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Abstract
Western governments tend to see power as synonymous with coercive force when they use their military forces in irregular armed conflicts abroad. Yet experiences from recent conflicts like Afghanistan and Iraq suggest that this understanding of power is unable to deliver the desired political ends. In an effort to better analyse and engage the political dynamics that dominate such conflicts, this article points to productive power. This theoretical perspective focuses on the micro-political dynamics that create legitimacy and mobilise people, which seminal counterinsurgency doctrines hold to be the goal.
Acknowledgements
This article was presented as a paper at the Proxy Actors workshop at Glasgow University on 22–23 June 2015. I am grateful for useful comments received there from the organiser, Dr Alex Marshall, and the other participants. I would also like to thank my colleagues and cadets at the Norwegian Military Academy for their helpful critique of earlier drafts, in particular Major Tor-Erik Hanssen, Captain Sigbjoern Halsne, and Lieutenant Martin Haugland. I alone am responsible for the views conveyed here, which do not reflect the position of the Military Academy or any other Norwegian governmental institution.
Notes
1. Porch, ‘The Dangerous Myth’; Gentile, Wrong Turn.
2. FM 3-24, §1-40. See also US Department of State, Counterinsurgency Guide, 14–15.
3. FM 3-24, §3-55.
4. For historical examples, see Strachan, ‘British Counter-Insurgency from Malaya’, 10; Kalyvas, The Logic of Violence. More recently, the government of Sri Lanka achieved its counterinsurgency ends by excessive use of force and at high humanitarian costs, see Beehner, ‘What Sri Lanka Can Teach Us’.
5. Simpson, War from the Ground, 6.
6. FM 3-24, §1-150 and §1-153 respectively.
7. The two mainstream power theories omitted in the present article are Bachrach & Baratz, ‘Two Faces of Power’, and Lukes, Power: a radical view. The view that these four constitute the main approaches to power is argued by Digeser, ‘The Fourth Face of Power’ and Barnett and Duvall, ‘Power in International Politics’, among others. Productive power refers to a theoretical notion developed by Michel Foucault, see Barnett and Duvall, ‘Power in International Politics’, 55–57. It is a micro-political dynamic which Foucault terms ‘power-knowledge’, see Foucault, Discipline and Punish; and Foucault, The Will to Knowledge.
8. See Kilcullen, ‘Twenty-Eight Articles’, 106–7; Mattis and Hoffman, ‘Future Warfare’, 19; former Commander of NATO International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, US Gen. McChrystal, ‘Commander’s Initial Assessment’; Hoffman, Inside Terrorism, 197–200; Freedman, ‘The Transformation of Strategic Affairs’, 20; Simpson, War from the Ground, 179–89.
9. Holbrooke, ‘Get the Message Out’. Many see the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria’s (ISIS) recent ability to mobilise recruits and sponsors in its rise to power as an example of the continued relevance of Holbrooke’s cautious note. See, for example, Sorenson, ‘Priming Strategic Communication’.
10. FM 3-24, §1-21.
11. See the opening paragraph of this article.
12. On the clear–hold–build approach, see FM 3-24, §5-51–5-59.
13. The story of the burnt Koran is based on correspondences with Col. Kristensen 9 and 11 June 2009; see also Hundevadt, I morgen angriber vi, 244–50.
14. FM 3-24, §3-55.
15. The doctrine does open to a broader understanding of power by mentioning social capital and authority, see FM 3-24, §3-61 and §3-36–3-37. However, the utility of these notions for counterinsurgents as conceptual means to exploit non-kinetic dynamics remain unclear.
16. Dahl, ‘The Concept of Power’, 202–3. A and B are here theoretical actors. For this definition’s dominance in social science, see, for example, Hayward, De-facing Power,11–39.
17. Dahl, ‘The Concept of Power’, 203.
18. FM 3-24, §1-1.
19. Correspondence with Col. Kristensen, 9 June 2009.
20. Respectively FM 3-24, §2-4 and §1-3.
21. Ibid., §1-4, §1-138–1-140 and §5-19–5-34.
22. For a presentation of productive power compared to other mainstream theoretical approaches to power, see Barnett and Duvall, ‘Power in International Politics’, 55–7. Foucault’s perspective has been interpreted in many ways; for a more detailed account of the way productive power is used here, see Roennfeldt, ‘Productive War’.
23. Foucault, The Will to Knowledge,144.
24. ‘Common sense’ is here used as an everyday word for Foucault’s term ‘system of legitimate knowledge’, see further ibid., 72.
25. Ibid., 94. It is a form of power that is ‘not ensured by law but by normalization, not by punishment but by control, methods . . . that go beyond the state and its apparatus’, ibid., 89.
26. Ibid., 98; Foucault, Discipline and Punish, 296.
27. FM 3-24, §1-40. For a more elaborated argument, see Kilcullen, Counterinsurency, 152–4.
28. FM 3-24, §1-153.
29. Foucault, Discipline and Punish, 199; Interview with Foucault in Gordon, Power/Knowledge, 132.
30. Dupree, Afghanistan.
31. Foucault, ‘The Subject and Power’, 777–8.
32. The term ‘political battlefield’ refers to what Foucault calls ‘the strategic field of power relations’, see Foucault, The Will to Knowledge, 96; also ‘the multiple and mobile field of force relations’, ibid. 102.
33. Foucault would have used the term ‘discursive strategies’, not ‘dominant discourse’, to underline the multiple and fluid relations between discourses, see ibid. 100. However, in this article the term ’dominant discourse’ is used for the purpose of simplicity. On the substance of these ideas and values in Afghanistan see Dupree, Afghanistan, 95–111, 659; Barth, Afghanistan og Taliban; Rubin, ‘Still ours to Lose’, 10; and Roy, ‘Development and Political Legitimacy’, 173–5.
34. As Foucault has famously formulated: ‘Power is everywhere; not because it embraces everything, but because it comes from everywhere’ (Foucault, The Will to Knowledge, 93).
35. This takes place in what Foucault refers to as ‘local centres’ of power-knowledge, see Foucault, The Will to Knowledge, 97–8.
36. The term ‘micro-political effects’ is inspired by Foucault’s term ‘effect’ in the discursive realm, see Foucault, The Will to Knowledge, 97, 100; also referred to as ‘effects of power and knowledge’, ibid. 102.
37. FM 3-24, §1-40.
38. This idea transfers Clausewitz’s principle of concentration of force from the physical realm into the political, see Clausewitz, On War, 204–9.
39. For an academic account, see Farwell, Persuasion and Power. See Campbell, The Blair Years for a practitioner’s view.
40. FM 3-24, §A-1–A-60, which is based on Kilcullen, ‘Twenty-Eight Articles’.
41. FM 3-24, §1-40.
42. Ibid., §1-21.
43. While this challenges Western liberal tradition that is reluctant to permit military personnel to engage in politics, it is in line with FM 3-24’s just presented view on counterinsurgency as a politicised form of war. It also reflects the ideas of ‘combat as politics’ that Simpson coins to describe his task as a British officer in the Royal Gurkha Rifles with three tours in Afghanistan, see Simpson, War from the Ground, 1–7.
44. FM 3-24, §1-113.
45. For all practical purposes this may be compared to Rupert Smith’s notion of a narrator, see Smith, The Utility of Force, 391.
46. In Afghanistan the Taliban successfully used local causes to mobilise people, according to Thruelsen, ‘The Taliban in Southern Afghanistan’. Mahendrarajah goes further, arguing that ISAF’s shortcomings stems from its failure to develop a counter-strategy to this feature of the Taliban’s mode of operations, see Mahendrarajah, ‘Conceptual Failure’, 34.
47. This sheds light on the key function of narratives, see FM 3-24, §A-41–A-42. ISAF’s narrative must connect well with dominant Afghan discourses.
48. Smith, The Utility of Force, 284.
49. This explains FM 3-24, §5-75. If ‘actions speak louder than words’, facts on the ground will more vigorously produce the kind of micro-political effects that determine wars of ideas.
50. FM 3-24, §4-27.
51. ‘. . .’ are used here to stress the perspective that in public imagination ‘facts’ are shaped by discourses.
52. This informs another historical counterinsurgency principle: ‘Security under the rule of law is essential’, FM 3-24, §1-131.
53. This enlightens ibid., §5-38.
54. Ibid., §1-40.
55. Ibid., §1-13.
56. For guidelines on this activity see ibid., §5-19–5-34.
57. This sheds new light on Ibid., §1-121 and A-28.
58. Ibid., §1-153.
59. Ibid.
60. Ibid., §1-150.