OPEN SOURCE COUNTER-INSURGENCY?

What's left (as an option for the US in Iraq)? It's possible, as Microsoft has found, that there is no good monopolistic solution to a mature open-source effort. In that case, the United States might be better off adopting IBM's embrace of open source. This solution would require renouncing the state's monopoly on violence by using (Shiite and Kurdish) militias as a counterinsurgency.

John Robb, October 2005, in a New York Times Op-Ed. (if you add Sunni militias to the mix, a gross oversight on my part but implied in the approach, it is spot-on analysis).

The Sunni Tribal Awakening (rather than "the surge") has radically slowed violence in Iraq by bringing it back to the levels of activity seen in 2005. That's a good thing, but the Awakening has been wrongly attributed to a new (resurrected) counter-insurgency doctrine (COIN). Here's why. The main objective of United States COIN doctrine is to enhance/extend the sovereignty and legitimacy of the host nation. Everything that is done is slaved to this top level goal. Unfortunately, the development of legitimacy is a long and slow process that takes decades of effort (if it can be accomplished at all). In contrast, everything about the Tribal Awakening is diametrically opposed to this. It arms and trains militias and groups that aren't loyal to the host nation and thereby diminishes the host nation's legitimacy by undercutting its monopoly on violence and its control over sovereign territory.

What did happen with the Awakening, and the speed of the transition should be a clue to this, is that the US military opportunistically embraced the insurgency (in a move akin to IBMs embrace of open source development in the 90's). This embrace showered autonomy, weapons, money ($300 per month x 60,000 participants), protection (from Shiite militias and the Iraqi government), and training on insurgent groups. By doing so, it replaced the ISI (Islamic State of Iraq, an al Qaeda affiliate) as the leading participant in the insurgency. The only "cost" to these insurgent groups, which were under extreme pressure from Shiite militias due to overreaching by the ISI, was to sacrifice the ISI. They rapidly complied.

Where this goes from here is problematic since (and I say this to get you thinking and not to shock you) the US is now leading both the insurgency and the counter-insurgency in Iraq.

Comments

[P-]

The one thing that's not mentioned nearly enough is the buy-offs of the militias. It is off the same template from which he perception of "peace," is carved out in Israel or the middleeast regionwise. You are essentially not securing a long lasting peace but a short lived one. For long sustaining peace something totally different is needed. We maybe showing our indifference the enemy craves on when we use labels of "terrorist" for "operatives." Sympathy is very lacking when sympathy is very much needed. The rest is self-explanatory.

[Fabius Maximus]

How does our new relationship differ from almost unconditional surrender to the Sunni Arab insurgents, those affilitated with traditional Iraq leadership (i.e., not Al Qaeda)?
.
We have ceded to them control of their areas (abandoning efforts to establish central gov't control), paid them, armed them, trained them -- in return for continuing to fight Al Q in Iraq (which started before our deals with the tribes). And nothing else.
.
What more could they have asked for? How could we have gotten less?

[HK]

I am again amazed by this kind of decision making.
Not that I mind tribalism, it might be a solution to several issues, but that is promoted by forces that do not benefit from it at all, is irritating.

[Duncan Kinder]

Re: "How does our new relationship differ from almost unconditional surrender to the Sunni Arab insurgents, those affilitated with traditional Iraq leadership (i.e., not Al Qaeda)?"

As is so often the case regarding things Iraq, things are best to be understood, not in terms of military strategy, but rather of Republican politics.

[AbuTohbar]

This is an interesting take on how the reconciliation is going in Iraq, but it is too simplified to capture the reality of what is happening on the ground. As the Nation of Iraq and its sundry of groups attempt to restore order there are facts lost on most spectators. First and foremost 35 years of a dictatorial socialist government has destroyed most of the free market and civil leadership systems that would help Iraq most quickly emerge from its current turmoil. In rural areas farmers still grow mainly wheat instead of produce that is scarce in rural areas where insurgents are trying to rest control of remote villages from the IA / IP. I have spoken with them and they seem genuinely amazed about the idea of growing produce to increases their incomes while meeting local demand. Secondly, groups reconcile for different reasons. Some Iraqis are just plain tired of having jerks drive through their village and attack local people, the ISF, and Coalition troops. Some have sought to reconcile to end fighting the coalition.
Implementation of process is complex and laborious. Not all groups who seek to reconcile with the Coalition are accepted following initial negotiations. Groups that do reconcile are not given carte blanche to attack AQI or other groups in the area. Reconcilliationist groups have ROE, uniform, and armament standards they must follow while securing their local area. Violation of these rules can have dire consequences. Armed men outside of their authorized areas of operations are treated as combatants by Coalition and Iraqi forces. Employing the existing Nahia / Tribal leadership system provides a resilient and enduring local structure that allows people to gain control of their security and ultimately their local economies and governance. Furthermore these groups do not simply remain as an armed militia; they are integrated into the security apparatus of the host nation as police or security forces who answer to a local and national chain of command.
Given these facts from my perspective as an imbedded advisor the reconciliation is more successful than it would appear at first blush. The very cultural dynamics which we struggle to understand in fact may be the catalyst to restore order and ultimately the self determination of the Iraqi people.

[adam]

AbuTihbar,

I'm rather worried about this. If its the view of the typical "Embedded Advisor" then frankly the US is in real trouble. Your political / historical briefing was crap. Who wrote it?

"First and foremost 35 years of a dictatorial socialist government has destroyed most of the free market and civil leadership systems that would help Iraq most quickly emerge from its current turmoil."

Socialist? Sadaam? Are you having a laugh? To most Iraqis Sadaam was a US-boy, and the only reason the US hated him was he stopped taking orders. Up to 1980 Iraq was (small c) capitalist in tooth and claw. What confuses many Americans is the concept of Arabic Socialism, which is a different beast from Western Marxism, and is founded on the principle of freedom from foreign occupation and colonialism. It might be seen, if you're American, as vaguely socialist if we're concentrating on the land reforms of the 1970s, but that's reaching a very long way. Chalabi certainly sees Sadaam as very Marxist, but that's because Chalabi's family had the tax raising concession for Iraq in the 1960s, which the Ba'athists got rid of and replaced with a government body when they took over, so he's a bit biased.

Look, the Arab Nationalist Ba'athist party regularly made a point of noting that they came to power with CIA support. In 1963 the US provided the Ba'athists - among them their CIA-trained hit man (one Sadaam Hussain, who would later go on to bigger and better things) - death lists of people that they wanted bumped off. Its a little rich for the Americans to deny that now. Please tell me that you don't say this to the Iraqis? Your personal credibility is at stake here.

Of course the 2003-4 American CPA did help finish the job of 12 years of sanctions completely, by eliminating pretty much all of the remaining Iraqi institutions of law, government and industry and not replacing it with anything. Its probably best not to mention that as well.

Blaming socialism is surreal, the US took over a still - more or less - working 3rd world nation and destroyed it. Blaming the Iraqis is simply the Americans blaming the victims. Again, please tell me that you don't do this in the hearing of Iraqis.

The reality is that the leadership systems in Iraq worked very well, its just that they worked against the Americans and their neo-con vision of the world.

"In rural areas farmers still grow mainly wheat instead of produce that is scarce in rural areas"

Of course they will. Iraq remains on food rationing for rice, sugar, cooking oil, flour and all of the other basic staples of existence. At various times around 60 per cent of all Iraqis have subsisted on this - around 2 million more are, as of September 2007, due rationing. This is according to the UN office of humanitarian coordination, so its likely to be a low figure.

Sadly for them the US government has chosen to let them starve (or maybe its the Iraqi government, its hard to tell, the bottom line is that they're not going to get the rations that they should be due). Even the people that should be getting the rations are being short-changed. Since the US took over in Iraq from 2003 food rationing has become patchy. Basic items such as rice have become dismal quality whilst either US or Iraqi officials loot the treasury. At the same time critical items such as baby formula have completely left the ration - as a result baby formula in Baghdad went from 30c a can to $4, completely unaffordable to most Iraqis.

This also meant that a lot of small kids died / are dying of malnutrition, but as the American T-shirt says "Better Dead than Red!". At least the kids didn't become socialist. I'm not completely sure that a grieving Iraqi dad should be told that, either.

At this stage its important to note that this is where John's resilient structures come in. From the early 1990s onwards Iraqis had to rely on tribal structures to get food. Its these structures that have caused the Americans so many problems over the years.

" where insurgents are trying to rest control of remote villages from the IA / IP. I have spoken with them and they seem genuinely amazed about the idea of growing produce to increases their incomes while meeting local demand."

a) Because local demand is fairly limited due to rationing.
b) and because the rural locals have no money.
c) and because Iraq doesn't import enough wheat - it cannot, without getting a bigger port and some highways that don't have rocket propelled grenade attacks on them.

http://www.tradearabia.com/news/newsdetails.asp?Sn=AGRI&artid=138243

Which reason do you think caused the farmers to look at you in amazement? You want them to grow stuff that you're importing! They must have been thinking: "are you crazy? Grow stuff that you're giving away for oil? American farmers are the most heavily mechanised and subsidised in the world! How do I compete with that? Do you want me to starve? Why do you want me to starve? I'll grow wheat and sell it in the cities!"

" Secondly, groups reconcile for different reasons. Some Iraqis are just plain tired of having jerks drive through their village and attack local people, the ISF, and Coalition troops. Some have sought to reconcile to end fighting the coalition."

For now. As soon as the situation changes, they'll turn on the Americans in about 2 seconds. I've been in this game long enough to remember 1996 when one of the Kurdish groups (Barzani) switched sides overnight on the US and allowed Sadaams tanks into town to whack the INC (Chalabi's CIA-backed halfwits) and their Kurdish enemies (Talabani's mob). Quite a lot of Barzani's family had been killed by Sadaam, but what the heck, they weren't getting any deader.

The people that did this to each other, by the way, are all in or around the new Iraqi government - Talabani is the president of Iraq, Barzani the president of the Kurdish area, Chalabi was the chosen US dictator to replace Sadaam and was the oil minister...

Oh, to be a fly on the wall of the meetings when those guys met up. Only in Iraq would this be possible. And the reason its possible is that at a certain level it is all just a game.

Mind you its vaguely surreal an American claiming that Iraqis are just plain tired of jerks driving through their village and attacking people...

"Implementation of process is complex and laborious. Not all groups who seek to reconcile with the Coalition are accepted following initial negotiations."

But then they shoot some Americans and its welcome aboard... Or just change their names as the Americans have no idea who they are dealing with. The current police chief in Fallujah cheerfully admits that he's knocked off a few Yanks. Currently he's demanding that the Americans pay him and "his boys" - all 13,000 of them - $300 a month or they start popping Americans again. The Iraqi government isn't keen on this and have demanded that the US military bump off their US military installed police force. That should be another interesting moment in Iraqi political history.

"Groups that do reconcile are not given carte blanche to attack AQI or other groups in the area."

But they do what they want anyway. You may not give them "carte blanche" but there isn't a lot you can do either way.

Far more to the point the Americans are presupposing that there is an actual difference between the "Awakening" groups and "Al Qaeda in Iraq". In many cases the people involved are the same. The Iraqi government knows this is the case, the Americans remain largely clueless.

"Reconcilliationist groups have ROE, uniform, and armament standards they must follow while securing their local area."

Rules of Engagement? For militias? That should be worth a laugh:
1) Shi'tes... no shooting all of the people named Omar. Let one live that he might tell the other Sunnis...
2) Kurds... no shooting all of the Arabs
3) Sunnis... no shooting all of the Americans...

People that break these rules will make the Americans very upset and cross. They may even stamp their feet. And drop some bombs on a town somewhere. They will drop the bombs anyway, so its not actually a result of your actions, but they'll shout that its all your fault.

The reality is that all the Americans can do now is cement a Shi'ite political and economic victory, perhaps by ensuring some concessions are made to the former middle class Sunnis. At this stage Iraq is very much like 1980s Lebanon in one of the interminable cease-fires (Lebanon ceasefire "Cease... count 1,2,3... Fire!").

" Violation of these rules can have dire consequences. Armed men outside of their authorized areas of operations are treated as combatants by Coalition and Iraqi forces."

Historically the Americans haven't been very skilled at determining anything about Iraq. Deciding who should be where isn't on their skill-sets either.

"Employing the existing Nahia / Tribal leadership system provides a resilient and enduring local structure that allows people to gain control of their security and ultimately their local economies and governance."

Dealing fairly with the local tribes is the first sign of basic competence that the US has shown in 5 years. It merely took 4.5 years to get there. And the Iraqis had to ask first. But beyond that its been a success. Except that the US admitted that the Awakening Council model cannot work anywhere where there is a mixture of ethnic groups - leaving the whole thing in as working in Al-Anbar alone.

My problem is with the word "ultimately". I'd be really careful about saying that to the Iraqis. In fact I'd not even think it near the Iraqis. Iraq hasn't officially been under US control for some years, although many American soldiers would be amazed to hear this. Far more to the point the Iraqis in the freed areas have gained control of their security, its just that they've had to shoot a lot of Americans to do so.

"Furthermore these groups do not simply remain as an armed militia; they are integrated into the security apparatus of the host nation as police or security forces who answer to a local and national chain of command."

Dream on. This is the woolly-headed thinking that saw the entire US-created Iraqi military organisation collapse in 2004. The local militia remain local militia, they have no loyalty to the national government, unless they're directly connected to the Badr Corps or Mahdi Army. Don't get me wrong, the various groups will shoot unarmed women and kids from another area in a trice, but actually fight armed people? Not a hope.

In Al-Anbar the militias (well, the Awakening Councils) have a definite statement of intent to overthrow the national Shi'ite government and replace it with a Sunni one. This kind of difference should be worth a laugh by mid-2008 when the surge ends. The Awakening Councils field around 80,000 third-militia whilst the Iraqi government has around 150k loyal troops (the Shi'ite forces, around 6 divisions). The boding is right for a titanic bloodbath.

"Given these facts from my perspective as an imbedded advisor the reconciliation is more successful than it would appear at first blush. The very cultural dynamics which we struggle to understand in fact may be the catalyst to restore order and ultimately the self determination of the Iraqi people."

Errrm. Just to check - you don't really tell the Iraqis that they've lost their self-determination do you? Because that kind of American arrogance is what caused the rebellion in 2004.

And there is no political reconciliation in Iraq, the major factions aren't even talking these days. Everyone is waiting for the Surge to end, for the Americans to go away, and for the fun and games to re-start. Once that has occurred the winners (most likely one of more factions of Shi'ites) will decide what happens to the surviving losers.

[TM Lutas]

When they want to distribute ballot boxes and hold votes for the national government, will the militias that exist fight to destroy the election or will they work hard so "our people" get as much power in Baghdad as possible? The UIA is dying. Maliki can't hold a reliable majority just from the Shia anymore.

The political tea leaves seem to predict good spoils from maintaining ties to the national government and extracting resources and power from votes. So why wouldn't the factions that power the Awakening Councils accommodate the government in Baghdad sufficient to get theirs? And once they commit to that course, why wouldn't step by step political accommodation lead to a stable, peaceful Iraq over the next few decades?

We may have to write a few checks to some fairly unsavory sheikhs to keep them relatively quiet until the dynamic becomes obvious and self-sustaining but it's nowhere near the cost of combat and has the advantage of actually cementing a long-term victory.

[Azr@el]

Open source warfare requires at a minimum that all the participants share the same objective. If the u.s. goal in iraq is to have a strong stable secular government than any type of understanding with the sunnis on the future of iraq is unimaginable. If however the u.s. has shifted to the strategic defensive and her sole goal is to create an iraq that would be hostile to iran and conducive to a long term u.s. military presence whose "secondary" objective could be to check iranian influence in the persian gulf, then perhaps there is something to be gained by an alliance with the sunnis.

Two issues immediately come to the fore when such an arrangement is contemplated, a) Open source means a shared goal but not necessarily the same implementation and b) what happens when washington must eventually pull the trigger and come to terms with iran. First open source is like either a drip when done poorly or it can be a tsunami when it reaches critical mass. In either form it is an inherently chaotic problem solving methodology which does not lend itself to command and control. The sort of command and control that is neccesary when trying to lead an ethno-religiously fractured society to non-optimal endgame. Secondly, at some point reality will dawn upon those at the helm of u.s. foreign policy, they will realize that extensive manipulation of the u.s. media has created a situation similar to the first world war; basically we've been drinking the kool-aid, our leadership believes our own propaganda. At some point in time we'll have to dismount from the addictive illusion that fox has been reporting and come to terms with the regional superpower, iran, over iraq's future. And at that point we'll have to sell out the sunnis. Fortunately, we've never had any scruples about selling out allies of convenience, hmong, afghans, kurd, shias....but of course that's their fault because the u.s. never does anything wrong, amen and pass the kool-aid.

[John Robb]

Azr@el. You hit on the common objective.

[galacticos]

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