By Dave Anderson:
US counter-insurgency doctrine holds that the counter-insurgent force needs to number 2% to 3% of the population that is to be secured. This is normall expressed as 20 to 30 couter-insurgents per thousand residents. At this density, the counter-insurgent forces are strong enough to be pervasive in the civilian environment. There will be a counter-insurgent "beat" in every neighborhood, and the counterinsurgent "beat cops" will gain enough trust as well as relevant tacit local knowledge to be able to either recognize or gain the intelligence as to what is "odd" and threatening to the primary mission of building central government legitimacy and capacity.
The city of Pittsburgh has roughly 300,000 people living in it overnight, and about 400,000 people during the work-day. Pittsburgh was also the host to the G-20 last week, and that event had a massive security bubble. The mission of the security bubble was significantly different than that of a counter-insurgent force as most of the G-20 security was involved in creating and securing a perimeter of a no-go zone rather than being a pervasive presence in the community, so the following is more impressionistic than analytical.
The G-20 security group was roughly 4,000 uniformed cops and an unknown number of federal and state support and supervisory personnel. Depedning on the assumptions being made, the force ratio was between 1.0% to 2.0% of the civilian population in Pittsburgh. The best guesstimate was probably close to 1.5% of the population was secuirty personnel.
During the week, the entire downtown section of the city, which normally employs 120,000 or more individuals, was an effective ghost town. Cross-town connections were almost impossible. What normally would be a 45 minute bus ride to work for a friend, streteched into a four hour ordeal. She had to og through checkpoints, present ID, wait for other actors to go through other checkpoints and hope that what previously was a functioning system could still creak along. The economic functioning of the city was severely disrupted. In this , the G-20 security is similiar to oil-spot counterinsurgency or strategic hamlets or any other western COIN system where small areas are initially secured and isolated from the surrounding social, cultural and economic mileau in order for the counter-insurgent forces to "clear" the area of insurgents. This hit can be relieved by outside capital infusions (Pittsburgh is due for $20 million as security compensation) that are dependent on on the central government having a recurring and legitimate revenue stream of sufficient size to compensate the counterinsurgency target points.
As a resident of the city, the security presence was very noticable, even in neighborhoods where there was nothing happening. The same will apply to COIN ink-spots. The G-20 security presence was drawn from forces that speak the same language, share the same cultural mileau and are representative of a government that 99% of the city of Pittsburgh considers legitimate. Yet despite thiese advantages, and the further advantage of a bunch of anacrchists douchebages
The G-20 security force was smaller, possessing profound advantages of legitimacy and of a much shorter duration than any COIN force that is actually attempting to implement the US COIN doctrine. Yet despite these advantages, the security forces were operating on a thin cushion of public tolerance as there were several instances of excessive or indiscriminate force that were used in Oakland. The security forces grated as the lesser of two evils.
In a COIN environvment where the government that is being supported is seen as illegitimate, or even worse, a joke, with higher force levels that are increasingly drawn from foreigners who don't understand the local language or culture; the security forces acting as counterinsurgents most likely do more than grate on the locals.
No comments:
Post a Comment