We Still Need the Big Guns
We Still Need the Big Guns by Major General Charles Dunlap Jr. - New York Times op-ed.
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The relative calm that America’s armed forces have imposed on Iraq is certainly grounds for cautious optimism. But it also raises some obvious questions: how was it achieved and what does it mean for future defense planning?
Many analysts understandably attribute the success to our troops’ following the dictums of the Army’s lauded new
counterinsurgency manual. While the manual is a vast improvement over its predecessors, it would be a huge mistake to take it as proof — as some in the press, academia and independent policy organizations have — that victory over insurgents is achievable by anything other than traditional military force.
Unfortunately, starry-eyed enthusiasts have misread the manual to say that defeating an insurgency is all about winning hearts and minds with teams of anthropologists, propagandists and civil-affairs officers armed with democracy-in-a-box kits and volleyball nets. They dismiss as passé killing or capturing insurgents...
Thanks for the links to the new article
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Originally Posted by
Gian P Gentile
I remember when eating soup with a spoon first came to my attention and there where discussions about it.
Upon first reading it I responded with the following:
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I can see in his writing that LTC Gentile is a soldiers soldier who see's the job for what it is; that being a fighter who's overarching purpose is fighting.
This being said I would think the true determining factor in how and when a counter-insurgency should be handled would be contingent on the expected outcome in the end.
In other words if one is fighting an insurgency in their own country for the survival of their pre-existing government/leadership infrastructure such as many communist/dictatorial countries have historically then attrition is a definitive goal of their actions.
Also in this context they seek to discourage any further growth of that insurgency through harsh and awe inspiring action designed to create fear of standing against their power.
This is where I think the greatest difference can be found in Iraq. One would not expect police officers to come into a riot/demonstration and shut it down through attritive actions despite how much the adrenalin rush might do for the the officers mental states in as far as believing in their cause.
If the ultimate goal of any military is to provide an environment in which a democratic construct and new culture of empowered populace may come into existence than you kind of have to change your approach from that of a traditional war or counter insurgency standard.
If your soldier staying in a joint station, armed and looking for the enemy is unable to feel relatively safe than one would assume that that local populace definately is not in a situation where they may try to stand up.
As soldiers your job is to fight this is true, just as a boxer's job is to box. There are however countless factors outside of the physical interaction that the boxer must study and be aware of in order to enter the ring confidently. Once the bell rings it comes down to mano y mano but if you know that the other guy can't last longer than 2 rounds than your first step is to avoid contact and keep him moving to wear him down.
This helps to equalize the battle when it does happen. and just as in the boxing match in order to win punches must be thrown so to even in counter insurgency the blows will come ( from both sides).
Long and short I think 3- 24 is not meant to redefine war so much as to guide and encourage thought before during and after the actions take place.
I wrote this in September of last year. I have continued to study, listen and learn all I could in regards to your concerns and yet I consistently come back to one major conclusion.
3-24 was not written to replace 3-0 and as such it would seem that those responsible for developing it would be just as if not more concerned about it being applied in ways not intended. I believe they have shown this is true in their honest responses and continued reminders to all that it's not everything but something very important given current operational environments.
In the effort to build and maintain true Full Spectrum capabilities it is and ( I don't see anyone saying differently) just as important that the force be skilled in large scale manuever and warfare as small and assymetric capabilities. I can tell you one thing I know without a doubt.
Any Brigade commander would have a much better chance of deploying a truly capable large or small scale fighting capability now then they would have between 1990 -2000. Simply if for no other reason than the officers and enlisted now have not only recieved more effective training but most have been there done that on both scales at this point.
Although I understand your underlying concerns, It really would seem that considering the current training and fighting cultures, Forgetting about the big fights would be about the last thing most soldiers would do.
But as I said this is just my take on it for what it's worth
Good post, Ancient One...
Though Cav Guy's picture makes you look younger... :D
It's training not resources
Lots of UK battalions, over 30 years, used to go from Germany, where they were mech, to do a 4 month light forces tour in Northern Ireland doing ... COIN!!
MRAPs may well prove their worth in Big wars, which will almost be certainly followed by some other type of conflict. You need to be able to do both, and you can. - and some do.
As you may recall from the "Eating soup with a spoon,"
thread, I agreed with you that it would be a bad mistake to go over to a total COIN mode. I also posited that to go to a total MCO mode would be equally bad -- as we have learned...
I ended by saying:
"It's mostly about protecting the institution. To fight WW II.
We need to be able to do that but we could be a whole lot smarter in how we go about it and still be prepared to cope with the more likely threats in the next decade or so."
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Originally Posted by
Gian P Gentile
... Of course we need the capability to do Coin and MCO but how do you build a force and train it to do both in resource constrained environment...
Well, if it were up to me, I'd really train initial entry folks; enlisted and officer, on the basics. We have undertrained at the level since time immemorial, certainly for my entire lifetime -- and that includes WW II (Not, as RTK and UBoat would have some believe, WW I). Every after action report I've seen from both Afghanistan and Iraq, the CALL Bulletins, the news reports, even the TV and still pics point out that most units -- not all -- and most people -- again not all -- do not have a good handle on the basics. We rarely do...
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If you were a battalion commander today and you knew you had to deploy your battalion to iraq in 10 months what would be your focus?
I'd make sure they had the basics down pat and then pay lip service to my DMETL.
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...To complicate matters a bit and to build on this hypothetical, what if you could look into a crystal ball and you knew that 6 months after you returned from Iraq your battalion would be deployed to Korea to fight against a north korean invasion of the south? How would you structure your training in these hypotheticals?
I'd make sure they had the basics down pat and then would pay lip service to my DMETL.
I am not being flip, really, you asked and that is what I would do. I have watched too many people get hurt or killed because they could not perform basic combat tasks. I've fought in MCO (as a Tanker and a Scout) and in COIN ops (As an ODA member, a Scout and an infantryman) and I've switched between the two -- along with an entire Division that was in process of recovering from 32% casualties in three weeks and, really, it just isn't that hard to move between the roles.
I submit the problem is not the time or cost, it is the way we train -- or, more accurately, fail to train. We train to task; well and good -- but the 'condition' varies extremely widely in combat and our stultifying training process cannot cope with that.
If I was going to combat as a Battalion Commander, I hope I'd do what was best and hope I'd be willing to take the flak for doing so -- which I know would come and I also know is not easy. Which brings me to our far too competitive promotion system but I guess that's for another thread another time.
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The point that Dunlap makes that many still dont want to accept is that the American Army has become a counterinsurgency only force; so to use your words its not an academic argument over either a coin force or an MCO force; instead it is an ACTUAL problem that the American army is now ONLY Coin. That is a reality and a problem that we must face squarely and accept and was the point of the Dunlap oped.
While I disagree with Dunlap on many levels (and on most occasions when he writes his parochial screeds) I do not dispute that the Army has become a COIN only force. I submit that's to be expected; the current war for a relatively small army is a COIN war. I don't think it's realistic to expect it to be anything else. The issues thus are can that Army switch rapidly enough to do conventional if necessary. I think yes, you apparently disagree. A second issue and I submit a more important one is when the disengagement from that COIN war comes -- and it will come -- will the Army once again reject all to do with COIN as it did from 1975 until 2004 or so? I would hope not because the Generals way back when hung their hat on the utterly fallacious Weinberger and Powell Doctrines. Those were not doctrines but wishful thinking on the part of the Army leadership who wished to pick their wars.
Can't do that as both Clinton and Bush 43 have proven -- and as I suspect, the next President or two will have to do. Wars are not started by the Generals; they are started by circumstances and politicians and the generals cannot control either of those and attempts such as the 1975-2004 efforts to do so are doomed to fail.
The Army had an obligation to have a multi spectrum force available for the Nation during that period. They answered several calls in that time frame that worked out, the one they answered in the Spring of '03 did not. We should not try to reinvent that wheel.
As long as there are those who totally reject anything to do with COIN, there will be a tendency for the Army to over compensate and adopt that "no COIN" posture because it is easier for everyone. It may be easier but it won't be right...
We've got to be a full spectrum force and we are capable of doing that. A start is to worry less about the doctrine and the parochial battles over spectrum and fix our gigantic training problem. If we do that, we can do full spectrum easily.
Between a rock and a hard place while sitting on a time bomb!
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Originally Posted by
MattC86
No, either/or is not particularly helpful, but there isn't the money or manpower available for everything. The Army and Marine Corps claim they need new troops, the Air Force claims it needs a new fighter fleet (and Dunlap, apparently, includes a fighter BEYOND the F-22?) and the Navy new submarines, cruisers, and a coming new fleet of aircraft carriers.
It's just not realistic. There's going to be major pressure for a drop in defense spending if we disengage from Iraq, especially if a Democrat is in office (and they control Congress), and even if there wasn't, there certainly wouldn't be a massive hike beyond current levels, as this piece suggests is necessary. Beyond that, there isn't time to train personnel effectively in all areas. Guys like Dunlap know there is no way we can do both, so it's a deceptive way of saying stop doing this COIN boondoggle and buy us more jets.
It's not realistic, but unfortunately necessary. The AF needs new aircraft. The more advanced aircraft have short lifespans. The AF made a big mistake "skipping" a generation of fighter after the F15 in order to jump ahead to the F22. Advanced avionics and composite structures are only dependable to 20 years. (Look at all the grounded F15's) We are stuck replacing them every 20-?30? years from here on out. Whether we replace them with a newer version of the same aircraft or develop a new aircraft is a big question.
The Navy definitely needs new ships (or to retrofit current ships which would cost just as much if not more.) Although I am skeptical of many of the ships under development (and the overall direction of it), I must admit that it's necessary.
The Army does need more men (and a lot of equipment.) I'm not as sure about the Marine Corp, but that stems from the debate of exactly where they fit into everything these days (something that seems to be an ongoing and popular debate on this site.)
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Originally Posted by
MattC86
Prioritizing and compromising are difficult and painful, but just going to be a fact of life.
Matt
The problem is I don't think there is much we can do without there. This country could afford all of this (recruiting is a different issue) if we were more economically responsible and practical. A big defense budget (a responsible one) is good for America and the economy. People need to start understanding this.
(Sorry about this rant. Especially since it's a little late.)
Adam L
Heavy & agile: Nine steps to a more effective force
Link: http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/2008/01/3208280
I think this take on the situation captures it well.
Steps? "Step away from the cookie jar..."
RTK said:
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I don't disagree with LTC Gentile on this area of the subject. I just respectfully disagree that we've become an exclusively COIN Army.
I agree with that. Both thoughts. I'd also suggest that the current emphasis on COIN is, as many say, totally understandable -- that's what we're doing now.
Thus it may appear that we're over emphasizing it but that perception is heightened by the fact that our determination from 1975 until 2005 to concentrate solely on MCO and thus to deny that the COIN function existed, much less was an Army mission, led to a capability gap that was -- or should have been -- an embarrassment to the Army and many who 'grew up' in that era prefer the relative clarity and ease of focus a single mission type provides and though they prove daily they can adapt to the COIN arena, they don't like it (who would? Totally understandable) and want to move away from it.
The world today is chaotic, is not itself simple enough to allow that and it has been repeatedly proven that politics and not Army desires are the determinant on where, when and to do what the US Army will be deployed in future -- and no one can predict that where, when or what...
I'm less afraid of excessive emphasis on COIN than I am of an overcompensation led by both the heavy and FCS communities over the next few years to again relegate COIN to oblivion because of the threat to equipment purchases or for other reasons. That would be a mistake, one we've made before and do not need to repeat.
We can do all the missions; MCO and COIN and things that lay between the two. We may have to do them all. The emphasis and effort should be on how to get there -- not to exclude a spectrum for cost savings and simplicity. The troops can handle it.
Can the system?
Thanks for the response. If WM is correct and you
hail from the Bay area originally, let it be known that (a) San Francisco is till my favorite US city and (b) I'm concerned that you've lost that sunny optimism... :)
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I am less sanguine, however, than Ken White is with the future. He worries about the Army regressing into an 80s mindset where we again disregard coin and irregular war for mco and hic...
Not so much worried as concerned about the fact that I already see community battles as opposed to a focus on what the ARMY needs to do.
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I have an opposite worry; that since we are so focussed on coin today it causes us to see a future of a security environment described by people like TX Hammes that is predominated by irregular warfare...
A valid concern -- as I've always agreed. As as an aside, my 18 years of service Son met Hammes and heard him speak. He wasn't at all impressed or convinced nor do I expect the Army is (with all due apologies to my Marine brethren). Really.
Yes, there's a great deal of that COIN to the fore babble going around but I suspect part of my willingness to not get unduly perturbed about it is the fact that also occurred just as loudly from 1962-70 and as soon as that COIN op headed for the boneyard, so did the excessive emphasis on COIN then prevalent because it meant money in the coffers.
That time it got replaced by burying COIN; I hope we're smarter than that this time -- and I also would hope we do not yet again succumb to Branch warfare. That happens, it becomes a crap shoot and squeaking wheels get oiled then by default, Congress makes decisions because the Army can't get its act together...
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...That conception of the future then drives ideas like lightening the American army and basically turning it into a nation-building, light infantry force (there was an article in another thread a few months ago titled something like "rage against the machines" that made this argument)...
I suspect that the plus up will be mostly light infantry as that is the cheapest set of stuff to buy. No other reason. We need the heavy stuff and the leadership knows it, it is not going away. As that same Son (an Airborne infantry type) told me when he was in Baghdad in '04 "The M1 and Iraq mean all this foolishness about the demise of the Tank will go away, the Tank is here for another fifty years at least."
The heavy divisions will stay and the FCS guys will fight to bring that to life; light infantry will get a plus up because its cheap (and easy to cut when the budget gets sliced) and needed in Afghanistan where I suspect we will be operating after Iraq chills and we draw down to overwatch mode (that I expect within a year).
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...Nagl's recommendation for a permanent advisory corps is a step in this direction.
Yes it is -- couple of months ago I wrote a SWJ Blog Article saying that was a really bad idea -- I expected a lot of 4GW lovers to attack, got very few responses. None, IIRC. Surprised me. Regardless, I'll bet big bucks that ain't gonna happen and it should not unless it's an RC element less than half the size he sought -- and I doubt that'll occur unless the RC sees it as a space generator.
Awful long way of saying I agree with your concern and I hope mine is misplaced and we end up with a balanced, multi spectral force.
I also hope we fix our initial entry training, officer and Enlisted to enable that to occur with less effort. :cool:
Two cents on "Resource constrained environment"
We need both the Fulda Gap -or at least a mini-me version -capacity and COIN, the latter for reasons that need no explanation here.
Building and maintaining the former at a level all potential near-peer competitors find economically prohibitive acts as a systemic/environmental barrier to entry on restarting a serious arms race with the United States. If you can't win anyway from the inception then you avoid risking your entire economy on trying to do so. Much better investment for the U.S. to keep our relative strategic position intact than to risk regional arms races and reviving interstate warfare by trying to scrape to get Defense spending under 2-3 % of GDP and tempting foreign statesmen to roll the dice.
Ok, let's think these points through
Hi WM
You wrote:
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"(1) Money that would have been spent on such an arms race by potential opponents can be diverted to other uses that might make those potential adversaries believe that a non-conventional conflict is more winnable (or at least more likely) for them. By non-conventional here, I mean anything short of playing the the nuclear card--chem-bio weapons, terrorism, economic warfare, insurgent/guerrilla tactics, info/cyberwar, etc."
Hypothetically speaking, you and I are going to fight a war: Would you prefer to play the role of the United States with it's particular advantages and drawbacks or would you prefer to be regional power X who will base their strategy on deploying all the asymmetric weapons you mentioned?
States choose asymmetry options in conflict with America because they have had to do so not because their general staffs and statesmen preferred that alternative.
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(2) The temptation exists/forms for conventional "have-nots" to develop a nuclear weapons capability in order to be able to use the threat of nuclear war to gain political leverage/concessions (e.g., N.Korea, Iran, Iraq under Saddam perhaps). Not quite MAD, but still a potent threat to consider.
Nuclear weapons do not run on the same continuum of logic as do conventional arms, either for acquisition or purposes of deterrence.
The USSR was hardly a conventional "have-not" state when it exploded an atomic bomb in 1947. Most of the states that have subsequently developed nuclear weapons have been in a condition of conventional parity or near parity with whatever states they considered their primary threat or they were redressing an imbalance where a rival state had nuclear weapons in addition to conventional parity. Some, including Israel, India and the United States, enjoyed military superiority over their enemies when they developed nuclear weapons while some countries like Britain and France acquired nukes primarily for reasons of prestige than effective defense and elected to build only very modest nuclear arsenals.
Nuclear arsenals of third and fourth rate states are a potent factor, I agree, but their utility is of exceptionally limited value in the context of brandishing them against the United States or Russia. Pakistan's nuclear status was of no help in resisting an ultimatum from Washington in the aftermath of 9-11 thought it remained crucial for deterring India from going to war over Kashmir.
Isn't there some old saw about