What are the top 5 things we've learned from OIF
Below is the starter for this thread that came out of a response I put forward in the Counter-Insurgency for U.S. Policy Makers thread that Steve Metz started:
Quote:
How will OIF be remembered - from which parts will we draw lessons available? What was John Ford trying to tell us when Jimmy Stewart admits to not having killed Lee Marvin in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance?
I have some concern that when OIF is reviewed we will pick and choose what we want to learn out of it. If we were doing a review right now what would we lay out as the top 5 or so takeaways and how would that effect change? I'm a bit concerned that as a military we might go for the low hanging fruit instead of really being introspective and looking forward with regards not only to our own war, but the other wars going on around us, and how potential adversaries might be eyeballing us and their neighbors.
Do we simplify things through aggregation of events to get our arms around it -a kind of historical compression - where important bits get crushed in order to make the larger event fit the place we assign it? Do we linearize historical events to a point where they are seen only in relation to previous and subsequent events and as such lose important context, or are discarded as irrelevant? We have to be real careful not to do this.
At certain points in OIF you'll find some serious fights where the nature of war became reasonably unbridled and pure for the combatants, even if outside of that it was more tethered to its political context. This not only happened during the invasion, but in Ramadi, Fallujah, Baghdad, Mosul and several other places between the invasion and up to 2007. We still consider there is a possibility of large scale fights that might happen as a result of JAM, folks lying low until we start to withdraw BCTs or if events exterior to OIF should occur - we have to in order to lessen the chance of being surprised. We should not write those fights off as anomalies - nor should we cite them as the norm. Maybe its just the way chance and probability are going to play out to scale given the stakes of interested parties. What appears of tactical consequence to us, might be perceived as strategic to somebody else - and their reaction might be as well.
Consider what it takes to deploy and sustain a large military force of air, sea and ground components capable of doing what we did in the initial phase of OIF - too many times I think policy folks (and even ourselves) don't understand or forget the mechanisms involved in that task until we actually have to do it. As such we often lack an appreciation for the overhead required to adjust to the friction of doing these big muscle movements with all the supporting ones that make it possible.
RA ad Ken asked me to consider putting up a thread that would offer an an opportunity to consider what we've learned from OIF thus far. I had to think about that for a moment because it meant pulling a response from one thread and potentially losing the context from which the response was given.
I think that is OK though - and I think we must always ask questions about what we've learned - but I wanted to qualify what responses "might" consist of:
- It could be about the pre-war to contemplating the post war.
- It could be from the tactical to the strategic.
- It could be from the domestic to the international.
- It could be about the enemy or about ourselves.
- It could be about Iraq or about Iraq's neighbors.
- It could be about our strategic culture or our morals and values with regard to how war changes us
- It could be about politics or how we wage war
- It cold be about IO or expectations
- It could be about .....
In sum - the floor is wide open. You don't need to stay on a single topic - cover five different ones if you want - be brief or be explanatory. I think it would be helpful if you can rank order them and tell why - so we all understand why something is important.
For those wondering about the Liberty Valance ref. - John Wayne actually shot Lee Marvin, but after an older Jimmy Stewart tells all at the end, the guy recording the story tears it up - truth would not play out as well as the legend of a shop keeper standing down the town bad guy - we have to try hard and prevent that if we stand a chance of learning the right lessons and preparing for future wars. From the first guys and gals who crossed the berm and went into Iraq (and the pilots who flew those first missions) our folks have overcome fog and friction found within the METT-TC conditions - there are all kinds of lesson we should be considering.
Best Regards, Rob
I'll eventually get around to putting up my 5 - but I want to think about them awhile.
What This Civilian Has Learned
1.) Significant and vocal elements on the home front will never support any war under any circumstances, hence an increase in PR energy and expenditures by the military aimed at the home front is not justified.
2.) Concerns over immediate financial expenditures trump any and all strategic considerations and drive all time tables. The need for quality war products that saves lives and expedites mission completion mandates radical restructuring in logistical management/allocation.
3.) ROE can only be defined by the culture and terrain encountered
4.) All civilians and non-indigenous contractors must answer to a higher military authority, except the Diplomatic Corps, during combat and pacification operations.
5.) All combat personnel and those slotted for in-country supportive roles must undergo extensive, intensive cross cultural training and those failing must be kept stateside or discharged.
Third World = Ethnic/Sectarian Conflict
From my perspective, looking over the battles in most third world nations, either the ones that we've been involved in to the ones that we just watched unfold, ethnic or sectarian tension or conflict seems inevitable. From the first Gulf War, where it was the Shia that rose up against Saddam, to the Balkans, to Rwanda, Somalia, etc, etc, etc, particularly wherever political repression and economic depression exist.
We seemed to be blissfully unaware of or simply ignored the possibility or probability. Maybe it is "hindsight", but we should have anticipated both the Shia death squads and the Sunni insurgents. When one ethnicity or sect has been oppressed by the other, they are going to want "justice" or "revenge". If that isn't forth coming immediately by either the invading force or by the constituted "representative government", one side will take matters into their own hands and it likely will not be as controlled or limited as a government might be and the needs to reduce the possibility of all out civil war.
In some regards, though I understood the need for the Iraq government (now Shia dominated) to appear "just" as a new kind of government, different from the old, and our own desire to collect intelligence, it might have been more prudent to move along trials of the top offenders and get that out of the way.
At the time, we were operating under the assumption that the appearance of "justice" would stem the tide of the insurgency. In all honesty, it didn't. Instead, the length of the trials allowed such malcontents to use it as an excuse to take revenge and fueled the Sunni insurgency. Accepting, of course, that part of the problem was the Al Qaida presence and attacks being loosely associated with some Sunni local insurgents.
Still, "justice" should have been done much sooner. This was not post WWII Germany where the population had been bombarded into glazed eyed acceptance of the end and could not mobilize to protest the long trials or the occupation.
Had the Iraqis moved forward quickly with trials, even under a very imperfect system and with summary decisions of guilt (as if there was going to be any other...another complaint heard among Iraqis) and execution, the Shia may even have been mollified enough to allow the system to work, even a little more slowly on the rest. It might also had the Shia less concerned about high ranking Ba'athists coming back and allowed the rest of the reconciliation problem to move forward.
As they say in the west, "No justice, no peace."
Accepting that third world nations are likely to have such tensions or conflict, we should be much more cognizant of the layers of society and prepared to deal with them. Somehow, the idea that Iraqis were "educated" and had lived together for years without conflict, made us forget that the Ba'athist organization was largely Sunni and had oppressed the Shia violently, thus the probability of conflict.
Further, that, most of the Sunni not being unutterable destroyed or decimated in battle, meant that they were less likely to see themselves as "totally defeated" and thus ready to accept the new paradigm of a Shia dominated government. It's the sociological idea that the abuser actually fears the return abuse that they may receive when they no longer have power.
We should be looking for the divides and not pretend they don't exist. We should prepare for that divide and the desire for revenge.
That is a good reason to have anthropologists and other cultural experts on board before we decide to go. And, we should be more willing to listen to them. Does it stop war? No. But it may keep a four year insurgency from occurring.
Lessons as they relate...
to multi-culturalization:
1. Speak their language and understand their lingo, whoever they may be. Both literally and metaphorically which ties into...
2. Ethnocentrism kills. Try to make anyone else look like us in our minds and we only waste time and lives, but if we just try to see the world from their eyes everything will click.
to us:
3. We are still our own worst enemy. No one hits us as hard as we do.
4. We need to go back to basics, they are. Strategy has been left unchanged throughout the centuries but if stone age tech can still effect us we should go back to history and study the tactics of the ancients. I feel union between old and new perspectives will provide a proper foundation for future war fighting.
to the enemy:
5. They are playing for keeps, they want us dead and they are not going to stop unless someone forces them.
What I learned in two tours at the tactical level
1. Iraqis want the same thing we want; safety and security for their families.
2. Fundamentals are fundamentals are fundamentals. Whether its a tank on tank battle or a counterinsurgency, basic fundamentals of maneuver, fundamentals of offensive operations, fundamentals of defensive operations, fundamentals of security, and fundamentals of reconnaissance apply, it's just their application that changes.
3. IF you try to learn the language and culture and make a concerted effort to communicate, no matter how bad you are, you'll make more money with the populace than if you play the "ugly American."
4. You must live amongst the populace to influence the populace.
5. Nothing you do is stealthy in a counterinsurgency. Someone is always watching you.