The 2 most devastating 4GW attacks on America, and the roots of FM 3-24

Summary:  building COIN strategies upon our ability to successfully change foreign societies (from infornmation operations up to governmental reform) is like basing our monetary policy on our ability to change straw into gold. 

The United States has suffered several devastating 4GW attacks since WWII, perhaps the two worst being…

•  Ignoring the recommendation of the Moynihan Report (”The Negro Family: The Case For National Action“, US Department of Labor, March 1965).  Instead of providing government support to black Americans in a way that supported their families, Federal support was exquisitely designed to undermine their family and community structures.  The result is a large almost dysfunctional underclass, with areas like Harlem in worse shape than they were in 1964.  (see Obama’s comment, below)
• The credibility of the US government in the eyes of its people has been shattered, so that its statements are widely considered lies.  “Never believe anything the government says until the second denial.”  Economic statistics are considered manipulated by many on Wall Street.  Many African-Americans believe that the US government distributed crack and started the AIDS epidemic. 

That is, these would have been devastating 4GW attacks on America, of the fashionable “cultural warfare” and info-ops variants — except that we were the agents.  These are major failures in our government’s social engineering.  We have to do better; our apparent inability to do so is a major factor in the decline of the state.  But that is not the point of this post.

If basic social engineering is often beyond our capabilities at home — where our knowledge and tools are considerable — what about our ability to do this in foreign lands, the keystone to modern COIN theory?  For example, before doing info-ops or seeking to alter a society, what must one know about that society?

Excerpt from FM 3-24 (the new COIN manual): 

3-36. Once the social structure has been thoroughly mapped out, staffs should identify and analyze the culture of the society as a whole and of each major group within the society. S ocial structure comprises the relationships among groups, institutions, and individuals within a society; in contrast, culture (ideas, norms, rituals, codes of behavior) provides meaning to individuals within the society. F or example, families are a core institutional building block of social structure found everywhere. However, marital monogamy, expectations of a certain number of children, and willingness to live with in-laws are highly variable in different societies.  They are matters of culture.

Social structure can be thought of as a skeleton, with culture being the muscle on the bones. The two are mutually dependent and reinforcing. A change in one results in a change in the other.

How many Army officers could sketch out such a description of their hometowns?   At least this is possible for a team of experts to produce.  But how many people with such deep knowledge of foreign regions does DoD have?  Very few, if our lack of expertise about Iraq before the invasion is typical.  Will DoD have the necessary area experts on staff to plan the next war (e.g., Indonesia)?

Once they have this knowledge, what will our COIN warriors do in these foreign lands?

5-1. Counterinsurgency (COIN) operations require synchronized application of military, paramilitary, political, economic, psychological, and civic actions. Successful counterinsurgents support or develop local institutions with legitimacy and the ability to provide basic services, economic opportunity, public order, and security.  The political issues at stake are often rooted in culture, ideology, societal tensions, and injustice.  As such, they defy nonviolent solutions.

Military forces can compel obedience and secure areas; however, they cannot by themselves achieve the political settlement needed to resolve the situation.  Successful COIN efforts include civilian agencies, U.S. military forces, and multinational forces. T hese efforts purposefully attack the basis for the insurgency rather than just its fighters and comprehensively address the host nation’s core problems.  Host-nation (HN) leaders must be purposefully engaged in this effort and ultimately must take lead responsibility for it.

Can we send some of these teams to America’s inner cities?  They need help, even after a 25-year long economic expansion (Detroit is already the urban equivalent of a failed state).  Their assistance will be desperately needed after the next recession, esp. if it is severe and long.

FM 3-24 has pages of this stuff.  FM 3-24 effectively uses social science terminology and analytical frameworks to describe COIN dynamics.  But it advocates using social science theories to manipulate foreign societies.  This will likely fail on several levels.

1. It will not work, as the social sciences are as yet immature.  Its practitioners cannot wield their theories as can chemists and physicists.  Twentieth century history is largely a series of failed attempts at social engineering.
2. If US social scientiests were able to do so at home, that does not mean that they can do so in foreign lands.
3. If this was possible to do in foreign lands, the US military might not have the necessary organization or talent to do so.  This probably requires Thomas Barnett’s “System Administrators“, a 21st century organization of colonial civil servants.

This does not mean that all or even most of the advice in FM 3-24 is bad.  Just that FM 3-24’s analytical foundation is probably inadequate for its purpose, which should make us suspicious of its efficacy.  Rather than a work of science, it might be more like a cookbook — or like a 19th century apothecary’s handbook.  Events in Iraq will tell us much about these things, if carefully and coldly considered.

Conclusion and notes 

FM 3-24 is a theoretical solution to 4GW of the second kind (hardware, ideas, people).   Like most such, its content is exciting but our ability to implement it seems questionable.  COIN might be like a star drive or quantum-point energy source – something valuable but beyond our current knowledge.  

For more on the Moynihan report see “Moynihan, Welfare Reform, and the Myth of “Benign Neglect”“, Larry DeWitt (October 2005).

Update:  Barack Obama commented on the impact of government aid programs on black Americans in his speech “A More Perfect Union” (18 March 2008):

A lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for one’s family, contributed to the erosion of black families - a problem that welfare policies for many years may have worsened.

Please share your comments by posting below (brief and relevant, please), or email me at fabmaximus at hotmail dot com (note the spam-protected spelling).

For more information about these things

For more about the difficulty of successfully using the social science insights in FM 3-24:  A key to the power of FM 3-24, the new COIN manual.

For an archive of links to articles about the role of social scientists in the Long War, see Antropologists go to war AND Revolt of the Anthropologists. I recommend starting with te González February 2008 article. This debate provides a fascinating view into the murky nature of 4GW!

For an archive of links to articles by and about the best known of the West’s warrior-anthropologists, see The Essential 4GW reading list: chapter 3, David Kilcullen.

See Archive of links to articles about the Iraq War for my other articles on the Iraq War.