COIN and Social Epidemic: What We Didn't Know, We Already Knew
[Kat - I'm still recovering from the weekend, so pardon any randomness in my comment]
The armorer linked to Crittenden linking to Small Wars Journal article by Canadian CAPT Nils French:
Social Epidemics and the Human Element of Counter-insurgency
Insurgents typically choose to operate from within a population and for this reason it is the human element that has had and will continue to have the most considerable impact on their operations and the operations that counter them. In The Tipping Point, bestselling author Malcolm Gladwell combines research from several disciplines to give incredible insight into the unusual and counterintuitive principles of the human element. He does this by exploring social epidemics; occasions where ideas, messages, and behaviors spread like viruses. The principles of social epidemics can be applied to business growth, crime rates, fashion trends, and other social phenomena. Because of the common human element, the concepts are equally applicable in an insurgency setting.
I read Malcolm Gladwell three years ago. After reading CAPT French, I thought his article was good, but a little thin in some areas. For instance, he talked about the three types of people that shape a "social epidemic": connectors, mavens and salesmen. But, his description of these types of people, how to identify them (within a counter-insurgency/potential hostile environment) and how to use them to actually begin a social epidemic in an AO could be a little more explicit.
He repeats himself a couple of times, re-enforcing the idea about social epidemics without getting to the meat of it. I believe this leaves French rushing to the end where he tries to squeeze in the idea of the three types of people that effect a social epidemic. Though, he does use some examples that are good in their context. He talks a little about "broken windows theory", but never names it or references it in the book, The Tipping Point, or even from the original authors of the concept.
Broken Windows was a theory developed in 1982 by George L. Kelling and James Q. Wilson. Both, The Tipping Point and Broken Windows should be read by anyone who is deploying to Iraq or Afghanistan or any other nation where success depends on securing and shaping the population. Deploying units should have rudimentary understanding of "broken windows", not only on what it is operationally, but why it is important to do it.
In basic business or group dynamics where the success of a project depends on the majority or totality of the group in performing the same way, leaders need to get "buy in" from their members. When people believe in something, they act on it, introduce it to others and...well, an internal "tipping point" is reached and the group begins to see serious gains towards their goals.
To do that, people need information so that they can "reason" themselves into the importance of the project. The Tipping Point is long and dry and would be best exerted for people below NCO for direct education. But, Broken Windows shows immediate examples and outcomes.
For instance, why do we no longer drive through neighborhoods on "presence patrols", but, instead, park and walk? Because studies over three decades old said that there were more benefits and eventually less danger:
And academic experts on policing doubted that foot patrol would have any impact on crime rates; it was, in the opinion of most, little more than a sop to public opinion. But since the state was paying for it, the local authorities were willing to go along.Five years after the program started, the Police Foundation, in Washington, D.C., published an evaluation of the foot-patrol project. Based on its analysis of a carefully controlled experiment carried out chiefly in Newark, the foundation concluded, to the surprise of hardly anyone, that foot patrol had not reduced crime rates. But residents of the foot patrolled neighborhoods seemed to feel more secure than persons in other areas, tended to believe that crime had been reduced, and seemed to take fewer steps to protect themselves from crime (staying at home with the doors locked, for example). Moreover, citizens in the foot-patrol areas had a more favorable opinion of the police than did those living elsewhere. And officers walking beats had higher morale, greater job satisfaction, and a more favorable attitude toward citizens in their neighborhoods than did officers assigned to patrol cars.
What the citizens had feared most were attacks by strangers. What the foot patrol did was put the officer in contact with the citizens. He knew who they were, who belonged and who didn't.
Regulars included both "decent folk" and some drunks and derelicts who were always there but who "knew their place." Strangers were, well, strangers, and viewed suspiciously, sometimes apprehensively. The officer—call him Kelly—knew who the regulars were, and they knew him. As he saw his job, he was to keep an eye on strangers, and make certain that the disreputable regulars observed some informal but widely understood rules.
These rules were defined and enforced in collaboration with the "regulars" on the street. Another neighborhood might have different rules, but these, everybody understood, were the rules for this neighborhood. If someone violated them, the regulars not only turned to Kelly for help but also ridiculed the violator.[snip]...two things must be borne in mind. First, outside observers should not assume that they know how much of the anxiety now endemic in many big-city neighborhoods stems from a fear of "real" crime and how much from a sense that the street is disorderly, a source of distasteful, worrisome encounters. The people of Newark, to judge from their behavior and their remarks to interviewers, apparently assign a high value to public order, and feel relieved and reassured when the police help them maintain that order.
In Newark, NJ, 1982, long before New York implemented the strategy or Iraq was a distant twinkle, counter-insurgency was at work.
What else did we learn from "Broken Windows"?
