Cold Comfort

Maybe you mean every word you say
Can't help but think of yesterday
And another who tied me down
to loverboy rules
--Faith, George Michael

A regime that has lost its legitimacy will also lose its power
--Colin Powell
________

The Wall Street Journal recently ran an editorial authored by a Naval War College professor, "Counterinsurgency Comeback," as though the idea were the greatest thing since sliced bread. Sounding very Rumsfeldian, Prof. Owens says:

"But Iraq proves that we don't always get to fight the wars we want. While the Army must continue to plan to fight conventional wars, given the likelihood that future adversaries will seek to avoid our conventional advantage, it must be able to fight irregular wars as well."

And this is news? He concludes by saying that because poster boy Petraeus is on board, "the Army has begun the necessary transformation [to CI fighting.]" That the Army has begun this transformation five years into a CI is cold comfort.

But before any of this, one must address the concept which must be the foundation of any CI venture: legitimacy. Without the concept of legitimacy, there cannot ever be a viable CI strategy that will work. Examples are RVN, Afghanistan and Iraq.

The U.S. can not enter Iraq in an illegal war of aggression, depose a sitting ruler, kill, maim, mutilate and destroy the entire social fabric of the state, and then attempt to claim legitimacy. U.S. claims of legitimacy are as spurious as al-Qaida's claim to the concept. Neither side has it.

Usually the host nation should be the agency of CI action and authority in country. Even assuming that the present Iraq and Afghan governments are reflections of the will of the people, they will never be legitimate because the government uses violence to subjugate and dominate a sizable section of their citizenry.

Laser bombs, drones, MRAPs -- none of it will buy safety, because we cannot buy legitimacy.

CI requires enlisting the indigenous population in your program. Would you join a team that unbidden, upends your neighborhood with the promise of revitalization and invites you on board, while getting there means you might get killed in the crossfire?

The military can force compliance on a foreign government and population, but force does not equal legitimacy.