Selective Use of History in the Development of American COIN Doctrine

I stumbled upon this piece by COL Gentile in the Summer 2009 issue of Army History Magazine (9.65 MB PDF file): The Selective Use of History in the Development of American Counterinsurgency Doctrine (begins on page 21 of 60). In it, Gentile points out that current COIN theory was developed largely in response to one narrow type of conflict, ignoring others, and now is being misapplied wholesale to other inappropriate situations.

In a nutshell: Galula assumes future wars will be countering Maoist revolutionary wars, Galula proposes a sophisticated counter to it, US doctrine writers fall for it, hilarity ensues.

Here is a series of excerpts that summarize the basic idea...

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The French officers of the Revolutionary War School constructed a simplified model to explain these insurgencies based on Mao Tse-tung’s overthrow of the Nationalist Chinese government in 1949... The French officers reduced Maoist revolutionary war into a simplified and rigid template for action that, they believed, other Communist-inspired insurgencies would follow... These officers spent their time constructing a doctrine and methods to counter the simplified type of insurgency they posited instead of gaining a deeper appreciation and more sophisticated explanation of what Maoist revolutionary wars really entailed. The French officers essentially reduced Maoist revolutionary war to a set of uncomplicated steps that would occur during the process of internal revolution or insurgency... The counterrevolutionary approach that these French Army officers produced, in contrast to their simplification of Maoist war, was actually quite sophisticated. They sought to counter Maoist tactics by turning the process leading to Communist revolution on its head... Since the ultimate goal for Maoist revolutionary war was to use the Communists’ domination of the people to overthrow the government, the officers’ goal in fighting it was to de-couple the people from the revolutionary insurgency.
- Excerpted from pages 25 and 26

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So, my questions are...

1. For you historians, or those of you who play historians online, do you agree with the basic argument put forth that current COIN doctrine, based heavily upon Galula et al, is too narrowly built upon assumptions of insurgencies resembling Maoist revolutionary wars? Why?

2. If we assume that our COIN doctrine does, indeed, rest upon assumptions characteristic of a Maoist revolutionary war, does this render it inapplicable - or significantly flawed - for today's operations in Afghanistan? Why or why not?

3. What historical examples, if any, provide us with conflicts that share more parallels with Afghanistan and/or better lessons more applicable to Afghanistan? Why?

You haven't got a master's paper to write and are looking for ideas are you? (VTIC)

3. Ferghana Valley Bolsheviks vs. "Basmachi" and Eastern Bukhara highlands Bolsheviks versus Lokai, Enver Pasha and Basmachi.

Why? Because, aside from being in the neighborhood and involving the use of Islam as a rallying call by the insurgents, the bolsheviks were able to create local allies and win elites to their side despite being militantly anti-religious. The alien divide between locals and bolsheviks was even worse than between Americans and random folks up in the hills in Kunar. However, the Afghan Amir agreed to end the safe haven on his side of the river, so hard to compare with Pakistan these days.

Also, Tajikistan from 1992-1997. The opposition eventually signed a joke of a "power-sharing" agreement from a position of weakness. But that involved Sri Lanka style movement of supporting civilians and mass killing etc.. Also, they lost the safe haven in Afghanistan after Massoud allied with the Russians. So no usable lessons. Jesse Driscoll has a forthcoming book on the subject, so there will finally be something useful on the topic in English.

Unfortunately, the literature on Russian/Soviet COIN in Central Asia is terrible.

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Originally Posted by Christian

3. Ferghana Valley Bolsheviks vs. "Basmachi" and Eastern Bukhara highlands Bolsheviks versus Lokai, Enver Pasha and Basmachi.

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I admit to knowing nothing about this. Can you recommend a source (preferably a paper, rather than a book) to shed any light on it?

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Originally Posted by Christian

Also, Tajikistan from 1992-1997... Jesse Driscoll has a forthcoming book on the subject, so there will finally be something useful on the topic in English.

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I googled to see if it's on pre-order at amazon, bn, etc - nothing listed. Do you know the name of it? Also, I saw that he did a paper on militias and civil wars, but I don't see it available online - perhaps there's a future tweet.

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Originally Posted by GI Zhou

You haven't got a master's paper to write and are looking for ideas are you? (VTIC)

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No. But if I did. Hopefully someone with an interest and a need stumbles upon this thread.

VTIC?

I haven't read Galula so I can't say whether his writings are exclusively an answer to Maoist revolutionary doctrine. However, history has lots of examples of unconventional warfare that had nothing to do with Mao. Three instances of UW in which the unconventional forces operated in support of larger conventional efforts were the Confederate John S. Mosby's battalion in Virginia during the American Civil War, the SAS and OSS Jedburgh operations in 1944 in France in support of the Normandy landings, and U.S. Army Special Forces as they were originally conceived when founded in the 1950s, stay-behinds in Germany who would promote insurgencies behind Soviet lines in the event WW III broke out. In the 1980s SF adopted the crossed arrows insignia of the old Indian Scouts, poachers turned gamekeepers who if I'm not mistaken were founded by the Army officer George Crook in the 19th century.

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Originally Posted by Pete

I haven't read Galula so I can't say whether his writings are exclusively an answer to Maoist revolutionary doctrine. However, history has lots of examples of unconventional warfare that had nothing to do with Mao. Three instances of UW in which the unconventional forces operated in support of larger conventional efforts were the Confederate John S. Mosby's battalion in Virginia during the American Civil War, the SAS and OSS Jedburgh operations in 1944 in France in support of the Normandy landings, and U.S. Army Special Forces as they were originally conceived when founded in the 1950s, stay-behinds in Germany who would promote insurgencies behind Soviet lines in the event WW III broke out. In the 1980s SF adopted the crossed arrows insignia of the old Indian Scouts, poachers turned gamekeepers who if I'm not mistaken were founded by the Army officer George Crook in the 19th century.

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Crook was not the first officer to use Indian scouts, although his PR machine would have people believe that. Scouts (both native and Frontiersmen) formed the backbone of the Frontier Army's reconnaissance efforts, and had been so since the 1830s (if not sooner).

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Originally Posted by Steve Blair

Crook was not the first officer to use Indian scouts, although his PR machine would have people believe that. Scouts (both native and Frontiersmen) formed the backbone of the Frontier Army's reconnaissance efforts, and had been so since the 1830s (if not sooner).

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Another good example comes from the annihilation of General Hull's forces in 1812 by Brock and his allies. That campaign (less than 40 days from Hull's invasion until we captured Detroit) does have some very interesting applications top Afghanistan including how not to use propaganda and why General's should never believe their own propaganda.

colonial wars. During the Revolution, Oneida and Creek Scouts were particularly effective. Wayne used Miami scouts in the move to the Battle of Fallen Timbers. Indian Scouts were always used by the Army but until 1866, they were volunteers or local employees of the units involved. That year Congress authorized '...a force not to exceed 1,000 of Indians to act as Scouts...'

A number of them got Medals of Honor. IIRC, Crooks use of Apache Scouts had some problems...

To return to the thread, I am no historian but I believe the answers to the questions are:

1. Yes, it is too narrowly focused. Maoist theory worked for the China that existed in the first half of the 20th Century, it was and is not universally applicable. It later worked to an extent in Viet Nam but only because Giap adapted. Many espouse Galula's theories because it is easier for most to wrap around a 'theory' the predicts human behavior than it is to acknowledge that such behavior is so infinitely variable that there is and can be no unifying theory. One must be infinitely adaptable and most people don't want to do that, it makes them uncomfortable...

2. No, it does not render it inapplicable though it can and does induce flaws in application. Why? Simply because Afghanistan is not China, the Afghans are not Chinese, there have been major changes in communication and other aspects of life and attempts to win over a population that will resist you simply because of who you are and which has long survived by brigandage and deception is quite different than confronting the China of 1930. Or the Viet Nam of 1950-75, much less Algeria in the 1960s -- which was not a Maoist insurgency in most aspects. Simply put, in Afghanistan the sea where the fish swim can be made toxic to fish but one is not going to win a single heart or mind. EVERY war is different, attempts to apply a template or pattern will generally be ineffective and can induce further errors and unintended consequences (however, that pattern factor does resonate with those reluctant to stray outside their comfort zones -- at a rough guess, about 80% of all populations including Colonels and Generals...).

3. The Apache campaigns come close, among other things, the inter band feuds replicate the ethnic divisions in Afghanistan. Angola might bear a look. The Philippines...

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Originally Posted by Ken White

3. The Apache campaigns come close, among other things, the inter band feuds replicate the ethnic divisions in Afghanistan. Angola might bear a look. The Philippines...

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They also have a number of non-state and outside actors who had a major impact on the course of operations (to include sanctuary areas). The Philippines come close, but there was at least an inkling of nationalism in many areas that transcended tribal identities (which is something you didn't see with the Apache). Arizona between 1850ish and 1870 is actually a better fit, because you had the Pai peoples and Navajo running around as well (by the time Crook came on the scene the picture had been simplified to a degree). But now I'm wandering into my specialty and should hush...:o

A few points relative to this...

First, in the midst of all this enthusiasm for insurgency study, COIN, etc, it might be worth recalling that our core antagonist in the fight of the day, AQ, is not an insurgency at all.

Second, we need to note a fundamental difference between the COIN situations we're in now and those of the Cold War. During the Cold War we intervened to assist "allies" (often rather dubious in nature) that were threatened by insurgency. Insurgencies arose against existing Governments, and we responded. In today's cases, we initiated the situations through our own decisions to occupy territory and install governments. We did not intervene to support allies, we intervened to remove governments we didn't like, and subsequently created our own "allies". In one case, Iraq, this effort was completely peripheral to the core conflict with AQ.

The point of all this is simply that today's COIN efforts were not thrust upon us, they were consequences of our own choices. I don't think it's necessarily true that COIN must dominate our immediate military future, or that dealing with AQ requires us to manage insurgencies. We have the ability to control the amount of COINage in our lives by making different decisions.

I think the French theorists missed the point when they characterized the insurgencies they faced as "Maoist", and if we accept that characterization we miss an important lesson. Our great mistake in managing the Cold War in the developing world lay in allowing our opponents to seize the moral high ground of opposition to decaying empires and oafish post-colonial dictators, while we took the role of trying to rescue sinking ships, many of which were simply unsalvageable. The Communists didn't create the insurgencies, they simply exploited and harnessed a perfectly natural desire to remove foreign conquerors and incompetent dictators, something we could and should have done ourselves, instead of swimming against an overpowering historical tide.

The lesson we need to learn from that doesn't revolve around population-centric tactics, it revolves around choosing interventions wisely and avoiding situations that will harness us to governments that cannot stand, but which we cannot allow to fall.

I could go on at length, but to sum up...

Are there lessons to be learned from Cold War COIN that are relevant today? Yes.

Are all lessons deduced from Cold War COIN relevant today? No.

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Originally Posted by Dayuhan

First, in the midst of all this enthusiasm for insurgency study, COIN, etc, it might be worth recalling that our core antagonist in the fight of the day, AQ, is not an insurgency at all.

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But our policy makers have chosen to prop up a new government and defend it against the Taliban. Not saying that was wise, but just observing that's the reality. That is what we need to deal with.

I agree with most of what you wrote, as I'm sure most who have no imbibed the COIN bong water will also agree. But it seems that the solution you offer up is to put wise men into office and to conduct actual strategic planning. I suspect the odds of that happening are far less than the odds of us destroying the Taliban.

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Originally Posted by Schmedlap

But our policy makers have chosen to prop up a new government and defend it against the Taliban. Not saying that was wise, but just observing that's the reality. That is what we need to deal with.

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Very true, and certainly the management of that situation is part of our present and our immediate future. Just pointing out that this was our choice, it wasn't inevitable, and that we may be able to avoid such situations in the future by making different choices.

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Originally Posted by Schmedlap

I agree with most of what you wrote, as I'm sure most who have no imbibed the COIN bong water will also agree. But it seems that the solution you offer up is to put wise men into office and to conduct actual strategic planning. I suspect the odds of that happening are far less than the odds of us destroying the Taliban.

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Also very true, and I've no good ideas on how to weasel out of that one. One way might be to drink the bong water and merge with the Borg. Another might be to run off to self-imposed exile on a remote mountaintop and rant on the internet... but I already did that :D

It always appears to me that the only people abusing history are those with something to sell. MW and EBO both used very bad history to try and sell their wears. I see the COIN agenda as no different.

If you read military/strategic history in both depth and breadth, you really see nothing new, in terms of basic form. Wars and rebellions flow from the politics of their time. Until someone stands up and admits that the Army should ALWAYS have been skilled at irregular war, and nothing has changed, we will make little progress.
The end of the Cold War should have been a far more seismic shock to the World's Armies that 911.

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Originally Posted by William F. Owen

If you read military/strategic history in both depth and breadth, you really see nothing new, in terms of basic form. Wars and rebellions flow from the politics of their time.

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I'm definitely in agreement with you there, but I wonder what chance this argument has of talking the cult members out of the cult, or at least pumping the kool-aid out of their stomachs.

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Originally Posted by William F. Owen

Until someone stands up and admits that the Army should ALWAYS have been skilled at irregular war, and nothing has changed, we will make little progress.

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I don't see that happening until the flaws of pop-COIN in Afghanistan can be thoroughly discredited to a degree that most people with an interest in the topic can comprehend. Sadly, I don't think we're there yet.

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Originally Posted by Schmedlap

I'm definitely in agreement with you there, but I wonder what chance this argument has of talking the cult members out of the cult, or at least pumping the kool-aid out of their stomachs.

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None. - which is why I try and avoid cult members - and agenda monkeys!! :)

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I don't see that happening until the flaws of pop-COIN in Afghanistan can be thoroughly discredited to a degree that most people with an interest in the topic can comprehend. Sadly, I don't think we're there yet.

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Agree, but I don't think they ever will be. There is a huge emotional need to believe in the solution, as all things good will be part of the solution in the eyes of those adhering to POP-Coin.

Gentile himself uses history selectively to beat the too-much-COIN drum. One common theme rooted in history that influenced the French in their wars to preserve their fading empire and the US in Iraq by the early 2000s was defeat or near defeat: both were losing. Establishing context - like a zeal for practical solutions fired by losing - is a critical historical task and seems rarely to make into history-using TTPs.

Much of the American work on COIN until recently was actually explain-the-defeat history of second wave Vietnam War historiography. Much of that history concluded the US Army got the war wrong because it didn't "do" COIN right. The French school, if you will, was one place to start. But what of that American school represented by Andrew Krepinevich's The Army in Vietnam? Fast forward to the most recent works of Andrade, Birtle, and Moyar that argue that maybe the previous conclusions about the army in Vietnam were wrong.

One reason the army's COIN-manual writing team had to work fast (and accuracy often suffers when speed has become necessary) was the intellectual voids left by the army in terms of doctrine and honest historical inquiry into small wars in the shadow of the perceived failures in Vietnam. Those voids speak to larger issues of both intellectual intensity and PME as well as the long-discussed role of military history in PME.

People use phrases like "that's Maoist insurgency" the same way they use phrases like "that's a good tactical approach, but is not strategic." Both are typically phrases meaning nothing intended solely to undermine the position of their opponent.

Insurgency is insurgency; many tactics can be applied, but the root causes are pretty damn constant. Address the root causes and the counterinsurgent will prevail, ignore the root causes and the counterinsurgent will either fall into a cycle of re-occurring insurgency or will lose.

Did the majority of the COIN crowd draw the wrong conclusions from Galula's work? Probably. Population-Centric COIN is too focused on sad attempts to buy the populaces support while keeping the offending government in power; rather than on addressing the problems of governance and supporting the populaces right and duty to stand up to despotism.

COL Gentile makes some valid points that should be listened to. We need a US military that is fully prepared to deter major state-based threats and to deal with warfare. Insurgency really isn't warfare at all, and as such, COIN should be a supporting mission for the military that falls in the category with the rest of MSCA.

When we do, however, get drawn into the insurgencies of others, we will indeed need some unique capabilities, authorities and funding to engage. We also need a new COIN manual that is based on a clearer understanding of Insurgency than the current one.

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Originally Posted by iveschris

One reason the army's COIN-manual writing team had to work fast (and accuracy often suffers when speed has become necessary) was the intellectual voids left by the army in terms of doctrine and honest historical inquiry into small wars in the shadow of the perceived failures in Vietnam. Those voids speak to larger issues of both intellectual intensity and PME as well as the long-discussed role of military history in PME.

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Well there is considerable debate as to why they even had to write a COIN Manual. Why was it needed? Did it actually make any difference? The British Army never produced a COIN manual. They had theatre doctrine. It worked and worked well. Only now, are they sadly writing COIN-doctrine and it's a mess.
I submit that there was no intellectual void when it comes to "COIN". There was considerable ignorance, but no void.
Most folks just never bothered to read the material or to cherry pick the material they did, based on fashion. Personally I can see nothing written about COIN in the last 10 years is either insightful or new.

An American military historian now working in Australia wrote of the British Army in WWI that they had an ethos rather than a doctrine: embedded behaviors from the collective memory of the regiments. No, the British Army didn't have a COIN doctrine going into their participation in the Iraq War even after decades of hands-on "war among the people" or COIN in N' Ireland. I suspect it is different to find a serving officer or long-service NCO who has not served multiple rotations in N' Ireland (like the US Army and Marines now with multiple tours in a GWOT theater). This embedded, tacit knowledge is perhaps more valuable than all the doctrine written. Such knowledge didn't keep them from their issues in Southern Iraq I suspect. The internal BA study on their historical experiences and learning about COIN did not paint a pretty picture.

One reason the joint US COIN manual had little new in it was that the old knowledge was largely unknown. Even in army special forces in the '80s and '90s I found there was very little in the way of historical discussion possible about anything other than Vietnam or El Salvador because there was almost no venue for professional, serious study. It is interesting that McMasters and Petreaus both did Vietnam War dissertations outside of the military during their advanced civil schooling. The only officer, at the risk of injecting an anecdote, I recall a historical conversation with about small wars with was the now-USASOC commander when he was a battalion XO. We discussed SF and the Montagnards in VN.

The TRADOC history of the period immediately following the Vietnam War makes pretty clear - as does Conrad Crane's monograph for SSI - that the army seized upon the 1973 war in the Middle East with its high intensity and combined arms requirements with notable zeal. This institutional decision - rather than studying the recent, long return from Vietnam - resembles very much the British Army's decision to return to real soldiering on the frontiers of the Empire in the 1930s rather then study WWI for knowledge.

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Originally Posted by iveschris

An American military historian now working in Australia wrote of the British Army in WWI that they had an ethos rather than a doctrine: embedded behaviors from the collective memory of the regiments.

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Well for WW1 they had a published Doctrine Manual in 1909. "The Field Service Regulations." I have a copy, and it's pretty good. Yes, it is strongly imbued with "opinion." - The section on Cavalry is very telling.

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No, the British Army didn't have a COIN doctrine going into their participation in the Iraq War even after decades of hands-on "war among the people" or COIN in N' Ireland. I suspect it is different to find a serving officer or long-service NCO who has not served multiple rotations in N' Ireland

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The UK did have COIN doctrine. It just didn't reside in one manual. The CATOM was published in 12 different Editions, and specific to Malaya. There was published doctrine for each theatre.
Actually by 2003 in Iraq, very few men had real pre-cease fire NI experience, but everyone understood that doing COIN was what all armies did and it was not an option to ignore it.

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The internal BA study on their historical experiences and learning about COIN did not paint a pretty picture.

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Concur, but more importantly the problem would not have been solved by having a "COIN Doctrine."