Counter-insurgency (COIN)

General Petraeus is nothing short of a genius. I won't bother recounting all his achievements and virtues here; rather I will cut right to the chase.

The new US counter-insurgency strategy (COIN), which Petraeus was instrumental in developing over the last several years, identifies a counter-intuitive, but critically important, strategic issue.

The main idea is that increased short-term risk for American soldiers, tactically, reduces longer-term, strategic risk.

In a traditional, symmetric war, civilian deaths and collateral damage in the short run can shorten the overall war. This is essentially the paradigm of shock & awe pioneered by other brilliant men, such as Colin Powell. The ultimate in shock & awe, and the inspiration for the strategy in many ways, was the atomic bombing of Japan. It killed civilians, but it probably saved lives by shortening the war.

In asymmetric, insurgency/counter-insurgency war, under-reacting and overprotecting civilians, while remaining out and about, allows intelligence gathering and turns civilians against insurgents.

Imagine the alternative. You're out there, trying to pacify terrorists in Iraq. You could easily think, "I'd better keep US troops from dying and find the insurgents." "If I don't keep US troops from dying, public opinion will turn against the war, even if I'm winning." "If I don't find insurgent bombers, I will not be accomplishing my mission or protecting the new nation of Iraq."

But Petraeus argues for exactly the opposite. He argues for a war focused on defense. He argues that such operations to catch terrorists alienate the population. The collateral damage creates more terrorists. This is NOT obvious. It seems obvious, but only if you have never understood the shock&awe strategy in the first place. Traditional thinking is that it's better to over-react and and kill too many civilians at first, because it will decimate the enemy and shorten the war.

Lest you think you understand what I'm saying, think about this... "Did Rumsfeld send too few troops to Iraq?" If you think so, then you think we should have engaged in MORE activities early on. But, that would have made MORE people affected by US troops and probably resulted in MORE collateral damage. Even if you don't realize it, people like Gen. Shinseki and Colin Powell, who have criticized the war, were arguing for THAT. They were saying we should have sent more troops in and been a blunter instrument. We could have stopped the looters and crushed the insurgency early on and we'd be in a better position now. It's the opposite of the strategy Petraeus is advocating. He's advocating that we send more troops NOW, but that we had the right number at the beginning. He's arguing that what we need to do now is go out and put US soldiers in harm's way. We need to tell them to make protecting civilians their priority, even if it results in more US casualties in the short run.

The reason we need to do this is because it will reduce the quantity of terrorists created and turn more of the populace against the terrorists. This will ultimately do more to shorten the war than will hunting down the terrorists.

Don't confuse this argument with the idea that we should simply not be there at all, because then we couldn't alienate people. That is 100% wrong. What Petraeus is arguing is the opposite. We *should* be there, because if we don't protect civilians, then we can't be seen as the better alternative to Al Qaeda. When we abandoned the Afghani rebels and the Shi'ites in the early 90's, we did exactly this - we left them alone. We caused Zero collateral damage, and we earned nothing but the hatred of Iraqis and Afghanis during that time. We said, "We're not helping you; you're on your own." And nobody thanked us for it. Instead, they spent the 90's plotting against us. Understanding that problem is a basic precursor to understanding what's going on in the world today. The terrorism problem we have now built up during the 90's, when Clinton was President and we did little to nothing to stop Al Qaeda or Saddam Hussein.