Right strategy . Thereve been many approaches but essentially they come down to what i would call what is known today as populationcentric counterinsurgency or hearts and minds. There was kind of a controlled experiment run by to the great nations of europe, britain and france in the 1950s to show which of these approaches is more successful because britain and france were each fighting counterinsurgency is an different colonies on different sides of the world. The french were fighting in algeria from 1954 to 1962. The british were fighting in malaya from 1948 to 1960s and they adopted very different methods of fighting with the french exemplifying the approach in the british applying the british if you want to find out one good way of doing it is by simply renting this wonderful movie the battle of algiers which i would recommend to anybody interested in what happened in algeria because its actually pretty accurate in what it depicts is what happened in 1957 when the french try to break up an insurgent cell and the city of algiers by planting bombs killing civilians and especially european civilians. What they did was they rounded up tens of thousands of muslim men in the casbah the native quarter of algiers and they sent them in for interrogation to find out what they knew. How did the interrogation process were . We know because of what happened to this gentleman. He was not an algerian. He was french. He ran a republican newspaper in algiers and it was for this sin that he was picked up by paratroopers from the tenth pair Trooper Division in 1957. He was taken to an Interrogation Center. Now we all know about the torture like the rack or the iron but a new modern instrument of torture. It has two clips and you attach the clips of the appendages to the person you are interrogainterroga ting. You turn the crank and the faster you turn the more electricity comes out. What happened to him . He was taken to this Interrogation Center by the paratroopers. He was stripped and put on a wooden board, strapped in with leather straps and he had initially the clips apply to his ear and his finger. What he later wrote of his experience that a flash of lightning exploded next to my ear and i felt my heart racing. I struggled screaming but he did not give up information the paratroopers wanted. So then they took one of the clips off of his era and attached it to his. He wrote my body shook with nervous shocks stronger in intensity. This newspaper editor did not give up the information that the paratroopers are demanding so they dragged him off the table using his tie around his neck as a leash and after beating him savagely with their fists they tied him to a board. They subjected him to what the paratroopers called french slang for a practice that we know of as waterboarding. He said i have the impression of drumming and terrible agony of death itself to possession of me. After this ordeal he was dragged still thrown into a cell on a mattress stuffed with our dwyer and left to spend that night listening to the bugs and the screams resonating around the Interrogation Center. Now that is a very tough approach to counterinsurgency. We sometimes hear that torture doesnt work. Dont you believe it. However questionable or or reprehensible that maybe or reprehensible that maybe it can be tactically effective and in fact it was tactically affect you for the french in the battle of algiers. Within nine months they managed to get all the insurgents to rat each other out. They rolled out the entire Insurgent Network in algiers and by the end of 1957 algiers was safe. You can argue in a tactical sense the french won the battle of algiers. The problem was the publicity that attended their practices. They could not keep secret. Andre was for some inexplicable reason allowed to do and he wrote a book which became a bestseller in france. Then there were others who spilled the beans on what was happening in algeria or that caused a huge public backlash not only in france but around the world and ultimately it was that public backlash that cost french france the algerian war. The attack takes which have been very effective tactically that led to eventually the defeat in algeria. On the other side of the world at virtually the same time the british were fighting their own counterinsurgency in malaya. The war effort there starting in 1952 was led by this man, general Gerald Templin who should not be confused with this man the actor for whom he is a dead ringer. This man, not this man for this man was the british commander in malaya. When he arrived in 1952 he found it deeply entrenched insurgency much as in algeria two years later. The one in malaya was being raised by the group trying to take over in the postwar era. They dynamited trains in the evening killed the previous high commissioner. In fact Gerald Templer drove from the air for in the same rollsroyce in which his predecessor had been shot to death months before. That must have been a chilling experience. It would have been very understandable if under those circumstances general templer had resorted to absolute savagery to terrorize the population into acquiescence but that is not what he did. He understood his success was not terrorizing the population. It was securing the population and he went about it in a friday of ways. One of his most effective programs with setting up what were known as new villages. He understood the heart of the communist appeal on the china squatters a half a million who were not citizens of malaya who are outcasts with no real jobs were a prime breeding ground for insurgency. What he did was he relocated hundreds of these new villages where they would have fields to work and they would have medical clinics and oh by the way they would also have fences and armed guards around them to keep them away from the insurgents. Essentially what he was doing was preventing the chinese squatters who continue to support the insurgency. By heards and minds he didnt going hand out a lot of good yis. Were going control the people. First of all, it requires establishing security for the people, which he certainly ask. But requires having some legitimacy to make the people ak acquiesce to what the Security Forces are doing. And the most powerful weapon was the promise of indpeps. Because he told the people that if you help us dpe feet the communists insurgency, we will make you free and an independent nation. Thats exactly what he did. Well this be is not something the french understood in at gear ya. They were trying to fight for the continuation of the french colonialial empire. Not surprisingly there were not a lot of al gear begans eager to fight for continued french role. He got it. The frenchedness. He understand the importance. Thats something which is also proven crucially important in recent years. In places such as Northern Ireland or colombia or iraq. Many of them have followed pretty closely open the temp particular play book. This is not just a major of historical interest. Because in fact, just as insurgency has been the dominant form of warfare it remains so today. On september 11th of last year should remind us. Its not a threat going away despite the death of bin laden. In my way, it could actually i hate to say it, could get worse. One of the major trends over the last 100 or so years is that the fire power available to insurgents has been increasing. A century ago western army battled insurgent who had nothing more than a few rusty muskets. Today there is no corner of the world so remote that every inhabitant doesnt have access to an ak 47, a rocket propelled grenade. Very hard to deal with even though they are basic infantry weapons. What does the future hold . We have to contemplate the possibility that insurgents could get their hands on weapons of mass destruction and alass we may not have george klein any around to save us. I dont mean to be overly alarmist something. Its something we have to think about seriously. What happens if insurgents get their hands on a weapons of mass destruction. This is a map that comes from a magazine im sure you averred readers of called the International Journal of health agree graphic. You can check out your copy at home. What it demonstrates is what happens if a 20 Kiloton Nuclear device were to go off in Downtown Manhattan. A 20 kiloton device, im sure you know, is not a very big nuke. Its the same size of one that flattened nagasaki. That was a long tyke ale. Time ago. They are full of many Nuclear Weapons many times bigger than this. This is a very rough and ready nuke, the kind not be hard for the iranians or the North Koreans or the pakistanis or others to design. What happens if one of them was popped off in Downtown Manhattan . Well, the map shows with certain assumptions about wind speed and other factors what the devastation would be. And of course, its worse around ground zero and Getting Better as you go farther out. But the estimate in this in the . Irveg journal is that the relatively small Nuclear Device would injury about 1. 6 Million People and kill over 600,000 people. Just from being set off in lower manhattan. And of course, you would see similar devastation if one were to set off in washington. Now, i dont mean to alarm anybody here. But i think we need to think about these kinds of dangers. Because they are not going away. And as the Iranian Nuclear program accelerates, as pakistan destabilizes. These are real possibilities that we have to think very hard about. Rome was brought down by bar bar begans. We have to be careful that we ourselves are not brought down by them. And i think the first selfdefense to understand the nature of the problem. And thats what ive tried to contribute to with this book to show the kind of strategy that insurgents have employed over the century as well as the strategies used to encounter them inspect is something we need to think about. Insurgency is not going away. Even after afghanistan its going to remain the number one threat we face. Thank you. [applause] [inaudible] okay, ladies and gentlemen, we will now take questions. Please identify yourself. Thank you. [inaudible] rule of law can be a very important part of establishing legitimacy, because as i said, its very hard to win with a pure strategy. Even though when youre willing to be as brutal as the nazis. Say that still didnt manage to pass if i the ball kins in world world war ii. Even though they were willing to kill a Million People. Because the nazis and the soviets offer nothing positive. They offer no reason why the people of yugoslavia or the people of afghanistan would support them. They offer nothing but death and desolation. That ultimately, was not a winning strategy. I think what people want to see is the rule of law. Not necessarily our law but our law. Socialits something people respond positively to. If they see that, the soldiers around them are enforcing the law rather than preying upon them. Rather than stealing from them. Rather than raping their daughters if see they the soldiers are upholding the law, theyre going to be much more likely to support those soldiers response upholding the resume of law is, i would argue, a crucial element of successful counterinsurgency. Right here. Robert price. How do we do this cheap and easy . We have done it before here now twice in iraq and afghanistan. Protective periods of counterinsurgency longterm, even after they the immediate threat were taken down followed by extensive amount of nation building, et. Cetera. You do it every time or is there an achievement easier way to do this . Ideally, you will not have to wage future counterinsurgency by sending thousand of thousand of american i think being to be partner which is something we can do with some degree of success. We have seen the strategy backfire. We wound up overthrowing the government. To my mind, a great template of how to do this successfully comes from somebody we tend to forget these days but should remember. Edward, the quiet american once a legendary figure. A former advertising man who joined the air force and the cia. And sent to the philippines in the late 40s when they were facing the rebellion. One of the major communist uprising of the post world world war ii period. What he did was didnt send an army to back them up. He drove to the boondocks to get to know them. He didnt sit in the embassy. He went out there to figure out what was going on. The most important thing, he identified a great leader who can lead the philippines out with some support. Who rooted a lot of corruption causing people to turn away from the philippine government. He ended brutality on the part of the army which was causing villagers to flee to the hands. He established elections and basically took away all of the ideological appeal that they could possibly have. Who will be honest, uncorrupt, tough beneficiary a true leader that the people of afghanistan can respect. I would suggest to you that we need or modern day edward who understand the situation in afghanistan. When the trust of loyalty and find an honest man. Yes, they exist. Even in afghanistan. Find an honest man and promote him as much as possible to the presidency. That kind of leadership can be worth more than entire situation dwitions of american troops. A point of rule of law and public rule of law and how that rolls in to probably the biggest rule overseeing right now which is in mally. And more broadly you have an organizations like that are portraying themselves as pseudo rule of Law Organization which is law they support, obviously, which they claim is culturally more appropriate to the region, obviously, is a hard core [inaudible] cutting peoples hands down and tearing down shrines. The question becomes [inaudible] is there a universal rule of law that is humane, or should we just accept that what theyre saying is a former rule of law and might have to go another way. Well, i mean, what we found in recent years you have the fundamental groups take over areas. And try to impose their rule of law this the puritans look like easy going vacationers by comparison. When they actually try to impose the code even in die hard conservative muslim area finance proves very unpopular. It was why iraq al qaeda suffered a backlash. They didnt like to be ruled by people told them they were executed for smoking a cigarette. It thats why the taliban were not that hard to overthrown in 2001. The people of afghanistan turned against this bar backic code that the tennessee were trying to impose. This is, you know, in iraq and afghanistan hardly two of the most liberal countries in world. Today i connect you see it happen in northern mali. I suspect its not proving popular. However, the reason why the groups can have enduring appeal is because theres not a good alternative. And the problem that we face, for example, in afghanistan, is that brutal and unpopular as the taliban are, the government is often been worse. Because the government has not delivered any kind of justice. What the government delivers is a decision that goes to the highest bidder. And so that is the taliban may be, they are less corrupt. You will get a more or less honest judgment. Thats not the eye teal but it may be better the than the alternative. In is try build up nonfundamentallist rule of law that deliver a modicum of justice comp is what the people want. But not to do it with the kind of bar barracker i think we will be successful. [inaudible] voice of america. What about syria [inaudible] its interesting what happened as the power of the media has grown the strategies are becoming less successful. These days they can only work in places where nobody is paying attention. It works in sure sley lane can. It worked recently for russia and. But look what happened in libya. Theres no doubt in my mind that 100 years ago he would not have succeeded. He did not succeed because the tension of the world news media about United States and the International Organizations focus odd whon what he was doing. Before he could come in and torch benghazi and kill all the rebel, we in our nato allies intervened to stop it. It in the case of syria, i have not intervened but certainly other outside powers have. And the rebels have been able to get support, for example, from the gulf states. Which keeps them from being simply swept off the board. Both sides have, you know, some degree of support but not overwhelming. Assad is unpopular but they havent been able to push them out all the way. Assad, it goes back to a point i was making earlier about the incredible importance of the legitimacy. I would say more most syrians he likes legitimacy especially for the sunni majority. Its al wait and part of a minor it. Me has support in the alawite community. He has support in the other minority. Theyre afraid of what happens if the sunni take over. They are able to cling to power with a small degree of almost no, but a small degree of legitimacy left. The rebel, in turn, are arguably forfeiting by allowing extremist slammists to take a prominent role in the rank. And so, you know, the conflict is stalemated. But this is, you know, a classic insurgency and courage insurgency i suspect at the end of the day will end as a victory. What is the problem going look like after wards . Thats what the government has to worry about. What is hard to establish security and stability after wards. Its the big challenge. Its where weve strugged in iraq and afghanistan and struggled even more in syria. Enabling [inaudible] its minds boggling howment of tens of billions dollars we have wasted in countries like iraq and afghanistan building while elephant projects of no earthly use and actually battling the insurgency. The Water Treatment plants. Im not sure why we were doing it. I think its something we call the gratitude theory of counterinsurgency. If you give them cool stuff, they will like. You a. If you give them cool stuff and not in control of the area, the other side claim credit for it. And so if you build stuff inside the city but dont control the city, guess what, they will claim it. But the larger problem is if you dont have security, it doesnt matter how much people like you. Theyre not going to come over to your side if they get killed for doing it. Theyre not suicidal. Theyre not going commit suicide because they love a Water Treatment