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SWJED
11-04-2006, 03:52 PM
Just added this forum and a new section to the SWJ Library - Foreign Internal Defense (Indigenous Forces) (http://www.smallwarsjournal.com/ref/fid.htm). The library section concentrates on the training and advising of foreign military forces. This forum is open to all aspects of FID...

Here are the first two "new" additions to the library (with a hat tip to Council member CaptCav_CoVan).

Advising Indigenous Forces: American Advisors in Korea, Vietnam, and El Salvador (http://www.smallwarsjournal.com/documents/op18.pdf) by Robert Ramsey III, US Army Combat Studies Institute Occasional Paper.


Mr. Robert Ramsey’s historical study examines three cases in which the US Army has performed this same mission in the last half of the 20th century. In Korea during the 1950s, in Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s, and in El Salvador in the 1980s the Army was tasked to build and advise host nation armies during a time of war.

The author makes several key arguments about the lessons the Army thought it learned at the time. Among the key points Mr. Ramsey makes are the need for US advi*sors to have extensive language and cultural training, the lesser impor*tance for them of technical and tactical skills training, and the need to adapt US organizational concepts, training techniques, and tactics to local conditions. Accordingly, he also notes the great importance of the host nation’s leadership buying into and actively supporting the development of a performance-based selection, training, and promotion system. To its credit, the institutional Army learned these hard lessons, from successes and failures, during and after each of the cases examined in this study. However, they were often forgotten as the Army prepared for the next major conventional conflict.

Advice for Advisors: Suggestion and Observations from Lawrence to the Present (http://www.smallwarsjournal.com/documents/op19.pdf) by Robert Ramsey III, US Army Combat Studies Institute Occasional Paper.


CSI is publishing this occasional paper as a supplement to Occasional Paper 18, Advising Indigenous Forces: American Advisors in Korea, Viet*nam, and El Salvador. In that important study, Mr. Robert Ramsey dis*tilled the insights gained by the US Army from its advisory experiences in Korea, Vietnam, and El Salvador. In this anthology, Mr. Ramsey presents 14 insightful, personal accounts from those who advised foreign armies in various times and places over the last 100 years. Unlike most of the monographs in our GWOT Occasional Paper series, this volume is an anthology.

The articles are from past and present advisors, and they are presented without editing or commentary. Each one presents valuable lessons, insights, and suggestions from the authors’ firsthand experiences. Readers will thus make their own judgments and analysis in support of their unique requirements.

Rob Thornton
11-05-2006, 06:27 AM
About 9 months ago I set up up the Advisor's Log (http://companycommand.army.mil/ev_en.php?ID=39028_201&ID2=DO_TOPIC) on ComapanyCommand.amry.mil (http://companycommand.army.mil)which is a CoP for future, current and past company commanders. The Army for its part identified early on that Transition Teams (Border, Military, Police, Special Police and Provincial) were going to be an increasingly important effort in our long term approach to Iraq, Afghanistan, and potentially other states in the GWOT. As such the CC.mil team asked that I stand up a CDR's Log on the Advisory team subject. It has become more of a hybrid Log and Rally Point where advisors can post and share thoughts on what is going on in their location, pull down tools on IO, ISR, Force Pro, Life Support Contracts, Maintenence, articles, links (SWJ is one of them).

We see this forum (and all those that assist the advisory mission) as very important due to the increasing requirements for advisors in terms of sheer numbers, the wide range of skills and maturity needed by advisors to accomplish the mission, and the recognition that resources are limited in terms of people once you figure out that the people you need are the same people everyone needs. Many of our servicemen curently training for on on advisory duty will be going on, or are just coming out of command. Who knows, in the future the 1 year stints may just become additional Branch Qulifying jobs, which would put a whole new spin on it.

Tom Odom has a couple of papers I did up on our experiences here. SWJ is welcome to add them to the collection of resources.
Best Regards, Rob

Tom Odom
02-09-2007, 06:00 PM
To All

I have said that I am building a MiTT/ETT reader as a parallel to a handbook. As part of that effort, I am putting together an article that deals with cultural awareness and immersion.

Here is what I am looking for from those of you with extensive experience in this realm:

A short vignette type account of where you were, what you were doing, and a specific incident of where cultural understanding led to success or failure. your vignette if used would be inserted as one of a series of illustrative examples in the larger essay I am writing.

Stan: hopefully you will not send me a vignette about the cultural difficulty in dealing with a irrascible colonel from Texas:p

PM me if you have something.

best

Tom

Maphu
02-10-2007, 02:59 AM
Tom,

I'm new here and still trying to find my way around your website. I'm not sure how to PM you and not even sure what that means. I lived among the Vietnamese in a rural setting for about 12 months during the war. Our small unit worked with local militia troops. I also spent many months there after the war and lived among, and had many conversations with, former friend and foe alike. I have been "immersed" in a foreign setting for nearly 13 years, still in this part of the world, and with fairly extensive travel in Laos and in Cambodia.

I could probably work something up for you with some examples which might be helpful.

Please advise if you are interested.

Gator 2-6
03-05-2011, 12:31 AM
I am attempting to find any information concerning these newly formed FSF-TT (Foreign Security Force - Training Team). I've called random contacts down at the 162nd @ Polk to little / no avail. I have the option to stay at my current unit (Light Infantry) and deploy with them as a member of this team. What I don't want to be doing is staying in the rear strictly training / organizing forces, rather than training in addition to advising the ANA whilst on patrol, forward deployed. Any information would be greatly appreciated, thanks in advance.

G26

Bill Moore
05-21-2011, 07:40 AM
Transitioning a discussion from the Iron Majors post on the blog:http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2008/08/armys-iron-major-shortage/#c020176, where we diverted the discussion from why there was a shortage of Majors, to FID.

I like to get your thoughts on the following:

I think State Department in the lead for FID has generally been more effective than when DOD has been the lead. While hurts me to say this, and I am not attributing any talent to State (it is an organization that rejects talent generally, and embraces tenure), I think their process of under resourcing the mission (not allowing mission creep) and limiting U.S. forces in combat to largely self defense forces the host to adapt and take the lead. Agree or disagree? Why?

Historically, with Iraq perhaps being the only exception, FID operations were successful when the number of advisors was kept low, probably under 300 personnel. On the other hand, any time we sent several hundred advisors we failed? Agree or disagree? Why?

Dayuhan
05-21-2011, 08:48 AM
For starters, I'd say FID is most likely to work when...

1. Goals are clear, specific, and realistic (most things work best that way)

2. The foreign partner has an existing government with some capacity, both on the governance level and the military level. Trying to install governments or reanimate corpses is generally a pretty dodgy venture.

Certainly a lot more to it than that, but good places to start.

If State is more successful, that may be less due to State's capacity than due to State being more likely to lead in situations where we're cooperating with a functional government.

John T. Fishel
05-21-2011, 10:43 AM
by State having the lead? If you are referrring to situations where there is no major US military operation then the Ambassador (not DOS) is in charge of ALL USG activity including military. In such a case, the US advisory role is usually small vis the El Salvador 55. But note that the 55 were military. and the the Country team included AID and USIS etc under the leadership of 3 extraordinary Ambassadors - Deane Hinton, Tom Pickering, and Ed Corr. Our research shows tht small is bettter -see SWORD Model.

Cheers

JohnT

Bob's World
05-21-2011, 11:34 AM
Well, for one factor, while State is still in the lead we have not yet made the tragic decision to call the intervention a "War."

Once we decide to call our FID intervention War, we then shift to waging "warfare," and logically shift the lead to the military. Now we have converted the situation into something we must "win" and have sent in a bunch of pro-active professionals who will go to any length to achieve that win. It is in that effort to win that we lose sight of the big picture and begin to shift from helping a partner achieve stability to one of helping a partner defeat the threat. Defeating a threat that is a portion of ones own populace, and that represents a much larger portion that the threat emerges from; and waging war agaist ones own populace is bad business. Bringing in a foreign force to wage war against your own popualce is even worse. (Even if that foreign force is Eric Prince and his band of mercs.)

I would offer the question may be better asked not in terms of State Lead vs. DoD Lead but rather in terms of FID as peacefare vs. FID as warfare.

82redleg
05-21-2011, 11:47 AM
by State having the lead? If you are referrring to situations where there is no major US military operation then the Ambassador (not DOS) is in charge of ALL USG activity including military. In such a case, the US advisory role is usually small vis the El Salvador 55. But note that the 55 were military. and the the Country team included AID and USIS etc under the leadership of 3 extraordinary Ambassadors - Deane Hinton, Tom Pickering, and Ed Corr. Our research shows tht small is bettter -see SWORD Model.

Cheers

JohnT

The Ambassador is part of DOS, and this is exactly what is meant. Once we make something a military operation, and DOD has lead until it transitions back to DOS.

Dayuhan
05-21-2011, 12:05 PM
I'm sure that small deployments are generally much more successful... but is that because they are intrinsically better or because they are typically used under circumstances much more conducive to success, such as when the government being assisted has a relatively high capacity of its own?

Larger military operations are typically used in cases of full or imminent state failure or in a post-regime change situation, where we are less assisting a state than trying to create one. Those situations would naturally have a lower success rate, but is that because the operations are large or because the underlying conditions are far less conducive to success?

The medicine that isn't used until the patient is in critical condition is likely to have a lower success rate. That doesn't mean it's bad medicine, it means that patients in critical condition are harder to cure.

Morgan
05-21-2011, 01:23 PM
I think Dayuhan said it well...."goals that are clear, specific, and realistic".

I think FID works when we know what we want FID to do and are willing to actually work WITH the HNSF VS imposing on them the USA method for solving a problem/ issue.

In terms of the size of force we deploy to conduct FID, I tend to agree that smaller is better but even a larger force can be effective if properly trained to understand the local language and culture, and led by people who understand how to develop & maintain a working relationship with HNSF and are willing to accept the risks that come with such an environment.

The large forces executing FID/ SFA don't meet the criteria above.

John T. Fishel
05-21-2011, 04:57 PM
An American Ambassador is the personal representative of POTUS. His or her fomal chain of command is POTUS to AMB. SECSTATE is more on the order of CJCS - in the chain of communication not chain of command. A career FSO confirmed by the Senate as an Ambassador must (according to Amb David Passage in multiple lectures at CGSC Fort Leavenworth) resign from the Foreeign Service (to be reinstated when his ambassadorship is over). Note that a significant minority of Ambassadors are appointed from the outside - notably in the current world, Eikenberry in A'stan and now his successor, Ryan Crocker (retired). Zalmay Khalilzad was also appointed ambssador to both A'stan and Iraq from outside the Foreign Service.

In the McCaffrey Wars of the early 90s when the general claimed that MILGP commanders worked for him, he was backed by the DEPSECSTATE who had to be reminded by Amb to Colombia Morris Busby and Ambassador to Guatemala Marilyn MacAffee that they did not work for him but for Pres Clinton. Amb MacAffee ordered an ongoing military exercise shut down in 24 hours - it took 48. McCaffrey left SOUTHCOM for the drug czar office but MacAffee stayed as ambassador outlasting him and ignoring State.

So, I say again, what do we mean by DOS lead? Ever wonder why many DCMs as Charge d'Affaires seem to be afraid of their own shadows? It is because they DO work for DOS.

Cheers

JohnT

Bill Moore
05-21-2011, 05:34 PM
John,

As you stated the AMB is the direct representative of the President, but I think most people see the role the AMB not only a representative of the President, but as a State Department employee. While an important point, the bottom line is DOD is not the in the lead. It is providing military support to our overall effort, and not transforming it into our war. In contrast a DOD lead is where the military is not only the main effort, but the U.S. military starts to take the lead in the fighting.

Getting back to the State Department issue, every FID mission I have been on the money was controlled by a person in State proper at Foggy Bottom and he-she had the final say on what would get funded and what wouldn't. Usually this person worked harder than our Iron Majors and was managing numerous programs simultaneously, so your time to ask for more received limited attention.

There is a black and white legalistic answer when State is in charge (title 22) and when DOD is in charge (title 10), but I am more interested in who is making the calls and shaping the policy. State can notionally be charge, and get run over by DOD in some cases. I haven't been on one mission where (except JTF Liberia and that wasn't FID) where the commander didn't want more resources-people. If you get more people you can do what? The answer is you can do more, which means the host nation does less and that is where the downward spiral starts.

John T. Fishel
05-21-2011, 07:46 PM
:)

We need to recall that Security Assistance is a DOS program enabled (or constrained) by the Foreign Assistance Act (FAA) of 1961 (as amended) and the Arms Export Control Act (AECA) of 1976 (as amended). Any program funded and/or controlled by these acts is subject to DOS supervision at the very least. Most FID is funded as FMS/FMF(a bit under IMET and ESF) which are all FAA programs. While there is some counternarcotics funding not under the FAA and programs of Joint Exercises (JCETs for example) and Title 10 H/CA these are merely add ons to FID programs funded by FAA. And, these "add ons" are subject to the approval of the Amb whio is advised by his Country Team (only 2 members of which wear uniforms - most of the rest are DOS).

One might be able to make a distinction between FID - a normal program run by the Amb and his CT and SFA in the midst of a major military operation. Yet, i am not sure the distinction is real or valid. I would argue that the SFA mission in Iraq was relatively successful due, in large part, to the mind meld of GEN petraeus and Amb Crocker. So, who had the lead C or P or P or C? Yes! But that is what makes the situation so unusual and it was made to work by the 2 guys on the ground. There is no standard "command relationship" that can dictate such a structure and a reluctance on the part of all presidents in my lifetime to say who is in charge of such a situation.

Your point that constrained resources makes people use what they have more effectively (and efficiently) is wise.

White Rabbit
12-07-2011, 11:49 AM
Statement:

In 1959, a French military mission is created in Buenos Aires where French officers--all veterans from Algeria--translate Roger Trinquier, hold classes and publish articles in military revues.

In the mid-1960s, they move on to the School of the Americas where they teach American instructors and, eventually, directly teach special forces at Fort Bragg.

Special forces then put to practice what they have learned in Foreign Internal Defense programmes, particularly in Latin America.

Given the fact that Trinquier sanctions torture in Modern Warfare (1), and in the light of atrocities perpetrated in Latin America during the same period as Foreign Internal Defense programmes where in place (e.g. in El-Salvador), my question is the following: despite that FIDs programmes evolved in the right direction, to what extend is this history known and, accordingly, to what extend are FIDs controversial in the U.S.?


.

(1)
No lawyer is present for such an interrogation. If the prisoner gives the information requested, the examination is quickly terminated; if not, specialists must force his secret from him. Then, as a soldier, he must face the suffering, and perhaps the death, he has heretofore managed to avoid

Source: R. Trinquier, Modern Warfare (Praeger Security International, 2006), p. 19. Nota bene, it is even more explicit in the original, French, version.

MikeF
12-07-2011, 12:41 PM
Welcome to the Small Wars world. As you read the primary sources, you'll see the first hand accounts of why these types of wars are messy, and many come to the conclusion that we should limit our involvement in others affairs unless absolutely necessary.

As for FID, you'll have to be more specific and ask about a certain country. Each mission can test the moral fiber of the service member. Yesterday, over at Tom Rick's blog, "Leroy the Masochist" provided (http://ricks.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/12/06/the_word_at_fort_leavenworth_on_moral_growth_or_no t_among_west_point_cadets#commentspace) a very good description of how he dealt with his moral dilemmas as a military advisor to the Iraqi Army,


Usually the right thing to do is obvious. Other times... during my MTT deployment one of the hardest things we had to do as a team was sit down and get consensus about how much corruption we would tolerate in the Iraqi officers we advised. If we, per "doing the right thing all the time" as preached by [take your pick: Army, USMC, Service Academy, etc] doctrine, had decided to tolerate zero corruption, we would have had to push for the firing of two-thirds of the Iraqi officers in our battalion; the remaining one-third, we didn't have solid evidence on.

The integrity vs. loyalty dynamic is in my opinion the hardest one for leaders to negotiate at the small-unit level. The terrible choice between either not ratting out your buddies (loyalty) or standing up for what is right (integrity/ethics) has always been, and will always be, one of the demons haunting the profession of arms.

The problem is, where do you draw the line. Doing things by the book would have destroyed our ability to advise the Iraqis effectively, but "going native" and completely abrogating any semblance of professional ethics wasn't a choice either, obviously. We did end up purging the battalion of a couple of guys who were particularly egregious; this had the ancillary effect of getting the less-corrupt guys to tone it down a bit.

Me, personally, I had to place an Iraqi company commander in jail for torturing and murdering prisoners, and I had to really work hard to mentor another company to stop torturing. It was a very difficult environment to work in. At the time, tensions were very high, and a lot of violence was going on.

davidbfpo
12-07-2011, 02:29 PM
White Rabbit,

I think I see what you are looking for - how does the inter-nation transfer of COIN doctrine and practice work, using the application of whether torture became part of FID.

It might help to look at the field of intelligence ethics, a good starting point is here:http://intelligence-ethics.org/conference/conference_2011.pdf

Which touches upon the separate Anglo-French experience and indicates SME work to check for.

White Rabbit
12-07-2011, 04:48 PM
Mike, David, thank you for your inputs--very interesting although they go beyond the answer I am looking for.

To be honest my question is more superficial, i.e. if in the U.S. and the U.S. military, there has been, or is, a reluctance to use FID as it has been portrayed as leading to rather messy outcomes, including death squads in the case of El-Salvador.

P.S. Because of the sensitive nature of the subject, I just want to emphasis the fact that I am not merely looking to point fingers at someone or something just for the sake of it. I am genuinely wondering if there have been, or is, some reluctance regarding the "re-birth" of FID alongside COIN doctrine, e.g. due to the aforementioned death squads in the case of El-Salvador.

ganulv
12-07-2011, 08:13 PM
I can’t tell you the first thing about how FID is currently looked upon within the U.S. Military or by civilian policymakers within the Federal Government, but at the risk of going off-topic I do want to comment on the below.


To be honest my question is more superficial, i.e. if in the U.S. and the U.S. military, there has been, or is, a reluctance to use FID as it has been portrayed as leading to rather messy outcomes, including death squads in the case of El-Salvador.

From what I know of Salvadoran history events such as the Mozote massacre (http://www.markdanner.com/articles/show/the_truth_of_el_mozote) look like patterned behavior the antecedents of which (http://books.google.com/books?id=Cw5L3N_kX8YC&lpg=PR7&ots=LA4ME3_wmc&dq=To%20rise%20in%20darkness%20gould&lr&pg=PR7#v=onepage&q=To%20rise%20in%20darkness%20gould&f=false) precede the existence of the Special Forces or the CIA. As someone who is particular with semantics, I myself consider statements to the effect that FID lead to such events during the Salvadoran Civil War to be poorly informed. I don’t feel like that lets U.S. policymakers off the hook in regards to aid military or otherwise to the Salvadoran Government during the conflict, though. They either did not know who they were getting into bed with (i.e., were reckless), did not care who they were getting into bed with (i.e., were promiscuous), or knew who they were getting into bed with and thought they were going to be able to make an honest woman out of her (i.e., were some mix of naïve and supercilious).

White Rabbit
12-07-2011, 09:16 PM
As someone who is particular with semantics, I myself consider statements to the effect that FID lead to such events during the Salvadoran Civil War to be poorly informed.

I take the criticism.

This was presented to me by a (B.A.) university teacher I knew as biased. Further light Internet research led me to two WikiLeaks pieces which are available over here (http://wikileaks.org/wiki/US_Special_Forces_counterinsurgency_manual_analysi s) and here (http://wikileaks.org/wiki/US_Special_Forces_counterinsurgency_manual_FM_31-20-3) (the manual is a great read).

I nonetheless wanted to get an idea of how FIDs are perceived within the U.S. and U.S. military and Small Wars Journal seemed the best place to get some general information, as your post proved it.

Thank you for the links by the way...

ganulv
12-07-2011, 10:55 PM
I take the criticism.
No need to. It wasn’t a criticism of anything I necessarily took to be your own personal opinion. I was weighing in on the type of portrayal you mention.


Thank you for the links by the way...
To you, as well. Happily I am not dreaming of employment with the State Department so I am free to peruse. :)

Dayuhan
12-08-2011, 12:44 AM
In the 70s and 80s there was certainly a broad perception that US FID and military training condoned human rights abuses or didn't do enough to stop them. There may be some substance to that. In the post-Vietnam environment a lot of Americans still felt that we lost because we had to fight with one hand tied behind our backs, and respect for human rights was still widely (and bizarrely) seen as a disadvantage in the war against communism.

Still I think that the trend is generally overstated. The people we were working with needed no instruction or assistance to abuse their people; they'd been doing it for years on their own... and it's not likely that anything the US would say or do was going to stop them.

Today of course this is largely ancient history, except to the Chomsky-wing left and others like them. In the Philippines the US has attained a fair degree of popularity in areas where we're doing field FID, and that's less because of development work than because of a perception that the Philippine military behave better when Americans are around. Can't speak from direct experience of other areas currently, but I'd be curious to hear of any recent claims that US FID is aiding and abetting abuse. No real point in warming over the old stuff yet again.

Bill Moore
12-08-2011, 06:09 AM
Seems like we may be confusing CT, COIN and FID. Foreign internal defense (FID) is the participation by civilian and military agencies of a government in any of the action programs taken by another government or other designated organization, to free and protect its society from subversion, lawlessness, insurgency, terrorism, and other threats to their security. The focus of US FID efforts is to support the host nation’s (HN’s) internal defense and development (IDAD), which can be described as the full range of measures taken by a nation to promote its growth and protect itself from the security threats described above.

I agree that the French and Brits both influenced our COIN doctrine in the 70s and 80s, even if they didn't get credit for the influence. And yes, rougher methods were generally more accepted during the Cold War as the cost of doing business. Perhaps not a stated policy, but in practice we did follow the he may be a bastard, but he's our bastard rule. Our objective was to contain communism, and the ends were generally more important than the means. However, as Dayuhan pointed out no one needed to teach these guys how to torture or abuse anyone, they were abusing their people and prisoners long before they met any American advisors.

Did the U.S. teach these methods? I can only speak from my experience in the 80s (we cleaned up our act in the 90s). The short answer is no, but I accept there "may" have even some U.S. persons involved who promoted these methods based on their personal views, but I'm not aware of doctrine that promoted these abuses. I'm referring to the military only, the three letter agency folks can speak for themselves. I recall seeing a few abuses over the years in more than one developing nation, and during that time frame we had no mandate to intervene like we do now. None the less, I did intervene in two separate incidents in two separate countries to stop (at least for the moment) foreign troops from abusing their own people (such as beating up a local civilian to get information, when he wasn't even a suspect, it was just normal practice). We would attempt to mentor them later on why that behavior was counterproductive, but we had no mandate to stop it or disengage with them if they did, like we do now. My general impression was no one in the USG was supportive of this, and worked patiently to change this behavior. What the CIA may have done the 70s in Latin America is another story, but like most of us on SWJ, we only know what we read, and suspect a great deal of that is inaccurate.

The bottom line is these were cultural norms, and since in FID we were advising and assisting we didn't make the rules, but mentored and in some cases instructed. We were teaching the importance of a proper relationship with the populace long before population centric COIN became vogue in 2006 or so. The focus wasn't the population, but defeating the insurgency, but realizing you couldn't do that effectively if you alienated the population.

All that said I'm not opposed to a tough interrogation run by a true professional. Intelligence is critical, and the best intelligence for these types of conflicts is human intelligence, especially in those days. A tough interrogation conducted by a professional is not torture.

Finally, the brutal tactics employed by the French worked, so it would be naive to dismiss them as ineffective, but that isn't point, it simply isn't the way we fight based on our national morals, which are for the most part codified into law.

White Rabbit
12-08-2011, 11:19 AM
Dayuhan, Bill, thank you for sharing your experiences.

Without going too much into the philosophical, they confirm one of the rare facts of life as far as I am concerned: nothing is black and white, everything is grey.

ganulv
12-08-2011, 01:10 PM
Finally, the brutal tactics employed by the French worked, so it would be naive to dismiss them as ineffective, but that isn't point, it simply isn't the way we fight based on our national morals, which are for the most part codified into law.
If the reference is to Algeria, I have never understood the reasoning behind the assertion that what the French did there was effective. I know that had politics not taken the turn they did that the FLN would likely have been soon reduced to a non-factor, but the conflict in Algeria helped generate the political context that brought de Gaulle to power.

ganulv
12-08-2011, 05:08 PM
Seems like we may be confusing CT, COIN and FID.
As someone with no background of military service my intuition regarding the three would be something along the lines of the following. During my Reagan Era childhood, Delta/1st SFOD-D/CAG was described as a/the counter-terrorism unit, so in my head I associate hostage rescue, snatch and grab, and assassination with CT. Having first learned of the concept of counterinsurgency as a 20–year–old living in Guatemala in the early ‘90s my reflexive thought when I read or hear discussion of COIN is in line with W. George Lovell’s statement (http://www.jstor.org/stable/2503234) that “[k]illing Maya Indians and laying their communities to waste does not solve the problem of reluctant native labor. But it has served effectively to traumatize survivors into submission.” I sort of take the adoption of the abbreviation to be a rebranding while having a vague notion that what used to be a bludgeon is now more like a stick and that some substantial carrots have been added into the mix. As for FID, I happen to have known a fellow who was with the Special Forces in Vietnam (he walked away from a football scholarship at Marshall en route—some guys have all the luck! :o) so when I see reference to that term I think of some version of my friend out in the bush/hills/jungle running drills with some version of the Montagnards. So I did a quick search for the doctrinal definitions to see if I was anywhere in the neighborhood and I turned up the following:


CT Operations that include the offensive measures taken to prevent, deter, preempt, and respond to terrorism. (JP 1–02)
COIN Counterinsurgency is military, paramilitary, political, economic, psychological, and civic actions taken by a government to defeat insurgency. (JP 1–02)
FID FID programs encompass the total political, economic, informational, and military support provided to another nation to assist its fight against subversion and insurgency. (JP 3–07)

Am I accurate here? I kind of hope I am not, because given the amount of overlap amongst them it is almost as if the definitions were created to engender confusion… :(

Ken White
12-08-2011, 05:50 PM
You're accurate and so are the definitions.

Warfare is not only overlap, it is confusion writ large. That is not really a problem except for those who don't cope well or who wish to make it one... :D

ganulv
12-08-2011, 06:27 PM
In my dealings with others I take as received wisdom something my mother once told me—“Matthew, some people are only good for following directions.” Pro: Such people are much more likely to do as they are told than are other folks. Con: This may include driving into the building the GPS does not know is there.


Warfare is not only overlap, it is confusion writ large. That is not really a problem except for those who don't cope well or who wish to make it one... :D
And what employee of a large bureaucracy would ever want to make anything a problem? :D

Ken White
12-08-2011, 08:53 PM
And those are the folks that don't cope well and / or who wish to make most everything a problem (occasionally so that only they can offer a solution...) and who relish or hide behind the bureaucratic approach. ;)

Coping with complexity requires minimal direction, a major problem with "clear directions" is that, as with GPS, one can develop target fixation to a dangerous extent...

(Not to mention that one conditioned to GPS has great difficulty coping when the system is down... :wry: )

Bill Moore
12-09-2011, 06:13 AM
Posted by Ganulv


If the reference is to Algeria, I have never understood the reasoning behind the assertion that what the French did there was effective. I know that had politics not taken the turn they did that the FLN would likely have been soon reduced to a non-factor, but the conflict in Algeria helped generate the political context that brought de Gaulle to power.

To point out that is complicated is an understatement and a statement of the obvious. I'm not going to debate the morality or the strategy at the national level, because there are many sides to each that can be rationally argued to no real end. On the other hand the tactics the French employed did militarily defeat the armed wing of the insurgency.

The insurgents/rebels were just as cruel as the French, so there were no good guys. Neither side effectively rallied a majority of the populace to its side, so the decisive factor on the battle field was intelligence and fighting ability (mobility, fire power, tactics, etc.).

Strategically the French were defeated for a lot of reasons, most of them had to do with politics on the home front.

I have no issues with your definitions of CT, COIN and FID, and yes the lines between the three are often blurred, and while can involved more providing advise and assistance, FID is generally viewed as such, while COIN and CT are largely doing (of course that isn't accurate, but that is the general assumption). My point is if the HN is torturing people while conducting COIN and CT, that doesn't mean we advised them to do so while conducting FID.

Dayuhan
12-09-2011, 09:18 AM
Taking it one step further... what's the best policy in engaging an allied military force that wants and needs help, but that has a record of human rights abuse. Do you refuse to have anything to do with them, or work with them in an effort to improve things?

Obviously that depends on our assessment of the problem and the likelihood of it improving, and on political evaluations of just how important the alliance in question is. The questions remain, though: how bad do they have to be before we refuse to have anything to do with them? Is a refusal to engage going to make any difference? Is it possible for intervention to produce lasting changes?

Not that there's a universal answer, but it's a question worth considering, as in practice many of the governments and militaries we work in FID roles with have and will continue to have less than spotless records.

White Rabbit
12-09-2011, 12:35 PM
Posted by Bill Moore


To point out that is complicated is an understatement and a statement of the obvious. I'm not going to debate the morality or the strategy at the national level, because there are many sides to each that can be rationally argued to no real end. On the other hand the tactics the French employed did militarily defeat the armed wing of the insurgency.

The insurgents/rebels were just as cruel as the French, so there were no good guys. Neither side effectively rallied a majority of the populace to its side, so the decisive factor on the battle field was intelligence and fighting ability (mobility, fire power, tactics, etc.).

Strategically the French were defeated for a lot of reasons, most of them had to do with politics on the home front.

I have no issues with your definitions of CT, COIN and FID, and yes the lines between the three are often blurred, and while can involved more providing advise and assistance, FID is generally viewed as such, while COIN and CT are largely doing (of course that isn't accurate, but that is the general assumption). My point is if the HN is torturing people while conducting COIN and CT, that doesn't mean we advised them to do so while conducting FID.

A note on history...

Bill, your post made me remember that many of the French officers in Algeria--which I think includes Trinquier although I have to double-check that--often were resistant during the Second World War. Accordingly, some of them were tortured.

While not justifying the use of torture, it might explain their use of it. If they saw it as a technique which worked on them, it is likely that they came to the conclusion that it will work on others.

If I remember correctly in the Army of Shadows, Jean-Pierre Melville--who was himself a resistant--even depicts the use of torture by resistant on fellow resistant.

White Rabbit
12-09-2011, 12:48 PM
Posted by Dayuhan


Taking it one step further... what's the best policy in engaging an allied military force that wants and needs help, but that has a record of human rights abuse. Do you refuse to have anything to do with them, or work with them in an effort to improve things?

Obviously that depends on our assessment of the problem and the likelihood of it improving, and on political evaluations of just how important the alliance in question is. The questions remain, though: how bad do they have to be before we refuse to have anything to do with them? Is a refusal to engage going to make any difference? Is it possible for intervention to produce lasting changes?

Not that there's a universal answer, but it's a question worth considering, as in practice many of the governments and militaries we work in FID roles with have and will continue to have less than spotless records.

The questions I ask myself are:

. what are the benefits of engaging in FID within those countries?

. what are the risks of engaging in FID within those countries?

And ultimately:

. to what extend are the U.S. ready to take the risk of loosing their legitimacy at the international level (which, in my view, already has eroded to an extend that was unimaginable a few years ago)?

jmm99
12-09-2011, 07:23 PM
He served in China (as a French officer) for the duration of WWII. His knowledge of WWII resistance in France was second-hand from what I've read. He did later write favorably of the courage of the resisters.

Trinquier's view of terrorist interrogation has a quasi-religious theme, which saw one end result of the terrorist's confession to be redemptive. From Modern Warfare (http://www.cgsc.edu/carl/resources/csi/trinquier/trinquier.asp#16) (online at CGSC):


The terrorist should not be considered an ordinary criminal. Actually, he fights within the framework of his organization,. without personal interest, for a cause he considers noble and for a respectable ideal, the same as the soldiers in the armies confronting him. On the command of his superiors, he kills without hatred individuals unknown to him, with the same indifference as the soldier on the battlefield. His victims are often women and children, almost always defenseless individuals taken by surprise. But during a period of history when the bombing of open cities is permitted, and when two Japanese cities were razed to hasten the end of the war in the Pacific, one cannot with good cause reproach him.


Yassef Saadi, chief of the Autonomous Zone of Algiers (Z.A.A.), said after his arrest: "I had my bombs planted in the city because I didn't have the aircraft to transport them. But they caused fewer victims than the artillery and air bombardments of our mountain villages. I'm in a war, you cannot blame me."

The terrorist has become a soldier, like the aviator or the infantryman.

But the aviator flying over a city knows that antiaircraft shells can kill or maim him. The infantryman wounded on the battlefield accepts physical suffering, often for long hours, when he falls between the lines and it is impossible to rescue him. It never occurs to him to complain and to ask, for example, that his enemy renounce the use of the rifle, the shell, or the bomb. If he can, he goes back to a hospital knowing this to be his lot. The soldier, therefore, admits the possibility of physical suffering as part of the job. The risks he runs on the battlefield and the suffering he endures are the price of the glory he receives.

The terrorist claims the same honors while rejecting the same obligations. His kind of organization permits him to escape from the police, his victims cannot defend themselves, and the army cannot use the power of its weapons against him because he hides himself permanently within the midst of a population going about its peaceful pursuits.

But he must be made to realize that, when he is captured, he cannot be treated as an ordinary criminal, nor like a prisoner taken on the battlefield. What the forces of order who have arrested him are seeking is not to punish a crime, for which he is otherwise not personally responsible, but, as in any war, the destruction of the enemy army or its surrender. Therefore he is not asked details about himself or about attacks that he may or may not have committed and that are not of immediate interest, but rather for precise information about his organization. In particular, each man has a superior whom he knows; he will first have to give the name of this person, along with his address, so that it will be possible to proceed with the arrest without delay.

No lawyer is present for such an interrogation. If the prisoner gives the information requested, the examination is quickly terminated; if not, specialists must force his secret from him. Then, as a soldier, he must face the suffering, and perhaps the death, he has heretofore managed to avoid. The terrorist must accept this as a condition inherent in his trade and in the methods of warfare that, with full knowledge, his superiors and he himself have chosen.


In France during the Nazi occupation, members of the Resistance violated the rules of warfare. They knew they could not hide behind them, and they were perfectly aware of the risks to which they were exposing themselves. Their glory is to have calmly faced those risks with full knowledge of the consequences.

Once the interrogation is finished, however, the terrorist can take his place among soldiers. From then on, he is a prisoner of war like any other, kept from resuming hostilities until the end of the conflict.

It would be as useless and unjust to charge him with the attacks he was able to carry out, as to hold responsible the infantryman or the airman for the deaths caused by the weapons they use. According to Clausewitz:


War . . . is an act of violence intended to compel an opponent to fulfill our Will.... Self-imposed restrictions, almost imperceptible and hardly worth mentioning, termed usages of International Law, accompany it without impairing its power. Violence . . . is therefore the means; the compulsory submission of the enemy to our will is the ultimate object. . . . In such dangerous things as war, the errors which proceed from a spirit of benevolence are the worst. As the use of physical power to the utmost extent by no means excludes the cooperation of the intelligence, it follows that he who uses force unsparingly, without reference to the bloodshed involved, must obtain a superiority if his adversary uses less vigor in its application. . . .To introduce into the philosophy of war itself a principle of moderation would be an absurdity.

These basic principles of traditional warfare retain all of their validity in modern warfare.

This is a long quote, but it is necessary to show from whence this very complex man came.

A good comment on Trinquier by Tom Odom (http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showpost.php?p=58624&postcount=49) is here (from 2008).

Regards

Mike

Bill Moore
12-10-2011, 04:32 AM
Posted by White Rabbit,


Bill, your post made me remember that many of the French officers in Algeria--which I think includes Trinquier although I have to double-check that--often were resistant during the Second World War. Accordingly, some of them were tortured.

While not justifying the use of torture, it might explain their use of it. If they saw it as a technique which worked on them, it is likely that they came to the conclusion that it will work on others.

If I remember correctly in the Army of Shadows, Jean-Pierre Melville--who was himself a resistant--even depicts the use of torture by resistant on fellow resistant.

I suspect many of the paras were WWII vets of sort (resistance or otherwise) and coming from a nation that was recently occupied by the Nazis for years which must have strongly shaped their views on what is acceptable in combat. Additionally a proud nation that lost face when the Germans defeated them was once again facing another humiliation by losing another colony. Different cultures have different values (pardon another statement of the obvious), and in many torture is an acceptable way of acquiring information, or simply terrorizing their opponents (an attempt at deterrence). It really doesn't matter if we're shocked by the behavior.

What we have been trying to encourage/enforce in recent years (two or more decades) are internationally accepted (by many, not all nations) laws and human rights, but we have no ability to force others to abide by these rules.

Regarding the questions on whether we should or shouldn't engage with those who practice torture, the real question in my view is can we afford not to? What is the risk of not engaging?

As Dayuhan stated it is very hard to shape others behavior when you're not engaged. We also leave an opportunity for others to displace our influence.

azl
07-26-2013, 08:04 AM
I think size of the force doesnt matter, the type of force or agency doesnt matter also. for FID to work the agency or force needs to improve and build relations, if one cant change the populations loyalty, one cant win .

Wyatt
02-08-2014, 03:37 AM
I was a participant in a class today going over ARSOF 2022 and the Strategic Landpower Task Force white paper when the discussion shifted towards FID itself. The argument was made that currently and in the future SOF is/will be engaged in preventing conflict around the globe through FID deployments.

I do not believe this to be the case. In my view, a FID deployment only exists when the host nation cannot serve the needs of some segment of its populace and that segment is in the process of becoming violent (or has already done so) to achieve its political goals. By definition a nation who serves the needs of its populace and has a functioning LE and judicial system should not need our FID or SFA. To assist a nation in internal defense, it seems obvious that a conflict must already exist. The team doing the FID deployment is not preventing conflict, rather they are teaching the host force how to mitigate that threat. I can see where we could help in containing or ending a conflict, but the military skills taught are used to suppress.

I don't believe the military is the proper source for micro loans, civil governance training, policy solutions to the conflict ect. USAID, the DoS and the Peace Corps seems much more able in preventing a conflict.

Your thoughts?

Dayuhan
02-08-2014, 08:34 AM
I don't believe the military is the proper source for micro loans, civil governance training, policy solutions to the conflict ect. USAID, the DoS and the Peace Corps seems much more able in preventing a conflict.

Your thoughts?

On this I agree with you completely. I didn't realize that these activities are being packaged as part of FID, thought that term was mainly used for purely military activities. I should have known better.

We have to come to grips with the reality that in much of the world, including many places where insurgency thrives, "governance" is in the hands of highly regressive elite factions who are accustomed to using state resources for personal gain and using the coercive power of the state to support their own private interests. We are not going to change this by providing "development" assistance, whether through the military or through AID, DoS, etc, and in most cases we're in no position to compel these elites to change the way they govern. In these cases there's really very little point in trying to "counter" insurgency, by FID or any other means. Sometimes insurgency is a natural and necessary method of development: when those who rule refuse evolution, they get revolution. It has always been thus.

Bill Moore
02-09-2014, 03:09 AM
I was a participant in a class today going over ARSOF 2022 and the Strategic Landpower Task Force white paper when the discussion shifted towards FID itself. The argument was made that currently and in the future SOF is/will be engaged in preventing conflict around the globe through FID deployments.

Your thoughts?

Wyatt,

In many ways the leading voices of Strategic Landpower and to some extent SOF as a whole are viewing the future as a reflection of the past decade, specifically our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. FID has a broad yet specific definition, and generally you're correct it means we're assisting a supported nation develop the capacity to deal with internal threats ranging from terrorism, insurgencies, subversion to criminal activity. It really isn't prevention since the problem exists, but more of effort to manage the problem so it doesn't metastasize, which some will argue is an effort to prevent a larger problem. It is either rehab or prehab, and generally our so-called preventive efforts are very much rehab in response to a specific threat, so while our words imply we're trying to get to the left of bang, too many, SOF included, can't conceive of operations that are not "threat focused" but rather focused on preventing (prehab) conflict by conducting engagements to encourage peace, reduce tensions, and deter potential adversaries by shaping the environment. This includes attempting to prevent the emergence of threats from internal instability, transnational threats, and mitigating tensions between states that could if unaddressed escalate into war. It involves much, much more than FID. In fact, FID may not even be required.

Is FID oppressive? It can be has demonstrated throughout history, especially during the Cold War, but it doesn't have to be. We in the West tend to embrace the nave view that if there are security problems the government has failed because it overly oppressive. In some cases that is true, but in others, the insurgents/criminals etc. are far from liberators, and just as often as not do not represent the majority of the population, so in my opinion the answer is the one everyone hates: it depends.

davidbfpo
01-28-2019, 02:24 PM
A few threads have been merged in today, others do not fit neatly in without reading all the posts.