President Obama's Speech: Classic Lesson in Counterinsurgency

If you don't think that Al Qaida spearheads a growing global insurgency, you have been on Mars for the past 13 years. And if you don't think that President Obama's speech today was a classic lesson in counterinsurgency, then you are not looking at the big picture.

David Galula's 1964 classic, "Counterinsurgency Warfare", tells us that an insurgency is a:

protracted struggle conducted methodically, step by step, in order to attain specific intermediate objectives leading finally to the overthrow of the existing order.

This is the battle we currently are in with the Al Qaida Movement (which is a lot easier to remember than the Global Salafi Jihadist Movement). The President now calls them the "Extremists".

President Obama's speech today was the first step, the outlining of a counterinsurgency "strategy", from which we will enact operations and tactics.

For those that have never studied counterinsurgency, here are a few quick tidbits to keep in mind for when you analyze the effectiveness of the President's speech.

(All of these are direct quotes from either John Nagl, who wrote the forward for the republished 2006 version of "Counterinsurgency Warfare" or directly from David Galula himself, followed by my own comments.)

1. An insurgency is a competition between insurgent and government (in this case, the collective of governments) for the support of the civilian population.

This is crucial. We are in a battle with the AQ Movement for the hearts and minds of young potential recruits and the populations they belong to. Finally, the Iraqis, with our help, have succeeded in winning the counterinsurgency in Iraq. However, in Afghanistan we are currently losing the battle. Overall, I would say that before today, we were losing the global counterinsurgency against Al Qaida strictly within the majority Muslim communities. After today, our actions will dictate if we can win over the support of those civilian populations. We'll start to notice once locals start to provide us with intelligence and hand over Al Qaida's top dogs.

2. Key terrain in an insurgency is not physical space, but the political loyalty of the people who inhabit that space.

Self-explanatory. We need those populations to be loyal to their local governments. If their governments are oppressive, we need to show the population that we are trying to work with them to make them more open. We have to build trust.

3. The insurgent, having no responsibility, is free to use every trick if necessary, he can lie, cheat, exaggerate. He is not obligated to prove; his is judged by what he promises, not what he does.

4. The counterinsurgent is tied to his responsibilities and to his past, and for him, facts speak louder than words. He is judged on what he does, not on what he says. If he lies, cheats, exaggerates, and does not prove, he may achieve some temporary successes, but at the price of being discredited for good.

This was what we failed to realize with Abu Ghareb, Guantanamo Bay and torture. The counterinsurgents are responsible for the safety and security of the population. We violated their trust, and trust is the key to winning hearts and minds. The Bush Administration was discredited within the Muslim majority communities for good. Now, with a new President, we can hopefully be given a new chance for the populations to judge us off our actions. Hopefully this chance is not squandered.

5. The insurgent alone can initiate the conflict.

Never forget that.

6. The insurgent has a formidable asset- the ideological power of a cause on which to base his action. The counterinsurgent has a heavy liability-he is responsible for maintaining order.

Hopefully, President Obama's strategic speech will present populations with a choice of ideological causes to get behind. His speech was entirely about living in peace. The Al Qaida Movement's rhetoric is always about violence, death and jihad(war). I hope that was clear to the populations we are trying to reach.

Congrats to the President for an incredibly successful, classic counterinsurgency speech to win over the hearts and minds of the various populations from which the AQ Movement fills its ranks.

Now it is time for Operations and Tactics (aka ACTIONS) that follow through on those eloquent words.

Comments

[Aaron Dellutri]

Mr. Gilfillan, I guess I must be on Mars, because I really think we ought not to call Muslim extremists "The Al Qaeda Movement". This trick of language takes about fifty separate organizations who have almost nothing in common besides their religion and their hatred of the US, could never coordinate their actions, and basically hate each other as much as they hate the US, and magically turns them into a unitary 'movement'. This could give Americans a misleading picture of what's going on, don't you think?

[jsanti7]

Impressed with this articles structure that uses quotes to enhance the point's he author wanted to convey. The importance of the mental ,moral and physical aspects of winning in combat or insurgencies at the least cost are well defined by this author and brings to the forefront the real importance of those most overlooked aspects of war fighting...... 4th Generational Warfare objectives introduced well in this one

[Sean Gilfillan - Huffpost Blogger]

Thanks jsanti7. You are right. It is time most people separated conventional vs. revolutionary warfare and adequately studied and learned about the differences.

[nk007]

What an enlightening analysis. You really go to the heart of the matter. The key to countering extremist Muslim and Arab hatred and violence against America is to convince the vast majority of Muslims/ Arabs that America has no intention of dominating their countries and is only interested in peace and mutual respect. I hope Obama backs his words with concrete actions. I also hope that the Israelis and the Palestinians would be encouraged to pursue genuine peace, realizing that violence, which has been costly to both sides, has so far proven to be counter productive. Palestinian violence has not brought about Palestinian freedom, justice, independence and dignity; but neither has Israel violence brought about Israel security, peace and international respect. Obama also has to rethink his Afghanistan policy. He needs scale down the military focus and instead put more focus on the efforts to win the "hearts and minds" of Afghans. Every time innocent Afghans are killed by our military, we loose the "hears and minds" making it that much more difficult to Isolate the insurgents. But again, thanks Mr. Gifillan for your insights.

[Sean Gilfillan - Huffpost Blogger]

Thanks nk007. I really hope actions back up the rhetoric as well. Looking at the Israel/Palestine issue objectively is the only way to do so. I think there are a few ways to do this, but both sides will have to make concessions and peace will have to involve normalization of relations between Israel and all Arab countries. I think you are right on the money with scaling down Afghanistan. We used to say that killing a militant actually creates two more, but killing an innocent civilian creates an entire platoon. Glad you enjoyed it and please pass it on to your friends and family. It is important that everyone knows what we are trying to do here.

[majii]

Thanks, Mr. Gilfillan for your insight into President Obama's mideast speech, and thanks for your service on behalf of our country. Sometimes it is difficult to get a good "read" on what a particular speech or policy really means by watching TV news programs because it seems as if all of them put their spin on the issues. Plus, there appears to be a lot of talking but little demonstration of actual knowledge on them. It is truly refreshing to read an analysis by someone who has actually, "been there, done that."
Again, Thanks.

[Sean Gilfillan - Huffpost Blogger]

I appreciate the comments, Majii. TV news stations tend to have the people with the biggest mouths and biggest egos on instead of actual experts. The experts are actually involved in the "doing" and not so much the "talking". I never see the top terrorism experts on news programs. It seems that they are off in government think-tanks, the state dept, CIA, etc. actually trying to use their expertise to solve the problem instead. We should have more experts on here that can get involved in some real discussion based on research and facts instead of speculation and hearsay.