CENTRAL AMERICA Counterinsurgency Revisited
LeoGrande, William M.
For decades, specialists in irregular warfare have pondered the writings of Lenin, Mao, Guevara, and Giap look- ing for a magic formula that would en- able them to halt the advance of guer-...
...When the hardliners took control of policy, Washington's concern shifted to the battlefield...
...Second, the alternative to supporting Duarte seemed to be either a rightist military coup or a guerrilla victory, both of which were unacceptable...
...3) This was a "new more comprehensive strategy that could deal with the political nature of the conflicts...
...for the very sort of invasion of the Third World that Miles claims is at odds with LIC doctrine...
...The main policy instrument has been military force...
...If the United States or its ally is losing a low intensity war, Washington may face the choice of defeat or escalation...
...Within the mili- tary bureaucracy, however, others have tried to appropriate the term LIC for their own purposes...
...combat forces...
...Embassy's bidding...
...Today, William M. LeoCrande is coauthor, with Morris Blachman and Kenneth Sharpe, of Confronting Revolution: Security Through Diplomacy in Cen- tral America recently published by Pantheon Books...
...They sought to double military aid to El Salvador, double the size of the contra army, and vastly expand U.S...
...Enders and Hinton pushed for elections in El Salvador in order to build political institutions to arbitrate conflicts among pro-U.S...
...First, counterinsurgency was limited to counterinsurgency, whereas LIC gives equal weight to "pro-insurgency " (a.k.a...
...it simply argues-as does everyone in the military-that U.S...
...This shift came about, according to Miles, be- cause during 1981 and 1982 "limited and conventionally framed moves to halt the FMLN and prevent the con- solidation of the Sandinista govern- ment proved hopelessly inadequate...
...His policies, however, are aimed at winning the wars-eliminating the region's revolutionary movements...
...Washington's first steps into the quagmire were not made with the expectation that it would end up committing half a million troops...
...Third, the death toll from political murders began to decline...
...The Reagan Administration vehemently opposes all three...
...Modelled on the CORDS program from Vietnam, the National Plan was heralded as the key to winning the war...
...citizens...
...military strategy in El Salvador during 1981-1982 as "conventional...
...policy all along...
...At that point, the deployment of U.S...
...In her provocative assessment of LIC and its application in Central America-"The Real WarWSara Miles argues that LIC is an essentially new doctrine that is a aualitative ad- vance over earlier approaches to ir- regular war.* She goes on to assert that U.S...
...But is LIC fundamentally different...
...Garcia was under attack by the far Right because he did the U.S...
...an aerial reconnaissance intelligence briefing on Nicaragua's military build-up staged to evoke memories of the Cuban missile crisis...
...Miles makes the mistake of taking the Administration's self-serving rhetoric too seriously...
...Depopulating guenilla zones: A Guazapa child's memories strategies for fighting unconventional wars are enjoying a revival...
...A year later, the Administration orchestrated the incredible hype surrounding the Salvadorean elections...
...First, Christian Democrat Napole6n Duarte won the 1984 presidential election on a platform of reform and dialogue, and Congress was willing to give him a chance to deliver...
...The latest is called Low Intensity Conflict (LIC...
...Garcia's political strength was considered less important than his military weakness, so Washington stood aside while his adversaries ousted him...
...They held their posts because of their loyalty to Defense Minister Jos6 Guillermo Garcia...
...Politics in Command Miles is also mistaken when she portrays U.S...
...Reform was promoted to re- lieve popular press~~~ for revolution while counterinsurnencv eliminated the revolutionaries...
...Ambassador to El Salvador Deane Hinton...
...It was Enders who first argued, in a major speech in July 1981, that the Administration wanted a "political" rather than a military solution in Central America-a shift in rhetoric that Miles mistakenly attributes to the LICers...
...But since it is politically unwise to openly favor war in Central America, Reagan has been forced to claim that he wants political rather than military solutions to the crisis...
...They also backed agrarian reform in the hope that it would erode peasant support for the FMLN and give the Christian Democrats enough of a social base to survive without an umbilical cord to the U.S...
...See "The Real War: Low Intensity Con- flict in Central America," Report on the Americas, Vol.XX...
...The Administration had more success on El Salvador, but events in the region were more important than anything Reagan did on the public relations front...
...The Salvadorean Army was following conventional tactics despite Waghelstein's advice, not because of it...
...In a fall 1982 speech cleared by Enders and later repudiated by the White House, Hinton called the death squads a "mafia" that would have to be cleaned up if the Salvadorean government was to establish any legitimacy.* In short, Enders and Hinton were very much engaged in "nation-building"-trying not simply to win battlefield victories, but to create a social and political order capable of withstanding the challenge from the revolutionary Left...
...Counterinsurgency was every bit as multifaceted and "politi- cal" in its orientation as LIC...
...forces becomes an active option, even for LICers...
...After all, the commander of the U.S...
...Even after Reagan's landslide re-election, it took two years to re-assemble a razor thin congressional majority in favor of military aid for the contras-hardly a bipartisan consensus...
...Like the military specialists she has been studying, Miles has become so infatuated with LIC's techniques that she overlooks its Achilles Heel...
...The infamous "White Paper" on REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 4Nicaraguan arms shipments to El Salvador was released in March 1981...
...Nor was the counterinsurgency strategy followed after 1983 any more ambitious than what came before...
...Moreover, such a strategy is by no means incompatible with a "military solution...
...How New is LIC...
...Second, LIC acknowl- edges the need to wage an aggressive public relations war at home in order to sustain support for protracted wars abroad...
...4) The direct involvement of U.S...
...They generally had no combat experience and no desire to risk getting any...
...Washington recognized from the beginning that its approach had to be regional in scope...
...Miles argues, differed from the old in several ways: (1) Its military component was "much more ambitious than 1960s-style *Some of the "new" aspects that Miles at- tributes to LIC are, in fact, not really part of LIC doctrine at all if we understand the term as it is used by conventional war specialists like Waghelstein and Sarkesian...
...Few policy-makers wanted to send in U.S...
...By a "political solution" to the conflicts in Central America, Reagan's critics have meant a negotiated solution to the war in El Salvador, a multilateral diplomatic accord among the Central American governments along the lines of Contadora and a negotiated modus vivendi between the Sandinista government and the United States...
...They mean counterinsurgency, as Waghelstein himself says...
...Garcia was a valuable asset to the United States because he cooperated (however reluctantly) with Washington's political strategy for El Salvador-so valuable that the Embassy supported him despite his refusal to appoint regional commanders who would seriously prosecute the war...
...The regular Army wants it to mean anything short of a land war on the plains of Europe...
...She disparages any such possibility on the grounds that the use of U.S...
...Their jobs were sinecures, and they could reap more profit in graft from large manuevers than from small patrols...
...tent and corrupt...
...the Reagan Doctrine-sing the tactics of guenilla warfare against "unfriendly" revolu- tionary governments like Nicaragua and Angola...
...strategy underwent a fundamental change in 1983 when "advocates of low-intensity conflict" took control of policy, forcing out As- sistant Secretary of State Thomas 0. Enders and U.S...
...2) The "poorly coordinated efforts" of 1981-1983 were replaced by a "coherent, long-term regional strategy...
...Miles' argument that post-1983 policy was more "political" in its orientation than earlier policy is perhaps her most serious misinterpretation...
...Miles argues that the adoption of LIC doctrine has had dire consequences for opponents of Reagan policy...
...Congressional Democrats, their numbers and their courage bolstered by the 1982 elections, were threatening to derail Reagan's policy by prohibiting aid to the contras and slashing aid to El Salvador...
...LIC is the military's latest buzz- word for what used to be called un- conventional war, irregular war, inter- nal war or insurgency-i.e., internal politico-military challenges to Third World regimes allied with the United States...
...But she never specifies precisely how the new doctrine differs from the old...
...She thinks the anti-intervention movement in particular has organized to stop "the wrong war"-i.e., a Vietnam-style invasion...
...Opposition to the war in Nicaragua rose during both years, culminating with the cutoff of contra aid in October 1984...
...combat forces conflicted with LIC doctrine and so was virtually discarded as an option...
...it treats only symptoms...
...This is why, despite their technical innovations, counterinsurgency programs have never been very successful at winning the hearts and minds of the "target population...
...She is especially critical of the call for "political" rather than "military" solutions to Central America's conflicts...
...But when faced with the choice between losing Vietnam and going in, Lyndon Johnson remained determined not to lose another country to communism...
...The Defense Department tried unsuccessfully to get Garcia to replace these crooks with officers willing to fight the FMLN...
...forces (the Christian Democrats and the private sector) and to legitimate the regime both at home and abroad...
...Policy was not any better coordinated after 1983 than before...
...Opposing the Wrong War...
...This is wrong on several counts...
...In early 1982, Ambassador Hinton began pressuring the Salvadorean military to reorganize the security forces in order to reduce human rights abuses-a reorganization Miles later credits to the LICers...
...forces runs counter to LIC doctrine...
...LIC doctrine does not rule out the use of U.S...
...and (5) Propaganda operations to bolster domestic political support were expanded...
...All the dimensions of LIC that Miles des- cribes were used in Southeast Asia and Latin America during the 1960s...
...He tolerated the agrarian reform, prevented the Constituent Assembly from electing D'Aubuisson president in 1982 and sought indictments of military personnel accused of killing U.S...
...In fact, most of the policy "changes" that Miles claims were produced by applying LIC doctrine after 1983 were central aspects of U.S...
...But both these new elements are addenda to counterinsurgency doctrine, not revisions of it.* A 1983 Policy Shift...
...Periodically, they come up with a new military doctrine advertised as the an- tidote to revolution...
...policy have been confused and weakened by their failure to under- stand this shift...
...policy has always been to separate the FMLN from the population, either politically or physically...
...This is the lesson of Vietnam that is relevant to Central America-an analogy Miles dismisses too quickly...
...When the hardliners took over, they proved to be more wedded to military instruments of policy than their predecessors...
...and LIC doctrine is in vogue because Washington has renewed its commit- ment to fighting guemlla wars...
...The decision to undertake the plan was made in the summer of 1982 when Enders and Hinton were still running policy-well before the supposed rise of the LICers...
...Old-style counterinsurgency . . . did not address long-term 'nation-building' goals...
...Enders, who was the principal architect of U.S...
...intervention in Central America...
...forces should only be used as a last resort if vital interests cannot be secured by other means...
...Long-lasting stability cannot be engineered by civic action, psychological operations, and counterinsurgency...
...The Salvadorean military insisted on conducting large sweeps rather than small unit operations because its regional commanders were incompe*This speech precipitated the clash with White House hardliners that cost both Hinton and Enders their jobs...
...forces...
...By contrast, the Defense Department-the home of the LICers-conceptualized the war largely in terms of more military aid and more U.S...
...The CORDS pro- gram in Vietnam also integrated military and "non-military" assistance through cooperation across agency lines...
...She argues that, guided by LIC, the Reagan Administration seeks not a "military solution" in Central America as its critics charge, but rather a "political solution" in which it can "win" by separating the revolutionaries from the population...
...Miles clearly thinks so, describing LIC as more comprehensive and inte- grated than "old-style counterin- surgency...
...The new approach...
...The Public Relations Front The Reagan Administration's 1983 domestic political offensive on Central America was dictated more by circumstances than by LIC doctrine...
...Miles concludes that Reagan's public relations efforts "achieved unprecedented bipartisan agreement on the principle-if not all the terms-of U.S...
...Embassy...
...The roots of LIC doctrine are clearly visible in the 1960s counterin- surgency programs that were eclipsed in the 1970s because of the U.S...
...It also launched a carefully planned public relations campaign to defame Nicaragua, replete with a phoney photograph of burning Miskito Indian bodies...
...Military Group during that period was none other than John Waghelstein-one of LIC's most vocal proponents...
...Thus, they use LIC doc- trine to justify the creation of light infantry battalions which are designed for quick in- sertion4.e...
...It began with an aid program, an advisory presence and the expectation that we could train the South Vietnamese Army to fight for themselves...
...Moreover, the public relations blitz of 1983 was hardly the Administration's first concerted effort to manipulate public opinion on Central America...
...LIC offers nothing that addresses the root causes of turmoil...
...and the use of repression in Salvadorean cities first to eliminate the popular organizations and later to prevent their reemergence...
...No.2 (ApriWMay 1986...
...military exercises in Honduras...
...Vietnam began as a low intensity conflict...
...They were Garcia's base of political support---critical allies in his struggle with extreme rightist officers who supported Roberto D'Aubuisson...
...But the dichotomy Miles posits between LIC and conventional strategy is a false one...
...and fourth, the fortunes of the Salvadorean military on the battlefield finally seemed to improve as a result of massive U.S...
...Miles virtually ignores the first serious counterinsurgency effort in El Salvador-the National Plan begun in San Vicente and Usulutdin departments in early 1983...
...Indeed, it has been pursued most consistently by military means: the depopulation of guerrilla zones of control by aerial bombing and military sweeps, pioneered first in Guatemala and replicated in El Salvador...
...First, U.S...
...The Alliance for Progress was a model for integrating economic assist- ance and security measures-which Miles sees as a defining characteristic of LIC...
...policy until his removal, saw the wars in Central America--especially in El Salvador-as quintessentially political...
...For decades, specialists in irregular warfare have pondered the writings of Lenin, Mao, Guevara, and Giap look- ing for a magic formula that would en- able them to halt the advance of guer- rilla insurgencies in the Third World...
...The Administration's campaign failed to dissipate congressional opposition in 1983, and did only a little better in 1984...
...counterinsurgency," including not only training, but combined exercises, small unit operations, intelligence exchanges, civic action, psychological warfare and other "non-traditional" operations...
...and Orlando Tardencillas, the captured Nicaraguan allegedly sent by the Sandinistas to fight in El Salvador, who recanted his confession in front of the Washington press corps...
...The inequality of such societies is the cause of their crisis, and so long as their basic structure remains unchanged, they are inherently unstable...
...LIC is designed to stabilize, politically as well as militarily, societies in crisis-societies that are, most often, dominated by a wealthy minority ruling at the expense of the rest of the population...
...Sometimes, they cannot be...
...There are only two real differences between LIC and counterinsurgency...
...While Hinton was ambassador, the political side of the conflict received higher priority than the military side-just the opposite of what Miles contends...
...In examining the application of LIC doctrine in Central America, Miles ar- gues that U.S...
...de- feat in Vietnam and the military's sub- sequent reluctance to involve itself again in guemlla warfare...
...policy toward Central America underwent a fundamental shift in 1983 when the adherents of LIC ("LICers") took control of pol- icy-making, and that opponents of U.S...
...A False Dichotomy The final policy shift discussed by Miles concerns the likelihood of direct intervention by U.S...
...LIC is no different...
...advisers...
...troops, and many believed that doing so would inevitably brand us, in the eyes of Vietnamese, as colonial successors to the French...
Vol. 21 • January 1987 • No. 1
