[Cross-posted at the Jamestown Project]
One of the many issues of counterinsurgency campaigns is that it’s never entirely clear when the war is over. There’s rarely a surrender, as such, or a ceremony that can be anointed as The Moment. There’s no V-E Day, V-J Day, or anything similar. The point of insurgencies is to delay or deny that moment; the goal of counterinsurgencies is less to win a grand decisive battle or campaign than to convince large number of insurgents to give up the effort or, better yet, come over to your side (cf. Anbar Awakening).
The result is that knowing when the war is over, when one side has won a military victory, is frequently deeply difficult. When Teddy Roosevelt declared victory in the Philippines on July 4, 1902, it had more to do with domestic politics than military realities. Ironically, winning can lead to a withdrawal (“bringing the soldiers home”), but withdrawal is also what nations waging counterinsurgencies often do when they’re losing. The potential for confusion is obvious. Nor does winning mean that the violence has ended. In fact, the violence can go on for decades after the moment the war has “ended.”
In fact, there is a continuum of time when a combatant like the United States might declare the war to have ended and bring the troops home. That could be when the war is going badly and the U.S. feels it no longer worth waging (as happened in Vietnam), it could be when the war has reached some form of stalemate that the U.S. does not feel can be broken (Malaysia, for the British), or it could be when the situation has reached a comparatively stable point that looks like as much of a victory as is possible (Greece in the late 1940s).
Having said that, this is pretty much as close as one gets to military victory in a counterinsurgency: Iraq, 2009. American fatalities have dropped massively since the start of the surge and remained low:
Nor is this because U.S. forces are isolating themselves in fortified operating bases. Rather, they are more spread out and vulnerable at this point than they were during the height of the recession, parceled out in penny packets among the population.
And the Iraqi population is feeling secure:
There is a functioning, democratic government in place, albeit one with serious issues of corruption and patronage. The growing dominance of foreign elements in the insurgency (or at least that perception) has transferred some of the legitimacy of nationalism to the Iraqi government and its security forces. The inevitable problem with constructing a nationalist alternative to the insurgency is that that government stands as a reasonable alternative to the U.S., a sense that is reflected in continuing Iraqi distrust of America. The United States is an interloper in the political and military system it helped build. Perhaps, such a moment is the closest thing possible to victory in a counterinsurgency campaign: when there is a credible voice to tell you that it’s time to go home.
18 comments
March 17, 2009 at 7:10 am
PorJ
Very interesting post. But I’m curious about an argument – I’m not sure what you’d call it, but its kind of a “Heisenberg principle” of insurgency studies – that counter-insurgency campaigns actually change the dynamics of the country involved in (relatively) unknowable manners (and by focusing on insurgency/counter-insurgency, you miss these changes). Short version: we can’t really know if we won in “Iraq” because Iraq in 2009 is so quantitatively and qualitatively different than Iraq in 2003-2004. For instance: the internal barriers between Sunni and Shiite, the rise of federalism to bizarre proportions – how many countries is/are Iraq now?
March 17, 2009 at 7:14 am
kid bitzer
every ied collapses a wave-packet….
March 17, 2009 at 7:35 am
LizardBreath
Right. I hate using the word ‘victory’ in this context, when what’s meant is ‘a situation that’s much better than it was in Iraq in 2005′, rather than ‘a situation that’s better than it was in Iraq in 2002.’
March 17, 2009 at 8:29 am
JPool
Reductions in hostilities can be an opportunity for forces to reorganize and rearm or it can be a time to remember that maybe its easier not to be fighting and killing all the time. It may or may not be a victory, but it’s as good a time as any to begin pulling out.
As a semi-casual observer, I was doubtful about how effective the surge would be going in, mostly because the civil war between ethnic militias seemed so deeply entrenched by that point, and it seemed likely that either we’d get sucked into one or more sides in that, or that we’d wind up alienating everybody. The combination of Al Qaeda in Iraq shooting itself in the face and the real changes in our approach to local insurgencies (deck clearing with militias rather than demands for immediate surrender) seems to have made a real difference out in the provinces. Is there good reporting on whether anything substantial has changed inside Iraq’s cities that folks could recommend?
March 17, 2009 at 8:29 am
ajay
it could be when the war has reached some form of stalemate that the U.S. does not feel can be broken (Malaysia, for the British)
This is a very odd way to describe the end of the Malayan Emergency. The MCP was not “stalemated”; it was effectively defeated.
March 17, 2009 at 8:45 am
Anderson
So if we pull out and the country bursts into civil war, will we have to re-evaluate this “victory” evaluation?
Aristotle says not to count any man happy until he is dead — and not even then, necessarily.
March 17, 2009 at 9:40 am
silbey
Short version: we can’t really know if we won in “Iraq” because Iraq in 2009 is so quantitatively and qualitatively different than Iraq in 2003-2004.
I don’t really know how to answer that question, I’m afraid. I don’t think that your concern is particularly unique to counterinsurgency, though. Conventional war changes the dynamics of the countries fighting it in substantial ways as well.
I hate using the word ‘victory’ in this context,
It’s a serious concern, and the reason I used “military victory” rather than simply “victory.” I would say this is about as uncomplicated a military victory as is possible in counterinsurgency (noting all the caveats of predicting the future etc. etc). Whether it’s a victory in a larger strategic, diplomatic sense is much more complicated.
The MCP was not “stalemated”; it was effectively defeated
The British pulled out in 1957, and the emergency was not declared over until 1960 (to be renewed in the late 1960s). My description isn’t the traditional one, but I think it fits.
Aristotle says not to count any man happy until he is dead — and not even then, necessarily.
In the 1970s, when asked about the results of the French Revolution, Zhou Enlai said “It is too early to say.”
Or, to bring this into connection with John Maynard Keynes “In the long run, we’re all dead.”
March 17, 2009 at 10:58 am
timb
Yeah, I applaud the Anbar Awakening and wish we would have taken their offer back in 2004…nonetheless, oil sharing is still not dealt with and the major Kurdish separatist problem in the North (as well as the future of Mosul) have not resolved.
Add to that fact, al-Sadr’s decision to study Islam in Iran most likely had more to do with outlasting the American occupation. When he comes back and re-radicalizes the Shia to benefit his ambition, what will we say about “victory”?
March 17, 2009 at 11:13 am
John Emerson
The greatest election ever: 1936, Minnesota’s Eighth Congressional District (which later on was Bob Dylan’s district). The moderate Democratic candidate was a Communist, and he defeated both the extremist Democrat and the incumbent Republican to become the district’s representative in Congress.
March 17, 2009 at 11:54 am
silbey
what will we say about “victory”?
I think we’ll probably say that, as in any war, “victory” does not equal “the end of all problems.”
March 18, 2009 at 4:53 am
ajay
The British pulled out in 1957, and the emergency was not declared over until 1960 (to be renewed in the late 1960s). My description isn’t the traditional one, but I think it fits.
Your description isn’t the traditional one because it’s both misleading and factually wrong. The British did not pull out in 1957. British (and Commonwealth – chiefly Australian and NZ) troops remained on counterterrorist duty in Malaya until the end of the Emergency in 1960.
By mentioning the pullout, you also give the impression that this was done in response to a ‘stalemate’ situation in the campaign. This is false. If there was a period of stalemate in Malaya, it was in 1951, not 1957. By 1957, victory was within sight – the last major counterterrorist operations were in 1958.
No historian of the Emergency would support your statement that the Emergency was in ‘stalemate’ in 1957 – nor, as I think you are implying, that the British granted Malaya independence in response to a failure to make progress in the counterterrorist campaign. Independence had been British policy since 1945.
March 18, 2009 at 5:59 am
Dia
I think the idea of ‘victory’ in this context is fascinating. In a way it makes me think of American intervention in Mexico during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: you need a central, stable, recognisable government agency with which to deal, even (perhaps especially, in terms of legitimacy) if that agency is antagonistic to your own ends. Maybe that’s what we’re seeing in Iraq. In the short-term, a mild anti-American nationalism emanating from a central, stable government would be preferable to the viable alternatives. In the long-term, I guess we have to stand with Keynes.
March 18, 2009 at 6:30 am
Roger Albin
What victory looks like:
It looks like the avoidance of a catastrophe – a civil war tearing Iraq apart with us caught in the middle. This is a pretty low threshold for the term victory, and it might be only the postponement of catastrophe.
March 18, 2009 at 1:46 pm
silbey
Your description isn’t the traditional one because it’s both misleading and factually wrong. The British did not pull out in 1957. British (and Commonwealth – chiefly Australian and NZ) troops remained on counterterrorist duty in Malaya until the end of the Emergency in 1960.
By mentioning the pullout, you also give the impression that this was done in response to a ’stalemate’ situation in the campaign. This is false. If there was a period of stalemate in Malaya, it was in 1951, not 1957. By 1957, victory was within sight – the last major counterterrorist operations were in 1958.
No historian of the Emergency would support your statement that the Emergency was in ’stalemate’ in 1957 – nor, as I think you are implying, that the British granted Malaya independence in response to a failure to make progress in the counterterrorist campaign. Independence had been British policy since 1945.
Let’s explore the weeds of British Cabinet Policy. Saying that “independence had been British policy since 1945″ is false, not because it’s factually wrong, but because it’s simplistically misleading. What the British meant by ‘independence’ changed depending on both the political party and the year. In the 1930s, independence had meant home rule, with the British retaining control over the former colony’s foreign policy. That’s what they offered the Indians pre-war and what Gandhi wisely refused.
When the Labour Party won the 1945 election, they wished to focus on domestic issues and think that the election gives them a mandate for just that focus. Foreign policy was a distant second, and Malaysia was way down that list. As much as they did think about independence for the Malaysians, it was more in the 1930s sense of giving the natives some sense of control over their lives while still retaining enough power to keep Malaysia as a captive hinterland for Britain. This transition to ‘independence’ was expected to take 25 years or so.
When the insurgency broke out in 1948, the Atlee government was distracted by the disaster of Indian partition and independence and were still trying to recover in that part of the world. They saw the insurgency as part of a worldwide Communist plot, not a nationalist movement, and decided on a two-pronged strategy of military forces and the development of nationalist forces to counteract the Communists.
When the Conservatives won in 1951, putting Churchill in the PMship, they were not eager to decolonize (Churchill especially). They were nonetheless trapped by the economic and political situation both at home and abroad. Things in Malaysia were not going well, and Gerald Templer was appointed the new commander, with the mandate to Make Things Better. He did so, through a fair number of effective military practices, but also by essentially convincing the Malays that they were not fighting for the British, but for their own interests and independence. The culmination of this came in Malayan elections in 1955, when an alliance of the two main native political parties won a dominating victory, and then came to London to negotiate independence.
The Cabinet quickly realized that it had a problem. If the British tried to pawn off the Malaysian delegation, they would undercut their own military strategy and likely the war would turn sour (and be even worse, as the nationalist groups would possibly turn to resistance either violent or non-violent). The only way out of the stalemate was to negotiate genuine independence and not at some far off time, but right then. The Colonial Secretary, Alan Lenox-Boyd, argued that doing the latter would leave the chance that an independent Malaya would be one friendly to the British, especially if independence came quickly and in a friendly manner. The Cabinet agreed with him. The Malaysian delegation, upon arriving in London, found to their surprise that the British not only were going to give them everything they wanted, but they were going to do it as quickly as possible. The result was a Malaysia that had not only home rule, but complete independence.
The British had essentially developed a military strategy that, though successful, demanded as its endgame the complete cession of formal British power in Malaysia, something that they had not contemplated in 1945 or 1951. They stalemated themselves out of the country.
(and with this brief missive, I will retire from the discussion of what was, after all, a parenthetical)
you need a central, stable, recognisable government agency with which to deal, even (perhaps especially, in terms of legitimacy) if that agency is antagonistic to your own ends. Maybe that’s what we’re seeing in Iraq.
That’s a nice point.
March 18, 2009 at 2:19 pm
herbert browne
*One of the many issues of counterinsurgency campaigns is that it’s never entirely clear when the war is over*
It’s Never “over”. there was a Harper’s article a few years back that mapped both firearms sales & gun violence in the US… and it basically ‘re-asserted’ the Mason-Dixon Line, with a corollary spur running into the Rocky Mountain States (& I’m assuming that the “southern mobility” headed for the hills, while the “nobility” hung with Tara).
And, about the 500+ year-old buttons that Milosevic pushed… ^..^
March 19, 2009 at 6:12 am
ajay
OK, so the Attlee government wanted to keep Malaya as a colony until 1970, by which time it would have been given a token degree of independence, but would essentially remain a “captive hinterland” for the British. And Malaysia became independent because the British were worried that the Tunku would lead an armed Malay revolt. Okay, I see why you’re retiring from this discussion now. Think I’ll follow suit.
April 7, 2009 at 8:13 am
Barry
Roger Albin:
“What victory looks like:
It looks like the avoidance of a catastrophe – a civil war tearing Iraq apart with us caught in the middle. This is a pretty low threshold for the term victory, and it might be only the postponement of catastrophe.”
Remember, there *was* such a catastrophic civil war, it *did* tear Iraq apart, and we *were* caught in the middle of it.
As said before, this looks like a victory only when compared to the worst years. I don’t recall a single prominent gov’t official or neoconman propagandist offering up what we got as a vision of victory, back when we were being prepped for this glorious crusade.
April 7, 2009 at 11:22 am
silbey
what we got as a vision of victory, back when we were being prepped for this glorious crusade
Sure. That doesn’t mean that this–despite my other post–isn’t a military victory. Victories come in all shapes and sizes and that no one in 1861 predicted what the victory in 1865 would look like doesn’t mean that the Union didn’t win.