The Catch: The Cognitive Dissonance of COIN
“The Catch” is, from here on, the heading and category for “Recommended Reading” posts here at Red Herrings.
Recommended reading from Small Wars Journal:
The Cognitive Dissonance of COIN
Right Doctrine, Wrong War
by Jason Thomas
“The psychological investment in COIN is now so deep that the cognitive dissonance would be too great to change course or admit COIN is the right doctrine for the wrong war. Cognitive dissonance theory suggests that despite contrary evidence, people are biased to think of their choices as correct. Like climate change, so much has been invested in counterinsurgency with huge reputations at stake, that anyone who challenges COIN in Afghanistan could be labeled a COIN skeptic. No matter how much we try to win the hearts and minds, no matter how many millions of dollars is spent on development and regardless of attempts to improve governance and eliminate corruption, the socio-cultural ecosystem of Afghanistan does not respond to the doctrine of counterinsurgency. While the pockets can be won the heart and minds in Afghanistan will always remain notoriously capricious.
There are many reasons to continually question COIN from every angle, but the two this paper is concerned with are i) whether COIN could be the right military doctrine being applied in the wrong campaign; and ii) preparing for the next major unconventional war – as is often the case in political campaigns and war, we tend to find ourselves fighting on the issues, theories or practices in the last campaign.
This paper will attempt to “play the ball and not the man” by pointing to the range of reasons unique to Afghanistan on top of self-imposed obstacles that reinforce the hypothesis of right doctrine, wrong war.”
All in all, a thought-provoking paper that is well worth a read even if you don’t agree with the author’s argument. Personally, I don’t think COIN is the wrong doctrine for Afghanistan. At least, not all of Afghanistan. If the Taliban is seeking to create a parallel, non-secular, (Pakistan aligned) government that usurps the government of Kabul. That makes it an insurgency. The problem is using COIN in Afghanistan is that it is being used across the board, even in places where the Taliban isn’t active. If there isn’t an insurgency, you can’t wage a counterinsurgency. Personally, I think the disconnect about using COIN as the go-to doctrine of the U.S. forces, comes from an inflexibility of practitioners to have multiple doctrines. Everything is COIN because counterinsurgency is the sexy buzzword of the moment. However, COIN is not an anti-terrorism or homeland security doctrine. If you are chasing Bin Laden, you shouldn’t be using a COIN doctrine.
Actually, what I found most interesting about the article were the author’s 6 points for adapting COIN for future campaigns. I felt they had a great deal of 5GW resonance.
“The following are suggestions for improving the adaptability of COIN for future campaigns:
1. Stress test COIN and other military doctrines against a range of insurgent scenarios taking place in potential host countries – what is unique about the cultural and tribal dynamics.
2. Anticipate the next host nations and begin a coordinated, international effort to limit the opportunity for the global jihadists to re-base themselves (Australia has done a good job with its intense support of governance, security and development initiatives in Indonesia) – almost an interntional version of COIN.”
3. Develop sophisticated social networking and internet countering-platforms devised by and run by maintstream, globally recognised and respected Muslim organisations.
4. Intesify the global ‘hearts and minds’ campaign to convince young, mobile and increasingly sophisticated Muslims that the West is not a threat to their belief systems. This must be coordinated at an international level across governments and non-government actors.
5. Identify communications strategies and tactics to undermine the jihadists perceived legitimacy in the minds of eye of mainstream media. Every time the insurgents claim ‘civilians have been killed by US forces’ this is treated as fact by the media.
6. Avoid seeking a generic, off-the-shelf, model of COIN devised from previous campaigns to be applied to the next campaign.”
All six of these points are in line with 5GW thinking. First, working to trigger established rule-sets of a target population’s Orientation by feeding them information in specific context, through their own prefered information channels, is the basis of Fifth Gradient doctrines. 5GW is also inherently strategic in scope, meaning that anticipating the next hot-spot and preemptively targeting it with 5GW operations is required. Above all, adaptability is a hallmark of, not only 5GW, but XGW itself. A basic tenet of XGW is to create a specific doctrine for the situation at hand that is X+1 of the doctrine being used by your opponent, there is no such thing as an “off-the-shelf” doctrine.
YOu should add WOrdpress’s Tweet button to your blog.
08/25/2010 at 12:10 PM
Consider it now tweetable, Facebookable, and diggable. (Sadly I think the last one is the only one that works as a useable term.)
08/25/2010 at 1:10 PM
All this relates to some of my recent commentary on Facebook.
“COIN” as it is typically conceived, so far, resembles 4GW and may be thought of as another side of the coin of 4GW. Particularly when the focus is largely on “hearts and minds” through public displays of worthiness. (To put it very roughly….)
OTOH, since many insurgencies (all?) from now until whenever are going to be 4GW, then 5GW will be a natural response to them. As a response to those insurgencies, 5GW would be COIN.
Two points for further consideration, give the above:
1. Is “COIN” so entrenched as a term with an already somewhat limited scope (cognitive and pragmatic), applying it to describe 5GW counterinsurgency efforts will cause confusion or in general be inapt?
2. Is 5GW really a much broader strategy, not specifically targeted to counterinsurgency efforts — although that may be one type of 5GW or one of many goals of any particular 5GW campaign — and if so, does the linkage of “COIN” to 5GW risk limiting the conceptualization of 5GW?
08/25/2010 at 4:18 PM
Part of the problem, I think, is that people get more caught up in the terminology, than in the practice. As far as the U.S. Military seems to be concerned at this point, COIN is what we are doing to our enemy. For them using the term COIN has divorced the meaning of the term from its use. Instead being a COIN practitioner in many cases seems to denote that you are a ‘with-it’ officer with a future in the service and higher rank in your future. That’s basically ‘yes-man’ism.
Counterinsurgency, should only be practiced against insurgents. You don’t pursue terrorists with counterinsurgency. You don’t invade countires with counterinsurgency. You don’t guard borders with counterinsurgency.
So far as XGW is concerned, we can finally get to the heart of the theoretical matter. COIN, as a doctrine, is anything that is used to counter an insurgency. It can theoreticaly be in any gradient.
For example, the end stages of a classic Maoist insurgency involves large formations of organized soldiers using doctrines at (likely) 2GW and 3GW. Therefore the counterinsurgency response to those forces would require doctrines at(X+1) 3GW and 4GW.
The insurgency in Afghanistan and Iraq (the actual insurgents who want to overthrow and replace the governments of those countries) seem to be following doctrines that are mainly at 4GW, rarely at 3GW, and possibly at 5GW. Therefore the U.S. counterinsurgency response should follow doctrines of 4GW and 5GW, but only against the insurgents.
To answer your questions:
Yes, probably confusion is inevitable. COIN doctrine can be 5GW, but 5GW doctrines are not all going to be COIN doctrines. COIN probably only scratches the surface of 5GW’s utility. As long as we keep pushing 5GW thinking into areas that aren’t COIN, there is a chance the confusion can possibly be averted or its damage to the concept minimized.
08/25/2010 at 4:51 PM
The pragmatic limit may be in “COIN” as a general term being defined through specific tactics rather than as a general, catch-all strategy.
One could say that EVERY attempt at counterinsurgency is COIN; but, what’s that saying, really? How can a claim that, “We must use COIN” mean anything to its audience, if COIN can be so various?
On the other side of the coin, a limited and specific set of tactics, already having been practiced and/or at least conceived, targeted at a handful of insurgencies throughout the last few decades, have collectively been referred to as COIN as if they define COIN. Then, “We must use COIN” can and does mean something to the audience; given any particular audience, the term will inspire conspiracy (“Yes, we need to use COIN”) or controversy (“Been there, done that, it won’t work here.”)
I take it that you are using the more general term. This seems most appropriate, because it also seems, to me, that particular COINs (sets of tactics) may be useful for particular insurgencies or situations. OTOH, in this case the term is so broad that it doesn’t really denote anything on its own. You have suggested “3GW COIN” and “4GW COIN” and “5GW COIN”, and while I think each modification helps to narrow down the particular meaning — and would make the term COIN more useful — still the particular understandings of 3-5GW may be various (particularly 5GW) and so we would still need some further breakdown or classification. Absent this, then the use of the term COIN seems merely an effort to define a particular type of opponent.
08/26/2010 at 1:41 PM
“One could say that EVERY attempt at counterinsurgency is COIN”
It is! COIN is just an abbreviation of the word COunterINsurgency. EVERY doctrine that is designed to counter an insurgency IS counterinsurgency, by the definition that an insurgency seeks to replace an existing government and a counterinsurgency seeks to prevent that from happening. “We must use COIN” is a valid expression only when confronting an insurgency. Insurgency-Counterinsurgency is a problem-solution correlation.
Once recognizing that the opponent is an insurgent, the practitioner (now a counter-insurgent) must establish the operative action, and therefore the gradient, of the insurgency doctrine he is in conflict with. The practitioner should then design a doctrine with the same operative action as the insurgency (X=X) or with the operative action of the next higher gradient (X+1).
Those operative actions are what define the gradient not what the practitioners call themselves or each other (counterinsurgents, insurgents, freedom fighters, terrorists, knitting circle, book club, whatever).
08/26/2010 at 2:29 PM
Yes, well there is certainly a cognitive disconnect.
COIN = COunterINsurgency, but War=War and Politics=Politics too.
“‘We must use COIN’ is a valid expression only when confronting an insurgency.”
So, when faced with a militant opponent or political opponent one can say, “Let’s use war!” or “Let’s use politics!” — but this is as much as saying, “Let’s breathe!” when the body requires oxygen. It is valid in the sense that every tautology is valid.
“Once recognizing that the opponent is an insurgent” — well that takes about 5 minutes, give or take, depending on the density of the primary decision makers’ head. What you describe after this, the necessity of choosing “the doctrine” is what should happen in ANY conflict. In other words, if we are to use an understanding of xGW when faced with conflict, we are going to be making decisions according to our understanding of xGW. Knowing that our opponent is or is not an insurgent is not going to make that much of a difference; and, what difference it makes has already been incorporated in the first 5 minutes or so of the decision making process.
08/26/2010 at 2:45 PM
Seems we are really approaching the topic from similar positions.
Your program appears to be an attempt to rescue COIN from those who have a very limited understanding of it — or to free it from the bounds certain practitioners and star chamber theorists have given to it. Perhaps, too, the variety of the discordant theories in this group, or the confusion of understandings, leads to the only common ground being “COIN=COunterInsurgency,” and it needs to be rescued from this general vagueness and confusion.
Describing COIN in terms of 5GW, or of similarities between the two, would play a role in this reinscription of the term; but, two routes can be taken in this process.
1.
By too closely stressing the “5GW resonance” of COIN “for future campaigns”, the reinscription may focus all thought on COIN being, really, 5GW. Whether this is intended to rescue COIN or is merely an attempt to co-opt the term for 5GW theory,
a. “See, COIN can be done THIS way, unlike current practice”
b. “You should adopt 5GW as a theory, since the only workable COIN for future counter-insurgency efforts IS 5GW.”
–I am not certain.
2.
The second route would be to rescue COIN from its current limitation or vagueness by offering a more complex approach toward practicing it. I.e., rather than focus COIN on *5GW*, your reinscription of the term may be an attempt to focus COIN on *xGW*. Again, whether this is a real attempt to rescue COIN by offering more flavors of COIN or is instead an attempt to co-opt the term for xGW theory….heh, I will ask the question.
08/26/2010 at 3:21 PM
CGW, to your comment part 1:
” “Once recognizing that the opponent is an insurgent” — well that takes about 5 minutes, give or take, depending on the density of the primary decision makers’ head. What you describe after this, the necessity of choosing “the doctrine” is what should happen in ANY conflict. ”
Indeed, and it shouldn’t make any difference if your opponent is an insurgent, but it seems to me that the practitioners as described in the article are solely focused on that idea, that “They are an insurgency, so we’ll be counterinsurgents.” The problem arises when they then forget to go through the process that XGW demands. The U.S. military is not much of a learning institution, there are too many entrenched agendas and too much beaurecratic inertia so it has defaulted to the COIN doctrine it already has, for the convetional forces it already maintains.
In that other conflict, the military was forced to go through that learning process and design a new doctrine. Even if that doctrine were perfect for that conflict (highly debatable in itself), that doctrine was for THAT conflict, not for THIS conflict. Cookie-cutter doctrines don’t work. XGW abhors a one-size-fits-all doctrine. Each conflict and confrontation is unique and must be approached as such. Doctrine must be flexible. Practitioners must be flexible.
08/26/2010 at 3:49 PM
CGW, to your comment part 2:
I’m probably more in line with option 2. I see the role of XGW as the simplification of complexity by distilling the complexity down to basic principles and understanding how those principles interact with one another.
I’m not stealing COIN to benefit XGW or 5GW. If XGW and 5GW have merit, they will stand on their own without the co-optation of the latest thing in warfare. Honestly, it probably will cause more problems to try to work the two together because COIN is controvesial in its own right and because there are many incorrect and narrow preconceptions about it.
08/26/2010 at 4:03 PM
The heart of the problem, or at least one ventricle, is how counterinsurgency has become “COIN.” That acronym has taken on particular dimensions of it own, perhaps obscuring the fact that….counterinsurgency is the goal. I’m not speaking of all who use “COIN”, of course, and I wonder if our initial back-and-forth here and at FB might be related to the fact that I interpreted “COIN” as not just any counterinsurgency effort but rather as the doctrine that has become known as “COIN” in the way that word has been bandied about to describe many of the failing attempts to conduct counterinsurgency. “COIN” is a title, a specific reference to a particular doctrine, or at least that is my general interpretation of the way it is often used.
08/26/2010 at 6:45 PM
I have been using it interchangeably, but I see what you mean.
In that case COIN should be the doctrine of counterinsurgency in Iraq. Using COIN in Afghanistan is fatally flawed. What is needed is Af-COIN (where Af-COIN is warranted).
08/26/2010 at 7:40 PM