CounterInsurgency (reading reference) part 5

Brendan McQuade: The Return of Domestic CounterInsurgency?: "As Ahmad was writing, the FBI's COunterINTELligence PROgrams, COINTELPRO, domestic programs that used methods similar to counterinsurgency, targeted the Communist Party USA, Socialist Workers Party, the Black Power Movements, the Puerto Rican Independence Movement, and the American Indian Movement for 'neutralization.' While 'domestic counterinsurgency' has not yet returned to that scale, the militarization of US society has continued in the last forty years: surveillance and data-mining (NSA, DHS and private); the emerging nationwide intelligence network (DHS 'Fusion Centers'); the increasing 'paramilitarization' of police (intelligence-led policing); and the creation of the first domestic combatant command, US Northern Command or US NORTHCOM.

With all these measures put in place, domestic counterinsurgency along the lines of COINTELPRO could easily be resumed at a level hitherto unimaginable within the United States. While much would have to change politically for this to become possible, the appointment of Petraeus to head the CIA and the wider rise of the new counterinsurgents is not an encouraging development."

Counter Insurgency (reading reference) part 4

Brendan McQuade: The Return of Domestic CounterInsurgency?: "ounterinsurgency threatens democratic politics at home because it necessarily entails a politicization of the military and the blurring of civilian and military roles:

'Training and participation in counterinsurgency necessarily involves emphasis on the unity and interrelatedness of civilian and military talks and authority. It is not realistic to expect military men who are trained to be 'soldiers-political workers' to remain apolitical at home…The determination to equip the natives with the 'will to fight' transfers eventually to the metropolitan country when the 'will' of the people 'at home' appears to be sagging. The crusade abroad may find expressions at home when the society is viewed as needing moral or political regeneration.'"

Counter Insurgency (reading reference) part 3

Brendan McQuade: The Return of Domestic CounterInsurgency?: "When counterinsurgency returned as dominant policy during the War on Terror, the military was its most visible advocate. Today after the seeming success of the Iraq troop surge, the counterinsurgents are dominant in the military. Andrew Bacevich, perhaps the most prominent critic of counterinsurgency today, went so far as to argue that we are witnessing the emergence of the 'Petraeus doctrine,' where 'armed conflict will be protracted, ambiguous, and continuous… War [now] implies not only coercion but also social engineering.' The Petraeus doctrine displaces the more cautious Powell Doctrine 'with its emphasis on overwhelming force, assumed that future American wars would be brief, decisive, and infrequent.'

In 2009, Giraldi told me that the CIA's Special Operations Group was again growing: 'Now they are much bigger they have a lot of contractors. They have a lot of ex-Special Forces people working for them but they are still kind of an adjunct. I'd be hard pressed to come up with a senior officer in SOG.' With David Petraeus, the man who made counterinsurgency dominant in the US military, at the helm of the CIA, we can expect SOG to continue to grow and become more central."

CounterInsurgency (reading reference) part 2

Brendan McQuade: The Return of Domestic CounterInsurgency?: "A more humanitarian, 'civic action,' mission co-exists alongside this more coercive intelligence mission. A functioning government cannot be built with violence alone. Services need to be provided: schools, hospitals, roads, and all the rest of modern infrastructure. The new counterinsurgents, of which Petraeus is the most visible, are acutely aware of this need. Lauded by the press as 'scholar-warriors,' counterinsurgents argue for a necessity of unity between civil-military roles, cultural sensitivity and a restrained use of force. Despite all these complexities, it's still warfare: 'Counterinsurgency is not just thinking man's warfare; it's the graduate level of war.'
The Ever-Expanding War on Terror"

CounterInsurgency (reading reference) part 1

Brendan McQuade: The Return of Domestic CounterInsurgency?: "What is Counterinsurgency?

In the terms of Petraeus' celebrated manual, counterinsurgency is the 'military, paramilitary, political, economic, psychological and civic actions taken by a government to defeat insurgency.' Petraeus describes 'insurgency' as 'an organized protracted politico-military struggle to weaken the control of and legitimacy of an established government, occupying power or other political authority while increasing insurgent control.'

More critically and historically, counterinsurgency involves a powerful state intervening into a militarily weak (and formerly colonized) society. In contrast to the traditional military war aim, defeating the rival army, counterinsurgency has political goals: building a regime supportive to that more powerful state's political project and, usually, destroying the revolutionary movement that challenges it. On lower level, counterinsurgency begins with an intelligence effort, gathering information on the politics and culture of the society begin targeted. The goal is to penetrate into the intimate corners of a society—to get agents inside civil society organizations, families, and social networks—and figure out who is 'the wrong side.'

With this intelligence on hand, the task becomes neutralizing political rivals by turning, capturing, or killing them."