Friday 18 October 2013

The end of the COIN wars?

The period from around 2003 till the present - at least in terms of UK defence - has been dominated by the so called "COIN Wars" (COunter-INsurgency) in Iraq and Afghanistan. The fighting has been bloody and bitter. It has cost many hundreds of British fatalities and that's even before we get into the issue of suicides among post-tour service personnel. Thousands more have been left with a variety of lasting wounds, ranging from superficial scars to lost limbs and deep mental traumas.

This has been the human legacy of Iraq and Afghanistan, alongside the widely distributed images of coffins draped in British flags being carried off of aeroplanes and then driven solemnly through the streets of towns such as Royal Wotton Basset. The financial cost has also been enormous, with some estimates putting the cost of Afghanistan alone at around £40 billion by the time we withdraw.

Against this back drop, public appetite for future COIN wars seems slim. And thus the prevailing attitude among those with an interest in military matters seems to be that Britain will never again fight such a war, or at the very least not in the near future. 

My contention today is that this might prove to be wishful thinking. Indeed, if we find ourselves unprepared, it might in fact be very dangerous thinking.
 
The main reason I believe this to be wishful thinking is the simple fact that nobody starts a COIN war intentionally. I very much doubt that when Mr. Blair and Mr. Bush sat down to discuss either Afghanistan or Iraq that they thought even one of these would blow up into the fearsome conflicts that they ultimately became.

That for me is the real problem. You don't choose a COIN war, it chooses you. 

By its very definition a Counter-Insurgency campaign is a response to an insurgency. The insurgents are the ones who decide when and where the war will begin. They often get to decide how the war will be fought as well. The only real choice that exists for the potential COIN actor is whether to fight the insurgency or not. But even that is often taken out of their hands.

America became embroiled in Vietnam not because propping up the South Vietnamese regime seemed like a noble thing to do, but because it felt it had no other choice. The growing threat of communism meant that an intervention in South Vietnam was as much about proving American willingness to fight "the red spread" as it was about protecting the people of South Vietnam from the insurgents.

America didn't really have much of a choice about whether to get involved or not and once involved it did what it felt it had to in order to win, which ultimately meant American boots on the ground. Not a popular policy by any means, and certainly one that was difficult to explain to the American public, but one that in a sense it was backed into.

This reflects similar situations faced by Britain in both Malaysia in the 50's and then Oman in the 60's. Propping up the respective regimes out of altruistic kindness was not really on the cards. It was mostly about business. There was an identified advantage to Britain in fighting the insurgents in both cases and it was this that primarily drove British actions. The interest in fighting the IRA in  Northern Ireland was pretty obvious and requires little deep analysis.

The case for fighting the insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan may be a little harder to pin down in terms that make sense to the casual observer, but suffice to say that the British government saw an interest that required action and as such action was taken. 

The common thread running through all these, a thread that goes back to the Boer war and beyond, is that the governments hand is often forced when it comes to fighting insurgencies. To sit idly by and do nothing while an insurgent force gathers strength and gradually presses home its agenda is to invite disaster. There is seldom any other choice but to take military action.

On that basis I find it odd that people are so quick to dismiss the possibility of the UK becoming involved in another COIN war. If it does happen then history tells us that we wont have much of a choice in the matter. It's likely to occur in a region of the world where we have a vested interest, however tenuous that interest may seem to some. Predicting where such a campaign might happen is likely a thankless (and largely pointless) task.

Whether the public supports it or not will be largely irrelevant. Prior to the invasion of Iraq in 2003 there were many protests in London, with the largest rally estimated to have drawn almost a million people. Even 1.5% of the entire population marching in outrage is not enough to prevent a commons vote in favour of military action, if the commons believes the cause to be important and/or just. Labours re-election after the war also proved that it need not be a barrier to political success either.

The confluence of these factors means that - at least in my opinion - we are at no less a risk of getting involved in a COIN war now than we were in 2001 when the Taliban was toppled, or in 2003 when Saddam was knocked from his perch. Just because the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been costly does not, I would venture, make another COIN war less likely. It just makes one less desirable.

Despite the naysaying and assurances that we've seen the back of "boots on the ground", I fear that we are only kidding ourselves if we think we've seen an end to the potential spectre of another COIN war. My only hope is that when the next one comes around we'll be ready to apply the lessons so bloodily learned in the last decade and that we'll have the right equipment in place from day one.


*Just as an aside, I'd like to thank regular readers for sticking with this blog during a bit of a down period. I'm fairly certain that my schedule will clear up from this point onwards, at least till the new year, which leaves more time for posting. Again, many thanks. Spread the love!

** Also, a note to whoever manages Bloggers spell check. "Learned" is a real word in the English language. Please stop flagging it as an error.

16 comments:

  1. I totally agree. Iraq and Afghanistan may have been "Wars of Choice" but no-one wanted two COIN wars. There is also International Law based upon Just War theory, neatly summed up by Colin Powell "you break it, you own it" - this seems to me to be a major argument against the Strategic Raid concept, or at least it will be followed by an occupation which could lead to an insurgency.

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    1. Afternoon Gareth,

      I think the key trigger of whether we would accept a COIN war is how important the area is to us. And if we're bombing it in the first place, chances are it has some importance to us. The Strategic Raid concept is just one of those stupid phrases that people have come up with to make wars sound less war-y.

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  2. Chris C - Quite right - at any from the the Coronation of Victoria to the end of World War II European Statesmen understood that getting involved in these sorts of activities was likely to end in the acquisition of another Colony or at best an open-ended League of Nations Mandate...and proceeded accordingly. That knowledge was lost in the Cold War Era - during which the myth arose that "Colonialism" was always a planned activity undertaken by wicked Westerners (worst of all us) to plunder and subjugate various indigenous people - and in consequence after 1989 we settled on a Policy of Systematic Wishful Thinking, to the effect that we could pop in, sort things out and go home for tea and medals with the grateful thanks of the locals - "because we weren't evil colonialists, right, you know?"

    This is and was always bollocks and was based on a refusal to accept that the British and to a significant extent the French Empire were genuinely acquired at least in part in a "fit of absence of mind "...rather by some wicked European conspiracy.

    Before anyone quotes the Germans, Belgians or Italians please remember that they all came very late to the Imperial Party...and their conduct in the later years of the Nineteenth Century attracted opprobrium even then...

    aka GNB

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    1. Afternoon,

      Reading the stories of how some of the early colonies came about is actually quite amusing. To say Jamaica was an accident of history doesn't do the tale enough comedic justice.

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  3. Chris, whilst you may be correct about the effect of public opinion in 2001 I believe you are very wrong about it now. In the face of public oppisition Westminster would not even vote to allow missile attacks on Syria.
    We are many years away from a Parliament that would vote to put boots on the ground and in a grinder unless there was a clear and indisputable threat to UK national security. Something that has become more difficult to prive post Iraq dossier shenanigans.

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    1. Evening,

      A lot of the fumbling over Syria wasn't so much about whether or not to join the proposed attacks, as it was about the various factions vying for political capital and trying to one up each other. Ultimately none of them got what they wanted and they all ended up looking like arses. I'm not sure as any of it had to do with what the public wanted.

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    2. @Chris - Agreed - Milliband wanted to score points and put himself on the right side of "public opinion" (Whatever that is!)...he was completely thrown when Cameron took the military option off the table, and some of his own "big beasts" were spitting feathers.

      God only knows what Obama was about, much less Hollande...and in the end the only winner was Putin.

      Not the end of the world, but a bloody shambles in terms of Western Foreign Policy.

      aka GNB

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    3. Yes, Putin did do rather well for himself.

      One point though that the Greens and other flakey types seemed to have missed (as well as the press) is that the legitimate and imminent threat of force brought Putin to the table. He basically just gave up one of the last remaining large stockpiles of chemical weapons in order to save Assad from being over thrown. Depite that Caroline whats her names claims about how the no vote here saved the Syria situation, it was actually the yes vote in the US that saved it.

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    4. Gave up, or tucked safely away under Russian control and in circumstances which strengthen their grip on a useful but potentially wayward client state?

      Just a thought.

      aka GNB

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    5. They're supposed (!) to be destroyed in a controlled manner. The Russians can have them if they want.

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  4. Thanks for a very useful analysis. In particular the part about wars choosing you, and not vice versa. For example, the First Gulf War erupted in a period when a very popular meme was Fukuyama's claims about the End of History an the Triumph of Liberal Democracy.

    The next COIN war won't be fought by the country that wants to fight it, but by the country/ies capable of fighting it.

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    1. ... and/or the country/ies that have no choice but to fight it.

      Evening by the way Jon. Thanks for stopping by. I think it's funny that almost exactly twenty years after the Gulf War shattered the illusion of no more war, the Libyan campaign crushed any dream that the "Arab spring" would herald a new era of peace for the Arab world.

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  5. “That for me is the real problem. You don't choose a COIN war, it chooses you.”

    Would just like to say, Chris, that I agree with every word you say here.

    “My only hope is that when the next one comes around we'll be ready to apply the lessons so bloodily learned in the last decade and that we'll have the right equipment in place from day one.”

    Yes, the point about equipment is a very significant one. We fought the early years of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan very much without the right equipment and paid a horrible penalty. Those in charge of British Forces’ equipment policy will have to show the wisdom of Solomon in deciding upon the right balance between conventional, high intensity warfare kit and COIN kit. Personally, I can’t see why they can’t go more for hybrid, dual purpose kit such as the RG35.

    Sorry, will not be blogging all that much. The time factor, don’t you know.

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    1. Afternoon.

      Hopefully now the issue about designing vehicles to be IED resistant is guaranteed, such that we shouldn't find ourselves caught in a future campaign without such capabilities. The big question I suspect will be about whether we keep stocks of all the electronic jamming kit and so on, the add ons if you will. Would be rather annoying if we had to go back and replace all that stuff again in the future.

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  6. Not COIN exactly but similar enough to post here I believe (behind paywall unfortunately)...

    http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/defence/article3912310.ece

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    1. Not sure The Times is worth the money ;)

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