LTC John Nagl: collection

[GorTex6]

Posted on Amazon.com (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/guides/guide-display/-/2DIY5R7OL54DC/ref=cm_bg_guides/103-2538675-1066203)

[Strickland]

I believe that this is LtCol John Nagl, who was the Operations Officer of 1st of the 34th Armor - 1st INF DIV in Iraq. I personally enjoy the shameless plug for his own book.

[Tom Odom]

Hmmmm I am guilty of that on here :)

But I did not start a "list" on Amazon

Tom

[GorTex6]

Col. Hammes reading list (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/14/AR2005071401522.html)

[Stratiotes]

I too did a list a while back for Amazon - it does not contain a shameless plug for my book but it also does not have the name recognition of Col Nagl. :)
Shameless Plug to My List (http://www.amazon.com/gp/richpub/listmania/fullview/BMKTF90PUV5P/002-4817953-0850416)

[GorTex6]

Mine...... (http://www.amazon.com/gp/richpub/listmania/fullview/32ZGN91D2FCWI/102-8182819-1593747?%5Fencoding=UTF8)

[SWJED]

Tonight, 23 August - The Daily Show with John Stewart (http://www.comedycentral.com/shows/the_daily_show/index.jhtml) (11p - 10c)

[RTK]

Tonight, 23 August - The Daily Show with John Stewart (http://www.comedycentral.com/shows/the_daily_show/index.jhtml) (11p - 10c)

I can't wait to see this....

[carl]

Boy, did LTC Nagl ever steal that show.

[Beelzebubalicious]

I saw it. He was very impressive. He made good sense, was understandable and likeable and made a good case for the new strategy.

[bourbon]

Youtube link:
Interview | The Daily Show - Lt. Col. John Nagl | 08/23/07 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pfJBg6xQhA)

Excellent!

[Cavguy]

I caught it, and thought it went well. His "be prepared to kill" remark wasn't well received (or I think properly interpreted) by the audience. Otherwise good interview, especially the 7.3% remark.

[Uboat509]

The phrase, "Pilgrim in an unholy land comes to mind."

SFC W

[mike sullivan]

I thought LTC Nagl showed a lot of class!

[Anthony Hoh]

From a trigger puller perspective I thought this was his best remark.

"Be polite, be professional, be prepared to kill."

[SWJED]

Great interview and with this venue John may have reached a whole segment of the U.S. population with little understanding of COIN and what it takes to prevail.

[Granite_State]

From a trigger puller perspective I thought this was his best remark.

"Be polite, be professional, be prepared to kill."

First remember hearing General Mattis saying that, or something very similar.

[Rank amateur]

His "be prepared to kill" remark wasn't well received (or I think properly interpreted) by the audience.

I understand that the new COIN doctrine is a major tactical change but if civilians in New York don't see much difference between, "Kill the bad guys," and "Be polite, be professional, be prepared to kill." I wonder if civilians in Baghdad will notice much difference.

[Ken White]

10 characters...

[Stan]

What I enjoyed most was how LTC Nagl maintained control over the show, never letting his guard down.

[selil]

John Stewart is almost never that nice to anybody he doesn't personally respect. I thought it was pretty apparent that John Stewart had also actually read the book and that is pretty darn rare.

[Old Eagle]

Needless to say, the situation was tenuous at best. Stewart invited Nagl to discuss an extremely unfunny book on a comedy show. There is nothing inherently funny about COIN, killing, etc. John did a superb job of walking that fine line of keeping Stewart and the audience focused and interested without seeming either glib or boring. Then -- the 7.3% comment nailed it.

Be prepared to kill didn't need to resonate, it just needed to inject reality into the discussion of this very serious business of ours.

[SWJED]

At his Global Guerrillas (http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2007/08/journal-ltc-joh.html) web log:


... He does a great job. It was also effective in that it drove sales of the Counterinsurgency Field Manual to the top 100 on Amazon.

NOTE: Wow, the Petraeus information operations media machine is amazing (and this is a great example). Nod of respect, without the attachment of a value judgement, to the masterful way in which Petraeus has been able to influence the public's perception of this war.

[SWJED]

SWJ Blog entry (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2007/08/the-daily-show-ltc-john-nagl/) with additional links to others who blogged the interview. Also embeds the Comedy Central video vice the YouTube version.

[Abu Buckwheat]

Wow that ws a great interview and John did the Army proud ... he even has a sense of humor! :D

[skiguy]

I swear I heard him say al Qa'ida is only 7% of the insurgency. Hmm, isn't that what you've been saying, Abu? Or does this just mean LTC Nagl is "part of the antiwar crowd" too? :rolleyes:

I'm glad SWC exists. I know where to come to find the truth.

[RTK]

I swear I heard him say al Qa'ida is only 7% of the insurgency. Hmm, isn't that what you've been saying, Abu? Or does this just mean LTC Nagl is "part of the antiwar crowd" too? :rolleyes:

I'm glad SWC exists. I know where to come to find the truth.

I thought 7.3% was the amount of the interview that Jon Stewart actually understood.:D

[Ken White]

10 characters

[Old Eagle]

Yes, the IO machine is in high gear, but what's the message? An earlier phase of the plan, getting 3-24 into the NYT Review of Books was another brilliant step. That said, sooner or later someone needs to deliver the punch line. You can't lead the nation through a tortuous buildup, then tell them to connect the dots.

The enemy has no similar problem. When the president of Afghanistan complains more loudly about coalition-caused civilian casualties than he does about AQ/Taliban ruthlessness, we've lost the IO thread. When every Arab on the street (and most of liberal America) can recite the Abu Graib/Guantanamo mantra (see Tom Friedman editorial today), we've lost the IO thread.

Somebody help me with this.

[skiguy]

How many of you guys participate on other political discussion boards? If you want to take advice from a rookie, that advice would be to get out there and get the message out there. I do a little bit, posting things I see here (with citation) on other boards I participate. The problem, however, with me doing this is no experience = no credibility.

[MattC86]

The enemy has no similar problem. When the president of Afghanistan complains more loudly about coalition-caused civilian casualties than he does about AQ/Taliban ruthlessness, we've lost the IO thread. When every Arab on the street (and most of liberal America) can recite the Abu Graib/Guantanamo mantra (see Tom Friedman editorial today), we've lost the IO thread.

Somebody help me with this.

That's because we still haven't mastered IO in relation to some of the specific mediums causing us the most damage. I don't think we've mastered dealing with al-Jazeera's version of "fair and balanced," we haven't mastered, or even really begun to deal with the 24/7 rampant rumor mill that is the Arab world, and we sometimes forget that it will always, at least in the near future, be politically expedient to blame the Americans for a problem, rather than themselves or local insurgents. Just like how in the US it will remain politically expedient to blame things on a misinterpretation, a miscommunication, or a Miss Lewinsky rather than actually take responsibility.

I know a lot of very smart people in the armed forces are working on this stuff, but I just don't see how anything we accomplish can change the strategic equation until we deal with these issues.

Sorry for getting waaaaaaaay off topic - I love the Daily Show, probably because I'm a little more to the left than most of you, and I loved this interview, especially LTC Nagl's great deadpan sense of humor.

Stewart was respectful and seemed impressed with Nagl, but his comments at the end, generic "looking out for the guys" stuff, betrayed his feelings about Iraq; namely, it sucks, we've screwed up, I don't want to hear anything more except a departure date."

Also, did anyone else sense that Stewart was making a major distinction between officers like Nagl (or any other officer) and "the guys," as though officers wall themselves in compounds and send the dead-ender young boys out to do the job?

I'm a pretty liberal kid and this is far and away the most infuriating attitude that many on the left have.

Along with the whole "why are you throwing away a Cornell education" question when I mention I'm applying for Marine PLC, of course. . .

Matt

[Tom Odom]

Wow that ws a great interview and John did the Army proud ... he even has a sense of humor! :D

Agreed. the interview was great and John N actually turned some of the humor back on John S. BTW welcome back!

Tom

[John T. Fishel]

Agreed on both counts.

[milnews.ca]

I caught it, and thought it went well. His "be prepared to kill" remark wasn't well received (or I think properly interpreted) by the audience. Otherwise good interview, especially the 7.3% remark.

Saw the show, too - I guess the audience wasn't listening to the other two bottom line rules of the new approach: "Be polite" and "Be professional"

Still, well presented, accessible language, and didn't look like a cardboardy spokesperson. Well done!

[arty8]

A great loss for the army, there are too few officers who really understand the COIN fight.

[Stan]

A great loss for the army, there are too few officers who really understand the COIN fight.

It's time to move on (I convinced myself the very same 11 years ago). Do I look back ? Yep, nearly every day.

Colonel, time to relax, reflect and start lookin' for work...as your retirement was based on 1960s cost of living guesstimates with generous upgrades every decade or so :mad:

Best of luck in your future endeavors.

Respectfully, Stan

PS. Drag Racing is like free adrenaline and fun :p

[tequila]

I doubt we've seen the back of LTC Nagl - I have no doubt that whatever Administration takes power in 2009 that there will be an undersecretary or assistant secdef position waiting somewhere if he wants it.

[Jedburgh]

....Colonel, time to relax, reflect and start lookin' for work...as your retirement was based on 1960s cost of living guesstimates with generous upgrades every decade or so :mad:
I retired as just an old NCO, not a field grade O, but I certainly don't feel like I've been shortchanged financially by my retirement benefits. Hell, with most of us retiring in our 40's, to expect the government to pay us enough just to sit at home is just plain cussed greed that would end up bankrupting the country. (There's a lot of us old bastards) Anyone "retiring" at that age should expect to work - either a completely new career, or continue to drive along the same path in another sector.

The exception to my POV on this, as I've stated before, is the lifetime support that this nation must provide to those who have truly sacrificed, and been wounded/injured in service to their country to a degree where they cannot work any longer. For those men and women we have to ensure that they are not scrabbling to make it from day to day.

For everyone else, its Darwin's law. A man can either use his 20+ years in the military wisely to lead up to a successful post-military life, or piss away opportunities and end up hard-scrabbling as a middle-aged civilian. Those individuals have noone to blame but themselves.

[Stan]

I retired as just an old NCO, not a field grade O, but I certainly don't feel like I've been shortchanged financially by my retirement benefits. Hell, with most of us retiring in our 40's, to expect the government to pay us enough just to sit at home is just plain cussed greed that would end up bankrupting the country. (There's a lot of us old bastards) Anyone "retiring" at that age should expect to work - either a completely new career, or continue to drive along the same path in another sector.

Yep, as did I retire as an NCO !

Concur, my GI Bill benefits are adequate (my comments were NOT completely a joke however).

Now, as for greed...sorry. We did not draft our contracts (bankrupting the USG), but I did agreed to it, and signed it...benefits or not.

Been on this 'new' career for 11 years, and perhaps not directly helping the common USA Joe, but I'm doin' my part so others can pass it along when I am too friggin old to compete.


The exception to my POV on this, as I've stated before, is the lifetime support that this nation must provide to those who have truly sacrificed, and been wounded/injured in service to their country to a degree where they cannot work any longer. For those men and women we have to ensure that they are not scrabbling to make it from day to day.

Military Service directly translates into service with a team. Everything the US Military does is a team effort, start to finish, we take care of our own.

[Tom Odom]

I retired as just an old NCO, not a field grade O, but I certainly don't feel like I've been shortchanged financially by my retirement benefits. Hell, with most of us retiring in our 40's, to expect the government to pay us enough just to sit at home is just plain cussed greed that would end up bankrupting the country. (There's a lot of us old bastards) Anyone "retiring" at that age should expect to work - either a completely new career, or continue to drive along the same path in another sector.

The exception to my POV on this, as I've stated before, is the lifetime support that this nation must provide to those who have truly sacrificed, and been wounded/injured in service to their country to a degree where they cannot work any longer. For those men and women we have to ensure that they are not scrabbling to make it from day to day.

For everyone else, its Darwin's law. A man can either use his 20+ years in the military wisely to lead up to a successful post-military life, or piss away opportunities and end up hard-scrabbling as a middle-aged civilian. Those individuals have noone to blame but themselves.


Yes you have some points there that I can agree with
support to veterans: absolutely
planning for retirement: absolutely if you get the opportunity

No in that retirement packages that reflect age 40 or so are not "greed driven" but reflect the wear and tear of military service. Using language that infers such plays into the hands of folks like Mr. Chu, who likes to dismiss disabilities as normal aging.

No in that when you cite Darwin's law for military retirees, just pause a minute and look at other agency retirement packages, especially those packages given to political appointees who make a limited time gate and draw benefiits.

Too many who make the cuts are too inclined to cut benefits (or fail to keep benefits competitive) while preserving their own. We have enough "friends" like that not to offer them free targets.

Tom

[Jedburgh]

planning for retirement: absolutely if you get the opportunity
Get the opportunity? With a minimum of 20 years active service required to meet eligibility for retirement, the only thing stopping opportunity is the individual himself. "I didn't have a chance to plan" translates to personal fiscal irresponsibility. Especially these days, since the military now throws so many plans in the troops' faces on a continual basis. I came from nowhere and started with nothing, and have worked full-time since I was 14 just to survive - I don't have much sympathy for people who claim lack of opportunity.

No in that retirement packages that reflect age 40 or so are not "greed driven" but reflect the wear and tear of military service. Using language that infers such plays into the hands of folks like Mr. Chu, who likes to dismiss disabilities as normal aging.
Tom, I did not state that retirement packages were "greed driven". What I was trying to say was that I viewed a demand for the government to pay a 40-something (non-disabled) military retiree enough to permit him to sit on his ass all day long in front of the TV or in a fishing boat without a need to work for the next 40+ years of his life was greedy and parasitic. I think the basic retirement package is a pretty good deal, that just needs better tweaking to adjust for cost-of-living and inflation.

And normal retirement and retiring with a disability are two very different things. Sure, I've lost some hearing, and have a bit of pain once in a while from an incident in service, but essentially I am much more healthy and fit than my civilian peers in the same age group. This despite, or because of, having spent much of my career in units that forced us to fall out of aircraft and hump loads over truly lovely terrain. Ultimately, having had a couple of my close friends and many people I've worked with over the years end up truly disabled, I would feel like an ugrateful parasite if I uttered a word about asking for additional "disability" for any minor complaint. Perhaps it is unfair of me to state my personal perception in a comprehensive manner that way.

....No in that when you cite Darwin's law for military retirees, just pause a minute and look at other agency retirement packages, especially those packages given to political appointees who make a limited time gate and draw benefiits.....
Tom, the largesse drawn by certain types of political appointees is something that is a point of contention with a lot of people. Definitely unjustified - almost without exception. In a slightly smaller scale it equates to the almost obscene departure packages received by some execs from struggling companies - even when they are let go for incompetent leadership. In those cases corporate shareholders tend to make more noise than does the American public for those similar political packages that you are referring to. But when you compare (non-disability/medical) military retirement, and the age of that retirement with damn near any plan in the private sector, we are very lucky indeed. This isn't to say that we don't earn it, but I'm just not one to feel entitled to anything.

Anyway, in the end, I don't see where I said anything that should be construed as "offering a target" for cuts in benefits. I believe that I did state that military retirement is not something you can survive on with no other source of income. But I hold to the other half of that view in that I strongly believe that anyone with half a brain should be well enough set-up after 20 or more years in the military to do well in civilian life. The vast majority do. We damn sure should not have our benefits cut, and, as Stan implied, there should be a better system for keeping them in line with real inflation. But as a taxpayer I don't think I should fund someone to sit at home for the entire latter of half of their life in what would be essentially welfare. This would only increase the prevalence of those who squeeze through 20 years or more of personal fiscal irresponsibility by having the military look after him (like the CSM living above his means whose BC covers for bouncing checks), and then retire with a feeling of entitlement to everything the state will give him to continue a life of parasitic bliss.

[Uboat509]

My wife worked for Tricare for a couple of years and saw a lot of retirees. Her experience was that a lot of guys retired not realizing that SFC/MSG/SGM really doesn't mean a whole lot to employers in industries not dominated by the military. She saw a lot of guys who retired with some rank who found themselves doing menial jobs for a lot less money because they had no degree and a job that did not translate well to the civilian world. We do get some preparation for the civilian world but I still don't think a lot of guys realize how different it is.

SFC W

[selil]

I had a retired airforce G1 and two retired 0-6's working for little ol' me at one time. We had fun. Both of my bosses were retired Army 0-6's. No issues and would hire or work for them in a second. My secretary was a retired Airforce E-9 and other than his proclivity to chase skirts (he had a child born from different women in every decade since the 60's) he was the best back up an executive in the telecom industry could have. I guess some military members have a hard time moving to the civillian world (my team was 8 military 135 civillians) but I haven't seen it. Now in the military contracting world... Let me tell you those retired officers can't figure out they are RETIRED...

[120mm]

I have a retired Army O-6 "working" with me right now, that I'd like to shoot in the head.

He still thinks he's an Army O-6 and does nothing but bitch, despite pulling down a decent paycheck, provided he does absolutely nothing.

[MattC86]

I finally got around to reading "Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife," (took me attending a foreign university to get a library that carried it) and after reading it, I wondered a lot about organizational culture and the inherent proclivity an institution may have for specific tasks, as opposed to institutional difficulties with others.

First, a quick aside - I know a lot of changing for the better is going on in the services, but when the guys who clearly articulate the changes (some radical, some not so much) that need to occur, like Hammes and Nagl, have joined the Cranes and Krepineviches of recent years in adding "(ret.)" to their surnames, it makes you wonder just how much effective change is going on. Anyway, back to my point.

The first post I made on SWC concerned the Army's reverting to the big war focus after Vietnam in all phases, from procurement (Abrams, Apache, Blackhawk, Bradley, MLRS) to doctrine (AirLand Battle) and scoffed at the idea that the services would do it again when commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan reduced - whenever that is. I was alarmed when Tom and others said they're worried by some of what they've seen and heard. I didn't really understand how this could be. After all, the Soviet threat doesn't exist, and a land war with the Chinese is unthinkable in the near future.

In "Learning to Eat Soup With a Knife," Lt. Col. Nagl effectively described why the Army was not a proper learning institution and how it failed to conceptualize and execute an effective COIN strategy. Hammes in The Sling and the Stone recommended several ways in which the services need to change to be better suited to the pressures of adaptability and innovativeness that COIN and IW entail. Both touched on the point that the services, the Army in particular (given the Marine Corps' 19th and pre-WWII 20th century history) have an organizational self-image as the citizen army that fights wars of survival. Such wars, then, have typically been monstrous clashes of attrition won by "liberal use of firepower, even more liberally applied." Obviously we all understand that and how it applies to military thinking in the Civil War, the World Wars, Korea, etc.

But the more subtle result of that self-image is that the services expect the full weight of the nation behind them. Economic, political, social commitment. And while we talk about how political COIN is, or the need to use the oft-repeated "all aspects of national power," repeatedly clamoring for more commitment from the home front on numerous levels I believe to be an excellent indicator of why, as an institution, the services remain in ways ill-suited to COIN.

Nagl emphasized that a large part of the British success in Malaya was because the British Army and political apparatus recognized both the political nature of the struggle (and thus the associated requirements of limited and discriminate force, employment of troops in policing roles, etc.) which I think we have understood properly, at least now, in Iraq; and also the tradition of imperial soldiering and policing - that the troops on the ground would have to make do with limited resources and support from the home country. This "forced privation," I think it could be argued, help spur creative solutions and innovation that enabled success.

I understand that comparing Malaya to Iraq (or making the oft-repeated analogy to Vietnam) is fraught with discrepancies - controlling a country the size of California with its infrastructure and government destroyed is different from the work required in Malaya - but the point is this: How much time to we spend observing the failures of the American citizenry to be committed to the effort, or even know a thing about it? I am completely and totally guilty in this respect, often bemoaning my generation's failures to contribute to, or even be aware of, the conflicts today. Captain Hsia's articles on the SWJ blog are only the most recent examples of this attitude.

But I wonder, do we (again including myself as a hopeful future stakeholder) need to get this malady of "why isn't the rest of the country involved in this?" behind us to truly be institutionally prepared for what successful COIN entails? Does anyone else see how this cherished self-image of being the nation's savior during the darkest times, of American foreign policy being so messianic, can hurt our COIN abilities?

Or am I just way off base? Thoughts?

Regards,

Matt

[William F. Owen]

Nagl emphasized that a large part of the British success in Malaya was because the British Army and political apparatus recognized both the political nature of the struggle (and thus the associated requirements of limited and discriminate force, employment of troops in policing roles, etc.) which I think we have understood properly, at least now, in Iraq; and also the tradition of imperial soldiering and policing - that the troops on the ground would have to make do with limited resources and support from the home country. This "forced privation," I think it could be argued, help spur creative solutions and innovation that enabled success.


This is why Nagl is pretty much ignored in the UK. The campaign in Malaya was founded on torture, assassination and mass punishment techniques, that were not acceptable at the time and would not be now. The whole "hearts and minds" gimmick was the cover story. Same in Kenya. We won using well disguised brutality.

When used in isolation, all the techniques applied in Malaya failed miserably in Vietnam, and all thanks to a self styled expert, called Robert Thompson.

[TT]

Matt

Took me a while to come to grips with what you were really asking. :confused: Your title of Org Culture and National power threw me a bit, as I kept re-reading your post to figure out how you got from Org culture to National Power, and indeed where National Power had got to. So, as an aside, re at least military power (close to national power) see Stephen Biddle, Military Power: Explaining Victory and Defeat in Modern Battle (Princeton Uni Press, 2004; and Risa A Brooks and Elizabeth A. Stanley, eds. Creating Military Power: The Sources of Military Effectiveness, Staford University Press, 2007. These will not directly answer your actual question but will provide you with some food for fruitful thought.


MattC86 posted:

But the more subtle result of that self-image is that the services expect the full weight of the nation behind them. Economic, political, social commitment.

You may be right that this is a ‘subtle’ result of the self image of the Army’s view of itself as fighting the nations wars. But its stems, I would argue, most immediately from Vietnam, as certainly having the support of the American populace was a something the Army (and the other services) believed was required as a lesson of Vietnam - to the point that there was an strong effort to institutionalize into the American political discourse about the use of force, by way to the Weinberger/Powell doctrine, the idea of such ‘ public support’ as being a core pre-requirement of fighting a war (any war) overseas (on this see: C.E. Dauber, ‘Implications Of the Weinberger Doctrine For American Military Intervention in a Post-Desert Storm Age’, Contemporary Security Policy, Vol. 22, No. 3, Dec 2001, pp. 66-90; and Craig S. Cameron, ‘Two Front War: 1963-1988’, in Theo Farrell and Terry Terriff, eds, The Sources of Military Change: Culture, Politics, Technology, Lynn Rienner, 2002, pp. 119-138).


MattC86 posted:

And while we talk about how political COIN is, or the need to use the oft-repeated "all aspects of national power," repeatedly clamoring for more commitment from the home front on numerous levels I believe to be an excellent indicator of why, as an institution, the services remain in ways ill-suited to COIN.


I am not convinced that it may be an ‘excellent’ indicator of why the ‘services remain in ways ill-suited to COIN’. Certainly the Army (and USMC) have learned and are applying what they have learned in the field in Afghanistan and Iraq (I leave aside here any and all debate on whether they have learned all the right lessons and/or about are succeeding through the application of the lessons learned). And this in spite of the putative lack of public support (or so opinion polls indicate – though I have not seen the sort of antipathy manifest within the American public to the degree that was prevalent in the Vietnam era).

Remember, service personnel returning from Vietnam were not only not hailed but actively shunned and worse, whereas after WWII (the ‘Good War’) and Gulf War I in 1991 returning personnel were hailed as heroes. So one way to view the lack of public support is that this means that the American public do not believe that Iraq (and Afghanistan?) is a ‘Good War’ (ie a war that the American people, whom the services serve, do not think is a war worth fighting for whatever reasons), and this can only raise questions about the value of the sacrifices being made in the name of the American people (to me, Cpt Hsia is pointing to a somewhat different, though related, issue). And if the American people do not think the sacrifices being made are worth the effort, then in the long term of COIN campaigns the services are likely to be forced to withdraw without achieving the desired ends, even though undefeated on the battlefield. I think what I am suggesting is that it may be an indicator of ‘why’ the services are reticent about COIN campaigns, rather than an indicator of why they are ‘ill-suited’ for COIN campaigns.

You also note that the Army’s ‘organizational self-image as ‘the citizen army that fights wars of survival.’, but the hard question is whether the Army is truly a ‘citizen’ army now that that is an all volunteer force?

I would also note that learning lessons through operational experience is not the same as institutionalizing the lessons. The Brits may be very good (or maybe it should be ‘may have been’) at learning from operational experience (ie Malaysia), that they are good at adapting, but to over generalize a bit, they had to constantly relearn those lessons from one campaign to the next as they did not institutionalize the lessons (so they made mistakes in the early phases of each subsequent campaign). Learinng lessons, or adpting, is very important in the context of ongoing operations, but the longer range issue is whether these lessons are subsequently institutionalized or, for a variety of reasons, including org culture reasons, just jettisoned as the service in question reverts to what it prefers or is most comfortable with. This, I think, is why many on this board (‘Tom and others’, as you say, and I would include myself in that group) question whether the Army, et al, will institutionalize the lessons learned or simply do a ‘system reboot’ once out of Iraq.


MattC86 posted:

I wonder, do we (again including myself as a hopeful future stakeholder) need to get this malady of "why isn't the rest of the country involved in this?" behind us to truly be institutionally prepared for what successful COIN entails?

Maybe, but as even you only suggest that this is a ‘subtle’ implication, the changes really required are with respect to the core, fundamental characteristics of the Army’s (or AF, USMC, Navy) organizational culture, or self identity. With such major, hard to make changes, the subtle implications, which are likely third, fourth or farther out ramifications, may well shift to bring them in line with the major cultural changes successfully undertaken. So if the Army were to accept and internalize that fighting the nations wars included COIN as a core mission (and not as lesser included cases), then the rest likely would follow.

And yes, a possible implication of this is that it 'may' be the case, in some cases at least, that insistence on needing the support of the American public may well simply be an argument used to justify not having to fight a form of war that it does not want to engage in for other reasons. :eek:

[Rob Thornton]

Hey Terry (Good to see your thoughts!)


You also note that the Army’s ‘organizational self-image as ‘the citizen army that fights wars of survival.’, but the hard question is whether the Army is truly a ‘citizen’ army now that that is an all volunteer force?(bold added by me)

I'll have to chew on that one today - it has allot of potential implications. It might be worth developing what a change in self image could actually mean. "Historically", I don't guess we're that far removed from our former self (being "not" and all volunteer Army). We still have people with great influence (both positive & negative) whose experiences incorporate both. Some are mentors, some are educators, some are politicians, some are civilian leaders working in the departments. I point that out because it gets to the nature of change over time, the bureaucratic process (the super-tanker analogy), and the golden mean.

We're comparably comfortable about talking about where we want to be with regards to capabilities (maybe what we project outwards?), but I don't know that we've had a serious internal discussion about rationale for inward change of the type or scale you posit - or more importantly, what are the potential implications for charting that course. There is risk for inaction, and risk for action - identifying specific risks at a level of depth that uncovers risk in areas we were not intending to jeopardize is tough work, and I think takes time (I don't know how much time).


Maybe, but as even you only suggest that this is a ‘subtle’ implication, the changes really required are with respect to the core, fundamental characteristics of the Army’s (or AF, USMC, Navy) organizational culture, or self identity. With such major, hard to make changes, the subtle implications, which are likely third, fourth or farther out ramifications, may well shift to bring them in line with the major cultural changes successfully undertaken. So if the Army were to accept and internalize that fighting the nations wars included COIN as a core mission (and not as lesser included cases), then the rest likely would follow. (bold and underlined added by me)

We should not see this in a vacuum from civilian policy, and how that policy enables risk in terms of pursuing change. We should also not be afraid to push back some, and identify for civilian leaders the risks - consider the road to "smaller, lighter, more efficient" land forces as an example of what happens when we focus on the way we'd like the operational environment to be without accounting for the way the operational environment is, and how its interactive nature produces friction and chance.

Some pieces of our "inner" self image are things like - "be relevant and ready", ""expeditionary capabilities with campaign qualities", "dominate land power", "agile, adaptive, and innovative leaders". This is a tall order of characteristics to live up to, but reflects the range of conditions in which the Army may be employed, and illustrates the challenges with meeting both mass based and technical based (I mean the broad meaning of technical such as skill sets and education) requirements.

I'm not sure that until (or if) the United States Government brings existing, (or new) capabilities up to a level that they can in practice fill those roles the military has been asked to, or has by default taken on as a policy instrument, that we can (or should?) shed the necessary dichotomy of having somewhat dual personalities. It may be that the nature of "warfare" (the means available and the ways in which they are used) has changed to such a degree it is now a condition, and as such, those forces generated, trained, equipped and maintained must reflect those conditions in order to achieve the political objective. For the immediate future, we must be full spectrum in body, spirit and mind. A tall order for sure.
Best, Rob

[Eden]

The relationship of organizational culture to the effectiveness of the military is a fascinating subject, and one that people who care about our military love to fret about.

The common complaint is that the Army (my own background, so I'll stick to that) is not structured as a 'learning organization' and it has strong bureaucratic checks on change. These are both true, but not necessarily bad.

I think we can safely say that the Army is structured as a 'training' (vice learning) organization. In other words, it is built to impart a certain set of skills to its members. Unlike a 'learning' organization, however, the chosen set of skills is selected in a top-down, bureaucratic manner. The danger is that a certain amount of inertia is built into this process and innovation from below is stifled. The benefit, however, is that if our leaders get it right, they can more easily wrench the organization onto the correct path. This is what happened after Vietnam, when an enlightened set of generals and a new set of institutions - the combat training centers and their unfriendly evaluation regime - shook us out of the doldrums and focused the Army on major conventional combat operations. Which was the right thing to do!
The threat from 1972 to 1991 - a generation - was existential and arose in the form of Soviet conventional armies and their clones. Thank God we forgot about unconventional warfare.

Unfortunately, the latest generation of leaders weren't wise enough to refocus us on what would turn out to be our future threats. They neither recognized the nature of our new set of wars, nor staked their professional reputations on recasting the training bureaucracy. Therefore we stumbled badly in Afghanistan and Iraq once they passed from their firepower intensive phases to their insurgent phases. But...the penalty here was relatively minor; certainly it doesn't compare with the penalty we will pay if we are not ready for the next contest against a peer or near-peer.

And, it illustrates a strength of our otherwise dysfunctional personnel systyem: the ability of our forces, by osmosis, to adapt and 'learn'. Years ahead of our training institutions, small units were learning how to fight small wars again. I think this is partly because we 'trickle-post' people, moving them individually between units. Over the course of a couple of years, these individuals spread the word and pass on lessons learned. This process can now be seen seeping into the senior ranks, and the institution is also beginning to respond. FM 3-24 is flawed, but that's almost beside the point. Graybeards may remember that the first cut at Air-Land Battle was crap, but it sparked and focused the debate - it officially signalled that the great oil tanker of the Army had finally settled onto a new course.

Finally, I agree that the Army is losing its moorings as an all-volunteer force. This is a bad thing in the long run - but in the short run it allows the US people to regard warfare as a reality show: engaging, sometimes tragic, but judged more for its entertainment value than for its effects on the lives of the participants. It allows people to be patriotic without the bother of actual sacrifice. This gives the institution greater freedom of maneuver so long as they can show results. American people don't mind casualties - they add spice to the news - but they can't stand stasis.

So, my point is that while the armed forces have structural flaws, the uniquely American nature of those institutions do have certain strengths that we abandon at our peril.

[MattC86]

Thanks to all for clarifying the processes of my muddled mind . . .:eek:

Anyway, I think that while the Army of course is now an all-volunteer, "professional" force, it still operates with a bit of the citizen-army mentality. That's where things like Capt. Hsia's pieces (not an uncommon feeling from what I've heard in the services) come into play; by constantly asking where is the support from home - either in engagement of the citizenry, recruits, or commitment of non-military resources to the fight (what I meant by the national power remark) we are reinforcing an institutional bias, I think, towards the war of survival, and not the limited, "imperial policing" type of conflict.

Clearly my question was ill-phrased, and upon looking back, a bias against COIN in favor of the "big war" wasn't quite what I meant. More just a handicap in COIN, rather than anything to do with conventional conflict. Let me try again with a shorter, simpler version\:

Essentially, Nagl says (WFO's comments notwithstanding for the time being) that the British Army was successful because it proved to be an adaptable, innovative, and learning institution reinforced in part by a tradition of limited conflict where personnel in theater knew they were not the highest resource priority and would have to "make do."

This imperial policing tradition really does not exist in the US armed services, and as a result, do you think commanders and personnel are uncomfortable being in situations where they have very modest resources of manpower and materiel; limited domestic support for the mission, and equally modest goals for the operation - More like peacekeeping/stability ops than full fledged COIN e.g. Iraq, to link to Rob's excellent thread - and thus naturally less effective in these roles, even with the proper preparation and training?

The idea, I guess, is that if we're in the "long war" and will have a lot of limited commitments (far smaller than Iraq) in many different locations, the US will be doing a lot of imperial policing (I don't like the empire term, but that kind of sums up the operations) with limited resources. I think the services' background and self-image as the guarantor of the nation in wars of survival (even if we have accepted that COIN is a more likely operation at this point than conventional war) is an impediment to effectively operating with the aforementioned limited resources, support, etc, in that commanders will be more likely to require more and more resources rather than adjust their objectives and do what they can with what they have.

I really hope that doesn't sound like "stop whining for more support, suck it up," but I fear it does . . .

Regards,

Matt

[Steve Blair]

Anyway, I think that while the Army of course is now an all-volunteer, "professional" force, it still operates with a bit of the citizen-army mentality. That's where things like Capt. Hsia's pieces (not an uncommon feeling from what I've heard in the services) come into play; by constantly asking where is the support from home - either in engagement of the citizenry, recruits, or commitment of non-military resources to the fight (what I meant by the national power remark) we are reinforcing an institutional bias, I think, towards the war of survival, and not the limited, "imperial policing" type of conflict.

This isn't as new as some people think. The Army's period as a "non-volunteer" force was actually pretty short (30 years or so as opposed to the 100 years or so before the draft and the time that's come after it ended), and the disconnect between the "home front" and the troops in the field isn't that new, either. Take a look at some stuff from the Indian Wars both before and after the Civil War and you'll see the same lack of support, similar hostility from some quarters, and so on.

The differences? The Army can vote now...it couldn't then. It's also larger by several orders of magnitude, so its complaints and comments are louder than they were then (amplified by modern methods of communication...although if you look at old issues of the Army and Navy Journal you'll see some heat regarding the home front support). It's also far more professional than it ever has been.

In many ways the American Army before World War I was professional in name only. That's not a knock on their skill or ability...but more an acknowledgment of its nature before World War I. It was seen by many as a training cadre for state Volunteer units that would be raised in time of crisis and disbanded as soon as the emergency was over. Coffman's work on the Old Army up to World War I provides some nice insights here, but it's always worth remembering that the Army's real roots are as a volunteer force that was often ignored and disrespected by the civilians it served (the phenomena of the Army being seen as a good career choice is, again, a modern thing going back to World War II or so).

[William F. Owen]

Essentially, Nagl says (WFO's comments notwithstanding for the time being) that the British Army was successful because it proved to be an adaptable, innovative, and learning institution reinforced in part by a tradition of limited conflict where personnel in theater knew they were not the highest resource priority and would have to "make do."


...so what Nagl is in fact saying is that the British Army learned from its mistakes, and had made all the same mistakes before, else where, so knew what mistakes looked like. They also knew that London was very intolerant of mistakes and did not like people whining, so they'd better do something about it.

Point to bear in mind. If the US Army sorts Iraq out in the next 2 years, it will probably be the greatest so called COIN success ever. I am intrigued to see who stands up and takes the credit.

[Tom Odom]

MattC, here is what I posted in May last year after reading John's book. I stand by these comments:


Studying a Wrist Watch: the U.S. Military and COIN (http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showthread.php?t=2933)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Although some may say that reviewing an already widely acclaimed book is a waste of time, I decided to do just that. Lieutenant Colonel John Nagl's book Learning to Eat Soup With a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam is a work of inspiration and despair. The inspiration is easiest to accept and digest because it seeps through this work at many levels. Nagl as a serving officer and a scholar is inspiring because this book pulls no punches. His examination of the British experience in Malaya inspires simply because he shows a military can indeed learn and adapt to meet and defeat an equally adaptive threat if its leaders allow it to do so.

So why do I offer despair as a companion to Nagl's inspiration? Well to begin with I lived the Army that came out Vietnam; my leaders in rebuilding that Army all were Vietnam veterans. I remember well General DePuy's role as commander of Training and Doctrine Command; a comrade of mine, Paul Herbert, wrote a great monograph on that subject . I also vividly recall a parody of a debate between Colonel (ret) Harry Summers and Major Andrew Krepinevich over what happened in Vietnam, what could have happened in Vietnam, and what should have happened in Vietnam. As a stage hog, Harry Summers won by overwhelming Andy Krepinevich's scholarly delivery with bluster and bravado. Neither Summers nor Summers' admirers did cared a whit about the message Krepinevich offered; they cared about preserving the Army's capacity to wage Jomini's battle of annihilation. They were seemingly validated in 1991 and again in March 2003. The big battalion Army marched on.

It did so with blinders worn proudly. But some in the Army of the 80s and the 90s lived in another world. I was one of those as a Foreign Area Officer for the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa. I served in Turkey, Sudan, Lebanon, Israel, Egypt, Zaire, and Rwanda. Those experiences put me on the ground in two wars and a genocide. But as a staff college classmate in 1988 remarked to me, I as a FAO "was not in the real Army." The same classmate also stated that he could not imagine the U.S. ever getting involved in another counter insurgency war like Vietnam. When I asked him what he thought we were doing at that very moment in central America, he looked at me like the proverbial pig studying a wrist watch. Seven years later, I greeted him in Goma, Zaire with the rebuttal of "welcome to my world," meaning the mega-Death of the Rwandan Civil War. He was still mesmerized by the wristwatch.

And there is where John Nagl prompts despair. Reading his chapters on Vietnam provides a stark backdrop to Lieutenant Colonel Paul Yingling's recent article on generalship. Nagl is especially brilliant in allowing the key leaders of the Vietnam era to demonstrate their own incapacity to see anything but what they wanted to see. Our efforts to date in OIF and OEF suggest we still have the same problem. Yingling seemingly confirms it.

My hope in writing this somewhat redundant review of John Nagl's book is to inspire, prod, and push those of you who have not read it to do so. If you have read FM 3-24 Counter Insurgency but have not read Nagl's book, you have not truly read FM 3-24.

Best

Tom

[Eden]

Thanks to all for clarifying the processes of my muddled mind . . .:eek:

This imperial policing tradition really does not exist in the US armed services, and as a result, do you think commanders and personnel are uncomfortable being in situations where they have very modest resources of manpower and materiel; limited domestic support for the mission, and equally modest goals for the operation - More like peacekeeping/stability ops than full fledged COIN e.g. Iraq, to link to Rob's excellent thread - and thus naturally less effective in these roles, even with the proper preparation and training?



I think the answer is a qualified yes. Two examples from my time in Afghanistan were US operations along the Pakistani border and recent operations in the Korengal valley, which extended past my time there.

1. Several US units were employed in training Afghan border police and in an attempt to interdict the flow of reinforcements and supplies across the Afghan-Pak border. The training of the ABP was mildly effective, but the border remained open. At best, we mildly inconvenienced those who sought to bring men and supplies into southern Afghanistan. The staff's own analysis declared that there were insufficient forces to effectively screen - let alone interdict - the border. The commander agreed with this analysis, and yet the effort was not abandoned.

2. The extension of US influence into the Korengal valley was in many ways a model operation. Reconstruction teams enabled road-building and other improvements to the infrastructure, while combat units deployed in small outposts to maintain local control. They were backed up by larger elements and air power as necessary. Much progress has been made in disrupting insurgent base areas and in securing support among the populace. However, the effort sucked up at least one-third of the available combat power, maybe more depending on how you count it, in an area that is of dubious operational or strategic value. It is certainly one of the poorest areas in Afghanistan, and that is saying a lot. This all took place at a time when Kandahar was going to hell in a handbasket and NATO was pleading for additional US support.

In both these cases operations of marginal value to the overall mission were continued despite low payoffs and high opportunity costs. What does this say about our ability to adapt our goals to insufficient resources? I'm not sure.

It could be that senior leaders are focused at the wrong level of operations, unable to see the forest for the trees, but this does a disservice, I think, to a set of very intelligent, professional men. It could be that they lack the moral courage to accept that they cannot accomplish everything they have been directed to do. It could be that they are slavishly following their own concept of COIN - i.e., you must secure the borders, cut off the enemy from his sanctuary, and disrupt his base areas - and are hoping that a series of small victories will add up to a larger one down the road. Or, it could be that they are following the habits of a professional lifetime - accept your mission, prove through strenuous effort that it can't be done without additional resources, ask for those resources, and receive them from what has been, in the past, a bottomless well of men and treasure. In any case, I do think that the cultural and institutional biases of the 'old Army' interfere with optimal employment of our resources.

[TT]

As Rob noted, but even more so given the number of comments, there is fair bit here to chew on. But as I am badly jet lagged and facing a number of imminent, tightly spaced serial deadlines (procrastination strikes again :( ), just a few passing comments that may or may not be coherent and/or comprehensible.


Rob posted:

I'll have to chew on that one today - it has allot of potential implications. It might be worth developing what a change in self image could actually mean.


It does get at the core issue of self identity – that is, what is the Army/who am I as an individual in the Army – and by way of this to ‘what is it that we do’.

I am not sure that the Army is not a citizen army, I am just raising the question. To use my favourite example, Tom Ricks in Making Marines, points to a growing gap between the military, in this case the Marines, and the general American public, particularly with respect to the core values that are central to the self identity of the Marines (and by extension, I suspect this is true to a lesser or greater extent in the other services as well). I am not sure what would be the implication(s) of the Army eventually no longer seeing itself as a citizen army.


Rob posted:

We should not see this in a vacuum from civilian policy, and how that policy enables risk in terms of pursuing change. We should also not be afraid to push back some, and identify for civilian leaders the risks - consider the road to "smaller, lighter, more efficient" land forces as an example of what happens when we focus on the way we'd like the operational environment to be without accounting for the way the operational environment is, and how its interactive nature produces friction and chance.

Militaries are conservative with respect to undertaking change, and rightly so. To undertake radical change that results in being unprepared (or maybe dysfunctionally prepared) for the war it faces can have catastrophic consequences, possibly up to endangering or even fatally compromising national survival.

Studies show that sometimes militaries will only change due to civilian intervention (usually allied with one or more like-minded senior military officers), though these studies focus on cases where the civilian intervention was positive (ie pushing the RAF into developing aerial defence capability in the interwar period) rather than negative. But civilians are not always right (hence the point about one or more like minded) and so yes, the military must be willing to push back sometimes.

Equally, support of the civilian leadership for certain changes is certainly useful, even if the main drive for change is coming from a senior officers (and/or junior to middle rank officers). As an example, Gates speech to the Army in which he said that small wars were in its future is an example of a civilian leader who is supporting elements within the Army pushing for change. This is helpful.

The key is deciding what major changes are needed (ie being a big war and irregular war army – that is, one that prepares, trains, and learns for both – plus whatever you want to throw into the pot), and then figuring out whether the implementation of the changes will run into cultural obstacles (that is, beliefs about who you are and what you do that are inconsitent or do not conform with the desired change), so that you can manage these obstacles to minimize or obviate them ultimately derailing the desired changes. The hard reality is that a couple of senior officers (ie the Chief of Staff) or the political leaderships declaring change must and will happen does not mean that the change will eventually emerge – efforts to effect change can over time peter out for org culture reasons, bureaucratic reasons (ie who gets promoted and why), resource constraints, and so on and so forth.

As a possible example, the US Navy (along with the Coast Guard and Marine Corps) have in the new Cooperative Maritime Strategy set out a substantial change in what the Navy does and must train and prepare for, and resource (ie prevention of war, humanitarian assistance and maritime security). The direction about how the current Navy leadership wants to change has been authored and issued – but it be years before it is clear that the Navy will in fact undertake and implement this change. Again, at the moment, that Mullen has become CJCS and Gates has been saying similar things provide support for such a change, and Adm Roughead seems to be on board as well. But what happens when they go……in short, what happens done the road and why, will be telling with respect to whether the change in the new strategy ends up being rhetoric or real.

So Rob, you are spot on in talking about ‘time’.



Eden posted:

I think we can safely say that the Army is structured as a 'training' (vice learning) organization. In other words, it is built to impart a certain set of skills to its members.


Training is also a means (along with other elements) to change culture. That is, the way you train to what ends slowly but surely influences self identity. Your example of the use of training in the 1980s is, arguably, an example of this. Several senior officers I have spoken to from this time were of the opinion that it was through the training that they altered the Army's org culture. I do not know if the training did in fact alter Army culture, but I would argue that training is an important element in shifting org culture, or self identity, to make it consistent with the desired changes to be implemented. To two other important elements to go with this are are changing the org narrative - the stories org members tell themselves about who they are, what the Army is - and education).

And to come back to the issue of time, there is clear need for consistency of purpose amongst the senior officers through several commands (ie if the incoming CoS of the Army, as the example, does not agree with the change, it will die).


MattC86

it still operates with a bit of the citizen-army mentality.


I agree that, to my limited knowledge, the Army, in parts or in whole, sees it self as a ‘citizen’ army. But that does not mean that it in fact is. There are suggestions that increasingly the US military services are growing away from the general body politic, particularly in terms of its values (see my point in response to Rob).


MattC86

either in engagement of the citizenry, recruits, or commitment of non-military resources to the fight (what I meant by the national power remark) we are reinforcing an institutional bias, I think, towards the war of survival, and not the limited, "imperial policing" type of conflict.

It seems to me that the commitment of ‘non-military’ resources is much more a question of political leadership, rather than an ‘American public’ question. This is about employing the full spread of levers of power that a gov’t can bring to bear, many economic, diplomatic, social, etc. And the emphasis on this today has been the recognition that such components need to be employed, as the state cannot rely solely on military power, to achieve the desired outcomes. Or to put in a more pointed, and hence potentially controversial way, both the military and the political leadership have learned that ‘military victory’ does not necessarily translate into the achievement of the desired political ends, or strategic goals if you will. The pint Eden made while I was writing this, re
it could be that senior leaders are focused at the wrong level of operations, may be close to the mark - a function of the post Vietnam reforms that focused on the 'operational level' meant that the strategic level faded (to wit, military victory equates with strategic success - er, not).

It seems to me that Capt. Hsia’s argument is based in a very real sense on the values that professional military personnel hold as being central to their professional – the values of service, duty, self sacrifice, honor, valor and so on and so forth (these are very central to self identity), and that what he does not see is very many young Americans, or Americans generally, adhering to and acting on these values (a telling bit of graffiti from Iraq, ‘Marines are at war, America is at the Mall’ is very telling with respect to ‘values’). Perhaps I have read him wrong in this, but it points to a growing gap between the military and the public.

I am fading badly, and need a nap so I can at least focus vaguely on what I need to write….. :o

So one last point:


Rob posted:

Some pieces of our "inner" self image are things like - "be relevant and ready", ""expeditionary capabilities with campaign qualities", "dominate land power", "agile, adaptive, and innovative leaders".

I take the point you are trying to make, but are ""expeditionary capabilities with campaign qualities", and "agile, adaptive, and innovative leaders" currently core personality traits of the Army or are these the Army currently wants some of core traits to be? The later, at least, seems to me to have emerged in the past few or more years, rather than something that has been an enduring feature of the Army's self identity (or if it has been, then it one of those traits that is hollow).

Now to that nap....

[Ken White]

TT Said:
"You also note that the Army’s ‘organizational self-image as ‘the citizen army that fights wars of survival.’, but the hard question is whether the Army is truly a ‘citizen’ army now that that is an all volunteer force?"I suggest that an Army that is recruited from a society, effectively lives and plays among that society, has numerous friends and relatives in that society and whose members return to that society will always be a citizen army -- just not in the 'national' army, Napoleonic sense (which IMO is a good thing). I'd also suggest that both the British and US Armies have been filled with volunteers for a far greater time than they haves used conscripts, that similar worries have been expressed for centuries and that such worries are misplaced. I'm more concerned with a society of citizens that denigrate things military because they do not understand them than I am about the Armed forces eschewing the values of the society from which they come.

Eden said:
"This is what happened after Vietnam, when an enlightened set of generals and a new set of institutions - the combat training centers and their unfriendly evaluation regime - shook us out of the doldrums and focused the Army on major conventional combat operations. Which was the right thing to do! The threat from 1972 to 1991 - a generation - was existential and arose in the form of Soviet conventional armies and their clones. Thank God we forgot about unconventional warfare."I can agree up to the last line. We emphatically should not have forgotten about it. Place it well down the priority list, absolutely, however forgetting about it entirely was really dumb. As we found out when a generation of senior leaders with nil exposure to COIN were confronted with an incipient insurgency and proceeded through ignorance to cultivate that into a full blown, if minor, insurgency...

The larger problem is that even if one agrees that it should have been forgotten about until, say 1994 or 95, there is no excuse for forgetting about it after that time.

Eden also says:
"So, my point is that while the armed forces have structural flaws, the uniquely American nature of those institutions do have certain strengths that we abandon at our peril."Truer words were rarely spake...

Steve Blair is right on the mark...

Tom Odom defends Nagl's book and that's fine -- but Wilf was correct in saying the British in Malaya did some really dicey things in Malaya and (even more so) in Kenya and Nagl is remiss in not pointing out all the advantages the Brits had there -- not least that they were the government. We did use Brit Malaya-like techniques in Viet Nam -- or tried to -- and they failed miserably, partly because we were not the government, partly because we did not want to do some of those dicey things and partly because we do not have the patience the British have. Malaya was NOT a good example for anyone to adopt in COIN.

I also have anecdotal evidence that Nagl's book is indeed discounted in the British Army.

Probably should repeat and amplify something;Malaya was NOT a good example for anyone to adopt in COIN. That is because the conditions were very unusual, will almost never pertain to other nations (particularly the US) and the most effective techniques cannot be used today on 'humanitarian' grounds.

Okay, I've picked on everyone except Matt who asked a very pertinent and important question (Good job, Matt!); and Rob who had cogent comments and has to grapple with the answers as part of his job now. Time for me to go to lunch. :D

[Tom Odom]

Tom Odom defends Nagl's book and that's fine -- but Wilf was correct in saying the British in Malaya did some really dicey things in Malaya and (even more so) in Kenya and Nagl is remiss in not pointing out all the advantages the Brits had there -- not least that they were the government. We did use Brit Malaya-like techniques in Viet Nam -- or tried to -- and they failed miserably, partly because we were not the government, partly because we did not want to do some of those dicey things and partly because we do not have the patience the British have. Malaya was NOT a good example for anyone to adopt in COIN.

Ken,

I don't need to defend Nagl's book. I do admire it. My post to MattC was to highlight our historical and continued difficulty in this realm of conflict. I think we agree that we have too often wished the problem away.

The central focus in Nagl's use of Malaya was not to explore the validity of the doctrine or TTPS used but to look at the changes the British Army made between the two periods examined in the book. Were some of the tactics used then unacceptable elsewhere? No doubt. He compares that inner flexibilty with the inflexibility of Westmoreland and others in VN. His book then is about one army's ability and anothers inability to change.

As an African FAO I am well aware of what happened in the Mau Mau insurgency and yes it was more brutal than most care to know. But Nagl does not use Kenya as a case study in his book.

As for chosing case studies and learning incorrect lessons, Fred Wagoner wrote a monograph on the 64 Congo Crisis and he made the case that planners in the Pentagon wrongly saw the Congo and the Simba Rebeliion as proof that COIN was simple. Fred may have taken that too far; in any case, his study prompted my own and I arrived at a similar but nonetheless different shade of meaning. I saw that the Nat Sec Structure of the time was so primed to see everything as a Communiist conspiracy that the USG wrongly painted the Simbas--essentially a tribal uprising against anything tied to the central government--as Communists.

My point in offering that aside is quite simple: two people may look at the same evidence and arrive at similar or different interpretations. When you write a book, you put those interpretations out there and different folks look at them and arrive at different opinions. When I read John Nagl's book I did not see it as an endorsement of British actions in Malaya or a condemnation of US failures in Vietnam. I see it as an endorsement of the idea that an army is a living breathing institution that has a brain and must use it.

Best

Tom

[TT]

Ken posted

I suggest that an Army that is recruited from a society, effectively lives and plays among that society, has numerous friends and relatives in that society and whose members return to that society will always be a citizen army -- just not in the 'national' army, Napoleonic sense (which IMO is a good thing).


Certainly I was thinking of ‘citizen army’, at least broadly, in the Napoleonic sense that you note when I posed my question. I can, however, accept your former def’n, even though it is a much looser def’n of what constitutes a citizen army. I do not want to put words in your mouth, so correct me if I am wrong, but in essence what you are saying is that as long as the military has a connection (and this may be a social connection) or bond with the public it serves it will remain a citizen army.

This fits with your concern, one I can only agree with, about the implications should the public denigrate things military (which I can see breaking the connection/bond). But I wonder whether we should not be concerned if the military increasing holds a set of values that are at variance to the values held by the general public? I honestly do not have an answer to this question, other than that the idea makes me uneasy, if only because one can conceive, as a worst case analysis, of an eventual backlash of some sort or other either from the public or the military in terms of weakening and/or severing the bond that does exist between them.


Rob posted:

that we can (or should?) shed the necessary dichotomy of having somewhat dual personalities.

I do not see having a ‘dual personality’ as being necessarily problematic, as long as both those personalities are functional and they do not disfunctionally clash. The character traits that comprise the self identity of a particular military or service often as not are not consistent, and need not be consistent, just as most individuals tend to express character traits that are not, or not always, consistent.

The Army today is wrestling with the question of whether and/or to what extent it should become an irregular warfare army (I caveat what I mean here by IW here, noting the other thread discussing what is IW and CW started by Rob). So the issue is whether the Army can, in time, be a ‘dual personality’ institution, one that is prepared, trained, maintained and resourced to conduct both (I will not go into the ‘multiple personality’ you subsequently suggest the Army may need to become :wry:).

As you note, this is ‘a tall order’. As Tom’s example above of the ‘proverbial pig studying a wrist watch’ from his review of Nagl suggests, adding on a new personality, particularly when it does not conform to conceptions of ‘who we are’, is definitely not easy. So, as I suggested above, it not really a case of simply changing org culture, rather it is having identified what is the required change (whatever the reason for the change), how do you approach implementation of the change with the highest assurance possible that you will be successful in doing so (and success is never guaranteed)? Once you have determined what needs to be introduced (the change), then it seems to me that you have be self critical enough about ones self identity to figure where clashes between the change and identity may occur that will create resistance (or friction). I doubt you ever determine precisely the way an innovation will clash with a particular personality trait, as identifying accurately second, third, four order effects is a fraught business, but having a reasonably clear idea of why there is likely to be a clash allows for pre-planning to develop approaches that will minimize or mitigate the clash before it occurs. (A caveat is that self identity is not the only thing that can or can contribute to the implementation of change being unsuccessful :eek:).

This, in a sense, brings me back round to Matt’s original question. I do not think the Army’s view of itself as being a citizen army is a critical obstacle to the Army becoming capable at IW as well as conventional warfare (Matt, yes, very possibly a hindrance but not sure how significant a hindrance). Much more problematic is the first order characteristic, that is that the Army sees itself as being an org that fights ‘big wars’, or wars of national survival (the ‘who are we’ component being ‘conventional war fighters’). This to me is very likely an important, if not a core, personality/identity trait. So if this identity trait is creating internal push back that undermines efforts to implement IW or COIN as a core mission of the Army (again, Tom’s example above captures the essence of this very well at the individual level), how do you amend, influence or whatever this identity trait so that it no longer creates opposition to the desired change? Change the self conception of who or what is the Army, and thus what is acceptable in terms of what it does, to encompass irregular warfare (or COIN, if you will) and my ‘guess’ is that the self identity of being a citizen army would cease even to be a hindrance. Of course doing the former, to re-quote Rob, is ‘a tall order’ as it does take a lot of effort and a fairly long period of time.

[Ken White]

Sorry, Tom. I wasn't very clear. I agree with all you say, merely wanted to make the very minor points that Wilf was, I believe, correct in saying the Brits dismissed the book (rightly or wrongly) and that I agree with his contention that Malaya is not the good example of how to do it that many presume. I didn't do that well.

I very strongly agree with you that, with respect to the book:
"...I see it as an endorsement of the idea that an army is a living breathing institution that has a brain and must use it."he did that and did it well. That is also and obviously a very correct observation and we also and equally obviously have not in the past done that well.

[Ken White]

Generally I say what I mean and mean what I say but frequently get garbled in transmission... :(

That and my innate laziness lead to shorthand and even on occasion to Runes...

Agree that my 'definition' of citizen army is beyond loose and not in accordance with the norm. The US Army of WW II and to a lesser extent of WW I and of the Civil War was a real citizen army. The far more normal (in the greater historical sense) relatively small volunteer Army is not in that model and never has been.

My broad point was, of course, that the non-model is the norm (as the real citizen Army is ordinaily not) and that it is a representative of the society from which it springs. Due to that, I for one, recalling days of yore when it was smaller than it is now by a considerable margin, am not concerned that it will pull away from the society it represents to a deleterious extent.
"...This fits with your concern, one I can only agree with, about the implications should the public denigrate things military (which I can see breaking the connection/bond). But I wonder whether we should not be concerned if the military increasing holds a set of values that are at variance to the values held by the general public?"I think that depends on what the concern is. In one sense it has always been and is now a problem in that most with more than four or five years service have always and do now see themselves as possessed of stronger and better values than the society to which they belong. My limited experience with other national forces lead me to believe that is not a US-peculiar phenomonena. Thus I suspect that the variance in values differences are more concerns of strength of attachment than to strength of value per se and I personally do not see much chance of a broader breach than does now or has historically existed. The 1930s were an interesting corollary...

The encouraging counterpoint is that about 30 to 60 % (time and circumstances dependent) leave the force each year with less then five years service to rejoin the society from which they came. They are replaced annually by a roughly equal number of new people and that turnover in Officers and Enlisted folks keeps the ties far stronger than is the case where longer service is the norm as is true in most Commonwealth forces.
"Much more problematic is the first order characteristic, that is that the Army sees itself as being an org that fights ‘big wars’, or wars of national survival (the ‘who are we’ component being ‘conventional war fighters’). This to me is very likely an important, if not a core, personality/identity trait.'Given the "Death or Glory" factor, the unfortunate psychological hangup on WWII as a defining moment and the fact that IW / COIN / Nation building / Occupation are tedious, dirty, messy, time and resource consuming and tend to show little progress or benefit to many, that defining trait is going to be very difficult to change...

[William F. Owen]

Tom Odom defends Nagl's book and that's fine -- but Wilf was correct in saying the British in Malaya did some really dicey things in Malaya and (even more so) in Kenya and Nagl is remiss in not pointing out all the advantages the Brits had there -- not least that they were the government. We did use Brit Malaya-like techniques in Viet Nam -- or tried to -- and they failed miserably, partly because we were not the government, partly because we did not want to do some of those dicey things and partly because we do not have the patience the British have. Malaya was NOT a good example for anyone to adopt in COIN.

I also have anecdotal evidence that Nagl's book is indeed discounted in the British Army.


I don't think Tom does defend the book. Without wishing to put words in his mouth, and I believe he does say this, he takes from it, what is useful.

BUT... Ken is annoyingly right again, in saying far better than I could, exactly what I was trying to get across.

What "sort of" worked in Malaya, failed miserably in RVN because of the "experts" trying to tell people how to do it, instead of studying the problem from a military point of view, and then doing what is shown to harm the enemy. - which is what COIN is about. Inflicting defeat (annihilation and/or exhaustion) on an armed enemy.

I will confess to never having read Nagl's book, because both of the British Army's foremost COIN analysts (one retired, one deployed) both said, not to bother - but that is not to say that Nagl's book is not a valuable work for the audience he intended to serve.

To sound like a stuck record, I believe the US Army's (and UK to a lesser extent) problem with COIN is that it is viewed as something difficult and distinct, instead of the bread and butter of contemporary and historic military forces. The fact that this belief persists strongly indicates a lack of understanding as concerns the nature of the enemy, that means people focus on the nature of the conflict instead.

[TT]

Ken posted

Generally I say what I mean and mean what I say


You do, and I do appreciate that you do (and I am sure everyone does as well). I was ‘reading into’ what you said, and was not sure whether I was right or not in doing so. So thank you for elaborating. Your way of thinking about what constitutes a ‘citizen army’ is helpful (my use of ‘looser’ was misconceived - my apologies), even though it may be different from the 'normal' def’n.


Ken posted:

The far more normal (in the greater historical sense) relatively small volunteer Army is not in that model and never has been.


I have noted with interest when you have made this point before on other threads, and it is an important point that I have absorbed.

In part this brings us back to Matt's question about the Army (and other services) seeing itself as a citizen army. Given the history you note, an interesting question is how being a citizen army is interpreted by the organizations. I strongly suspect that they would interpret it in much the same way you have - which is why I think your approach is helpful.


Ken posted:

I think that depends on what the concern is.


Again, thank you for your elaboration. As I mentioned, Ricks in Making Marines raises the possibility of a widening gap, and I have run across others who raise the issue by implication when they talk about the propensity of military service running in families and/or that certain regions of the US tend to be more represented in the services than others. As a consequence, while I do not have any specific concerns, these have raised in my mind a vague sense of ‘Hmmm, I wonder’.


Ken posted:

Thus I suspect that the variance in values differences are more concerns of strength of attachment than to strength of value per se….

A very interesting observation, one that is food for ongoing thought on my part given my interest in the role of self identity.


Ken posted:

that defining trait is going to be very difficult to change...


Very true.

[Rob Thornton]

Hi William,


which is what COIN is about. Inflicting defeat (annihilation and/or exhaustion) on an armed enemy.

You might make a case for exhaustion if you qualify it as changing the conditions which allow insurgents freedom of movement - in both the physical sense, and in the sense of making their ideas and influence more appealing then the HNs.

I think we have to include the latter to address the conditions that facilitated the rise of the insurgency in the first place. We could be talking about conditions that a third party aggravated, or internal domestic ones stemming from HN Government illegitimacy, or recalcitrance in progressing politically to meet the needs of its citizens.

You could also include the exhaustion of will and means - but those are tricky, and could require something akin to martial law to sustain - a good ole fashioned (non-benevolent) dictatorship that eventually creates greater instability by either ignoring the conditions changing around it, by creating conditions internally that cannot be integrated later down the road, or something that combines them all - at some point that makes for an awfully ugly baby and given our FP (not British) - we'll have to deal with it in some fashion that suits our strategic culture.

Certainly I believe there are some insurgents that just have to be killed, just like I believe that there are some criminals that must be hanged (or however the state administers capital punishment), but the political purposes of insurgency and counter-insurgency are not achieved solely and in a lasting manner by limiting the goals to annihilation to exhaustion - those may be the military goals in the strictest sense, but that does not realize the political objective.


To sound like a stuck record, I believe the US Army's (and UK to a lesser extent) problem with COIN is that it is viewed as something difficult and distinct, instead of the bread and butter of contemporary and historic military forces. The fact that this belief persists strongly indicates a lack of understanding as concerns the nature of the enemy, that means people focus on the nature of the conflict instead.

I'd say we do both because we have to in order to serve the political purpose . For all our similarities with our closest allies, we are still different, and our strategic culture and heritage is different, our responsibilities are different, our political system is different, and our place in world affairs is different. I'm not trying to come off as an arrogant American - but in order to determine the nature of the war you are in, you have to know yourself, know the enemy and know the terrain - in this case the latter includes how the various participants are integrated right now, and at least consider how they are integrated further down the road. It comes back to politics; war, divorced of a political purpose is not a tool to achieve anything.

Best, Rob

[William F. Owen]

, but the political purposes of insurgency and counter-insurgency are not achieved solely and in a lasting manner by limiting the goals to annihilation to exhaustion - those may be the military goals in the strictest sense, but that does not realize the political objective.


If the insurgents did not possess some kind of military means, they would be irrelevant. Insurgency is armed conflict.

You have to force an armed insurgency to cease military action by making it impossible for them to achieve their (political) aims through violence. That means breaking their will to continue. I firmly believe that the The word "Counter" in COIN can only be achieved by breaking the enemies will by military means.

I think a lot of recent/new writing on COIN has tried to be falsely "avant garde" in not focussing on the military aspect of COIN. You cannot make any political progress if you are loosing militarily.

[Hacksaw]

I have been tempted on several occasions to jump into this thread, but I resisted the urge only because sometimes these organizational culture issues seem so much like tilting at windmills. As a general rule, large bureaucratic organizations change slowly over time in response to its environment and needs of its constituency. I see the Army as no different for better or worse.

What prompted me to enter the fray was Wilf’s characterization of avante guarde COIN concepts. People-centric operations is commonly misconstrued as operations conducted solely in support of the people. This is not entirely the case, so at the great personal risk of looking silly due to over simplification…

It is fair to say that at least in the short-term – a population’s willingness to actively or passively support an insurgency comes at a price. Life does not immediately improve for the Average Joe when “Mr. Insurgent” is running around creating havoc and confusion. So why does Average Joe allow Mr. Insurgent to swim in his sea. Clearly there is some root cause/grievance that resonates with Average Joe – and he makes a bet on the come-line that his lot will improve with the removal of the current regime, and this makes the short-term “inconvenience” bearable.

If I as the counter-insurgent understand: Average Joe’s root cause/grievance; who Average Joe holds accountable and expects to fix his problem; and I understand how Mr Insurgent will leverage Average Joe’s problem; I now stand a chance of predicting in some sense what Mr. Insurgent will do. Hence my actions become proactive rather than reactive. I take the “fight” to the insurgent, Average Joe become less willing to allow Mr Insurgent to swim in his sea because I deny Mr. Insurgent the ability to portray his solution as a credible alternative.

If I view the environment through the eyes of Average Joe, the precision of both my kinetic and non-kinetic operations improves. If I foster conditions that deny Mr. Insurgent the freedom of movement and demonstrate (from Average Joe’s perspective) the folly of Mr. Insurgent’s vision of the future, I win.

Live well and row

[Steve Blair]

Actually the North Vietnamese made a fair amount of progress while they were losing militarily, but that's beside the point...;)

Insurgencies can certainly exist without a military element. One could reasonably argue that many of the environmental groups (especially those near the fringes) are conducting an insurgency of sorts, as are the anti-globalists. The political element of insurgencies tends to get overlooked in some accounts, so the current trend to emphasize it may be viewed as corrective (although it can go too far in the opposite direction).

Now I want to touch on this for a moment:
To sound like a stuck record, I believe the US Army's (and UK to a lesser extent) problem with COIN is that it is viewed as something difficult and distinct, instead of the bread and butter of contemporary and historic military forces. The fact that this belief persists strongly indicates a lack of understanding as concerns the nature of the enemy, that means people focus on the nature of the conflict instead.

For the US Army, based on its own view of its history and the historical underpinnings of its existence, COIN has never been something it wanted to do. In the early days there was a fear (not necessarily justified) of any standing military force, and an equally dim view of its involvement in anything aside from defending the Republic from an exterior attack. Even when COIN was the main function (the periods after the Mexican War and the Civil War) there was little or no training for the mission at hand. It took Custer's great blunder to even shove them into open-order training and the development of both professional education beyond West Point and the first field maneuvers.

The other thing to keep in mind is that the Army was often viewed as a trained nucleus around which a mighty Volunteer force could grow in time of trouble. It was always small...almost always under 20,000 officers and men. Before the Civil War there was some focus on COIN-type operations, but once most of the officers had tasted the heady wine of a few brevet promotions and major battles, they had difficulty looking back at their actual function in the postwar world. A handful did adapt, but they were few and far between.

This also leads to the second point about the American COIN experience. I focus here on the Indian Wars because that's our COIN heritage. There was always a great deal of tension between the Army and the civilian bureaus that dealt with the friendly tribes (in other words, those not engaged in open warfare with the whites). The Army thought they could manage the process better, and often chaffed at the corruption they saw. During Grant's administration (about 1872) they were cut away from the process almost entirely, with control only coming in very limited circumstances. This forced them to focus on the battlefield aspect of COIN, but also created a subconscious awareness of the cost of inefficient political management. It's lost from time to time, but that awareness does play a role in the collective framework. The complaints you see today about poor civilian planning in Iraq find echoes in the pages of the ANJ during the Indian Wars and the official reports of many officers.

Bit of a ramble, but hopefully it does show that there is a different framework operating when the Army looks at COIN. One reason the Marines may handle it better (or at least quicker) is that their framework is substantially different. Their experiences with civilian control were different, and often confined to diplomatic experiences and representatives as opposed to corrupt or inept Indian agents.

[Rob Thornton]

Hi William,

You cannot make any political progress if you are loosing militarily.

I'd say its worthwhile to consider the flip of that as well: how useful is military progress in countering an insurgency if you cannot turn it into political progress (or maybe redress & reconciliation)?

There is a bit of a "chicken and egg" conundrum here, but if you don't address the conditions that led to and sustain the populace taking up arms, or supporting the insurgency as a means of political change, or perhaps attaching themselves to the perception of political change, then you may find yourself in a seemingly never ending conflict that self perpetuates. You could exhaust your own Will, and risk exhaustion of your military means - which may risk your options in other locations and to other policy goals.

Are there times when the Military line of operation is going to be weighted more heavily then the DIE lines of effort - yes, but conditions will drive them, and when conditions permit (opportunities arise), you should consider transitioning to more sustainable and less risky LOEs. I mean risk in the inter-active, non-linear sense.

I believe that countering an insurgency in the whole, is every bit as much a political problem as it is a military one. To try and isolate the two is at odds with achieving unity and synchronization of effort, and it does not suit our political objectives which justify our continued military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. The difference in our opinions may be the context of the consequences we must live with.


Best, Rob

[William F. Owen]

?

There is a bit of a "chicken and egg" conundrum here, but if you don't address the conditions that led to and sustain the populace taking up arms, or supporting the insurgency as a means of political change, or perhaps attaching themselves to the perception of political change, then you may find yourself in a seemingly never ending conflict that self perpetuates. You could exhaust your own Will, and risk exhaustion of your military means - which may risk your options in other locations and to other policy goals.


Hey Rob,

I think we might be all violently agreeing. My point is simply that Insurgents suffer military defeat in the same way as anyone else does (a conventional army). - they die or give up.

Therefore, an Army engaged in COIN, has got to keep the focus on military means. This does not discount the importance of Politics (non-military means) - but Politics cannot function unless there is a sound security environment.

TO whit, my main point. Do not focus on the nature of the conflict. Focus on the nature of the enemies aims and the means he seeks to achieve them. If Politics defeats the AIM, then military force should defeat the MEANS.

This may sound over simplified but I am suspicious of anything more complex. :o

[Ken White]

I have been tempted on several occasions to jump into this thread, but I resisted the urge only because sometimes these organizational culture issues seem so much like tilting at windmills...Ain't that the truth... :wry:
It is fair to say that at least in the short-term – a population’s willingness to actively or passively support an insurgency comes at a price. Life does not immediately improve for the Average Joe when “Mr. Insurgent” is running around creating havoc and confusion. So why does Average Joe allow Mr. Insurgent to swim in his sea. Clearly there is some root cause/grievance that resonates with Average Joe – and he makes a bet on the come-line that his lot will improve with the removal of the current regime, and this makes the short-term “inconvenience” bearable.That is correct -- in some cases -- in others (and this can and does occur in the same insurgency / nation / time) he allows him to swim because he's afraid (terrified, literally on occasion...) and so reluctantly not only allows him to swim but will and even scout, warn, feed and fetch and carry for the swimmers. Obviously, if the swimmers bring money and the local economy has need of an infusion of coins, the reluctance to help is dissipated to an extent. There are variations on all three themes. My observation has been that the fear quotient is usually a greater determinant than is the grievance factor which in turn transcends the economic aspect (with some local variations). I submit this is true today in both Afghanistan and Iraq and while I don't know enough to address the Philippines, my sensing is that it is true there as well.
If I as the counter-insurgent understand: Average Joe’s root cause/grievance; who Average Joe holds accountable and expects to fix his problem; and I understand how Mr Insurgent will leverage Average Joe’s problem; I now stand a chance of predicting in some sense what Mr. Insurgent will do. Hence my actions become proactive rather than reactive. I take the “fight” to the insurgent, Average Joe become less willing to allow Mr Insurgent to swim in his sea because I deny Mr. Insurgent the ability to portray his solution as a credible alternative.True, more true if you add in the removal of the fear factor. Acknowledging that factor is harder to un-leverage...
If I view the environment through the eyes of Average Joe, the precision of both my kinetic and non-kinetic operations improves. If I foster conditions that deny Mr. Insurgent the freedom of movement and demonstrate (from Average Joe’s perspective) the folly of Mr. Insurgent’s vision of the future, I win.I'd add:

"and provide good assurance or evidence that you can remove or severely constrain the fear factor and at least some assurance it will not easily return."

[Hacksaw]

Ken,

I concur with all regarding coersion, my only caveat is that I acknowledged upfront that I was going to offer an overly simple arguement...

I would note that from a counter-insurgent perspective that Mr Coersive Insurgent is probably an easier problem to solve than the charismatic insurgent with a vision, since its hard for even the most irrational mind to see a future in decapitation.

However, I would agrue that getting in front of Mr "I Cut of Heads" Insurgent is still best accomplished by viewing the situation as it is through the eyes of Average Joe, than it is through any type of shaping of the situation. If I know the enemy is using coersion, then I can best anticipate his actions and interdict/kill/capture by determining what pressure point he is using to coerse Average Joe.

Again over simplification, but...

If as a first step in the plans/ops process, we, the counterinsurgent, understand the environment - and most importantly view the environment through the eyes of other actors (both the fish and the sea) - and set aside (at least initially) our proclivity to try and shape/bend the environment through the force of our actions... The relevance of our COIN Ops to their intended purpose will improve (significantly).

My good friend Gian, and he is a good friend, usually gets stuck here. I don't want to put words in his mouth - but here I go - this is viewed as somehow a passive form of operations because we are not imposing our will on the enemy...

Reader Advisory...I'm about to go on a stream of consciousness riff...

This confuses speed/violence with OPTEMPO. OPTEMPO is getting inside the oppornents OODA loop. To do that most effectively, our actions must have a detrimental impact on the opponents ability to operate coherently. Since I love poor analogies... I equate this to toughman competitions. The brawler you see in toughmen competitions who throws haymakers by the second but connects with nothing are not forcing a skillful opponent to do anything - especially if the opponent is adaptive - rather the brawler is just wearing himself out to only his own great satisfaction. Or put another way, a not so wise GO once told me that the 101st makes decisions at 140 mph (while discussing plans for Korea) -- to which the inner dialogue inside my head said "we also get our a$$ in a crack at the same rate".

whew... talking gibberish is exhausting...

and Gian that was just to see if you have dug yourself out of the snow on the banks of the Hudson.

Live well and row

[Rank amateur]

I'm beginning to wonder if I don't understand basic COIN theory (I'll use the Kilcullen version - because he's really the only expert that I've read - but there are of course many flavors) which is certainly possible or if a lot of the pros doing COIN aren't committed to the simple basics. I'm starting to think that it's one or the other.


My point is simply that Insurgents suffer military defeat in the same way as anyone else does (a conventional army). - they die or give up.

My understanding is that Kilcullen would agree.


Therefore, an Army engaged in COIN, has got to keep the focus on military means.

My understanding of COIN theory is that the above is wrong. As long as the insurgent can hide in the population he can control his loss rate - ensuring that insurgents are replaced faster than they are killed/give up - eliminating the possibility of defeat or surrender.

Therefore, you must attack the insurgents' strategy. You must separate them from the population, so they can be killed or forced to surrender.

Politics, reconstruction, bribes, kinetic operations etc. are all tactics. (Like all tactics, they'll work in some cases, not others, a specific combination that works in a specific place and time, won't necessarily work again anywhere else.) The strategic objective, however, doesn't change: separate the insurgents from the population.

(The Nazis killing 100 civilians for every soldier killed by what they considered an "insurgent" achieved the objective. So did the Romans' tactic of crucifying every person in a town where there was an "insurgent" attack. We're trying to accomplish the same objectives without using tactics that are considered crimes against humanity.) At least that's how I understand the theory.

[Rank amateur]

Hacksaw:

Trust me: looking silly because of oversimplification isn't that bad.


– a population’s willingness to actively or passively support an insurgency comes at a price.

But, supporting COIN forces also comes at a price. One of the highest being that people get killed as soon as the COIN forces leave: often in very painful ways. The highest being that their entire family gets killed.

Which is why the population's natural instinct is to do a SGt Schultz - I see nothing, I know nothing - to both sides. But as long as the population doesn't rat out the insurgents, the insurgents can control their loss rate.

Therefore, step one is forcing the population to choose sides. (One of the things that's unsaid - but true - is some of the people who rat out the insurgents will be killed, which they wouldn't have been if we'd allowed them to stay on the sidelines, but its still strategically necessary to make them choose.)

Our long term vision isn't automatically stronger than their "I'll be back and I'll kill you."

[TT]

Hacksaw posted:

but I resisted the urge only because sometimes these organizational culture issues seem so much like tilting at windmills.


LOL! Not at you, but at how true your observation is. Within the academic community there are those who denigrate the study of culture because its impact can be very hard to pin down, particularly in a nice, neat empirical manner. And as one of those academics who do try to discern the effect of military organizational culture on behaviour, I can vouchsafe that it often is not easy do, for just as sometimes the impact can appear to be fairly obvious, in other cases it can be fairly ambiguous.


Hacksaw posted:

As a general rule, large bureaucratic organizations change slowly over time in response to its environment and needs of its constituency. I see the Army as no different for better or worse.

I fully agree. I would add that this holds even when there is a serious, concerted effort to alter an aspect of organizational culture. Once the central cultural traits have become deeply ingrained, as they are in most military organizations, they tend to be resistant to even incremental change, such that further experience tends to be - and pardon my use of this term - ‘socially constructed’ to conform, more or less, to those traits. This is not necessarily a good thing or a bad thing, for the ‘personality’ traits of any particular military organization exist generally for good reasons. The only time the persistence of self identity traits is problematic is when this results in dysfunctional behaviour, such as failure on the battle field stemming from an unwillingness to adopt change appropriate to the changing character of warfare. Which is why academic studies normally focus on the role of culture as an obstacle to appropriate change. And why I personally continue to tilt at this particular windmill. :D

[Ken White]

...I would note that from a counter-insurgent perspective that Mr Coersive Insurgent is probably an easier problem to solve than the charismatic insurgent with a vision, since its hard for even the most irrational mind to see a future in decapitation.I think that's rather situation dependent. In many cases, it's true, in some societies it will not be. The vast majority of people in any case will always really just want to be left alone and thus will hew to a vision only as far as it suits for the moment. Head Chopping is more durable and leaves a more lasting impression so the degree of force and method of application will be the determinant.
However, I would agrue that getting in front of Mr "I Cut of Heads" Insurgent is still best accomplished by viewing the situation as it is through the eyes of Average Joe, than it is through any type of shaping of the situation. If I know the enemy is using coersion, then I can best anticipate his actions and interdict/kill/capture by determining what pressure point he is using to coerse Average Joe. Agree -- but would point out that the pressure point determination is the wild card.
If as a first step in the plans/ops process, we, the counterinsurgent, understand the environment - and most importantly view the environment through the eyes of other actors (both the fish and the sea) - and set aside (at least initially) our proclivity to try and shape/bend the environment through the force of our actions... The relevance of our COIN Ops to their intended purpose will improve (significantly).Totally agree. Now, about that proclivity -- and the one year tour with successive tours in different AOs... :D
My good friend Gian, and he is a good friend, usually gets stuck here. I don't want to put words in his mouth - but here I go - this is viewed as somehow a passive form of operations because we are not imposing our will on the enemy...Gian is a good guy and I agree with him on many things but sometimes in order to impose your will on the enemy you have to know where he is and what he's doing and in some cases, particularly in COIN, that's not as readily apparent as it is in more conventional combat. I agree with the structured application of violence, I just think one has to know where to apply how much with some exactitude.
Reader Advisory...I'm about to go on a stream of consciousness riff...That's always a good thing... :D

This confuses speed/violence with OPTEMPO. OPTEMPO is getting inside the oppornents OODA loop. To do that most effectively, our actions must have a detrimental impact on the opponents ability to operate coherently. Since I love poor analogies... I equate this to toughman competitions. The brawler you see in toughmen competitions who throws haymakers by the second but connects with nothing are not forcing a skillful opponent to do anything - especially if the opponent is adaptive - rather the brawler is just wearing himself out to only his own great satisfaction. Or put another way, a not so wise GO once told me that the 101st makes decisions at 140 mph (while discussing plans for Korea) -- to which the inner dialogue inside my head said "we also get our a$$ in a crack at the same rate".

whew... talking gibberish is exhausting...Not gibberish; makes total sense to me and I very much agree -- and I'm not a Gibber. Er, well, I don't think I am. We need not ask my family or friends their opinions... ;)

[Ken White]

I'm beginning to wonder if I don't understand basic COIN theory (I'll use the Kilcullen version - because he's really the only expert that I've read - but there are of course many flavors) which is certainly possible or if a lot of the pros doing COIN aren't committed to the simple basics. I'm starting to think that it's one or the other.Or is it that those who have to do it as opposed to theorizing about it know that the application of the basics is not nearly as easy as writing about them?
My understanding of COIN theory is that the above is wrong. As long as the insurgent can hide in the population he can control his loss rate - ensuring that insurgents are replaced faster than they are killed/give up - eliminating the possibility of defeat or surrender.Interesting statement. What is your basis for it?
Therefore, you must attack the insurgents' strategy. You must separate them from the population, so they can be killed or forced to surrender.I'd ask how you do that but you provided an answer in a later post; you said:
"Therefore, step one is forcing the population to choose sides. (One of the things that's unsaid - but true - is some of the people who rat out the insurgents will be killed, which they wouldn't have been if we'd allowed them to stay on the sidelines, but its still strategically necessary to make them choose.)"So I'll ask how you do that? I'll also ask how you tell the true insurgents from people who have just annoyed others and get their name turned in just to be ornery? Oh, and once you identify the real insurgents, what do you do with them?

That doesn't even get into the fact that local criminals will intrude in the process as will various groups with an ax to grind in some way. Nor does it discuss the attitudes of the local or host nation government -- which may disagree strongly with some of your ideas. Or, for that matter, the attitudes of your own government which may disallow some of your initiatives. How do you factor in those things...

[William F. Owen]

My understanding of COIN theory is that the above is wrong. As long as the insurgent can hide in the population he can control his loss rate - ensuring that insurgents are replaced faster than they are killed/give up - eliminating the possibility of defeat or surrender.


Well I am not sure there is any solid COIN theory. I do see a lot of opinions though. As an aside, when I worked in TV News, I had a stand-up argument with some old guy who said he was an "Counter-terrorism expert." I pointed out that such a title was a intellectually valid as saying "colour co-ordinator," or Stylist. IMO, COIN, as a body of theory can only exist as a sub-set of military thought and science.

a.) I don't think an insurgency cannot control their loss rate, as an absolute matter of choice. They can choose not to risk losses, but that often means not acting. If you can suppress an insurgency by making them fear loss, then job done.

b.) Military means are not merely "kinetic." Anything the military force can do, to harm the insurgent, and not alienate the civil population in the process is good. The list of things that can be done is almost endless, once military force is focussed on the means the insurgency uses. - The AIMS of the insurgency are defeated/ameliorated, by political means.

[Ski]

This thread has been making my eyes bleed. Which is good.

Some random thoughts:

1. The Army of today is too professional and too narrowly focused. It's changing, of course, at the lower levels, but the 06 level and above is still all about fighting big wars, securing resources and combat force structure, and waiting for the war they want to fight. When I say too professional and too narrow, I compare todays Army (really the military) against the military of WWI and WWII. These were two draftee Armies, with civilian skills and expertise throughout the entire force. It's relatively easy to turn a civilian into an infantrymen, it's been going on since the birth of armies. It's harder to take an infantrymen who's been one since age 18, and then ask him to also be a mayor, a plumber, a mason, police officer, etc...all skills that existed in some form or another within the draftee militaries of WWI and WWII. We've been so focused on teaching combined arms tactics to our combat arms officers, and preparing for the "big fight" (Can I trademark that?) that we have been trying to play catch up for 30 years of ignoring counterinsurgency (minus SF).

2. The organizational culture changes quickly at the tactical level, and the bureaucracy may never catch up. I've harped on this before, but it took 6 years to get a new Operations manual to the field...that's the best we can do? Come on. I'd say using officer and NCO retention rates are the best indicator of culture...

3. The personnel system is a mess. Again, this is the best we can do? Having an indifferent personnel system (at best) that treats people like cogs in the machine also is an indication of organizational culture.

4. I look at two other factors to see if the culture is changing - procurement and MTOE development. Neither of these have significantly changed since Modularity was introduced, and the Army leadership is still focused on big ticket items (FCS) as a panacea for all todays problems. Once the procurement focus switches, and MTOE's start to really change to what the Deployment Manning Documents of today look like, then we are still preparing for the "Big Fight" against mechanized and heavy forces.

5. COIN would be taken seriously if we were in an existential fight, and I honestly do not believe we are. I think all these processes would be wiped clean, resisters in the bureaucracy would be fired or reassigned to a combat posting, and the focus within the Army would change.

6. I am just about done with the fear mongering and threat inflation involved with future procurement systems designed to fight a non-existent enemy. This goes across the board. We have a ####ty track record of predicting who we are going to fight next, and we concentrated a lot on Iraq from 91-03...just sayin'.

[Ron Humphrey]

a.) I don't think an insurgency cannot control their loss rate, as an absolute matter of choice. They can choose not to risk losses, but that often means not acting. If you can suppress an insurgency by making them fear loss, then job done.

.

Anybody come to mind right off

I do like peanut butter and jelly sanwiches

[William F. Owen]

Anybody come to mind right off

I do like peanut butter and jelly sanwiches

The IRA. Eventually they became extremely careful about operations and abandoned far more than they performed.

The Shining Path in Peru was also a group unable to compensate for losses and thus shrivelled to nothing.

All I am talking about is the logic of suppression. - to not act because you fear harm. IMO, there are very few pure insurgencies with a bottomless recruiting pit. What is more this applies just as well to the leaderships.

[marct]

Anybody come to mind right off

I do like peanut butter and jelly sanwiches

The IRA. Eventually they became extremely careful about operations and abandoned far more than they performed.

The Shining Path in Peru was also a group unable to compensate for losses and thus shrivelled to nothing.

All I am talking about is the logic of suppression. - to not act because you fear harm. IMO, there are very few pure insurgencies with a bottomless recruiting pit. What is more this applies just as well to the leaderships.

Good examples, Wilf. A couple of lesser known ones would be the Cathars, the Fraticelli and the Luddites. I agree with you on the logic of suppression, but I think it is worth noting that it isn't only fear that can be the motivator - it can also be recognition that the time isn't right.

[MattC86]

Thanks to all for trying to answer some of my questions - good discussion here.

First, re: Hacksaw, TT, and Ken, I agree that bureaucratic politics are mind-numbing, and attempts to change often not effective. But while it may be like hitting your head against a while, I think changes need to be made. Especially when, as Ken says, the military mistakenly focuses on WWII as a defining moment, and subsequently has developed and reinforced a self-image that in some ways is detrimental to preparing, procuring, and training for (as well as executing) missions of COIN or other limited-force operations.

I remember always thinking anthropology (had a bad experience in a freshman course) and, in the same vein, organizational culture theory were bogus ways of reifying intangibles and using them to explain what amounted to common sense. Actually reading and thinking about it a little more helps me realize how inaccurate that is and how big the bureaucratic problem is. Of course, that's old news to everyone. How do we improve it - that's the issue. I liked the comparison of the services to GM circa 1950 - not that an Army should be set up organizationally like a current MNC, but it is worth examining ways in which a the organization can become more efficient.

Re: Wilf, Marct, Rank Amateur, etc. -

I think Wilf is right - you're all violently agreeing, with a few caveats. My qualification would not be that military force is still essential to stamping out an insurgency, but that the politics of the situation are very influential in defining exactly what the military force is, and how it is focused. In that way the politics takes primacy over the military aspect.

Regards,

Matt

[TT]

Matt,


Especially when, as Ken says, the military mistakenly focuses on WWII as a defining moment, and subsequently has developed and reinforced a self-image that in some ways is detrimental to preparing, procuring, and training for (as well as executing) missions of COIN or other limited-force operations.

The bureaucratic politics are mind numbing, but I personally think organizational culture, or self identity, or as Ken says, self image, is the single most significant obstacle to change, and self identity is extremely hard to change.

[hedgpethd]

Hi, My name is Dana Hedgpeth and I'm a reporter at the Washington Post. I registered for this site because I'm looking to talk to military personnel who have recently gotten back from serving in Iraq. I'd like to talk to anyone who has worked on CERP projects. That's the Commanders Emergency Response Program. What I'd like to know is how the program works in the field? Is it successful; how so? If you're interested in talking or have comments, please email me at hedgpethd@washpost.com or call me at 202.334.6613. Thanks, Dana.

[Beelzebubalicious]

Dana,

I'd like to believe reporters and the media in general are objective but I'm afraid this is not so. I am therefore posting a link to articles you've previously published in the Post.

http://projects.washingtonpost.com/staff/articles/dana+hedgpeth/

From my brief review of the articles, it appears that you write mostly about DOD and DOD contractor excesses and issues. While you don't write opinion, your stories are definitely coming at these issues from one side. Care to respond to this assessment?

Thank you,

Eric

PS - I work for a not-for-profit organization implementing US government funded contracts. I have never served in the military.

[William F. Owen]

I have now read "Eating Soup," and I remain of the opinions that I had before.

Yes, it's an excellent work of scholarship, that is well researched and particularly well written - EG It's easy to read and well laid out - something mostly lacking these days.

However, there are a number of categoric statements with which I cannot agree, and I would suggest that the operational record does not support. - eg: the idea that an Army skilled in COIN can't be skilled in war fighting - and we have few if any useful measure for comparing the degrees of skill.

I just can't see the British Army as a "learning organisation." If "learning" means applying common sense out of necessity, then I stand corrected.

I think Vietnam showed the US Special Forces, Army Aviation and the USAF all seem to have had similarly powerful learning mechanisms in the same way. More over, in 1972 the NLF (VC) were a shadow of what they were in in 1965, and that can't all be laid at the door of the Tet Offensive. Something was working.

As in Malaya, as in Cyprus and Kenya, the UK killed and tortured our way to success. "Hearts and Minds" does not mean being nice or playing fair. Look how long Northern Ireland took, once we were forced to play by the rules. - and we got kicked out of Southern Ireland in just 3 years of COIN!!

Most of all, I was confused by the comparing of the British Army fighting a tiny insurgency on it's own home turf, with the US Army fighting a massive coalition war, back dropped by the Cold War.

No doubt I'll give it another read sometime and find the thing I am missing that everyone else seems to have got.

[Ken White]

if you do? Thanks... :wry:

[Gian P Gentile]

Most of all, I was confused by the comparing of the British Army fighting a tiny insurgency on it's own home turf, with the US Army fighting a massive coalition war, back dropped by the Cold War.

I think your read of John Nagl's important book and your critical review of it is fair and spot-on. There is much to commend in Nagl's book; it is superbly written and well researched. However, it is often read and understood for more than it is. First and foremost it is not a history of the Vietnam and Malayan insurgencies. I think John Nagl might actually agree with that statement. It is a book that uses history but is not history per say. Instead it is a stellar work that looks at organizational theory and practice in military units and uses as case studies Vietnam and Malaya to draw conclusions on how or how not military organizations change and adapt. In this sense the book is very important and has contributed to knowledge.

Your quote above points to the limits of what we should be reading the book for. In a sense the book has taken on a life of its own as a work of history. But a good history book would not try to compare these vastly different situations without at least three other books, or 2000 pages, between the two cases to explain context, contingency, and change over time. But that is not a critique of John's book but a caution to readers in what they look to it for.

gian

[Steve Blair]

Actually, Nagl says straight out that his book isn't a history of either conflict. Reading introductions is an amazing thing....;)

One of the great armchair sports is to try to read things into books that authors didn't intend, or to drag them into areas that they weren't meant to cover. I blame the dramatic decline of teaching standards in history in the United States for this, since many readers wouldn't know an actual history book if it bit them on the backside, and even if they can recognize one they don't have the tools to correctly evaluate it. In our haste to close the "math and science gap" (a source of much hands-wringing since the early 1970s), we've left history and english behind.

In any case, I still think Nagl's book is a valuable addition to this area. Certainly it makes a good starting point for a newcomer...provided they have the background and inclination to make use of Nagl's bibliography to explore some subjects and topics on their own...:wry:

[Gian P Gentile]

In our haste to close the "math and science gap" (a source of much hands-wringing since the early 1970s), we've left history and english behind.

Steve:

No argument from me here; as I head up to teach plebes in a survey course in American history...

gian

[Adam L]

I blame the dramatic decline of teaching standards in history in the United States for this, since many readers wouldn't know an actual history book if it bit them on the backside, and even if they can recognize one they don't have the tools to correctly evaluate it. In our haste to close the "math and science gap" (a source of much hands-wringing since the early 1970s), we've left history and english behind.

What is most alarming is that we are now on the second and third generations of people who are lacking these skills. This means we have people who were taught by people without these skill teaching today. I agree with you completely on this. I have found it most troublesome dealing with some of the new and outrageous interpretations of literature, but some of the interpretations of history I have seen are almost beyond understanding.

Adam L

[William F. Owen]

I agree with you completely on this. I have found it most troublesome dealing with some of the new and outrageous interpretations of literature, but some of the interpretations of history I have seen are almost beyond understanding.


This is not new. From my perspective, people have misinterpreted Clausewitz, and Sun-Tzu for a 100 years. In addition, all that is old and written is not necessarily good.

[J Wolfsberger]

Army Focus on Counterinsurgency Debated Within (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90200038)

[SWJ Blog]

CNAS John Nagl Stepping Down (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/cnas-john-nagl-stepping-down)

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[SWJ Blog]

Debate on Counterinsurgency: Gentile vs. Nagl (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/debate-on-counterinsurgency-gentile-vs-nagl)

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[SWJ Blog]

John Nagl on the Future of Military Innovation (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/john-nagl-on-the-future-of-military-innovation)

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