Non-Lethal COIN
Examined by Capt. Gorkowski, operations officer for 25th ID’s 3BCT special troops battalion at Small Wars Journal:
In the battle for the support of the population, it is not the capture of the Zarqawis or the Bin Ladens that will defeat the insurgency in Iraq. Nor is it the cordon and search of the villages that have had their doors kicked in by every coalition force rotation over the past four years … One staple in an insurgency is the role of the population, and counterinsurgents must apply that knowledge to all actions and inactions. A method that effectively gains popular support in one geographic area may actually be counter-productive in another due to fundamental differences in the ways of life. Many factors contribute to the way people think and feel. Counterinsurgents cannot fully develop techniques that will affect thought and emotion unless they are immersed in the situation. Counterinsurgents need small unit leaders with the mental capacity and agility to think on their own to develop solutions not found in field manuals. They must be adaptive and continually reexamine the insurgent and population to be most successful in developing methods that are effective in defeat.
This article does not attempt to provide a solution to fight the insurgency in Iraq. It does provide insight on successful methods that can be applied to the current situation. An insurgency’s success is fundamentally based on its level of popular support. The counterinsurgent’s success is therefore intertwined with the limitation of the insurgent support base. Critical to the attainment of popular support for counterinsurgents is the presence of non-lethal effects. Non-lethal effects can simply be defined as the results of all actions that are not designed to kill. Primary contributors are civil affairs, public affairs, information operations, and psychological operations. Efforts must focus on effecting how people think and how counterinsurgent actions or inactions affect those thoughts.
The full article is a lot more technical, OK, wonkish than yesterday’s Counterinsurgency Cliff Notes, but again offering a lot of useful insight. Bigger picture, higher level planning and ops than the rifle platoon leader was addressing. Gorkowski, with diagrams for added wonkish effect, looks at non-lethal strategy and tactics in the counterinsurgency in Iraq. PDF here.
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 8:22 pm on Wednesday, April 30, 2008
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