Strategy wars: Lots of discussion of Kilcullen

Including Zen Pundit, Fabius Maximus (which is a good read), and others. However, it's interesting to see how Kilcullen is drawing from the pool of theory very similar to global guerrillas. For example, from his winter 2006 Counterinsurgency Redux article. First example, state failure instead of replacement:

But the intent to replace existing governments or create independent states is only partly evident today. For example, in Iraq multiple groups are seeking to paralyze and fragment the state, rather than to gain control of its apparatus and govern. Insurgents favor strategies of provocation (to undermine support for the coalition) and exhaustion (to convince the coalition to leave Iraq) rather than displacement of the government. This is a “resistance” insurgency rather than a “revolutionary” insurgency. Insurgents want to destroy the Iraqi state, not secede from it or supplant it.

Open source warfare:

By contrast, today’s insurgents often employ diffuse, cell-based structures and “leaderless resistance”. This generates far less organizational superstructure than in classical movements. Such methods were recognized in traditional counterinsurgency — “focoist” insurgency used this system, and the IRA developed a cell structure based on “Active Service Units”. But today’s movements apply this approach on an immense scale, creating mass movements without mass organization and rendering classical countermeasures ineffective.

From his 3 Pillars of Counterinsurgency, an example of the bazaar of violence as an ecosystem (his diagram is even vaguely similar to mine):

Think of this environment as a sort of “conflict ecosystem”.

Anyway, its flattering that this guy is rediscovering the ideas I've already blocked out (he is not a plagiarist by any measure!). The only problem is that since he is heavily wedded to legacy structures/thinking, his counter-insurgency recommendations are bland gruel of little import.

Comments

[Fabius Maximus]

Thank you for commenting on this similarity. I noticed that, also, with some confusion.

Also good to see discussion of Kilcullen's greater works. "28 articles" looks to be like a sketch (most of my works are also just sketches) of his other longer, subtle works.

[John Robb]

Fab, you did a great job kicking the crap out of the 28 articles. Bravo.

[Fabius Maximus]

A clarification of my above comment about the overlap of Kilcullen's and John's work.

This is a network effect which we will likely see more often: folks operating in the same "community", in the same news flow, developing the same insights. This happens in all communities, but more frequently in virtual ones. The web allows communities to grow both in size and rate of evolution, so that nobody can follow everything.

I've had this happen to me twice. Another author (a major expert) wrote an article "mirroring" something I had recently written, and later one similar to something I *was* writing. I don’t know which was more frustrating.

Histories of science and engineering have too many instances of parallel development to even bother listing, such as Newton & Leibniz.

[Claymore]

Good arguements, but I wouldn't say he kicked the crap out of it.

I think Bill Nagle is an idiot though.