Right, of course this is true, and should be included in any discussion of counterinsurgency. Dirty War also has a place in the discussion. The problem is that neither approach are particularly helpful in the formulation of U.S. plans and doctrine. The United States (and most democratic powers) cannot productively pursue the more brutal approaches for political reasons -- both domestic and international public opinion can't sustain it.

Perhaps the most useful element is the recognition that another faction struggling for control may not need or seek legitimacy. For example, the Taliban when it was in power did not govern through legitimacy, but through brutality and repression, at least in part.

Tom, with all due respect, you (and Mark Kramer) have got to be kidding. Can it be that in just a few short years what was perceived as common wisdom for decades has now become today's newest theory? OF COURSE "unbridled violence" works, if your goal is to win every battle and still lose the war.

"Partly successful" is a euphemism for failure. Pointing out the obvious, where is the USSR now or the Third Reich or the Russian presence in Afghanistan?

An anecdotal side story on the FIM-92 Stinger. Which as you point-out, really didn't have that much bearing on the final outcome of the Soviet-Afghan War at that stage.

The Pentagon understood these weapons would be delivered into the hands of the Pakistani ISI for futher shipment to the Muj, and were concerned a few would end-up in the wrong hands. It was felt the "untraceable" Russian made SA-7 would be a better choice. We were right, some Stingers may have ended up in the hands of Iran, as our Navy found evidence of such on a siezed IRGC vessel in 1987.

Interestingly, the government left in place in Kabul after Gorbie pulled-out of Afghanistan survived for at least 3 years (I believe). Someone once mentioned to me had the Soviet Union not collapsed and their economy gone to hell in a hand basket, further support (which was cut) for Kabul may have kept it propped-up longer?

Intelligence update: the word on Mullah Omar is, he's been seen wearing his eye patch over the right eye these days, having moved it from the left. I'm trying to confirm this with multiple sources. : - )

And after such atrocious behaviour, the Lithuanians, Ukrainians and Hungarians just begged the Russians to stick around, following the collapse of the Soviet Union. I suspect the Chechnyans would do the same, given the chance. Sure, you can put down the insurgency, but you must maintain the threat thereafter. The ethnic Lithuanians and Ukrainians and Hungarians remain deeply suspicious of Russia (perhaps rightly so) to this day. If the "population-centric" approach were to work (a big question mark), then the united states would not need to maintain large standing armies in Iraq and Afghanistan. This, to my mind, is the experiment going on in Iraq today. If we respect Iraqi desires to disengage and leave, then hopefully the Iraqi government continues to stand and some sort of moderately congenial relation with the U.S. continues. Afghanistan is another matter; I doubt that a "population-centric" approach will be successful there.

yes, not a new theory at all. Fast, overwhelming, and brutal military force is very effective at quelling insurgencies because you kill all the troublemakers and frighten all the supporters. Now, if only the US military wanted to have the same reputation as Stalin's Red Guards and Hitler's SS Einsatzgruppen...

Mark Kramer's remarks leave little doubt that neoconservatives share the same values as totalitarian regimes like the Soviet Union -- anti-American to the core. And where is the Soviet Union now? -- lying in the graveyard of history. Does Thomas Ricks really want to align himself with this political culture? I'm curious.

Israel attempted to apply massive and brutal force against the civilian populace in the Gaza War (a war which Mark Kramer supported). What were the political results for Israel?

I didn't see that presentation, but the Russians in Ukraine seems a odd example (which could be said about all insurgencies and counterinsurgencies) as it comes right on the tail of the Nazi attempt to do the exact same thing. The Nazi's used absolutely no remorse in crushing Ukrainian resistance, to no true effect beyond piles of corpses. Maybe if they had more time it would have worked, but it seems the Russians were able to take advantage of that lingering ill will, and then exploit a population traumatized by years of brutal war to cement their own control. Finally, someone already mentioned the Eastern European grudge against Russia muddying the whole concept of success.

Also, I thought people were beginning to reconsider Chechnya's and the Caucasus' claim to stability lately? A lock on the media might simply promote the image of stability, with the truth revealed in the spectacular attacks we've been seeing.

I don't think any of us advocate these techniques but to me the more important point is one that Gian Gentile has advocated: don't automatically assume the COG and key to success is population protection. I'm starting to also better understand the organized crime aspects of protracted insurgencies and attacking their business models may be another way to reduce their resistance (resistance being the product of will and "means"). My first food for thought...

Those methods are certainly effective if you have no concern for the most basic human rights, the law of war, or humanitarian concerns.

An ideal model in any science will account for the entire spectrum of variation in the real world. Noting those variations does not make someone a proponent or opponent of them. They’re valuable simply as a way to add nuance and accuracy to a model – even if we choose not to travel down the paths they suggest are possible. It’s a testament to the low state of modern political debate that merely noting these variations leads to comparisons between one faction and some of history’s most notorious extremists. Others will travel down the paths we avoid, and we need to know what to expect.

That being said, it may be better to say that population-centric COIN is best used for specific strategic goals while violent suppression (if it’s an available option) can succeed at other strategic goals – with perhaps some overlap.

The nature of an opponent’s organization (ie. an insurgency) is not the defining nature of a conflict. A counterinsurgency campaign can have wildly different aims — among them to establish a legitimate government, destroy a rival government, prevent future violence, secure economic interests or any number of objectives.

All the Soviet objectives above aimed to secure a sphere of influence — a goal that is arguably the most ancient objective of warfare and most responsive to brute shows of force. In fact, the strategic level of the conflicts above was only modestly different from industrial interstate warfare, even though the operational level was quite a bit different.

Our strategic goals in Iraq and Afghanistan are quite a bit different. I don’t think we’ve actually decided what they are yet, but it’s pretty clear that we’re not walling ourselves off with a buffer of neutral countries and telling the rest of the world to keep out.

Ukraine, Lithuania and Hungary were essentially unarmed (or disarmed if you would) satraps.

Afghanistan is a heavily armed population with a motivation as old as prehistory.

"Kill the invaders"

(They seem to be doing a superb job of it too.)

His insinuation that Afghanistan was in any way more fruitful for the Russians MAY be correct, but let it be noted that their pursuit of Afghani territory was one of the things that shattered the Russian economy, an economy that was in MUCH better shape than the current U.S. economy.

At least in terms of energy economics.

I suggest perusing Dmitry Orloff's comparison of the breaking of the Russian economy , where he compares it to what might happen if we break ours pursuing these worthless, astronomically expensive (and our 'enemy' DOES know that) wars.

"Closing the 'Collapse Gap'"

Here's a couple of his (Power)Points:

Slide [10] Soviet public transportation was more or less all there was, but there was plenty of it. There were also a few private cars, but so few that gasoline rationing and shortages were mostly inconsequential. All of this public infrastructure was designed to be almost infinitely maintainable, and continued to run even as the rest of the economy collapsed.

The population of the United States is almost entirely car-dependent, and relies on markets that control oil import, refining, and distribution. They also rely on continuous public investment in road construction and repair. The cars themselves require a steady stream of imported parts, and are not designed to last very long. When these intricately interconnected systems stop functioning, much of the population will find itself stranded.

Slide [13] To keep evil at bay, Americans require money. In an economic collapse, there is usually hyperinflation, which wipes out savings. There is also rampant unemployment, which wipes out incomes. The result is a population that is largely penniless.

In the Soviet Union, very little could be obtained for money. It was treated as tokens rather than as wealth, and was shared among friends. Many things – housing and transportation among them – were either free or almost free.

Assuming his hypothesis correct, American society IS NOT in a position to suffer that same collapse, culturally, infrastructurally, or inter-personally, and IF it does collapse... the Pentagon will assuredly need to recall it's soldiers to the homefront to protect the despots who brought us to that juncture, from their own citizens, not some 'straw terrorists' they created to pander to our fears.

American citizens, like Afghanis, it might be noted, are also heavily armed in relation to the rest of the global population

My suggestion if that occurs would be Mark Kramer, and academic war-planners of his ilk start bulletproofing their 'cubies' and not show their faces on the street.

The USSR dealt with terrorists in similar fashion in Lebanon. Some diplomats were kidnapped by Hezbollah and instead of negotiating, the KGB kidnapped the terrorist's families and sent them their fingers. Needless to say, the Soviet diplomats were quickly released. You can see parallels to this with the Russian response in the Beslan massacre as well as the Opera theater incident which had many fatalities.

It is difficult for me to see what precisely was successful in Afghanistan. Even before the U.S began supplying the various groups with weapons and money the best Afghan officers had already mutinied and joined the rebels, Ahmed Massoud was being forced to send deserters from the ranks of the Afghan army back because he needed more spies and fewer soldiers, and the war was costing the Soviets billions of dollars every year in a time when a billion dollars was worth something.
As for Chechnya (and Dagestand and Ingushetia which are just as important although everyone forgets them), these assertions probably could not have come at a worse time. In Chechnya a series of bombings have proven that contrary to Russian claims the insurgency is not defeated, in Ingushetia the President Yunus-Bek Yevkurov was seriously injured three months ago in a n explosion that killed several bodyguards and ripped apart his car, and the Interior Minister of Dagestan was assassinated a few weeks before that. Simply put, the Russian method might work (though I obviously do not believe that) but we have few signs to show it from these examples.

Just in at National Security Archive, Georgetown U.

"Previously Classified Interviews with Former Soviet Officials Reveal U.S. Strategic Intelligence Failure Over Decades

1995 Contractor Study Finds that U.S. Analysts Exaggerated Soviet Aggressiveness and Understated Moscow's Fears of a U.S. First Strike"

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nukevault/ebb285/index.htm

It's in regard to Pentagon contractor analysis of Soviet posturing during the Cold War.

(IOW decades long mis-analysis US taxpayers were bilked for along with all the weapons development costs and more in regard to our mistaken assumptions)

I haven't had a chance to look it over yet, but it might be relevant to Kramer's analysis of Soviet 'brutality'.

Considering that neofas... I mean 'cons' are very much still in the 'cold war' frame.

Let's remember, there was no Soviet doctrine for counter-insurgency when the Soviets entered Afghanistan. They knew virtually nothing about setting up indigenous armies or training them. Their previous experiences had been quick massive mechanized operations, spearheaded by troops non-ethnic to Eastern Europe in many cases.

During the beginning of the Soviet occupation, the Soviets attempted to put Afghans out in front - supporting them from fixed bases.

What's not talked about is that when that didn't work and the Soviets saw they weren't going to be leaving anytime soon, they got frustrated and that's when the brutality begain, including relocating the rural population (forcing the people to concentrate in cities that the Soviets believed they could more easily secure) which produced millions of refugees. The Soviets also used chemical weapons and mines, intended to cripple and maim civilians.

Often, these tactics are glossed-over when certain models are put forward for which no sane democratic country could ever think about implementing in this day and age, nor should - though a dictatorship could.

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The presenter must not be watching developments in the Caucasus at all over the last few months. It continues to worsen, and all of those examples bear very little if any resemblance to what is happening the Caucasus these days. Interventions in Hungary and the like predate the mass availability of small arms as well as funding provided by violent radical Islamist movements.

This was a disappointing post, which totally ignored current events.

As an intelligence analyst who closely followed and published extensively (in classified channels) on the Soviet War in Afghanistan, I'd like to comment on a couple of things:
-- Gorbachev may have decided to withdraw before the fall of 1986, but this was not known outside the Kremlin until a year later.
-- The Stingers we provided did have an impact, not in terms of increasing Soviet aircraft & helicopter losses (a small & temporary "bump" at best, despite lavish Mujahedin claims) but in forcing the Soviets to alter their rules of engagement for air operations. Their aircraft & helicopters stayed much higher and air-ground ops were correspondingly less effective. We were told by the Mujahedin in late 1986 that for the first time in years they were able to move caravans during daylight hours. So for the USSR the military problem became more complex, even if not hopeless.
-- My belief was that the USSR always attempted to fight this war "on the cheap" compared to our effort in Vietnam. A tiny fraction of their overall air assets and ground forces were engaged, and it seemed to me somewhat strange that they didn't try to gain the upper hand by putting more troops and combat aircraft in-country.

I think I can add a bit more to this discussion. During the Russian campaign in Afghanistan in the 1980s, my father (a former Soviet officer in the Second World War) remarked on numerous occasions that the Soviet approach towards counter insurgency in Afghanistan was all wrong.

Years later I asked him how did he know .... his answer was that he and other officers (during the Second World War) were educated on numerous occasions on how effective the Nazis (through their special SS units) were in anti-partisan operations and tactics against Soviet citizens in occupied territories. As Soviet officers they were taught that German 'coin' tactics were terribly effective, and that in the event of being cut off from the Soviet Army, they would .... as partisans .... be always aware of what the Germans were capable of.

As he further elaborated .... when he and his fellow soldiers started to liberate occupied territories, partisan units were far and few between. He quickly learned the reasons why very quickly .... the SS were successful through torture, intelligence, informers, intimidation, murder, and wholesale slaughter of communities to subjugate and pacify the population. And as my father put it bluntly .... they were very pacified.

Learning from the best .... he believes that the Soviets then copied and started to use these same tactics against future rebellious populations and territories. What is worse, is that they taught other communist movements around the world these same tactics and procedures. This is probably one of the many reasons why the Communists were successful in crushing dissent in China, Indo-China, and Cuba.

On a side note, my father also remarked that at the beginning of the Indo-China war, the French Foreign legion had no difficulty in defeating the communists and supporters of Ho Chi Min when they started their insurgence in the late 1940s. It was when Paris found out that much of the officer corp of the French Foreign Legion were ex SS German officers ..... the political scandal that then erupted resulted in all German officers being purged. A few months later, the slow and grinding road to defeat started for the French in Vietnam .... and the Americans 20 years later.

The only problem I see with the OP's example is that the Russians had time on their side, at least theoretically - they could afford to be brutal, because they had no intention of ever letting go of the territory in question if they could help it, and the government didn't depend on votes for survival.

That's not exactly the case in Afghanistan and Iraq, where the US is itching to get out, and trying to set up a government that won't disintegrate into a pile of dogshit and explosions as soon as we take our boots off their necks.