Even people who know nil about counterinsurgency are quick to speak of the illusive quest to “win the hearts and minds.” It has a beautiful simplicity to it…just show the locals how great we are and they’ll turn their backs on the enemy, game over. As usual though, reality has to spoil the party with its complexities and all.
It’s not that “winning the hearts and minds” of the locals is a poor goal, but we must manage our expectations of what it’s actually going to look like.
Warm embraces of gratitude with Afghan elders around a campfire of burning poppy plants with Lee Greenwood’s faint voice somewhere in the background is probably just not in the cards. We are foreign invaders no matter how you sugar-coat it.
If we’re to operate effectively on the moral level of war (arguably the most important in 4GW) we must have a realistic view of how we are seen by others. We may think our good intentions are quite obvious how dare anyone question them, but the Pashtun father who sees his toddler vaporized by an errant drone-fired missile probably has a decent rationale for challenging this notion.
Mr. Aaron J. Henninger is a lecturer on the topics of Public Affairs and Strategic Communication at the United States Air Force’s Air War College. He wrote the following mind grenade in the fantastic op-ed below. The full article can be found here.
Certain organizations have either a stigma or a perception that precludes them from carrying out specific tasks or actions. I charge that a fielded military force cannot successfully or with any degree of longevity, carry out military occupation and enact a successful public relations campaign. The messages go beyond being mixed and the long-term visuals are far too compelling than any press release or photo-op.
What if 9/11 conspirators were to have walked through NY during and after the attacks to attempt community relations? As horrific and absurd as this might sound, that is how we are perceived in some corners of the world, in the aftermath of airstrikes and destruction, attempting to persuade or engender good will.
Our efforts lack any and all sensitivity to the historical underpinnings of the West’s relationship with the Middle East. One photo-op cannot undo a thousand years grievance or mistrust. As a government we must understand and accept this reality.
What we would term as “good images”, are often times generated more for self-flagellation of the US population at large than the indigenous, effected population.
Messages of, ‘We are your friend, we are here to help you’ set against a backdrop of Humvees and .50 cal machine guns is disingenuous at best.
Check out more of Mr. Henninger’s outstanding work at his blog, on the DEFENSE.
For another post-9/11 mind grenade, see an earlier post on David Foster Wallace here.
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I just stopped by your blog and thought I would say hello. I like your site design. Looking forward to reading more down the road.
It’s a balancing act: trying to convince the people who’re directly/indirectly under attack that this is for their own long-term benefit. It’s a tough sell, so the more difficult the pitch is, the better diplomats a military needs.
@Ahsan,
You’re right and it’s hard to switch strategies or narratives mid-stream. It seems as though we’re starting to catch on, but 9 years late. In order to make the pitch you need to understand culture, context and what it is that locals actually require/need.
Henninger says it better than me,
“With the recognition of the need for a fluidic counter insurgency doctrine, so also has come the realization that a thoroughly developed and inclusive narrative construct can serve as the much need connective tissue that holds together these dynamic and ever evolving types of operations.
To the untrained eye, military maneuvering and adaptation can be quite unsettling and in fact instill as sense of chaos or desperation in the collective psyche of an indigenous population. In the most unsettling times, there must be a cultural recognition of what the local population requires of us, not what we deem important for them to know or understand.”