Militia - the ultimate defense against 4GW

Summary:  This essay sketches out what might be our most reliable defense against 4GW — a militia.  Militia have deep roots in western history, and many of these advantages can work for America today.  Militia also are problematic for several reasons.  These issues must be considered when designing their recruitment, training, and organization.  This is a slightly revised version of an essay published in September 2005.

The home court advantage is powerful in 4GW.  Since Mao brought 4GW to maturity, local forces waging 4GW often defeat better organized, trained and equipped foreign forces.  Another way to say this:  in 4GW defense is the strongest mode of warfare, as it has often been in the past.  COIN expert David Killcullen implicitly recognised this in the first article of his famous and widely cited “Twenty-Eight Articles: Fundamentals of Company-Level Counterinsurgency” Military Review, (May - June 2006).

Know the people, the topography, economy, history, religion and culture.  Know every village, road, field, population group, tribal leader and ancient grievance.  Your task is to become the world expert on your district.

The superiority of defense is not a new aspect of war, as seen in these quotes from Clausewitz’s On War.

As we shall show, defense is a stronger form of fighting than attack. … I am convinced that the superiority of the defensive (if rightly understood) is very great, far greater than appears at first sight.
{Book 1, Chapter 1}

“Mexico: On the Road to a Failed State?”

Martin van Creveld’s theory that the 21st century will see the “decline of the State”, a reversal of the long ascent of the State since the Treaties of Westphasia ended the 30 Years War in 1648.  His critics say that there is so far insufficient evidence.  Mexico may soon provide an unmistakable example.

If events in the Middle East deserve the attention they have recieved, how much more should we allocate to stabilizing Mexico — or, as a Plan B, containing the effects of its collapse?

Other articles about Mexico:

1. Is Mexico unraveling?  (28 April 2008)
2. “High Stakes South of the Border”  (13 May 2008)
3. “Mexico: Examining Cartel War Violence Through a Protective Intelligence Lens“, Stratfor (14 May 2008)
4. “Crime and Punishment in Mexico: The big picture beyond drug cartel violence“, posted at Grits for Breakfast (18 May 2008)

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).

“Mexico: On the Road to a Failed State?“, By George Friedman, Stratfor (13 May 2008) — Reprinted with permission.

Edgar Millan Gomez was shot dead in his own home in Mexico City on May 8. Millan Gomez was the highest-ranking law enforcement officer in Mexico, responsible for overseeing most of Mexico’s counternarcotics efforts. He orchestrated the January arrest of one of the leaders of the Sinaloa cartel, Alfredo Beltran Leyva. (Several Sinaloa members have been arrested in Mexico City since the beginning of the year.) The week before, Roberto Velasco Bravo died when he was shot in the head at close range by two armed men near his home in Mexico City. He was the director of organized criminal investigations in a tactical analysis unit of the federal police. The Mexican government believes the Sinaloa drug cartel ordered the assassinations of Velasco Bravo and Millan Gomez. Combined with the assassination of other federal police officials in Mexico City, we now see a pattern of intensifying warfare in Mexico City.

Is Mexico unraveling?

Here are some excerpts from Stratfor’s weekly “Mexico Security Memos”, perhaps the best window (in America) to the events in our southern neighbor. Mexico’s internal security situation continues to deteriorate, another “Decline of the State” in progress (as described by Martin van Creveld in Rise and Decline of the State). These are just a sample, but they are all like this, to a greater or lesser degree.

The situation is far gone when gangs hit police chiefs and Army colonels with impunity. This has serious implications for America, and our mainstream media have not covered this story adequately, imo.

21 May 2007: Mexico: A Deteriorating Security Situation

About 150 state police officers in Mexico’s northern Nuevo Leon state went on strike May 21, demanding higher salaries and more resources to fight organized crime, which has claimed the lives of six state police officers in the past four days. Given that drug cartels have increasingly targeted police, army and government personnel in response to a federal campaign to combat organized crime — and are showing no signs of stopping — the security situation in Mexico likely will continue deteriorating.

11 March 2008: Organized Crime in Mexico

The media discover info ops, with outrage!

The media have discovered that our military has mastered the key 4GW skill of running information operations.  Thoroughly researched and well-written, the following is probably one of the most important news stories of the year.   I strongly recommend reading it.

“Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand“, New York Times, 20 April 2008 — “A Pentagon Campaign:  Retired officers have been used to shape terrorism coverage from inside the TV and radio networks. “

This should not be news.  In November 2007 I described good news:  our military had learned how to run successful information operations.  Unfortunately, they were running them against us.  Mine was not the first such article. 

One of the best to date examined the propaganda of the pre-war and early war phases.  Boehlert’s account of Bush’s Imperial press conference on 6 March 2003 is worth the price of his book, recounting the moment in which “please stand for the President of the United States” in effect gave way to to “bow before the President of the United States.”

“Lapdogs“, Eric Boehlert, Salon (4 May 2006) — “Cowardly and clueless, the U.S. media abandoned its post as Bush led the country into a disastrous war. A look inside one of the great journalistic collapses of our time. This is an excerpt from former Salon senior writer Eric Boehlert’s new book Lapdogs: How the Press Rolled Over for Bush.”

Many do not see any problem with this, like this post at Winds of Change.  Almost nobody discusses the real problem with government propaganda:  it undermines people’s trust of and identification with the State.  That is bad even for tyrannies like the USSR; it is a potentially terminal problem for a republic. 

Whatever the short-term benefits of info ops — in this case, building public support for a long war — it undermines the foundation of our political regime.  That should be an unacceptable price in the Decline of the State era, in which strengthening people’s relationship with the government must be a paramount strategic goal.

Update:  A comment about this story by W. Patrick Lang (Colonel, US Army, retired), posted at Sic Semper Tyrannis (19 April 2008):

I was invited to one briefing at the Pentagon. At the meeting, many of those mentioned in this article were present. The purpose of the meeting was to give Rumsfeld the chance to explain the Abu Ghraib mess. I asked some awkward questions and was not invited again.

Update:  A comment by Matt Armstrong at MountainRunner (23 April 2008) that concurs with my conclusion (mentioned above).  The full post is worth reading!  Excerpt:

In the end, I don’t see this as an issue of legality, but one of credibility and trust. The Rumsfeldian Defense Department clearly failed to understand the importance of these two elements in Information Age conflict and counterinsurgency, which has been ably documented elsewhere.

( click for more about how our military has mastered this key 21st century military skill)

The Essential 4GW reading list: Martin van Creveld

The central role of Professor van Creveld in the development of 4GW theory is difficult to exaggerate. He has provided both the broad historical context — looking both forward and back in time — much of the analytical work, and a large share of the real work in publishing both academic and general interest books. He does not use the term 4GW, preferring to speak of “non-trinitarian” warfare — but his work is foundational for 4GW just the same.

Professor van Creveld has written about almost every significant aspect of war — technology, logistics, air power and maneuver warfare, the training of officers, the role of women in combat, military history (several books), nuclear proliferation, and strategy (several books).   He has written about the future of war –  The Transformation of War (which I consider the best work to date about modern war) and The Changing Face of War.  Then there is his magnum opus, The Rise and Decline of the State – the ur-text describing the political order of the 21st century.

Here are links to reviews of his latest book, The Changing Face of War: a review by William Lind and my review.

Now comes Culture and War, hopefully explaining the 4GW hellfire infecting so much of the world — while the rest of us enjoy peace and a rate of economic growth not seen since the invention of agriculture.  And what their passion for war might mean for us.

Contrary to what Clausewitz and so many “realists” believe, war is not simply a means to an end. It is that, but it also exercises a powerful fascination in its own right; out of this fascination grew, and continues to grow, an entire culture.  That culture ranges from the shapes and decoration of the armor of ancient Spartan warriors to today’s high tech “tiger suits;” from war games played by the ancient Egyptians to today’s violent video games; and from the Biblical commandments as to how one should treat one’s enemies all the way to the numbered paragraphs of today’s international law.  It also includes countless great works of art, books (both fiction and history), films, and much more.

Renowned author and war historian Martin van Creveld argues that, in spite of cultural, technological, and tactical changes, the culture of war, far from being obsolete, is more alive today as it has ever been.  Conversely, a society which, for one reason or another, loses touch with this culture will be helpless in front of one that has retained it and relishes in it.

Your can pre-order this at Amazon or Random House.  Available 30 September 2008.

For one application of his work, a demonstration of their utility, see How to accurately forecast trends of the Iraq War.

Wikipedia biography of van Creveld.

Here are links to his works that are available on the Internet — all of these are very much worth reading!   Please send links for anything not listed to fabmaximus at hotmail dot com {this is the spam-protected form of the address, to fool bots}.

The Rioting in France and the Decline of the State

 In many nations, both rich and poor, the State’s governing mechanisms remain strong; but its hold on the hearts of its subjects weakens every generation. And it was only that loyalty that allowed the machinery to get built. When that loyalty goes, this machinery will seize up and then rust away.

The Decline of the State is to political theorists as is a singularity to astronomers. Just a theory. Difficult to prove because we cannot see it directly, but only see its influence on events around it. Both constitute a veil; we can only imagine what lies beyond.

We will skip the conventional claptrap on which the media obsess: the root causes of the riots, the government programs both necessary and sufficient to cure them, and the apocalyptical nature of the situation.  Let’s focus on comments of the government and media observers. As always, smart money will bet that they are wrong.

“The absence of dialog and the escalation of disrespect lead to a dangerous situation.”
     President Jacques Chirac

The Plame Affair and the Decline of the State

Here are some speculative thoughts on the Plame Affair seen through the prism of two familiar DNI themes: the Decline of the State and 4GW.  We will start slowly, attempting to clear away details that obscure the important underlying meanings.What is the Plame affair not about?

1.  This is not a policy dispute, certainly not over the decision to invade Iraq.

Excerpt from Special Counsel Fitzgerald’s Press Conference on October 28:

FITZGERALD: This indictment is not about the war. This indictment’s not about the propriety of the war. And people who believe fervently in the war effort, people who oppose it, people who have mixed feelings about it should not look to this indictment for any resolution of how they feel or any vindication of how they feel.

Both parties overwhelmingly voted for the war, to the extent Congress actually votes on anything these days. Hillary is an enthusiastic supporter of the Iraq Expedition. Kerry campaigned as an experienced Warrior on a platform of staying the course in Iraq. Now he boldly advocates withdrawing 20,000 US troops after the December 17 Iraq elections.

The domestic opposition to the War centers on the political extremes. The left seems more vocal, but fringe right-wing figures such as Patrick Buchanan and William Lind have actively opposed it from the beginning.

2.  It’s not about disclosure of a covert agent’s identity

Much of the commentary on this is guilty of Assuming a Fact Not In Evidence.  Plame’s status in the CIA is the central conundrum of the story, the foundation for the Left’s lurid descriptions of our damaged National Security and calls for Impeachment.

Libby’s indictment does not even attempt to establish that Plume’s status was protected under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982. It appears impossible to do so according to the little information publicly known.