Guerrilla War of the Mind: John Boyd's Lessons on Counter-Guerrilla Campaigns

I've been going through "Patterns of Conflict" by John R. Boyd, Colonel USAF, a pre-PowerPoint briefing Boyd gave to many people in and out of the Pentagon over many years.  He'd take two, four, eight hours or more to go over this material.  What is now available is only his outline but he left a lot to think about.  

Boyd was a fighter pilot and studied war all his life.  Some say he is the greatest strategist since Sun Tzu but we won't know that for at least a century or so.  He is definitely worth reading, especially since it seems from current results that the Pentagon and the politicians haven't yet learned the lessons he taught.  This is passing strange as Boyd briefed Cheney a number of times when Biggus Dickus was SecDef and Boyd is rumored to have planned the end run in the desert that won Gulf War I.  

More and more, I'd say our real existential threat is not Osama bin Laden and Islamic jihadists but the Bush/Cheney junta.   We gotta save ourselves.  Paying attention to scholar warriors like John Boyd is a matter of survival.

slide 108
Counter-guerrilla campaign

Action
Undermine guerrilla cause and destroy their cohesion by demonstrating integrity and competence of government to represent and serve needs of people—rather than exploit and impoverish them for the benefit of a greedy elite.*

Take political initiative to root out and visibly punish corruption. Select new leaders with recognized competence as well as popular appeal. Ensure that they deliver justice, eliminate grievances and connect government with grass roots.*

I'm moving the explanation of the asterisk from the bottom of the slide to the top because it is the core concept and needs to be up front.

• If you cannot realize such a political program, you might consider changing sides!

Let me repeat:    If you can't demonstrate integrity and competence, if you cannot establish a government that represents and serves the needs of the people, that delivers justice, eliminates grievances, and connects with the grassroots, then consider changing sides.

This is the necessary prerequisite for winning a guerrilla war according to Boyd.  Did we ever make even a good faith effort in that direction in Iraq?

Infiltrate guerrilla movement as well as employ population for intelligence about guerrilla plans, operations, and organization.

Have we been able to do this to any extent in Iraq?  Is our infiltration better in Afghanistan?

Seal-off guerrilla regions from outside world by diplomatic, psychological, and various other activities that strip-away potential allies as well by disrupting or straddling communications that connect these regions with outside world.

The porous borders in both Iraq and Afghanistan and certainly the Internet and satellite TV have brought guerrilla communications to a worldwide audience and made this difficult to impossible.

Deploy administrative talent, police, and counter-guerrilla teams into affected localities and regions to: inhibit guerrilla communication, coordination and movement; minimize guerrilla contact with local inhabitants; isolate their ruling cadres; and destroy their infrastructure.

The end game is always near when there's no separation between the guerrillas and the people.  If "the guerrilla must move amongst the people as a fish swims in the sea," then one way to win is to drain the sea, to eliminate the people, a strategy reportedly encouraged in El Salvador and Guatemala during the 1980s.

Exploit presence of above teams to build-up local government as well as recruit militia for local and regional security in order to protect people from the persuasion and coercion efforts of the guerrilla cadres and their fighting units.

Use special teams in a complementary effort to penetrate guerrilla controlled regions. Employ (guerrillas’ own) tactics of reconnaissance, infiltration, surprise hit-and-run, and sudden ambush to: keep roving bands off-balance, make base areas untenable, and disrupt communication with outside world.

Expand these complementary security/penetration efforts into affected region after affected region in order to undermine, collapse, and replace guerrilla influence with government influence and control.

Visibly link these efforts with local political/economic/social reform in order to connect central government with hopes and needs of people, thereby gain their support and confirm government legitimacy.

There was a segment on PBS Newshour 6/1/07 which suggested this might actually be happening in Al Anbar province in Iraq:

DAVID WOOD, National Security Correspondent, Baltimore Sun: Ray, what happened -- about six months ago, the tribal sheikhs, the traditional political leaders of Anbar province, got together and they decided, "OK, we don't like the Americans, but what we really don't like are these foreign insurgents who are fighting here under the rubric of al-Qaida in Iraq."

And so basically they said to the Marines in Iraq, "Look, we don't like you guys, but we hate them even worse. So we're going to join you to fight against them, and then we'll come after you guys." And the Marines were like, "We're fine with that, because as soon as we get rid of the insurgents, we're out of here."

...The organization of Iraqi sheikhs in al-Anbar province that you referred to, these roughly 200 sheikhs who decided to throw their lot in with the United States, they've changed the name of their organization. It used to be called the Awakening in Anbar. Now it's called the Awakening in Iraq, and they're exporting this idea to other provinces, and beginning to build political organizations that can help local people and Sunnis, in this case, sort of take hold of their own communities. I think it's an encouraging sign.

Still, I wouldn't hold my breath.

Idea
Break guerrillas’ moral-mental-physical hold over the population, destroy their cohesion, and bring about their collapse via political initiative that demonstrates moral legitimacy and vitality of government and by relentless military operations that emphasize stealth/fast-tempo/fluidity-of-action and cohesion of overall effort.

How much "moral legitimacy" do we have after Abu Ghraib and Gitmo?  How much "cohesion of overall effort" have we shown since the "success" of Shock and Awe?

Boyd is extremely useful because he actually defines success:

slide 178
The art of success
Appear to be an unsolvable cryptogram while operating in a directed way to penetrate adversary vulnerabilities and weaknesses in order to isolate him from his allies, pull him apart, and collapse his will to resist.
                          yet
Shape or influence events so that we not only magnify our spirit and strength but also influence potential adversaries as well as the uncommitted so that they are drawn toward our philosophy and are empathetic toward our success.

"Magnify our spirit and strength" while collapsing the adversary's "will to resist."  This is conflict on the primary battlefield, the mind.  

Those in power now have neither magnified our spirits and strengths nor collapsed the adversary's will to resist.  They've actually done the opposite of both, as if by plan.  Because of that, I believe if we do not impeach the Bush/Cheney junta and support an international investigation of their war crimes, human rights abuses, and pork barrel profiteering, we will lose the war against Osama bin Laden and the other global guerrillas who will follow.  Their own impeachment and international war crimes tribunals are necessary tactics in this Global War On Terror world the Bush/Cheney junta built in reaction, ostensibly, to 911 and bin Laden.

I know impeachment and war crimes trials would certainly magnify my spirit and strength.  I think it would also confuse and confound our adversaries too.

See How the Pentagon Works:  John Boyd's Lessons on Bureaucratic Warfare for more on John Boyd.

•  A nuanced and sophisticated approach

  unsuitable for Bush/Cheney, even if they were not exhibiting the behaviour that would make most folk "consider changing sides".

  Thanks for the diary. Rec'd.

  by Joffan on Sat Jun 02, 2007 at 04:27:38 PM PST

  •  Thanks for Reading

    I appreciate it.

    i wonder if Petraeus' work, which I have not read, reflects any of Boyd's thinking.

    by gmoke on Sat Jun 02, 2007 at 04:46:27 PM PST

•  Anbar

  The only freaking piece of good news in Iraq.  Now, if we would only negotiate with Al-Sadr.  Unfortunately, his movement seems to be splintering.

  It's a bit late for a lot of the stuff Boyd recommended.  

  by willb48 on Sat Jun 02, 2007 at 04:36:08 PM PST

  •  Late, Too Late, and Never

    I agree it is getting later every day but wonder, for the sake of our troops on the ground and the people of Iraq, whether it isn't too late to try some sanity at last.

    by gmoke on Sat Jun 02, 2007 at 04:50:00 PM PST

•  the moral highground is everything

  in this type of conflict, if you believe guys like William Lind (Fourth Generation Warfare expert). Take risks to establish ties with the population, take hits and casualties without striking back blindly, never overreact to provocation, make the guerrilla be the "bad guy", understand and become part of the local culture and provide real services and benefits to the people, develop widespread human intelligence sources among the locals, etc, etc. Instead we rely on deals with corrupt "leaders", massive and indiscriminate firepower, fraudulent "reconstruction" companies, ignorance of and disdain for the local culture, collective punishment, letting infrastructure decay past the crisis point, torture, intimidation and roving bands of privatized "security" thugs running out of control. Why are we surprised when we see what comes of that?

  by glaser on Sat Jun 02, 2007 at 04:53:51 PM PST

•  those " "s dont only

  just work on the battlfield

  by cognitive dissonance on Sat Jun 02, 2007 at 04:53:54 PM PST

•  John Boyd's ideas

  became the intellectual foundation for a concept called "maneuver warfare." Maneuver warfare arose in the 1980s as a reaction to American military thinking (or lack of it), which pretty much called for defeating the enemy by force of numbers and brute force: smashing him through overwhelming artillery fire and air attacks and then rolling over him with heavy, straight-ahead infantry & armor attacks. Basically like most WWI battles.

  Maneuver warfare calls for the use of quickness and surprise to essentially throw the enemy off-balance and put him in a position not to resist (or, at least, so panicky that he thinks he can't resist). Instead of attacking him at his strongest points, you seek out his critical weak spots, break through, and exploit the gap quickly and ruthlessly, preferably before the enemy can even react. The classic model of maneuver warfare is considered to be the German blitzkrieg in 1940 that drove the British off the European continent and left France weak & vulnerable.

  There is much more to the theory, but those are the basic elements. Fundamentally, maneuver warfare is not a formula but a way of thinking. One must be have a clear idea of the objective, be flexible in approach and methods, and use cunning and deviousness if necessary. If you can keep one step ahead of the enemy mentally, you can defeat him more easily physically. (Sun Tzu is also a key source for maneuver warfare ideas.)

  Ironically, maneuver warfare is part of the foundation for military "Transformation" that Rumsfeld was so fond of, and also the invasion of Iraq. The neocons rejected the huge buildup of the first Gulf War (the traditional approach) and went with smaller, lighter forces that could maneuver quickly & defeat the Iraqis before they could organize an effective defense. And frankly, it worked--at first.

  The problem was, as is well known, the neocons looked at the war in isolation, without thought to what comes next. They were burdened by preconceptions (a maneuver warfare no-no) and wholly unprepared for what did come next, and they lacked the flexibility of mind and keen perception required by maneuver warfare to deal with the new reality. Rummy was as inflexible as one can imagine. He also violated a critical tenet of maneuver warfare: Give your subordinates only a general mission and trust them to decide how to do it. And, I guess, they never bothered reading the slides you're talking about.

  The result, of course, was a disaster.

  by Shiborg on Sat Jun 02, 2007 at 04:54:00 PM PST

  •  Nebenpunkte/Schwerpunkt and Cheng/Ch'i

    slide 147
    Maneuver scheme
    Employ cheng/Nebenpunkte as basis to repeatedly and unexpectedly tie-up, divert, stretch-out, or drain-away adversary attention and strength in order to expose vulnerabilities and weaknesses for decisive stroke(s) by ch'i/Schwerpunkt.

    by gmoke on Sat Jun 02, 2007 at 05:06:02 PM PST

    •  Absolutely.

      Maneuver warfare is an active, dynamic approach to dealing with problems. The Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld approach to the Iraqi occupation was (and is) brain-dead. This whole "surge" business would be laughable were it not for the tragic consequences.

      by Shiborg on Sat Jun 02, 2007 at 05:28:09 PM PST

  •  the more I think about Rumsfeld...

    ...the more I think the Bushies used him as much and as badly as they used Colin Powell.  

    In his pre-Iraq incarnation, Rumsfeld was known as a very smart guy with a combination of forward-thinking ideas and pragmatism.  

    Yet along comes Iraq and we see a new incarnation: the driven dogmatist who doesn't want to hear about the post-maneuver phase of the conflict.

    What I think happened is that Bush/Cheney put him in an impossible position, a double-bind, and he reacted accordingly.  We saw Rummy as being the source of bad strategy, but what we were seeing was only the visible face of something that came from above him.  

    Think of it: the guy was too smart to have done this on his own.  But he hung in there out of loyalty and the desire to get the job done one way or the other.  And eventually it broke him.

    This is completely consistent with the Bush/Cheney/Rove pattern of operation, where everyone else is disposable.

    by G2geek on Sat Jun 02, 2007 at 10:16:27 PM PST

•  Meta question from a tag editor:

  We're having a discussion on whether to have a separate tag for 4GW, aka assymetric warfare/guerilla warfare; insurgency. What do readers of this diary suggest?

  by Halcyon on Sat Jun 02, 2007 at 05:19:46 PM PST

  •  4GW Tag

    Might be good.  Although some think 5GW will be along within a short period of time.

    by gmoke on Sat Jun 02, 2007 at 05:35:08 PM PST

  •  yes, 4GW should be a separate tag.

    I've been reading John Robb and it seems to me that 4GW is a core concept in leading-edge military theory.  This concept is going to become more important over the coming decades.  It deserves its own tag for the benefit of future readers who might want to research the early stages of how the theory became part of the public disourse.  

    by G2geek on Sat Jun 02, 2007 at 10:19:46 PM PST

    •  Thanks, this is what I think too.

      I'm also noting the psychological shift this past week, following the passage of the Iraq Supplemental and Cindy Sheehan's decision/realization, of tagging 'perpetual war' or one of the other variants that are cropping up:

      perpetual war (15)
      permanent war (2)
      the long war (3)
      total war (1)
      unending war (1)
      world war (10)

      by Halcyon on Sun Jun 03, 2007 at 03:08:10 AM PST

•  Good stuff.

  Now the vote-None of the above.
  We will never get justice for osb because he is in his world.
  We can get justice from bushit cause he's in our world.(unfortunately)

  by Clzwld on Sat Jun 02, 2007 at 05:27:06 PM PST

•  4GW, guerilla warfare, people's war

  Those refer to three differing items . They are not synonyms for one another.

  "Fourth Generation warfare(4GW)" is Pentagon speak for warfare waged by non conventional or weaker forces using a variety of means to avoid engaging in parallel or symmetric fashion.

   Risk is opponents that could be overwhelmed or destroyed in a battle by the ones bringing up superior firepower and numbers.

  "Guerrilla warfare" is now a longstanding practice of a smaller force or lightly armed force that cannot compete directly with conventional forces.

   "People's war" is a concept that the political  effort is key, the military forces arise out of its successes  and are grown to the point they develop a successful guerrilla component, then transition eventually to a conventional stage  when the enemy has been weakened sufficiently.  The conventional phase of the war may be very brief, weeks or even days or even without an actual battle taking place.

   The definitions given by Pentagon speak refer to identifying and developing a counterinsurgency strategy that can neutralize or in their  best scenario hopefully roll up the people's war.

   In the case of Malaya, the British initially survived a 12 year guerrilla war. In Kenya, in the the 1950's, they retired. In Iraq in the 1920's they withdrew militarily after less than three years.

   Counter insurgent tactics effective in Malaya were only in a limited way useful in Vietnam. And the Vietminh or NLF were fairly well resupplied to the point the war could easily (if not phased out by Congress) have lasted another 50 or a hundred years.

  by Pete Rock on Sat Jun 02, 2007 at 05:50:36 PM PST

•  US Army is fortunate at present.

  that the Iraq Resistance is not speaking with one voice or has a unified political command.

   At some point there will be a nationalist element, not simply anti-Shiia sects,  that will oppose simultaneously the Maliki government, especially
  if it continues to promote sectarian warfare of the worst Shiite sort (as it does presently), and not be part of the Sunni Salaafist or extreme sects.

   If that emerges as a successful trend, the war will change yet again.  With a huge internal refugee crisis as well as external refugees and sympathizers giving military aid, that could happen.

   The present groupings vying for supremacy in various regions may indeed link up to get rid of all foreign fighters. And that category includes the US personnel as well as other foreigners.

   Boyd's axioms and constructs don't help the USA in any theoretical or practical effort to prolong an unjustified occupation.

  by Pete Rock on Sat Jun 02, 2007 at 06:08:03 PM PST

  •  Unjustified Occupation

    Boyd's ideas don't work in an unjustified occupation because he believed in a moral dimension to war.  

    by gmoke on Sat Jun 02, 2007 at 06:53:22 PM PST

•  Completely clueless

  It's fitting the Marines responded to overtures from the Iraqis. Boyd acquired a devoted following among some elements of the Marine Corps; the Air Force would like to pretend he never existed.

  There may be a fundamental reason for that. Unlike the other major branches of the military, the Marines are not wedded to big complex weapons systems. This makes them a lot closer to being pure warriors rather than cogs in the military industrial complex whose most important battles are fought over contracts in the Pentagon.

  One of the ways of understanding Boyd's ideas is that it is a dynamic process, summed up as the OODA loop:

  (If I remember correctly) Observe, Orient to the situation, Decide on an action, Act - and repeat. If you can do this faster than your opponent, they're screwed.

  To quote from the wikipedia article,

  Boyd said, “The second O, orientation – as the repository of our genetic heritage, cultural tradition, and previous experiences – is the most important part of the O-O-D-A loop since it shapes the way we observe, the way we decide, the way we act” (the underlining is Boyd’s). As stated by Boyd and shown in the “Orient” box, there is much filtering of the information through our culture, genetics, ability to analyze and synthesize, and previous experience.

  Rumsfeld and the NeoCons are - or should be - notorious for their deliberate blindness to the realities of Iraq. They deliberately excluded people who actually understood the language and the culture from planning, cut out anybody who wasn't part of their circle - especially if they had actual real-world experience with the region, tolerated no dissent, and attempted to substitute fantasies for facts. Not much has changed.

  It's ironic that it may be the Iraqis who are doing a better job coping with their situation along the lines Boyd suggests, at least to the extent they are acknowledging reality and trying to respond to it.

  The scary thing is, not one single Republican candidate for President appears to have any better grasp on the real world on any issue.

  by xaxnar on Sat Jun 02, 2007 at 07:08:55 PM PST

  •  Iraqis

    The people who live in Iraq have to deal with the reality on the ground.  For them, it is a matter of survival.  Survival tends to concentrate your attention remarkably.

    The longer we let the Bush/Cheney junta prosecute their wars their way, the more likely it is that all of us in the US will be in survival situations ourselves.  New Orleans proves that the current government cares about US citizens as dearly as it cares about somebody in Iraq or Afghanistan.  Prepare for yourself and your family, you know, just in case.

    That's one reason why I say Solar IS Civil Defense.

    by gmoke on Sat Jun 02, 2007 at 07:35:12 PM PST

•  excellent post, Gmoke

  Yer right on with the Cheney/Rummy/Boyd connection. Problem is, they didn't understand the nuance required within orientation--it does not withstand ideological thumbs on the scale as you point out. Boyd's latter work on PISRR was an effor I think to formalize the depth of understanding require to run his "black box."

  I'll spare bigfooting with my own writing on boyd except to note that it's (amazingly, tragically) 3 years now since I viewed Abu Graihb thru his prism.

  Understanding Abu Ghraib...

     Failure to understand, manage, anticipate, leads to failure of doctrine.

         • A1. WMDs?

         • A2. Rescue oppressed nationals from "madman" brutal dictator?

         • A3. Liberation, Democracy, 1000 Middle East Flowers bloom?

         B. Strategy fog. Mission creep. [Acceptable] Rules of Engagement Envelope - TBA

         C. Yields failure to focus, understand, limit, plan, assign, assert, adjust, finesse, coopt

         D. Growing insurgency

         E. Physical coercion, sexual humiliation

     A1 and/or A2 and/or A3, rather than a single A-squared gets you to E. You don't want to go there, "it's not who you are." But "loser" is not who you are either.

     ROE (Rules of Engagement) becomes fluid, subjective.

     "Reacting/Not losing," instead of "proacting/winning" substitutes in your OODA loop.

     Judgement fails. Turbocharged entropy results. Mania, shrapnel ensue as the system flies apart.

     The opponent is now inside your loop.

     Absent a gross and counter-intuitive compensatory axis shift of the combat and cultural landscape, mission over.

     Your goals are out of reach given your current operational stance and situational awareness.

     Your loop is cut. You're dead.

  [/John Boyd-mode]  

  by fouro on Sat Jun 02, 2007 at 07:34:00 PM PST

  •  Thanks

    You are at least three years ahead of me.  

    I don't want the US loop cut.  I don't want to be dead yet.

    by gmoke on Sat Jun 02, 2007 at 07:46:45 PM PST

    •  One qualifier

      Absent a gross and counter-intuitive compensatory axis shift of the combat and cultural landscape, mission over.

      *Gross and counter-intuitive* would be what's left of the Republican party's credible big hitters pulling up their socks and having a true Barry Goldwater visit with C-plus Augustus. For the sake of the country's viability on the international stage. But that would require character, wouldn't it?

      by fouro on Sat Jun 02, 2007 at 07:57:23 PM PST

      •  Another

        We pull up our own f*cking s*cks and kick these criminal creeps out of office.

        I look forward to the Pelosi Presidency myself.

        by gmoke on Sat Jun 02, 2007 at 08:40:11 PM PST

      •  it would require frogs...

        ...to recognize that the warming water is heading toward a boiling point.

        So long as events unfold slowly and there is not a significant discontinuity, there will not be the public support that is required in order for anyone pull the plug on "C+ Augustus" (damn good meme there!).  

        A discontinuity such as a serious terrorist attack on the homeland, will only give Bush an excuse to rachet up the level of domestic tyranny.  

        In order to be effective, the discontinuity has to be one that cannot be used to foster a public spirit of fear.  Instead it should provoke a reaction of disgust against the Regime itself.  

        Katrina was an example.  A sexual scandal is an example, if it taints the entire R party, as for example the Florida Rep who went after teenage pages.

        The key distinction here is between fear, which the Regime can exploit, and disgust, which it cannot.  A sudden significant increase in the level of public disgust is what is needed in order to derail the Regime.  

        by G2geek on Sat Jun 02, 2007 at 10:37:06 PM PST

        •  Absent dubya getting his freak on with barney

          on the rose garden lawn, I can't see the catalyzing event.

          9/11 was truly a binary moment for us. Had dubya taken truer advantage of the global gasp that was world response to 9/11, the chances he would be being measured up for Rushmore 50 years hence would be large.

          POINT 1: Muscular common sense. What was [and is still] needed is a highly necessary and, conveniently, highly visible rebuild of US forces to meet the demands of assymmetrical threats--guerillas, insurgency, terrorism, middle east foment. Threats that were not news on September 10th. While commencing your highly visible build-up, you leverage post 9-11 (good)will by firmly planting both feet in the Middle East--one in the Mediterranean, one in the Gulf--and saying:

             Enough. Your problem is now our Dead. Time to fix or time to fight –- fight us. These are our bombs, planes and tanks; and these, these over here are our bonds, bricklayers and business professors. You choose. We're here to help, but we're done with half measures, and you will fix this. Take what you admire, leave what you don't, keep your autonomy. Think about it. Hard. If you say no, you will not like the alternative.
          
          End the press conference, cue the airlift/sealift, alert pre-positioning. And wait for the phones to ring. And ring they would. And not a soul would have blamed us. Now, that is what Bush should have done. Addressed to the whole Middle East--yes, even the bit with names like Haifa and Tel Aviv.

          Too bad he chose another course. Not surprising, but very too bad, for all of us.

          Oct 29, 2004...If I was George Bush, I wouldn't want a second term. It will destroy the viability of a Republican President, and possibly his party, for 20 years. Too bad. And ironic. In running away from his daddy's shadow, he severed contact with the one man who perhaps could have saved him from himself.

          by fouro on Sat Jun 02, 2007 at 11:07:46 PM PST