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1:39

Welcome to the New Books Network. Hello,

1:43

welcome to the New Books Network. I am

1:45

your host, Steven Sikhevich. In

1:47

this episode, I will be speaking with Jonathan

1:49

W. Hackett on

1:51

his book, Theory of Irregular

1:53

War, published by McFarland and

1:56

Company, Incorporated in 2023.

1:58

Jonathan W. Hackett. Hackett is

2:00

a U.S. Marine with two decades of

2:03

experience. He has held positions at the

2:05

Defense Intelligence Agency, the National

2:07

Security Agency, the Marine Corps

2:10

Special Operations Command, and

2:12

the Marine Corps Operating Forces

2:15

prior to teaching full-spectrum human

2:17

intelligence operations and security cooperation

2:20

in Dam Neck, Virginia. Jonathan

2:23

Hackett, welcome to the New Books Network.

2:26

Thank you. We always like

2:28

to begin our interviews by asking our guests,

2:30

tell us a little bit about yourself and

2:33

what's the backstory behind writing this book? Well,

2:36

my backstory is probably a little bit different than most

2:38

people who write about military studies and

2:40

stuff like that. I'm

2:42

actually an interrogator and I've been in

2:44

special operations and intelligence for the last

2:47

20 years. So while

2:49

a lot of people write about this stuff from

2:51

the comfort of their office, I

2:53

actually was in many of the places that I

2:56

have written about in this book. A

2:59

lot of the things, of course, in history, I was not there for that.

3:02

But I had to go and do the reading just

3:04

like everybody else. But my

3:06

service in those places is kind of

3:09

what prompted me to say I should write

3:11

something about this, especially

3:13

in places like Kurdistan in the Middle

3:16

East and Java and

3:18

Indonesia and in Lebanon. Because

3:21

there's a couple of things in the book

3:23

that I kind of draw out about territory

3:25

and society and things like that. And in

3:27

those places, I really saw those problems amplified

3:30

to a degree where it became

3:32

a question of why is this

3:34

happening? So when I got back

3:37

from all that stuff, I'm actually retiring soon. So when

3:39

I got back from all of that, I said, I

3:41

should sit down and analyze this

3:43

and write about it. Now,

3:47

what are some of the intellectual

3:49

influences in writing this book? You

3:51

did just mention your own personal

3:53

experiences, but also were there any

3:56

intellectual influences on how to

3:58

understand this topic? Definitely.

4:00

So other

4:02

writers oftentimes they go to certain

4:06

authors like David Galula, Roger

4:08

Trinkier, and some others. I

4:10

did not do that. I did of course read their materials

4:12

but the things that actually positively

4:14

influenced my framework were

4:17

more of the political science genre.

4:19

So John Locke's second treatise on

4:22

government was very important because

4:24

he talks a lot about how a state

4:27

performs in an ideal capacity

4:30

because what I write about is a non-ideal

4:32

state. So in order to talk about the

4:34

non-ideal state you first have to understand what

4:36

does the right state look like in a

4:38

perfect world and he wrote a very lengthy

4:40

treatise on that which also

4:43

influenced our own Declaration of Independence and

4:45

everything like that. So that

4:47

was very important. I also

4:49

really liked Kenneth Waltz's Man

4:51

the State and War which he wrote in 1959 and

4:53

he also fought in war and

4:56

came back from the war and then wrote about this and

4:58

became a very influential scholar in the field

5:01

and that was a book about how people and

5:03

their states interact and how that can lead to war

5:05

and the kind of war he was talking about is

5:07

a little different than what I was talking about but

5:10

I thought it was a useful approach to kind of looking

5:12

at people differently than the conflict because

5:15

I think that is different. He

5:18

also had the theory of international

5:20

politics which is foundational text in

5:22

international relations theory. Even

5:24

the theories that disagree with him have to

5:26

trace themselves back to him so it's a

5:28

very important book I think for understanding the

5:31

kind of framework I'm using. And there's

5:33

a couple of other authors like John

5:36

Tilly and John C. Scott. John

5:38

C. Scott especially he wrote a book called Seeing Like

5:40

the State which talks about

5:42

how states do this centrally planned approach to

5:44

solving problems which is not always the best

5:46

approach especially in societies

5:49

that are not fully modernized.

5:52

We can get into that later about modernization theory and

5:54

things like that but it's a very interesting Very

5:58

deep look at some different cases

6:00

in Latin America, the Middle East,

6:02

and other places to and then.

6:05

John. Kelly As I mentioned,

6:07

he wrote coercion, capital and

6:09

European states. It's.

6:12

A European focused book, but

6:14

it talks a lot about

6:16

how economics, especially free market

6:18

economics, interact with people. That.

6:20

Are in conflict I would have the

6:22

outcomes of that's very interesting. Books out

6:24

there are a lot of others but

6:26

those for kind of. The.

6:28

Rise of the Top time and time

6:31

again as I as I was analyzing

6:33

the stays so just forgive ah are

6:35

on our listeners. Kind of like a

6:37

basic idea. What what do you mean

6:39

in the most basic sense of irregular

6:42

war? Like how does it compare to

6:44

regular war? We're doubling it again or

6:46

more. Details. throughout

6:49

the interview but. Just.

6:51

To give like a real basic

6:53

introduction. Yeah. The it's

6:55

really important thing because lot of people think

6:57

that there's only one type of war because

6:59

they are students of Clouseau. it's I'm Who

7:02

class with himself said that actually the war

7:04

he was reading about was very specific. it

7:06

was Cabinets Creek which is between ward apartments

7:08

of countries basically and that his book did

7:11

not apply to a bunch of other cases

7:13

including Box Greig which was people's works

7:15

so irregular were as. It's a

7:17

joke. It's a last resort of people. such

7:19

a choice that people make, which is different

7:21

than a choice that governments make. And

7:25

actually lock going back to what

7:27

he wrote earlier about Special In

7:29

A Perfect Governments. There's

7:31

a quote that I really loved by him

7:33

or he said great mistakes in the ruling

7:36

party. Many. Wrong and inconvenient laws

7:38

and all the slips of human frailty

7:40

will be borne by the people without

7:42

mutiny or murmur. Which. I

7:44

think is really that encapsulates it because

7:47

people will suffer for a very long

7:49

time before they choose to actually resort

7:51

to violence because the costs are too

7:53

high and always other things and that

7:55

choice to cross over his. Part.

7:57

of what irregular war is. It

8:00

takes a severe disconnect between what people

8:02

expected, their sovereign. Whatever that, my eagerness

8:04

different in different contexts and then what

8:07

the sovereign actually delivers. And and case

8:09

of talking about the sovereign, I'm in

8:11

a state. And when

8:13

this relationship is negative, I call it sovereign

8:15

dysfunction. And. Sovereign.

8:18

Dysfunction is really important Concept: It's new to the

8:20

disappointed something I came up with and actually

8:22

one of my peer reviewers on as putting my

8:25

book. their peer review was complaining. Because. Ah

8:34

so. It's. A central

8:36

component my argument throughout the

8:38

book and basically given a

8:40

condition of sovereign dysfunction, irregular

8:42

war takes place outside. Established

8:45

Systems. I call

8:47

this like in a more colloquial sense, trading

8:49

ballots for bullets. So instead of going to

8:51

vote away your issues, you're shooting away the

8:54

issues That's that's a very simplified be in

8:56

a way to look at it, but that's

8:58

kind of when it grout. And

9:00

it's. There. Are like

9:02

three important areas there that that this

9:04

choice will be made where the state

9:06

and out of sync with what people

9:08

expect and and those areas are social

9:11

order. Sovereign. Territory and political economic

9:13

institutions. And and these three things don't have

9:15

to all be happening in a negative way

9:17

the same time. In fact, I argue in

9:19

the book that. Each. One has it's

9:22

own type of. Beginning. And end.

9:25

But they can happen together. I'm so and

9:27

I get into that in the book. Yes,

9:32

of the state is a real important. Part.

9:34

Of understanding like why irregular war even

9:36

exists. It's kind of were when the

9:39

state kind is in a dysfunctional snake

9:41

as you can set the sovereign as

9:43

function. That's kind of whereas regular wars

9:45

kind of when the state of kind

9:48

of operating as it sure isn't It

9:50

wouldn't be a good way of tenants

9:52

and a simple fine but as a

9:55

good way of understanding. This year and

9:57

actually I talk about about expectation and

9:59

my. Because. He. Now let's

10:01

say you're in China or you're in Venezuela

10:03

or you're in Mexico. Each of those states

10:06

the people living there have a different expectation

10:08

about what the state should do for them.

10:10

And it's not about how we the outside

10:12

view that at view the states operations. that

10:15

doesn't That's not the main reason that these

10:17

people have a grievance or have an issue

10:19

that they can't solve. And and in some.

10:22

Some. Cases the thing that might look terrible

10:24

to us is totally acceptable to them

10:26

and is not a dysfunctional thing in

10:28

there. And they're context. so it's it's

10:30

what are they actually expect and what

10:32

are they getting. And if there's a

10:34

huge enough disconnect between those two things,

10:36

there's now a condition of at the

10:38

for people to. To. Begin violence

10:40

essentially to to regain the the

10:42

equilibrium they're looking for. Now what

10:44

are some of the major theoretical

10:47

frameworks necessary to understand Irregular war?

10:49

You actually kind of mentions through

10:51

really and others quickly. List of

10:53

a man and you can explain

10:55

them Aren't First you say it's

10:57

people centric, then state centric which

10:59

we kind of have dealt with

11:01

a little bit and and military

11:03

centric probably as I kind of

11:05

like the strategy and tactics of

11:07

irregular war. He added

11:09

the com those three different veins. The

11:12

military centric one is very common,

11:14

especially in the west. And it's

11:17

It's doctor and focused, so it's

11:19

prescriptive in nature. It's it's not

11:21

designed to ask why. Oh

11:23

it not even design sometimes ask what

11:25

is going on instead is how do

11:27

we do something which I think is

11:29

problematic. You should always understand the why

11:31

first before you start doing something because

11:33

if you look at the wars in

11:35

Vietnam or Iraq or Afghanistan and many

11:37

other cases if you don't understand why

11:39

people are doing what they're doing and

11:41

then solve the why. Your.

11:43

How's. Is. Ineffective at

11:46

the very least. Moving

11:48

up in degree of usefulness, then

11:50

there's the state centric. Theory.

11:53

Or framework which is really basically international

11:56

relations theory and political realism and kind

11:58

of the stuff that that you are

12:00

in political science about how to look

12:02

at world conflict in. the key take

12:04

away their is that states are black

12:06

boxes that you know their internal dynamics

12:08

are are not as relevant to how

12:10

those states interact with other states. So

12:12

you know China interacting with the United

12:15

States. It's just. One. Entity in

12:17

another entity. Interacting. In this

12:19

anarchic world. That's

12:21

the state centric. Framework. And

12:23

and a lot of again western approaches

12:25

take this state centric framework when they're

12:27

looking at a regular war and. I.

12:30

Think that's problematic because. Really

12:32

is the third one people centric, but

12:34

I think is probably the most helpful

12:37

way to start looking at these issues

12:39

does come from the social sciences, so

12:41

you've got a foundational thinkers like Karl

12:44

Marx, Max Weber's Emile Durkheim. Winning

12:48

later thinkers like Chauncey Scott and Painter

12:50

who wrote a book about the classes,

12:52

complex societies. And that's looking

12:54

at more of of what's going on with the people

12:56

here. Doesn't. Have

12:58

to be a state and all it's

13:00

It Could just be a band of

13:02

folks who have issues. How they resolve

13:04

those issues. So what? The approach that

13:06

I took mostly was the people centric

13:08

approach, but I discuss in detail the

13:10

other two just a kind of juxtapose

13:13

and next to each other so that

13:15

the reader can make a choice about

13:17

what approach they would like to. Yes,

13:21

Yes, And there's actually now a growing

13:23

field of fire: the Sociology of Violence

13:25

and ah, War on one of my

13:27

colleagues, and he showed mouse of it

13:29

has written quite a lot about that

13:32

and just how in some ways how

13:34

conflicts operate in different contexts can be

13:36

as much about the social. Part

13:38

of things as as anything else, rather

13:41

just merely tactical earned the technology that

13:43

we sometimes especially in the west be

13:45

kind of have that in the in

13:47

the popular imagination. And yeah we're kind

13:50

of even seen at right now with

13:52

Ukraine like Will wire the Ukrainians fighting

13:54

this way as opposed to the way

13:56

the word used to. Well. Yeah.

13:59

It's a different. Interaction. It's just it's

14:01

so forth and also just part

14:03

of their military heritage or to

14:06

cover. So ah, brain a little

14:08

bit with that Soviet dub heritage.

14:10

yeah. Definitely. Now

14:13

you uses Time grounded

14:15

Sperry and could you

14:17

explain this and how

14:19

it applies to understanding

14:21

irregular warfare? Sure,

14:23

Said this is actually have. Developed

14:26

by a scholar and glazer up

14:28

decades ago. And it it's is.

14:31

Well. Suited for qualitative studies. So where

14:33

you lack like strong numerical data this

14:36

is a helpful way to start out

14:38

your journey. So it's it's not the

14:40

theory that you would use for the

14:43

entire study but it's it's to help

14:45

you begin. And I'm a really brings

14:47

these kind of. Disparate data sources

14:49

together that otherwise you'd have a hard time

14:52

analyzing next to each other. And

14:55

it's like us. As for call,

14:57

qualitative research. For. And it's really.

15:00

With. Quantitative research. You want to get

15:02

big numbers, big data and do this

15:04

like deep, you know, a regressive analysis

15:07

of something. Or

15:09

or compare numerous variables and thanks. And

15:11

sometimes you just don't have the data

15:13

to do that. and with a regular

15:15

war you don't. Especially when there's so

15:17

much personal things involved in these conflicts

15:19

the data as questionable, the data might

15:21

not exist and many other many other

15:23

problems yet. Perhaps the people at you

15:25

like to talk to the interview are

15:27

dead so you can't. You can't go

15:29

track down. That data either. So lot

15:31

of primary sources that you'd typically rely

15:34

on for non violent studies. Does

15:37

not exist here so. We

15:39

helps. you don't have a description if

15:41

you don't have interviews, if you don't

15:44

have memoirs, resources, things like that. It

15:47

gives you a way to kind of set

15:49

these things up next to each other and

15:51

then inductive. We draw out you're starting points.

15:53

So for example, when I was talking about

15:55

Indonesia in the book, the couple of times

15:57

I used Granted Theory to start out where.

16:00

should I begin analyzing

16:02

why the Dutch lost the

16:04

conflict? Because by all data

16:06

points, the Dutch should have won

16:09

the conflict against the Javanese after World

16:11

War II ended. And in fact,

16:13

the Dutch knew more about the Javanese order

16:16

of battle than the Javanese did and

16:18

the Dutch still lost. So what

16:21

else is going on here? And grounded theory kind of

16:23

helps you plot through

16:25

that question so that you can

16:27

start expanding out more analysis. Now,

16:29

a key component in irregular war,

16:31

and this gets back to the

16:33

question of, you have to understand

16:35

the why rather than necessarily the

16:37

how, and that kind of

16:40

gets into ideology. Now, I know this

16:42

is a very complex topic,

16:44

but could you kind of do

16:47

the best you can to summarize like, what

16:49

role does ideology play usually in

16:51

irregular war? So there's, like

16:54

you said, a huge focus on ideology

16:56

in scholarship. Some

16:59

scholarship argues that ideology is the

17:01

most important factor in irregular war.

17:04

I disagree. I show in

17:06

my book how it doesn't actually explain

17:08

why people are choosing to fight these types

17:10

of wars. Instead, I

17:13

take the approach that ideology is a

17:15

precursor component that forms or

17:17

helps to form a worldview. Then

17:20

a person takes that worldview, they view the way

17:22

things are with that worldview, and then

17:24

they form expectations about how the

17:26

sovereign should deliver those results. And

17:29

then if it doesn't meet those

17:31

expectations, they have a reaction to that.

17:34

Now, way earlier in that

17:36

causal chain I just described, ideology was

17:38

a component, but it was not

17:40

the only component. It wasn't a sufficient

17:42

condition for this conflict to occur, and so

17:45

it forms kind of the underlying

17:47

framework of why people even

17:49

look at things the way they did. And

17:53

The way of thinking of ideology like this that

17:55

I'm using, it actually came from Ali Shariati, who

17:57

is an Iranian philosopher in the 1970s. He

18:00

gave a bunch of lectures on on how. Inside.

18:03

Of a revolution, there are thinkers and

18:05

there are actors and these are two

18:07

separate. Groups. Of people

18:09

and. Ideology forms

18:12

the world view. Of these

18:14

thinkers and these actors. And. Then all

18:16

the other participants that decide to go

18:18

along and bandwagon and in this militia

18:20

were group or whatever. And.

18:23

He asked what ideology did

18:25

to those people which is

18:27

very different than you look

18:29

at western. Writings. On it

18:31

than ideology as you know, hate for

18:34

the west or you know in the

18:36

Ukraine situation that the Russians have irredentist

18:38

claims to Eastern Ukraine. that's an ideological

18:40

approach. But that's that I really asked

18:43

us not answering the question of like

18:45

what's going on here it is gonna

18:47

describing it. Instead of explaining

18:49

it, So. I think it's

18:51

important to take that different view and especially

18:53

looking in the context of what I've or

18:56

analyzed her. Now what are you know? What

18:58

are the I know. This differs from case

19:00

the case for what are the usual type

19:02

of actors involved in the irregular where you

19:04

kind of just. Mentioned

19:07

one like militias are obviously

19:09

not. Usually.

19:11

The participants are not usually are part of

19:13

the Raiders state even though the state me

19:15

be fighting them so they obviously have to

19:17

operate outside of the confines of the state.

19:20

What? Type of forces are

19:22

usually. Kind of formed

19:25

and so forth and I know it

19:27

differs from case the case but what

19:29

can we say about it in a

19:31

general. Sense. What?

19:33

Is good you said it varies because when

19:35

I was three might also so trying to

19:37

write in such a way that it could

19:40

be very broadly applicable So. I would

19:42

break it into three categories of actors. Two

19:44

of them are necessary and one of them

19:46

is kind of an optional ingredient. The.

19:49

Necessary actors are first the

19:51

state. So. The state is

19:53

the weather that's a military or

19:56

security institution, or whatever element, whatever

19:58

instrument of that sovereignty. is

20:01

the second ingredient is a people

20:04

subject to that state's sovereignty and that's an

20:06

important connection that they're subject to that state's

20:08

sovereignty and they

20:10

found some condition that's so egregious remembering

20:14

back to what Locke said that it has to

20:16

be exceptionally egregious for them to decide that

20:18

this unmet expectation is enough to resort

20:21

to violence to reconcile it and then

20:23

the third kind of optional ingredient is

20:25

what I call third-party intervention that's

20:28

when another state or another element

20:30

it could be another militia or

20:32

another security force or something comes

20:34

in and starts participating and

20:36

when you look at a lot of cases this third-party

20:39

intervention takes many different forms you

20:41

know look at ISIS

20:43

for example there was thousands of foreign fighters

20:45

joining ISIS independently on their own then

20:48

there were groups that were joining ISIS as groups

20:50

you know and then there were states you know

20:52

fighting against them that were joining coalitions and things

20:54

like that that's just one one

20:57

small case then you have the

20:59

Spanish Civil War where you had Germany

21:02

and Russia the United States and Britain fighting against

21:04

each other basically in a rehearsal for the Second

21:06

World War right before it started with

21:09

a bunch of independent brigades also fighting their

21:11

own battles in this conflict so that's

21:13

there's a huge array of actors and

21:16

a third-party intervention but the

21:18

important thing is it's not necessary the

21:20

first two the state and the people are

21:23

definitely necessary. Now when

21:25

we were just discussing ideology you

21:27

noted that it's not

21:29

the all-encompassing motivation

21:32

for participating in a irregular

21:35

war so what

21:37

are some of the common motivations

21:40

like for the everyday participants

21:42

if ideology is not as

21:45

critical as you just said?

21:47

This is actually really

21:49

important this what

21:51

motivates people to my job as an

21:53

interrogator because I need to understand

21:56

why someone's doing something and especially even my

21:58

adversary and make them agree to work

22:00

with me. So what's what's going on inside their brain?

22:02

So this is something near and dear to my heart.

22:05

And what we take in my field

22:07

is two different approaches. One is an

22:09

intrinsic motivation pathway

22:12

and one is extrinsic. And the

22:14

extrinsic motivations are these things in the

22:16

world around you that might

22:19

contribute to your choice to do something. And

22:21

there's four of them. It's money,

22:23

ideology, coercion, and excitement. And you

22:25

notice that ideology is in there.

22:28

These are extrinsic though, which means they're not

22:30

the actual reason that the person is

22:32

doing something. Instead, there

22:34

are intrinsic motivations. There

22:37

happen to be five of them. There are others,

22:39

but there are five main ones, especially

22:42

through Robert Cialdini's research in the 1980s

22:44

on influence that the CIA actually

22:46

uses. They use these

22:48

five intrinsic motivators and that's something

22:51

called reciprocity, authority,

22:54

social proof, consistency, and commitment,

22:56

liking, and scarcity. And

22:59

you know we could have hours of discussion

23:01

on these things, but I would say what do they look

23:03

like in practice? Well, think about

23:05

gangs. Why do people join

23:07

gangs? If you use an

23:09

extrinsic motivation model, you

23:11

might say, oh they're joining out of excitement or they're

23:14

joining to get money or they're forced to. Like if

23:16

you're talking about MS-13, they're getting beaten into this gang.

23:19

Okay, but this only explains behaviors

23:21

on the surface, not

23:23

why the person is choosing to behave

23:26

that way. So

23:28

instead, let's look intrinsic and

23:30

say, well maybe that person

23:32

grew up in a broken home. Maybe they

23:34

had no family at all, so that means

23:36

they had no social proof, they

23:38

had no authority, they were lacking consistency,

23:42

right? Then perhaps

23:44

they're poor. Food was scarce. That's scarcity.

23:46

Security can be scarce also, so maybe

23:48

the neighborhood security is weak and then

23:52

no one might have accepted them or liked them. And

23:54

I've just hit on all five of

23:57

the motivating types in the

23:59

intrinsic motivation. Now, then

24:02

let's say some group shows up with its own

24:04

identity, its own internal consistency, its

24:06

own form of security for certain people

24:08

that get it, its

24:11

own authority, a sense

24:13

of belonging that it provides, and

24:16

even an ownership in the group that steps in

24:18

and says, hey, join us. Now,

24:21

the intrinsic motivators that I mentioned before are

24:24

acting on that person in that

24:26

moment in those specific conditions, and

24:29

it's beckoning them to join, and it's a very powerful force. So

24:32

the reason I kind of went into the gang when I'm

24:34

not a regular war is because it doesn't

24:36

really matter what activity the person's doing,

24:39

these motivators apply. It

24:42

could be, why do you feel bad

24:44

about not giving a gift on Christmas if you

24:46

received a gift by Christmas? And

24:48

that's reciprocity, and it's an intrinsic force

24:50

that kind of pushes you to do

24:52

something. And I don't think

24:54

we look at it the war this way very often, and

24:56

I think that's to our detriment. So

25:00

this is kind of getting more into psychology

25:03

of war rather than necessarily

25:05

strategy and tactics. Absolutely.

25:08

And I try to stay out of strategy and

25:10

tactics for the book because I think

25:12

there are so many books on so many different strategies

25:14

and tactics, and there are very few books dealing

25:17

with the why of these

25:19

conflicts. Now, we did touch on this

25:21

a little bit earlier about the

25:24

relationship of sovereignty and sovereign territory. How

25:27

does – and again, we could probably

25:29

get into hours and hours of discussion

25:31

on this because these are key factors

25:34

in political theory. But how does this

25:36

kind of relate a little bit to

25:38

irregular war? We did talk about how,

25:41

in some ways, this is almost like the

25:43

dysfunction or the breakdown of sovereign

25:46

power over its own territory. Is

25:49

there anything more to this dynamic,

25:51

too, that you can add? Yeah.

25:53

I'll use an example to describe it so it's a

25:55

little more grounded. So in 1946 in Iran

25:57

– there

26:00

were some provinces in the northwest that were

26:02

trying to become independent. One of

26:05

those was called Mahabad, which is a Kurdish

26:07

ethnic area. And

26:10

that area was basically agitating and took

26:12

up arms. There were several thousand armed

26:14

folks that declared independence

26:17

for Mahabad. Well, the

26:19

Shah did not accept that, so he

26:21

sent a punitive expedition out there. But

26:23

the problem is the territory, physical territory,

26:25

was so extremely mountainous, and

26:27

there was deserts and all these other challenges

26:29

along the way that it weakened the force.

26:32

And there was no way for the Shah

26:34

to actually exert real sovereignty

26:36

over that physical space. And

26:39

that lack of sovereignty and the

26:41

lack of services provided through that sovereignty

26:43

and the territory led

26:46

those people to decide that this is our time

26:48

to become independent. There

26:52

are many other examples of how this works, but

26:54

the center of it is that there's a power

26:57

center, and that power

26:59

center cannot exert sovereignty over

27:01

another physical area. You

27:03

see this a lot in Sudan and South Sudan, which

27:05

is an example I also look at in the book,

27:08

where Khartoum in Sudan

27:10

could not exert sovereignty

27:12

over South Sudan or what South Sudan is

27:15

today. And that was a major contributing factor

27:17

to South Sudan's independence. And

27:20

of course there are deserts, mountains, seas, all these

27:22

different things, but what they have in common is

27:25

the tyranny of geography essentially that

27:27

is interfering and stopping the sovereign

27:30

from actually exerting authority over

27:32

that space. Kind of reminds me a little

27:35

bit like how even in the British Isles

27:37

they used to have trouble with the Highlanders.

27:40

Exactly. Because of the terrain, they

27:43

were just able to exert their

27:45

own independence. Is that kind of a little bit like

27:47

what you're getting at? Definitely.

27:49

It's actually like the movie Braveheart, where these

27:51

folks just refused the sovereignty, and the king

27:53

had a hard time because of the land.

27:55

I mean, the geography itself was an impediment.

27:57

Now, also... one

28:01

area you touch on, and we did kind of discuss

28:22

this too, but there's also the concepts of social solidarity and social order, and in some ways you

28:24

kind of talked about that with the psychological factor, how in some ways these

28:26

irregular forces, they can actually provide some of the social order or

28:28

even social solidarity better than the sovereign. Is there more you want

28:30

to discuss about that? I think one of the many examples within

28:33

the Lebanon case over time that we could use, but Hezbollah specifically

28:35

is a great example because they provide

28:38

social services, they have hospitals, they

28:40

collect taxes. They do a lot of things

28:42

that look like what a state does. They

28:44

have their own military force, a very effective

28:46

military force, and some would argue

28:49

it's the most effective Arab military force

28:51

that's been tested in combat against non-Arab militaries.

28:55

All that said, they are not a

28:57

state. They are a regular force with

29:00

a political wing and a military

29:02

wing. There's

29:04

about a dozen politicians in the Lebanese parliament

29:06

who are members of Hezbollah's political wing, and

29:10

you've got tens of thousands of forces in the south

29:12

and things like that, south of Lebanon. They

29:16

basically carved out a social order

29:18

that was missing or dysfunctional from

29:20

the main government in Beirut and

29:23

made it their own. So if

29:26

you were in South Lebanon living there in one

29:28

of these areas that's controlled by Hezbollah, it

29:30

would be in your interest to work with

29:33

them because how else will you get medical

29:35

care? How else will you get food, water,

29:37

shelter, et cetera? So

29:39

looking down at the local village level, there

29:41

are some life and death decisions made by

29:43

people about who do we side

29:45

with. And maybe you

29:47

don't agree with the ideas of that group, but

29:50

you might want food and you might want

29:52

security, just like we were

29:54

talking about with the gangs. That could provide some

29:56

of these things that the central power cannot provide.

30:00

remember years ago reading about this about how

30:02

even that's led to the popularity of Hamas,

30:04

which of course is already in the news

30:06

already, but Hamas was able to build up

30:09

its support because it was able to provide

30:11

a lot of social services

30:14

which even the regular PLO

30:16

was not able to, or

30:18

the Palestinian Authority was able to

30:20

do in certain areas. That's

30:23

an excellent example, a very complex example

30:25

that involves territory, social

30:27

order, and institutions.

30:30

All the three things that I

30:32

view as problematic are occurring in

30:34

Gaza. Now how does irregular war

30:36

relate to standard

30:38

military and strategic theory? And we

30:40

did mention Clausewitz that he's usually

30:42

like the standard and he

30:45

was not completely unfamiliar with

30:48

this because there was the war of

30:51

liberation against Napoleon with the Lanzveer and

30:53

the Lanzstorm and he was an advocate

30:55

of those forces with the

30:57

Prussian reform movement. Right,

31:00

he actually helped author the Lanzstorm

31:02

edict, which is I think

31:04

a more important document than on war for

31:06

looking at irregular war. And as

31:08

I said earlier Clausewitz himself in his own book

31:11

says that the thing he's writing about

31:13

does not apply to every war. And

31:15

it's interesting because you know I'm a Marine in

31:17

the military and we always look back at Clausewitz

31:19

and say like oh Clausewitz says that the nature

31:21

of war is unchanging and it's just the character

31:23

that changes and I

31:25

have to ask have you read the earlier

31:28

part of that passage that says that this

31:30

only applies to wars between military

31:32

cabinets. It does not apply

31:34

to people's war. In fact he has a chapter

31:37

towards the end called Voulkes-Crigue which talks about people's

31:39

war and he just disparages it the entire time

31:41

and basically from a perspective of an outsider saying

31:43

that this type of war doesn't make sense, I

31:45

don't understand it. I wish he could have finished

31:49

his book because maybe he would have gone

31:51

into some theory about that but we won't

31:53

see that. But a lot of standard

31:56

military theory and strategy a lot

31:59

of it comes from Clausewitz, and a lot of it

32:01

comes from Jomany, who is the French leader

32:04

on the other side with Napoleon's forces, who

32:06

had a very mechanical approach to

32:08

war about numbers and forces and

32:11

maneuver and the critical

32:13

point and all these things, which

32:15

is great in certain contexts, but not

32:17

when it's a war between the people and

32:19

the state. And those

32:22

two thinkers and a couple of others from that period, all

32:24

with some interesting ideas. Unfortunately,

32:27

their ideas kind of just went in different directions

32:29

and never were used for

32:31

what they were intended for when we're talking about a

32:33

regular war. And I think a

32:35

lot of that has to do with Western militaries,

32:37

especially the United States loves technology.

32:41

So we love huge

32:43

amounts of force, overwhelming maneuver

32:46

forces, and I believe

32:49

it was Sun Tzu talked about it as an

32:51

egg cracking against a grindstone. This

32:54

is what these forces desire. I mean,

32:56

that's the outcome we're looking for is

32:58

overwhelming destruction and defeat of

33:00

a similar adversary, like a peer or

33:02

near peer adversary, which would

33:04

be a state, not a group of people.

33:08

So already, we're basically

33:10

trying to jam this strategy

33:12

that's designed for something else into

33:14

the irregular war context. And

33:16

as we've seen through history, it

33:18

does not work out. It has not worked out, not

33:21

just for the United States. Vietnam is a

33:23

great example because the French were defeated first

33:25

in 1954 in Dien Bien Phu. The

33:28

US came in to help. The US was ousted in 1975. Then

33:31

China came in and could not defeat

33:33

the Vietnamese either. So three huge powers

33:35

could not defeat this very small space.

33:38

And you have to ask, well,

33:41

what tactics and strategies were they using? And

33:44

I think they weren't applicable or

33:46

useful for this type of war.

33:48

Now one aspect that usually gets

33:50

neglected in irregular war is how

33:53

it applies to economics because of

33:55

course, they've got to supply themselves and

33:57

also, like you said, with the social order,

34:00

the social services, they got to this

34:06

kind of relate to it because

34:09

in some cases we do see I

34:11

believe in Colombia we have like connections

34:13

with drug trades and also

34:15

with the cartels in in

34:17

Mexico but how

34:19

do how does how do irregular

34:21

wars usually tend to relate to

34:23

economic? Well there's a couple

34:25

of different veins on that and one of them

34:28

is how do these groups the non-state groups how

34:30

do they fund themselves and it's

34:33

it comes down to basic market economics

34:35

like you look at ISIS for example

34:37

they were selling oil they also had

34:40

gold trade going on they were selling

34:42

looted objects from the museums and in

34:44

Iraq and Syria all

34:46

to fund this black market trade

34:49

to help them purchase weapons and do you

34:51

know material acquisitions and logistics and things

34:53

like that and you mentioned Colombia with

34:55

the drug trade absolutely that's that's

34:57

capitalism again I mean in Iran

35:00

too because they can't use the international

35:02

banking system the swift banking system they're

35:05

they've developed a very robust black

35:08

market economy that's controlled by the

35:10

Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps where

35:12

if you want to buy an iPhone in

35:14

Iran it's going to cost you five to

35:17

seven thousand dollars and most of those thousands

35:19

of dollars are going into the black market

35:21

mandatory you know tax that

35:23

these groups are taking out to fund themselves

35:27

so people will always find ways to

35:29

fund themselves but then there's the other

35:31

question about what if economics was the

35:33

reason that the war started in the first place

35:35

then then how does that change the dynamic because

35:38

you look at places like again with

35:40

Isis but in Iraq before that

35:42

Iraq was able to fund itself

35:45

number one through great power support I'm talking about in the Gulf

35:47

War in 1991 and before that

35:51

it had just fought a war in between

35:53

Iran and Iraq huge Western

35:55

support international support even to Saddam

35:58

Hussein but he had oil He

36:01

had a commodity that was of high

36:03

interest to external buyers that helped him

36:06

prop himself up. That's not an irregular

36:08

war, that's a regular conventional war, but same principles

36:11

of economic supply there, that this

36:13

patron and client system between

36:15

a benefactor, an outsider, and

36:17

an insider. I

36:21

think it's very interesting if you look back

36:23

at ISIS using gold coins as their currency

36:27

and taxing people in all different aspects,

36:30

both locally and to cross

36:32

through different areas. They

36:34

had a really elaborate way to extract

36:36

money from the people that were subject

36:38

to their authority. That the

36:40

Iraqi government and the Syrian government did not have

36:42

that authority and could not extract that money. It

36:44

just shows where was the

36:46

sovereignty ceded. You

36:49

can follow the money and see that in

36:51

this case, the ISIS case, it was with the

36:53

ISIS caliphate and not with the government

36:55

Baghdad or Damascus between 2011 to 2018,

36:58

for example. It

37:02

reminds me of a story that David

37:04

Kokurin, who's a major

37:06

expert in counterinsurgency, but he kind of made

37:08

a note like how even in places like

37:10

Syria, people can just log on to their

37:14

iPhones, their smartphones, and

37:16

get market rates, instant

37:19

market rates. They would do

37:21

even currency exchange and all

37:24

that. That's another way how they

37:26

were able to fund themselves. They just had

37:28

that at the tips of their

37:30

fingertips. In some

37:32

ways, that's even outside of the

37:35

control of the official government. Yeah.

37:37

They do that with the gold exchange especially. Also

37:41

with commodities like milk, sugar, flour, they'll

37:43

be bartering these things way below the

37:46

regular economy and creating

37:48

their own sub-economy with these commodities.

37:51

Now, I know you mentioned that the

37:53

book is not primarily about strategy

37:56

and tactics, but of course, it's

37:58

kind of also impossible. not to

38:01

address the issue, but what are

38:04

the tactics of irregular

38:07

war? And again, I know

38:09

it varies from case to case, but what

38:12

can we say from like a general overview

38:15

perspective? Typically with

38:17

like any military operation, you're going to look

38:19

at what does the situation call for and

38:21

what resources do we have and what kind of will

38:24

is there. And I'm thinking

38:26

about the Ukrainians

38:28

in the Second World War fighting

38:31

with a very well-organized military, though

38:33

they were not a state military,

38:36

when in an operation called Case Black

38:38

and Case White, when the Germans were

38:40

fighting against these partisans, Winston

38:43

Churchill actually observed it and

38:45

said that these forces were fighting in a

38:47

more organized manner than the British forces were

38:49

on the other side of the continent, which

38:52

is very interesting. He was talking from a

38:54

conventional perspective. They had regiments, they had brigades,

38:56

all carefully organized and everything like that. And

38:58

they were doing mechanized infantry maneuvers, you know,

39:00

something you would not expect perhaps in the

39:03

southern Philippines with the more

39:05

Islamic Liberation Front rebels, right?

39:08

And a lot of times the

39:10

question can be answered by which party

39:12

are we talking about? Is it the state or the

39:15

people? Because the state generally

39:17

has, you know, relatively unlimited resources for at

39:19

least a set period of time. That means

39:21

a lot of technology, a lot of intelligence,

39:24

a lot of forces, and on the

39:27

other side, the people are

39:29

generally less staffed than the

39:31

state is. So that means they're doing what

39:33

they can with what they've got. And

39:36

there's that ubiquitous Toyota Hilux joke we always

39:38

make about, you know, the Toyota Hilux can

39:40

be found anywhere with any configuration of weapon

39:42

system in the world, depending on what conflict

39:44

is going on. And it's very true, you

39:47

know, from Mali to Afghanistan

39:49

to Latin America, you just mount an

39:51

anti-aircraft weapon on the back of it.

39:53

And that's what you're going to do

39:56

that day, you know. It's

39:58

doing what you can with what you got. But

40:00

a lot of times the smaller

40:02

force is able to kind of outsmart

40:05

the larger force because of the

40:07

tyranny of size in that

40:09

context, especially if you look at

40:11

French counterinsurgency, the French threw thousands

40:14

and thousands of forces against many

40:16

of their counterinsurgency fights. And

40:19

yet they never really succeeded. And

40:21

a lot of times their adversary, whether

40:24

that's the Algerians or the Vietnamese, the

40:26

Americans, the Malians, they

40:29

relied on their smaller numbers to

40:31

evade and trick and

40:34

basically outmaneuver in a

40:36

smaller context those massive

40:38

conventional forces that are designed to fight other

40:40

conventional forces. They're not designed to fight people. Yeah, I kind

40:42

of remember even in Northern Ireland, the IRA kind of would have

40:44

to use their

40:50

wits to try to, and technical know-how, to

40:52

try to outsmart the British. And

40:55

even in certain contexts, in private

40:57

contexts, even some of the British

40:59

intelligence officers had to say they

41:01

actually had to respect these guys or admire

41:03

their ingenuity. It's like, well, we probably wouldn't

41:06

have thought of that. Yeah,

41:08

actually, I think it was something like 60% of the MI5

41:10

budget in the 1990s was for 600

41:14

IRA fighters. They

41:17

were going after just that small number of folks.

41:19

And that was a big IRA strategy, especially in

41:21

the later 20th century, was just

41:24

inflicting economic damage or cost on

41:26

the British with very small actions.

41:28

So like blowing up a vehicle

41:30

that destroyed a city block that

41:34

cost a billion dollars in repair damage, well,

41:36

that was a victory for those guys because

41:38

that's what they wanted to do is inflict

41:40

economic cost, and they did. Now, how

41:43

does the irregular war relate

41:45

to insurgencies and revolutions? These

41:48

are two common examples

41:50

of irregular war, but not all irregular

41:53

war are insurgencies or

41:55

revolutions. Yeah, it's

41:57

kind of like a little Venn diagram. You know, sometimes there's

42:00

overlap. But I think a

42:02

great example to kind of highlight how these things

42:04

can be different, or at least nested, is

42:06

the American Revolution, which was

42:08

not the American Revolutionary War. The

42:11

American Revolutionary War was a component of

42:14

that much larger American Revolution, you

42:17

know, and that American Revolution

42:19

was intellectual. It was a change of social

42:21

order. Whereas the Revolutionary

42:23

War was an insurgency, basically a

42:26

group that is not a state attempting to violently overthrow

42:28

a state, which is that textbook

42:30

definition of insurgency. And

42:34

in that context, you had two different, you had

42:36

the Venn diagram kind of overlapping where, or actually

42:38

nested inside of that, where the war, the, you

42:41

know, the revolution was an

42:43

idea, and the war, the insurgency was

42:45

a component, but not the whole thing.

42:47

And there's also the

42:50

counterinsurgency theory of David Gloop.

42:53

I believe you mentioned him earlier

42:55

in the interview. What is his

42:57

significance in this topic? So

42:59

he's an important author because he wrote in

43:01

the 1960s, he observed a lot of the

43:04

French counterinsurgencies going on in Southeast

43:06

Asia and Indochina at the time. And

43:10

his analysis was on primarily Marxist

43:12

organizations. So he had a very limited scope.

43:15

He never really acknowledged that that was his

43:17

limited, his limitation. He just kind of went

43:19

with it as if it's applying to everything,

43:22

which is kind of bad because later on, when

43:24

we had our own wars in the US and

43:26

the Middle East, we kind of

43:28

looked at his writings as though it's universal and

43:31

it's really not. And

43:34

it's not a wrong framework, but

43:37

it's really narrow and it's a specific

43:39

type of group dynamic, and it fails

43:41

to explain all insurgencies. Even

43:44

the reasons that they form in the first

43:46

place, he never really got into that. He

43:48

was more interested in the phases that an insurgency

43:51

might go through and kind of taking

43:53

this abstract approach

43:55

to it without actually looking at, is

43:57

this really how these things happen? But

44:00

again, it wasn't wrong. It was just was not

44:02

inclusive now from the other side we get Mao

44:05

Zedong who kind of

44:08

formulated people's war or guerrilla

44:10

warfare, which was Kind

44:12

of a very good even though it is Marxist

44:14

based but it is kind of a common

44:17

framework for irregular War

44:19

even to this day. What's his significance? Yeah,

44:23

it's really important what he wrote because

44:25

it's a good example of how the

44:27

author understood the context of the conflict

44:30

he was writing about and Mao

44:33

was writing about the specific issues going on

44:35

in China, you know He was talking about

44:37

Japanese against the Chinese He was talking about

44:39

the Vietnamese leaders training inside of China to

44:42

go fight at the French and there were

44:44

a lot of very important contextual things in

44:46

Mao's world and Remember

44:48

his worldview is formed by an ideology and all that

44:50

stuff So the Marxism is kind of that ideology in

44:52

the background, but it was more

44:54

about a military approach to Solving

44:57

a military problem and if you look

44:59

at his way of framing it It's

45:02

very methodical and it's almost

45:04

like these ebbs and flows of a wave

45:06

You know the wave crests and then it crashes and

45:08

it crests and it crashes and that's how he wanted

45:10

to design the timeline of

45:13

his forces basically growing in strength then

45:15

rapidly striking and then shrinking again and Then

45:19

growing again and repeating this this

45:21

cycle essentially which goes into

45:23

something called forward defense Which

45:26

is a strategy that modern china has

45:28

but borrowed from Mao and actually after

45:31

world war two ended It's

45:33

interesting because Mao was not allowed to

45:35

be part of the military decision-making authorities

45:38

Until they lost a couple of conflicts and then

45:40

they said well, maybe you should come back in

45:42

here And he did and

45:44

he developed this forward defense strategy, which is

45:47

basically it's called luring in deep. So luring

45:49

the Adversary deep inside

45:51

of Chinese territory and then encircling them

45:53

and enveloping them and eating them destroying

45:55

them And that is that

45:57

is today of current strategies. China still retains from

46:00

Mao's writings. Now another

46:02

Marxist thought

46:08

with Fidel Castro and

46:11

he came up with a

46:13

focal theory. What

46:15

is that? And also how does it

46:18

contrast or compare to Mao Zedong's writing?

46:21

Yeah, Che Guevara's writing is sometimes disparaged

46:23

as a ripoff of Mao Zedong and

46:25

in many ways there's certainly a lot

46:27

of plagiarism in there. But

46:29

he does have some original ideas, not

46:31

good or bad, it's just original. One

46:34

of those ideas is that the conflict

46:36

should start in a rural context, so

46:38

out in the jungle or the forest, and

46:41

then once it's gained enough momentum then

46:43

that force should move into an urban environment

46:45

and then focus on the

46:47

urban environment. So the FOCO just means focus

46:50

and it's where's the focus of the fight

46:52

going on. And at the same

46:54

time that he was writing this, you know,

46:56

some of it was succeeding, like

46:58

early years of the Cuban Revolution it was

47:00

succeeding, but in other parts of Latin America

47:03

it was not. There was

47:05

another fighter named Carlos Marigela

47:07

in Paraguay who was also

47:09

a Marxist and he was writing a

47:11

similar book but from an opposite perspective about

47:13

how the conflict should start in the urban

47:16

environment and then move to the rural

47:18

environment. So in a similar

47:21

place with a similar ideological

47:23

background you had two different approaches that

47:26

were being taken. You could

47:28

argue that Marigela was successful because he

47:30

was actually a politician later on, whereas

47:34

Guevara did not survive to

47:36

hold office much longer after

47:38

he wrote that book. So it's a very

47:40

interesting context there in Latin America during

47:42

the time that both of those books were written.

47:45

Yeah and also part of that context with

47:48

the urban guerrilla warfare was the two pomaros

47:50

in, I believe in Argentina

47:52

they were operating in? Yeah

47:55

the two pomaros are very important too because

47:58

it was very localized. You know, it's

48:00

not a kind of conflict that can move from one country

48:02

to another in my opinion Because it

48:05

was a very specific problem between

48:07

the social order dysfunction and sovereign

48:09

in that area where they were fighting Now

48:13

what are some of the problems in

48:16

trying to understand? Uh irregular

48:18

war you mentioned quite a

48:20

few first one was scope

48:23

method bias and character could

48:26

you explain these Yeah,

48:29

and that kind of goes back to Earlier when

48:31

I said that I took the

48:33

people centric approach But there's these two other

48:35

approaches the the state centric and the military

48:37

centric A lot of

48:39

these problems come from the military centric

48:42

and the state centric approaches And

48:44

it kind of I spent a great deal of time actually

48:47

Looking into these and like where did they come from and

48:49

how do they have an effect on way things happen? because

48:52

they're so pervasive and Ineffective

48:54

and I wanted to show that These

48:57

things exist and we might want to think about

48:59

that when we're trying to plan for some of

49:01

these conflicts So for example method There's

49:04

actually a word that clausowitz uses called

49:06

methodismus which or

49:08

methodicism Which

49:10

is basically an unscientific way of

49:13

of Going through the steps

49:15

to do something that you claim is scientific

49:18

Uh, and he accuses a lot of military

49:20

practitioners of doing this He

49:22

even says that people who write

49:24

books about the art of war

49:26

fall into this category So jominy

49:28

for example his arch rival in

49:30

military theory he criticized jominy A

49:33

lot about using the art of war because to

49:36

clausowitz it was a science But

49:38

jominy was trying to say that his was a

49:40

science But it was in fact just you know

49:42

an idealistic rendering of what jominy wished war would

49:44

be Um, same thing with

49:46

sunsu art of war clausowitz would

49:48

have probably looked at that as a dream Document

49:51

not necessarily a scientific document But

49:54

you see a lot of those art of

49:56

war type documents that kind of dominate in

49:59

our western military doctrine. A lot

50:01

of idealism, not much actual

50:04

critical methods and scientific method going in there, more

50:06

it's just a lot of assumptions going in there

50:08

and that goes into bias

50:10

which is another of the big problems where

50:13

people come in with preconceived notions about the

50:16

others and that forms a

50:18

lot of mistakes along the way where

50:21

if we had taken the time to understand

50:23

the groups, the why that

50:25

those groups are doing what they're doing, maybe

50:27

some of those biases could be removed and it's not so that

50:30

we can agree with them or get along with them it's so

50:32

that we can understand how to solve this problem in

50:34

the least violent means possible with the least

50:36

amount of resources and so on. Now

50:39

how have regular forces

50:41

been able to conduct themselves in

50:43

irregular war against irregular forces and

50:45

we do have a few examples

50:47

and we have mentioned them. First

50:50

there was the British in colonial

50:52

wars particularly like in Malaysia but

50:55

then there was also against the Maumau in

50:58

what is now Kenya. Could you talk about

51:00

that? Sure yeah the British

51:02

offer a lot of examples and

51:04

in my book I like to contrast the

51:06

British and the French approaches because

51:09

they are very different but they both have

51:11

influenced American military doctrine which is interesting and

51:13

so has the German and

51:15

the British approach it's very much

51:17

a indirect approach that focuses

51:20

on unconventional warfare which means

51:23

basically empowering a non-state force to

51:25

go against a state force. The

51:28

French on the other hand do the opposite

51:30

where they crush the non-state force to prop

51:32

up the state force and

51:34

you can contrast those examples. For example

51:37

the British in Malaysia they

51:39

were fighting against a group that was actually

51:41

Chinese ethnicity in Malaysia during

51:44

the Malaya emergency and

51:47

they were able to understand how the other

51:49

people, the Mele people, felt

51:51

about these Chinese folks and

51:53

use that to their advantage to

51:55

overcome the Mele cause whereas

51:57

the French in Indochina not for

52:00

our way, we're basically using

52:02

all these tactics. They actually have

52:04

a bunch of names for them like Quadraleg,

52:07

attached to oil, which is the oil spot

52:09

strategy and quartering people and removing

52:11

them and building walls and all

52:13

this stuff. A lot of engineering, because

52:16

the French approach to war in

52:18

general, is very engineering focused. They

52:20

want to produce and build, whereas

52:23

the British were looking

52:26

more about direct

52:28

action raids and getting

52:30

the people to fight on their own, to

52:33

build up an indigenous force to be able to fight on

52:35

their own. Then

52:37

you have the French in Algeria, which is

52:39

where Roger Trinkier, he

52:42

actually was in Vietnam and he witnessed

52:44

the defeat at Dien Bempo, so he

52:46

watched his tactics completely defeated in Vietnam,

52:48

took those defeated tactics to Algeria and

52:50

then tried to use them on another

52:52

order of magnitude, which is

52:54

kind of incomprehensible that you just witnessed all

52:56

this not work and yet you're

52:59

going to try to use it again somewhere else. They

53:02

did it there in Algeria. They built walls,

53:04

they built concentration camps, they tortured

53:07

people, all kinds of things, basically

53:09

a coercive campaign, which

53:11

is different than the British campaign, which focused more on

53:13

the people. How do we get the people to do

53:15

what we want instead of the French were just

53:18

trying to force the people to do what they want. Then

53:21

you have the Germans, who a couple of

53:23

different interesting examples, but one is the commando

53:25

order that Hitler put out

53:27

during World War II, which basically said

53:29

that if a British or Russian partisan

53:32

was captured without a uniform, they were to be executed

53:34

on the spot. That just illustrates

53:36

how scared the Germans were of these

53:39

apparently non-state forces, how

53:42

dangerous they were against the German cause. Germany

53:46

also had this other thing that

53:49

they used to, they called it combating

53:51

bands or banden bekampfung, which

53:53

is basically these hunting parties that they started

53:55

out as like stag hunting parties that they were

53:57

now given the mission of. hunting

54:00

town people, like partisans especially.

54:02

And that's where the Yaeger

54:04

commando came from, the Hunter

54:06

commandos, and a couple of

54:09

these other concepts that we especially saw

54:11

in US counterinsurgency theory in

54:14

Afghanistan, which again,

54:16

did not work when they were first developed

54:18

and yet we adopted them despite

54:20

them not being effective. So

54:23

then we have the US in Vietnam

54:25

and Afghanistan and Iraq basically

54:28

mixing a medley of these

54:30

tactics together without

54:33

really using a social science approach.

54:36

We did have some human terrain

54:38

teams that were designed to

54:40

analyze people and things like that, but that was

54:42

a back burner, second

54:45

or third priority kind of thing to

54:47

the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. They

54:49

were defunded, so they don't exist anymore. It

54:53

just shows you how important they were because wherever

54:55

the money goes, I think that shows some importance.

54:58

And unfortunately, we continue

55:00

to take that highly technological,

55:03

highly mechanical, maneuver warfare centric

55:05

approach that the French especially

55:07

used, the British a little bit,

55:11

which is a problem because those things

55:13

did not work in many of the

55:15

previous cases they were used, whereas some

55:17

of the British methods did have some

55:19

positive effects. And one other legacy of

55:21

the French example in Algeria was that

55:23

one famous film, The Battle of Algiers,

55:25

where I've heard that it's

55:27

even used even to this day as

55:29

like a training manual of

55:31

sorts, like an example of how do you fight

55:34

like an insurgency or irregular war.

55:38

Yeah, actually, when I was going through my

55:40

entrance into Marine Special Operations Command, that

55:43

movie was played in one of our

55:45

classes and we did a case study

55:47

analysis afterward because the movie was actually

55:49

made by the lead guy, the actual

55:51

insurgent himself after the war, and they

55:53

defeated the French. And he made a

55:55

movie about it. I think it was two years after the war ended. So

55:58

it's very interesting. Yeah. So

56:04

let's get back to like the social conditions

56:08

that irregular wars tend to dysfunction

56:15

of the state or the

56:17

state is just not meeting the

56:19

expectations is there anything more to

56:22

this dynamic that you want to talk about? Yeah,

56:26

social orders again go back to the

56:28

expectation issue. So you might

56:30

have, let's say you live in a very

56:32

religious community, the social order you expect might

56:35

point toward that religious community leadership to

56:37

provide something to you like a service

56:40

for example. When that

56:42

service is not provided in a very

56:44

deep way, there's going to

56:46

become some agitation there not from everybody

56:48

but from some people and that's going

56:50

to be a beginning possibly of

56:53

a direction to go into for those

56:55

who are agitating. Now if the sovereign

56:57

is smart enough or willing to recognize

56:59

that hey this is happening, they

57:02

could intervene and that's the same

57:04

in the other cases too. They could do

57:07

something that would fix the gap between

57:09

what the people expect and what they're getting

57:12

out of that social order. If

57:14

that gap is fixed, it's

57:16

possible that that irregular war condition

57:18

might go away. And I use a

57:20

lot of these careful terms like it's possible and

57:22

it might because there's so many different factors at

57:25

play here, you know, just like

57:27

Closman's talks about like uncertainty and friction and all

57:29

this stuff, this applies everywhere

57:31

including irregular war. So

57:34

the social order really depends on that

57:36

expectation. So

57:38

what are some of the implications

57:41

of irregular war in our

57:43

understanding of the state and state

57:45

sovereignty in the 21st century? I

57:47

know it's common now to talk

57:50

about a post-Westphalian order.

57:52

For those that don't know, we're referring to

57:54

the Treaty of Westphalia which kind

57:56

of establishes our modern conceptions of

57:59

state and state. sovereignty. So that's where

58:01

they're saying it. Or somehow the

58:03

state is not the only player

58:06

in the political world,

58:08

so to speak. Yeah, I strongly

58:10

disagree with those who think we're in some

58:12

kind of post-Westphalian world. I think that's an

58:14

idealistic or a dream related

58:17

statement. Like I wish it was this

58:19

way, but it's not that way

58:21

because we have the United Nations, we have the

58:23

Vienna Convention of 1961 that lets diplomats act the

58:25

way they do. There are so many things like

58:28

the Geneva Conventions, the Treatment of Prisoners of War.

58:31

All of these are pieces of evidence that point

58:33

to the fact that the Westphalian system is very

58:35

much alive. And look at how we

58:37

try to defend Ukraine. I

58:39

would argue that philosophically the reason we

58:42

most likely want to defend Ukraine is because

58:44

it is a sovereign state inside

58:47

the Westphalian system. We do not,

58:49

we, I mean the world, does

58:51

not take kindly to states altering their

58:53

geography, altering their territory, and their

58:55

borders. And that also, it serves

58:58

as a rallying point that some countries that

59:00

might not typically get along will agree on

59:02

that point. So I think

59:06

the implications are there

59:08

that we will have many

59:10

more irregular wars, you know, and they'll

59:12

take many different forms. We have,

59:14

like we mentioned, Gaza going on right now, which

59:17

will be a great case study in the future, you

59:19

know, years from now as we look back at all

59:21

the different factors that play in that conflict. And

59:24

the implications are very important because the

59:26

most recent new state that we

59:29

got was South Sudan and Kosovo, 2008-2011

59:31

time frame. Very

59:34

unusual to get new states and before that the

59:36

new states we got were after the collapse of

59:38

the Soviet Union. So that

59:40

Westphalian system is absolutely the dominant state

59:42

system. And I think that because, and

59:44

you remember in the very beginning, I

59:47

said that the state is a necessary

59:49

ingredient for a regular war and

59:51

that state is the Westphalian state. So

59:54

as long as that Westphalian state system

59:56

exists, a regular war exists. So what

59:58

are some of the implications? of

1:00:01

the study of irregular wars and our

1:00:05

social solidarity in the

1:00:07

21st century. We have touched

1:00:10

on this and how in some ways

1:00:12

the irregular forces fill in some of

1:00:14

the vacuums or areas

1:00:16

where the state is more dysfunctional, but

1:00:18

what are some of the wider implications?

1:00:22

Well I think if we fail to

1:00:24

understand why these problems exist in the social

1:00:26

order, we will basically be

1:00:28

using a basket of tactics that are completely

1:00:31

irrelevant to the conflict and

1:00:34

expending lots of blood and treasure. And Afghanistan's a great

1:00:36

example. If you do the math on 2001 to 2021,

1:00:38

the U.S. alone,

1:00:41

not the whole NATO group, but just

1:00:44

the U.S. 300 million dollars a day

1:00:46

every single day for 20 years straight.

1:00:49

That is a massive expenditure of

1:00:51

treasure, not to mention that

1:00:54

is the major implication there that we

1:00:56

failed to understand what was going on

1:00:58

socially that allowed our failure to occur.

1:01:00

And if we had thought about that

1:01:03

in an honest way very early on, maybe

1:01:06

we would have taken a different approach, maybe we

1:01:08

would have used something else, maybe we would have

1:01:11

tried to solve the social issue

1:01:13

first before trying to solve a

1:01:16

military or use a military instrument

1:01:18

to solve a social problem which

1:01:21

doesn't generally work out in anyone's favor.

1:01:23

This has been a very fascinating discussion.

1:01:26

Do you have any final thoughts

1:01:28

or maybe touch on anything in the book that we

1:01:30

didn't get to? My

1:01:33

final thoughts really just suggestions for

1:01:35

future research. So if anyone listening

1:01:38

is interested in this stuff, I would definitely recommend, as

1:01:40

I said, looking at Gaza

1:01:43

and how social order territory and

1:01:45

institutions are playing into

1:01:47

the conflict and then look at could

1:01:50

this be solved militarily or not?

1:01:52

Because I think that's a very big question

1:01:54

right now to research, especially after it ends,

1:01:57

however it ends, it will be

1:01:59

important to The understand that. And.

1:02:01

Then I would look at. Another

1:02:03

great thing to look out. The Farc or Columbia

1:02:06

little bit with the drugs and things like that.

1:02:08

But the Farc, you know, they were an enemy

1:02:10

of Columbia for very long time. Until

1:02:13

recently, they decided to put

1:02:15

their arms down and basically

1:02:17

join that sovereign. That. They

1:02:20

initially fought against, which is a very

1:02:22

interesting outcome. It's an unusual outcome and

1:02:24

I think it's one that should be

1:02:26

studied a little bit more to understand

1:02:28

what what allow that to happen, What

1:02:30

motivated those people intrinsically to choose to

1:02:32

put their weapons down and to basically

1:02:34

join the forces that used to be

1:02:37

there adversary. While we always like the

1:02:39

Ender interviews by asking are guess what

1:02:41

are you working on now. Wealth.

1:02:44

I'm actually working on another book

1:02:46

that's going through peer review and

1:02:48

that is a very deep analysis

1:02:50

of one case. And in

1:02:53

in my the book were talking about theory

1:02:55

of a regular war. I talk about third

1:02:57

party intervention and about how some states intervene

1:02:59

in a regular wars. While I wanted to

1:03:01

pick one case and right a whole book

1:03:03

about that. And so this case is about

1:03:05

Iran. And. It's about how

1:03:07

Iran uses unconventional warfare, intelligence

1:03:09

operations, and covert action. as

1:03:12

a foreign policy tool and I was

1:03:14

able to get a bunch of intelligence

1:03:17

reports declassified sperm the Cia. The other

1:03:19

say that the I and others and

1:03:21

I also used like twelve different languages

1:03:23

of source material. It's

1:03:26

basically something that has never appeared in

1:03:28

print anywhere. and it's a very deep

1:03:30

analysis of the last forty years how

1:03:32

Iran uses military advisors all over the

1:03:34

world, not just the usual places you

1:03:37

might expect, how they use covert action

1:03:39

in intelligence operations in ways he doesn't.

1:03:43

have a son resources and intelligence reporting and

1:03:45

all kinds of things like that a very

1:03:47

excited to see it hits shelves well maybe

1:03:49

when you finish with that we can have

1:03:52

you back on the podcast i would love

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to ah jonathan hackett thank you for joining

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us on the new books network thanks for

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