What is presence patrolling?
In a post on the thread 'Leading infantry tactics theoreticians/experts today':http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...?t=5626&page=4 Jon Custis raised the issue of what is presence patrolling?
I think this is the part of the paragraph that could launch discussion here:
Quote:
Perhaps it should start with a look at the definition of patrolling. (My italics) We haven't discussed it here at the SWC from what I can tell, but what is presence patrolling? One of the most significant complaints concerning OIF that I had and saw was the fact we commuted to work and ran patrols that accomplished very little outside of putting eyes on a certain patch of dirt for that particular period of time. We lost way too many good men and women while they drove to work.
In a quick scroll through 'Trigger Puller' I found a couple of threads where the issue appeared: Patrol Base Infantry http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ead.php?t=2675
Costly Protection: http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ead.php?t=3902
MRAP & Infantry mobility: http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ead.php?t=5696
IIRC the issue has appeared in discussions on peacekeeping and UK operations in Northern Ireland, where building the policing concept of trust and confidence IMHO underpins such patrolling.
May the discussion begin!
It's providing a presence
I can't believe that our guys are still asking this, and I suspect it because we have an Army that is indoctrinated versus familiar with doctrine. This gets to Ken's post on the blog under the NPS Thesis on IW, where he severly and rightfully scolds the micro managed training that produces leaders who don't understand the why of what their doing, or how to adapt, they simply follow a series of steps.
Why do we need to maintain a presence with presence patrols? Maybe to keep the enemy off guard, to provide a sense of security to the populace, to collect intelligence, to learn about the people you're there to work with and protect (learn what their complaints are, not simply rely on walk ins), and the list goes on and on. It should probably be mandatory training in leader training to write a paper on why presence patrols are important. Everyone would run to the doctrinal manuals and complain there isn't a book answer, then the answer from the instructor should be along the lines that doctrine is only a guide, you now have a problem where there is no book answer, figure it out. We have too many leaders who simply want to live in a base, push a patrol out to a specific point to conduct a specific task like an ambush or raid(that can be measured), then go back to base calling it a day and mission accomplished. This mind set has contaminated both conventional and special operations forces.
You won't necessarily know if you're presence patrols are successful, but in the day men capable of thinking independently (like many Americans who haven't been re-educated in military doctrinal schools) could get a good sense without MOP/MOE whether or not they were on the right or not. I know if the police maintain a consistent presence in an area with a high crime rate, the crime goes down. Yea, it's more dangerous for the officers but that is what they get paid for, and we get paid to fight our enemies, not focus solely on force protection. Fighting involves risk, we all know that. I would have been stuck with the information our S2 gave us if I didn't go out and run numerous presence patrols, which by the way greatly informed the S2. Never complained about, didn't bother looking for how to do it in a doctrinal manual, it was simply the right thing to do.
We still have a long ways to go to undue the damage of over indoctrinating our force.
Turning over the terrain to the enemy
Posted by RTK
Quote:
We called "presence patrols" more appropriately "trolling for RPGs." It seemed more akin to chumming when you're fishing for sharks.
As stated earlier in this thread, task and purpose are the keys and halmarks to a well planned and, consequently, well executed patrol. Providing area security tied to a specific piece of infrastructure seemed to foot the bill much better. And the boys don't feel like they're out there just to pad a briefing stat at the next BUB.
RTK, I'm a major fan of task and purpose, but hopefully we're flexible enough to allow for more than one task and purpose for each patrol? Additionally, there some things that should become SOP on a patrol in a COIN situation that you wouldn't do in conventional warfare, for example slapout mentioned the ASCOPE assessment. PIR/IR for COIN is obviously different than PIR/IR for a conventional fight.
Perhaps neither you or MikeF are implying that the only thing our patrols can do are missions with one specific task/purpose, but it can be interpreted this way. Somethings are best debated in a TOC, where each side can make their points clear discussing it over a map, and having a common understanding of the threat. The risk with posts is that we can all be right [and I am right :-)] in the context of the scenario each of is envisioning, but we could be envisioning four or five separate scenarios, so we end up talking past one another.
With that in mind, I think our military is still overly risk adverse (a by product of the Khobar Towers Investigation, which IMO was unprofessionally done, and resulted in great harm to the force overall). Mission success was still touted as achieving your objective (task/purpose), but the reality was that it was understood it was take no casualties (training or in conflict). Operations were more focused on force protection than accomplishing the objective, which is what I interpret when I read the posts that are opposed to presence patrols. There is a balance, and I argue that we still lean too much towards force protection. Breaking that mind set in 2007 was what some of us believe was paramount (not the only thing) in breaking the insurgency's back (not defeating it).
If you're on a presence patrol you can view getting shot at as failure or success, but if you're looking for the enemy then a strong argument can made you're successful (especially if you can dominate teh fight and defeat the threat). Over time you'll deny freedom of movement to the enemy in that area (doesn't mean he won't occassionally still get a shot in at you). That is why this type of warfare has been labeled the war of the flea, iti is simply extremely frustrating.
I'll assume that your post didn't imply we hole up and only depart the base when we had a "pinpoint' task". The Brits actually have some of the presence patrolling TTPs I have discussed in previous posts in their COIN manuals (not available online). You can also call it saturation patrolling. Rather than an area recon I would call it an enemy denial patrol, but for those of you wedded to the book, call it what you like, as long as it achieves the same purpose.
Do you plan every patrol? Yes, at you better, is it conventional in nature? No.
presence patroling according to UN
Presence patroling is what my UNMO (UN military Observers) colleages are doing everyday. It is going out, showing to the people that you are here, that you can come to see them and that you are capable to speak to them.
In practice, because it's the UN, it doesn't bring anything concrete part from the fact that you show you are mobile and there are no "no go areas".
The problem for us is that we have to be with host nation military observers. Most of the people are affraid of them or, when not affraid, do not have the time to speak with us.
On paper, it's a nice idea. In reallity we collect intelligence and data about the humanitarian situation and the people needs. But as the UN system is very much disfunctional in Sudan, once you have collected the info you cannot pass it. Well, it's not true, you pass it and then no one act.
In DRC, the UN came with a solution to that. They integrated the NGO information network through OCHA. Everyday, after approval of the report, it was distributed to the NGOs.
In a COIN people centric approach, this system had the advantage that the military could at least oserve if the NGO were doing something with the data.
The other advantage was, in DRC, that military and NGO were integrated at funding level. So the NGO did not have the feeling they were used by military.
Presence patrolling is useful if there are some benefits for the people who take the risk to speak with the soldiers. Otherwise you end up with low quality information gathering and it's much quicker to straight go to the NGOs to know what is going on.