Fallujah & Mao
 

From a blog. I won't link it because I don't think we want them over here.

Any thoughts?

What if they left? Mao and Guerrilla Warfare

Much media hand-wringing has been heard in the last 48 hours about insurgents possibly escaping the city.

How to take this? First a few quotes from Mao Tse-Tung, who successfully prosecuted a variety of guerrilla campaigns before bequeathing such lovely things as the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution to history [note: for an excellent film about these events, rent the movie, Huozhe (1994) ("To Live")].

I use the text of Mao's book translated by Brig. Gen. Samuel B. Griffith II, USMC, who had a PhD in Chinese military history from Oxford. Mao's text was written in 1937.

Mao's political goal was the complete emancipation of the Chinese people from the Japanese. He states the fundamental steps necessary as these:

1. Arouse and organize the people.
2. Achieve internal unification politically.
3. Establish bases.
4. Equip forces.
5. Recover national strength.
6. Destroy enemy national strength.
7. Regain lost territories.

Six full pages of this book are dedicated to the importance of establishing bases. Let's focus on that, as it is the most relevant to the Fallujah battle. Here are some further quotes:

"The problem of establishment of bases is of particular importance."

"The guerrilla base may be defined as an area, strategically located, in which the guerrillas can carry out their duties of training, self-preservation, and development. Ability to fight a war without a rear area is a fundamental characteristic of guerrilla action, but ths does not mean that guerrillas can exist and function over a long period of time without the development of base areas."

And here we have the way to understand what is happening in Fallujah. The battle is accomplishing several goals:

1. Kill all those who fight us.
2. Eliminate a base of operations for terrorist and anti-Iraq forces.
3. Establish a representative government, politically friendly or part of the national government.
4. Allow Iraqi forces to participate in the battles and to build their warfighting skills, and the legitimacy of their government.
5. Defeat various means of insurgent media-strength: safe places to keep hostages; inflated casualty figures.
6. Destroy insurgent command and control networks.
7. Exploit intelligence.

The insurgency now has no base in Fallujah. It will soon have no base in Ramadi or the other few towns where insurgents are massed. An insurgency without a base cannot survive. The only places that will be left for bases will be outside the country . . . Syria, Iran, etc, . . .

this thesis omits to mention that much of the Iraqi cityscape is a spotted mess of base areas.

guerrillas swim in the ocean of the populace, to hijack Mao's own dictum, and it is enough if guerrillas are able to coerce grudging acceptance of their presence from the population.

the hard fact is, until Abdul Average Iraqi believes that the guerrillas are harming his own interests to a point where he feels that he must act against them, the broader populace will remain a petri dish where guerrillas can survive, and sometimes flourish.

it is good, on the other hand, to deny guerrillas internal sanctuaries where they can plan, train, fit and refit, and retire after action. Forcing them use sanctuaries outside the country lengthens their lines of communication, and eases interdiction.

But we should also recognize that there is a difference, particularly from the Maoist perspective, between an underground resistance organization, and guerrillas.

guerrillas present far more of a target, and can often be neutralized when they mass by superior tactics and firepower. An underground....that is primarily a law enforcement and intelligence challenge, and it is in combatting the underground that we are getting our asses handed to us.

I agree with everything you just said Brother, except - in the third world. Its late and I'm tired, so I'm going to bed. I'll be back manana to 'splian why.

cool, hermano.

te espero.

s.
-

Corruption!
 

Is that what you were going to say? :munchin

No, despite the rosy picture of Mao's regime painted by...well...Mao's regime, it was probably just as corrupt as the rest.

Let's hear what some of the 18Xers and general membership think.

I would like to know what percentage of the Iraqi population is part of the insurgency. Is this really a discrete group or are we at war with Islam? :munchin

Northern Iraq with the Kurds appears calm.

Southern Iraq with the Shia appears calm, except for periodic agitation by al Sadr.

The Sunni Triangle, which contains a fraction of the population of Iraq, is the main hotbed of unrest, and a small percentage of the people there support the terrorists. An even smaller percentage are actually terrorists.

If we can keep the rest of the country calm, whittle the numbers of terrorists down while avoiding adding to their numbers or allowing foreign fighters to enter the country, and dissipate their popular support, I see little future in their cause.

Just my .02, YMMV.

TR

Well, less than 25k have been holding Colombia, population of about 43MM, hostage for 40 years. There were estimates a couple of years ago that the 25k were in control of about 60% of rural Colombia. They used a lot of the same tactics.

What sayeth the magic birthday boy with respect to these assessments? :munchin

Guy? :munchin

But the Iraqi tangos don't have 360,000 square miles of jungle to hide in, right? :munchin

Some would argue that the Colombian government and its forces have failed to eliminate the insurgency there for their own reasons.

Not to take away from the Colombians, but I would propose that the American forces in Iraq and the new Iraqi forces together are significantly more effective fighting forces than the Fuerzas Armadas de Colombia.

TR

well....big bite to chew on...but here goes.

The South, per se, is relatively quieter, because the majority of the population there believe that their time to rule is nigh. The Shia support the current roadmap to representative government because historically, they have been suppressed and oppressed by the Sunni minority, and they can do math.

That said, it is perilous to ascribe uniform behavior and beliefs to any population, as the larger your sample, the more that schisms and exceptions emerge. And indeed this is the case with the Shia, with Sadr and his "army" merely one example.

It is also important to remember that Iraq is more than just Shia, Sunni, and Kurd, with a small Christian minority keeping its head down. Tribal affiliations are also important, and it is tribal affiliations which often serve as faultlines within the larger religious groupings.

And then, you have the wildcards represented by the Jihadis, and the criminals, or those who have resorted to criminal activities, due to the extreme economic disruption and dislocation of the occupation.

Trying to analyze Iraq is like trying to be systematic about a kaleidescope.

I would also advise reading what my esteemed brother and colleague The Reaper wrote very carefully:

I would like to gently point out that it is not so important that a "small percentage of the people there support the terrorists," as historically, a virulent underground does not require a huge infrastructure or broad apparatus as much as it requires well-placed sympathizers and co-conspirators. We all know that one mole in the right place can cripple entire governments, and anecdotes from Iraq are replete with tales of endemic insurgent penetrations of Iraqi police, military, and national guard forces.

More significantly, it is that the majority of the population tolerates the presence of what they term "resistance fighters," perhaps through misguided Islamic allegiance, or traditions of hospitality, or because of intimidation and fear to act.

It is not necessary for the majority of the population to support the Jihadis. It is enough if the majority of the population simply tolerates their presence, and does not act to expel them from their villages and neighborhoods and cities.

I would also point out that it is better for our enemy, in fact, in strategic terms, if the Jihadis are numerically small in number. Their target profile is accordingly lessened, and their vulnerability to penetration diminished. Given the destructive potency of modern weapons of war, and the emergence of the IED in all its permutations as the insurgent weapon of choice, it is simply not necessary for many Jihadis to wage war on US forces, and the nascent Iraqi security forces. It is enough if small cells with evolved expertise do so. In fact, their security is improved.

I personally would like to thank the Jihadis for congregating in places like Fallujah. They are easier to kill.

Until we are somehow able to find a prescription for broadening the security umbrella, and consolidating simple peace and order over stable swaths of territory and population concentrations, we are chasing a chimera in Iraq. Until the equation can be somehow changed, and Abdullah Average Iraqi is motivated to inform on insurgents laying low in the house next door, we will forever be reacting to insurgent strikes, rather than effectively targeting insurgent units, and their internal lines of communication. We will remain on the defensive, and the initiative will remain with the bad guys.

I have been receiving reports from pals elsewhere in Iraq, and it is apparent to me that the assault on Fallujah, vital and necessary as it was, may have merely precipitated the wider distribution of insurgents throughout broader parts of the country. Truly draconian population control measures are required in Iraq, with Soviet-style internal passports and ubiquitous checkpoints and roving patrols. These measures are inimical to a flourishing economy, which fundamentally is the one thing that can save Iraq.

Then, we need the equivalent of neighborhood block security committees, and we have to start running agents and hiring informants everywhere. And this will require an Iraqi infrastructure of security institutions which no longer exists.

Unfortunately, the cure for Iraq may be inimical to the spirit of democratic institutions. In a place that has no tradition of democracy, but does have some experience with fascism, and the features of a police state, an Iraq that is kept from the clutches of the Mullahs in Iran, or is somehow contiguously saved from the chaos of civil war, may come to resemble its old self under Saddam more than we would like to admit.

I would like to write more, but I am getting chased out of the office. Maybe tomorrow. And besides, I am hungry.

:)

I suggest a little research into the success of the anti-Communist operations in Thailand in the 70s and early 80s, especially the establishment of economic situations that created incentives for the population to not tolerate the insurgents.

Concur with Magician's insightful analysis, and GH's comment.

This is something I have touched on before in other threads. Mao said that the guerrilla in the populace must be as a fish in the water.

When the average Iraqi sees that the terrorists are more of a perceived threat to him than the government forces, and starts providing actionable intel, then we will see this violence coming to an end.

It remains to be seen whether the elections in January will cause this to happen as the Iraqis finally have their own freely elected government, or whether the elections will spawn more violence as the losing factions attempt to destabilize the elected government.

As GH stated, once the population has an incentive to at least provide intel if not directly act against the terrorists, their days will be numbered. Hearts, minds, or pocketbooks, that is the key to winning this war.

TR