay to order some software to be written to determine if you're winning is a sign that is the US being adaptable then the insurgents have no reason to worry.

[Marcello]

"It doesn't because the US is aided by cell phone tips more than the insurgency."

Has it occurred to you that maybe, just maybe, there might be good reasons to not shut down the communication network of a country which are not related to that?
Like say the impact it would have on the economy, reconstruction efforts and what not.

[Marcello]

"So far, the Iraqis seem to be holding just fine. If that trend continues, this insurgency is toast. The insurgency is adapting. So are we. I think we're adapting faster."

I have been hearing statements like that for more than two years.In the meantime things have been going so well that we are down to sending the the air forces to blow up infrastructure.Until I see actual developments you will excuse me if I put it under "there is light at the end of the tunnel" folder.

[befuddled]

The nature of my question was the larger informational and media context.

The issue is demonstrated here. We may be having successes, but these are always presented as a way to avoid analysis of problems.

I think whether or not we are successful we would have been far more successful if from the begining we had heeded warnings from our experts and from observers. Instead we have a "pro war" cadre who have dismissed all such concerns.

This seems to have occured in the president's speech where the enemy is defined as outsiders, and problems of corruption, Shia militias, crimnality, religious conflict, flatteing economy, inadequete infrastructure, demoralization...
don't exist even though a handful of these have been enough to crash 2rd world hopes elsewhere.

Instead we have a narrowly defined enemy who we are killing thus defeating. The rightwingers claim one or anothr event is proof of total victory 3 to 5 times a year, in the last year they've qualified these things with cautions about problems in mopping up, but the victories are relentless as in 1984.

And in this faith based reality we don't even see parts of the problem. So what is this inability to see not only the compplexities of other cultures, but unpleasant facts in the context of a global guerilla war?

It is obviously a potential tool for the enemy.

[Cardenio]

There's no way at all that ' we're leaving '.

That's Uncle Sam's Private Reserve now.

Scaling everything back, and then sitting on it until the clock runs out for then next say, 10 years, okay. The trick is going to be not pissing ourselves broke doing it.

[Marcello]

Since 1984 has been brought up I thought it might be of interest.

"In the past, also, war was one of the main instruments by which human societies were kept in touch with physical reality. All rulers in all ages have tried to impose a false view of the world upon their followers, but they could not afford to encourage any illusion that tended to impair military efficiency. So long as defeat meant the loss of independence, or some other result generally held to be undesirable, the precautions against defeat had to be serious. Physical facts could not be ignored. In philosophy, or religion, or ethics, or politics, two and two might make five, but when one was designing a gun or an aeroplane they had to make four. Inefficient nations were always conquered sooner or later, and the struggle for efficiency was inimical to illusions. Moreover, to be efficient it was necessary to be able to learn from the past, which meant having a fairly accurate idea of what had happened in the past. Newspapers and history books were, of course, always coloured and biased, but falsification of the kind that is practised today would have been impossible. War was a sure safeguard of sanity, and so far as the ruling classes were concerned it was probably the most important of all safeguards. While wars could be won or lost, no ruling class could be completely irresponsible.But when war becomes literally continuous, it also ceases to be dangerous..."

The problem is that the mentality necessary to start this war is probably the least adapt to run it rationally once it has started.
A clash between two armored divisions is primarily a technical issue.Politics can (and should) stay out of it.
A counterinsurgency campaign on the other hand cannot detach itself from politics.
In Washington a Party intellectual can speak about "moral clarity",
"islamofascism", "exporting democracy" and so on.Connection to reality comes almost only under the form of elections by an electorate which is connected to the reality of place like Iraq almost only via TV.
On the ground, in order to win it may be necessary to cut morally dubious deals,paying respect to the "towel heads" and not forcing things on a society if it is not ready to support them.
Disconnection from reality means a bullet in your head.
Thus the two levels are at odds with each other.Waging the war rationally may lead to question the political assumptions on which was started.This of course is unacceptable. The solution to the dilemma? Detach further yourself from reality,"victory is at hand",and throw more steel on targets even if it does not work.
Small wonder we are where we are.

[TONY]

Don't you all think that focusing on the bridges and the cellphone networks and other logistics is a bit academic? Maybe you are all academics but the salient facts are not the logistics but the obvious subversion by the US of credible processes: democratic system, law and order (even the military kind), press reporting and the rest. In other words the very things they purport to be promoting in Iraq. The stupid 'tactics' follow inevitably. You are right, John. This is the most doomed to failure crusade since, probably, the First Crusade.

[Marcello]

"Don't you all think that focusing on the bridges and the cellphone networks and other logistics is a bit academic?"

Logistcs is not some sort abstract academic subject.It is one of the more important aspect of a war.
Actions like these are also among the few "metrics", to quote Rumsfeld,available to gauge how things are going.

[Adam]

"The obvious subversion by the US of credible processes: democratic system, law and order (even the military kind), press reporting and the rest."

This is one of the less amusing by-products of the war on terror in general and the Iraqi war in particular.

Sadly it shows that our politicians are determined to prove Bin Ladens theories right. Bin Laden argued for years that the West was hypocritical and did not believe in what it claimed were its highest values: tolerance, equality before the law, human rights, free speech. And you know, so far Bin Laden has played a blinder, he's been right.

A few terrorists acts later and as Bin Laden predicted we've got rid of all these values replacing them with Might Makes Right. Our politicians strut and preen on the stage like poultry trying to look masterful and demanding more laws for more crimes. In the UK, we're going to be locking people up for 3 months on no evidence at all. Beats the police shooting random people I suppose, but only just.

My personal favourite is the new thought crime of Glorifying Terrorism. Before the offense sets in here's a glorification: suicide bomb terrorism works. Its worked in Lebanon, Gaza, Iraq and Sri Lanka. When the government reaches the stage of banning simple observable facts, the idea of free speech is well over.

Across the Atlantic the US is off cheerfully torturing people (who remembers the days when the US hanged torturers rather than employ them?) in a set of torture chambers that stretch round the world. No one in the US dares say anything (well, no one important anyway) but it ends the idea of the West actually believing in its supposed values. Its the Moral Isolation that Boyd talked about.

[TONY]

Yes. It's also the obviousness of the moral isolation and the palpable absence of credible ethics about any of it which is so dispiriting. The atrocities by the coalition in Iraq which it is clear, if you follow the neutral web-reports, are daily, are a case in point. These events are almost invisible, except to those on the spot, and thus almost impossible to pin down and be made amenable to some moral order or judgement. Those who have read the histories of the Algerian War of Indepencence in the years 1957-62 you will be aware of the similarities there which allowed the French to 'get away with it' for so long:
- the isolated desert locations of many of the incidents
- the sparseness of media sources, TV being in its infancy.
- the lack of value placed on the lives of victims by the perpetrators and their 'embedded' reporters
- the inappropriate lack of priority given to the events across the media.
The worst of it will come out after the occupation phase of the war in Iraq is over and the US has left, tail between the legs, as in Vietnam. But the moral outrage across the world should be now. This is being done in the names of those of us in the West. You know, the supposedly Christian, compassionate democracies. The bitterness of the irony is increasingly overwhelming any logical appraisal at all. I don't blame the previous correspondents for searching for some meaning, any meaning, in the military logistics. Good luck. I have to confess I am struggling with it.

[Jay]

http://tinyurl.com/arfvb
"True. Massive military formations, strongpoints, large battles, etc are costly to all concerned and no guarantee of success."

Yup. Just ask the North Vietnamese *conventional* army in April 1975....

Folks here seem to have forgotten that the Republic of Vietnam didn't fall to "insurgents."

[Adam]

"Folks here seem to have forgotten that the Republic of Vietnam didn't fall to "insurgents.""

Taber decribed it nicely in the War of the Flea (1965) - enough fleas and sooner or later the dog will scratch itself to death.

The final stage in any reality-based insurgency is a straight military one, with the guerillas forming larger units against the shattered and demoralised regular army. This is done so that the insurgents can control their new state whilst eliminating / replacing the coercive forces of the old government. In short, no national government will fall to a purely guerilla campaign, simply because the guerillas won't be able to take control.

[John Robb]

Adam, this isn't going in the direction of a Maoist insurgency. Exactly the opposite is going on. It is getting more decentralized (like Colombia).

[enigma_foundry]

VAN CREVELD is generally on target, but he is a little to simplistic in his belief that the insurgents always win. Just look at Unita or the Polisario. Both defeated pretty convincingly. Esp. relevant were tactics used against the Polisario, to today's situation, with one huge important difference: the insurgents have enorous connectivity outside of the county in which the fighting is taking place.

There is also a dangerous disconnect here between tactical and strategic thinking.

The US is in a fix here. The blowing up of the bridges buys some time, but not much. And at a great long term cost.

And I mean strategic in the sense of worldwide support of US and most importantly the ideals and thoughts that are associated with US:

http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/castaneda1

The "plummeting prestige of and respect for the US and the Bush administration in Latin American public opinion." can only greatly accelerate from actions such as this.

True idiocy, possible only by an administration that is completely out of touch and isolated.

[Adam]

John,

Apologies that I wasn't clearer. That was more or less my next point in that in the case of Iraq there simply won't be an army to take control. The example of Vietnam is one where a single state was formed. Iraq will not form a single state unless the guerillas agree an alliance similar to that of the mujahedeen in Afghanistan, and I don't think that they will because otherwise they'd already have done so.

[Adam]

"Just look at Unita or the Polisario."

Unita became a conventional military force too soon, and were defeated in the field in 1999. Whereupon they returned to guerilla tactics. They'd still be out there except for the death of their leader and the lack of a successor. Too much top down leadership would be the problem with Unita.

The Polisario have pinned down a military force roughly equal to the entire population that they live in (admittedly thats roughly 165k people, a few goats and a small dog named Colin). They still control part of the Western Desert. In other words they're still there but there simply was never enough people for a guerilla war. Too little bottom up support would be the Polisario problem.

[DMona]

A little of topic but it maybe of some use, and perhaps enrich the discussion a little using a tool called "Google Earth", you can see satelitte imagery from all over the world and create and share your own overlays
to mark points on the globe right down to the street level.

for example this could be a useful tactical analsys tools for the current bridge destruction thread. its a very powerful and suprisingly easy to use.

Just thought I'd mention it. It such an amazing tool, and I can see it being of use in some of the discussions here

Download at : http://earth.google.com/

[Valdis]

Smart to focus on key bridges in the bad guys' network. Not real smart to destroy them... two reasons.

1) They are also key in the good guys network.
2) They are rich sources of data! Want to unravel the insurgency? Need to understand their internal dynamics... which they give away every day throught their activity... watch, listen, pay attention, and soon you will understand... more, but not all.

Once you understand, various disruption tactics can be reviewed from a position of wisdom. It takes network thinking to fight a network!

[hk]

If we keep blowing bridges like that, the entire country may well be turned into a Khe Sahn, a Biendienphu, or a Stalingrad. Can the U.S. air force manage to keep a 150k army supplied by air for an extended period without itself being destoryed/rendered ineffective?

[Greg Burton]

Valdis - yes, exactly. But as I'm sure you know, it's hard to get people to adapt their thoughts to handle networks. It's even harder for most people to visualize normal sets of people and material as networked.

Along the lines of John's post on size of the insurgency, I've recently been wondering about the financial value of the OSW networks. At first glance, it would seem that applying Metcalf's Law or Reed's Law would yield a significantly higher value per invested dollar for an OSW network than for a conventional force opposing them.

Any thoughts on that?

[enigma_foundry]

"Unita became a conventional military force too soon, and were defeated in the field in 1999. Whereupon they returned to guerilla tactics. They'd still be out there except for the death of their leader and the lack of a successor. Too much top down leadership would be the problem with Unita."

No, UNITA fell into a trap. It was exactly what those fighting it wanted. Give them a little victory, and draw them out into the open. Expose their CC structure, and defeat them.

[enigma_foundry]

But the disconnect between short term and long term golas in this action is where it is fatal, and that basic flaw cannot be overcome.

It is amazingly, astoundingly stupid action to blow up those bridges.

[Valdis]

Metcalf and Reed... their "Laws" are really "Theory". Though they sound good on paper, they can not be put into practice with REAL HUMAN networks. Metcalf may have been thinking of routers when he came up with his, and there it may work.

Both Laws fall apart because we humans can not maintain nearly as many direct relationships as these theories imply. And Reed's group algorithm will quickly fall apart as the groups became more diverse -- "birds of a feather flock together" is a STRONG organizing principle we follow, almost automatically. If there isn't at least some overlap, there is no "group".

Both of these theories propose a mathematical limit[which excites everyone], but the practical limit is reached long before the mathematical limit is even in sight.

[TM Lutas]

Adam - If you think that this software project is taking metrics measurement from a standing start in 9/2005 with delivery of a completed system on 1/2006, you've obviously never worked in the field. Such a quick turnaround contract only makes sense if they've already got a pretty good system but it's architecturally creaky. In other words, they've got metrics but the collection takes up too many man hours and is too error prone and slow because some of it is compiled manually when it doesn't have to be. That's the only kind of development project that could realistically meet those deadlines.

Marcello - Sure, there could be other reasons but I don't particularly believe in a grand conspiracy to invent the numerous reports of increasing amounts of Iraqi tips, both to coalition forces and to Iraqi government forces. Occam's razor says that the tips are coming in.

Insurgency wars when won, always take several years, with five years being a very optimistic minimum. This doesn't mean that you can't see progress and progress is happening.

befuddled - I really started to worry about the Army during the Kosovo operation. Their difficulty in getting helicopters down to Kosovo was a textbook case of passive aggressive resistance. I wrote it up as an extraordinary incident under a president that was consistently, overtly aggressive against the military, but still a worrying sign. I saw the same thing in Afghanistan and Iraq, passive aggressive resistance and a senior leadership that was interested in not holding the MOOTW bag more than in following civilian orders. That's the genesis of an awful lot of the pro-war cheerleading.

[Marcello]

"Marcello - Sure, there could be other reasons"

Not "there could be".
There are.
The communication infrastructure of a country is not some sort of optional you can shut down at whim.

"but I don't particularly believe in a grand conspiracy to invent the numerous reports of increasing amounts of Iraqi tips, both to coalition forces and to Iraqi government forces. Occam's razor says that the tips are coming in."

What is the source for those claims?
Obviously who is tipping the coalition is not screaming about that from the rooftops to the journalists unless he is really after a slow & painful death.
So the source for that must basically be the military and the iraqi government.And you see, militaries in wartime have the tendency to embellish and exaggerating somewhat their own sucesses.You might try to look at the dictionary under the word "propaganda".
That is the reason I am surfing sites like this and reading between the lines, instead of taking the official line at face value.
I am not saying that the coalition is not actually receiving some phone tips and they might actually be on the rise but I would avoid reading too much into that, at least for now.

"and progress is happening."

I am sorry but I have heard this refrain almost from day one.In the meantime we have gone from some disorders and people taking pot shots at passing columns to a well developed, sophisticated insurgency.
Each decisive turning point (Saddam capture,elections, Fallujah...) towards coalition victory was followed by an other equally decisive turning point.Unfortunately somebody must have neglected to tell that to the insurgents.
You see, it isn't that difficult to seize some facts, like a reduction of attacks and coalition casualties from one month to the next, the capture of Bad Guy X etc and proclaim that progress is happening.
And indeed looking at the big picture progress has happened, but for the other side.

"Insurgency wars when won, always take several years, with five years being a very optimistic minimum. This doesn't mean that you can't see progress"

That assumes that we can afford to stay there
for five years or ten years or "as long as it takes".
Judging from public opinion polls,
recruitment etc I get the suspicion that we do not have such luxury.

[Adam]

"Adam - If you think that this software project is taking metrics measurement from a standing start in 9/2005 with delivery of a completed system on 1/2006, you've obviously never worked in the field."

Bearing in mind you misrepresent my point in your choice of dates. My dates, which can be referencedextensively, show that 4 years have passed (2001-2005) since the war on terror began, and 2 years have passed since the realisation that we have no idea what winning looks like (Rumsfelds revelation was in 2003) we've only just started to think about maybe building. It'll take even longer to build.

And no, there's no evidence that we have any idea what we're looking for. The request I referenced is for ideas on what to look at. Hence the short turnaround time. Its only in the fourth requirement that building software (automated information gathering) is mentioned, with no particular emphasis. The first three requirements are: metrics, criteria, weighting. Thats not something you ask for if you have any of these already. They are at the stage of "thinking about thinking about".

In short, they've got nothing and no idea how to get more.

[Adam]

"No, UNITA fell into a trap. It was exactly what those fighting it wanted. Give them a little victory, and draw them out into the open. Expose their CC structure, and defeat them."

Enigma_Foundry,

The point is that there is in Iraq no Command and Control structure as far as we can see. This is the difference between Unita and Iraq and the basis of my point. One analogy, which I've hesitated to use, is like that of a swarm of bees. I hesitate to use it because bees are still bees, and controlled by a queen. In Iraq the bees can be any or all of bees, wasps, hornets or any other stinging insect.

In other words Unita folded because the only leader died and there was no replacement. In Iraq that option doesn't appear on the menu because there isn't a leader.

[T-Bone]

"It isn't that they can't see the solution. It's that they can't see the problem."

G.K. Chesterton

[jon]

A problem with destroying these bridges is that it prevents ordinary Iraqis from using them.

[Barry]

And bridges are generally easy to defend. A dug-in company at each bridge should have been able to hold them. If things are really, really bad, then a battalion at each bridge would be able to fend off serious attacks and to conduct offensive patrols. With a squad of US soldiers to call in artillery/air strikes.

And this would be a relatively easy assignment, suitable for a second-grade battalion not yet able to conduct mobile operations independent of US units.

Supposedly we have close to a hundred such battalions, with more coming on line every day.

This suggests that either (1) we don't have that much for Iraqi support, or (2) things have deteriorated so much that US commanders don't intend to operate on a sustained basis in that region. That we've pulled back and will just conduct in-and-out strikes.

[Adam]

Barry,

I'd go with the idea of in and out strikes. US forces at around the same time launched massive assaults on some smaller towns in th e area.

I think you may have missed the really bad news. Of the 80-100 Iraqi battalions in existence, only one is capable of working on its own. Down from three a few months ago (which might even have included a full brigade). IIRC a battalion is around 1000 troops. Iraqs army prior to the war was 400,000.

Apologies its a WAPO story, they always spin like crazy, but the last paragraph is a laugh-out-loud moment:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/30/AR2005093001660.html