Is The US's COIN Doctrine Fighting The "Last War"? (Original Research)

One doesn't often find an academic critique of a US Army Field Manual but that is exactly what recent Mercyhurst graduate Brian Gabriel set out to do in his thesis, "Evaluating The Transferability Of Counterinsurgency Doctrine:  From The Cold War To Global Insurgency".

In this instance, Brian's target was FM 3-24, Counterinsurgency.  In general, Brian was seeking to explore the "transferability" of the US's new doctrine:  Would this doctrine work with respect to future conflicts in new geographical locations at any scale or was it designed, as new doctrines sometimes are, to win the "last war"? Brian was specifically trying to determine if "the new doctrine truly provides a framework to defeat insurgencies around the world regardless of the nature of the insurgency or if the doctrine’s utility is more limited."  

Brian does many of the usual things you would expect to see in a thesis such as this and does them well.  His literature review, for example, covers the history of US counterinsurgency doctrine, the genesis of the new doctrine and the critiques of that doctrine in a well-written and interesting way that contains enough detail without coming across as overwhelming. 

Brian then uses the precepts that underlie the manual and the criticisms of the manual as a jumping off point for his own analysis based on "a total of seven insurgencies, from Malaya to Somalia, and the approaches of counter-insurgent forces from three countries—Great Britain, France, and the United States.  In addition, the transferability of FM 3-24 was evaluated through the use of two methodologies, one theoretical and another providing real-world perspective."

Brian uses a nifty matrix to capture and display the results of his analysis.  I have included a reduced size version of the matrix with this post but it is really worth the effort to download the full thesis and walk through Brian's dissection not only of the FM but also of its critics.  

Ultimately Brian finds, "Despite the critiques of some counterinsurgency theorists, FM 3-24 has a high level of transferability.  The transferability of FM 3-24 is not limited by a change in the geopolitical environment, a shift in the motivations of insurgents, the presence of third-party counter-insurgents, nor other characteristics that differentiate insurgencies today from the twentieth century.  This means that the doctrine’s precepts—the balance of offensive, defensive, and stability operations, the importance of intelligence-driven operations, the necessity of training host nation security forces, etc—remain valid in a post-anti-colonial era.  This result, however, only applies to domestic insurgencies.  Serious questions emerge about the doctrine when it is applied to regional or global insurgencies."

If you are interested in counterinsurgency operations at all, it is worth a look.  You can download the full text here.

MethHunter: Find, Fix And Incarcerate! (DagirCo)

Want to cut your town's meth problem in half next year? You can. Really.

The guys over at Dagirco have finally done it! MethHunter is on the streets and check out these early stats: One of our small, local police departments is using it and they have had over a dozen busts and over a half dozen convictions in the last six months. The best part? The program has cut the time it takes to conduct an investigation in half!

One of local TV stations (WICU) recently did a five part special series on meth in NW Pennsylvania in general and on the MethHunter in particular. The video below is only one part of the five part series. The other four parts can be accessed at the end of this video:



I am particularly proud to say I know the team at DagirCo that put this piece of software together. Most of them, including Mark Blair, the CEO, are Mercyhurst grads and I have had the great good fortune to have many of them in class over the years.

Beyond this, though, I am particularly impressed with the way they tackled the problem. They have essentially created an expert system that looks at pill shopping patterns and "thinks" about them the same way a meth expert might think about them. It automates, as Mark puts it in one of the videos, the "80% of the tedious, time-consuming" work of analyzing purchase records. It even examines the shopping patterns for evidence of denial and deception on the part of the pill shoppers!

It is easy for you to imagine this all getting very technical and difficult to interpret. That is where this program really shines. The DagirCo team has worked particularly hard to make the program user friendly for small town and rural police forces. Their thinking was that large cities often have dedicated meth experts but that small and rural police forces may not have the resources for such a position. This meant that the program had to produce something that was understandable and actionable by a police officer who had received no special training.

It turns out that the straightforward, cop-friendly way the program generates output benefits both small and large police forces. It gives the smaller police force a capability where it had none before and it saves the experts in the larger forces time that can be better spent looking at aspects of the meth problem that the software cannot address.

The DagirCo team is also particulaly proud of the "engine" they developed to drive the MethHunter. They think it can be used in a broad range of applications. Currently, they are thinking about how it might be applied to other problem drugs and even other crimes in general (they are working on an anti-graffitti version right now). Mark, a former marine, also believes a modified version of this software could be useful in analyzing insurgent attack patterns in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

Make A Map, Build An Early Warning System, Buy A Laptop, Analyze Insurgencies... (Link List)

I am going to try to do a little bit of spring cleaning today. Most of the time I post interesting sites that I don't have time to write about in the "SAM's Shared Items" box in the right hand column of this blog. Some sites, though, I tag for writing about later as full posts ... and then promptly forget about them.

Today, I am cleaning out the vault of "interesting or useful sites I have not written about but should have". Without further ado (and in no particular order):

Research and Documentation Online (via Lisa Gold: Research Maven). What an excellent collection of authoritative research sites this is! Diana Hacker has done an outstanding job collecting all sorts of good sites into a single database (along with some helpful tips on researching and validating sources in general).

Customizable Map Of the World. This site allows you to easily create maps of the world with custom colors. Boyond the customizable map, the Aneki.com main site contains a number of useful indices and ranking systems for global issues.

The World Value Survey. Want the low-down on what a particular culture values most? The World Values Survey is the right place to start. Featuring such useful items as the Inglehart-Welzel Cultural Map of the World (See image to the left), the WVS is a good place to know about if you are interested in how values are changing worldwide.

Ushahidi. Ushahidi apparently means "testimony" in Swahili and it is an effort to build a platform that crowdsources crisis information. According to the site, it "allows anyone to gather distributed data via SMS, email or web and visualize it on a map or timeline. Our goal is to create the simplest way of aggregating information from the public for use in crisis response." Worth exploring.

Net-Map. Billed as a tool to construct an influence map of a social network, this is another non-profit attempt to get modern analytic methods off the computer and into the hands of people with limited technical skills or equipment. I could easily see this as a classroom exercise that would introduce the basics of social networks and influence mapping to students as well.

CIA's Guide To The Analysis Of Insurgency. The Federation of American Scientists have acquired and are making available a 1980's CIA Manual on how to analyze an insurgency.

23 Sources of User and Expert User Reviews and Laptop Buying Guide 2009. The always helpful MakeUseOf.com has done it again with two great sites. The first is a list of places to go to see what someone else thinks about the gadget you are thinking about buying and the second is an informative laptop buying guide in case you are in the market.

How To Write A Resume That Will Land An Interview. Very solid article with numerous good links to additional resources.

Defeating Cross Border Insurgencies (Thesis)

The new batch of CGSC masters theses are online and available for download here. One that stood out immediately due to its topic was Major Thorsten Lyhne Jorgensen's thesis, "Defeating Cross Border Insurgencies" (The full text can be downloaded here). MAJ Jorgenson is from Denmark yet his thesis is better written and more methodologically sound than many I have read. Using a comparative case study as the broad method and the theoretical models of Collier-Hoeffler combined with the counter-insurgency insights from O'Neill to help focus his research, MAJ Jorgenson has identified some trends that appear to be constant across a wide realm of cross-border insurgencies. Highlights from the abstract and the text include (Italics are mine):

• "This thesis assesses whether COIN efforts can be successful when the insurgents are operating from safe havens in neighboring states."

• "In order for the COIN to be successful, a number of prerequisites must be in place. The political and military leadership and the civilian and military operators on the ground have to be historical and cultural aware with regards to the region in which operations are conducted, especially with regards to the structural aspects in effect amongst the local populace." (There are a couple of typos in the above and they were in the original. MAJ Jorgenson's thesis is 130+ pages and English can't be his first language. No foul, then, to the author; but I felt like it needed an explanation...)
  

• "A well planned and coordinated application of the DIME is the key to success. The regional aspects of the cross border insurgencies call upon a diplomatic approach involving regional players as well as IO, IGO and NGOs."

• "The Informational instrument of national power is a proactive tool in the fight against the insurgency. This powerful instrument is difficult to control by nature, needs to be both primitive and sophisticated in nature and message. Primitive in nature when dealing with the local goatherd or illiterate and sophisticated and professional when dealing with the world press."

• "The Military instrument of national power is a necessity in securing the populace. The application of the Military instrument must be immediately followed by reconstruction efforts aiming to mitigate poverty and everyday suffering. Executing projects, both long and short term, utilizing local labor is a way to counter the alarming unemployment figures which are potential recruitment bases for the insurgency. Sufficient boots on the ground is essential to maintain presence and thereby maintain legitimacy of the entire COIN effort."

• "The Economic instrument is important especially when dealing with underdeveloped populaces such as the ones in Oman, Kashmir and Afghanistan. A significant and long term effort like the one in Oman stands good chances of success. Decreasing poverty and providing jobs through economically secured programs are a safe way to gain legitimacy and support within the local populace. As for the previous instruments of national power, the Economic instrument must be applied in accordance with a well coordinated regional plan."