Cross posted at MountainRunner
This is the first post in a multi-part series about the design and application of "smart power".
Counterinsurgency, much like international relations, is about the right amount of power in just the right places. However, in the macro scheme of international relations, there is room for fudging and fine grain controls aren't as necessary. Counterinsurgency requires, as I see it, requires greater finesse to be successful.
Bridging the ideas of hard power (generally kinetic use of force) with soft power (non-coercive persuasion), we arrive at the somewhat new and fashionable term Smart Power (side note: see the Smart Power Blog for one of the few overt discussions on the topic under the banner "smart power"). To counterinsurgency, this isn't new.
Up until a few years ago, conventional wisdom still held that winning wars against non-state actors could be calibrated by looking at the elements of national power. State opponents didn't necessarily need all of the pressures brought to bear as since the 19th Century, victory could be achieved by capturing the capital city. Non-state actors, however, didn't often have such a convenient defined geo-political heart and so we looked at the broader spectrum of our elements of power that could be brought to bear. Originally this was DIME (diplomacy, information, military, and economics), somewhat recently it was expanded to the awkward acronym MIDLIFE (military, information, diplomacy, law enforcement, intelligence, finance, and economics).
However, this emphasized our powers and our perceptions of their importance without considering the pressure points of our opponents. Recently we this has started to manifest itself in questions about whether there are different engines of insurgencies ("Maoist" versus "Religious") and how we might craft different responses.
The Equalizer graphic above is one way I submit we can look at the application of power (clearly the idea came to me after using my iTunes equalizer...) against insurgencies. Let me give a quick walk-through before continuing.
The pre-amp, the device to smooth out power before amplification, is used here as the macro level of coercion. The pre-amp sets the general "tone" of everything that follows. Each slider to the right moves independent of the other but, like when listening to different kinds of music, there is an optimum combination that varies from genre to genre or perhaps song to song. The "20th Century Traditional" settings above are my quick thoughts on what optimum COIN looked like (and perhaps arguably what it continues to look like in parts of Iraq).
What does "fully aware" smart power look like? Below is my quick rendering of how multidimensional power is brought to bear in COIN in HOA. Note the emphasis isn't on American perceptions of power or the mirrors of America, as in MIDLIFE, but on local sources of power. Coercion is only slight advanced, as is Military and Information. Diplomacy, expanded here to include influencing outside actors more than the target actors, is somewhat retarded. Law Enforcement is neutral because of the "militant" or endemic "warrior" characteristics. Intelligence is of course advanced, as is Finance. However, there is more focus on Ideology (generally but not exclusively of and on the target), Politics (in the Area of Operation of the target, not just the AO of our counteractivity), and Society (of the target). Culture is cranked up because of the how power is gained and kept in the Horn of Africa.
Comments (1)
Bravo Mr. Mountainrunner! Less words - more pictures. I love it!
In all seriousness though, you've done us all a great service. To understand your graphic is to understand the makings of smart power. I know you've positioned this as an equalizer for counterinsurgency purposes, but it's equally useful in the broader conversation around smart power.
One note - and it goes back to an earlier conversation about the inherent difference between hard and soft power. It occurs to me that a lot of our traditional power resources - guns, tanks, ships, planes, cash, etc. - are very much under our control. We can kill as many people as we want, we can threaten to kill as many people as we want and we can buy off as many people as we want. As we realize, however, that such hard power is NOT the way to move about the world, we move to more "soft" power tools. That, I suppose, is where public diplomacy comes in. Unlike hard power, however, soft power is not as easy to aim.
It's why I again think that the difference between the two is more than just definitional. While hard power is something you execute, soft power is something you need to build (and measure). Semantics, perhaps, but an important distinction, I think, as we proceed with this discussion. Accordingly, your equalizer might also include some sort of graphic divide that shows where this split takes place.
Thanks for the great idea!
Posted by Ted R. | February 23, 2007 9:56 AM
Posted on February 23, 2007 09:56