Force Structure for Small Wars
Force Structure for Small Wars by Andrew C. Pavord, Small Wars Journal
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Since 9/11 the armed forces of the United States have paid a steep price to acquire proficiency in counterinsurgency operations. After going through a painful learning process the Army and Marines published the now acclaimed counterinsurgency manual and implemented a new approach in Iraq that is delivering impressive results. It is now a logical time to consider how to redesign combat units to reflect these lessons and prepare for the small wars of the future.
This article will argue that counterinsurgency brigades should be added to the U.S. Army's force structure. Lacking forces specially trained and equipped for counterinsurgency, the Army has fought the war on terror with conventional units adapted to counterinsurgency operations. For most units, the transition from conventional organization and tactics to the very different and challenging tasks of counterinsurgency was traumatic. The costs of poor organization for counterinsurgency, in terms of battlefield mistakes and the misallocation of resources, were substantial. To provide the optimal force for fighting insurgencies the Army should develop Brigade Combat Teams (BCT) that are specifically organized, equipped, and trained for the complex challenges of counterinsurgency operations...
Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Pavord serves in the Virginia Army National Guard. His deployments include Desert Storm as the assistant operations officer of the 372nd Military Police Battalion, Bosnia as Chief of Plans for the 29th Infantry Division, and Afghanistan as Executive Officer of the 3-116 Infantry battalion. He earned a Ph.D in political science from Johns Hopkins University in 1995.
Heh. Frequently, there are strong
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Originally Posted by
Cavguy
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A better argument was put to me today by COL Mansoor - make the guard/reserve the HIC force and keep the active force for COIN in the immediate term. Since we face no imminent HIC threat, ARNG formations should act as our strategic HIC reserve while the active force handles Iraq/Afghanistan in the coming years. Would be more in line with the likelihood of employment and better suited to current strengths.
I'm not sure I like either argument though.
emotional arguments for not doing things -- no matter how logical...
I've long (over 30 years) said that a 500K Army should have four Corps (+); each of about eight big 4-5K man Bdes (NO Divisions). One Heavy Corps (that concentrates on training itself plus the two to four more in the ArNG AND the USAR [The ArNG with all the cbt units was a political deal that should be scrubbed, it harms national flexibility and doesn't really do the Guard that big a favor]), two Infantry Corps and one Light Infantry Corps (+ six Parachute Bdes; Eur, Pac and CONUS. Inefficient but strategic entry reach provided no other way at this time). Yes, there is a difference between Infantry and light Infantry -- and the light can include Airmobile even if I don't agree with the concept. If we just have to have a Medium Corps, then scratch the light (and the Airmobile). Only makes sense to tailor the active force for what it must do and put to be needed strength in the RC; we'll likely have more than adequate time to change the structure if the hybrid war period of insability settles down in ten or twenty years.
So give COL Mansoor an Attaboy from me. :D
Oh, and I agreed with the rest of your comment, too...
P.S
The plus in my idea is five active and five RC ACRs... ;)
We once had this figured out very well.
I believe that the U.S. Military had figured out very well how to balance the need for counter-insurgency specialists and conventional combat forces. By the end of the Vietnam era, the Army returned to the concept of the Ranger Battalion, to be used as a more robust supplement to Special Forces. The Special Operations Wings of the Air Force -composed of EC-130s, AC-130s, CH-53s, and a souped-up version of the "Hueys"- offered potent and flexible tactical air and airlift support. Add to these forces an airborne infantry brigade (173d); and the U.S. had a potent unconventional warfare force capable of addressing a wide array of "small war" insurgencies.
Such organizations would be ideally suited for Afghanistan, where there is (at least, there was) plenty of local support for a force aimed at containing and repelling the Taliban.
By themselves, however, counter-insurgency forces would find it impossible to prevail (in fact, unlikely to survive) in Iraq. The U.S.has undertaken to invade and conquer, and to brutally subjugate a people unwilling to accept defeat and occupation. There, a lot of boots on the ground were needed, in order to discourage the greatest percentage of the population from resisting, and to convince them that resistance to the invader was futile. The Americans didn't have the number of conventional troops to do that, in a manner similar to the Soviets in Hungary ('56) or Czeckoslavakia ('68).
Iraq is not counter-insurgency; it is population control! There, we are fighting disaffected segments of a population which is trying to gain independence There, we are quelling a rebellion by the people against foreign occupation, in a manner much like the Israelis are using against the Palestinians. Our success depends upon targeted assassinations, building walls to isolate populations, and pitting one ethnic grouping against another. I would not dignify such tactics by including them in the sphere of "counter-insurgency".
Fighting regular army units of the North Vietnamese Army was more like fighting the Japanese in Burma than fighting Moros in Mindinao. (In the case of I Corps near the DMZ, the battle was more like fighting the Chinese in Korea 1952-53 or the Japanese in the Philippines 1944-45.) That's conventional warfare in rough terrain, where U.S. conventional forces were more suitable than light infantry Rangers or Special Forces-led paramilitary units.
Good post and very good points, Ski.
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Originally Posted by
Ski
Numerous interesting comments and thoughts here"
1. RC should not be focused on COIN specifically and neither should the Army. The COIN mission is one measure in decades, not years...
Agree with the first part. not so much with the second. Is that historical length of time due to the types of insurgencies and / or the way they were 'fought?' I don't think that decades are required.
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2. Most importantly, stop creating and changing force structure. It's my biggest pet peeve...Like Ken said - wait until a lull, and then change it if needs to be changed.
True. I watched one unit in the TN ArNG go from a Tank Co to a Chemical Co to a Truck Co -- in the space of four years. While I understand we hired all these civilian 'Force Developers' and they have to do something for job justification, we've gotten ridiculous. Any force structure change ought to be locked in five year increments; miss a window and wait five more years -- with only rare exceptions. That said, I think we need not wait for a lull -- because the system will never allow one to avoid change... :(
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3. As Field Marshall Nigel Bagnell stated, "over the centuries identifying a nation's future strategic priorities has proved to be a very imprecise art, and as a result peacetime force structures have seldom proved relevant when put to the test of war."
Also true -- and that's why it makes sense to put the heavy stuff in the RC.
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4. The cultural differences between the AC and RC MUST be overcome and at the Major and below level...
True, prob is on both sides of the fence, just as it is with conventional vs. SOF.
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5. Shifting combat structure from the USAR to the ARNG to the USAR continues to focus on the wrong problem. Just keep the structure stabilized for a while. Using combat structure out of any reserve component has significant political pressure and risks.
True but in many circumstances, use of the USAR is better for several reasons than is using the Guard.
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6. The ARNG will never get the HIC mission or the bulk of the heavy forces because the Army uses tank miles to formulate it's OPTEMPO budget.
True on the OPTEMPO today but wasn't true in the past and need not be the way it's done. On the possibility of such a shift you may be correct but I submit the reaction is far more emotional than logical.
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... Too much money comes into the AC from this account for them to give it up outright...
That, too is by design -- and designs can be changed.
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...HQDA will never let the bulk of Heavy Forces move into the RC...
Possibly true. A question for Congress to ask is "Why not?" --and they should demand a logical answer that does NOT rely on todays arcane and foolish budget and allotment processes.
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Just a few thoughts from an admittedly addled mind...
My mind is more addled than yours, so there! :p
Any strategic reserve of any size for the next year or three
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Originally Posted by
Cavguy
Exactly my point. Well said. Discussion is mostly academic for the next 2-3 years at least, for reasons above and several others. The recently redeployed reserve units are the best option for constituting a HIC reserve.
is unlikely; we've got aside from the obvious two theater problem a Roles and Missions review (and IMO this sub thread should be a big part of that discussion) and an upcoming QDR.
However, given the 18 month lag time in the Army's bureaucratic decision cycle (unless it's important to one of the Pachyderms), seems like the time to start discussing it is now...
My belief is that the Roles and Missions review and the QDR should provide the Army some guidance for the future and that the Army then needs to focus on, in order; the flawed personnel system, the flawed training system -- and then on the optimum, logical force structure; all the other stuff will flow from those three items.
There are those who will say I've got it backwards, the first two items I listed flow from the third. Don't think so. The current personnel system was designed to support a type Army (the pre 1940 model). It has had bandaids applied and a random tweak now and then but it is effectively totally obsolete and non responsive to the needs of the Army and the nation. It is in dire need of total redesign and that design needs to focus on providing effective personnel operations and support to what ever the Army of the day happens to look like...
Almost the same thing could be said of training; we have a pre 1940 system with grafts and patches. Most other Armies of any real use provide almost twice the training to new entrants that we do. Why is that? I have been embarrassed many times by US Officers and NCOs who didn't know as much as Brit, Canadian, German and Oz peons. Fix the training and the troops will cope with whatever force structure we throw at them.
ArNG and Reserve force structure needs less change; the Active force can endure change and fight a war at the same time. We did that in WW II, Korea, Viet Nam and we're doing it today. Doesn't make life easier but it can be handled. Be even easier with a functional Personnel system and better training.
Comments from the Peon Seats...
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Originally Posted by
Ken White
My belief is that the Roles and Missions review and the QDR should provide the Army some guidance for the future and that the Army then needs to focus on, in order; the flawed personnel system, the flawed training system -- and then on the optimum, logical force structure; all the other stuff will flow from those three items.
There are those who will say I've got it backwards, the first two items I listed flow from the third. Don't think so. The current personnel system was designed to support a type Army (the pre 1940 model). It has had bandaids applied and a random tweak now and then but it is effectively totally obsolete and non responsive to the needs of the Army and the nation. It is in dire need of total redesign and that design needs to focus on providing effective personnel operations and support to what ever the Army of the day happens to look like...
Almost the same thing could be said of training; we have a pre 1940 system with grafts and patches. Most other Armies of any real use provide almost twice the training to new entrants that we do. Why is that? I have been embarrassed many times by US Officers and NCOs who didn't know as much as Brit, Canadian, German and Oz peons. Fix the training and the troops will cope with whatever force structure we throw at them.
ArNG and Reserve force structure needs less change; the Active force can endure change and fight a war at the same time. We did that in WW II, Korea, Viet Nam and we're doing it today. Doesn't make life easier but it can be handled. Be even easier with a functional Personnel system and better training.
Very much agreed on these points, and would be in no position to dispute them anyway. That said, if the HIC role was mostly transferred to the RC, just how long would it take to bring said Heavy forces up to snuff in MCO? Six months? That seems like just painting a big red bull's eye on said forces prior to dispatching them to the war zone. A year? If that were sufficient for a basic grounding in MCO, how could one ensure that the major war they were to be dispatched to would still be ongoing, or even if ongoing, still in a phase in which a major intervention would lead to victory? And, just to throw a monkey in the wrench (as this is most unlikely, but I'm drawing it to try to make a point), suppose an RC HIC force was pitted against a force of near-equal, equal, or even superior fighting quality?
The latter event, as I said, is most unlikely, but it is instructive to ponder the problems that Allied forces faced when fighting an enemy that was, for the most part, still its superior in quality, though in the midst of a precipitous decline in said quality, largely due to the sheer weight of losses suffered in operations in the East. Combined-arms MCO is the most unlikely form of warfare that will have to be faced during the foreseeable future, but it is by far the most difficult to prepare for and to master. It takes not months, not a few years, but several years at least to fully come to grips with, not just "passably", but with real proficiency. The RC manoeuvre brigades sent to ODS did not go into battle, and for good reason. Even with the six months' "grace" period that the Coalition was gifted with by the Iraqis, the RC combat brigades were not up to the job. Arguably, some of the AC units were not fully up to the job, either. Good thing the Iraqis were not up to the job at all.
I fear that there is a tendency in many quarters to overestimate the MCO proficiency of many "Top Tier" Armies, and to underestimate the difficulties of achieving real and thorough proficiency in those regards. It may be that HIC forces - especially Armoured Corps - are not required to make up as much of a proportion of the Active force structure as during the Cold War. One AC Heavy Corps may well be enough. But "Medium" Corps, composed in the main of regular (not Light) Infantry Formations may be more suitable to make up the bulk of the AC force structure, as they can perform in LIC and MIC with barely skipping a beat (if properly led and trained), won't break the procurement budget, and are best suited to most of the tasks that the Army is likely to face anyway. "Light" forces are probably best restricted to dedicated Parachute and Mountain formations, for the most part, and of course SF.
But all that force structure is predicated in the main upon holding to the highest levels of leadership and training. And not least, the substantial reduction of present overeseas committments.:wry: Three "Medium" Corps (along the lines of what Ken seems to be describing), a single Heavy Corps, and several Parachute and Mountain Formations (there seems little reason, other than training funds of course:rolleyes:, for Parachute and Mountain units and formations to not be of the same quality as Ranger Battalions); Airmobile can be handled just fine by regular Infantry Formations, when the need to perform such operations arises.
"You go to war with the Army you have", I guess :)
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Originally Posted by
Ski
3. As Field Marshall Nigel Bagnell stated, "over the centuries identifying a nation's future strategic priorities has proved to be a very imprecise art, and as a result peacetime force structures have seldom proved relevant when put to the test of war."
I began reading this 2001 book on defense budgets and force structure, Holding the Line, edited by Cindy Williams (currently at MIT, formerly in a high-level position at the Congressional Budget Office.) It is a compilation of the conventional wisdom regarding defense planning for the 2000-2010 period as it was viewed at that time. It seems so incredibly dated, hard to believe it's merely a decade old: the main worry was that the coming 4 trillion budget surplus may mean defense spending would rise over the 2000 level of $300 billion that DoD anticipated for the next five years. The military was said to be worried that in addition to being able to sustain one conventional Major Theater War AND multiple "lesser contingencies" (stability and peacekeeping operations, you know, stuff that doesn't require much attention in terms of dedicated resources), it may not have enough available forces for a SECOND conventional Major Theater War. No talk whatsoever of CT or COIN or irregular warfare, although the contributors (civilian and military professionals alike) proclaim with certitude that they are offering the solutions to move the military form Cold War structure to what's required in the 21st century. The recommendations suggested further cuts in structure, on the grounds that we only really need to win one MTW and do lesser interventions (by which I take to mean everything that's not MTW), so the capabilities for a potential second war could be eliminated. And our "likely" adversaries are so weak that we would surely have some overmatch left anyway, given our technological supremacy.
Thinking about how people who are kind of doing studying and writing about this stuff for a living could be proven so "wrong" (if that's the right word) over such a short period of time, I was left with a renewed appreciation for humbleness and flexibility in all efforts to design the "necessary" forces for coming wars. I fully understand why Ski and Ken talk about too much "creating and changing force structure." Constant reform and adaptation are obviously needed as threats evolve and enemies change, but I'm almost coming to believe that there are some hidden virtues in the much-maligned bureaucratic resistance to changing the way the military works.
Re: the HIC mission. Your point is accurate
as we now operate but I suggest an AC HIC Corps for that rapid response and at least two ArNG / USAR HIC Corps are quite feasible IF we change the way we train. You say:
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"...Guard heavy units are really part of the nation's strategic reserve. And given the unpredictable state of the world I think that we need them."
I agree -- and we need more in the RC than we have while the AC will most likely need less for the foreseeable future.
You also mentioned a strategic analysis of need. Good idea. Whether such an analysis could transcend the politics of either COIN units (doubtful IMO) or more HIC in the RC than the AC (possible, barely) remains to be seen.
What if they don't step up?
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Originally Posted by
SteveMetz
I think there is general agreement that we have a means/ends mismatch in our current defense strategy. But there are always two solutions to such a mismatch: increase your means or diminish your ends. That's the shape the debate is taking now.
The Stanley Foundation policy brief that Frank Hoffman and I did last year, while not as extreme as the Cato position, also argued that we need to be more circumspect in what we plan and budget for. Specifically, we took issue with the scenarios that are used to justify a force increase post-Iraq and Afghanistan such as the occupation and stabilization of Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, or something similar. Frank and I were not sanguine about the threat from terrorist bases in distant lands or uncontrolled nuclear weapons. We just didn't think that long term occupation and attempted social and political re-engineering of flawed states is the most effective way to address these threats.
Basically, we could build a 5 million person force, and missions would emerge to occupy them. What we need to ask ourselves is whether, in this time of mounting economic, environmental, and social challenges, we really want to underwrite the security of other nations who spend much less than we do on their own defense (and I mean on a per capita basis, not in the aggregate).
Steve,
I remember reading last year the excellent brief you and Frank did on ground troops level where you two did some serious damage to the arguments made by Kagan&O'Hanlon in a similar Stanley Foundation paper. Your points were very well taken. It's fairly ridiculous to assume that 100k or 200k more troops would allow the US to successfully invade & perform a successful long-term nation-building mission in a place like Pakistan, Iran, or Saudi Arabia.
One point on which I have some doubts on is to what extent you can count on allied contribution to provide extra manpower for multilateral operations.
Frankly, outside the ones that were in Iraq, I don't really see any other NATO members or non-Nato allies being able to provide significant troops for any scenario that's not on their borders. It doesn't look to me like they have either the will or the capability to do so. I mean, if they can't even do more for a fairly clear cut "moral" case like in Afghanistan, I find it very unlikely to believe that they will do so in any scenario I can think of. Local allies, yes, Northern Allies proved very useful, but that situation seems rather unlikely to be easily replicable in other places; and they of course come with their share of problems such as unreliability, corruption, incompetence, etc. In short, I share your (and Frank's) skepticism regarding the suitability of dealing with failed states through regime change + nation-building, but if you do decide to do it, than I believe we shouldn't really count on much extra help by others - IMO "multilateralism" is sometimes an excuse for people who want to do those missions but don't want to pay for them.
Having said that, I nevertheless disagree rather strongly with the last point in your post regarding the disproportionate level of US investments in maintaing world peace and security. I don't actually think that's wrong, but it's just that it leads to a cure that in my opinion is worse than the disease. It's a great talking-point to argue that the US shouldn't "subsidize" other countries, but at the end of the day I don't think we are willing to, say, abandon Afghanistan just because we feel that the French or the Germans won't do their fair share. International Relations academics love to bitch about "the free rider" problem and about the US providing "public goods" when others ought to do more as well, but at the end of the day I think it's a much bigger problem if you don't take care of a security issue that affects you just because others are also reaping the benefits of your actions. Maybe I'm just having too pessimistic an opinion of Europeans, but having grew up in Europe, well, I have my reasons for it :D
Ionut
Gratuitous swipe and honest question
I am always a little bit mystified by those who say, in effect:
Having Conventional units do COIN is a hugely difficult transition, but a unit organized, trained, and equipped for COIN should be able to pick up conventional warfighting without too much trouble...
Now that that is off my chest, I would like to hear if anybody out there thinks it would make sense, in any current or future COIN situation, to take an approach that was common among imperial forces in the last century. That is, to build an indigenous army from scratch - as we are doing in Iraq and Afghanistan - with American officers and NCOs serving as commanders and small unit leaders, rather than advisers.
Most of the 'Imperial' forces that policed the various colonial empires were 'native' troops with European leaders, some of which became famous and highly effective fighting forces.
I know, I know, there are a multitude of problems with this approach...but we don't seem to be having a great deal of success with any others
ends-means mismatch vs. future warfare
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Originally Posted by
Cavguy
The non-military security studies academics has a terrible track record of their theories panning out. Wolfowitz and Feith are but two examples on the other end of the spectrum.
The fact that the whole community (who gave birth to RAND) sprung up to wargame nuclear war should add suspicion.
Of course, I'm currently enrolled in a graduate security studies program! :eek:
Yeah, the current state of that academic field is rather deplorable. That's one reason why I'm preparing to enter it: weak competition.
On a more serious note, I currently see two general ways of arguing about planning for force structure.
1. You can start from the premise that there is an ends-means mismatch, and that we need to better match our goals with our resources . And on the one side you get the people who argue that foreign policy objectives should not include regime change + nation-building operations in anything but the most extraordinary circumstances. The "Iraq is an anomaly, and a disaster, and we won't do it again" school of foreign policy. This implies that we could, and should, lower our "ends" side of the equation to match our current means. And on the other hand the ones who envision large increases in defense spending and force structure to be able to deal with failed states by occupying and nation-building them. That's my caricature of what the underlying premises are for the Conventional vs. Irregular/Coin debate people are talking about.
2. Another way of looking at it is to believe, as, IMO, Frank Hoffman, Nate Freier and others who write about hybrid challenges do, that there is something intrinsic to the nature of future warfare (because of technology, globalization, US superiority in conv. warfare, etc.) which does not so much depend on the reasons why you went to war. Both state and non-state actors will use these hybrid tactics, mixing and matching modes of warfare to cause the greatest harm in that particular situation. Thus you won't have regular vs. irregular, but ever more innovative mixes of the two. Hezbollah is a prime example of this. Hence, you need flexible forces who can switch quickly from one to the other.
I think one way to look at this, in Clausewitzian terms, is a debate between people who are focusing more on the logic of war (1) and its grammar (2)
Force structure gets modfied on an ad-hoc basis
in all wars; true in WW II, Korea, Viet Nam and Desert Storm. It should. To not do so is to fail to adapt to METT-TC.
There is absolutely no way to design a force that will fit all requirements; the structure is designed for ease of personnel use and equipping; commanders have to modify to get the job done. Not a problem.
1 Attachment(s)
For your consideration...
I throw this out as grist for the mill. The original concept was to design a brigade combat team not for COIN, but for rear area operations. It morphed into a form or hybrid.
It is bound to upset about everyone. First, it creates a non-combat arms element that is a terrain manager. That alone should piss-off most of you. Second, it is based around the idea that COIN is broken into two elements. The SOF who are the terrorist hunter/killers and the stability forces that are performing what I term State Building activities. It leaves the traditional elements to fight the traditional wars without trying to force them into being the catch all for every possible mission.
Whether we can afford to create the brigades is a separate matter. It is only the concept that I was concerned with.
True from the Guard and state perspective.
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Originally Posted by
reed11b
I disagree w/ the HBT's in the NG however. The upkeep cost difference between an active HBT and NG HBT is not particularly great.
Cost is not the issue, manning strengths are the problem.
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There is also limited large training areas available in many states.
True but there are other States, mostly out west, that have plenty of room. There are a lot of politics in what type of Guard units are where and that can be rectified (Heh; Congress willing, of course...).
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IBT's make a better cost saving and dual-role option for the NG.
True for the Guard; my question is which is best for the nation.