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SWJED
04-12-2006, 02:49 PM
This article has been making the rounds among the USMC leadership - comes highly recommended!

Twenty-Eight Articles: Fundamentals of Company-level Counterinsurgency (http://www.d-n-i.net/fcs/pdf/kilcullen_28_articles.pdf) by David Kilcullen.


Introduction

Your company has just been warned for deployment on counterinsurgency operations in Iraq or Afghanistan. You have read David Galula, T.E. Lawrence and Robert Thompson. You have studied FM 3-24 and now understand the history, philosophy and theory of counterinsurgency.

You watched Black Hawk Down and The Battle of Algiers, and you know this will be the most difficult challenge of your life.

But what does all the theory mean, at the company level? How do the principles translate into action - at night, with the GPS down, the media criticizing you, the locals complaining in a language you don't understand, and an unseen enemy killing your people by ones and twos? How does counterinsurgency actually happen?

There are no universal answers, and insurgents are among the most adaptive opponents you will ever face. Countering them will demand every ounce of your intellect. But be comforted: you are not the first to feel this way. There are tactical fundamentals you can apply, to link the theory with the techniques and procedures you already know.

What is counterinsurgency?

If you have not studied counterinsurgency theory, here it is in a nutshell: this is a competition with the insurgent for the right and the ability to win the hearts, minds and acquiescence of the population. You are being sent in because the insurgents, at their strongest, can defeat anything weaker than you. But you have more combat power than you can or should use in most situations. Injudicious use of firepower creates blood feuds, homeless people and societal disruption that fuels and perpetuates the insurgency. The most beneficial actions are often local politics, civic action, and beat-cop behaviors. For your side to win, the people do not have to like you but they must respect you, accept that your actions benefit them, and trust your integrity and ability to deliver on promises, particularly regarding their security. In this battlefield popular perceptions and rumor are more influential than the facts and more powerful than a hundred tanks.

Within this context, what follows are observations from collective experience: the distilled essence of what those who went before you learned. They are expressed as commandments, for clarity - but are really more like folklore. Apply them judiciously and skeptically.

Preparation

1. Know your turf...

2. Diagnose the problem...

3. Organize for intelligence...

4. Organize for interagency operations...

5. Travel light and harden your CSS...

6. Find a political / cultural adviser...

7. Train the squad leaders - then trust them...

8. Rank is nothing, talent is everything...

9. Have a game plan...

The Golden Hour...

10. Be there...

11. Avoid knee jerk responses to first impressions

12. Prepare for handover from Day One...

13. Build trusted networks...

14. Start easy...

15. Seek early victories...

16. Practice deterrent patrolling...

17. Be prepared for setbacks...

18. Remember the global audience...

19. Engage the women, beware the children...

20. Take stock regularly...

Groundhog Day...

21. Exploit a "single narrative"...

22. Local forces should mirror the enemy, not ourselves...

23. Practice armed civil affairs...

24. Small is beautiful...

25. Fight the enemy's strategy, not his forces...

26. Build your own solution - only attack the enemy when he gets in the way...

Getting Short...

27. Keep your extraction plan secret...

Four "What Ifs"...

Conclusion...

28. Whatever else you do, keep the initiative...

Open the link above for the full article and an explanation on each of the 28 articles of company-level COIN.

Tom Odom
04-12-2006, 03:12 PM
I saw it too. It is quite a good piece of work.

I especially like
22. Local forces should mirror the enemy, not ourselves...

Best

Tom

Bill Moore
04-12-2006, 04:13 PM
Tom,

I focused on this one also, but don't completely buy it hook, line, and sinker. I don't think trying to create symmetry is necessarily the right answer, because that puts us more in a react mode than an offensive (or taking the initiative) mode. Note insurgents do not have to model us to defeat us, they use their strenghts effectively, and we need to do the same. None the less the author's intent is well taken.

Furthermore I have seen many of our FID efforts produce limited results because we heap technology, weapons, and tactics, techniques, and procedures that are relevant to our culture and our military culture, but not the developing nation we're attempting to assist. FM 7-8 works for us (within limits), but not for armies without a NCO corps. Technology without robust maintenance systems or educated forces to employ them will soon be gathering rust, and we simply wasted millions of tax dollars. How many times have you seen our donated weapons, vehicles, etc. in category four condition throughout Africa during your tours?

It would be great if we could develop an officer corp in our military that could adapt to their environment instead of the dogmatic doctrinal officer corp we have now. We're still producing the same officers we produced out of West Point in the Civil War, and unfortunately more Westmorelands.

Martin
04-12-2006, 06:13 PM
It would be great if we could develop an officer corp in our military that could adapt to their environment instead of the dogmatic doctrinal officer corp we have now.
Do you know how to do that? Or rather, how would you go about doing that? Serious question, no pun.

Martin

Tom Odom
04-12-2006, 07:27 PM
What struck me about this was the necessity to understand the strengths of the forces you are working with and then accentuate them. I have been in too many countries where one of 2 things happens (or sometimes both) in assistance programs (civil and military).

a. we try to build them into a Mini-me look alike. the absolute worst assistance effort I ever saw was not a USAID initiative but was a US Senator directed through USAID program to "give" slightly used Wisconsin dairy cattle (meaning give them the cows but deduct the costs from available monies) to the Egyptians. There were 50 cows and they lasted less than a year (the bill was 6 figure as I recall). The Egyptians were less than pleased; the USAID mission was less than pleased; but the Senator's home state dairy association was overjoyed and wanted to do it again. We do this militarily. We gave the Sudanese 10 M60A3 tanks in the mid80s; the first thing they did was drive one through the wall of their tank shed. A Major whom I respect stopped them from opening all the tool kits, spare parts, etc in the middle of a sandpile only by threatening to cut off future assistance. To this day, I do not understand why we would sell 10 tanks to Sudan; the country had a huge parking lot of Soviet equipment that had been passed down to them from the Egyptians.

b. They want to be a Mini-me; demands for high tech equipment are fueled by a sense of status. The classic for this was Zaire (now DR Congo) and PR Congo(CongoBrazza). The Soviets backed Congo-Brazza and we backed Zaire. The French and the PRC backed both. Billions of dollars went into this effort and produced nothing. I met a Zairian Fighter Jock whose sole claim to fame was that he had pranged 2 fighters and lived though the second crash resulted in some nasty burns. There was an Italian Macchi ground attack bird out at NDjili airfield and one day I noticed it was being pushed from the military side to the civilian side. There it was refueled and then pushed back. I asked my "Maverick" what that was all about. I only knew of one A/C in the Zairian Air Farce that was still flying, a Puma that tended to wag its tail like a dog. He told me not to worry; the jet was inop due to lack of oxygen, charges on the ejection seat, and other faults. The "ground crew" would push it over every few weeks, gas it up, and then push it back so they could then sell the fuel.

c. is of course where we try to clone ourselves and our clones like it. then you can really get into Alice in Wonderland bizarreness.

Our saving grace in the Cold War was that the Soviets did the same damn thing. I would recommend 2 books about this:

Andrew Buckoke, Fishing in Africa, a Guide to War and Corruption and
Mohammed Heikal, The Sphinx and the Commissar, the Rise and Fall of Soviet Influence in the Middle East

I guess that is what I found so refreshing about the RPA in Rwanda. They valued training over all else but they wanted to make sure it fit their needs. They were realistic in their approach to technology and they were frugal. One of my SF guys told me one night at the Embassy bar, "Sir they can't do push ups for Sh@#. They can't do situps worth a damn either and they don't like to run. But they can walk up the side of a mountain like it's not even there..."

And therein is the real lesson of Lawrence: use the strengths and the proclivities of the locals to suit your ends...

Then again Lawrence was not very popular until he was both out of the British Army and dead.

Best
Tom

Bill Moore
04-13-2006, 12:27 PM
Martin,

I'll attempt a stab at your question to get the debate started within our group. However, I want to take some time to formulate some concepts first.

Tom,

You would do our government a service if you would write a book on your experiences. After being retired a few years I'm sure you have reflected on your experiences and have much to share with us. Stability and stability like operations will remain a key component of our national security strategy. Unfortunately we tend to wait until it is a crisis until we decide to address it, by then it may be too late. You had a unique role where you were created effects [just because you hate the concept :-)] behind the scenes with limited resources.

Ciao, Bill

Tom Odom
04-13-2006, 01:28 PM
Bill,

Thank you. The book is written and you can read one chapter here in SWJ magazine, thanks to the SWJ crew, at: http://www.smallwarsjournal.com/documents/swjmag/v3/odom_journey.htm

Best
Tom

Jones_RE
04-13-2006, 05:59 PM
I'll take a stab at Martin's question.

You develop a flexible, non-dogmatic officer corps by continually exposing officers of all ranks to realistic simulations against live, reacting enemies in a free play environment. The army already does this for maneuver warfare out in the desert. The essential requirement now is to extend this attitude to other types of missions, cultures and environments. Especially helpful would be joint missions, where third party forces ally with and oppose US units. Failing that, Special Operations forces might supply a realistic alternative. This doesn't always require a full blown simulation - terrain walks or map exercises can invoke the same principles.

When the results of an exercise hang on whether you grok your ally's cultural and military attitudes, officers of all ranks will break out of their molds real quick.

You fight how you train. Right now, the great bulk of the army trains to do one job (firepower intensive maneuver war) and they do it well. This is because we have devised (through decades of effort) realistic ways of simulating a maneuver war against a thinking, freely acting enemy. If we want the army to succeed at other tasks, we must train for them with the same ingenuity and intensity.

Martin
04-13-2006, 07:55 PM
I'll take a stab at Martin's question.

You develop a flexible, non-dogmatic officer corps by continually exposing officers of all ranks to realistic simulations against live, reacting enemies in a free play environment.

[...]

This is because we have devised (through decades of effort) realistic ways of simulating a maneuver war against a thinking, freely acting enemy. If we want the army to succeed at other tasks, we must train for them with the same ingenuity and intensity. What do you think is missing then? According to what you say above, the objective should have been reached. Or do you mean that the training currently performed simply needs to be taken to the other tasks?

Although it doesn't say how you would do it, I think parts of the why's can be found in leadership and command and control. How to do it, however, is a little bit more complex.

Eager for Moore's thinking... :)

Martin

Jones_RE
04-13-2006, 10:13 PM
I think that within the field of maneuver warfare, the current generation of officers is not dogmatic and inflexible. When it comes to a mechanized shootout in a desert somewhere they're quick thinking, creative and downright devious. There is no other way to win those simulations, because if you follow some scripted playbook the "red team" will hand you your head. There's nothing like that for COIN, Stability Operations, Peace Enforcement, etc. So there's room to just settle in and turn off the brain - dogmatism requires a certain degree of complacency in order to thrive. You can't be complacent against a thinking, breathing opponent who wants to win, because that opponent will come up with a way to beat the pants off you. When that starts showing up in your fitness reports it starts impacting careers and that gets noticed.

Martin
04-13-2006, 11:01 PM
I think that within the field of maneuver warfare, the current generation of officers is not dogmatic and inflexible. When it comes to a mechanized shootout in a desert somewhere they're quick thinking, creative and downright devious. There is no other way to win those simulations, because if you follow some scripted playbook the "red team" will hand you your head. There's nothing like that for COIN, Stability Operations, Peace Enforcement, etc. So there's room to just settle in and turn off the brain - dogmatism requires a certain degree of complacency in order to thrive. You can't be complacent against a thinking, breathing opponent who wants to win, because that opponent will come up with a way to beat the pants off you. When that starts showing up in your fitness reports it starts impacting careers and that gets noticed. Interesting point to make... Do conventional forces have a good way of measuring and recording real world progress in COIN? How would you go about doing that?

Martin

GorTex6
04-14-2006, 09:30 PM
If you have not studied counterinsurgency theory, here it is in a nutshell: this is a competition with the insurgent for the right and the ability to win the hearts, minds and acquiescence of the population. You are being sent in because the insurgents, at their strongest, can defeat anything weaker than you. But you have more combat power than you can or should use in most situations. Injudicious use of firepower creates blood feuds, homeless people and societal disruption that fuels and perpetuates the insurgency. The most beneficial actions are often local politics, civic action, and beat-cop behaviors.

Dumbasses need to realize this is counterinsurgency and not another Tom Clancy computer game :mad: You do not get cool points for firing at anything approaching your convoy nor firing .50 indescriminately at a village


8. Rank is nothing, talent is everything...

Talent isn't based on political position within the unit either.

zenpundit
04-15-2006, 04:24 AM
A pity he was never seconded to Abizaid as an adviser. Sort of an Aussie Charles Murphy role.

Tom Odom
04-17-2006, 02:07 PM
I think that within the field of maneuver warfare, the current generation of officers is not dogmatic and inflexible. When it comes to a mechanized shootout in a desert somewhere they're quick thinking, creative and downright devious. There is no other way to win those simulations, because if you follow some scripted playbook the "red team" will hand you your head. There's nothing like that for COIN, Stability Operations, Peace Enforcement, etc. So there's room to just settle in and turn off the brain - dogmatism requires a certain degree of complacency in order to thrive. You can't be complacent against a thinking, breathing opponent who wants to win, because that opponent will come up with a way to beat the pants off you. When that starts showing up in your fitness reports it starts impacting careers and that gets noticed.

that is exactly the role of the JRTC where COIN, stability ops, and peace enforcement along with CONOPs and other tasks have been and still are trained against a thinking breathing opponent

Tom

jcustis
04-27-2006, 06:53 PM
A pity he was never seconded to Abizaid as an adviser. Sort of an Aussie Charles Murphy role

I disagree, as that is not the level where his influence needs to be felt.

I don't buy off on everything he has written, but good on him for organizing his thoughts and common sense in the best fashion I've seen in a long time. I read it and thought, this is like a memory jogger that I could see finding a home next to the AO/sector map in the CO CP!

Perhaps his services could be better employed, say, at the JRTC, or the Marine Corps Mojave Viper program. This is all good stuff, but it's only as good as its implementation. If a battalion commander directs all of his junior officers to read the text, that's a first step. The shortfall is that with a read of the material, one can only gain the knowledge. The desired endstate is "understanding", and that certainly takes more time, effort, and resources.

I've often held subtle disagreement with the training methodologies typically employed in the military. A case in point is the JRTC/NTC/CAX paradigm. Some units treat them as they are designed, as training events, while others use them as a "graduation exercise" of sorts, and "train to deploy and train". Our doctrine/training commands can be cumbersome at times, and with the issues that the LtCol so poignantly addresses, I don't think one (read: company staff/troops) could gain understanding from a day with him in the bleacher seating at a MOUT town, or an extract of his writing stuffed in the appendices of a period of instruction on COIN.

Perhaps we need a new paradigm, where units shift from sending an officer/SNCO to a formal school for 3-4 weeks, and send their best and brightest to week-long (or longer) seminars where they have the opportunity to sit and truly listen, question, and debate. Designed to deliver further training back to the unit, this training needs to follow something like a sensei-to-pupil model, not Billy Banks and Tae-Bo.

Larry Dunbar
04-30-2006, 05:19 PM
I would think, possibly because I have no expertise in military tactics, that having the Iraqi army mirror the insurgency would be exactly what is needed. If the Iraqi army and the insurgency are facing (literally) each other and neither are in a full-out retreat, when the insurgency moves to the right the Iraqi army needs to mirror that movement by moving to its left.
When the Iraqi army moves to the left, in a move to mirror the enemy, before the insurgency does, that's called getting into your enemy's decision making loop and is an offensive movement. To expect the Iraqi Army to do more, without a robust Iraqi civilian/military support mechanisms, would seem to me to be to be unreasonable.
If I was leading a company into battle in Iraq, I would want the 28 articles tattooed inside my eye lids so I could read them every night (or day) before I went to sleep, but are they really complete? While reading the recommended literature should tie everyone reading the articles together, couldn't the articles summarize more about what they are really about, leading?

Jones_RE
05-02-2006, 04:35 PM
I don't think it's a good idea to exactly mirror the insurgency, but I'm hard pressed to think of the counter insurgent movement that succeeded without adopting at least some of the tactics of its opponents. E.g. the US Cavalry picking up Indian scouts for help with tracking, lightening some combat loads, etc. in order to keep up with fast moving Indian opponents.

That said, the Iraqi Army has some advantages the insurgents never will, and they'd be fools to ignore them: funding to pay recruits, training in small arms and tactics from US soldiers, access to sophisticated electronic and aerial intelligence, a certain degree of air and armored support, etc.

What, specifically, should the Iraqi army (and perhaps the US army) attempt to copy from the insurgents? I'll throw out a few ideas, perhaps some people here can come up with others.

1) Camouflage. The insurgents virtually never reveal themselves until they strike. Select Iraqi soldiers should definitely be out and about in their patrol areas in plainclothes or unmarked civilian vehicles. Sufficient issue of concealed weapons would be a good idea. A better idea would be meticulous record keeping and debriefs to make sure these soldiers aren't sidelining as death squads or criminals. Perhaps digital cameras or GPS devices could be issued to provide some evidence of that.

2) The rumor mill. Iraqi society receives much of its information by word of mouth. Simply being aware of the latest urban legends could be a great asset, even if you don't debunk them or start your own.

3) Internet age communications. The insurgents make a big deal out of their websites and so forth. Individual units, officers and soldiers with their own blogs, sites and so forth could start to counteract the other side's dominance in the Information War.

Larry Dunbar
05-03-2006, 04:52 PM
I don't think it's a good idea to exactly mirror the insurgency, but I'm hard pressed to think of the counter insurgent movement that succeeded without adopting at least some of the tactics of its opponents.
What, specifically, should the Iraqi army (and perhaps the US army) attempt to copy from the insurgents?
Mirroring is not copying your opponents tactics. Mirroring is a strategy. To accomplish this strategy takes information of the implicit nature of your enemy. Once you know your enemy, you can train in his tactics and counter them. If you are good enough, you can counter before your enemy acts, this is called offensive maneuvers.
I at first thought the Iraqi Army could, if anyone could, mirror the insurgency. This was because of the fact they know, implicitly, the insurgency. However, the problem with this idea, one of must be many, is that a mirroring strategy takes two players. The Iraqi Army may know the insurgency well enough to participate, however, they don't know themselves well enough. The Iraqi Army's implicit rules (what they feel inside) are too divided. I don't think it would be possible to mirror your enemy when part of what you feel belongs to the enemy.
So the statement in the 28 articles should be amended. It should read instead: the Iraqi Army should follow the explicit orders of the US military until such time that the Iraqi Army develops an identity of itself. It should be the strategy of the US military to promote an Iraqi Army's self-identity through training and support. While this creates a big Catch-22, I am sure this is something the US military is quite able to handle, given time.

jcustis
05-04-2006, 12:20 AM
Mirroring one's enemy happened in a way during the Rhodesian conflict. A read of the texts describing pseudo-operations, conducted by the Selous Scouts, describes the path the Rhodesian Security Forces took to "turn" terrorists for the purpose of gaining tactical intelligence about the enemy. In several cases, "turned" terrorists were integrated into the Scouts' formations and employed in the field to allow them to get within hands-reach of the small terrorist gangs.

The tactics came at a price though, and allegations were laid against the Scouts that they used questionable tactics and torture to accomplish the mission. Media hype and Marxist rhetoric only inflamed matters, and the secretive unit could do little to defend itself in the open.

"Mirroring", if not employed in accordance with the precepts of the Law of War, poses significant risks. Could the Iraqi Security Forces become the death squads of the M.E.? Would their actions put a stink on the coalition forces that trained and outfitted them?

I agree that the ISF needs to understand all aspects of the insurgency, especially those quirks that an outsider would never understand, but employing those tactics could quickly blur the line between opponents, and only excacerbate the civil war tinderbox.

Just my $.02

Tom Odom
05-04-2006, 02:10 PM
There was an excellent book out there on the Selous Scouts, under that title. I once had a copy that I bought in Zimbabwe in '84; I gave it to an Zimbabwean captain I as a CGSC faculty member sponsored in '85. He was of course a former guerrilla and he told me that of all the Rhodesian security forces, the Scouts were considered the number one threat.

I believe this is the same book and will order it and see. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0620066741/qid=1146751446/sr=11-1/ref=sr_11_1/002-9013305-0776012?n=283155


The Brits used the same tactic againt the Mau Mau in Kenya. I have a good book on that:Robert B. Edgerton, Mau Mau, An African Crucible. This is a critical history of the British COIN campaign against the Mau Mau in Kenya. Listed on Amazon at:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345369785/qid=1143834258/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/002-8633662-3731201?s=books&v=glance&n=283155.


best

Tom

jcustis
05-04-2006, 02:31 PM
That Amazon.com listing is the book. It can sometimes be found on Ebay in paperback. It was published in 1982, and written by Peter Stiff as told to him by LtCol Reid-Daly. Pamwe Chete: The Legend of the Selous Scouts was published in 1999 and appears to have been written solely by Reid-Daly. I have not read that book, but it appears I need to pick it up.

My copy is with someone else as well, who is enjoying the tales of audacity demonstrated by that band of warrios.

EDITED TO ADD: There is a text within the SWJ Reference Library that I just pulled up, concerning pseudo operations. I'm halfway through it and the issues for consideration are on point, making it a required read for anyone exploring the possibilities of pseudo ops to "mirror" insurgents/terrorists, or just gain other TTPs in dealing with detained/captured individuals.

http://www.smallwarsjournal.com/documents/cline.pdf

Tom Odom
05-04-2006, 04:48 PM
Wow. I never cease to wonder at how small our world is. Cline as indicated in his bio was CENTCOM and J2 branch, JCS while I was in Army G2. And we are both NPS and UNTSO alumni.


The paper is quite good and to the point. There were other pseudo ops; Yugoslavia in WWII, in naval warfare it is almost a tradition, I believe post WWII Greece also saw some play, I also believe the French did some in Indochina with mixed results (that may account for their avoiding such ops in Algeria). In any case, pseudo ops really seem like a military counterpart to informant ops on the police side, albeit with a more direct action mission. What I really like about this paper is it makes key points on negative effects (yep, I used the "e" word :eek: ).

Once again hats off to Dave and Bill for the SWJ library.

Tom

Larry Dunbar
05-04-2006, 06:04 PM
Mirroring one's enemy happened in a way during the Rhodesian conflict. A read of the texts describing pseudo-operations, conducted by the Selous Scouts, describes the path the Rhodesian Security Forces took to "turn" terrorists for the purpose of gaining tactical intelligence about the enemy. In several cases, "turned" terrorists were integrated into the Scouts' formations and employed in the field to allow them to get within hands-reach of the small terrorist gangs.

"Mirroring", if not employed in accordance with the precepts of the Law of War, poses significant risks. Could the Iraqi Security Forces become the death squads of the M.E.? Would their actions put a stink on the coalition forces that trained and outfitted them?

Just my $.02

When you hear the words "Death squads" it is a safe bet that "mirroring' is not the strategy being deployed. Death squads are an attempt to reorient your enemy into your way of thinking.

While mirroring is called a destructive strategy (ultimately what you want to do is become kinetic with your enemy) trust is the most important factor. Once you know your enemy, you have to trust your enemy to act exactly how you think they will. Because the enemy is fighting you, you also have to give your enemy complete trust. If the enemy knows you as a death squad dealing S.O.B. then you have to act like one. If the enemy knows you as a fair and moral person, you have to maintain that also.

To break out of a mirroring strategy, trust has to be broken. I think part of Sherman's march through the South was an attempt (I think successful) to break an army who was mirroring his. Leaving a scorched earth was not an American implicit rule that we would normally follow. It was effective, but we did, and, it might be said, we still are paying a price for it.

SWJED
05-07-2006, 07:16 PM
I haven't had the time to go through this site (hasn't been updated since 2003) - I offer it up FYI - The Selous Scouts (http://members.tripod.com/selousscouts/home_page.htm).

Larry Dunbar
05-08-2006, 11:32 PM
Quote: "The two major models of pseudo-operations are as intelligence collectors or as operators for direct action missions”.

Cline, like myself, didn’t fully understand the major models of pseudo-operations. I believe he didn’t divide the mission of pseudo-operations correctly. Cline’s two models are mostly one and the same. When pseudo-operations perform intelligence collecting, they are mostly using that information to carry out kinetic strikes against the enemy either directly as operators or indirectly as information gatherers for the military. Therefore I prefer to divide their functions into three major areas. They perform as re-orientation units, as intelligence collectors, and as operators for direct action missions.

Maybe the military doesn’t recognize these units as having this function of re-orientation or they don’t understand re-orientation, but their success rate for converting the insurgents to the government’s side seems extraordinary. While 4 or 5 converts don’t sound like very many, their conversion represents what is needed for a successful PISRR movement. PISRR is an acronym for Penetrate, Isolate, Subvert, Reorient, and Reharmonize. This is a natural constructive process as described by Col. Boyd.

When operating as intelligence collectors, pseudo-operators are mainly collecting information to get inside the orientation and decision making loop of the insurgency. Once inside they can mirror the insurgency and destroy them. This is the same loop that Col. Boyd also described as an Observation, Orientation, Decision-making, and Acting loop (OODA). The loop runs from the high potential and low kinetic energy of observation to the low potential and high kinetic energy of Act. The Act phase is usually carried out by latter military action. Death squads are not really part of an OODA loop, but are part of the Reorientation phase inside a PISRR loop.

As a Reorientation unit, the pseudo-operator’s goal is to bring the insurgency or the general public into the government’s way of thinking, or at least away from the insurgency’s. As the article showed, this can be done directly to the insurgents (converts) or to the general population that the insurgents operate in. This is part of Boyd’s PISRR loop or movement. The movement starts from the high kinetic and low potential energy that Penetrate represents, and moves to the low kinetic and high potential energy of Reharmonize. When the society is Reharmonized, to the will of the government, there is a strong political structure holding it together. While it does take a physical structure to hold a society together, it is really the ideas (implicit laws) of the society that keep it working. I call these ideas (because they have no mass) potential energy.

This reorientation movement, as it relates to pseudo-operations, either “turns” the insurgents and bringing them into the pseudo-operations directly, or the pseudo-operators can bring terror and uncertainty into the general populace, bending the general populace to the government’s will or at least bending it against the insurgency. Because the insurgency needs the general population to survive, bending the general population to the government’s will (Subverting and Isolating) has a direct effect on the insurgency. Of course, as been noted, when used with pseudo-operations the effect may not be the desired one.

While Col. Boyd described OODA and its mirror image PISRR as loops, I describe them as movements. To me they represent a movement of energy per second. But energy is divided into two types: potential and kinetic. We are a combination of both, our legs move us but our brains tell us when to move, where to move, and how much to move. While in military terms kinetic energy usually means bombs or bullets, in physics terms it can mean the movement of any mass, which includes soldiers. Potential energy is the enabler of all movement. Politics is basically potential energy. Depending on what you are trying to accomplish, either destruction or constructive, it generally takes one of these two loops.

If you are nation building, you destroy your opponent’s forces, then try to Reharmonize the society into a form that you are able to live with (I believe this takes lots of troops, because you have to reorient the parts of the society that enables it to physicallyfunction. After Isolating Saddam, We should have reorient the civilian leadership not let it go). This is what the PISRR movement tries to accomplish.

An OODA movement starts when an adversary confronts you. Once you observe your enemy, the collecting of the information that is needed to destroy him begins. Then you orient yourself to the best position, either politically or physically, to destroy your enemy. The decision is made as to your course of action and you act. This generally doesn’t take that many troops because accuracy counts and it is usually easier to break something than repair it.

Because I have no knowledge of how the US military actually works, I can only speak in general terms. Generally speaking, I believe we used a PISRR movement in the Philippines with the use of US trained Philippine troops. North Vietnam used an OODA loop against us. The release of kinetic energy, or Act, happened as the tanks of the North Vietnam army rolled into the streets of the South Vietnam capitol and our guys hung on to helicopters leaving our embassy.

Like someone else said, this is just my .02 cents, thanks.

jcustis
05-09-2006, 12:24 AM
Those are very thought provoking words Mr. Dunbar. I would love to be a fly on the wall if coalition forces are at all going throught the process of turning terrorists and employing them side-by-side with our formations.

NDD
05-13-2006, 10:47 PM
Posts numbers 3 and 5 in this thread are two of the best comments on the subject I have ever seen on the internet.

Shek
05-18-2006, 05:59 PM
It would be great if we could develop an officer corp in our military that could adapt to their environment instead of the dogmatic doctrinal officer corp we have now. We're still producing the same officers we produced out of West Point in the Civil War, and unfortunately more Westmorelands.

Bill,
I don't think that this is necessarily the case. Unlike the Cold War where we were fighting a known enemy on the European battlefield, and hence we had a strong institution functional fixedness on this scenario, today's fight in Iraq/Afghanistan isn't seen as a distraction from the "real thing", but rather as the "real thing" and the main effort for years to come. As such, I think the younger generation of officers, my peers, for the most part has taken to this new operating environment as what will be relevant. I'm sure you've seen this SSI monograph that lends some credence to this viewpoint:

http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/PUB411.pdf

Furthermore, I would argue that the grassroots creation of companycommander.com and platoonleader.org also demonstrate a strong desire from this generation of officers to adapt to the environment.

Lastly, I would suggest that what the Army is currently doing with the Expanded Graduate School Program is a huge step in the right direction. I believe that a pre-commissioning program can only take you so far. However, the opportunity to take a "break" to attend graduate school and reflect on real experience and study an area of interest will only serve to create an officer corps that has a greater depth of knowledge with exposure to thoughts outside of the institutional Army that they can then integrate back into the Army. Programs such as this will reinforce the need to think and adapt to the environment rather than just react to the stimuli presented in the more rigid task, conditions, standards construct of training that was well suited to the Soviet threat, but not as effective for training for the COIN environment.

SWJED
05-18-2006, 06:40 PM
Spot on Shek… We (SWJ/SWC) have permission to reprint Marine Corps Gazette articles... That said, we are very selective as not to abuse that permission.

I was saving this article for Volume V of the Small Wars Journal Magazine where we will be featuring 4-5 original Small Wars-related articles written by students attending this years' Marine Corps Command and Staff College.

I am sure the other services are making similar adjustments to their PME curriculum – I offer this article up as I am most familiar with the Corps’ efforts. Lastly, my day-job allows for interaction with U.S. and Coalition officers working Small Wars and urban operations issues. There is truly a corps of “Iron Majors” (metaphor for “not-so-senior workhorses” – officer and enlisted) that GET IT.

Educating for the Future (http://www.smallwarsjournal.com/documents/toolan.pdf) by Colonel John Toolan (USMC) and Dr. Charles McKenna. Marine Corps Gazette, February 2006.


... During the past 2 years veterans of Operations ENDURING FREEDOM and IRAQI FREEDOM (OIF) have challenged the limited treatment of Irregualr Warfare and were looking for greater understanding regarding interagency operations, cultural intelligence, and improved campaign design techniques. These officers were immersed in both the planning and conduct of very complex operations that confronted our PME programs. The faculty at CSC, urged by Marine Corps leadership, set out to reexamine what we did and why we did it. The results included improving the warfighting portion of the curriculum, especially in the area of planning; increasing emphasis on culture and interagency operations; and teaching Arabic to our students, all without compromising either CSC's JPME or SACS accreditations. And all adjustments were to begin in academic year 2005-06 (AY05-06). CSC formed an operational planning team, energized it with clear guidance, and proceeded to examine the curriculum from top to bottom. The results of that examination, approved by the Marine Corps University Curriculum Board, led to a significantly different CSC curriculum, both in method and content-a curriculum that remained entirely consistent with the university's curriculum linkages of warfighting studies, professional studies, leadership studies, communications studies, and cross-cultural studies...

On Edit: Looking for posts on all U.S. Service and Coalition / multinational partner's efforts concerning Professional Military Education - in-house and civilian... Also, anything our Interagency (U.S. and multinational) partners are doing along these lines...

Bill Moore
05-19-2006, 06:39 AM
Shek, we obviously have many talented officers, but I still have bared witness to "several" officers at Bn level and higher that simply don't understand their operational environment. This isn't a manner of professional disagreement with an approach, these are guys who simply want to apply fire power to a problem and have no understanding of using other tools to infuence the population. For lack of a better term they're "simple", and in a complex world simple doesn't cut it. Perhaps dogmatic was too strong a term, and a more accurate describtion would be that they have a cultural bias towards certain approaches to solving the problem, and are not open to more effective approaches. I think the up and coming generation of officers (hopefully many of you will stay in) are our shinning hope for the future, but the challenge is sustaining until we have a generational change in our ranks. One BDE Cdr can lose the war for us, just like one SPC in Abu Grab lost a strategic IO battle for us.

Shek
05-19-2006, 04:13 PM
Shek, we obviously have many talented officers, but I still have bared witness to "several" officers at Bn level and higher that simply don't understand their operational environment. This isn't a manner of professional disagreement with an approach, these are guys who simply want to apply fire power to a problem and have no understanding of using other tools to infuence the population. For lack of a better term they're "simple", and in a complex world simple doesn't cut it. Perhaps dogmatic was too strong a term, and a more accurate describtion would be that they have a cultural bias towards certain approaches to solving the problem, and are not open to more effective approaches. I think the up and coming generation of officers (hopefully many of you will stay in) are our shinning hope for the future, but the challenge is sustaining until we have a generational change in our ranks. One BDE Cdr can lose the war for us, just like one SPC in Abu Grab lost a strategic IO battle for us.

Bill,
I'm tracking now and agree with you that this is an issue, having seen the same firsthand (it was a world of difference working with 4ID vs 101ABNDIV in Iraq). I don't think that there's a quick fix since we were/are fighting with officers who have been promoted for the most part based on their success in fighting a conventional enemy at NTC/JRTC/CMTC with maybe some LIC exposure.

To try and counteract this cultural bias will require the likes of Pertraeus and Chiarelli to be repeated, i.e. rewarding and promoting officers who have shown a competence for the environment and have thus been thrust into prominent command positions (command of CAC and MNC-I) and offered as role models. By putting the right leaders into the right positions, you will have more specified guidance on conduct in the COIN environment (e.g. look at the series of articles about the subtle yet significant changes in the ROE being made by LTG Chiarelli), thereby limiting the ability of those commanders that you refer to that eschew any semblance of "hearts and minds" from pursuing strictly "kinetic" solutions.

I think this is one of those lessons that hopefully we've learned from Vietnam - we need to reward the right officers, to include those that are training the ISF and have shown a knack for COIN, and in doing so, will persuade those who don't buy into the intellectual arguments for COIN principles through the need to adapt in order survive within the new command climate to get promoted.

jcustis
05-30-2006, 04:05 PM
http://www.galago.co.za/orders.htm

Galago Press seems to have finally gotten it's website offerings squared away, and softcover editions are available for $30.00 US, including surface mail shipping.

I highly recommend snatching up a volume if you can. From a TTP perspective, the lessons are invaluable, even though the AO was very different from where the US currently operates.

TROUFION
07-01-2006, 08:15 PM
The similiarity to the maneuver vs attrition arguments of the 80's and 90's is striking. As with the old argument the answer lies in the grey middle somewhere. You cannot exploit maneuver without attrition and vice versa, exclusion of one for the other doesn't work. Same with the symmetries. A dogmatic answer in favor of either is wrongheaded. In COIN there are times when the SOF 'symmetrical' team can make great utiliy out of the asymmetric Rifle Company, M1A2 Platoon or JDAM CAS. The trick is finding the proper balance through an 'empathetic' understanding of the battlefield.

This article is on the right track seeking the nuanced approach bottom up.

Neilg
07-04-2006, 07:38 PM
Sorry folks tried to write about the Britsh build - up Aden Ireland etc but I had to cut it.


Belfast in 1971 to 72 a small city by comparison, ;;;;;;



As terrorists the IRA were in a class of their own and they were to become the grand masters of urban guerrilla warfare.
Operating on the streets there was the constant apprehension, was your cover being exposed, then a phobia of passing a potential bomb or booby trap, hidden explosives in cycle frames, rubbish bins, prams, drain pipes, and under pavements waiting for you to pass then the remote was depressed. The car bomb was said to be initiated in the province by the then Belfast Brigade commander; Seamus Toomey a devastating terror tactic that also killed many civilians as well as soldiers. Other terror tactics evolved, nails imbedded in lumps of gelignite, pipe bombs, blast bombs and the petrol bomb, all made regular appearances.
Then there was the prospect of getting shot, from a rifle or submachine gun, from close range from a pistol as you walked down the street with the mussel less than an inch away from the back of the head. Shootings were never straightforward never a high noon shoot out, and no quick draw with double taps at multiple targets; it was ambush and counter ambush. One form of IRA urban attack in built-up streets would be the ‘cowboy’ attack where a lookout would signal the right moment and a gunman would stick his machinegun around a corner and blaze away and hope for a hit without even having to expose his own body. At other times snipers would shoot through several sets of windows in adjacent houses just as the target passed the furthest away window bearing a small marking cross made of tape at head height. The sniper would get a signal as the soldier passed the marker and fire. A guy you knew, worked and trained with would go down with half his head missing. Sometimes a gunman would loose off a magazine at a target, and then a back up would snatch the weapon and move it away sometimes even hidden in a baby’s pram. The back-ups were kids, wives, mother, and all terrorists. Sometimes a gunman would drop the weapon and make his escape by dashing to an open ‘friend's’ house and sit down to a ‘prepared’ half eaten meal. It looked like he had been there for hour, a ready made alibi.
Then you had the traps; most of these were set for the infantry; the foot patrols. Walking around at night the grunts got bored one trick they used to snare the patrol was to find a house with a good ambush site then get a young good-looking girl to make believe she lived there and to undress in a well-lit window with the knowledge she would attract the attention of the patrol. The word would get around then eventually at one of her acts a burst of machine gun fire or a bomb aimed at the patrol would cut short the performance.
But you had to learn; you learnt to spot the signs between the traps and the tricks, the real and the hoax bombs that ran in a ratio of 20 hoax’s to every real bomb. You knew the signs that meant a shooting was about to happen and you learn when you could be the target. You had to learn the tricks and you had to learn quickly, you learnt that when they let of an explosive devise in an empty street if you did the obvious then you headed straight into an ambush. If you didn’t recognise the signs you died. . But most of all you learnt that in places like Belfast you never become complacent, complacency was not recommended as an operational technique for this type of warfare.

Riots became a twin problem; you could handle the bricks, rock or the bottles, but mainly you listen for the audio signal that would tell the crowd to dispel instantly. This was the time you took cover and looked for the sniper who was about to fire. You had times when the mob suddenly close in on a security patrol as they entered a street, the mob would bang dustbin lids and made a noise loud enough to cause confusion; it broke command and disorientated the six man uniformed patrol; the mob would hide the gunman then help him escape.

At times you found the bodies, the kidnap victims who had been tortured, the unlucky ones that died a horrifying death and ended up stuffed in a car boot along with a booby trap. The news the next day simple said “a body of a man was found dead in central Belfast police are treating it as murder” the politicians preferred it that way. The lucky ones got away with kneecapping a term to describe punishment shootings, a bullet though each kneecap it allowed them to live but to limp about for the rest of their lives. For us it was another learning phase it taught don’t get caught, no surrender.
These tactics weren’t described in British Army training manuals, we learnt the hard way and this meant some people dying.
Another thing you notice, Soldiers who have tried to stop there friends from bleeding to death will never again fall asleep during first aid lectures.
When the shooting start you know you have been continually trained for what is happening but for some people it is hard for them to accept, a street that looks like any other street in England, the people are dressed the same and speak the same language but they are people acting with a psychopathic insanity. You have two options when it happens and the first thing you may see is one of your guys blown apart; you either freeze or try to believe it’s not happening and you die or your training clicks in and natural reactions follow and you engage; if it is a single sniper you do a fast follow up to get close enough to retaliate you never stand still. If it is an ambush you consolidate find better cover even if it means kicking the door or a house in and throwing the occupant out. You radio for a quick reaction force. If you hear the banging of garbage can lids. You know that this is what calls the ghetto occupants onto the streets a riot made to order designed to stop help getting to you. If you’re in Uniform you may have a chance with the rifle to keep them away, undercover you have to shoot civilians, women and teenage kids to get out. There is no hands up, no surrender, no prisoners of war if you are caught you are murdered. Since the seventies we have came to Belfast and went operation after operation, the IRA has changed from terrorists to ‘freedom fighters’, and we conveniently overlook their record of the past 32 years with 1,700 people murdered, including 600 innocent people who just happened to be in the way! For the security forces 720 deaths have been sustained with many thousands injured, many of who will never recover fully! Belfast was the place where you learnt the rules.

Ray
08-01-2006, 07:19 AM
An interesting thread on Counter Insurgency (CI).

I will confess that I have not been able to read the 28 articles and therefore, these are but some thoughts that I proffer since I have experience in CI as also have spoken to officers and men who were at the Counter Insurgency and Jungle Warfare School (CIJW School) of the Indian Army (IA) when some US troops had gone there to train and understand CI as is being practiced in the Indian Army.

Obviously, it does not mean that the thoughts that I am penning can be applicable in other circumstance around the world, including the fact that the national psychology and training of different armies differ. With that rider, one should view my thoughts. Merely professionally.

From the posts, one is led to surmise that the aim of CI is to "kill" the insurgent. Indeed it is so i.e. kill the insurgent/ terrorist. But if I may say, it should not appear as if done with "vengeance" and "anger" (for the want of a better words) that is evident. Even in the CIJW School, it was felt that the US troops adopted a "shoot first and then question" attitude when put through some simulated practical scenarios.

There was a good reason for the "shoot first and then ask questions" format. Unlike the IA which undertakes CI on its own soil and hence cannot afford civilian casualties or collateral damage, the US troops fights on foreign soil and thus their priority is to save American lives i.e. their soldiers at all cost and then worry about civilians/ terrorists. However, either way the Human Rights and the world press can havoc any CI action and make a mountain of a mole hill. Again, here the US is at an advantage because being a superpower as also being a benefactor to many a nation, the outrage, if any, is muted. But, nonetheless, embarrassing. India for reasons that need not be elaborated being obvious is not so endowed.

Yet, professionally speaking, there is no doubt that one has to win the "hearts and minds", even if it has been reduced to the level of a cliche alone! Therefore, any CI action must not appear to be that of vengeance and instead amd eto appears as a mere law and order issue and not even a military one. It must appear mundane as it would be in normal life. No brouhaha and no glorification of the event, either locally or in the media through the official spokesman. The desire to publicise the "victory" will only alienate the people as if an occupation army has come to subjugate the locals. Shooting indiscriminately and causing collateral damage and civilian casualties also only achieves to alienates the people. All efforts must be made to keep it to the minimum.

Another issue that must be borne in mind is that all civilians are not terrorists or terrorist sympathiser. They actually have no option. The terrorists will kill them if they do not cooperate, but the govt forces are not indiscriminate and believe in the legal aspects and hence do not kill wantonly. Further, human rights organisations will gun for the govt troops while they leave the terrorists alone and this add to the bad image which is exploited by the terrorists and the media for propaganda.

Another issue that is forgotten is that genuine civic action should be done instead of cosmetic stuff. It is important that it appears not something to be seen, but that the action is actually to alleviate a local problem. Indian Army's Operation Sadbhavan has proved to be roaring success.

Even civic action that is being done should not look as if it is a "dole" or a "gift". It is condescending (at least in the Oriental mindset). What one should do is give the civilians the stuff and make them do it themselves with technical advice and engineering stores and plant thrown in. Since they construct the stuff, they will protect their Love's labour and feel proud of the same. It will go a long way in accepting the presence of the Army and will also win their confidence wherein they would be more cooperative with the Army.

The idea of having insurgents who surrender as counter insurgents has been successfully practiced in India. We call them "Ikhwanis". However, since they live within the community, they have to be protected. If they are not well paid, they turn extortionists and then the whole exercise is ruined.

Lastly, where all goes wrong (including as experienced in India) is that we don't bone up on the culture and traditions of the locals where there is the insurgency. This is very essential so as to not offend their sensibilities. Likewise, knowing the local language is absolutely essential. Interpreters need not interpret correctly for a variety of reasons.

Just a few thoughts.

nichols
08-01-2006, 01:20 PM
The essential requirement now is to extend this attitude to other types of missions, cultures and environments. Especially helpful would be joint missions, where third party forces ally with and oppose US units.

This is because we have devised (through decades of effort) realistic ways of simulating a maneuver war against a thinking, freely acting enemy.



Joining the discussion late...

This is exactly where the Marine Corps is heading with simulations as part of the Deployable Virtual Training Environment. We just started a contract for the next generation TDS. The requirement doc is 138k, to large to attach so here's some highlights:

The VTK shall provide three levels of editor modules:

• Content Management Editor for TECOM and PMTRASYS only.
• Simulation Center Editor
• Scenario Designer Editor

The control of the editors shall be through a Graphical User Interface (GUI), which shall be simplistic in nature utilizing, sliders, scrollbars, numerical values, and toggle radio buttons. Editors will provide the trainer with the tools needed to shape the training scenario by creating individual Marine, OPFOR, Civilian and Animals and placing them in teams, units, mobs and herds. The editors will also be used to create maps and modify existing maps for use in the TDS and to create the conditions of the training scenario The editor shall be selectable to any or the following forces: Bluefor, OpFor, Host Nation or noncombatants.

• Activity Editor: To task simulation generated avatars and objects in the simulation general operating parameters
• Map Selection: Select the map on which the mission will be set.
• Unit Placement: Designate deployment areas and place the units assigned to the mission on the map.
• Trigger Placement: Triggers are a series of conditions and actions that can be assigned to a mission. When a trigger condition is met, then the action is performed. Triggers can help tailor the scenario to a particular storyline. The AI will also use triggers, especially map based triggers, as planning tools. The designer will select from a list of conditions and actions, or effects, to create a trigger.
• Operational Settings : One of the many functions of the mission editor is the ability to specify initial deployment zones, pre-plotted artillery strikes (if any), game time limit, engagement type, and other general option.
• Number of Players: Specify the number of users to be supported in the designed mission.
•Fog of War Specify the following games settings:
Always See the Enemy
Only See Enemy in User’s LOS
Fading Enemy if no longer in LOS (last known position)
See Enemy in Allied LOS
Units Always Obey Orders
• Fire Support: Specify what type of fire support missions and how many of each missions will be available to each user.
• Save Mission: Save the edited or newly created mission with a unique file name.
• Load Mission: Load an existing mission and edit it in the Mission editor.

3.1.3.3.3 Scenario Designer Weapons editor

The Weapons editor shall provide the means for the player to select from a list of ‘like forces’ weapons and arm the team as desired, limiting each team member to one shoulder-fired weapon. In addition a player will be able to select from other tools to include a compass, binos, GPS, thermal sights, and lasing equipment. Refer to Appendix A for a minimum list of available weapons. Enemy players will be able to chose from a list of asymmetric threat weapons to include Vehicle borne IED’s that cause the appropriate damage to structures, vehicles, and personnel. The editor gives the ability to set the basic load for ammunition for each weapon system.

3.1.3.3.4 Scenario Designer Psychological and Physical editors

The Psychological and Physical editors shall be scaleable from 1 to 10 to adjust the team member’s mental and physical health respectively. For example, a team member’s physical attribute may be adjusted from 10 (very alert and rested) to 1 (drifting in and out of sleep) by using an adjustable slider.

3.1.3.3.5 Scenario Designer Artificial Intelligence Editor

Allow the AI to be altered to modify the computer-opponent’s behavior to be more aggressive or less sophisticated in the types of attacks it undertakes, as examples. For instance, Iraqis at the beginning of the war fought as organized armies, using traditional weapons and tactics. Later, they fought as mobs and now fight as skilled guerillas. The AI Editor, shall allow the Scenario Designer to tailor the computer opponent’s behavior for each of these types of warfare.


3.1.3.3.6 Instructor Controller Station

Allows an Instructor (scenario designer) to task simulation generated avatars and objects in the simulation general operating parameters (for instance, loiter in a given area) or (go to a location at a given time and perform a specific act.) In addition, items can be designated and function as IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices), VBIEDs (Vehicle-Based IEDs) or as non-threatening. During game play an instructor has the capability to jump into and control various characters in the game. Have the ability to switch between multiple fixed site positions while in free camera mode (I.e., have multiple locations of interest and be able to transition between them using a pick list.)

And my favorite:

Application Program Interface (API) that allows third party AI to be imported by end user.

This is where we place the DIME PMESII segue.

jcustis
08-23-2006, 02:55 PM
Assuming Naylor's account below, and in the following link, is true, these soldiers appear to have really worked COIN well, given their disposition, strength, and resources. The article is very much worth a full and slow read, as their are valuable TTPs embedded. Perhaps the good Captain has read Kilcullen?


By Sean Naylor for the Army times

Liberating Anah

How Apache Company freed an Iraqi city from the grip of a terrorist cell


ANAH, Iraq — insurgents had freely waged a two-year reign of terror on this sleepy, affluent Sunni city of 30,000. They blew up the police station and chased out the nascent police force. They murdered the chairman of the city council and cowed the local populace.

members of Jama’at Al Tawid Al Jihad, known as the JTJ or Group of Monotheism and Jihad — a branch of al-Qaida in Iraq — settled in. This city in central Anbar province came to serve as a convenient sanctuary and way station for fighters going southeast to the real action in Ramadi, Fallujah and Baghdad.

But about 20 kilometers outside Anah, a Stryker squadron commander determined it was time to end the insurgents’ grip on Anah.

Lt. Col. Mark Freitag, commander of the 4th Squadron, 14th Cavalry Regiment, installed a Stryker infantry company in a combat outpost just outside Anah in late March. The grunts of Apache Company, 4th Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment, attached to Task Force 4-14, took aggressive action against the insurgents, whose leaders made a move to regain the initiative: They dispatched a shadowy commander named Abu Hamza to take charge of the insurgency in Anah.

The stage was set for a showdown here on the south bank of the Euphrates River.

Steep learning curve

The 131 troops of Apache Company assumed responsibility for Anah and the nearby village of Reyanah on Feb. 2 while still based in Rawah. Theirs was to be a steep learning curve. No coalition forces had been stationed in Anah since the 2003 invasion, and the JTJ was used to having the run of the town.

A few weeks before Apache took over, Freitag himself had detained Sheikh Qatada Sa’ad Tehsin, the city council chairman, for his support of the JTJ. On Feb. 17, the JTJ struck back, gunning down Qatada’s replacement, Sheikh Noori Abdul Fatah Askar, on his way to prayers. Noori was also the senior Anah representative of the Islamic Party, a bitter enemy of the JTJ, and the JTJ blamed him for Qatada’s demise.

Soon thereafter, the city council stopped meeting with Apache troops. “Intimidation was a huge factor in their decision to step away from the table,” said Capt. Matthew Albertus, Apache Company’s commander.

It soon became clear that if Albertus was to have any chance of reversing trends in Anah, he needed to position forces closer to the action. Freitag ordered the establishment of Combat Outpost Anah beside a major intersection just north of the city.

From there, Apache could monitor the main road to Rawah, a favorite insurgent location for roadside bombs. Albertus’ 2nd Platoon and a company-sized Iraqi army element moved in March 25. Albertus also re-established contact with the council, seeking out the members individually.

On April 10, in conjunction with the police training team from TF 4-14, a Stryker unit based in Rawah, Apache held a one-day recruiting drive for local police.Police are the first line of defense in any counterinsurgency campaign, and JTJ’s defeat of the previous attempt to establish a police presence had allowed the insurgents free reign in Anah.


http://www.armytimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-2052517.php

slapout9
08-23-2006, 06:49 PM
Jcustis, great post. I love success stories which are far to few. I love network diagrams too. There is another way to do this which I was taught years ago. It was called the 3F's. Every suspect is connected in 3 ways. Family,Friends, and Finances. Who is related to who, who is friends with who and who pays who.

When I started in LE we didn't have laptops to print out diagrams so we did them by hand. 3x5 cards with photo's or drew them with traffic accident templates. Any time we had contact with anyone we tried to fit them into the overall crime (family) organization. The hidden enemy became visible. Also strange individual actions began to make sense when looked at in the context of protecting the group, gang or crime family. The bigger the network the better your chance of finding informants or exploiting an arrest situation to create an informant.

We also added an unofficial 4th F. Who is F****** who. If I ever found an x-girlfriend or wife it was a gold mine of information because of the revenge motive. I don't know if this would work in Iraq but it was very useful in the US.

Ray
08-23-2006, 08:12 PM
Slapout,

That is some education for me. The "F" stuff of yours.

With your permission I will pass it off to my friends.

They maybe practising it, but it is not formalised.

Though the last "F" I had put into action once , when they had ambushed a patrol as also blew up the tyres of a Caspir and it worked.

slapout9
08-23-2006, 09:05 PM
Go ahead Ray, if it helps you give it a try.

RTK
08-28-2006, 12:25 AM
After having the great pleasure of spending some time with both David Kilcullen and John Nagl this week, the following question was born out of a few beers. After hearing both of their responses I'm curious to see the perspective of the forum. The question is...

Given David Galula's estimate that defeating an insurgency is 80% political and 20% military and Dave Kilcullen's statement that maintaining the initiative is imperitive in COIN, how should a company commander or below find the balance between kinetic and non-kinetic operations?

RTK
08-28-2006, 01:31 AM
Assuming Naylor's account below, and in the following link, is true, these soldiers appear to have really worked COIN well, given their disposition, strength, and resources. The article is very much worth a full and slow read, as their are valuable TTPs embedded. Perhaps the good Captain has read Kilcullen?



http://www.armytimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-2052517.php

I don't know if the A Company commander has read Kilcullen, but both Dave Kilcullen and LTC John Nagl pointed this cat out as a good role model for other aspiring commanders this week at the Armor Captain's Course.

While interviewing LTC Nagl for companycommand.com yesterday he pointed this article out as a sterling example for other commanders to emulate.

There is no better stamp of approval in COIN than LTC John Nagl. More proof, espcially within a cloud of changing doctrine, that example is better than precept.

jcustis
08-28-2006, 03:39 PM
Given David Galula's estimate that defeating an insurgency is 80% political and 20% military and Dave Kilcullen's statement that maintaining the initiative is imperitive in COIN, how should a company commander or below find the balance between kinetic and non-kinetic operations?


Althought the enemy often determines the balance, I firmly believe that unless one studies and plans for the range of COIN options available, they are guaranteed to be stuck in a cycle of kinetic options alone. The same holds true for the 80% political adherent who refuses to believe that there are bad guys who simply need to be put six feet under.

Even when a unit goes kinetic, it must follow that with non-kinetic engagement (IO, HA, etc.), or it condemns itself to waiting for, and then reacting to, the next kinetic event. Units that do "just enough to get by and get home," are the most guilty. There are occupational hazards to what we do, and although we can only mitigate the risk but so much, it doesn't mean that we should shy away from an operation or activity because of those hazards. We achieve balance when kinetic and non-kinetic ops are blended seamlessly as part of a campaign plan. An example would be planning for displaced persons, civilian casualties, or compensation payments as part of a cordon and search operation. It takes work, but can be accomplished at the company level.

To truly succeed, I think commanders have to win the hearts and minds of their men, train to as many relevant kinetic and non-kinetic tasks as possible, and clearly define conditions for success, long before deployment begins. If that means they spend extra training time perfecting the battle drill for a snap VCP, in order to reduce the risk to civilians and friendly forces, then so be it. If he invests the time in developing his company's own IO and intel cells, even better.

There are going to be plenty of times, however, when HHQ prevent a commander from achieving a balance, by pushing poorly written FRAGO. I've seen a brigade one that called for continuous, near-deliberate VCPs as part of shaping operations. It was very particular about set locations, and didn't take into account the fact that after a short time in one location, a VCP is likely to be targetted. Then there was the time during a relief-in-place between my TF (coming from far west Al Anbar) and another that had been operating in an AO between Ramadi and Fallujah. I listened to a battalion commander state very clearly "we don't go down in that part of the AO [meaning vehicle patrols], because you're guaranteed to get IED'd." I couldn't believe what I was hearing, because it was apparent that the threat of IEDs against vehicles had shaped operations, and therefore meant no one had been in an area that had the potential to harbor insurgents. Inability to dismount effectively had reduced their options, and the unit wasn't even able to entertain the idea of non-kinetic fires in what eventually turned out to be a zone ready for CA action.

Denying enemy freedom of maneuver doesn't always require constant physical presence, and a commander can employ non-kinetic fires as an economy of force measure. I don't think enough commanders are being imaginative in that regard.

RANT OFF...

How does achieving a balance tie into doctrine, training, and education? I summed it up once in a discussion with a peer about homestation training. I've expanded on the list since the original conversation, but it follows as such...THE IDEAL COMPANY COMMANDER IN COIN:

-He and his subordinate leaders have read the new COIN pubs, and the pages are dog-eared

-In addition to reading his branch's professional journal (e.g. Armor Magazine) he reads open source newsletters from the civil affairs and PSYOP communities

-Kilcullen's 28 articles are posted and reviewed by all in the unit

-He has studied the actions in Tal Afar, and has formed his own conclusions

-He has driven his men to master 50-60 control words in Arabic

-He and his subordinate leaders have read the CALL products on tactical interrogation, and working with translators/interpreters

-He has stayed current on the political and military/paramilitary (IA, IP, etc.) fabric of Iraq.

-He understands the difference between Shi'a and Sunni, and the tribal ties that can cut across religious lines

-He has reached out to local law enforcement to get informal training on how organized crime networks work, and TTPs for breaking them up

-He has sat in on several town council/county government meetings, and watched the dynamics at work, with an eye towards understanding why certain moderators succeed and others fail

-He understand the targeting process/cycle, and has hand-picked individuals to serve in his ad hoc intel and IO cells

-He has set bravado aside and understands that he and his men must respect the enemy, lest they become complacent

-He is disciplined in documenting those things he has done to prepare for the fight. It may be a journal, AAr, etc., but it starts before deployment and serves as a tool to pass on to those that follow

This list could probably go on for a while, but I believe strongly that without a degree of depth in the areas mentioned above, company commanders will be condemned to a cycle of reaction and have very little to show for it at the end.

Ray
09-22-2006, 07:46 PM
Maj. Bob Risdon, who designed the exercises for the U.S. Army's 1st Battalion, 21st Infantry Regiment, said U.S. troops could learn from how Indian forces requested homeowners to lead them on searches of their homes. They were less intrusive in searching people's homes and cars, a tactic that could help when troops are trying to earn the trust of the local population, he said.

"You can figure out a lot about people that way, too. You can figure out if they're trying to hide something," Risdon said.

Lt. Col. Matt Kelley, the 1st Battalion commander, said the way Indians ambushed and disarmed two insurgents impressed him. American troops, in the same drill, simply shot and killed the men, he said.

"They've just gained huge intelligence value from that — instead of killing them, they've captured them," Kelley said. "All our guys said whoa — we'd never do that. We could do it."

Singh, the Indian army commander, said he valued the heightened reality of the U.S. designed exercises, which forced troops to react quickly and rely on their reflexes.

http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2006/Sep/18/ln/FP609180355.html

Jedburgh
09-22-2006, 09:55 PM
...U.S. troops could learn from how Indian forces requested homeowners to lead them on searches of their homes. They were less intrusive in searching people's homes and cars, a tactic that could help when troops are trying to earn the trust of the local population...
An exercise is an exercise; although certainly of value, the lessons learned have to be understood within the narrow context of that exercise. On the other hand, operations in Jammu and Kashmir offer plenty of valuable lessons (mostly negative) that are worth taking the time to study. India would do well to maintain consistency with the tactics they used in this exercise in Hawaii when on their home turf...

India: Impunity Fuels Conflict in Jammu and Kashmir (http://hrw.org/reports/2006/india0906/india0906webwcover.pdf)

...Over the years a conflict over Kashmiri identity and independence has slowly but visibly mutated into an even more dangerous fight under the banner of religion, pitting Islam against Hinduism, and drawing religious radicals into its heart. Indian security forces claim they are fighting to protect Kashmiris from militants and Islamist extremists, while militants claim they are fighting for Kashmiri independence and to defend Muslim Kashmiris from a murderous Indian Army. In reality, both sides have committed widespread and numerous human rights abuses and violations of international humanitarian law (the laws of war), creating among the civilian population a pervasive climate of fear, distrust, and sadness.

In this report we document serious abuses, especially the targeting of civilians, by both government forces and militants in Jammu and Kashmir. Those abuses continue, despite a tentative peace process that includes talks between New Delhi, Islamabad, and some of Kashmir’s separatist leaders, modest confidence-building measures between India and Pakistan, and the 2002 election of a state government with an avowed agenda to improve the human rights situation. Particular attention is given in this report to the problem of impunity from prosecution, whereby those responsible for abuses rarely get investigated, let alone tried and convicted...

Slideshow (http://hrw.org/campaigns/kashmir/2006/slideshow/slideshow.htm)

...of course, one has to acknowledge that the other party to the conflict in Kashmir treats those under its control even worse:

With Friends Like These... (http://www.hrw.org/reports/2006/pakistan0906/pakistan0906webwcover.pdf)

...Azad Kashmir is a legal anomaly. According to United Nations (U.N.) resolutions dating back to 1948, Azad Kashmir is neither a sovereign state nor a province of Pakistan, but rather a “local authority” with responsibility over the area assigned to it under a 1949 ceasefire agreement with India. It has remained in this state of legal limbo since that time. In practice, the Pakistani government in Islamabad, the Pakistani army and the Pakistani intelligence services (Inter-Services Intelligence, ISI) control all aspects of political life in Azad Kashmir—though “Azad” means “free,” the residents of Azad Kashmir are anything but. Azad Kashmir is a land of strict curbs on political pluralism, freedom of expression, and freedom of association; a muzzled press; banned books;arbitrary arrest and detention and torture at the hands of the Pakistani military and the police; and discrimination against refugees from Jammu and Kashmir state. Singled out are Kashmiri nationalists who do not support the idea of Kashmir’s accession to Pakistan. Anyone who wants to take part in public life has to sign a pledge of loyalty to Pakistan, while anyone who publicly supports or works for an independent Kashmir is persecuted. For those expressing independent or unpopular political views, there is a pervasive fear of Pakistani military and intelligence services—and of militant organizations acting at their behest or independently...

Shek
09-23-2006, 12:17 AM
Lt. Col. Matt Kelley, the 1st Battalion commander, said the way Indians ambushed and disarmed two insurgents impressed him. American troops, in the same drill, simply shot and killed the men, he said.

Sir,
At least we're good marksmen . . . :eek:

RTK
09-23-2006, 12:38 AM
"They've just gained huge intelligence value from that — instead of killing them, they've captured them," Kelley said.

Training has taken place. Second and Third order effects revealed. I'll be damned....

:D

Ray
09-23-2006, 08:13 PM
In so far as Kashmir being disputed, it would be adequate to mention that the Instrument of Accession is a legal document and one could go into the history and legalities in detail, but then this is a military forum discussing military issues.

In so far as human rights and other issues, it would be pertinent to mention that artillery,tanks, ICVs, air force, anti tank weapons are not used in the Counter Insurgency effort.

To understand the rationale behind the an insurgency and counter insurgency scenario, it is essential to understand the mindset that is operative in such a scenario. In so far as the Kashmiri mindset is concerned and without meaning offence, it would be adequate to quote the British expert on Kashmir, Sir Walter Lawrence from this tome, Valley of Kashmir Page 274 where he writes, 'had they (any race) lived through generations of oppression like the Kashmiris, they might have been more cunning and more dishonest". Indeed, Kashmiris have not had a century of rule of peace in their turbulent history. When India got its independence it was decided that India be a multi lingual, multi ethnic and multi religion state. Kashmir became a part of it as many other princely states. However, Kashmir was given a special right under the Indian Constitution wherein non Kashmiris could not and cannot acquire citizenship of the state nor own property or land.

One could also quote a Persian couplet regarding the Kashmiri but then that is very drastic in thought. In short, it would be adequate to state that the Kashmiri mindset and tongue is as quick as quicksilver.

But one cannot blame the Kashmiri psyche since a race's psyche is moulded by history and Kashmiri history is very turbulent.

My experience in Kashmir where I spent three quarters of my service (apart from being there as a child as my father was posted there in the Army), is that they are prone to complain and make a mountain of a molehill and they tend to fabricate issues as a matter of response. They enjoy complaining as a right. An example is that if a duck is run over by a truck, they will extract a huge sum because they will calculate the number of eggs that would have been delivered by that duck in its lifetime and their further generation and so on. This is also borne out by the fact that they take every issue to the Human Rights Court. It is also true that many a uniformed person has seen the wrong end of the law (civil court) while a large majority proved to be fabrications because of shifting evidence be because their imagination runs wild.

To understand the gravity and the number of "atrocities", one should also compare the length of the terrorism in Kashmir to the number of complaints that have been made. It will indicate the restraint under which the Indian Army operates. It must be understood that while the US could not care less about any complaints made against it, India has to tread carefully since it does not have the clout to suppress or modify international hue and cry as western nations can do. India cannot afford to make mistakes since it neither has the clout nor the international stature to ensure that other nations ignore the complaints or be able to trot out the "rationale" behind the same for the rest of the world to lap up and agree.

The clout of the western nations is obvious as is borne out by the fact that it was only after the US' War on Terror that the terrorism in Kashmir been recognised, as also been curbed to some extent. Before that, who cared? And as far as the UK realising what is the gravity that terrorism can pose to a nation's national and social fabric, it is only after the London Bombings did they realise the horrors and ban militant organisations and sympathisers including the Kashmiri terrorist organisation who were having a field day since such rabid organisation was not targeting the UK.

Therefore, the scenario and international cynicism that India has weathered while combating Kashmiri terrorism can well be fathomed. If this terrorism had been of Kashmiris alone, one could understand. But it is not. The terrorists are from all Islamic nations and so it is the ummah that is being fought and it is not solely Kashmiri terrorism. And the finances and weapons of such Islamic terrorists is fathomless. One can well understand the magnitude if one understands the ferocity and ruthlessness of the mujaheddin operating against a world power, the Soviets in Afghanistan. That India has weathered the Kashmiri situation, if compared in the backdrop of the ferocity, ruthlessness and total disregard to any norms of warfare or rules of the muhjahideeds in Afghanistan which enrages to warrant actions like in Fellujah, it will indicate that such gung ho attitude and righteous anger is absent in Kashmir or else there would be many justifiable Fellujahs in Kashmir. Notwithstanding, it also vindicates the Indian attitude in dealing with terrorism as was seen in the exercise in Hawaii and proves to be the correct attitude, at least in the Indian backdrop.

There is another reason why all ranks avoid being gung ho. One can lose his job as a soldier or an officer having been courtmartialled! In India jobs are not in plenty and in India qualifications for a job is important. The uniformed lot are not qualified for jobs in the civil. Hence, one cannot afford to take a cavalier attitude.

It is not for me to comment on the US mode of combating Insurgency since it will not be fair. I can only draw upon published comments. It is for those who have operated with them to comment. British officers and their Generals have given their views. However, to be fair to the US troops, no matter what one may say, the national psyche has to be also taken into consideration before being judgemental.

Lastly, we have seen what the US officer has to say after the exercise in Hawaii about the modus operandi of Indian troops in Counter insurgency scenarios. Obviously, one would like to believe that the US officer is responsible enough to know what he says. All I can say is that that even in an exercise, the drills and the modus operandi cannot be changed drastically.

One may also mention that before Sir Micheal Rose (the British Adjutant General) assumed the command of the NATO forces in the Balkans, he did an extensive tour of Kashmir and the Indian North East to study the way the Indian Army was tackling insurgency. Obviously, if there were no merits, then a colonial power would not send a full General to their once vassal country to study an issue and that too the haughty and imperious British, who have no qualms to rubbish their own allies and equals!

The US Army, which is a professional organisation, would also not have done extensive exercises in India's High Altitude repeatedly nor train in India's Counter Insurgency school if they had nothing to gain from the Indian experience.

It may also interest you to note this news:


Nato calls
SUJAN DUTTA
In the war zone

Brussels, Sept. 22: Nato, the US-led western military alliance, wants Indian troops for its missions in volatile regions like Afghanistan and Kosovo.

Nato officials here at its headquarters said Indian troops would be part of a wider engagement the alliance envisages with non-member states.

The alliance does not expect Indian troops for its missions overnight but as a consequence of a protracted engagement that will drive policy change in New Delhi and reforms within Nato.

Beginnings have been made at two levels. Nato headquarters has briefed Indian diplomats here. Its secretary-general Jaap de Hoop Schaffer has met defence minister Pranab Mukherjee.
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1060923/asp/frontpage/story_6783200.asp

Bill Moore
09-23-2006, 09:49 PM
AB x X(s + r) - 100 = desired percentage of kinetic operations.

There are no clear cut formulas for figuring out the correct percentages of effort, and if you look at it objectively kinetic operations are partly political.

In situations like El Salvador, Algeria, Greece, etc. where there were established governments that required assistance to defeat the insurgency, I concur that the primary effort is political, and that military operations are limited to setting conditions for political success. This is what most of our legacy COIN doctrine makes reference to, but that isn't the fight we're fighting today.

In a situation like Iraq (and to some extent Afghanistan) where the government is rejected by large portions of the population, and where the insurgents are targeting the Iraqi people and the economic infrastructure (which is our primary political line of operation to create legitmacy for the government), we're in a situation where focusing our efforts on the political and softer activities will not achieve the desired effect.

I'm not interested in your schools if I can't provide for my family, or even provide some degree of security for them. I'll start looking for non-state entities that promise something a little more. Hey, I can put in an IED for $200.00, and my family won't be targeted by insurgents. Not a bad deal.

In parts of Iraq we need to be more aggressive, not less. In other parts of Iraq we need to focus on nation building type tasks and to create a graviational pull of the population to the government. Security must come first, you can't open schools when kids can't go to school closely. You can't be legitimate if you can't protect the population. Aggressive doesn't mean burning down cities, but robust presence and security patrols 24/7 denying freedom of movement to the insurgents. Once an area is semi-secured you can attempt to interject government control.

Our officers need to stop looking for formula type answers in doctrine and start thinking on their feet, they need to open their eyes to their reality, because they are the only ones that will know what is happening in their sector. The situation in your AO is different than it was in mine, figure it out listening to your strategic corporals and the locals, then develop your strategy and adjust it as needed. Read Nagel and Galula for context and ideas, not a how to manual.

SWJED
09-24-2006, 01:29 AM
24 September - U.S. Army’s Kill-Kill Ethos Under Fire (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-2372122,00.html) by Sarah Baxter.


The American army should scrap the Warrior Ethos, a martial creed that urges soldiers to demonstrate their fighting spirit by destroying the enemies of the United States at close quarter rather than winning the trust of local populations, according to senior US officers and counter-insurgency experts.
Soldiers are instructed to live by the creed, which evokes the warrior spirit of the modern US army. It begins with the stirring vow, “I am an American soldier”, and goes on to affirm that “I will never accept defeat. I will never quit . . . I stand ready to deploy, engage and destroy the enemies of the United States of America in close combat”.

Admirable though this may be in the heat of battle, the Warrior Ethos’s emphasis on annihilating the enemy is inimical to the type of patient, confidence-building counter-insurgency warfare in which America is engaged in the Middle East, according to Lieutenant-General Gregory Newbold, former director of operations to the joint chiefs of staff at the Pentagon.

“The future crises that relate to Iraq and Afghanistan will be a struggle for hearts and minds,” Newbold said. “We’re in a different environment now and that requires different techniques.”

The Warrior Ethos replaced the Soldier’s Creed drawn up in the post-Vietnam era which stated: “I am an American soldier . . . No matter what situation I am in, I will never do anything for pleasure, profit or personal safety, which will disgrace my uniform. I will use every means I have, even beyond the line of duty, to restrain my army comrades from actions disgraceful to themselves and the uniform.” ...

RTK
09-24-2006, 02:09 AM
Our officers need to stop looking for formula type answers in doctrine and start thinking on their feet, they need to open their eyes to their reality, because they are the only ones that will know what is happening in their sector. The situation in your AO is different than it was in mine, figure it out listening to your strategic corporals and the locals, then develop your strategy and adjust it as needed. Read Nagel and Galula for context and ideas, not a how to manual.


no truer a statement have I seen in recent memory.

Here's what LTC Nagl told me in a recent interview I conducted with him for Companycommand.com. It smacks exactly what Bill is talking about.

"80% of the tasks to be accomplished are political and only 20% exclusively military...the vast majority of those 80% political/economic/informational tasks are going to be done by people in uniform because of the security situation... There are times when you have to be kinetic; there are people who have to be shot; there are occasionally cities that have to be cleared block by block. [I]But the paradox of counterinsurgency is that the more force you use in this kind of fight, the less effective you are. We are fighting a battle for the support of the population, and everything we can do to show them that we are more interested in their futures, their security, and their safety than the insurgents are is a step towards winning the war; and every time we show them the opposite of that by an escalation-of-force incident that leads to innocent deaths, by an excessively kinetic approach to raids at 3 o'clock in the morning, we lose support among the population and as a result lose the opportunity to derive the intelligence we need on who the insurgents are in the community and where they are. We have to use as little force as is necessary to accomplish the task... Recalibrating that balance each and every day, hundreds of times a day, is the task of the company commander and platoon leader and corporal on point..."

jcustis
09-24-2006, 02:25 AM
Sarah Baxter typifies why some journalists need to simply shut up and only be allowed to write for travel magazines. That article had absolutely no context, and I can't believ her editor let it hit print.

SWJED
09-24-2006, 03:05 AM
Sarah Baxter typifies why some journalists need to simply shut up and only be allowed to write for travel magazines. That article had absolutely no context, and I can't believ her editor let it hit print.

I post these articles as FYI on what the mainstream are getting...

Jedburgh
09-24-2006, 04:19 AM
Our officers need to stop looking for formula type answers in doctrine and start thinking on their feet, they need to open their eyes to their reality, because they are the only ones that will know what is happening in their sector. The situation in your AO is different than it was in mine, figure it out listening to your strategic corporals and the locals, then develop your strategy and adjust it as needed. Read Nagel and Galula for context and ideas, not a how to manual.No truer a statement have I seen in recent memory.
I second RTK.

A problem I had with the Kilcullen paper that Bill posted on another thread (http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showpost.php?p=4312&postcount=1) was that too much of his discussion of "classic" insurgency was overgeneralized and devoid of context. Although it was a good, thought-provoking paper, I felt it lost something by doing this - whether or not it was intentionally watered down by the author to build a support narrative for his premise.

However, as Bill succinctly points out here, too many of those in the Big Army recently plugging in to the new COIN "fad" are possessed of limited imaginations further constricted by doctrinal blinders that drive them to seek formulaic answers. With regard to their reading of "classic" COIN, these characteristics severely handicap their ability to truly learn from the lessons of the past. Perhaps the manner in which the Kilcullen article was written may have been intended to address those with narrower thought processes.

Another statement of Bill's is very important:

In parts of Iraq we need to be more aggressive, not less. In other parts of Iraq we need to focus on nation building type tasks and to create a graviational pull of the population to the government. Security must come first, you can't open schools when kids can't go to school closely. You can't be legitimate if you can't protect the population. Aggressive doesn't mean burning down cities, but robust presence and security patrols 24/7 denying freedom of movement to the insurgents. Once an area is semi-secured you can attempt to interject government control.
We're discussing the Yin and Yang of COIN - the striving to meet the ideal balance between kinetic and non-kinetic efforts that balance in the effort to both defeat the enemy and gain the support/cooperation of the population. At no point can we go entirely one way or the other. There always has to be some element of one to balance the other, in proportions that vary as much as the context of the AO, as we drive towards the larger goal.

RTK's statement about recalibrating the balance is key - because we not only recalibrate from one region to the other, as Bill explains, but we need to recalibrate within the specific context of each incident at the tactical level. The simple questions What just happened? What do we need to achieve? How do we execute? flash through the small unit leader's decision making process in a true illustration of effects based ops at the lowest level. Training, experience, and effective intelligence support (I'm sure some of you have been following the ad hoc implementation of a company level intel cell in many maneuver units in-theater) all feed into the ability to effectively execute across the spectrum in the COIN environment. In my opinion, we are still not doing enough for our soldiers in two out of three.

jcustis
09-24-2006, 05:11 AM
RTK's statement about recalibrating the balance is key - because we not only recalibrate from one region to the other, as Bill explains, but we need to recalibrate within the specific context of each incident at the tactical level. The simple questions What just happened? What do we need to achieve? How do we execute? flash through the small unit leader's decision making process in a true illustration of effects based ops at the lowest level. Training, experience, and effective intelligence support (I'm sure some of you have been following the ad hoc implementation of a company level intel cell in many maneuver units in-theater) all feed into the ability to effectively execute across the spectrum in the COIN environment. In my opinion, we are still not doing enough for our soldiers in two out of three.

This is an exceptionally important observation. "What just happened?" sums up the issues that the small unit leader faces. In this uncharted territory, there is no situational or doctrinal template. We cannot lay most insurgent actions out and say with any certainty that a particular enemy course of action can be confirmed or denied. We haven't even pinned down whether Iraqis are fighting simply because we are still there, whether it's a small faction of foreign fighters causing the problems, or even if the country would really be better off partitioned along ethnic lines.

I've slowly decided that until national reconciliation and demobilization are put on the table, training, experience, and intel support can only go so far. Improvements in those three will only allow us to make incremental progress, because the insurgent forces have very little to lose and I've yet to read anything about attempts to show them what they stand to gain. We'd need to hit too many homeruns in information operations to do that, and our opportunities at bat are dwindling.

Al Qaeda has certainly become the modern-day Red scourge in a twisted domino theory. Can we de-couple AQ from the Iraq situation?

SWJED
12-13-2006, 11:31 PM
14 December The Australian - Exceptional Strategist is Our Man in Washington (http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20924816-31477,00.html) by Patrick Walters.


A few weeks ago a highly unusual ceremony took place at the Pentagon.

David Kilcullen, one of Australia's leading counter-terrorism experts, had come to receive a medal awarded by US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

The Defence Department's Medal for Exceptional Public Service cited Dr Kilcullen's "exceptional service" as special adviser for irregular warfare and counter-terrorism during the 2005 Quadrennial Defence Review.

For Kilcullen, 40, one of the Australian army's most brilliant graduates, it was another milestone in a career that has catapulted him into the highest corridors of power in Washington.

Uniquely, for an Australian citizen, Kilcullen has emerged as a key adviser to US President George W. Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Rumsfeld in the war on terror. His influence in Washington arguably oustrips that of the only other Australian to reach high office in the US, Martin Indyk, the former US ambassador to Israel.

Over the past year, working out of the US State Department, Kilcullen has flown on secret assignments into the world's terrorist hot-spots from Iraq and Afghanistan to the Horn of Africa, Indonesia and The Philippines.

A primer he wrote on fighting counter-insurgency warfare for junior officers now forms part of the US army's basic war doctrine, and has been translated into Russian, Arabic, Pashtu and Spanish.

"It's unprecedented," Hank Crumpton, the State Department's counter-terrorism chief, told The Australian in reference to Kilcullen's special role in his office.

"I am the adviser to Secretary Rice on counter-terrorism, and David is my principal strategist."

Leading US strategic thinker Eliot A. Cohen, from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies said: "I cannot think of a non-American who has had so much influence in the US national security establishment - and from within, noless."

Working closely with the Pentagon and the CIA, Kilcullen has led counter-insurgency teams in the field in Iraq and Afghanistan, observing at close quarters the US-led efforts to stabilise the two countries and Washington's battle against al-Qa'ida and its affiliates.

He has stalked around the Arabian Gulf and Pakistan's North-west Frontier studying counter-insurgency warfare and learning new insights into the culture of Islamist terror groups.

A fortnight ago, Kilcullen returned to Washington from Kabul, where he helped teach counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism techniques to officers and NCOs of the fledgling Afghan army, as well as soldiers in the NATO-led coalition.

Combining his Australian army experience with a PHD on the political anthropology of the Indonesian post-1945 Islamist insurgent movement, Darul Islam, Kilcullen first took leave from Australia's Defence Department in 2004 to help the Pentagon with the drafting of last year's Quadrennial Defence Review, which determines the US's global defence strategy.

Working inside the Pentagon in 2004, Kilcullen founded and led the US Government's inter-agency Irregular Warfare Working Group....

SWJED
12-16-2006, 03:07 AM
16 December The Australian - War on Insurgency (http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20933075-31477,00.html) by Patrick Walters.


As Washington struggles to find a way out of Iraq, a young Australian ex-army officer is helping the US chart a new course in the global war on Islamist terror.

In his role as chief strategist for the State Department's counter-terrorism chief Hank Crumpton, David Kilcullen has exerted considerable influence on the direction of America's effort in fighting al-Qa'ida and its affiliates around the globe.

"He has made a big difference to us in terms of the intellectual capital he has brought with him and intellectual capital that he has generated, when we look at terrorism and how we conceptualise our strategy," Crumpton tells Inquirer.

Kilcullen, 40, brings an unusual combination of skills to his role as an Australian serving as a senior counter-terrorism adviser inside the US bureaucracy.

A counter-insurgency expert, Kilcullen combines academic expertise in political anthropology (he has a PhD from the University of NSW) with military experience in Indonesia, East Timor and the Middle East, including a stint helping train Indonesia's Kopassus special forces.

Fluent in Indonesian, he wrote his doctorate on Darul Islam, the post-1945 Muslim insurgency movement in Indonesia crushed by the Suharto government.

Living in kampungs in West Java in the early 1990s had a profound effect on the way Kilcullen views the global phenomenon of radical Islam confronting the US and its allies. Now he is leading a team of experts in Washington writing a new counter-insurgency doctrine for the US Government.

During the past year he has travelled to far-flung theatres in the war on terror, from Iraq, Afghanistan and the Horn of Africa to Indonesia and Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province.

In his recent writings Kilcullen argues the case for a new paradigm to deal with what he terms a "globalised insurgency" encompassing Iraq, Afghanistan and other regional conflicts.

The US and its allies must adapt the best classical counter-insurgency techniques at the local level, combined with a much more sophisticated global information campaign, to defeat al-Qa'ida and its affiliates...

16 December The Australian - Rocky Road to Influence in the U.S. (http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20933077-31477,00.html) by Patrick Walters.


...Kilcullen's CV makes him seem a bit like a military adventurer of old: a dash of T.E. Lawrence and Wilfred Thesiger.

As well as getting a PhD in political anthropology, he is a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and an expert on counter-insurgency warfare.

During his 22-year Australian army career he saw service in East Timor, Bougainville and Cyprus, and developed a keen interest in unconventional warfare.

In 2004 he helped write the Australian Government's white paper on terrorism, before being seconded to the Pentagon as a special counter-terrorism adviser for the 2005 quadrennial defence review.

As the chief strategist in the State Department's Office of the Co-ordinator for Counter-Terrorism, Kilcullen has travelled the world helping the US Government refine its counter-insurgency doctrine and the fight against al-Qa'ida.

In his year at the State Department, Kilcullen has exercised unusual influence for an Australian.

Lieutenant-General David Petraeus, head of the US army's combined arms training command, who is tipped to take over as the top US commander in Iraq, says Kilcullen has helped "very substantially to raise the level of understanding of counter-insurgency operations in the United States, not only in the US military but ... throughout the US Government".

"He is," Petraeus tells Inquirer, "one of those rare individuals who has both studied and done counter-insurgency for his country, and who then has helped a coalition partner do it as well at a very high level."

SWJED
12-20-2006, 01:28 AM
The New Yorker has placed Knowing the Enemy (http://www.newyorker.com/printables/fact/061218fa_fact2) in their free to view section.


In 1993, a young captain in the Australian Army named David Kilcullen was living among villagers in West Java, as part of an immersion program in the Indonesian language. One day, he visited a local military museum that contained a display about Indonesia’s war, during the nineteen-fifties and sixties, against a separatist Muslim insurgency movement called Darul Islam. “I had never heard of this conflict,” Kilcullen told me recently. “It’s hardly known in the West. The Indonesian government won, hands down. And I was fascinated by how it managed to pull off such a successful counterinsurgency campaign.”...

marct
12-20-2006, 03:03 AM
The New Yorker has placed Knowing the Enemy (http://www.newyorker.com/printables/fact/061218fa_fact2) in their free to view section.

Excellent article. Now, if we can just get some more Anthropologists into all the Coalition militaries or more of the military into Anthropology.

Marc

Bill Moore
12-20-2006, 05:59 AM
Thanks SWJED, this is the best article I have read lately. Very relevant and useful from the tactical to strategic levels.

jwrob1
02-06-2007, 04:07 PM
Jean Larteguy in the '60's wrote "The Centurions" and "The Praetorians" about French paras in Algeria... he wrote there should be two armies (to paraphrase) one for the parade ground... and one who provides the fighters...