training soldiers to be cops or street smart?
The proposal to integrate counter gang law enforcement techniques and tactics into our pre-mission train up has merit (if done right with select personnel). I recall reading a Newsweek article years ago where the CIA was recruiting top notch detectives from NYC and other locations, because they had an effective approach (not to mention experience) to finding terrorists, which their case officers didn’t. Robert Kaplan in latest book “Imperial Grunts” mentioned that a couple of National Guard Special Forces Teams in Afghanistan were very effective because a lot of the team members were cops back on the block, and they knew how to work the kids who were insurgent age.
Cops and soldiers for the most part view the world differently, and in many cases a cop’s viewpoint is more applicable in addressing many of our challenges in GWOT. I think the rotations with the border patrol and SWAT teams would have much less value than simply integrating our personnel with a good beat cop or with an anti-gang task force. We already have units that advanced SWAT team skills, and the legal complications to actually integrating a regular soldier (minus special ops) with a SWAT team would be insurmountable considering the potential liability.
A cop brings intuition based on intimate knowledge of the local area’s geography, people, culture, and history. If he is truly integrated in the community, he’ll know where the problem areas are based on his sources and his sixth sense (which can only be developed over time). My observations about police work are strictly based on limited reading and watching the news, but it appears that in communities or neighborhoods where the police are an integral part of that community’s fabric they are effective. The opposite side of the coin, is that neighborhoods that only see the police in body armor and in convoy (two car rule) when there is a 911 call are much less effective (much like many of our unit’s clumsy attempts to provide security), because they’re blind to a problem until it surfaces, and if it goes subsurface before they arrive they won’t be able to solve it. Perhaps that is part of the problem in France currently with the riots, whose genius was in isolated and segregated communities that probably were not well policed, leaving the officials blind to the emerging problem, and limited options for dealing with it, vice targeting the key speakers/instigators, assuming those social centers of gravity exist. Probably the only effective police officers would have been from the neighborhood, who spoke Arabic or local North African dialects and understood the culture, which sag ways into the next point.
The value of training a soldier in these methods isn’t so much to enable him to be a police officer during a stability operation, but rather to integrate with and assist the local law enforcement officers. Only locals that are resident for extended periods will have the depth of local knowledge to effectively apply this advanced form of intuition. We have examples in our history where we conducted similar operations, but big Army doesn’t seem comfortable with these nuanced operations that return so much over time, but so little between the 12 hour battle update briefs, so maybe we need to go back to robust military advisory groups filled with senior NCOs and officers that we can integrate with the host nation for extended periods, these would be the ideal candidates to receive this training in my opinion. They would be a great source of HUMINT and be able to give the regular green suitors a street perspective of what’s really happening.
I’ll readily admit there are some cases where we will have to be that police force until a host nation force is established, but hopefully that won’t be the norm in the future.
Combining Infantry with Police Officers
I guess I am giving away my age but when I was in the 82nd I used to walk courtesy patrol with Fayettville Police departement down Hay st. I also helped train some of the first SWAT teams in rappelling at Bragg. Good Law Enforcement is a lot like good Infantry patrols. This a golden opportunity for both the military and Police departments. Also most SWAT Ops orders are issued as the standard 5 paragraph Ops order used in the Military. More later just got home.
US Police Experience of Limited Value
I was a State Police Officer for 5 years and must agree with Jehburgh. Policing in the U.S. is so different from COIN operations that the two have almost nothing in common.
American Police primarily "control a segment of the underclass", the criminals. We weren't in the business of changing the hearts and minds of the middle-class. or even the underclass. We just frustrated the desires of the criminal few. Even in the worst neighborhoods, most people were horrified if our authority was seriously contested.
We were vehicle and roadbound almost all the time. We didn't stroll around and talk to people. Officers drive someplace, conduct their business and then drive to the next place.
Few if any officers, live in the communities where the bulk of the criminal work is conducted, the lower class communities. Like most people, officers settle their families in the best communities they can afford, which often are not the ones they work in. Officers do not really have to live with the consequences of any failures of ommision or commision.
The above facts have much to do with, not so much excessive force (I saw very little of that), as with the discourtesy sometimes shown. Disrespect alienates family members, freinds and neighbors, who are most often the information sources.
Regarding, Mr. Moore's comment about overwhelming force when effecting an arrest; overwhelming numbers is the best way to avoid a fight. Those numbers don't need to offend people.
Our department was driven by stats. Activity had to be showed. A stat was a stat, especially when viewed from two levels above. If time was taken to talk and probe, and the stats suffered; it was frowned upon.
(I am not sure, however, anybody can reliably develop good sources inside a criminal gang. The members have too much to lose and besides, you can't leave them in place when they do a crime. The FBI tried that with Whitey Bulger in Boston and it didn't work. The main way I think, is negotiating with them after they are arrested.)
Most guys try as hard as they can but American departments are structured as to preclude doing the things COIN requires.
Just as an aside, though, good corrections officers know the value of courtesy and respectfully dealing with everybody. It is the difference between the job being easy and hard.
CMO and Indian Reservations
Military planners need to understand how civil authorities manage populations where physical intimidation and a lack of a law enforcing/security personnel are the norm in order to better plan and execute operations in Iraq and future contingencies.
If the presence of US military personnel will be perceived as a violation of Possee Comitatus, why not use Indian Reservations for training? Are these areas not populated by people with diverse cultures and cultural indiosyncracies that would provide excellent examples for troops preparing to deploy overseas? Wouldnt this be the ideal place for CMO and cultural training to be practiced?
Imperial or Colonial lessons
The British Army and others here make much of our "low intensity" operational experience, with it's historical roots, e.g. Malaya and the impact of Northern Ireland. Once the RUC (Northern Irelands police) were capable and took primacy from the army - there was a well established structure for joint operations and more. Since the army were deployed in support for so long the interaction was considerable, notably with junior officers and NCOs with their police equivalents. The need for minimum use of force, not a principle readily compatible to the military, was accepted and there is an abundance of newsreel showing a gap between the rioters and the police/army.
The interaction worked both ways, the RUC absorbed some military methods and unquantified numbers of soldiers left to join the police (often after local marriages). Tasking & Co-Ordination Groups (TCG) now so familiar to UK policing come from the military.
Soldiers, or PMC, cannot become police officers easily, but it can be done temporarily in some situations. Police officers cannot become soldiers, remember here armed police are rare and SWAT equivalents far smaller than in the USA. The gendarmerie or para-military police model, usually identified as European, maybe easier to follow. Can anyone comment on them?