This Week at War: End of the COIN Era?
This Week at War: End of the COIN Era?
Entry Excerpt:
Obama's Afghan withdrawal speech may mark the end of the U.S. counterinsurgency experiment.
Here is the latest edition of my column at Foreign Policy:
Topics include:
1) By tossing the COIN to Afghanistan, Obama can now aim at Pakistan
2) Are the Pentagon's plans about to become obsolete?
By tossing the COIN to Afghanistan, Obama can now aim at Pakistan
President Barack Obama's prime-time speech on his plan for withdrawing from Afghanistan left no doubt that he intends to run for reelection as the leader who ended two painful wars. Most notable was his intention to extract 10,000 soldiers this year and 23,000 more by next summer, before the height of Afghanistan's traditional summer fighting season. For some analysts, this would seem to be a large military risk, taken for purely domestic political benefit.
Obama may have concluded that conventional U.S. ground forces in Afghanistan no longer provide much leverage over the military or political situation there. Obama realizes that the Taliban have established safe havens in both Afghanistan and Pakistan where they can wait as long as they need to. With those safe havens, he likely realizes that the coalition cannot obtain sufficient advantage over the Taliban to achieve a favorable negotiated settlement. Nor can anyone be sure how permanent the apparent progress in stabilizing southern Afghanistan really is.
The real permanent leverage over the Taliban comes in two forms. The first is Afghanistan's security forces, both the government's and local militias, which will presumably operate long after coalition soldiers have left the field. A favorable outcome ultimately rests not with U.S. combat patrols but with the long-term effectiveness of Afghan security forces, something which remains very much in doubt. For those officers responsible for U.S. military doctrine, Obama's speech would seem to bring to a close another unhappy encounter with counterinsurgency (COIN) theory. But true COIN -- winning over the population through security and better governance -- is not done by an outside intervening power like the United States, but by the host country itself. Although Afghanistan provides particularly poor raw material for U.S. COIN doctrine, U.S. military planners still need to solve the COIN puzzle for future contingencies, at a much lower cost than the United States paid in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Click below to read more ...
--------
Read the full post and make any comments at the SWJ Blog.
This forum is a feed only and is closed to user comments.
Si tacuisses philosophus mansisses ...
... or as the saying goes.
I just met with my tutor and we defined my PhD thesis in a more exact way:
"Counterinsurgency vs Counterterrorism - an analysis of the difference by comparing applied measures and ROEs as seen in Iraq and Afghanistan"
I want to compare how the different levels of leadership/command (mainly strategic to operational level) apply different kinetic and non-kinetic measures and how the ROEs change.
As the coincidence goes - the US just released the new national CT strategy.
http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/jou...m_strategy.pdf
Let's see how usefull it will be for me.´
If you have any suggestions for further research/literature, just call ...:D
Let's see how this will work out - I'm really looking forward
Greetings from Austria (no, we don't have kangaroos) :p
COIN Monthly Webcast 21 July 2011
COIN Monthly Webcast 21 July 2011
Entry Excerpt:
The US Army Counterinsurgency (COIN) Center is pleased to host Lieutenant Colonel Adrian T. Bogart III on 21 July for our monthly webcast. LTC Bogart will be discussing command and control as well as the coordination of joint, interagency, irregular and multi-national forces during COIN operations.
Entitled “Counterinsurgency Mission Command” the brief will discuss the "how to" of the day-to-day management of multiple forces and organizations conducting combined COIN operations. The brief includes a review of the mechanics of executing a unity of effort for various commands and organizations involved in combating an insurgency and the key organizational and procedural constructs for the day to day management of the campaign.
His online briefing is scheduled for Thursday, 21 July 2011 at 10:00 CDT (1100 EDT, 15:00 ZULU).
Those interested in attending may view the meeting online at https://connect.dco.dod.mil/coinweb and participate via Defense Connect Online (DCO) as a guest. Remote attendees will be able to ask questions and view the slides through the software.
--------
Read the full post and make any comments at the SWJ Blog.
This forum is a feed only and is closed to user comments.
The Interpreter COIN Discussion
The Interpreter COIN Discussion
Entry Excerpt:
Two interesting pieces at The Interpreter (Lowy Institute for International Policy):
Doubts about Leahy's Afghanistan Plan by Dr. Milton Osborne
...in every counter-insurgency campaign of which I am aware, the goal of overcoming insurgents through programs that emphasise civic as well as military action can only be contemplated when both the non-military personnel who are carrying out that action and their clients can be protected.
It seems evident to me that such a situation does not exist in Afghanistan, and is not likely to be achieved in any foreseeable future, whatever brave statements are made to the contrary.
Our Undeserved COIN Reputation by Major General (Ret) Jim Molan
... I never met anyone in any position of authority who said that success in these wars could be achieved by military forces alone, but the creation of relative security for the people by the use of military or para-military forces is the first and most essential step. Security does not have to be perfect. But political, social and economic progress will not occur while the local population has the insurgent or terrorist tearing their collective throat out...
Both authors were writing in response to Time Running Out to Fix Strategy for Afghanistan by Peter Leahy in The Australian.
... The West has mistaken killing terrorists and counter-insurgency warfare for nation building. All three are needed but at different times and different degrees. It is clear the only way to deal with many of today's terrorists is to strengthen our defences and kill those who maintain their murderous intent. We can conduct raids on them in their lairs with drones as in Pakistan and raw air power as in Libya. But these actions are also likely to destabilise the countries we attack and generate more terrorists then we kill. So counter-insurgency and nation building will still be needed...
--------
Read the full post and make any comments at the SWJ Blog.
This forum is a feed only and is closed to user comments.
Evolving the COIN Field Manual: A Case for Reform
Evolving the COIN Field Manual: A Case for Reform
Entry Excerpt:
Evolving the COIN Field Manual: A Case for Reform
by Carl Prine, Crispin Burke, and Michael Few
Download the Full Article: Evolving the COIN Field Manual: A Case for Reform
Nearly a decade removed from 9/11, United States military forces remain entrenched in small wars around the globe. For the foreseeable future, the United States Government (USG) will continue to intervene in varying scale and scope in order to promote democracy and capitalism abroad. While many made efforts to describe small wars and methods of coping with them, our field manuals have not kept up with the wealth of knowledge and wisdom learned on the ground.
In order to prepare for the future, we must first understand where we have been moving beyond individual articles of best practices and lessons learned. The intent of this essay is to provide the critique in order to promote an evolution in our thinking. The purpose is to better prepare those who will follow in our footsteps. Finally, we believe that this reform is a duty required from those who directly observed the costs of today’s small wars.
Download the Full Article: Evolving the COIN Field Manual: A Case for Reform
Carl Prine is a former enlisted Marine and Army infantryman who served in Iraq. Currently, he serves as a reporter at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and blogs on national security affairs for Military.com.
Captain (P) Crispin Burke is an active duty aviator who commanded in Iraq. Currently, he is the unmanned aviation observer controller at the Combined Maneuver Training Center at Hohenfels, Germany, and he blogs on national security affairs at Wings over Iraq.
Major James Michael Few is an active duty armor officer who served multiple tours to Iraq in various command and staff positions. Currently, he serves as the editor for Small Wars Journal.
--------
Read the full post and make any comments at the SWJ Blog.
This forum is a feed only and is closed to user comments.
The Iraqi COIN Narrative Revisited: Interview with Douglas A. Ollivant
The Iraqi COIN Narrative Revisited: Interview with Douglas A. Ollivant
Entry Excerpt:
The Iraqi COIN Narrative Revisited: Interview with Douglas A. Ollivant
by Octavian Manea
Download the Full Article: The Iraqi COIN Narrative Revisited: Interview with Douglas A. Ollivant
How would you see today the rationale behind the 2007 Bagdad surge? To act as a buffer between the Iraqi sectarian, ethnic pressures and ontological (group extinction) fears? To protect a Sunni population that could not be protected by the formal Iraqi security forces (either because of weakness or because the Sunnis didn’t trust them) and setting the stage for the next level-a rational political space?
Protecting the population is important. But the sad fact is that by early 2007 in Baghdad, the Sunni groups had been pushed back to small enough enclaves that it was fairly easy to protect them, save in Southern Baghdad, where the cleansing continued well into the fall of 2007. The continued cleansing in South Baghdad made me skeptical that things were working until very late in 2007, despite the obvious reduction in violence elsewhere in the city as of late summer.
So yes, protecting the population is important. But I don’t think that we could have done much to protect them in mid-2006. The civil war had to burn itself out—the Sunnis had to realize that they had lost and the Shi’a had to realize that we had won—before a settlement could be reached.
I do think that the presence of additional U.S. troops in the urban areas tamped down the end of the civil war faster than it might otherwise have happened. U.S. forces worked with the local trend to accelerate it, and did not impose a totally foreign agenda. Had we started the “surge” plan in Sadr City, for example, I think the outcome might have been much less favorable. I have come to a more tempered view of what military forces are able to accomplish, as I tried to lay out in my Washington Post piece on the “three wars” in Afghanistan.
Download the Full Article: The Iraqi COIN Narrative Revisited: Interview with Douglas A. Ollivant
Douglas A. Ollivant is a Senior National Security Fellow with the New America Foundation. He most recently spent one year as the Senior Counterinsurgency Advisor to the Commander, Regional Command-East at Bagram Air Field, Afghanistan, returning to Washington this spring. He served in Iraq as the Chief of Plans for MultiNational Division Baghdad in 2006-2007 and he led the planning team that designed the Baghdad Security Plan, the main effort of what later became known as the "Surge." An expanded view of his thoughts is presented in Countering the New Orthodoxy-Reinterpreting Counterinsurgency in Iraq.
Octavian Manea is Editor of FP Romania, the Romanian edition of Foreign Policy.
--------
Read the full post and make any comments at the SWJ Blog.
This forum is a feed only and is closed to user comments.
PMOPS and SECOPS are not words but their meanings are clear.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Johannes U
... or as the saying goes.
I just met with my tutor and we defined my PhD thesis in a more exact way:
"Counterinsurgency vs Counterterrorism - an analysis of the difference by comparing applied measures and ROEs as seen in Iraq and Afghanistan"
An underlying point of this item is that it is very Wylie - as Saito will probably agree – to avoid being moved onto ground preferred by an opponent. But currently such movement often occurs due to thoughtless re-use of ‘politically correct’ terms that are routinely introduced by people who may think of and refer to themselves as intellectuals and SNAGs, or more correctly SNAPs.
Of course such individuals may be clever - though not necessarily in an intellectual sense – and they are better described as sensitive new age propagandists rather than sensitive new age people. The problem is that such use of terminology often sticks because it is not identified and combated. The proliferation of ‘Counterinsurgency’ manuals is a prime example.
Common sense or access to a dictionary/thesaurus can make allegiance or viewpoint easy to identify. For example war games as opposed to defex or tacex. Due to blurring and also dependent upon context, terms such as guerrilla, insurgent, partisan, patriot may seem preferable to nihilist, rebel, revolutionary, terrorist, zealot or the more neutral adversary, enemy or opponent.
However, much of what passes as ‘insurgency’ can be more appropriately described as ‘pseudo-revolutionary warfare (PRW)’ because it has been fostered or even contrived by external interests as a direct or proxy means by which to exert influence, or to distract and degrade an opponent. As a fairly recent and major example one can look at the PRW campaigns waged on most continents by the USA and the former-USSR.
My take on ‘counterinsurgency/COIN’ is that it is a malapropism. Also that its use is on the one hand clever and on the other foolish. Firstly, the term COIN is weak because it is reactive. Secondly, COIN implies that an opponent is indigenous and that his interests may therefore be home-grown. If the purpose is to clarify rather than obscure, then there are better terms for legitimate use by the military.
One such term is peacemaking ops which is strongly objective. Another is secops (or if that seems liable to mispronunciation then securitops) as a term by which to describe police activities directed against terrorism. And there are others which could be generally preferable to the malapropisms that are in widespread current use.
There is also a corollary. It can be difficult when considering foreign policy and military activities abroad to distinguish altruistic PKOPS from opportunistic PRW.
Stick to these narrow examples and you will be fine
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Johannes U
... or as the saying goes.
I just met with my tutor and we defined my PhD thesis in a more exact way:
"Counterinsurgency vs Counterterrorism - an analysis of the difference by comparing applied measures and ROEs as seen in Iraq and Afghanistan"
I want to compare how the different levels of leadership/command (mainly strategic to operational level) apply different kinetic and non-kinetic measures and how the ROEs change.
As the coincidence goes - the US just released the new national CT strategy.
http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/jou...m_strategy.pdf
Let's see how usefull it will be for me.´
If you have any suggestions for further research/literature, just call ...:D
Let's see how this will work out - I'm really looking forward
Greetings from Austria (no, we don't have kangaroos) :p
When I hear "COIN vs CT" in general it sets my teeth on edge; for certainly that dichotomy of choices is no way to look at a foreign intervention and hope to attain a comprehensive, successful scheme of engagement.
However, that IS how we approached Iraq and Afghanistan, so to drill into how those terms were defined during the course of those operations, what types of operations were conducted under those banners; what types of effects were achieved, etc is indeed something worth laying open for inspection.
Interest in ROE comparison
When you get to it, I'd be interested in the ROE comparison - and which ROE constructs are included for discussion.
Regards
Mike
Abu M on Ph.D.s for Dummies
Maybe useful for SWC students:http://www.cnas.org/blogs/abumuqawam...s-dummies.html
Very USA-based, maybe thee are clues though!