Military Review English Edition May-June 2014 | Page 67

P E R S I S T E N T CO N F L I C T
In the 1990s, the ultraviolent tri-war between
the Colombian military, the independent United
Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (Autodefensas
Unidas de Colombia, or AUC), and the Marxist
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia—
People’s Army (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, or FARC) was threatening
to drag the country into anarchy. In 2000, under
the Clinton Administration, Congress approved
a security assistance package worth over $1 billion.9 In Colombia, the AUC demobilized as the
Colombian security forces were better able to
contain the FARC. In 2012, Colombian president
Santos finally announced that FARC was willing
to negotiate an end to the longest conflict in the
Western Hemisphere.10 While there have been no
such negotiations in the Philippines, the influx of
security assistance appears to have set the stage
for a peaceful settlement. The U.S. military and
government agencies have been instrumental
in helping the armed forces of the Philippines
capture or kill leaders of the militant group Abu
Sayyaf and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front,
antigovernment organizations operating in the
south.11 Conversely, hundreds of thousands of
men and vast expenditures of money failed to turn
the tide in Vietnam. The Afghan surge appears
to have done little, while Iraq is poised to slip
back into chaos.

Why the Difference?

Common to our successes is the careful application of limited resources appropriate to each situation and over the long run. Analysts at the RAND
Corporation uncovered similar conclusions in the
study, Victory Has A Thousand Fathers: Sources
of Success in Counterinsurgency. 12 Perhaps
unsurprising to some, the length of time needed
for concerted interagency support to a counterinsurgency (COIN) effort was inverse to how the
United States preferred to fight its conventional
wars. Plans in El Salvador, Colombia, and the
Philippines were designed to last years, while the
war against Iraq was meant to last weeks. During
a COIN operation, resources were used inversely
to logistically heavy conventional war.13 Instead
of turning on the spigot to support a COIN effort,
resources—both personnel and material—were
MILITARY REVIEW

May-June 2014

tightly controlled and often subject to regular
congressional oversight.14
This strategy of persistent engagement over
the long term could solve some vexing problems.
First, it is an economy-of-force effort needing
relatively few resources. If applied early, then
the United States may be able to avoid massive
and costly deployments of direct combat forces.
The range of threats described in the Capstone
Concept for Joint Operations: Joint Force 2020
can be engaged early, before larger and more lethal
options might be needed. Second, small special
operations task forces executing a strategy of
persistent engagement can avoid the public war
weariness associated with long campaigns.15 Conducting persistent engagement on a small scale
helps avoid drawing media attention. Remaining
out of the public eye extends national perseverance.
U.S. forces deployed to El Salvador, C olombia,
and the Philippines were from the special operations community. In Colombia’s case, increased
support via the “Plan Colombia” began shortly
before 9/11. American media attention naturally
gravitated to the Middle East. In El Salvador’s
case, news media did report heavily on U.S.
involvement there, sensing a potential repeat
of the Vietnam disaster of the previous decade.
In most cases, Americans were aware of U.S.
involvement in El Salvador, and they opposed
large-scale intervention.16 The few U.S. casualties
that did occur were framed as criminal activity,
usually in cities, and far from the combat patrols of
the El Salvadoran army. Additionally, since Congress had prohibited U.S. personnel from patrolling with the units they trained, only a few news
reports attempted to link U.S. advisory efforts to
human rights abuses. Because of its low cost and
limited media attention, engagement can continue
for as many years as needed. This allows a generational approach—appropriate when engaging
insurgent or terrorist networks. This soft approach,
with small numbers of personnel concentrating on
training and appropriate nonlethal support, often
decreases casualties.
The hallmark of the campaigns in El Salvador,
Colombia, and the Philippines is that the main
effort has not been the military, and the primary
tools used by the military have not been lethal.
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