"" Ditto.
Good post, Phil.
"" Ditto.
Good post, Phil.
Phil,
Thanks for the cogent post. However, I do have a few quibbles with some of your points.
1. I totally agree that the services must make sure that they prepare for the next war and not the last. Thus, the decision of the Army to make Fulda Gap the focus of its rebuilding efforts in the 1970s was right on target. However, the issue that I have is the fact that the Vietnam experience was deleted from the hard drive as if it were a virus. No more Vietnams! You can see this in the catharsis that COL Summers' book provided, as well as the Weinberger and Powell Doctrines (ODS was an opportunity as well to try and eliminate the pale of Vietnam, with Bush 41's pronouncement that we've slayed the Vietnam demon).
Heck, how many officers were happy when Governor George W. Bush became president elect in December 2000 because he had stated "we don't do nation building" (I know that I was happy that we would jettison the Bosnias and Kosovos and get back to what we should be focusing on, which was warfighting - a reaction that I think was a product of the professional sentiment that we didn't want our jurisdiction to include the low end spectrum of full spectrum operations). So, I think that the decision to prepare for the Fulda Gap and to delete the institutional memories and lessons should be separated into two separate actions.
2. I think the criticism of actions many of the generals Vietnam is on target. This falls into the fight the war you have and not the war you want. I still agree that the concentration should have been on the more immediate risk to the national security, the Soviet threat, but if the policy makers decide on committing US forces, then we need to make sure we fight the war we have to the extent possible.
I think the following quote is quite interesting on the ability of the general officer corps to adapt to the COIN environment of Vietnam, http://www.wooster.edu/history/jgate...-ch5.html#fn16
3. You are totally on target with the following statement.Quote:
General James L. Collins, Jr., has been quoted as saying that, "had we had an organized body of literature" dealing with the Philippine campaign, "we would have saved ourselves a good deal of time and effort in Vietnam." General Bruce Palmer, Jr. made a similar comment in 1989, saying "I wish that when I was the deputy chief of staff for operations at Department of the Army in 1964-1965, we had studied the US Army's campaigns in the Philippines during the insurrection." They may be correct, but one suspects that the availability of such a history would have made little difference, for it would have told Americans no more about successful counterinsurgency campaigning than the literature already available in the writings of the 1950s and 1960s. Palmer claimed that a 1988 article about the Philippine war in Military Review "would have been of tremendous help to us in sorting out our thoughts [on the situation in Vietnam]."[16] Palmer apparently had no knowledge of an excellent 1964 article on the war, also printed in Military Review.[17]
The American problem in Vietnam was not a lack of information, historical or otherwise; it was the frequent failure to act upon the sound information, useful ideas, and valid suggestions that were readily available. A detailed and candid study of the French experience in Indochina seems to have been totally ignored, for example.[18] One suspects that nothing one might have written in the mid-1960s about the earlier war in the Philippines or the ongoing war in Vietnam would have convinced U. S. Army leaders of the importance of the non-military aspects of irregular warfare and the counterproductive effects of the use of massive firepower. People in high places rarely listen to what they do not want to hear.
However, this only highlights the fact that the problem is the GO corps as a body, as they are the ones making the decisions and grooming these leaders. In other words, as a body, the GO corps in a sense is "the system," and this is the dynamic that needs to be transformed.Quote:
Originally Posted by PhilR
To close, let's separate Congress from the equation and look at his proposals and whether they have merit.
1. A 360 degree evaluation system.
2. Advanced Civilian School and a foreign language.
3. The need to publish to demonstrate one's intellectual prowess.
4. The need to talk means, ways, and ends during confirmation hearings, akin to an oral examination.
5. Retire GOs at the rank at which they last demonstrated competence (you're promoted based on potential and then demoted based on performance).
(Given that #4 and #5 must involve Congress since they hold the necessary hearings, I understand that we can't fully separate them out of the equation)
So, what are the merits of these proposals. If we deem that there is merit, then the question becomes why hasn't the Army adopted those proposals with merit within the profession, as they have been on the table as options for at least a decade. If we can't adopt the proposals, then who outside should get involved to make sure that improvements in the system are adopted?
There is a tendancy in arguing strategy to make it personal. As I have noted before Gen. Abizaid pursued a small foot print strategy in Afghanistan and Iraq. It has worked tolerably well in Afghanistan and it has not worked well at all in Iraq. Rather than argue about the officer selection process, it seems more productive to have a debate on when counterinsurgency warfare should be done with a small force and when it should be done with a greater force to space ratio. I have always favored the latter and I think that is what the current surge is finally doing in Iraq.
It seems to me that recognizing when each approach is appropriate and reacting accordingly should be our greatest concern.
Merv,Quote:
Originally Posted by Merv Benson
I am of the opinion that if we had a larger 'footprint' early on - vacuum period post-May 2003 - then maybe we would not be facing the degree of insurgency we face now. Of course, the CPA foul-ups did not help things either. Still, the number one priority should have been security for the Iraqi population - we most certainly did not have enough boots-on-the-ground to provide that security.
Dave
Well, that puts the blame on the Secretary of Defense and perhaps General Franks for buying into it.
That is a start in the 'blame game'. Moreover, the CPA - Bremer - worked for the President via Rumsfeld. DoD shut out State and others of the interagency community and, even then, shut out those who were not of the party (GOP) line. Tom Ricks got it right when he picked Fiasco as the title of his book on this sad state of affairs.Quote:
Originally Posted by Culpeper
Shek - Your two posts following mine make a good point, ie. the difference between what Summers actually wrote and what the Army thought he wrote. Summers wrote that isolation of the battlespace of South Vietnam should have been followed by counterinsurgency within the country, not that counterinsurgency could work without first isolating the battlespace or that conventional war alone was sufficient. If Summers became shorthand for downgrading counterinsurgency, then he became a symbol for something that he did not in fact favor.
On points two and three in your summary of Yingling, I can see some virtue in the intellectual discipline that publication requires, and specialized knowledge is vital to anyone serving in a sensitive region or technical field. But a blanket requirement for advanced civilian education and peer-reviewed publication worry me if they are meant as a way to make the armed forces more like other professional peer groups in which academic credentialism is growing.
There is also the question of whether more civilian education of officers will further widen the gray area between civil and military responsibility. The real need I see is for civilians to have more military content in what they learn of American history and civics, not for officers to spend more time in advanced civilian study. Civilians need a better understanding of military history and military institutions, and what these institutions can and cannot do, if they are to uphold the civilian end of the civil-military partnership. Civilian leaders need a basic military education more than military officers need more civilian education.
The greatest need is for civilian leaders (and generals insofar as they need to give advice) to be able to relate military commitments as means to long-range national or grand-strategic ends. We do not do a very good job of relating means and ends at this level, and those who define advanced study need to do a better job of relating them before making generals or anyone else undertake study with clarity in such matters as the intended purpose.
Should those of us sitting on the fence read, "Fiasco"? I tend to read neutral or sanitized books. At least in my opinion. For example, right now I'm reading, "A Table In The Presence", by Lt. Carey H. Cash, though I'm not particularly a right wing religious person (I just haven't seen anything like it published), "The Middle East", by Bernard Lewis, and "Among Warriors In Iraq", by Mike Tucker. I tend to shy away from books that appear at least to be taking a critical viewpoint on either side of the fence. That may be a shortcoming on my part. Nevertheless, these sort of books seem to become obsolete due to current events and other facts coming out later. I don't know but I'm open to advice and suggestion because this is an important topic. I may not be getting a well rounded picture due to being stubborn to some extent.
Whatever chance the small footprint model had, it was dashed when the need (or was it silly desire?) to provide internet cafes, dry cleaning, and barbershops, drove us into super FOBs. I don't think the FOBs came first. The amenities (or at least pursuit of them) were a contributing factor in the rise of the FOB, and it killed us.Quote:
As I have noted before Gen. Abizaid pursued a small foot print strategy in Afghanistan and Iraq. It has worked tolerably well in Afghanistan and it has not worked well at all in Iraq. Rather than argue about the officer selection process, it seems more productive to have a debate on when counterinsurgency warfare should be done with a small force and when it should be done with a greater force to space ratio. I have always favored the latter and I think that is what the current surge is finally doing in Iraq.
From a historical perspective, I offer this excerpt from a threat report signed by the Commander of the Army, Commissioner of Police, commander of the Air Force, Director General of Intelligence, and Commander of Combined Operations of Country X, and delivered to the leader of X, roughly 3 years before a political settlement was finally arrived at in one of the nastiest "small wars":
Military and Police. The continued and rapid construction of protected villages is essential if food is to be denied to terrorists and steps should continue to be taken to control the terrorist ability to obtain goods and cash internally.
Classical War. It is not anticipated that the (country X) Security Forces will be involved internally in classical war during this quarter, but transborder operations could escalate the situation towards a classical war.
Of over-riding concern is the present inadequate and diminishing force level with the resultant urgent need for additional manpower to even contain the situation, let alone prevent its inevitable deterioration.
No successful result can be attained by purely military means. It is now more vital than ever to arrive at an early political settlement before the point of no return beyond which it will be impossible to achieve any viable political or military/political solution.
Rhodesia 1976?Quote:
Originally Posted by jcustis
I agree, with one caveat. An increased number of troops would have helped as long as there had been enough leaders with a good understanding of COIN who were able to create and implement effective strategies. Whenever I see the quote from former CSA GEN Shinseki about the level of forces required, I always wonder if they would have been used effectively or if senior leaders were merely reaching for a bigger hammer.Quote:
I am of the opinion that if we had a larger 'footprint' early on - vacuum period post-May 2003 - then maybe we would not be facing the degree of insurgency we face now. Of course, the CPA foul-ups did not help things either. Still, the number one priority should have been security for the Iraqi population - we most certainly did not have enough boots-on-the-ground to provide that security.
Andrew J. Bacevich - What's an Iraqi Life Worth? (09JUL06)
Thomas E. Ricks - 'It Looked Weird and Felt Wrong' (24JUL06)Quote:
Gen. Tommy Franks, who commanded U.S. forces when they entered Iraq more than three years ago, famously declared: "We don't do body counts." Franks was speaking in code. What he meant was this: The U.S. military has learned the lessons of Vietnam -- where body counts became a principal, and much derided, public measure of success -- and it has no intention of repeating that experience. Franks was not going to be one of those generals re-fighting the last war.
Unfortunately, Franks and other senior commanders had not so much learned from Vietnam as forgotten it. This disdain for counting bodies, especially those of Iraqi civilians killed in the course of U.S. operations, is among the reasons why U.S. forces find themselves in another quagmire. It's not that the United States has an aversion to all body counts. We tally every U.S. service member who falls in Iraq, and rightly so. But only in recent months have military leaders finally begun to count -- for internal use only -- some of the very large number of Iraqi noncombatants whom American bullets and bombs have killed.
Through the war's first three years, any Iraqi venturing too close to an American convoy or checkpoint was likely to come under fire. Thousands of these "escalation of force" episodes occurred. Now, Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, the commander of U.S. ground forces in Iraq, has begun to recognize the hidden cost of such an approach. "People who were on the fence or supported us" in the past "have in fact decided to strike out against us," he recently acknowledged.
In the early days of the insurgency, some U.S. commanders appeared oblivious to the possibility that excessive force might produce a backlash. They counted on the iron fist to create an atmosphere conducive to good behavior. The idea was not to distinguish between "good" and "bad" Iraqis, but to induce compliance through intimidation.
"You have to understand the Arab mind," one company commander told the New York Times, displaying all the self-assurance of Douglas MacArthur discoursing on Orientals in 1945. "The only thing they understand is force -- force, pride and saving face." Far from representing the views of a few underlings, such notions penetrated into the upper echelons of the American command. In their book "Cobra II," Michael R. Gordon and Gen. Bernard E. Trainor offer this ugly comment from a senior officer: "The only thing these sand niggers understand is force and I'm about to introduce them to it."
Such crass language, redolent with racist, ethnocentric connotations, speaks volumes. These characterizations, like the use of "gooks" during the Vietnam War, dehumanize the Iraqis and in doing so tacitly permit the otherwise impermissible. Thus, Abu Ghraib and Haditha -- and too many regretted deaths, such as that of Nahiba Husayif Jassim.
If the level of forces requested by GEN Shinseki had been deployed in 2003 would the result have been more Mosuls (under the 101st) and Tal Afars (under 3ACR) or more EOF incidents and indiscriminate cordon and searches knocking Iraqis' off of the fence over to the other side?Quote:
Today, the 4th Infantry and its commander, Maj. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, are best remembered for capturing former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, one of the high points of the U.S. occupation. But in the late summer of 2003, as senior U.S. commanders tried to counter the growing insurgency with indiscriminate cordon-and-sweep operations, the 4th Infantry was known for aggressive tactics that may have appeared to pacify the northern Sunni Triangle in the short term but that, according to numerous Army internal reports and interviews with military commanders, alienated large parts of the population.
The unit, a heavy armored division despite its name, was known for "grabbing whole villages, because combat soldiers [were] unable to figure out who was of value and who was not," according to a subsequent investigation of the 4th Infantry Division's detainee operations by the Army inspector general's office. Its indiscriminate detention of Iraqis filled Abu Ghraib prison, swamped the U.S. interrogation system and overwhelmed the U.S. soldiers guarding the prison.
Lt. Col. David Poirier, who commanded a military police battalion attached to the 4th Infantry Division and was based in Tikrit from June 2003 to March 2004, said the division's approach was indiscriminate. "With the brigade and battalion commanders, it became a philosophy: 'Round up all the military-age males, because we don't know who's good or bad.' " Col. Alan King, a civil affairs officer working at the Coalition Provisional Authority, had a similar impression of the 4th Infantry's approach. "Every male from 16 to 60" that the 4th Infantry could catch was detained, he said. "And when they got out, they were supporters of the insurgency."
Successful military operations, COIN or kinetic, take both the right amount of forces and the right leaders with the right training, education, and an accurate understanding of the fight they are in.
I say three cheers for LTC Yingling. He speaks the truth. But it is (as he indicates) an old truth, an old story.
During my relatively brief time in the Army, while working on counterinsurgency in Central America most of the problems of the personnel system discussed by Yingling were glaringly apparent. Even to a lowly Captain.
Several of us are helping to fill library book shelves with detailed descriptions of the in-the-field consequences that this kind of folly had in previous conflicts. Sadly, it seems that little has changed.
Part of this was caused by the "What Soldiers Want" theory of (non) leadership. The Army corporate leadership knuckled under to soldiers refusing to drink ROWPU water, and started ordering huge amounts of bottled water to satisfy their tastes and prevent heat-related injury. Soldiers would rather die of heat stroke than drink water from the purification units. As a result, LSA ANACONDA started to grow into a "super-FOB" to handle bottled water distribution.Quote:
Originally Posted by jcustis
Talk about your "want of a horse-shoe nail" scenario.
My critique of the "360 degree" evaluation is that it will be corrupted into a "What Soldiers Want" tool for non-leadership by those who don't understand leadership. But that's another issue.
Bingo. It was actually '77, but plus or minus a year, it was still a crappy situation.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark O'Neill
You know what 120? as I wrote my first reply about amenities and FOBs, I was about to say something about an Armor Magazine article were a former HHC commander had critiqued logistics during the march up. A lack of enough bottles of water per man was one of the critique points, and I almost blew a f_cking gasket. Bottled water right?Quote:
Part of this was caused by the "What Soldiers Want" theory of (non) leadership. The Army corporate leadership knuckled under to soldiers refusing to drink ROWPU water, and started ordering huge amounts of bottled water to satisfy their tastes and prevent heat-related injury. Soldiers would rather die of heat stroke than drink water from the purification units. As a result, LSA ANACONDA started to grow into a "super-FOB" to handle bottled water distribution.
The only reason why I cared for bottled water was because I could refill a bottle with ROWPU water, and cover it with a dirty, wet sock to try to cool the temp down. Cold water would have been nice, for sure, but not at the expense of getting the job done.
This would be a great subject for a book. An army lives on its stomach, and can lose a war because of it.
Don't get me wrong, this was not just an Army thing. The Corps is just as culpable in many areas. Ever hear the self-licking ice-cream cone expression?
I'd like to pull this apart if I may, since this point is really talking about the philosophy of science.Quote:
Originally Posted by DavidPB4
1. Publications, in academia, are not in and of themselves as sign of intellectual discipline. Rather, they are a sign of communications skills whereby the author is able to "match" their article to the sub-cultural expectations and requirements (the genre[s]) of the publication venue. By way of example, compare an appreciation that might have been submitted to R.E. Lee in 1863 with today's PowerPoint presentations. You will find that the general style is the same - fairly sparse (expanded point form), and laid out in a linear logical manner.
2. The publication process relies on "peer review", but peer review, in all to many cases, comes to be a measure of how close the author's position is to that of the people doing the reviews. This is something that Thos. Kuhn pointed out in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions when he was talking about the operation of "normal science". One of the observations he made is of especial important to an analysis of the military, and that is that only a single discipline" has ever managed to hold two mutually contradictory paradigms - physics (particle theory and quantum mechanics). Since we are seeing a conflict between two paradigms, State vs. State and COIN, we can all learn a lot from how physics, as an institution, has managed to hold these two.
Back to peer review for a second, peer review operates within a paradigm but, when you have paradigm conflicts, you also end up with a situation of peer review conflicts. In order for this to be a workable model for the military, it may well be necessary to develope parallel publishing venues.
Hmmm. I don't disagree with you, but I also think that it is important for the military to learn more about the so-called "civilian" areas. I use the term "so-called" advisedly: the military already overlaps the civilian population in a number of professions (e.g. engineering, medicine, etc.) and, to my mind, can only benefit from a further overlap if for no other reason, and here are other reasons, that the military is being required to take on more varied tasks.Quote:
Originally Posted by DavidPB4
Let me use one example, my own field of Anthropology. I have now read a number of articles that are, broadly, "anthropological" (mainly ethnographic coles notes type products). Some are great and some are just junk. What almost all of them share in common is that they are too focused on the "now" and on specifics, rather than on general laws. Obviously, there are exceptions to that statement but, on the whole, it is true. One of the effects of this focus is that it "freezes" perceptions at a point in time and space. Now if that point is relatively close to the operational "now" that can be fine, but the further it gets away from it the worse the information gets. In effect, this genre teaches people what to perceive and not how to perceive.
Now, within a State vs. State conflict this can work (sort of); the adjustments tend to be minimal. In a COIN setting, however, the adjustments can be huge. This is one of the reasons why an article like COL Pat Lang's "How to Work with Tribesman" is so god - it outlines the how (a set of generic rules) as well as the what (for a specific time-space locus).
This is the type of paper that, if it were to be handed in in my Introduction to Anthropology course, would probably get a B+/A-. Does that sound harsh after all the nice things I've said about his paper? Well, the reasoning is simple: despite how useful the paper may be to individuals, it does not match the genre of the discipline of Anthropology (that old "normal science" thing). Could he do it? Certainly, and he could easily extrapolate the observations in that piece to make it publishable inside Anthropology (except for the anti-military bias of the discipline :)). Would such a rewrite be "useful"? Probably, especially if he were to focus it on the development of training.
Which, in my usual roundabout way, takes us back to the question of the military getting more civilian education. I suspect that if COL Lang took an advanced degree in Anthropology he could produce material that would be very useful. Having said that, I also suspect that he could have got the same benefit by working / collaborating with an Anthropologist for a 3 - 6 week period.
While I don't disagree with you, I will just make one observation: liberal democracies elect their leaders and none of them have ability tests for anything except getting elected. Just to give one example, several years back, the Province of Ontario had a Minister of Education who was a high school drop out... 'nough said abut that!Quote:
Originally Posted by DavidPB4
Marc
JCustis,
I wish I could have taken pictures of the massive FIELDS of bottle water scattered throughout Iraq. I'm talking dozens of football sized fields with bottled water pallets stacked six feet high. Its nuts that we spend all those resources in lives and national treasure to bring bottled water in versus ROWPU water. I agree with you 100%
I won't even start on the super-fobs, the line-dancing lessons at Camp Anaconda or "Salsa" night at Camp Victory.
Anywho, hoping that LTC Yingling survives the storm and takes his battalion.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jcustis
Marct, you make a very important point about education from the standpoint that we are busy teaching people WHAT to think instead of teaching them HOW to think:wry:
Dave,Quote:
Originally Posted by DavidPB4
Thanks for the response. As I was checking out the book today, I was having a hard time finding where COL Summers didn't downgrade COIN for US forces. He specifically states that COIN, as an internal problem, should have been assigned to Vietnamese forces. In doing so, I think he portrays that not only should the US not have adopted COIN as a primary mission (although Krepinevich takes this conclusion to task), but that it shouldn't have even been a secondary mission - it should be sourced to local troops. He references this in the context of Korea first and then later in the book applies this to Vietnam (where he grants that assistance could be given to the local troops). Also, as I was going through some old SWJ Magazine editions, I came across this on the subject, http://smallwarsjournal.com/document...v3/collins.htm.
I totally agree that the military should not try to expand its professional jurisdiction a la "if [fill in the blank] won't do their job, then we need to be prepared to do it for them." However, there is value in being exposed to other professional expertise, as sometimes [fill in the blank] may not be available to do their job because of the security situation, etc. So, I think it is important to have some rudimentary knowledge outside the traditional jurisdicational lines. However, I think an area that is often overlooked is the experience that civilian graduation schooling can provide, even if it is on topics that the current officer education system provides.Quote:
Originally Posted by DavidPB4
An officer could take a year of classes at the Army War College/Naval War College/Air War College/etc., and take the exact same classes at a top tier university, and while it may be a wash in terms of the overall quality of faculty and material presented, the experiences will be completely different. Surrounded by fellow military peers at the war colleges, one's views may not be challenged, and drastically different and competing view points may or may not be introduced. However, at a civilian university, the officer will be exposed to many different and varying viewpoints. Furthermore, these conversations will continue outside of the classroom.
I'll close with posting a link that I know I've posted here in the past, but I think this oped uses a perfect metaphor to deliver its message:
http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute...les/PUB731.pdf
Shek,Quote:
Thanks for the response. As I was checking out the book today, I was having a hard time finding where COL Summers didn't downgrade COIN for US forces. He specifically states that COIN, as an internal problem, should have been assigned to Vietnamese forces. In doing so, I think he portrays that not only should the US not have adopted COIN as a primary mission (although Krepinevich takes this conclusion to task), but that it shouldn't have even been a secondary mission - it should be sourced to local troops. He references this in the context of Korea first and then later in the book applies this to Vietnam (where he grants that assistance could be given to the local troops). Also, as I was going through some old SWJ Magazine editions, I came across this on the subject, http://smallwarsjournal.com/document...v3/collins.htm.
That is my recollection of Summers in a debate with Krepnevich at CGSC in 1989.
Tom