![]() ![]() Although it is widely acknowledged that winning the sympathies of the local population is a key element to a successful counterinsurgency strategy, this will be difficult to achieve when the local military is not fully respected.įor the Iraqi Army, the problem is more that of training and recruitment. This observation is especially true for the Afghan National Army, but extends even to smaller NATO partners that were deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq. It is appalling to see how the United States and European treat their allies. Instead, counterinsurgency should tackle the political roots of the problem: What is driving locals into the arms of the insurgents? Allies or political lackeys? The aim is not to make the world a better place, but to win the war. This type of behavior comes naturally to the insurgents, but might be hard to accept for a Western professional career soldier. This includes ignoring enemy activity because of a religious holiday, or condoning drug trade and other illicit activities in order to make deals with local warlords. The soldier or law enforcement officer also has to learn to act against his or her intuition. ![]() In an unconventional conflict, the participants have to learn to apply unconventional methods. To change this more autonomy must be given to smaller units. Still, NATO’s militaries are very inflexible and it takes them forever to plan and to execute even a small size operation. This is the infantry’s war, not that of the generals. ![]() In order to successfully combat guerrillas, a military force has to have very capable and flexible infantry squad and platoon commanders. The insurgent’s only strategy is to win the war. Unconventional wars are often won by tactics rather than strategy. Never underestimate the resilience of your opponent: As late as of March 2016, after having been on the receiving end of a massive air campaign, the Islamic State in Iraq was still capable of launching armored assaults against Kurdish positions. You can’t “shock and awe” someone who is not afraid to die, but on the contrary desires to do so on the battlefield. If the purpose of these air raids was to cause panic or to lower the morale of the enemy, it seldom works. Although it is indeed impressive to watch the big explosions on our TV screens, when the dust is settled surprisingly many insurgents come out of the rubble alive.“The bigger their bombs the deeper our caves” says the guerrilla. When it comes to fighting an insurgency, air strikes don’t work the same way they do against a conventional army. Having been a guerrilla fighter myself and having interviewed a number of insurgents from the war in Syria and Iraq for a study on radical Islam, there are several aspects of counterinsurgency that seem to be misunderstood – not only by the public, but by militaries as well. It is often said that to understand counterinsurgency, one first has to know insurgent’s point of view. But looking at the current situations in Iraq, Syria or Afghanistan, it seems that either nobody has read any of these writings, or the given advice is wrong or not applicable. Many books and manuals have been written about counterinsurgency strategies. A guest post from Roland Bartetzko, a former soldier in the German army and Kosovo Liberation Army (UCK), offers key observations about counterinsurgency from the insurgent’s point of view. ![]()
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