The Conventional, SOF Debate in OIF.

[SSG Rock]

I have been involved in several debates concerning OIF. The latest involved a retired SF Captain (USAR) who is of the opinion that we could have conducted the war in Iraq, from phase 1 forward with fewer troops. He seems to be of the opinion that conventional forces get in the way of the special forces in this kind of war. When I point out the obvious to him, he pulls rank on me and states, what would an NCO know about campaign planning? I'm no campaign planner, but I'm not stupid either and I have had the good fortune to work with people who are experts in campaign planning and well versed in special forces too. Allow me to paste his comments from another discussion board here and please, do comment.

"Through the seizure of Baghdad and for a month or two following that? Mostly yes (except for introducing the entire 5th SFG into the landscape). Beyond that? Nope. As mentioned, I would have introduced the 5th SFG into the AO and they would have stayed there. Working with locals, building Iraqi defense forces, snapping up terrorists and Hussein cronies.. not through overwelming presence, but smarts, guile and working with the locals. I would have reduced conventional forces to two or three Brigades (UAs as rapidly as possible). One from the 101st with lots of helo capability, one a Stryker Brigade with a heavy battalion along. There job would be to be a reaction force to bring the hammer if the SOF assets or Iraqi forces needed assistance. CA and Psyop battalions also deployed. Air assets in Kuwait and Qatar. No non-helo assets permanently in Iraq until their security forces are sufficient to defend those assets.

Now, what the heck do I know. I'm trained to run UW, I know what it takes to do it effectively, and what it takes to stop it. And it isn't a lot of troops that are needed to stop it. It's getting the fish to deny the sea."


Granted that UW is the bread and butter of SF, but this war is too big for SF to tackle alone isn't it? With the luxury of hindsight, it seems to me that had we deployed more troops in the outset commanders would have been able to control key terrain and built up areas rather than fighting through or bypassing them. My epiphany came the evening I turned on the TV and saw the looting in Baghdad. Thousands of giddy Iraqis in an orgy of pillaging and looting, skittering back and forth in right before the eyes of seemingly overwhelmed and bewilderd Soldiers. As an NCO, I know what a confused Soldier looks like and our troops appeared to me to look like Soldiers who realized there was something wrong with this picture, but lacked guidance. Perhaps they were told to do nothing? In a press conference when asked about the looting I saw Mr. Rumsfeld shrug his shoulders when asked about the looting. I think that was the day we began to lose the initiative and we experienced quite a free fall there for awhile. I feel that we are winning the war, but I can't help but wonder if we could not have done it smarter. Would more conventional troops have been a good thing or not?

Your comments?

[jcustis]

QUOTE: One from the 101st with lots of helo capability, one a Stryker Brigade with a heavy battalion along. There job would be to be a reaction force to bring the hammer if the SOF assets or Iraqi forces needed assistance.

It seems he may be thinking the the Afghanistan model would have transplanted equally to the Iraq area of operations. We will never know for sure, but I tend to agree with some of the smart folks who have asserted that the fabric of Afghani society made for good SF operations, but Iraq was/is a completely different proposition.

I do agree that more agile forces should have been employed, but the requirement to gain and hold key terrain required a certain footprint. A handful of brigades does not meet that requirement. The quote also leads me to believe that he never set foot in the nasty expanse that is western Al-Anbar Province.

[SSG Rock]

I don't know for certain. But this person currently lives in Thailand and since he seems hesitant to discuss his personal experiences I have deduced that he was on active duty last from the 1980-84 time frame and that his operational experience was predominently in Central America. I do not beleive that he has ever been to Southwest Asia.

[jcustis]

Then I would have to respectfully have to say that he doesn't know what he is talking about, regardless of whether he was trained to run UW.:cool:

[SSG Rock]

There does come a point when you have to cut bait. But I'd sure like to some good points in before I abandon the discussion.

[jcustis]

A couple of points I'll throw out:

1. SF forces are great for developing the capablities of an indigenous military force, and that comes at the point of picking sides. What sides would have been chosed had internecine fighting broken out immediately between the Shi'a, Sunnah, and Kurds. Three brigades would have been hard pressed, and it takes like a division (-) to manage Baghdad alone right now?

2. Could we have sustained the employment of SF forces for the almost three years we have been in Iraq, taking into consideration the demands in Afghanistan? It's a simple matter of looking at troops to task. I don't know the composition of 5th Group, but we are not talking about an inexhaustible supply of teams to continue engagement with the populace for an indefinite period of time. At some point the big green machine, as cumbersome as it may be, has to assume some of the responsibilities inherent in re-building a country. SF simply can not do it alone, in my opinion.

3. An SF element went into the town of Ar-Rutbah near the Syrian/Jordan border and executed probably a classic mission to make contacts, organize local governance and basic services, but it was before the insurgency built up its steam. By the time my unit arrived (two rotations after the 82nd Airborne) the town had slid into a nest of low-level insurgents who would kill the mayor just as easily as they would have killed a Marine. Without a sustainable Iraqi Security Force structure (which by the way DID GO AWAY once Saddam fled), I think it's highly improbable that any number of SF personnel could have maintained security for long. If your discussion partner had his way, the result may have been a hodgepodge of reaction forces tied down everywhere, and getting absolutely nothing accomplished.

[SSG Rock]

Thank you for taking the time to offer some comments.

Some of the points that I have used in the discussion thus far, and please correct me if I say anything that makes no sense.

1. A fundemental tenant of invading a country to change its form of government seems to me to be the ability to control terrain. In my view, we didn't have enough troops to occupy any of the towns in the run up country. The mission was to get to Baghdad, our troops did that in stunning fashion and broke just about every record in military history. But in hindsight, had we been able to control the towns would we not have limited the insurgents freedom of movement, at least, made it hazordous to his health?

2. Yes, the Iraqis must pick up the mission of providing for their own defense, but if we had deployed more troops at the outset, we could have provided more effective security, allowing SOF the luxury of conducting more classic SOF tasks like training the natives, snatch and grab ops, etc, while the conventional forces picked up tasks like patrolling, providing security, rebuilding infastructure, advising local governments etc? With more conventional troops to provide security, SASO would have been somewhat easier?

3. The mission in Iraq is simply too big for SOF to handle alone. The deployment of more conventional forces does not amount to offering the insurgents more targets. These are Soldiers we are talking about, with the capability of protecting themselves, indeed conducting offensive operations if necessary.

4. The transformation effort currently underway, began under the guidance of General Shinsecki, not Mr. Rumsfeld.

5. This transformation plan in my opinion is the most audacious the modern Army has undertaken. My opponent, no fan of General Shinsecki, says no this is not true. He claims that more audacious transformations include, the change for a corps to division based force and the transformation from a draft to volunteer force. I don't think the two issues he mentioned even qualify as official Army transformation efforts.

[jcustis]

This transformation plan in my opinion is the most audacious the modern Army has undertaken. My opponent, no fan of General Shinsecki, says no this is not true. He claims that more audacious transformations include, the change for a corps to division based force and the transformation from a draft to volunteer force. I don't think the two issues he mentioned even qualify as official Army transformation efforts.

Concur wholeheartedly...

[SSG Rock]

Seems to me that part of the recipe for accomplishing the mission in Iraq is doing something we have been unable to do effectively and that is to integrate conventional, SF units. Clearly, there is a huge difference in missions, capabilities and "mindset"

The question that I am pondering is what is an effective role for conventional forces in a UW environment such as Iraq?

[jcustis]

Conventional forces are in an effective role right now...we're still learning and adapting to be more fluid and properly task oriented, but on the whole, are getting along pretty well.

When you look at the successive number of times we have gone into a certain area and conducted cordons/cache sweeps, it's a function of not having enough footprint. Until the IA can manage the will to get out there and do those ops on their own (consistently), conventional forces are required. Sure, there are a wide range of TTPs that can be improved upon and adjusted as the enemy adjusts theirs, but I think we are doing just fine at the tactical level (company and platoon). Effectively synthesizing CA, IO, and PSYOP non-kinetic fires into our operations is where the most improvement is needed, I think. Doing so also requires synchronization of the appropriate funds, DoS/Iraqi governance actions so we are working the right project to maximize the effects of the money spent. To some degree, the massive FOBs and attendant contractor support may be drawing resources to the wrong place.

[Jones_RE]

Perhaps the best role for our unconventional forces in this conflict is advising and training ourconventional forces as well as the Iraqis.

We had a situation where soldiers and officers don't or didn't know the rules of this kind of fight, had no knowledge of local customs and little understanding of the kinds of missions they had to undertake.

I recall reading once about an army SOF team in Vietnam: 12 Americans leading and training some 600 local soldiers. By custom, an "A" detachment is headed by a full captain - a guy with enough rank and experience that a battalion commander would probably listen to him, especially when there was no other guidance as to what to do. The remaining sergeants could easily parcel themselves out to company and even platoon level and put the unit straight pretty quickly.

The counter argument to this integration is that we're wasting SOF's limited resources on a mission that the conventional guys should already have figured out. Also, SOF had missions considered extremely important at the time - nabbing high level regime figures and securing potential nuclear/chemical/biological materials.

[zenpundit]

If a civilian may interject a comment into this very interesting intra-mil discussion.

It may be the case that Special forces, the Peshmerga and EBO attacks alone could have brought down Saddam's regime. Given the speed with which Iraq's regular military forces disintegrated it seems the argument is technically plausible, at least in the sense of using fewest troops possible.

BUT...

This kind of a plan would have to be approved at the very highest civilian levels who would lack the after-the-fact information about Iraq that the Rock's debating partner presumes. Too many a priori unknowns about Iraqi capabilities for such a politically high risk venture. No president wants another Bay of Pigs or Desert One debacle to have to be explained and endlessly examined on national television and before Congressional committee hearings. I doubt that the military leadership would willingly pass up such a barebones version of an operational plan to the NSC unless the intention was a covert operation instead of a war.

Even the Bush administration, possibly the least risk-averse administration on military matters since FDR, ultimately erred on the side of caution in setting invasion force numbers. Any other administration would have been more cautious.

[SSG Rock]

Yes, zenpundit, I agree with your post. It is too easy to criticize the campaign plan utilized to prosecute the overthrow of the Hussein regime with the luxury of hindsight. Too easy.

Who was able to forecast that the Iraqi Army would abandon their equipment and fade melt into the population in the numbers they did? We had to be prepared to fight a conventional battle, at least during the run up country. My opponent claims that a 12 man A team is capable of destroying an armor battalion and that our conventional commanders don't like that fact. That conventional commanders have an institutionalized bias against the SF/SOF community. I'm no expert, but I have never heard of an ODA defeating a battalion of conventional forces with the exception of the Roughnecks at Debekka Pass and even then they did not destroy it, and I beleive they had a significant number of Peshmerga with them didn't they? But I admit, I could be wrong.

Rehashing the campaign plan isn't of much use now though. I'm interested in the integration of SF/SOF/conventional forces for future contingencies. And how that is best accomplished. Understand the negative in straining the SF/SOF community with this task. But maybe the way to address this is the creation of SF/SOF MTTs to travel CONUS Army Post to train conventional personnel tapped for deployment before they depart? This would not affect SF/SOF units in Iraq. While it would most assuredly be considerd undesirable duty by SF personnel at first, the temporary pain might be soon forgotten once the program was funded, they had a few training cycles under their belt and see the benefit in Iraq. Naturally, this could be seen as a threat by some in the SF community. I would submit that there are certain tasks that conventional forces could take from the SF plate that would make the conventional forces more effective and that would free SF units for the more important tasks such as snatch and grabs, training the natives etc.

[jcustis]

The Marine Corps seems to be, in some measure, heading down that path with the Foreign Military Training Unit.

http://www.usmc.mil/marinelink/mcn2000.nsf/main5/2A3353C64686841C85257093004CF896?opendocument

I agree about the SOF MTT piece, or at least an effort to send coalition personnel to the JFK school to get at least an intro to the matters of nation-building and foreign military training. It likely happened to a certain degree, but I'm thinking more about a full court press.

[Bill Moore]

SSG Rock your questions are important for all of us as we evolve (transform if you will). Unfortunately you ran into one of our less professional brothers who obviously has little experience in war, so from the SF community I apologize for his degrading remarks concerning our outstanding conventional forces.

Special Forces could not have won this war using guerrilla warfare for a number of reasons, but perhaps the most important is the fact that Iraq's neighbors would not have supported a Kurdish insurgency, and only Iran would have supported a Shi'a insurgency. Turkey, Saudi, Jordan, etc. would have been terrified and it would have destabilized the entire region. The retired SF CPT who claimed to be an expert on campaign planning should have took notes when you spoke to him. While this war plan had a lot of shortcommings, there was still a lot of smart folks who considered a variety of courses of action to include supporting an insurrection and it didn't pass muster.

Now at the risk of appearing two faced I will add there is much room for improvement on how our conventional forces operate in this environment, and they are improving rapidly. I think GEN Casey's campaign plan is on target, but I'm not sure he is getting sufficient buy in from some of his subordinate commanders in the field. Some of our conventional forces are doing an outstanding job of working with and helping develop the Iraqi Army, while others are simply giving it lip service. From the military aspect of DIME developing a capable Iraqi Army and police force is key to long term stability (assuming we can obtain stability) in the country.

Conventional forces have a vital role and we can't win this war without them. Special Forces couldn't operate in Iraq the way they do without the security and logistics provided by our conventional brothers period. This truly is an example of the one team, one fight concept and those who have been there understand that.

SF didn't win the war in Afghanistan, but they were hugely successful in using guerrilla warfare and joint fires to defeat the ragtag Taliban Army. That wasn't the war though, that was a battle within the war. Now the conventional forces and SF compliment one another in maintaining security and developing a professional Afghan Army.

What's obviously missing in both Iraq and Afghanistan is a capable State Department and other government agencies (such as commerce). While there are heroes in all these organizations, they need additional funding and restructuring to enable them to do their jobs. In short our job (military) is to set the conditions for them to succeed. If they're not capable of succeeding we're going to be on the two way range for a long time.

[SSG Rock]

Bill, improving the conventional force in UW is one of the things I'm trying to bring out in this thread; is it important? If so, how do we go about it? What is the SF/SOF role?

If Iraq is an accurate barometer of the kinds of wars we will be fighting in the future, conventional forces must become proficient in a UW environment in order to compliment and in some cases releive SF/SOF. The SF gung ho attitude displayed by my opponent while highly commendable is unrealistic. There has to be a conventional/SF integration it's happening and will continue to evlove despite his apparent distaste for it. We have to find the right mix. To top it all off, our conventional force also has to maintain efficiency in fighting a classic conventional wars as well, with North Korea, and China looming on the horizon. Quite a puzzle isnt' it?

An interesting thing happend in OIF that I'm not sure has occured before. Conventional forces were actually subordinated to an SF command. 173d ABN Brigade was under JSOTF-N control I beleive. This is the kind of exposure that I think would be of great benefit to conventional Soldiers in learning about UW through OJT.

[Merv Benson]

Special Ops, working with local fighters, was a potent force in Afghanistan when combined with precision bombing. In Iraq, outside of Kurdish areas there were no local fighters until the US started training them after Saddam's overthrow. My own belief is that Special Ops is an important part of a combined arms conventional attack in conventional warfare, as well as being an effective force in special situations. Tom Clancy and Gen. Carl Stiner give several examples of the impact of SF in the conventional attacks of Desert Storm in their book Shadow Warriors. They also give examples of their terrific work in saving the Kurds after that war.

Those that argue that Saddam could have been overthrown by an insurgency I think are wrong. But even if it were possible, it could not have been done in three weeks and the casualties on all sides would have been far greater.

[Xenophon]

I think it's obvious that we need to improve our UW capabilities at all levels. Conventional forces creating the environment for Special Forces to operate is a good way to put it in my opinion (granted it's a boot lieutenant's opinion). Therefore, conventional forces need to be better able to create that environment. So I think we're on track in that regard.

As for how, that's a whole different discussion. If you've seen my few posts on this site you know I'm a proponent of Distributed Operations and that belief was reinforced when I actually got an official USMC brief on the concept last week rather than going off my own research.

[SSG Rock]

I think it's obvious that we need to improve our UW capabilities at all levels. Conventional forces creating the environment for Special Forces to operate is a good way to put it in my opinion (granted it's a boot lieutenant's opinion). Therefore, conventional forces need to be better able to create that environment. So I think we're on track in that regard. Well said, I agree.

As for how, that's a whole different discussion. If you've seen my few posts on this site you know I'm a proponent of Distributed Operations and that belief was reinforced when I actually got an official USMC brief on the concept last week rather than going off my own research. MTTs are mobile training teams that consist of a cadre of instructors that travel from post to post to give blocks of instruction to Soldiers. IMO, this is the most cost effective way to get subject matter experts where they are needed. Sending the units to the JFK is cost prohibitive, and training the trainer usually results in a degree of degredation in the lessons. I would suggest that we form a couple of MTTs consisting of real Green Berets who have been in Iraq and Afghanistan to fill this role. Fly them to train units that will be deploying to get them up to snuff on what they can do to set the table for SF/SOF. To create the environment as you so well stated. The feedback that the instructors get back from the conventional troops will filter back into the SF/SOF community and hopefully make this transition to more integrated operations less painful, seamless if you will.

[GS]

Perhaps the best role for our unconventional forces in this conflict is advising and training ourconventional forces as well as the Iraqis.

We had a situation where soldiers and officers don't or didn't know the rules of this kind of fight, had no knowledge of local customs and little understanding of the kinds of missions they had to undertake.

I recall reading once about an army SOF team in Vietnam: 12 Americans leading and training some 600 local soldiers. By custom, an "A" detachment is headed by a full captain - a guy with enough rank and experience that a battalion commander would probably listen to him, especially when there was no other guidance as to what to do. The remaining sergeants could easily parcel themselves out to company and even platoon level and put the unit straight pretty quickly.

The counter argument to this integration is that we're wasting SOF's limited resources on a mission that the conventional guys should already have figured out. Also, SOF had missions considered extremely important at the time - nabbing high level regime figures and securing potential nuclear/chemical/biological materials.

That is what AWG was set up to do...

[ProxyAccount]

To avoid retreading of what was discussed elsewhere and to avoid misunderstandings/misrepresentations of any discussions, perhaps it would be best to post what amounted to be the proposition that was affirmed by SSG Rocks's opposite.


I don't believe that Greenhat is arguing that our transformed forces cannot successfully operate in an unconventional war [edit: as was pointed out, they are successful], but that their current implementation is sub-optimal, ponderous, and will cost more in the lives of our men than is necessary. The greatest obstacle to fighting and winning an unconventional war is not configuration, but in training and mindset. While our transformed forces are certainly more flexible and agile than before, they are still trained with a conventional warfare mindset. In unconventional warfare, the denser the population center, the more difficult it will be for them.

By contrast, the guerrilla thrives in dense population centers. They can move without fear amongst noncombatants, find safe shelter with ease, wait in relative comfort, and strike without notice. Forces that patrol neighborhoods, handle peacekeeping missions, garrison bases, and secure areas in population centers, are particularly vulnerable to guerrilla tactics.

Could transformed units be mentored by Special Forces? It sounds good, but OJT in densely populated areas doesn't seem reasonable and the training of conventional elements sounds like it would tie up significant SF/SOF resources that could have been used to train indigenous forces. Conventional, transformed forces are best used (and perhaps mentored) in sparsely populated areas. Perhaps they would be best used to patrol the border of Iraq, as opposed to patrolling neighborhoods. Conventional forces could certainly be used to train and accompany the new Iraqi military on certain missions, but it shouldn't entail operations in cities. Such population centers are the waters where the unconventional warfare operators are best suited for.

In other words, once the Iraqi conventional units quit the field, operations in urbanized areas would have probably been best left to SF/SOF units, instead of relying on conventional tactics to keep the peace. Whether Phase I should have had more conventional units or not was rendered mute once the situation changed into an insurgency. At that point, less is more, with unconventional units taking the lead in certain areas.

[SSG Rock]

To avoid retreading of what was discussed elsewhere and to avoid misunderstandings/misrepresentations of any discussions, perhaps it would be best to post what amounted to be the proposition that was affirmed by SSG Rocks's opposite.



In other words, once the Iraqi conventional units quit the field, operations in urbanized areas would have probably been best left to SF/SOF units, instead of relying on conventional tactics to keep the peace. Whether Phase I should have had more conventional units or not was rendered mute once the situation changed into an insurgency. At that point, less is more, with unconventional units taking the lead in certain areas.

It is not an easy thing to change gears in such dramatic fashion. What were we to do with conventional forces after phase 1? Send them home? Deploy them farther out in the desert to sit in the safety of sand berms and bunkers? Rumsfeld said it best himself, you go to war with the Army you have, not the Army you wish you had. The reality on the ground dictated that conventional forces adapt to a UW envrionment. It is my understanding that for the most part, conventional forces have never been the force of choice when it came to fighting the insurgency, that was left up to TF21 and other SF/SOF units. The role of the conventional forces has been and is one that is evolving. The bottem line reality is that conventional forces must become proficient in a UW environment. This is not to say that conventional forces will, should or could ever become as proficient as SF in UW, but that they have to be proficient in helping to create an environment condusive to SF operations. To do this they must understand what SF does, and be able to participate when necessary. I have never suggested that conventional forces be the primary fighters in built up areas, that is indeed best left to SF. But withdrawing conventional forces from built up areas would result in deterioration of the situation in those urban areas, how can SF possibly bring the insurgency in Baghdad under control without assistance of conventional forces, let alone an entire country? SF and conventional forces must fight together in the same areas at the same time. Finding the proper force mix, correct levels of integration and division of tasks is what we have been struggeling with and I think have to large measure successfully addressed and it should get even better.

Until the IA is up and running our conventional forces will have a role to play in Iraq. It may not necessarily be in fighting the insurgents, but there are hundreds of other tasks that they can perform which will free more of our SF/SOF personnel to dedicate their efforts to their core mission.

[Larry Dunbar]

What were we to do with conventional forces after phase 1?

I think I can help explain, or perhaps give another perspective, what the extra troops could be use for. When one country goes kinetic against another country, there are a series of events that can be use toward a successful campaign. Except when the US military was containing Russia, the US military seemed to use a strategy developed by Col. Boyd called PISRR, which means Penetrate, Isolate, Subvert, Reorientation, and Reharmonize. Roughly the campaign goes something like this. First you Penetrate your enemy’s country. Then you Isolate the government from its people (in Iraq’s case it simply meant Isolating Saddam from his people). Then you Subvert the Iraqi people by reorient their government towards our government’s way of thinking. The last R is for Reharmonize the nation towards its new government. Re-harmonization happens as the government starts to function under its new orientation and the people follow.

You use those “extra” troops in the reorientation phase of the PISRR movement. Unlike we did in Iraq, you don’t stand-down the government of the nation you are trying to Reharmonize. You reorient the government to your way of thinking. I am not quite sure how to do this, but one way I imagine is: you can get any military to pay attention to your way of thinking by paying them and keeping them with food and supplies. I believe this is something our conventional forces understands and could have accomplished. I believe solders pay transcends language barriers and culture. Our conventional forces could have enabled government officials to keep the support coming to the new Iraqi military forces. Standing an American GI behind Iraqi government official would help to reorient them to our way of thinking. If not, an attitude adjustment would have been in order.

If we had put our conventional forces in charge of tasks that consisted of getting Iraqi government officials to do their jobs, reorientated to the US military standards, I believe it would have taken all extra conventional forces to accomplished this. These tasks could then move out to mayors, clerks, and other government official in all parts of the Iraqi government. I think it would have taken a lot of troops.

I believe something happened like this after Germany fell during WWII. Suddenly in Germany none of the mayors, clerks and government’s officials were Nazis. They were simply pawns of the Nazis movement, or so they say. It may have been true, but it may also have had something to do with an American GI standing behind them with a rifle. I think ex-Saddam officials would have claimed something similar.

But then, during Reorientation it doesn’t matter what their implicit laws are (those beliefs inside their heads) as long as they function to our explicit rule-sets. Re-harmonization comes later and really involves the people of the nation you are trying to build and not those in positions of power.

I believe the amount of troops to use was never in question (no general goes to battle with too few troops, troops are something you can never get more of in time for the battle). What was in question was the battle plan. Did we want to go into Iraq with A PISRR movement or something else? If Saddam had used WMD’s there would have been fewer people to handle in Baghdad, so maybe the thought that they would receive us as liberators doesn’t seem so far fetch, as it does to me now. Also, because the outcome of a war cannot be known, there is an element of chance in any battle plan, so theoretically any plan could work. It may be safe to say we can learn from any battle but it is hard to judge.

Besides the element of chance, planning for a war represents an Observation, Orientation, Decision making and Acting (OODA) movement, also developed by Col. Boyd. If your enemy knows you well enough, they can enter into your orientation and control your decision-making. As an example, if they know you will be using a high maneuver orientation, such as a Blitzkrieg, they will know the importance of information. They will know the extreme measures needed to gain information and the extreme pressure that will develop to use those extreme measures. Not only that, but the enemy will also understand how public outcry will develop in the case of possible indiscretions of interrogators. I believe one such enemy entered our planning of the Iraq war. That enemy was Iran and they entered our loop through ex-Iraqi patriots beholden to the ways of Iran.

In many ways, the war in Iraq is a continuation of the war between Persians and Arabs. I don’t know a lot about their struggle, I think it has to do about Islam. Persians think anyone can become a prophet and the Arabs say no they can’t. Shia’s are the dividing line. Iran is using the Shia as pawns in their war with the Arabs. It would be like playing a game of Chess and your opponent uses not only their pawns but yours as well. If I am not mistaken the Persians invented chess. Anyway, the Iranians are still in our loop. What ever we do against Iran, because Iran is still in our decision making loop, Iran already knows the outcome.

[SSG Rock]

The idea that conventional forces are a detriment in an UW environment is one that I simply reject. With our troops engaged in conducting a counter insurgency and nation building (or rebuilding) the task is beyond the ability of SF/SOF to handle alone. Obviously there is a premium on our SF forces due to their expertise in fighting a counter insurgency, the more our conventional forces can pick up for them the better.

PISRR is a challenge for us due to the cultural and religious differences. Having spent time in the region myself, I can tell you that they simply do not hold the same values as we do. You might as well be talking to an alien from the far side of the universe. The cultural, political and religious gaps are that wide. I'm not sure how effective we can be in trying to convince the Iraqis to see things our way, to set up their government they way we think it should operate. Perhaps if we spent more time in trying to find out how they want to set it up we will get there faster with a better chance of it sticking, standing the test of time. With the insurgents ability to fight both above and below our threshold of conventional capability we would be better served by admitting that America's political system culture, values and military might are not the answer to winning the political and ieological dimension of this particular counterinsurgency. And there is no reason we should think we can win an ideological struggle over the future of Islam or the Arab world. But, if we recognize that by contrast, our Muslim and Arab allies may well be able to and work with them and not against them we may win the struggle or better stated, assist our allies in winning. Hopefully it has sunk in to our national civilian leadership that our foreign policy can have a major and often unforseen, negative impact in aiding counterinsurgency and counter terrorism. But, Iraq demonstrates that local, tribal, ethnic and religious issues have to be fought out by our allies. The U.S. can help, but we cannot win or dominate the battle for hearts and minds. Only our regional allies with the right relgion, culture and most importanly legitimacy can cope with the increasing ability of ideologically motivated enemies, to locate the fault lines that can divide us from the populace by creating increased ethnic and political differences. We are getting there, I think this is the strategy we have finally adopted after stumbling around like a bull in a china shop. I'm not sure what this has to do with the SF/conventional issue, perhaps that our conventional forces are now properly focused on training, advising and providing a secure environment for nation building, allowing SF to do what they do best conducting COIN Ops.

[NDD]

Have you guys read Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife?

[Bill Moore]

It is simply a fantasy to believe that small SF units would have been able to stabilize Iraqi’s urban areas. A small footprint only consisting of SF would have resulted in the insurgents simply elevating the conflict to a war of movement in a matter of weeks. Even now the insurgents are able to mass into elements of greater than a 100 fighters when conventional forces are not present to suppress this. Unfortunately we don’t have “enough” conventional forces present to suppress this type of activity throughout Iraq.

SF ODAs would have quickly been overwhelmed by the irregular enemy threat shortly after the conventional Iraq Army collapsed. This wasn’t Afghanistan; SF for the most part didn’t have a liberation element to work with. The only locals they could work through, by and with for the most part were the Kurds. The Kurds are a destabilizing element in several parts of Iraq, so the bottom line is that option was not viable. The only viable security force as we transitioned into phase IV was U.S. conventional forces, and we obviously needed more, not less. It is nice to think we could have won over the Iraqi people with small elements and carrots, but it is also simply fantasy.

All that said, I must agree with my brothers regarding the dismal performance of “some” of our conventional forces whose actions definitely set back our ability to stabilize certain regions by months if not longer. The lessons on how to conduct business in an insurgency type environment have been out there for several years, and while not easy, they definitely are not rocket science. As I stated previously, some units are doing fantastic and others are challenged. For the most part it comes down to leadership. I still don’t understand why our educated officer corps in many cases can’t grasp (or implement) the simple concepts of counterinsurgency, so maybe the answer is for the conventional forces to be much more selective on who they promote to lead our soldiers?

[SSG Rock]

Have you guys read Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife?

I just heard about that today as a matter of fact. Plan on checking it out.

Bill, you are on target with your assessment in my opinion. Conventional forces have kind of bumped around in the night for awhile. Seems to me the Marines did a pretty good job addressing this earlier than the Army did. But, thankfully, I beleive we are seeing progress. Also, I think the our leadership development for conventional forces officers should include a healthy dose of counter insurgency. Maybe thats being addressed in the schoolhouses now, I'm not sure. But there is plenty of information out there in the various lessons learned websites. Also, BCKS is up and running and is a great consolidated collection of lessons learned etc. If you have an AKO account you can access BCKS.

[Jedburgh]

Also, BCKS is up and running and is a great consolidated collection of lessons learned etc. If you have an AKO account you can access BCKS.
BCKS has dedicated sections for COIN, Stability Ops, CA - and OIF/OEF specific resources and discussion...

[NDD]

Rock,
While I disagree with many of his conclusions, the book addresses many of your questions. Be forewarned - it will probably frustrate you based on what I have read in this thread.:)

Mr. Moore makes good points. You actually have to have an indigenous force in order to lead one.

Troops will generally do what they are told and follow the examples they are given. The Brits used conventional forces in Malaya. I think the trick is getting them on the same page and following the program. I believe the Brits achieved this by requiring all the incoming leadership to attend the jungle training school, where I suspect UW topics were the order of the day.

Anyway, get the book - well worth the purchase price and very pertinent to the subject at hand.

For the record, I am not an Anglophile - I severed diplomatic relations with the English in 1776.:D

[SSG Rock]

I do plan on giving it a look. I'll google it up.

You've already read it huh? Have you commented on it anywhere? I'd be interested in your thoughts especially.

I did find this link, which is an update the author wrote as an addendum and to update some of the misconceptions in his original work. It seems that the author wrote the book before deployment to Iraq, and after having lived through the experiences he had previously written on found that he didn't get it all right. This is also a pretty good primer.

http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/567702.html

[NDD]

I do plan on giving it a look. I'll google it up.

You've already read it huh? Have you commented on it anywhere? I'd be interested in your thoughts especially.

I did find this link, which is an update the author wrote as an addendum and to update some of the misconceptions in his original work. It seems that the author wrote the book before deployment to Iraq, and after having lived through the experiences he had previously written on found that he didn't get it all right. This is also a pretty good primer.

http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/567702.html
Yes, that preface is in the edition I have. His changes in the later preface closely mirror my criticisms of the book itself. All in all it is a good piece of work. The problem I believe is the subject matter - to do it justice would take volumes and that was obviously not the author's intent.

I would have rather seen a comparison between Malaya and El Salvador. But the book isn't bad at all.

What we are conducting in Iraq now is I believe FID - with obvious exceptions of course. FID is a very complex issue and I have never seen what I would consider to be the definitive work on it. If anyone has any suggestions, I would love to hear them.

[Larry Dunbar]

What we are conducting in Iraq now is I believe FID - with obvious exceptions of course. FID is a very complex issue and I have never seen what I would consider to be the definitive work on it. If anyone has any suggestions, I would love to hear them.

I know I shouldn't say anything, but isn't that (FID) like re-orienting an indigenous force that doesn't exist (Saddam's old army and government). Don't you really need a host country first?

[Bill Moore]

What we're doing is FID like, but it isn't FID, because Iraq as a nation doesn't exist yet. We're doing a regime change, and we don't have a lot of doctrine on that, so we falling back on FID principles, perhaps incorrectly.

[jcustis]

FID meaning???

[Bill Moore]

Foreign Internal Defense (FID): Participation by civilian and military agencies of a government in any of the action programs taken by another government or other designated organization to free and protect its society from subversion, lawlessness, and insurgency. (One government assisted another with its internal security, so does this apply in a Stateless condition? I think this is much more than a play on words, but the essence of our troubles is we still haven't even properly defined it, nor understand the nature of the type of fight we're in).

Counterinsurgency: Those military, paramilitary, political, economic, psychological, and civic actions taken by a government to defeat insurgency. Also called COIN

[SWJED]

Small blurb in the Washington Pulse section of June's National Defense magazine - Special Operators No Longer Travel Light (http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/issues/2006/June/SpecialOpsGain.htm).


Special operations forces are not what they used to be. Case in point is the growing use of heavy armored vehicles by SOF units, relates John G. Grimes, the Defense Department’s chief information officer. The rapid spread of concealed roadside bombs and remotely detonated explosives as weapons of choice against U.S. forces means SOF troops can no longer deploy with just their suitcases, Grimes says. Now, they want Bradley and Stryker armored personnel carriers. “We are shocked at how the SOF community is looking for these hardened vehicles. Before they just would go out there and integrate with society. The whole structure is changing.”

[NDD]

What we're doing is FID like, but it isn't FID, because Iraq as a nation doesn't exist yet. We're doing a regime change, and we don't have a lot of doctrine on that, so we falling back on FID principles, perhaps incorrectly.
Mmm, I agree that it is nascent (hopefully not still born) but I disagree. I believe it is indeed FID. W are attempting to defend the internals, such as they are. What I don't think we are succeeding as well at is the other objective of FID - the "selfish" one.