Hayden, Realism, and COIN

Two nights ago, I saw Tom Hayden speak to a packed audience. It wasn't the first time, and the contrast between the two speeches could not be greater. The first time, he had just returned from the "Battle of Seattle" and seemed bitter and exhausted. I don't remember much of what he talked about save his imaginative re-enactment of what it felt like to be beaten by riot police. Hayden's recent speech dealt with the war on Iraq--and he was calm, measured, and cautiously optimistic. Perhaps the biggest surprise was Hayden's withdrawal plan, crafted with the assistance of former CIA head John Deutch. Hayden's plan hewed pretty closely to the model established by the Iraq Study Group, save for his insistence on total one-year withdrawal.

During the 1960s, no self-respecting anti-war radical would admit to collaboration with the head of a government political-military organzation. This is not to suggest that Hayden somehow has "sold out." Instead, its a sign of an interesting ideological convergence between realists and the left. As New America Foundation head Steve Clemons related in a lecture at UCLA last week, The Nation editor Katrina Vanden Heuval told him at a DC cocktail party that "realism is the new ideology of the left." Hayden did not just lambaste Bush administration's catastrophic foreign polices but also noted without reservation that a genuine terrorist threats exists. He told the audience of his own fear on 9/11 and his hope for a just and effective counter-terror strategy. Hayden also tossed out a series of balance-of-power arguments about Iran and China that reminded me of Zbigniew Brzezinski's work.

On another note, though, I feel Hayden is wrong about counterinsurgency. In an Nationarticle and a Huffingtonpost blog Hayden attacks modern COIN (and academic participation in it) as a mix of colonialism and "deception, shadow warfare and propaganda." Although Hayden justifiably exorciates the immorality and futility of the Bush administration's war plans, he goes too far to condemn counterinsurgency itself as inherently racist and corrupt. Hayden's main point that since the goal of counterinsurgency is to defeat insurgent challenges to government authority, practicing COIN means shoring up illegitimate foreign occupation or domestic tyrannies. Since the premise of COIN is inherently corrupt, Hayden reasons, its methods will always belie the high-reminded rhetoric contained in counterinsurgency manuals.

Yet what happens when a legitimate foreign occupying power or national government is confronted by a internal or foreign irregular threat? Would that not necessitate the use of something resembling counterinsurgency? For example, say that a large, multinational United Nations peacekeeping force under mandate to stabilize a desperate, war-torn region finds itself under attack by a disciplined insurgency (Somalia 1992-1993), Afghanistan 2001-present)? What happens when a legitimate African state is terrorized by a tenacious guerrila army known for its use of mutilation, torture, rape, and the employment of kidnapped child soldiers (Uganda, LRA)? What should a legitimate South American state do when confronted by a Maoist terrorist organization seeking to overthrow the established order and establish a radical Communist regime (Peru, Shining Path)? Lastly, what advice would Tom Hayden have given to Algerian villagers wiped out en masse by Armed Islamic Group insurgents during 1992 to 1998?

One can definitely seek to bring the practice of counterinsurgency into accord with international norms. One can also rightly denounce states that use counterinsurgency as an excuse for repression and genocide. But to denounce COIN itself as inherently immoral is short-sighted. Governments under siege by irregular forces seeking their overthrow have a right to self-defense. And I suspect that Hayden's opinion about counterinsurgency may change if the proposed UN peacekeeping force set for deployment to Darfur comes under attack by either the janjaweed or the Darfuri rebel factions.