Preparing the Battlefield
We are at war today in the Caribbean Basin. It is not a war in the conventional sense. It is an irregular conflict which may be the most insidious war this nation will face in the foreseeable...
...In the minds of many, the invasion of Grenada in October 1983 transformed these assumptions about the direction of the war into a foregone conclusion...
...The Administration became increasingly aware of the full scope and stakes of the conflict...
...military reserve components...
...See Castro Orellana, "El plan de contrainsurgencia...
...The moves were widely described as a triumph of "ideologues" at the National Security Council over "pragmatists" at the State Department...
...Their threat lies in their ability to damage Nicaragua's revolutionary experiment so badly that it cannot genuinely "win" either...
...In this context, counterinsurgency means delegitimizing the FMLN as a representative political force, while rallying the civilian population in support of the new Salvadorean "nation...
...Nor are the killings random acts of terror by incorrigibly brutal ex-National Guardsmen...
...The indicators of this shift in strategy were obscured, however, by the invasion of Grenada in October 1983, an event which confirmed the worst fears of many about U.S...
...yet reacting to it might only wear them down more rapidly by diverting limited resources to preparing for an invasion that did not happen...
...fresh assaults can be initiated and escalated with dizzying speed and coordination...
...forces to combat in a low-intensity situation, we have lost the strategic initiative, may exacerbate the effects of change, and risk the escalation of the conflict without necessarily affecting its causes.'7 Arguments like these-unthinkable during Vietnam, when the apostles of conventional escalation held sway-lay at the heart of evolving U.S...
...The upgrading of the security forces, and the tight control now exercised over the death squads, suggests that brute repression is no REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 36longer enough...
...For this, air support was crucial...
...2 9 U.S.-trained civil defense instructors organize "village defense networks" against "subversion...
...For the time being," he said, "we are fighting a guerrilla war...
...8 Opponents of Administration policy attacked the manual as an "assassination handbook," and misread it as implying CIA encouragement for indiscriminate attacks on civilians...
...They played down "military solutions" to the conflict...
...The Administration had never considered the Contadora group a mechanism for negotiations as long as talks might lead to compromise, but it endorsed the "process" when it thought it could win...
...events in El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala and Costa Rica can feed into the war against Nicaragua...
...An analysis of the real war strategy of the United States reveals that, from mid-1983, a very different kind of intervention was underway in the region...
...The need for a swollen defense budget was intended to aggravate the economic offensive already underway with the cutoff of U.S...
...The manuevers were not a preparation or cover for the war: they were the embodiment of the war...
...IN FACT, THE MANUAL WAS AN ATTEMPT by the CIA to teach the conventionally minded contra forces the more sophisticated techniques of low-intensity conflict, and to encourage greater discrimination in the choice of targets...
...The CIA is proscribed from doing almost everything...
...A general draft, and the purchase of heavy weapons systems, might leave the Sandinistas unprepared to fight the contras with their most effective tool-small, popularly based units...
...If this simultaneous, combined pressure worked, any invasion by U.S...
...Waghelstein, talk at American Enterprise Institute...
...Soldiers aren't enough to win a war...
...APRIL/MAY I 98637 APRIL/MAY 1986 37The Real War merc The Real War T HE STRICTLY MILITARY ASPECTS OF THE war continue to function as the bottom line in the overall strategy: as the Kissinger Commission said, they maintain a "shield" against the insurgency while the real task of nation-building is carried out...
...The manual was also published as Psychological Operations in Guerrilla Warfare (New York: Vintage Books, 1985) with essays by Joanne Omang and Aryeh Neier...
...See "Duarte: Prisoner of War...
...4. Lt...
...We started to retrain all the combatants-every one, even the commanders-to make each one of us into a political organizer...
...They became a political force, promoted internationally as the embodiment of the Reagan Doctrine of "revolutionary democracy," guerrillas fighting to liberate their homeland from communism...
...military could best achieve victory by not committing ground forces in a combat role...
...Against an unconventional guerrilla force like the contras, tanks and heavy artillery were worse than useless...
...Strategic and Security Considerations in the Caribbean Basin," Military Policy Symposium, U.S...
...to meet the challenge created by any single offensive, the Sandinistas would have to divert their attention from another...
...fewer battles, or battlefield victories, do not mean that it is imminent...
...bases, participating in joint exercises along with contra units and elements of the Salvadorean armed forces...
...The contras attempted to demonstrate their grasp of the APRIL/MAY 1986 33The Real War more "scientific" approach to counterrevolution urged on them by their U.S...
...If we tried to defend fixed positions, or take towns and hold them, it would cause a lot of casualties...
...In the words of Majors Morelli and Ferguson of U.S...
...it misled the public about the increasing role of the National Guard and other U.S...
...It is still rare to hear Nicaraguan peasants say that an attack killed "Sandinistas...
...And Nicaragua was a high-profile presence at the inauguration of several of the continent's civilian leaders, identifying itself with the Latin American democratization process...
...However, low-intensity doctrine demanded an equivalent flexibility on the U.S...
...Israel is revamping the police intelligence system, using sophisticated electronic and computer equipment, as it did in Guatemala...
...Heavy bombing raids, like those on the Guazapa volcano in late 1985 and early 1986, are not a pathological outburst by the Air Force but a deliberate attempt to root out the civilian infrastructure that the FMLN needs for its political advance on nearby San Salvador...
...Between October 1983 and October 1984, Nicaraguan workers' wages lost 40% of their real purchasing power...
...advisers...
...One report from Las Segovias-Nicaragua's Region I and the strategic heart of the war from mid-1982 until 1984-illustrates some of the trends that may develop as the contras adopt more thoroughly the principles of low-intensity conflict: The contras try to limit the supplies of food that the government makes available to the local population, by ambushing supply trucks, sabotaging food depots, etc...
...At the same time, low-intensity strategists hoped that the terms of their doctrine, which explicitly favored keeping U.S...
...Ibid...
...families built bomb shelters and reactivated civildefense networks...
...SOUTHCOM military planners like Lt...
...in the military they would compel the Sandinistas to engage in a conventional buildup of their armed forces...
...Negotiating with Marxists in Central America," address to International Security Council Forum, Washington, DC, March 21, 1985...
...national security establishment to prevent the Sandinista revolution from being a successful model of independent development...
...Formulating a plan for El Salvador required a serious analysis of the country's political realities, coupled with strategic thinking on a regional scale to correctly identify and prepare the different battlefields...
...at the same time, new training in irregular warfare reduced casualties and increased political confidence in the Army's strength...
...often, they took place in the absense of an overall strategy...
...Ambassador to El Salvador," The Progressive (September 1981), p. 2 2 . 2. Newsweek, October 26, 1981...
...At the same time, it risks militarizing the conflict and transforming nation-building into a secondary project that can then never be fully addressed...
...During that November's Big Pine II military maneuvers, Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega called for a national alert, saying, "Only an immediate pretext for invasion is necessary...
...While this may certainly be true in moral and juridical terms, the fact is that civilian casualties from bombings declined significantly in 1985, despite a major increase in the firepower available to the Salvadorean Air Force...
...To build a nation, institutions such as the security forces must instead play a "stabilizing" role...
...The maneuvers--a first attempt to coordinate all fronts of the war-continued...
...See "Duarte: Prisoner of War," Report on the Americas, Vol.XX, no.1 (January-March 1986...
...policy...
...In the wake of the October 1983 invasion, it seemed to warn the Sandinistas they were next...
...The emphasis is on providing for indigenous tactical success, ensuring regional stability and developing an intelligence, logistical and psychological infrastructure that will replace U.S...
...policymakers realized how difficult their task would become...
...Nor was it simply a cynical recognition that the death squads had done their dirty work and outlived their usefulness...
...The MJP seeks to "rescue youth from the vice of anti-democratic doctrine and tendencies," through seminars by members of the Treasury Police and D-5, followed by the creation of "patriotic youth brigades" of 90 students each, who will presumably continue as paramilitary collaborators with their trainers...
...by 1984, surprise "no warning" maneuvers integrated ground, Navy and air operations under a single command...
...Through the maneuvers, the United States has rapidly developed the infrastructure to wage unconventional war over an extended period...
...Yet instead of moving in for the "final offensive" that many observers had expected, the FMLN moved to redefine the relationship between the military and political facets of their strategy...
...David Caldon began to articulate a new concept called "security development...
...When the Reagan Administration announced in early 1981 that it was "drawing the line" against revolutionary forces in Central America, few U.S...
...On the military front, the Sandinista Army was reorganized into smaller, irregular units (the BLI, or Irregular Warfare Battalions), backed by local territorial militias for enhanced maneuverability...
...But the new approach promoted by Caldon and theorists like him aimed to pull these poorly coordinated efforts into a coherent, long-term regional strategy...
...Sam C. Sarkesian, "Low-Intensity Conflict: Concepts, Principles and Policy Guidelines," Air University Review (January-February 1985), p.5...
...To date, however, the MJP has failed to attract significant support...
...military presence, aid and maneuvers in the region...
...This effort involves the employment of military assets, normally small teams orienting on intelligence, communications, logistics, engineer, medical and psychological operations support to indigenous efforts .. and the employment of teams on a regional as well as a country-specific basis...
...the countryby-country approach that prevailed in Washington led to contradictions at the regional level...
...They must be viewed as a totality and prosecuted as such...
...and the armed C-47 gunship...
...Reagan's thrust on this is: we will take this process and shape it to what we want, not what they want, and we will keep pressure on them to force them to do this...
...In fact, the Reagan Administration was now arming itself for a "political solution"--as defined in the uncompromising terms of low-intensity conflict...
...The manual urged its readers to copy the successful tactics of revolutionary warfare: Combat actions are not the key to victory in guerrilla effort...
...By November 1985, when the first group of BLI returned from their two-year stint, re-enlistment figures were high--both in the local militias and the regular Army-and the draft seemed widely accepted as a fact of wartime life...
...2 Over the next two years, limited and conventionally framed moves to halt the FMLN and prevent the consolidation of the Sandinista government proved hopelessly inadequate...
...Both at home and abroad, Washington has moved in calculated fashion from the outset to shape perceptions of the war to its own advantage...
...SELLING THE POLICY TO THE PUBLIC RAISED similar questions of coordination...
...Today's air operations, in contrast, are tactical support for a clear strategy...
...They see it as a way to drive a wedge between the population and the guerrillas, forcing civilians to choose sides...
...In early 1984, demonstrations against conscription by the mothers of draft-age sons had seemed a serious threat to the Sandinistas' defense plans...
...The Administration thought El Salvador was "like rolling a drunk," commented Robert White, Carter's Ambassador to that country.' By late 1981, however, the dream of a quick military victory was fading...
...And they achieved unprecedented bipartisan agreement on the principleif not all the terms-of U.S...
...advisers are now aiding the Salvadorean military in developing structures to perform quasi-police functions, including SWAT-style urban assault teams and special helicopter units which patrol the capital at night...
...But Central America is not South East Asia...
...The results can be seen in the countryside, where some contra forces have been implementing this approach with varying success...
...In El Salvador, low-intensity doctrine has led to a mushrooming role for "civilian" and private refugee, aid and development agencies, as well as changes in how the security forces operate...
...Targets for air attack are restricted to areas where the population is politically identified with the FMLN, to make clear to the population as a whole the difference between "civilians" and subversive masas...
...private" sources can bolster them...
...Despite recurrent tensions with Costa Rica and Honduras, Nicaragua maintained its bonds with the Latin American community...
...In 1983, the FMLN launched a series of tactically brilliant battalion-sized attacks, which the United REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 38A new emphasis on civilian loyalties States acknowledged were far superior to the efforts of the Salvadorean Army...
...military units in limited combat and support operations...
...The contras, largely motivated by badly articulated resentment, old grudges and a generalized desire for revenge, were being retrained to distinguish between "people" and "Sandinistas" and learn the scientific application of carrot or stick in a given situation...
...radio stations of the Nicaraguan Democratic Force (FDN) in Honduras urged revolt against against "the communists who spend our national treasure on bullets instead of food...
...Threatened Salvadorean officers and their U.S...
...The secondary purpose was to raise the social and economic costs of Nicaragua's defensive measures...
...and it has probably lied about the involvement of secret U.S...
...However, the manual warns, during this stage, The guerrilla cadre operating mixed among the target groups should always maintain a low profile, so that the development of hostile feelings towards the false Sandinista regime seems to come spontaneously from the members of the group, and not from suggestions of our cadre...
...What we need now in Central Ameri- ca is to bring them all together.' APRIL/MAY 1986 0 z Z Z) 27The Real War Until 1983, inter-agency turf fights over Central America policy were reminiscent of Vietnam-era wrangles, and policy in the field had suffered accordingly...
...At the same time it is aiding them, the Reagan Administration will press ahead with attacks on other fronts...
...But this pattern of official deception does not imply that the real plan is to invade Central America, and that the Reagan Administration is simply lying to conceal the fact...
...In speeches toward the end of 1985, some Sandinista leaders have claimed that the "strategic defeat" of the contras is at hand...
...Some of the most influential voices came from SOUTHCOM in Panama, which by now was a stronghold of low-intensity conflict advocates...
...counterinsurgency doctrine in the 1960s...
...For U.S...
...HE INFRASTRUCTURE FOR LOW-INTENsity conflict in El Salvador has been slowly developing since 1983...
...By adroit diplomacy, it managed to turn Contadora to its own advantage at certain moments, signing the September 1984 draft treaty in a surprise move that temporarily stymied U.S...
...policy goals: Who is going to orchestrate whatever propaganda, or information campaign, or actions, or whatever...
...T HE SHIFT TOWARD NEW BATTLEFIELDS obliged the Reagan Administration to make major changes in the conduct of its war effort on the ground...
...The widespread debate about the manual concentrated on issues of legality rather than of military strategy...
...Most simply viewed El Salvador as a stage upon which the new Administration could demonstrate its resolve in the face of crisis...
...government agencies and private sector groups...
...T HE SECURITY FORCES MUST ALSO COME to understand their mission in a different way...
...Robert Kupperman Associates, "Low-Intensity Conflict," p. 3 9 . 31...
...Overall, there is a conscious effort to reduce the presence of the civilian government, to remove successful social programs and the ideological influence that comes with them...
...strategists, understanding the importance of military elements in political warfare, hoped to shape the nature of Nicaragua's defensive response and then turn it into a weapon against the revolution...
...combat troops...
...The air war, critics charge, means a military escalation, and levels of human rights violations comparable to those of the 1980-1982 period...
...From 1981 through 1983, routine, regularly scheduled maneuvers had been held in the Caribbean, involving conventional naval exercises and gigantic simulated combat operations, with forces from the U.S...
...Despite a vastly expanded network of technological resources and a repressive judicial apparatus, they have been unable to prevent the resurgence of the mass movement or root out clandestine urban armed activity...
...Washington's long-term plan for neutralizing the Sandinistas relied on the flexible application of low-intensity conflict elements...
...commander...
...Army War College (November 1982), p. 9 . 5. Lt...
...Sarkesian, "Low-Intensity Conflict: Concepts, Principles and Policy Guidelines," p. 5. 29...
...But even their effectiveness in waging a successful low-intensity campaign had always been limited by internal political problems and the inability of contra troops to carry out their role as political warriors on the ground...
...strategists had learned in Vietnam, conventional escalation is counterproductive in a low-intensity environment, tending to alienate the population from the army and bring about a loss of tactical maneuverability...
...This was impossible without revamping key Salvadorean institutions...
...The threat of aerial surveillance and attack is designed to deter the FMLN from massing its forces...
...By 1986, the Salvadorean Army was able to expand its theater of operations and mount simultaneous offensives in five different areas...
...On the political front, they gave priority to the November 1984 elections, which culminated in a Sandinista victory with 67% of the vote and proved that a meaningful democratic process could take place under siege...
...military presence in a counterinsurgency setting can undermine local initiative...
...The influential low-intensity strategist Sam Sarkesian, arguing against "seeing conflicts through conventional lenses," urged the U.S...
...The U.S...
...In mid-1985, the FMLN General Command issued a detailed evaluation of the war which revealed major changes in its thinking...
...STRATEGY IN EL Salvador is that insurgency is not simply a military problem, but "terrorist subversion" that must be tackled on all fronts...
...This military reorganization had some positive social benefits as well...
...war fronts were coordinated in a dazzling demonstration of the principle of synergy, in which the whole is greater than the sum of its parts...
...officials in charge...
...The cities, largely neglected by counterinsurgency advisers until 1984, are a tougher nut for the security forces to crack...
...To confront these urban obstacles, the FMLN believes it must develop a strategy that transcends the purely military...
...and the determination of the Reagan Administration to overthrow the Sandinistas seemed nothing short of fanatical...
...Ultimately, as the United States learned, it can cause political paralysis, as the steamroller repeatedly fails to crush the shadow...
...The maneuvers expanded to embrace the construction of permanent military facilities in Honduras near the Nicaraguan border, and the launching of large-scale "humanitarian" and civilian relief projects...
...M EANWHILE, THE SECOND HOPED-FOR consequence of forcing Nicaragua to organize a large conventional Army was also emerging...
...Critics have argued that government forces are conducting an air war against the civilian population, involving "indiscriminate bombing attacks" and wanton destruction in the Salvadorean countryside...
...Each aircraft has a precise tactical function in the current military situation, which, in strategic terms, remains a low-intensity ground war...
...Organized political work by small groups, it declared, was to take precedence over strictly military action by battalion-sized units...
...This will help the rebels move toward their next goal-the "development and control of front organizations," and the establishment of a counterrevolutionary infrastructure...
...It is now several years since Col...
...side...
...every member of the struggle should know that his political mission is as important, if not more important, than his tactical mission...
...strategists, therefore, would not expect to win by outfighting the enemy in battle...
...Integrating the concept of nation-building fully into the war proved a slow process...
...trainers...
...But these statements are usually aimed at the respective domestic audiences...
...The Kirkpatrick visit led to an acknowledgment that U.S...
...Retired Lt...
...There has been an increase in the number and types of aircraft supplied to El Salvador since 1981...
...Yet Grenada's revolution had not been destroyed by U.S...
...troops would be merely a mopping-up operation, a postscript to the political victory...
...3. Morton Kondracke, "Enders' End," The New Republic, June 27, 1983...
...military has held back, since 1983, from using its full might in Central America, it is not because of any pacifist tendencies...
...Otherwise, Nicaragua began to place greater emphasis on consolidating mass support and denying the contras a social base...
...Helicopter gunships in El Salvador may have distinct military advantages (assuming they can be deployed properly) but they also may have equally real disadvantages in those crucial non-military areas that usually determine the outcome of low-intensity warfare.3 During the last year, critics of U.S...
...Army Training and Doctrine Command, Total preparation of the conflict area is the basis for the low-intensity campaign...
...The Sandinista Air Force went so far as to host a meeting of Latin American Air Forces in 1984 to promote regional military cooperation and technical collaboration...
...strategists' vision of the contras changed: once regarded as a force for harassment and attrition over time, they now became a strategic element in the war...
...T HE SANDINISTAS IN FACT RESPONDED UNconventionally, refusing to fall into the trap set with the maneuvers and rejecting a purely military solution to the threat they faced...
...This group, most visibly represented by CIA director William Casey and Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Fred Ikle, believed Washington was losing both the war on the ground and the war at home, with the failures on each front feeding upon one another in a downward spiral...
...The role of civilian administrators, and even of private non-governmental agencies, has grown by leaps and bounds since 1983...
...In Managua, thousands of militia members began an accelerated combat-training program...
...First, it involved restructuring the high command of the local armed forces...
...It is an irregular conflict which may be the most insidious war this nation will face in the foreseeable future...
...Their ability to conduct clandestine armed operations in the cities has convinced the guerrillas that the urban population supports them enough to give them information and allow them mobility...
...H ARDWARE, IN ANY WAR, IS NOT STRATEgy...
...Robert Kupperman's study for the Pentagon pointed out: In low-intensity warfare, the injection of new technology may very well lead to escalation...
...troops out of combat, would preempt public opposition to the war...
...The changes imply a recognition that El Salvador cannot fight the FMLN insurgency simply by murdering potential rebels...
...the development of an effective civilian-military machinery free of corruption...
...At present, the Salvadorean government has six main air assets at its disposal: the "Huey" helicopters, both transport and gunship models...
...As the Army attempts to drive the FMLN out of its rural zones of control, the conflict will necessarily shift back into the cities, obliging the security forces to refine their urban tactics...
...Tactical operations would include the retraining and restructuring of local military, police and paramilitary forces...
...Fixed-wing aircraft are used in selective attacks to hamper food production in guerrilla-controlled areas and as a means of bolstering Army troop morale...
...3 If the policy course was not corrected, they argued, the U.S...
...We could have won the war in 1983," an FMLN field commander reflected two years later, "but we would have lost the revolution...
...Each facet of the assault-economic or political, military or psychological-had a destructive multiplier effect on other fronts...
...there is not, however, a linear progression that implies the increased application of aerial firepower...
...presence in the region...
...Inside the U.S...
...As a former head of the U.S.MilGroup commented, In low-intensity conflict there are three important words to remember, and they are intelligence, intelligence, and intelligence...
...But the government vastly expanded a system of social services to combatants' families and veterans during the summer of 1984, and the Sandinistas sent their own political leadership into combat to demonstrate that the draft was impartial...
...The Army's capability to deal with low-intensity conflict at the tactical level is constrained at the outset-and it should be," they wrote...
...Approaching a New Stage of the War," Envio (Managua, Nicaragua: Instituto Hist6rico Centroamericano, December 1984...
...Victory, under the new strategy envisioned for the region, cannot be military: instead, it will require protracted, patient, political struggle...
...A dead Special Forces sergeant is not spontaneously replaced by his own social environment...
...ground forces in combat against the Sandinistas or the FMLN...
...Rather, the violence is part of a logical and systematic policy, and reflects the changing pattern of the war...
...As early as 1983, they recognized that the strategic goal of the low-intensity war was population, not territory...
...As the scope of the maneuvers broadened, U.S...
...David Kamowitz, "Low-Intensity Warfare in One Region: Nicaragua's Segovias" (unpublished ms., July 1985...
...At the same time, Washington hoped to define the terms of the Contadora peace process in such a way that the Nicaraguans would structure their diplomacy around the single issue of preventing an invasion, rather than around the real war...
...strategists-Calero explained, "We've never thought that we'd win an absolute military victory-our victory will come in different parts: psychological, economic and with a political decision by the people...
...2 The task of separating the civilian population from the insurgents begins with identifying the enemy-by collecting grassroots intelligence from civilians and then making extremely selective judgments on the ground...
...And still the need for defense grew...
...Too often," Caldon argued, we find ourselves repeating the mistakes of history by trying to differentiate between those measures which lend themselves to internal defense and those which are key to internal development...
...Special Forces adviser has been training former members of paramilitary groups to be instructors at the nucleus of El Salvador's new "civil defense" bodies in rural areas...
...Instead, U.S...
...At the same time, it obscured the comprehensive nature of the new strategy by implementing it in stages, under different legal and bureaucratic authorities...
...As U.S...
...Once proper identification is made, it is as important for the security forces to "win" the civilian as it is to eliminate the guerrilla...
...Robert Asprey, War in the Shadows (New York: Doubleday & Co., 1975), Vol.II, p. 1 1 2 9 . 23...
...3 The shift in government tactics, away from attacks on main force units and toward attacks on the rearguard, brings forth equivalent responses from the FMLN...
...the literacy brigades were quietly shelved in late 1985...
...They would warn repeatedly that an invasion was imminent, but when none materialized, their alarms would become less and less credible...
...While Nicaraguans lived with inflation, shortages and a sabotaged infrastructure, Washington exploited the consequences with contra leafletting campaigns and radio broadcasts designed to convince Nicaraguans that the revolution promised only hunger and reduced wages...
...On the diplomatic front, Nicaragua fought hard to rally its Western European and socialist bloc allies in order to win improved political and trade relations...
...The security forces-whose notoriety was an embarrassment, and ultimately a hindrance to the nation-building strategy-were an obvious priority...
...After 1982, signs of escalating low-intensity strategy were visible in the steady increase of the U.S...
...FM 95-1A Guerrilla War Manual," special supplement to Soldier of Fortune (February 1985...
...APRIL/MAY 1986 35The Re on al e Amrric The Real War the maneuvers can continue...
...See Envio, December 1984...
...all that was needed, the argument went, was a little military aid to "mop up" the insurgency in the countryside...
...In the cities, building what theorists of guerrilla war call "parallel hierarchies" is harder...
...So whose problem is it?0 For the low-intensity lobby, the answer was a swiftly orchestrated propaganda offensive...
...T HE THIRD GOAL OF THE MANEUVERS WAS to gain a diplomatic advantage over the Sandinistas...
...Most of them are masas, people living in FMLN-controlled zones who may not technically be combatants, but who are not recognized by the government as civilians...
...Nicaragua, meanwhile, could not avoid becoming "another Grenada" simply by preparing to resist an invasion: survival would mean simultaneous defense on all fronts...
...3 " As the war goes on, the hardest and most important task for the FMLN will be to build an organized political base outside its rural zones of control, and establish a permanent system that demonstrates an effective "dual power" in the city as well as in the countryside...
...and the creation of a comprehensive "development" and civic action program that would place large parts of the civilian population under the direct or informal control of government forces...
...forces.'2 To be sure, the Administration deliberately misled Congress and the U.S...
...T HE ADMINISTRATION NEVER EXPECTED the contras to win a straightforward military victory over the Sandinistas...
...offensive was not proscribed...
...The civil defense network is intended to affect every aspect of village life, instilling an anti-communist consciousness among the peasantry and providing the local security forces with an informal intelligence network...
...Morelli and Ferguson, "Low-Intensity Conflict: An Operational Perspective," p.11...
...Military tactics would emphasize the guerrilla nature of the war and would attempt to mirror the integrated politico-military approach of the revolutionaries...
...intentions in Central America and the Caribbean...
...Villagers are either "subversives," who work with the FMLN, or loyal citizens willing to bear arms to protect their villages against the guerrillas: there is no room for neutrality...
...advisers tried to emulate the tactics, but suffered heavy casualties from the more mobile FMLN when they massed their own forces...
...As the U.S...
...They are still beset by power struggles, abusive leaders, lack of discipline in the field and internal conflicts, despite the manual's plea for "self-criticism and group discussion" to build a "spirit of democratic cooperation...
...Marines: if Reagan Administration strategists hoped to bring about "another Grenada" in Nicaragua, their methods would be to cause the revolution to crumble internally through the combined pressure of the maneuvers, the amplified contra war and the political/diplomatic siege...
...Reynaldo L6pez Nuila, former chief of the relatively "clean" National Police and a staunchly pro-U.S...
...Navy, NATO, Argentina, Venezuela, Colombia and Puerto Rico...
...The most prominent casualty was Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs Thomas O. Enders...
...IN FEBRUARY 1983, UN AMBASSADOR JEANE Kirkpatrick made a highly-publicized trip to Central America...
...T HE FIRST GOAL, THEN, WAS TO SQUEEZE the economy by forcing a massive diversion of resources into defense, The strategy aimed to exacerbate social problems and tensions, eroding popular support REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 30I, waiting Tor "numanitarian ala": Nicaraguan refugees for the revolution by making it ineffective in people's lives...
...Preparing the Battlefield 1. Jeff Stein, "An Interview with Robert E. White, Former U.S...
...For low-intensity hawks, both options were unacceptable...
...Conventional defense preparations continued: large numbers of heavy tanks, for example, were prominently installed, half-buried, at Managua intersections during 1984 and 1985...
...35...
...national security establishment, arguments over who should be in charge of the contras added to their lack of coherent direction...
...2 7 Both programs attempt to reverse the psychology of the war, replacing the political programs offered by the FMLN with the Salvadorean authorities' alternatives...
...In certain limited areas, the contras have provided basic services to the population...
...7 IG PINE" MAY HAVE CARRIED A SUBTLE Psychological message about Washington's willingness to use the big stick...
...On the ground, the Administration groomed the contras to build a social base among disaffected Nicaraguans and exploit the political fallout from the war...
...The future course of the war depends heavily on the extent to which the two sides can maintain or alter these allegiances...
...policy toward the region was "in crisis," and a full-scale review of policy goals brought a major shakeup of U.S...
...a number of pretexts could plausibly have been used to justify such a move...
...Next came psychological operations to feed on the conflict: leaflets distributed throughout the country urged Nicaraguan youths to escape the "totalitarian Marxist draft...
...aid will almost certainly be channeled into these kinds of activities...
...If we must commit U.S...
...The hawks began, then, to develop a new and more comprehensive strategy that could deal with the political nature of the conflicts in Central America, and build a domestic consensus that could be sustained over the course of a very lengthy regional war...
...Interview with Comandante Luis Carri6n, in "La Voz de America Latina Frente al Terrorismo," Envio (August 1985...
...If Nicaragua bought real weapons to fend off the threat The Sandinistas rely heavily on new irreaular units REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 32implied by the maneuvers, it would be the one violating Contadora, since the United States was not using "real" weapons...
...If the U.S...
...They have money, and they have supplies...
...The manual goes on to stress that, Our object is to build close identification with the people, working side by side with peasants in the countryside, building, fishing, repairing, etc...
...plans for Central America...
...It was based on detailed studies of the writings of Mao Zedong, Che Guevara and other revolutionary theorists-although, in a discussion of armed propaganda, it approvingly cited the example of the Fifth Column during World War II, noting that "through infiltration and subversion tactics this type of operation allowed the Germans to penetrate the target countries before the invasion, and to enter Poland, Belgium, Holland and France in a month...
...In its new war of "counter-counterinsurgency," the FMLN also hopes to deepen its relationship with the rural population, on the assumption that the shift toward small, mobile units will reduce the risk of retaliatory attacks from the Army and make civilian collaboration easier...
...This new style of warfare attacks the rebel rearguard, not its main force units, in an effort to destroy the enemy's intelligence, logistical and support systems...
...Helicopters serve largely as transport, to increase troop mobility and evacuate wounded soldiers...
...John Waghelstein, talk at American Enterprise Institute, Washington, DC, January 16, 1985...
...Kirkpatrick's 1983 trip was a turning point HE LOW-INTENSITY LOBBY ARGUED vehemently for coordination as well as farsightedness, complaining that U.S...
...El FMLN sefiala el camino: mensaje de la Comandancia General," Sistema Farabundo Marti de Comunicaci6n, August 1985...
...These indicators did not mean, as some critics charged, that Washington was committed to a "military solution...
...Earlier bombing campaigns in El Salvador had used massive, indiscriminate firepower to demonstrate that something was being done to combat the guerrillas...
...trade and aid, the blocking of multilateral development loans and direct CIA sabotage of economic targets...
...In the sphere of psychological operations, these formal efforts by the security forces seem less effective than the -sophisticated anti-subversive radio and television commercials, produced by the new Ministry of Culture and Communications, that saturate San Salvador's airwaves...
...At the same time, it left the United States free to escalate the war with greater flexibility on other frontswith the possible added benefit of a consensus at home that the Administration was interested in "peaceful solutions...
...Gordon Sumner (Ret...
...strategy for Central America, prior to 1983, had been designed piecemeal...
...Clarence Lusane, "Israeli Arms in Central America," Covert Action Information Bulletin (Winter 1984...
...public about the nature and scope of the maneuvers and their role in low-intensity conflict strategy...
...On the economic front, the Sandinistas encouraged projects that depended less on foreign exchange, and announced new measures designed to increase food production and more equitably distribute the burdens of the economic crisis...
...An invasion-or simply "going in"--was an event, not a strategy...
...It was quickly followed by the unveiling of two new executive branch organs to disseminate the Administration's views-the White House's Central America Policy Outreach Group, which aimed to rally the Administration's conservative constituency...
...The process, known as "nation-building," was part of U.S...
...2 3 The solution involves establishing a line of defense against this subversion that first involves civilian, then police and lastly military agencies...
...But it was obvious that they would not in themselves lead to the collapse of the revolution...
...It rests on the understanding that the population-not the guerrillas of the FMLN-is the real target of the war...
...The social and economic crisis made it much harder for the Sandinistas' grassroots political organizations to grow and serve their communities...
...Wallace Nutting, former SOUTHCOM commander and head of the U.S...
...And Washington was conducting unconventional military and psychological operations against Nicaragua-ranging from sabotage attacks to radio propaganda broadcasts-to achieve short-term goals within specific target areas...
...The manual illustrates the "correct" low-intensity approach: a combination of carrot and stick, reward and punishment...
...One key feature of the restructuring is a growing emphasis on coordinated civilian/police/military action...
...One program is literacy training, modeled on Nicaragua's literacy brigades...
...In mid-1982, Washington hastily designed a pilot counterinsurgency project for El Salvador-the National Plan-to be implemented in the departments of San Vicente and Usulutin...
...in El Salvador, it is to construct a legitimate political alternative to the FMLN...
...The visit of Vice President George Bush to San Salvador in December 1983, accompanied by highly publicized warnings from Washington linking increased military aid to an end to death squad abuses, was a turning point...
...On the ground, the United States would seek the collapse of insurgent movements or revolutionary governments through a flexible combination of economic sabotage, political attacks, psychological warfare and military pressure...
...Today, the means used to defeat the insurgency are increasingly becoming subordinate to the larger goal of nation-building...
...Secretary of State Alexander Haig admitted that the war in El Salvador had reached a "stalemate," and acknowledged that, "in this type of war when you're not winning you're losing...
...Frankly," said Gen...
...In the countryside, the security forces' role is different...
...But] they cannot be separated...
...The Reagan Administration, in short, can-and will-enlist the entire panoply of resources of the U.S...
...In 1984," said one FMLN fighter, "we were suffering from a militarist kind of thinking...
...advisers admit the program is their best hope for an effective counterinsurgency campaign...
...One clue to the contras' new approach was an effort to discriminate between civilians and Sandinistas, in order to isolate the civilian population from the revolution...
...The strategy aims to create the impression among the local population of government weakness and contra strength...
...policy in El Salvador have focused on the military aspects of the war, while largely ignoring the implications of the shifts in strategy by the armed forces...
...They found it harder to persuade a hard-pressed population to offer volunteer labor or make greater economic sacrifices...
...This rearguard includes not only material resources but personnel-CIA agents, pilots, computer specialistswho may be Americans, Salvadoreans or nationals of other countries...
...2 4 Since February 1984, an experienced U.S...
...Low-intensity doctrine is based on thorough, serious evaluation of the enemy's thinking, and U.S...
...When a guerrilla behaves in this manner, no type of propaganda of the enemy will be able to make a "terrorist" of him in the eyes of the people...
...and Salvadorean officers on the basic outlines of an effective low-intensity strategy on the ground...
...Nonetheless, explaining his new theory of warfare-as taught to him by U.S...
...All this is what low-intensity doctrine calls the "total preparation of the conflict area...
...Already confronting a crippling legacy of underdevelopment, the government saw its social and political programs further threatened by the war's unending drain on resources, and knew that the domestic discontent that ensued would in turn have reverberations abroad and cost Nicaragua valuable support in the international community...
...Washington had engaged in economic warfare by cutting off loans to Nicaragua, pouring development aid into El Salvador and Costa Rica, and manipulating international lending institutions such as the InterAmerican Development Bank (IDB) in pursuit of policy goals...
...As in Guatemala, whose experience Salvadorean strategists have surely studied, thousands of villagers are now involved in civil defense patrols-a paramilitary institution that consolidates government control of the rural population...
...At home, opposition from religious groups and the human rights community was growing, crystallizing around the issues of death squad killings in El Salvador and the possible inREPORT ON THE AMERICAS 26volvement of U.S...
...then, reaching a consensus between U.S...
...T REMAINS TO BE SEEN WHETHER THE contras can carry out their mission...
...The establishment of the Kissinger Commission, as well as a separate State Department commission chaired by Frank Carlucci, a former CIA official and retiring Deputy Secretary of Defense, continued the drive to forge a "bipartisan" consensus on Central America...
...In 1983, there was a shift to manuevers in Honduras, featuring cooperation between U.S...
...By maintaining flexibility on all fronts, Nicaragua was practicing what one Sandinista official called "aikido-style war...
...The New York Times, June 26, 1985...
...the A-37 "Dragonfly" jet...
...Most will still say-and feel-that "the contras are killing us...
...Ambassador to El Salvador Deane Hinton was also replaced, and the Administration appointed former Senator Richard Stone as its special envoy to the region...
...Winning the population is the goal: separating it from the "communist enemy" is the method...
...2 T HE SANDINISTAS' TACTICAL RESPONSE to the contras has included stepping up political work in the countryside, restructuring the armed forces and moving the civilian population out of the war zones...
...and bolstered the contras' supply lines and civilian supporters in Honduras through large-scale civic action and "refugee assistance" programs administered by U.S...
...The use of air assets in military operations is increasingly defensive and psychological...
...They stressed the need for integrating the diverse elements of policysecurity assistance, economic support, "humanitarian" and development aid-into a comprehensive program for advancing U.S...
...more integrated military operations on the ground under a unified command...
...An "invasion-watch" mentality took hold among many opponents of U.S...
...9 The United States' choice of methods, whether planning counterinsurgency or initiating insurgencies of its own against established governments, would depend not on vague moral constraints against the use of APRIL/MAY 1986 29 force, but on a careful assessment of the most effective combination of tactics to win particular battles...
...during the same period, over 50 hospitals, 360 schools and 840 adult education centers were closed because of attacks or sabotage...
...At the same time, fears that the Administration may be threatening to invade have been an integral part of the plan at the psychological level...
...They began to conduct civic action among peasants and worked harder to forge political links with the private sector and the Catholic Church...
...As Robert Asprey writes in his monumental study of guerrilla warfare through the ages, "A lull in guerrilla action is usually a danger sign, not a 'victory.' "22 In any case, the contras alone are not the primary threat...
...28...
...ground forces and the Honduran Army...
...Numerous developments seemed to indicate that an invasion of Nicaragua was imminent...
...the 0-2 spotter plane...
...The primary military goal of the maneuvers, then, was less offensive preparation than a feint designed to fix the EPS into an untenable posture...
...As Bernard Fall wrote about Vietnam, It is important to understand that guerrilla warfare is nothing but a tactical appendage of a far vaster political contest and that, no matter how expertly it is fought by competent and dedicated professionals, it cannot make up for the absence of a political rationale...
...Even actions that are widely decried in the United States-such as kidnappings, or political assassinations of members of the military and security forces-have earned the FMLN considerable support domestically...
...According to Sandinista Deputy Interior Minister Luis Carri6n, an accelerated land reform program is also seen as a key element of defense policy, "because our defense cannot be just military...
...Third countries can act as surrogates to supplement the contra forces...
...Instead, the manual suggests that the population be well-treated and "subtly encouraged" to identify and collaborate with the contras...
...It is going to be a long, painful lirocess.' 6 With the backdrop of the maneuvers and their everpresent threat of invasion, the "process" provided a political framework for fixing Nicaragua into one position: devoting all its energies to stopping an invasion...
...strategy at the regional level...
...But the "police" part of the equation has also taken on new dimensions...
...The aim of the maneuvers was not to seek a "military solution" in Nicaragua through the defeat of the Sandinista People's Army (EPS...
...The manual instructed them to choose their targets carefully-selecting individuals who represent the revolution-and to avoid "random" terror, which is usually counterproductive...
...Vernon Walters summed up the Administration's intent of creating a double bind: "Let them worry," he said...
...But the April 1984 round of maneuvers, codenamed "Grenadero," left nothing to the imagination...
...Top Salvadorean security force officials were removed from office, and their replacements made directly responsible to Col...
...and the State Department's Office of Public Diplomacy, charged with promoting Reagan's Central America policy among foreign officials and the media, both U.S...
...U.S...
...goals in three areas...
...Indeed, it did not call this a war strategy at all, but a plan for promoting "peace and democracy...
...By 1984, there were significant changes in the conduct of the contra war: above all, their strategy began to mesh with the other, multiple fronts of the war...
...But the display was clearly intended to boost domestic morale and provide a sense of security: it was not combat procurement...
...intervention in Central America...
...This is not, as many critics charge, "indiscriminate violence against civilians...
...2 " So far, the contras have failed either to register conventional military successes or to fully embrace the low-intensity methods of their U.S...
...The Wartime Economy," Envio, October 1984...
...They charged Enders with mismanagement of events in the field and accused him of being timid and defensive toward the Administration's critics at home...
...The overall goal of the maneuvers was to make the Sandinistas believe that the "worst case scenario" of war with the United States was also the most probable, and plan their strategy accordingly...
...The measures adopted in each country, whether active or preventive, were in turn designed to bear on the overall thrust of U.S...
...Strategy, p. 2 9 4. 7. Morelli and Ferguson, "Low-Intensity Conflict: An Operational Perspective," p. 7. 8. Bernard Fall, Street Without Joy (Harrisburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1963), p.356...
...By early 1984, control of the contras was firmly established in the CIA through the National Security Council...
...Though the timing of this move may have been influenced by media revelations of death squad activities and congressional pressure, the overhaul of the security forces was not merely a sop to U.S...
...On the political front, the United States had promoted and engineered limited elections in Honduras and El Salvador, and conducted diplomatic warfare aimed at alienating European and Latin American political elites from accommodation with the Sandinistas or the FMLN...
...They did, however, mean that there was a new will to win...
...Old-style counterinsurgency, with its focus on the tactics of fighting guerrilla forces, did not address long-term "nation-building" goals...
...It tended to allow more soldiers to remain in their own localities, improving morale...
...strategists...
...The Real War In retrospect, the U.S...
...John Waghelstein, former head of the U.S...
...One senior Navy officer spelled out the thinking of low-intensity conflict advocates: The continuing campaign to equate Central America with South East Asia is an effort to in- fluence the decision...
...In a 1985 Radio Liberty interview, broadcast to Poland by the Voice of America, FDN leader Adolfo Calero implicitly acknowledged that the contras still lack a base of popular support...
...W ASHINGTON'S POLICY IN NICARAGUA IS to destroy...
...strengthened regional intelligence and communications networks among the armies...
...and international...
...military to study its opponents' methods: The essence of success for revolutionary and counterrevolutionary systems is primarily contingent upon the commitment and skill of political cadre, political organization and psychological warfare-that is, by people on the ground in face-to-face contact with the indigenous population...
...The crackdown did not merely stop something: it involved active changes in the structure and operations of the security forces, allowing them to play a more effective role with other civilian and military institutions in the low-intensity war...
...Washington has supplied all three of its proxies with daily reconnaissance and intelligence support for their air and ground operations...
...Frank Aker, "The Third World War and Central America: U.S...
...The maneuvers were part of a strategy aimed at realizing U.S...
...In the economic sphere, they would force Nicaragua to devote over half its budget to defense...
...The U.S., by supplying treasure, training and technology, can aid its allies . .. in conducting a protracted war of perhaps decades duration...
...It's hard for a village when a battalion of soldiers arrives," says one FMLN fighter, "but anyone can help feed six guys...
...By late 1984, Nicaragua's policy of "defense in all spheres" had taken on greater coherence...
...The patrols, in theory voluntary, are supposed to involve the population in para-police functions, political meetings and civic action projects under joint civilian-military direction...
...troops and National Guard units began to arrive in Honduras directly from their U.S...
...By 1984, Washington had turned a so-called political solution into a framework for escalating its low-intensity conflict, while punishing the Sandinistas' supporters, alienating their potential allies and isolating Nicaragua politically...
...The same prediction has come, in tones of alarm, from members of the Reagan Administration and right-wing backers of the contras...
...Refinements in aerial bombing tactics, of course, are of little interest to its victims...
...T HE MANEUVERS HAVE ALLOWED THE Reagan Administration to provide additional arms and training to the Salvadorean and Honduran armies and the Nicaraguan contras...
...I N AN INFLUENTIAL 1984 ARTICLE ON LOWintensity conflicts, U.S...
...Though more bombs were being dropped, the air war was becoming far less indiscriminate...
...maneuvers should indeed have been cause for alarm-but not because they heralded a direct military invasion...
...Air operations also offer what Defense Minister Vides Casanova calls a "psychological deterrent...
...9. Dr...
...MilGroup in San Salvador, felt obliged to tell Salvadorean officers that, "The time is right now to be able to read Mao or Che without being called a communist...
...One of the most crucial was the decision to vastly expand the scope and duration of U.S...
...The more the EPS could be forced to behave like a conventional army, the theory went, the more successful a contra insurgency could be in practice...
...The poor military showing of the contras has encouraged Nicaraguans...
...3 2 Military operations were important only if they strengthened political support, weakening the enemy psychologically or giving the population a sense of protection and a belief in victory...
...in the absence of a strategy, it would only lead the United States into a quagmire...
...Yet the contras have not been able to establish solid political structures of their own inside Nicaragua: so far, they appear to have found it easier to destroy than REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 34Contra troops, slow to learn low-intensity methods to build...
...This is internal subjective control...
...With no advanced weaponry and no air forces, FMLN military actions will also aim at destroying the enemy's rearguard and supply lines...
...T HE THESIS BEHIND U.S...
...David Caldon, Chief, Policy and Strategy Division, U.S...
...The security forces' facelift also implies a more thorough involvement with the "professionals" of the CIA, illustrating the increased importance of intelligence functions in low-intensity conflict strategy...
...A U.S...
...This is a two-fold process: "civilianizing" the government at the national level, while militarizing civilian life at the grassroots...
...Far from being a substitute for effective ground operations, air assets have, since late 1983, become more and more closely integrated into the overall pattern of the ground war...
...The author is indebted for this phrase to the Instituto Hist6rico Centroamericano...
...Negotiations-or "giving in"--were inconceivable, since they would mean a surrender to powersharing with the FMLN and compromise with the Sandinistas...
...and international audiences, Washington offered a vague endorsement of the "Contadora process," which actually undercut earlier negotiating efforts by the four Contadora countries-Mexico, Venezuela, Panama and Colombia...
...It is not really a military problem...
...This time the logistics are on the U.S.'s side...
...yet the government is aware that battlefield victories will not be enough...
...More than anything, however, the new offensives displayed an unprecedented unity of command within the armed forces, a surprising ability to synchronize political and military operations, and a greatly increased capacity to wage a ground war...
...Author's interview...
...and in the political, they would lock Nicaragua into a regional diplomatic framework controlled by Washington...
...but Nicaraguan efforts at self-defense could be used to undermine their political legitimacy and isolate them diplomatically...
...The people aren't ready politically to understand that kind of sacrifice...
...Washington can bring new economic and diplomatic pressures to bear...
...Al Zamierowski, interview with Adolfo Calero on Radio Liberty, Dallas, TX, September 11, 1985...
...But in 1983 it collapsed, for much the same reasons as in Vietnam: inadequate preparation of local forces, and serious deficiencies in the local administrative infrastructure...
...Readiness Force, "all the talk about invading Nicaragua is counterproductive to the long-term coalition we ought to be building in the hemisphere...
...Southern Command, 1983 NINETEEN EIGHTY-THREE MARKED THE beginning of a new kind of war in Central America, and brought a redefinition of the battlefield, both on the ground and in the minds of U.S...
...military maneuvers in and around Honduras, permitting a nearly permanent U.S...
...I simply do not know...
...But the change in the nature of air operations is real, and airpower is primarily used today as a means of separating civilians from the insurgents, to make neutrality impossible and to cut off the FMLN's rearguard of food and logistical supplies...
...Through the maneuvers, the U.S...
...The low-intensity strategy for Central America was to combine both "active" and "preventive" measures: within each country, the choice would be determined, roughly speaking, by whether an armed insurgency already existed...
...Big Pine Yankee invader" proclaimed graffiti on one city building, "we're here waiting for you...
...Translations here are from Soldier of Fortune...
...For a discussion of these developments, see Jos6 Rodolfo Castro Orellana, "El plan de contrainsurgencia norteamericano para El Salvador y los cambios en las fuerzas armadas gubernamentales" (Managua, Nicaragua: Coordinadora Regional de Investigaciones Econ6micas y Sociales, CRIES: August 1985...
...The Reagan Administration aimed to gain control of Contadora as part of an overall strategy seeking victory, not accommodation...
...2 " In classic counterinsurgency fashion, the security forces are now using "turned" captured guerrillas to penetrate and disrupt the FMLN...
...But the invasion failed to materialize...
...In April 1983, the president's special address on Central America to a rare joint session of Congress succeeded in placing liberal critics on the defensive for the first time...
...At one 1983 conference of low-intensity strategists, former Rand Corporation President George Tanham complained bitterly that the lack of clear organization had prevented the effective projection of U.S...
...Money, counterinsurgency training through the maneuvers and a vastly expanded rearguard and intelligence capability in Honduras began to strengthen the contras...
...To fight the war properly would first mean establishing a "civilian" government through carefully controlled elections and institutional reorganization...
...A "strategic defeat," however, is not a military event in the context of lowintensity conflict...
...Projects like this fit the theories of low-intensity conflict experts like Sam Sarkesian, who says, "The most successful strategy for counterrevolution" means that "the existing system must take the revolution out of the hands of the revolutionaries.' "28 But psychological operations, as planned in El Salvador, also have a military purpose: improving security force collection of on-the-ground intelligence by involving the police intimately with the population...
...In its new role, for example, the Treasury Police has developed a series of educational programs designed to bolster public support for the armed forces and the government, while eroding the social structures of the FMLN...
...They are neither firepower for its own sake, nor a "bombing campaign" intended in itself to win the war...
...The FMLN believes it will mean dealing with the presence of the urban security forces, and with the undercover support systems-located for the most part in the cities-on which the Army's ability to prosecute the war depends...
...T HE TENDENCY TO FRAME THE WAR NOT as a series of military contests, but as a prolonged struggle for the civilian population, has brought changes in the political and military tactics of both sides...
...Instead, they would aim to separate the enemy from the civilian population, and neutralize enemy social structures-whether embryonic ones in FMLN zones of control, or the more institutionalized kind in revolutionary Nicaragua...
...The threat was one the Sandinistas could ill afford to ignore...
...would eventually face a difficult choice: either direct intervention to stave off defeat in El Salvador, or Enders' suggestion of a "negotiating track" with the FMLN and the Sandinistas...
...interests...
...efforts to manipulate the process...
...In Nicaragua, the Sandinistas use them to keep morale high...
...Each successful response from the Nicaraguans drew a counter-response from the Reagan Administration...
...the Hughes 500 helicopter...
...In fact, the shift was more subtle and significant, and reflected the consolidation of power by advocates of low-intensity conflict in the CIA, the Defense Department and the U.S...
...in the United States, pro-contra lobbyists use them to win more money and backing for the war...
...In 1983, the CIA had carried out a series of direct sabotage attacks on the Nicaraguan economy, and published a manual called Psychological Operations in Guerrilla Warfare...
...The Miami Herald, October 24, 1983...
...In the same year, the manuevers began to be continuous, and in some cases simultaneous...
...All these new bodies framed their arguments in the language of low-intensity conflict...
...At the same time, it offers propaganda advantages to Washington through a visible cleanup of the security forces and the appearance that they are now subordinate to the civilian authority of President Josd Napole6n Duarte...
...Purchasing sophisticated conventional defense systems against an invasion would mean fewer resources for the simpler weapons that militias needed to defend their villages against irregular attacks...
...Each new school or hospital not built, each cooperative without seeds or fertilizer, each productive worker drafted, could reflect the revolution's failure to meet the needs of its people...
...version of Contadora developed, it allowed the expansion of the real low-intensity war and denied Nicaragua the right to an effective response...
...By 1984, this was in place...
...6. George Tanham, discussant, "Organizational Strategy and Low-Intensity Conflicts," in Special Operations in U.S...
...In practice, this means the targeted torture and assassination of teachers, health workers, agricultural technicians and their collaborators in the community...
...This Costa Rica's Civil Guard: A preference for proxy forces REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 28solution would be based, as it was for an earlier generation of counterinsurgency theorists, on the recognition that the conflict was between two antagonistic social systems, not between two armies on the battlefield...
...in order to create direct discontent in the local population and to discourage people from participating in the government programs . .. for their part, the contras are beginning to distribute free products, and to do their own civic action with isolated populations...
...And the secondary effects of each set of attacks would feed on each other to create an environment of total war...
...The essential counterpart would be to hold the insurgent forces at bay while the United States constructed "democratic" regimes and alternative, counterrevolutionary institutions-political, economic and social-for the region...
...intelligence and military strategists have obviously studied the FMLN closely...
...At the same time, the fallout from the economic crisis put pressure on Nicaraguan institutions...
...Gordon Sumner, special adviser to the Secretary of State, explained the Administration's view of Contadora in a March 1985 forum sponsored by the International Security Council: I think Mr...
...During 1983, Washington reconsidered other assets, and began to forge the contra army-mainly the FDN, though including Eddn Pastora's ARDE and various groupings of the Miskito MISURA and MISURASATA-into a more effective instrument...
...public opinion...
...A dead revolutionary usually is.' U.S...
...But as the Vietnam experience showed, a large-scale conventional U.S...
...This time, however, rather than concluding that "counterinsurgency doesn't work," the United States dug in for the long haul...
...See George Black, "Under the Gun," Report on the Americas, Vol.XIX, no.6 (November-December 1985...
...During 1986, under the rubric of "counter-terrorism aid," further direct U.S...
...In such cases, the more the war appears a war, and is perceived as such, the more endangered the center we are trying to build...
...Army Majors Donald Morelli and Michael Ferguson expressed their belief that the U.S...
...The menacing activities around Nicaragua's borders aimed to make the Sandinistas cry wolf...
...3 4 The purpose of these operations is not, however, to defeat the Salvadorean Army: rather, their aim is to raise the cost of the war for the government and buy time for the rebels to consolidate their support and build new political structures of their own in all parts of the country...
...The campesino must have confidence that there's a better deal if he goes with us, and that he won't be molested if he walks in with information...
...Critics portrayed the maneuvers as a frightening prelude to invasion, a thinly veiled excuse for developing the support infrastructure for U.S...
...Information Agency] is prohibited from taking any action in this country...
...In South Vietnam, the lack of stable, effective institutions that could guarantee local security made battlefield forays against the guerrillas almost irrelevant...
...The methodology is homemade: economic sabotage, for example, is seen as the strategic equivalent of airpower...
...Their role as gunships is also primarily defensive, to cover retreats...
...Defense Monitor (March 1985...
...At the same time as social conflict was growing out of economic hardship, the Nicaraguans were obliged to call for an expanded military, thereby further narrowing the space for the revolution's social programs...
...Much more ambitious than 1960s-style counterinsurgency, this broadened the Army's mission beyond its traditional infantry training and advisory roles to include combined military exercises, small unit training, intelligence exchanges, civic action initiatives, psychological warfare, public affairs activities and other non-traditional operations, all to be implemented in conjunction with civilian agencies responsible for "development assistance...
...concentric rings of trenches were dug around the entire city...
...David L. Caldon, USMC, "The Role of Security Assistance in the Irregular Conflict Ongoing in the Caribbean Basin Today: Prevention-Deterrence-Counteraction," Journal of International Security Assistance (Spring 1983), p.31...
...another is a "Patriotic Youth Movement" (MJP), co-directed by the Army's D-5 (Psychological Operations) branch...
...Southern Command in Panama (SOUTHCOM...
...We have found that constructive ambiguity is a very powerful weapon in American foreign policy...
Vol. 20 • April 1986 • No. 2
