My point was not to extol
either the Brits or the Guats nor to excoriate the US and GVN but simply to point out the similar methods can work or fail depending on how employed and the culture in question. Obviously, strat hamlets did not work in Vietnam because the culture would not accept it. What I am suggesting it that there are likely to be effective ways of controlling population even in Pashtun areas with an appropriate understanding of the culture. As a start, one might begin by asking how the Brits successfully coopted Pashtun elements even incorporating them in the Corps of Guides. The questions to ask are what worked in the past, might they work now, how would we need to adapt them.
Cheers
JohnT
Failure to institutionalize
Posted by Steve Blair,
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Steve Blair
Good lessons, Mike, and it's interesting to me (as a historian) how many of them should not be new. Quite a bit of it is classic Vietnam (circa about 1968-69, but was being done earlier in some places). Not knocking your lessons at all, which are hard-earned, but more observing that we could/should do a better job of preserving those lessons. And on a possibly related note, many of them could have been pulled directly from the old Small Wars Manual.
Posted by Ken White,
Quote:
The problem is that our training got dumbed down in the 1970s and 80s and we stopped teaching NCOs how to talk to people. I saw dozens if not hundreds of on NCOsS doing what that guy was doing on presence patrols in three countries. Most, not all doing it pretty well.
The above comments simply reinforce the SECDEF's assertion that we have failed to institutionalize the lessons learned from our previous experiences in irregular warfare. It is not the same as conventional war, thus the argument if you can win in a conventional conflict you'll be able to win in an irregular conflict is dangerously misleading. While many of us disagree with the definitions and some of the new fangled theories being pushed (with no historical evidence to support them), most of us hope the SECDEF is successful in institutionalzing the study and practice of irregular warfare throughout DoD.
At the risk of being a heretic
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Bill Moore
The above comments simply reinforce the SECDEF's assertion that we have failed to institutionalize the lessons learned from our previous experiences in irregular warfare.
Not on that; that's totally correct and a lick on us.
Quote:
It is not the same as conventional war, thus the argument if you can win in a conventional conflict you'll be able to win in an irregular conflict is dangerously misleading.
Heretical comment -- I'm not that sure we would've done all that well in a conventional war against a near peer competitor. I'd rephrase that statement of yours a bit; "If you're well enough trained to win a conventional war, you're probably well enough trained to do okay in irregular conflict." Mostly because I do not think we were at all well trained for conventional war; we were and are too rigid, too reluctant to take risk and we do not trust our subordinates adequately.
Well trained troops can handle both and the Army and Marines both worked at being able to do that in the early 60s with some success, noting that there were a some units that specialized in MCO, a few that emphasized IW and an even smaller few who trained for full spectrum.
I'd also suggest that in most IW, the possibility of 'winning' is not good for anyone if the fight even somewhat approaches a mid level conflict -- as in Afghanistan or Iraq.
Quote:
While many of us disagree with the definitions and some of the new fangled theories being pushed (with no historical evidence to support them), most of us hope the SECDEF is successful in institutionalzing the study and practice of irregular warfare throughout DoD.
Yep. Needs to happen. Training required to win against a near peer in MCO needs only slight modification and additions to adapt to irregular war -- with the caveat that the GPF will never do more than an adequate job at IW or COIN. Not their thing...
I don't watch TV so I can't comment on the series.
Cav Guys link, though, resonates with me -- I saw the same sorts of errors all too frequently in other places at other times. We just flat do not do this stuff well...
I also went to the provided LINKand saw this Note appended to the Cav Guy quote:
Quote:
Note: this comment is not a criticism of the American soldiers and Marines. It is a criticism of those who prepared them, or rather failed to prepare them. Watching US helicopters sweep across the broad expanses of Helmand Province, the words from officials in Kabul about progress, protecting people, development and governance seemed otherworldly.
At the risk of repetition, the US Army and probably all the NATO armies are not large enough to protect the villages, were they entirely deployed in Afghanistan. That is a key NightWatch takeaway from the Frontline special.
The first paragraph properly ascribes blame to poor strategy, poor operational deployment and poor tactics -- the latter two exacerbated by poor military training and education.
The strategic error is neatly summed up by the last quoted paragraph.