BEYOND “HEARTS AND MINDS” A Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of Georgetown University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Government By Raphael S. Cohen, M.A. Washington, DC May 15, 2014 Copyright 2014 by Raphael S. Cohen All Rights Reserved ii BEYOND “HEARTS AND MINDS” Raphael S. Cohen, M.A. Dissertation Advisor: Daniel L. Byman, Ph.D. ABSTRACT: Ever since Field Marshal Sir Gerald Templer proclaimed that “the answer lies not in pouring more troops into the jungle, but in the hearts and minds of the people,” common wisdom suggests that the key to military victory in counterinsurgency is “winning hearts and minds.” As interpreted in modern doctrine, Templer’s dictum requires that the counterinsurgent promote economic, social and political reforms (to give everyone a “stake” in society) and minimize its use of force (to avoid popular backlash). My dissertation shows that 1) historically, most successful counterinsurgencies have not been fought this way; 2) when this approach has been tried, it rarely proves effective; and 3) instead, military victory comes from successful population control. Population control, in turn, employs some combination of three sets of tactics: physical measures (e.g. walls, resource controls and forced resettlement), cooption (of local elite and often the insurgents themselves) and “divide and rule” strategies. I demonstrate these claims through detailed analyses of four influential modern counterinsurgencies—the Malayan Emergency, the Mau Mau Rebellion, the Vietnam War and the Iraq War, along with a study of local opinion data from the Vietnam, Iraq and Afghan Wars. Ultimately, as far as military victory is concerned, whether the counterinsurgent wins “hearts and minds” matters far less than whether it can control them. iii Acknowledgements Dissertations are, by their nature, solo sports. For years, one lives in ones’ own little world. Unlike professional schools, there are no set deadlines, group projects or common assignments; the process is unique and completely self-motivated. And yet, no dissertation is possible without the help of others and so, I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge their contributions. First off, I must thank my committee—Daniel Byman, David Edelstein, Bruce Hoffman, Kenneth Pollack and Benjamin Valentino. Each of them brought their own perspectives and expertise in political science, history, military analysis and policy making. I could not have asked for a finer group of scholars to help mold my thinking and my work benefited immeasurably from their guidance. In particular, special thanks are due to my committee chair, Daniel Byman. In a profession that all too often prizes individual scholarship over teaching others, Dan is the exception. During my tenure at Georgetown, he was always there to answer my questions, read my drafts, write my recommendations and offer his words of wisdom—all despite an active teaching load, an impressive publishing record and considerable administrative duties. He is a mentor in every sense of the word. I also need to thank the various institutions that financially supported my work. First, I owe Georgetown University a debt of gratitude for fully funding my years there and for providing me two summer research grants that allowed me to conduct much of initial research. Being in Washington DC also offered range unique opportunities. Even before I officially began my graduate student career, I had the opportunity to spend several months as a researcher at the American Enterprise Institute, collecting my thoughts from two Iraq tours, writing my first articles iv and slowly transitioning to academic life. I also spent a summer at the National Defense University’s Center for Complex Operations, beginning my academic work on counterinsurgency. Most importantly, I was also privileged to spend a year at the Brookings Institution as predoctoral fellow from 2013 to 2014, finishing writing the dissertation and also breaking out of the academic bubble and engaging with the policy world. As a son of an archivist, I must make a special mention of the staffs of the Georgetown University Special Collections Library, the Brookings Institution Library, the National Archives and Records Administration at College Park, the National Archives at Kew, United Kingdom, the Liddell Hart Reading Room, and the Royal Army Museum’s Archives. No research task is possible without the ability to find what you need and these dedicated professionals allowed me to do just that in a timely fashion. All journeys require fellow travelers and I was lucky to have an impressive group of friends and colleagues who supported me in various ways along the way. To start, my Ph.D. cohort— Rebecca Davis Gibbons, Rafael Frankel and Gabriel Scheinmann—acted as primary sounding board through the years, graciously consenting to read drafts, hear presentations and provide timely feedback. More broadly, I have to also thank the other professors, Ph.D. candidates, Security Studies students and undergraduates who I interacted along the way and who made Georgetown one of the most intellectually rewarding experiences of my life. Finally, I need acknowledge the multitude of scholars at the American Enterprise Institute, Brookings Institution, and National Defense University, as well as friends from the greater Washington DC community, who all shaped my thinking in a variety of ways. Above all, I need to thank my family—my parents, Eliot and Judy Cohen, siblings and brother-in-law, Miki and Ari Moskowitz and Becky and Nathan Cohen, and of course, my adorable niece and nephew, Raya and Allen. I came to Georgetown for the Ph.D., partly v because I wanted to be close them after several years away, and in retrospect, it was one of the best choices I could have made. Throughout this process, they patiently listened to my lectures, humored my rants, allowed me to raid their libraries, fed me and encouraged me in any number of other ways. Their love and support has been continuous source of strength for me at every step of the process. Finally, as I write this, I approach my ten year anniversary in the United States Army and Army Reserve. Over the years, I have honor to serve with countless officers, noncommissioned officers and soldiers, both in combat and at home. Through their actions, they taught more about the practice of counterinsurgency, than any book or article; through their sacrifices, they taught me about the stakes involved in these wars. And so, it is to them, this work is dedicated. Raphael S. Cohen Washington, DC June 6, 2014 vi Table of Contents Chapter 1: Beyond “Hearts and Minds”………………………………………………………………...1 Chapter 2: Four Model of Counterinsurgency……………………………..…………………………27 Chapter 3: A Control Based Theory of Counterinsurgency………………………………………...51 Chapter 4: Back to the Future: Victory in the Malayan Emergency Revisited……………………74 Chapter 5: Anvils and Hammers…………………………………………………………………..…109 Chapter 6: Paved with Good Intentions: Victory and Defeat in Vietnam…..…………………….144 Chapter 7: Sisyphus & the Surge: Winning Versus Controlling “Hearts and Minds” in Iraq…...182 Chapter 8: “That Nauseating Phrase I Think I Invented”………………………………………….219 Appendix: Neither Necessary, Nor A Sufficient Condition………………………………………..242 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………………………276 vii Chapter 1: Beyond Hearts & Minds Ask most soldiers, pundits and scholars today about how counterinsurgencies are won, and the answer will likely be by winning “hearts and minds.” This shorthand for modern counterinsurgency doctrine entered the popular lexicon with the British experience in Malaya. In 1952, British High Commissioner to Malaya Gerald Templer famously remarked, “The answer [to the uprising] lies not in pouring more troops into the jungle, but in the hearts and minds of the people.” 1 As interpreted by the military’s Counterinsurgency Manual , Templer’s dictum requires the counterinsurgent to provide security, undertake major political and economic reforms, and embark on an extensive public diplomacy campaign—all to shift the population’s loyalties and thereby cut the insurgency off from its lifeblood. Despite its popularity, the need to win “hearts and minds” remains a deeply problematic assertion for two reasons. On a basic level, counterinsurgents “won” these conflicts long before Gerald Templer ever popularized the phrase: in fact, democratic counterinsurgents “won” 40 of 58 these wars before Malaya, but only 6 of 27 times afterwards. 2 Second and more importantly, “hearts and minds,” as a theory, suffers from a missing data problem. Historically, few counterinsurgents systematically measured popular attitudes, often leaving little comprehensive record of what the population actually thought or felt. More problematically, from what can be drawn from anecdotal accounts, some of the most successful counterinsurgents were anything but popular with the locals. For example, after experiencing Roman counterinsurgency tactics firsthand, one embittered British chieftain characterized, “To robbery, butchery, and rapine, they 1 Clutterbuck 1966, p. 3 2 From the dataset used in Lyall 2010. Democracy was determined by a Polity score of 7 or higher. Ongoing counterinsurgencies were dropped from the dataset and the Iraq War was counted as a victory. [the Romans] give the lying name of ‘government;’ they create desolation and call it peace.” 3 And the Romans were not an exception. Even leaving aside extreme examples such