Counter-Insurgency Warfare

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Soner1980

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I think the best way is that all cities must be surrounded by military forces entrenched outward. Like Turkish troops did against the bloodthirsty PKK rebels, surrounding the entire village or city with your infantry and tanks, control points for the city in-out, the ability to enter the city must be decreased to some roads and others must be closed. All illegals must be shot or captured alive. Only escorted vehicles/persons may have to leave or enter the village/city.

If you want to go from a city tho another, in the 100 km you can counter maybe 10 control point on the road. I think this way could help the US army in IraQ. But one thing must be done: Civilians must be informed very good of this way of handling.

Also, scattering your entire unit in several squads around a city will have the same effect, but with more friendly way to the civilians.
 
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vedang

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Soner1980 said:
I think the best way is that all cities must be surrounded by military forces entrenched outward. Like Turkish troops did against the bloodthirsty PKK rebels, surrounding the entire village or city with your infantry and tanks, control points for the city in-out, the ability to enter the city must be decreased to some roads and others must be closed. All illegals must be shot or captured alive. Only escorted vehicles/persons may have to leave or enter the village/city.

If you want to go from a city tho another, in the 100 km you can counter maybe 10 control point on the road. I think this way could help the US army in IraQ. But one thing must be done: Civilians must be informed very good of this way of handling.

Also, scattering your entire unit in several squads around a city will have the same effect, but with more friendly way to the civilians.
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And how does someone do this in a place like Jammu&Kashmir whr the environment and the surroundings dont suit u???
 
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mysterious

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Soner1980 said:
I think the best way is that all cities must be surrounded by military forces entrenched outward. Like Turkish troops did against the bloodthirsty PKK rebels, surrounding the entire village or city with your infantry and tanks, control points for the city in-out, the ability to enter the city must be decreased to some roads and others must be closed. All illegals must be shot or captured alive. Only escorted vehicles/persons may have to leave or enter the village/city.

If you want to go from a city tho another, in the 100 km you can counter maybe 10 control point on the road. I think this way could help the US army in IraQ. But one thing must be done: Civilians must be informed very good of this way of handling.

Also, scattering your entire unit in several squads around a city will have the same effect, but with more friendly way to the civilians.
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This seems to me a rather simplistic way to counter the insurgents who are apt to urban warfare. Also the city would have to be of a fairly small size for this to work. A city, lets say, even 5 million inhabitants could tie down a huge chunk of force to neutralize even a couple of thousand insurgents who know the surroundings well and tend to blend in to the local populace freely.
 
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Ozzy Blizzard

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Agreed. i think there's a whole political aspect to CIW that is vital to sucsess, and simply changing the tactical situation will not bring you Victory. If you look at the resent CIW campaigns that failed, Vietnam, Afghanistan and maybe Iraq (ok its not over yet but things dont look too good), They were all conducted in a tactically sound manner. But they failed to offer the average joe a better deal than the bad guys. But if you look at the malayan insurgancy, most of the bad guys were ethnic chinese, and the malayns were offered indipendance if they stuck by the good guys. Also the commonwealth forces didn't use overly heavy handed tactics re civilian population. The political element is VITAL to ant CIW campaign.

Also simply surrounding urban areas with large ammounts of troops is going to tie down massive ammounts of personell for extended periods of time, any CIW campaign is going to take years. And it isn't going to give you controll of those urban areas. Simply contolling movement isn't going to eliminate an insurgancy. And if the reason to surround urban area's is to stop movement in and out of cities, this could be done with UAV's, mobile patrolls and adequate CAS or arty. Which would take battalions rather than divisions or Corps.

A better idea would be contant patrolling of urban area's once they were secured. Controlling movement through roadblocks and UAV's. Adequate troop levels to provide security throughout the theater. A heavy propaganda campaign. Spending HEAPS of money on humanitarian aid, infestructure development and welfare for the people. And a political insentive that's attractive to everyone in the theater. Body counts arn't going to win a CIW campaign, Hearts and Midns will.
 
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aaaditya

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i believe that the first and the most important step to be taken in a war against terrorism or insurgence is to identify and freeze the assets of the terrorist organisations and to carefully monitor the sources of their funds(including charities),this would require a cohesive global effort but would prove to be a big blow to terrorism.
 
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adroth

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sa_bushwar said:
Back to Iraq: The USA can learn from the British in the south how to win the "hearts and minds" of the people as a 1st step in ending a counter insurgency conflict. Typical American arrogance and ignorance is not going to help!
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To say that the US doesn't know the first thing about how to win the hearts and minds is not a fair statement IMHO. One only need to visit what the US is doing in my island group in the Philippines: Mindanao.

The book Imperial Grunts actually outlines how their efforts are making a difference on the island of Basilan -- home of the Al Qaeda's front in the Philippines. Here are paraphrased examples from the book.

-> US Special Forces conducted extensive, very detailed surveys, of the population. Identifying everything from religion to education. The also took the time to figure what people's main concerns were -- which turned out to be security. All other considerations were secondary. Therefore it became their primary object to make the people feel safe

-> Rules of engagement prohibited US forces from taking a direct part in efforts to apprehend Abu Sayaff terrorists. So they took a passive approach. Using information gained from the local population, they identified the general location of the terrorists home ground and established their base there. This meant that home was no longer home for the Abus, which meant they had to keep moving -- driving them into the gun sights of AFP troops.

-> Another thing the survey found was that large parts of the island, particularly the muslim-dominated areas, were largely undeveloped. Public services were non-existent. To hit multiple birds with one stone, US forces developed permanent, not temporary, support facilities for their camp: roads; water facilities; port facilities; etc. These were assets that they used while they were there -- but were also designed to remain functional long after they had left. This robbed the terrorists of one more tool with which to attract recruits: preceived government neglect.

Their efforts worked. The AFP has replicated this formula in other areas as well, and were just as effective. (Sigh, if only we could have done it earlier)

True, the situation in Iraq appears to be deteriorating, but you have to remember that the perpetrators of the violence may not really be Iraqis themselves. Its a bit hard to win the hearts and minds of extremists that are driven by hate.
 
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Soner1980

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The US army is in a very different situation if you look to Turkish army who encircles a village or a small town with military elements. Turkish army has always succeeded when a village was hermetically sealed off with control post, pill boxes, squads entrenched well and dug in positions.

The PKK attacked with 5-20 men and sometimes with 100-150 men. Turkish army supported with artillery barrages and air support were always superior against the rebels because of the support and training. I now very well when I saw the pictures from the Gabar mountain that Turkish super cobra attack helicopters and infantry fought off 150 men strong rebel group. Every 20 meters you saw burnt bodies, wich were because of the artillery (mortars) and the 70mm rockets fired from the gunships. So, air support is very important in a clash.

The US army has not so much privileges to take action, also the whole world looks from a different side to the US Army because of the Iraq war. Also, what is mentioned in others writings, the US army is not at their best to win the hearts of the population. This is also very important.

The US army can also use tactics like the Turkish army did against the PKK rebels. The rebels in Iraq look the same as the PKK, so similar tactics can be usefull instead of wait till the first strike and the counter them.
 
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Big-E

Banned Member
Soner1980 said:
The US army can also use tactics like the Turkish army did against the PKK rebels. The rebels in Iraq look the same as the PKK, so similar tactics can be usefull instead of wait till the first strike and the counter them.
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It's similar to what we did in Fallujah, the only problem is once we clear them out they come right back.
 
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Soner1980

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The Fallujah operation was good, let them come back is no problem but never wait for incidents. US army can use AFV's against them, especially when dig in the tanks can deliver heavy suport to some infantry.

The Fallujah operation was on big lines the same as of the Turkish tactic used against the rebels. Also Turkish and US army is teaching each other. We learn the experience that we fought against the PKK and the US army is learning the Turkish army other tactics.

But what I would like to tell all armies, the 'patrol tactic' is the worst ever I know. The roadside bombs, ambushes, etc. will give the rebels more motivation and hope, while demoralizing the army. Also some Turkish light APC's and cars are blown away by roads side bombs, so the rebels have their succes. If you wait for them, then you can beat them off and it will work frustrating.
 
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merocaine

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Whatever about mistakes the US army made in Iraq, they were handicapped in the respect that the Ideological warriors in the white house insisted on a program of debacthifaction which alienated the sunni population.
Confused elections and purple thumbs, with democracy and civil socity and
at the sametime they disbanded the army, and set up a new almost solely shiite one.
As far as the sunni's were concerned the Americans were taking sides in a brewing civil war. As far as the Shiites could see the Americans were arming and training them to fight Sunni's. This perception of support by america was the main reason that the Mahdi armys fight early on in the occupation was never supported by the more main stream Shiites leadership.

Those factors (due to desisions made before the invasion) mean that the forces on the ground will never be able to win Sunni hearts and minds, any comparison with the british situation is rubbish.
The British as far as I can remember took heavy caulities when they were briefly moved into the sunni triangle.

On less you resort to near genocide(saddam vs the kurds, russia in chechnya, syria) CISW is a military operation where the political track takes presidence over any short term military consideration.
The iraq situation came about when a bunch ideological theories came up against a complicated reality, I put it in the same group of ideas as communism, globalisation, and any violent revolution that claims the old has to be washed away with blood and suffering( and that this is price we have to pay if we want to be free, rich, happy, ect).
 
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Soner1980

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I don't know who has been bombed but it seems like a group walking on the street. (deuhh) I saw this on TV and it was a bad quality video, so it was not clear who they were but walking on the street, it might be a rebel group.

So, let them come. Ataturk said: If they want to come, then they also have something to see...
 
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FutureTank

Banned Member
Big-E said:
They were insurgents during the battle of Fallujah.
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I couldn't tell and probably neiother could the pilot. He was givel a light by GOLD and away he went. How did GOLD know who they were?
He sees a group. He sees some of the group have weapons. He calls in an F-16 (probably on station) and lights up the nearest building, and kaboom
 
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Soner1980

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There may be also some ground surveiliance units in the vicinity and some of them had already contact with them. In that case the permission to fire is always granted to all units.

This is standard in most armies, especially NATO.
 
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Big-E

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FutureTank said:
I couldn't tell and probably neiother could the pilot. He was givel a light by GOLD and away he went. How did GOLD know who they were?
He sees a group. He sees some of the group have weapons. He calls in an F-16 (probably on station) and lights up the nearest building, and kaboom
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The ROEs for the battle of Fallujah allowed any targets to be engaged. The town was cleared prior to action and anyone who stayed was presumed hostile. If they were civilians who stayed they must be pretty dumb given the warning they had. It's not like they were disabled, they were running pretty fast from what I saw.
 
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LouDobb

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KGB said:
But has the US actually won any counter insurgency wars? The last example I believe would be in the turn of the century. The US put down an insurgency in the Philippines, but none of the methods used would be acceptable today. Counter insurgency is a dirty war; the rebel is the fish, and the people are the water. Sometimes they drain the fishpond to get at the fish.
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Cmon, who has problems with scorthed earth campaigns?
 
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