Studying a Wrist Watch: the U.S. Military and COIN
Although some may say that reviewing an already widely acclaimed book is a waste of time, I decided to do just that. Lieutenant Colonel John Nagl's book Learning to Eat Soup With a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam is a work of inspiration and despair. The inspiration is easiest to accept and digest because it seeps through this work at many levels. Nagl as a serving officer and a scholar is inspiring because this book pulls no punches. His examination of the British experience in Malaya inspires simply because he shows a military can indeed learn and adapt to meet and defeat an equally adaptive threat if its leaders allow it to do so.
So why do I offer despair as a companion to Nagl's inspiration? Well to begin with I lived the Army that came out Vietnam; my leaders in rebuilding that Army all were Vietnam veterans. I remember well General DePuy's role as commander of Training and Doctrine Command; a comrade of mine, Paul Herbert, wrote a great monograph on that subject . I also vividly recall a parody of a debate between Colonel (ret) Harry Summers and Major Andrew Krepinevich over what happened in Vietnam, what could have happened in Vietnam, and what should have happened in Vietnam. As a stage hog, Harry Summers won by overwhelming Andy Krepinevich's scholarly delivery with bluster and bravado. Neither Summers nor Summers' admirers did cared a whit about the message Krepinevich offered; they cared about preserving the Army's capacity to wage Jomini's battle of annihilation. They were seemingly validated in 1991 and again in March 2003. The big battalion Army marched on.
It did so with blinders worn proudly. But some in the Army of the 80s and the 90s lived in another world. I was one of those as a Foreign Area Officer for the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa. I served in Turkey, Sudan, Lebanon, Israel, Egypt, Zaire, and Rwanda. Those experiences put me on the ground in two wars and a genocide. But as a staff college classmate in 1988 remarked to me, I as a FAO "was not in the real Army." The same classmate also stated that he could not imagine the U.S. ever getting involved in another counter insurgency war like Vietnam. When I asked him what he thought we were doing at that very moment in central America, he looked at me like the proverbial pig studying a wrist watch. Seven years later, I greeted him in Goma, Zaire with the rebuttal of "welcome to my world," meaning the mega-Death of the Rwandan Civil War. He was still mesmerized by the wristwatch.
And there is where John Nagl prompts despair. Reading his chapters on Vietnam provides a stark backdrop to Lieutenant Colonel Paul Yingling's recent article on generalship. Nagl is especially brilliant in allowing the key leaders of the Vietnam era to demonstrate their own incapacity to see anything but what they wanted to see. Our efforts to date in OIF and OEF suggest we still have the same problem. Yingling seemingly confirms it.
My hope in writing this somewhat redundant review of John Nagl's book is to inspire, prod, and push those of you who have not read it to do so. If you have read FM 3-24 Counter Insurgency but have not read Nagl's book, you have not truly read FM 3-24.
Best
Tom
When will they ever learn? - Bob Dylan
Hi Tom and Marct and John Nagl (if you are following this) and anyone else who is interested--
John's book is not only about COIN but also about organizational learning. He pays his respects there to the work of Rich Downie, Learning From Conflict, Praeger. Part of Rich's argument was that the army is a learning organization, an argument I tended to agree with until OIF. But it was not always so, any more than it really is now. In my article, "Little Wars, Small Wars, LIC, OOTW, 'The Gap,' and Things That Go Bump in the Night," LIC&LE 1995, I offered what I thought was part of an explanation for why we go about reinventing the COIN wheel every time we run into an insurgency. My explanation clearly was not adequate.
So, I'm posing the question here: What do all you guys think is the reason we not merely ignore our very good doctrine but actively disparage it? Is there any way we can convince current and future generations of leaders to actually learn the lessons and to institutionalize them in our governmental and military organizations?
With that, I'll go cook dinner.
Cheers
John
I love these PhD dissertation questions...
Hi John,
Quote:
Originally Posted by
John T. Fishel
So, I'm posing the question here: What do all you guys think is the reason we not merely ignore our very good doctrine but actively disparage it? Is there any way we can convince current and future generations of leaders to actually learn the lessons and to institutionalize them in our governmental and military organizations?
I think I can come up with an explanation of why it has happened, but I'm not sure of how to change it. So, having said that, let me lay out what ight be the start of an explanatory model. BTW, I'm trying to work this into a paper / monograph, so comments, criticism, etc. are mos welcome :D.
Let me start with some definitions.
I tend to define the term "institution" following Malinowski's Theory of Culture (a short form available here). Unlike Malinowski, I tend to view institutions as primarily symbolic and inter-subjective entities that operate in hierarchical semantic taxonomies. So, the "military" would include the USMC and help to define the social and cultural "meaning" of the USMC. Essentially, I consider institutions to be the symbolic and inter-subjective components that bind certain types of organizations together.
Organizations, on the other hand, I view as part of the "potential" inherent within an institution, made "real". The mental analogy I use comes from quantum mechanical theory via Mark Peterson's work on organizational cultures where the institution is the "potential" and the organization is the "actual".
As with Andrew Abbott, I view organizations (and institutions) to be centered around particular "tasks" (Malinowski's needs responses). These tasks, in turn, generate their own operational logics depending on a whole host of factors such as the operating environment, types of technology, other task groups (aka "professions"), etc.
For Abbott, there is a constant "negotiation" over social control of tasks and the social "right" (read "legitimacy") for a particular group to perform them. A military example of this would be the rapid shifting over the past 40 years or so of mercenaries (including "contractors").
The goal of all of this professional maneuvering is to gain a monopoly within a society over performing particular tasks. But, in order to do this, the "right" of a particular group to hat monopoly has to be "sold" to the general society, and this gets us back to your original question about COIN.
Think of it in terms of home front sales - it is much easier to "sell" a conventional war than a COIN war. Indeed, COIN has been a stink in the nostrils of the US public for quite a while, especially since it goes against all of the popular mythos of what a "war" is.
Anyway, just some rough thoughts for now.
Marc
You guys are getting ahead of my ability to respond...
OK, I'll do my best. Marc, Mark's got your number. It took me - a trained social scientist - 2 full readings to make head or tails of your jargon. That said, even though I'll have to read it again, I think you may be on to something. Regarding the "founding myth" - the Revolution was both an insurgency and the Brits were the bad guys. The Hessians were ok as individuals especially if they deserted and became good Americans as many did. Worst were the Loyalists (traitors) who went to Canada - good riddance!. But what is most interesting in this light is the insurgent guerrilla fight against the Regulars - viz Lexington & Concord and also parts of Saratoga along with Francis Marion in S. Carolina and the Continental Army as a Regular army as good as the Redcoats and the Hessians.
So, some of Tom's HIC/LIC dichotomy is built into the US Army from its founding as the Continental Army. As is the tension. Tom's point, which I generally agree with, that the big war army is hardwired into the US military perspective is important to understanding and answering my question.
But it occurs to me that, perhaps, I am too pessimistic. Unlike some of our past experiences, we had a group of officers - importantly not all of them SOF - waiting in the wings to address the COIN dilemma in Iraq. These are the Petraeus and Nagls and McMasters - none of whom are SOF guys or FAOs (as far as I know). I certainly expect to find what I am looking for in the SOF world but it is heartening to find it in tankers and mech infantry guys. This also raises the question of why a good FAO like John Abizaid got it wrong - if he did. Was he wrong for the right reasons?
Sorry about the rambling tone of this but I wanted to get caught up.
University of Chicago Prints FM 3-24 Counterinsurgency
Tom,
Thanks for your posting. I'm quite humbled by your description of "Soup" as "a work of inspiration and despair"; I would like to think that there is some hope in the book as well. I've certainly found some in the work of leaders like Generals Petraeus and Mattis and Colonels like H.R. McMaster and Sean MacFarland, who have demonstrated that soldiers who understand counterinsurgency can make a real difference on the ground when given the resources they need to do the job.
I am honored by your statement that "If you have read FM 3-24 Counter Insurgency but have not read Nagl's book, you have not truly read FM 3-24." Frankly, my concern is that not enough people have read the Field Manual, partly because it hasn't been readily available in hard copy. The University of Chicago has done the nation a service by producing a print version that will ship in the next few weeks. The Chicago edition includes a spectacular introduction by Sarah Sewall of the Carr Center for Human Rights at Harvard University. I would argue that if you haven't read her introduction, you haven't truly read FM 3-24.
The manual is available at http://www.amazon.com/Marine-Corps-C...608935&sr=1-23 for only ten bucks, and Chicago donates some of the proceeds to the Fisher House charities, which provide free lodging near military hospitals for the families of wounded soldiers.