Problem with enemy-centric COIN: If there are ten insurgents and you kill four of them, you do not necessarily have six remaining. You may have twenty because the relatives of the deceased are angry at you for killing their relatives.
Solution: Conduct population-centric COIN to secure the population and marginalize the insurgents without creating more insurgents.
Wait a minute. Still, problem: Even when you protect the population, and avoid killing reconcilable insurgents, you are still fighting the original ten insurgents, plus the additional relatives, because they are eventually paid to fight against you.
Pop-COIN: 10 + 14 = 24
Enemy-COIN: 10 – 4 + 14 = 20
That is obviously a bit oversimplified, given that those driven to fight for
badal will probably be a tad bit more motivated than those driven to fight for
dinero. But the futility of population-centric COIN should be evident when conducting it does not lessen the capability of insurgency.
An enemy-centric approach results in killing and capturing personnel and weapons, thus reducing a finite pool of recruits from which the insurgents can draw. It also increases the demanded price for services among a populace that realizes it has a much higher chance of getting blown away when it takes up arms against the counterinsurgent. A population-centric approach merely increases the required troops on our end, increases our logistical requirements, slows the pace of our operations, and reinforces the perception among the people that they need to remain on the fence and be ready to play either side, since there is no decisive advantage being obtained by either.
One of the saints of the pop-COIN religion, Sir Robert Thompson, is widely quoted:
“What the peasant wants to know is: does the government mean to win the war? Because if not, he will have to support the insurgent.”
That is certainly true in Afghanistan. We insist on moving into areas temporarily and then leaving; or moving into areas and demonstrating our inability to meet the needs or demands of the populace. There is an expectation that areas will return to Taliban control. So the people must sit on the fence and be ready to cooperate with the insurgents when they return. So what is the utility of pop-COIN? Are we gleaning better intelligence because of our demonstrated willingness to protect the population? Not likely. Who wants to be outed as an informant when ISAF leaves the village and the Taliban return?
Both approaches have their utility, METT-TC dependent. It seems quite a leap of faith to think that Afghanistan is an appropriate venue for a country-wide, population-centric approach.
One thing that I think many people forget about Iraq (or maybe it wasn't reported?) is that in 2007 and 2008 we were killing and capturing lots of people on a nightly basis. Protecting the populace was A priority. When speaking to the folks back home, in order to sell the war, perhaps we said that it was the priority. But on the ground, I do not recall a single Commander's Update Brief spending any time at all discussing what we had done to protect anyone. We were focused on punching al-Qaeda in the nuts at every opportunity and dismantling their networks. The reconcilables got the message loud and clear that they could take money and jobs in return for cooperation, or they would die a swift death when we came knocking down their doors in the middle of the night. The rest of the populace made it clear to them that they should take the offer. The only protection that the population got from us was good fire discipline so that we did not kill non-combatants. We made it clear that the government intended to win this thing and we did not send that message by delivering governance or digging wells. We shot motherfuckers in the face.
Pop-COIN blasphemers, your scripture is false teaching. Here is some truth:
To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
- Ecclesiastes 3:1-3 (KJV)
It's time to kill.