Revising FM 3-24: What needs to change?
All,
At the organization I work for (COIN Center) there is some discussion of revising and updating FM 3-24/MCWP 33.3.5.
There is certainly a wide body of criticism of FM 3-24, to which most of the regulars here are familiar with. Many units who have employed the FM have found strengths and shortfalls in the manual when put into application.
Here's some starter questions, but don't limit yourself:
1) What was helpful/useful in FM 3-24?
2) What is missing in FM 3-24?
3) What needs amplification?
4) What needs de-emphasis?
5) What is flat wrong or needs removal?
6) Does the manual strike the balance between specific, applicable knowledge and theory of operations?
7) How does the manual hold up in application in Iraq/Afghanistan, and does its principles hold up outside of Iraq/Afghanistan?
Chapter/paragraph would help in the discussion, but is not necessary.
If you need to read the good book, (wink to Gian);), it's here.
We are considering a conference here at Leavenworth early next year to flesh out some of these issues, I thought this would be a good place to start.
Niel
Summary of parallel, earlier discussion?
I don't know whether Steven Metz (link to his June 2007 monograph "Rethinking Insurgency" here) has previously posted it elsewhere on SWJ, but this just crossed my desktop in one of those serendipitous L2I-net "the research gods must be happy" moments. It's a four-page summary of an October 2007 Strategic Studies Institute/Brookings Institute colloquium, a somewhat-tritely titled "COIN of the Realm: U.S. Counterinsurgency Strategy." It's available in PDF.
Key insights discussed in this document include:
- Regardless of whether counterinsurgency (COIN) will be the dominant form of military activity in the future or simply one of several, the United States needs an effective national strategy which explains when, why, and how the nation should undertake it.
- The basic assumptions of the current approach need revisited, especially those dealing with the role of the state, the strategic framework for American involvement, and the whole-of-government approach.
- Given the demands placed upon the armed forces by the current campaigns, most of the effort has been on tactics, training, and doctrine. Ultimately strategic transformation is at least as important if not more so.
- Rather than thinking of counterinsurgency and warfighting as competing tasks, the military and other government agencies must pursue ways to integrate them, thus assuring that the United States can address the multidimensional threats which characterize the contemporary security environment.
I offer it here in hope of assisting backbenchers like me to frame their own questions/comments/concepts about FM 3-24 version 2.0.
FM 3-24 is Galula Heavy or Trinquier Light
I thought all four reviews were excellent in their own ways and brought out needed criticism of a manual that needs to be debated; heavily and deeply.
I agree with Marc T's notion of grounding the manual in reality on the ground; I would add that the manual's narrow selection of history and theory (population-centric, that is) causes it to be a narrowly applicable doctrine for the many realities of insurgencies that the United States might face. Hence the point I have made previously about the American Army becoming dogmatic in its approach to coin.
John T; what is it about Biddle's review that you thought was "outdated?"
And I believe, contrary to your stark dismissal of Kalyvas's review, that he is actually and absolutely spot-on correct in his assessment of FM 3-24. It is, depending on how you want to look at it, Galula Heavy or Trinquier Light. Go back and read the thing; its premise demands a response of protraction, heavy amounts of American combat boots on the ground to secure the population in order to separate the insurgents from the people and ultimately establish the host government as legitimate. How is this not the protracted people's war approach of the 1960s aka Thompson, Galula, Trinquier, etc?? Point to anwhere in the manual where there are other options for an american counterinsurgent force to pursue other than population-centric? There is one 5 line paragraph in Chapter 5 on "limited options" for coin. But that is it.
The entire FM needs to be deconstructed and rebuilt the same way active defense doctrine was heavily debated between 76 and 82 and in the process fundamentally changed. Unfortunately, most folks in the Army see FM 3-24 at its end point as was FM 3-0 in 1986. Or, in other words, most folks think it just needs some polishing around the edges, I on the other hand, thinks it needs to be rebuilt.
gg
What in your mind would constitute
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Rank amateur
...But if our objective is political reconciliation, these are the issues that could lead to strategic failure in spite of tactical success.
strategic failure with respect to Iraq?
Follow on question; Is our objective political reconciliation? If so or if not, why?
Marc, I had to read your comment 3 times
to grasp its meaning.:o
My reading of the doctrine - 3-24 and its predecessors - does not presume any sort of inevitability. My understanding of insurgency is that it is far more complex and that while it may seek to achieve incorporation into the global economy on favorable terms, it also may have nothing to do with the global economy or even reject it entirely. One could argue that AQ, as a global insurgency, wants to turn the entire global order on its head starting with religious freedom/diversity, moving to a political endstate (or series thereof), and finishing off with adapting modern technology to 7th Century Islamic polities. If I am correct, then Brown really has little to say that is useful - which was my start point based on her inability/unwillingness to determine the facts of what she is wrting about and her lack of understanding of concepts, starting with military doctrine. (She seems to think it is some kind of quasi religious dogma whereas, an old Military Review article captures it best in its title, "Doctrine Not Dogma.")
I guess I really didn't like her piece very much - must be pretty obvious.:p
Cheers
JohnT
Gian, your point that the doctrine needs to be
debated as was the active defense between 76 and 82 is spot on. That is a critique I can easily sign on to.:D
Biddle says, "The predominantly Shiite Maliki government has consistently resisted U.S. pressure to compromise with its Sunni rivals. And in spite of more than three years of trying , the United States has not yet produced an Iraqi security force that can consistently defend the interests of all Iraqis." (p. 349) DeBaathification law, oil revenue sharing in the budget, return of the Sunnis to the government, 15 of 18 benchmarks being achieved at an adequate rate, operations in Basra and Sadr city. All of this is not taken into account by Biddle - probably written befor it became apparent. Of couse there is room for debate on the interpretation but the stark view Biddle presents is dated and does not take account of new info.
My critique of Kalyvas is not that he correctly discusses the population centric approach/theory that is the heart of the FM and a number of its antecedants including Galula and Thompson but rather that he interprets them as enemy centric. "These earlier works conceptualized insurgencies as revolutionary movements based on mass mobilization ... and devised methods of response that integrated specific military and political strategies - with heavy emphasis on the former.... On the military front, the goal is to identify and eliminate key local insurgents while establishing effective population control...." (p. 351) The first sentence misinterprets Thompson by overemphasizing actions specifically directed against subversion vice legitimacy, clear and strong political aims, and unity of effort. The second sentence overemphasizes the FM's focus on "force" applied to the enemy rather than its pop centric focus.
Got to run an errand - more later. Your critque states correctly the FM's prime emphasis, Kalyvas' doesn't.
Cheers
JohnT
I have to agree with Marc, R. A.
You said:
Quote:
...According to doctrine - and correct me if I'm wrong - you can't go wrong by clearing and holding, but as we've seen by clearing and holding Sadr City we lost political leverage.
Doctrine is a only a guide. It is designed for an ideal situation, too rigid adherence will get you killed. Situations are rarely ideal; that is particularly true in the ME. You can go quite wrong by clearing and holding terrain (or positions in all senses of that word) that you don't need to hold or that will invite more problems than said holding solves. Getting tied down holding things is, contrary to some theorists ideas, an invitation to inflexibility and stasis. It is sometimes necessary, usually not.
Like any other operational or tactical effort, "clearing and holding" is a time / place / population sensitive matter and, as I've frequently said before, any idea of 'controlling' a population should be discarded -- it is just not going to happen lacking G. Khan like efforts -- and we're are not going to do that. Nor should we.
Iraqis are going to do what they are going to do, they'll do it on their timetable and not ours and a lot of people need to accept that as reality -- possibly including some in high places and some with enhanced reputations from wandering about in the Blogosphere and reading goat entrails.
Westerners have tried to manipulate the ME for over a thousand years -- with virtually no success unless they used brutality and then the ME just waited them out. That isn't going to change. Kipling said it well with these two:
"Asia is not going to be civilized after the methods of the West. There is too much Asia and she is too old."
"Now it is not good for the Christian's health To hustle the Aryan brown, For the Christian riles and the Aryan smiles, And it weareth the Christian down. And the end of the fight is a tombstone white With the name of the late deceased-- And the epitaph drear: "A fool lies here Who tried to hustle the East."
To my other question; "Is our objective political reconciliation? If so or if not, why?" You replied
Quote:
Since we stayed to promote democracy and avoid civil war, I think most people would consider a civil war or the end of democracy a strategic failure.
Most might do so if they only read the media and listened to politicians, both categories of which are relatively clueless. Even some self appointed experts who have become Bloggers fascinate me with their take on things. In any event, your answer raises another question; Is that why we stayed or is that why we said we stayed?
My guess is that it's the latter. While a democracy would be nice as would lack of a civil war, my belief is that the former was and is never much more than a mild hope and the latter is likely inevitable to some degree at some time and probably sooner rather than later. I'd also submit that, other than to be nice guys, both those issues are really of small importance to the US; thus I don't believe that a lack of democracy or a major sectarian schism up to civil war level will adversely affect the US strategically -- though there would be obvious PR problems.
Quote:
I've admitted before that I have no idea what our objective in Iraq is.
Nor do I in totality but I'm pretty well convinced that a lot of self appointed knowledgeable people (other than self appointed me, of course ;) ) are either not as clued as they'd like to think or are not paying attention to reality -- or to the very significant differences between ME and western thinking processes and perceptions.
To attempt to judge the politics in Iraq by what is seen or said (particularly in English -- but even in published or transcribed Arabic) is to be deluded; it's what goes on behind the scenes and under the table that will make determinations and those things will only leak out slowly -- or be revealed when the Iraqis (and others -- including us) want to reveal them.
Marc gets it, as he says:
Quote:
"...If you are serious about building Iraq as a self-determining nation state, then live with the consequences of that choice, one of which will be the power brokers there manipulating the snot out of you. State building has consequences, and one of those consequences is a reduction in US power to tell "the natives" what to do - it's called "sovereignty".
I could be wrong but I believe that statement is not only quite accurate; I believe that it was absorbed early on and up-front by the decision makers, plural, in DC -- regardless of all the political theater and rhetoric. We made an early decision to let Iraq be sovereign; it is and we've known that for five years. They'll do what they want and we'll play along and nudge where we can. That's cool (even if Congress is too dense to understand that).
1 Attachment(s)
Commentary on the Review Symposium
I've attached an extensive commentary on the Review Symposium that I have sent to Perspectives on Politics. Most of the ideas in it I tested earlier in this forum. Thanks to Marc T for his suggestions.
Cheers
JohnT
The Need for Systematic Counter Insurgency Assessments in FM 3-24
A central task in Counter Insurgency, peace keeping, and post conflict stabilization that the revised U.S. Army Operations Manual and FM 3-24 state as essential is the ability to execute assessments. However, what both the Army Operations manual and FM 3-24 do not provide Commander's and Staff's is the training, methodology, format, and skills to conduct a thorough assessment. Assessments, of any type, are complex undertakings that require a thorough degree of training and staff work in order to execute correctly.
In order to conduct a proper counter insurgency assessment, the assessment process needs to have good clean data; common, well understood definitions; a well structured understanding of what the commander is trying to achieve and what success looks like; and the ability to incorporate non-quantative assessments (i.e. personal opinion, etc) in a systematic fashion. Finally, the hallmark of a good, systematic assessment process is an understanding of its overall usefulness and limitations. Personal opinion, the commander's perspective of the battlefield, and quantative assessment all are part of the counter insurgency assessment process.
At the macro level, the discussion of COIN assessments has revolved around which methodology to use: PMESII, Line of Effort based scorecards, my own developed Combat Analytics Balanced Scorecard. However, the high level, end product counter insurgency assessment scorecard is merely the result of a good assessment process that use quality data; common definitions; a systematic, repeatable process; common sense data gathering; and the ability to systematically incorporate non-quantative opinions into an overall commander / staff assessment of the progress of the counter insurgency campaign.
On a note of caution, I would not combine the obvious short comings of Effects Based Operations (EBO) as a short coming of using a systematic, well defined, repeatable, and well understood assessment process to help drive counter insurgency operations. FM 3-24, in order to be a good document to truly help commanders and staffs in the counter insurgency fight, needs a well understood, documented, and step-by-step assessment process to help military organizations track their progress, determine their successes, target their shortcomings, in order to provide counter insurgency operations a compass towards successful conclusion.
.
Ah, metrics applied to warfare...
Quote:
"However, the high level, end product counter insurgency assessment scorecard is merely the result of a good assessment process that use quality data; common definitions; a systematic, repeatable process; common sense data gathering; and the ability to systematically incorporate non-quantative opinions into an overall commander / staff assessment of the progress of the counter insurgency campaign."
Good luck with that, particularly the data quality and gathering...