Defining the rules of the game
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Originally Posted by
marct
By that logic, I would argue that the US is engaged in an ongoing COIN campaign in LA - one, I would note, that they appear to be loosing ;).
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Counterinsurgency is military, paramilitary, political, economic, psychological, and civic actions taken by a government to defeat insurgency (JP 1-02).
Using the definitions of COIN found in JP 1-02 and FM 3-24, COIN is an action that a government takes to quell internal rebellion or strife. Along those lines, the only COIN that the US can accomplish is within our internal borders. When we intervene in another countries internal affairs, the matter is inherently difficult as we must pick a side. IMO, this distinction is important, and our failure to address the issue only muddies the waters. In effect, when we intervene, we are picking a side. In Iraq, we back the Shia-heavy government over the Sunnis. In Afghanistan, we back the Karzai-heavy government over the Taliban. Both governments were put in place through elections, and we are hoping that these governments will eventually stabalize internal strife AND share our collective national security interests.
Uboat suggests that those who rebel against the host governments do so out of ideology.
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They have an ideology (actually a series of ideologies, there is more than one insurgency going on. But that doesn't change the central point). That ideology is what attracts people to support and/or fight for them.
. In some cases, particularly AQ, I believe he is correct. However, many other insurgents are simply fighting over an internal power struggle. In Iraq, the majority of Sunnis refused to vote during the last election, and they simply are not willing to accept a Shia government. Moreover, many Shia groups within the government view their newfound power as payback time for years of repression and neglect during Saddam's Baath party rule.
Along these lines, I concur with Tom's comments in other threads as far as the current state of Iraq goes. For a time, we defeated AQI and Shia extremist groups, we stabilized the country, we continue to help build the Iraqi Security Forces, and we attempting to afford the Iraqis the opportunity to elect a permanent government. But how did we get here? I would suggest that this is where Wilf, COL Gentile, and Ken's points come in.
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1. Stop the violence.
2. Turn the country back over to its own people.
3. Leave.
Stopping the violence in Iraq was not simply population centric. Yes, in Baghdad, we secured the populace through urban reconstruction and secure neighborhoods, but in many other areas, we secured through blunt force trauma...i.e. killing bad guys.Rank amateur contends that
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Irregulars can control their loss rate by hiding in the population. Something the Luffwaffe - for exampe - couldn't do. Therefore, if you strategy is "kill more insurgents," your strategy is easily defeated.
I disagree. This statement assumes that one cannot seperate the insurgent from the populace.
So how do you find the enemy and kill him? Reconnaissance, Surveillance, Human Collection, and Targeting. As a company commander,
60-70% of ALL operations were devoted to intelligence collection. This allowed us to find the enemy. Next, we you find him, you attempt to persuade him to either join the government or settle his grievances on the political level. If he is willing, fine. If not, then you must attack and destroy him. At this point in the game, it is really that simple. Otherwise, the conflict is protracted and civilian casualties continue to soar.
In Iraq and Afghanistan, many General Purpose Forces (GPF) are transitioning to Security Force Assistance (SFA). In another time, these actions were known as Foreign Internal Defense (FID). In theory, Coalition Forces will mentor, train, and combat advise Security Forces. A conversation with several NCO's deploying on that mission disturbed me:
"So, when the Afghan Army refuses to do a mission, how will you react?"
"C'mon sir, you damn well know that we will do it ourselves."
I know this post has been long and covered the gambit of COIN theory to SFA to tactical operations, but I suppose it covers the difficult questions that we must attempt to answer:
What are we doing?
What should we be doing?
What can we accomplish?
There are no easy answers here, but I can attest that winning the hearts and minds is not one of them. Regardless, as long as the soldiers and marines are deployed, they will continue to fight the best that they can.
v/r
Mike
I agree with all you say.
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Originally Posted by
pjmunson
Some of the very simplistic arguments made in this thread are a bit disturbing. I know (hope) that the people making them have much more nuanced positions lying behind their short posts, but the black-and-white, either-or way in which the argument is being laid out by some is intellectually lazy at a minimum.
and will plead guilty to being intellectually (among other ways) lazy. It seems to me that you said pretty much the same thing Uboat509 said above. I agreed with him as well.
I'm not sure what's nuanced and what isn't and I'm also unsure anyone else has said anything that really contradicts either of you. No one that I recall has gone to a 'kill 'em all' position and no one has gone to a pure sweetness and light position. I just reviewed the entire thread to include re-reading Brigadier Kelly's comments and I have to ask:
Who has reduced it to an either or argument?
What, specifically is disturbing?
Thank you. Forest and trees problem on my part.
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Originally Posted by
pjmunson
Gian Gentile's post acknowledges that both killing and "hearts and minds" were used, but then states: "war is war, it is not "armed social science,"...but who is really arguing that you can fight COIN by hearts and minds alone?
No one here, really, not even Gian. He appears here from time to time and gets published in the Op-Ed pages of the NYT and other papers and has articles in the Armed Forces Journal among others. You will see occasional references to the 'Gentile-Nagl' due to the fact the Gian is Mr. Anti-COIN to the point of vehemence. Armor guy, had a Cav Squadron in I-rak , historian and now teaches that at West Point. His concern is that the Army overemphasizes 'the new COIN' (and as an active practitioner of the old COIN, it is new in many respects, not all improvements) to the detriment of it's primary mission which is war fighting. I tend to agree with him on all counts -- COIN elements are required; the Army should not go overboard as they are prone to do on the new COIN and so on. He's more vocal but then I'm shy and retiring.
That position is of course not shared with Dr. LTC Retired John Nagl, the author of "Eating Soup With A Knife." They've had some discussions back an forth here.
Neither Gian not I or any of the other 'war is war' folks who comment here deny there is a place for what is called COIN -- though it is really not that -- techniques. What we do say is that if you're committing Armed Forces to an effort there is or will be a war of some sort. War is war, unchanging but warfare is constantly mutating and shifting and COIN like TTP may be needed and the force must be able to apply them but don't lose sight of the larger effort -- preparation for the full spectrum of warfare.
Some say that COIN is the graduate level of warfare; I once contended that it is not -- it's like middle school with all the envy, cliques, in and out people and things, jealousies, backbiting and more. Stability operations can be psychologically demanding but they are not as challenging as major combat operations to any part of the force by several orders of magnitude. Gian agreed with that, John Nagl probably would not.
Wilf, BTW, is a consultant and author but he's also British -- when he was serving (during the Reign of George III...), they had a civil service that would fall in on any COIN effort and take care of the civil side leaving the Army to strictly military tasks -- as directed by said Civilians. Very different system. His 'war is war' mantra is 'cause he's a Clauswitz fan. That's all background. I knew all that and you didn't; it may or may not make any difference to your perceptions. Terribly long way of saying you can't tell the players without a program... :o
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The article rejects hearts and minds as a pipe dream...Germany; and abandon their cultural birthright of unrivalled hegemony over “Pashtunistan”...You aren't going to get Pashtuns to be eager "little Americans" but you can show them why it is worth their while to have you around.
Only if you can convince them you can keep the Talibs and all the other bad guys from visiting the villages in the night will they believe you are worthwhile -- and as soon as you do that, they'll want you gone. Afghans are not Arabs; they share some cultural similarities but they don't like the Ferenghee a bit better. I doubt that NATO et.al. will ever have enough troops to do that. So the 'COIN' approach cannot be fully implemented in Afghanistan and we'll have a hybrid op.
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At the end, I guess I just don't understand who is advocating a purely hearts and minds approach that doesn't advocate killing the insurgents to secure the population as an integral and primary goal.
No one to my knowledge; that's not the issue -- the issue is future strategy and force structure. Does the Army follow the Corps and go with some units tailored for stability ops? Does it adjust TOEs to provide units tailored for such ops. Brother Nagl is the President of CNAS and is presumed to have clout in high places; he and other think that's the way to go. Gian, me, others do not agree.
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And I'd also like to know what his vision of winning is since he labels his article as "How to Win in Afghanistan."
I thought he was pretty clear:
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""The approaches taken to countering insurgencies in Malaya, Vietnam, Northern Ireland and Iraq all contain some aspects that are transferable to Afghanistan but most are *. The counter-insurgency in Afghanistan is more intractable than any of these others.[* Believe a 'not' was omitted here / kw]
In Afghanistan a strategy focusing on the annihilation of Taliban power is the only way to achieve broad political progress...Until then NATO must be prepared to act as the proxy for the Afghan state in establishing control over the Pashtun population.
Without security there is nothing.""(all emphasis added /kw)
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My take on that is that he says more whittling down of the Taliban (and friends) or removal in some of way their ability to affect localities is required before the rebuilding can commence. My sensing from friends and all open sources is that is very much correct. Afghanistan is not an insurgency though there are aspects of one in place. It's a war with COIN like digressions.
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To me, it is disturbing that such a reductionist argument is still ongoing 8 years into this fight.
Me too. Though I'm not sure it's reductionist -- it is an effort to make sense out of a very chaotic situation that has been exacerbated over a period of eight years -- or, actually, over a period of eight or more one year or less tours with a number of people going in different directions and no unity of command.
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I would think that people would be arguing more about details rather than whether "hearts-and-minds" snake oil salesmen or people properly focused on killing and war as war has been for 3000 years are right. You need both and need to properly integrate all of your means and that is where the discussion should be: integration and synergy of the different means and ways.
True. That particular argument is not directed at Afghanistan other than peripherally. That argument is principally directed at FUTURE US Government policy, strategies and direction plus future (now in development) doctrine and force structure...
Afghanistan is on auto pilot with a coalescing mix of TTP -- no one's devoting much effort to it because what will happen there is pretty well locked in for the next three plus years.
It is simply being used as a How Not To Do It Training Aid by people on both sides of the very real doctrinal divide to point out their ideas for 2020. It's a big fight, it's real and has power players on both sides.
Sorry for the delay, two finger typist, sorry for the length, didn't want to leave much out; obviously discard all you think irrelevant. :cool:
They can and sure will be misused in our line of work
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Originally Posted by
Spud
I know its all semantics but it appears that semantics are everything in our line of work.
Mostly by those, who in the US Southern (Bogan like) vernacular, 'haven't never...' :wry:
in re: "Wilf is in the red-shorts" Yes, Marian did mention that... :D
I know. I didn't state my point well
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Originally Posted by
Tom Odom
I held that statement up as an example of putting a simple statement out and leaving it hanging as a 15 second sound bite.
It was but what I shoulda said was that it is a cheap shot but there is also danger in a myth that says we can buy support -- as you know, they'll take what you give and ask for more but that frequently doesn't change who they support. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. You have to try, no question but I think you also have to acknowledge that it sometimes isn't very successful and we sometimes buy / present the wrong things. The Hospital in Mosul comes to mind. It is not easy.
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The largesse the author refers to is targeted toward the population and shoring up their support for the government, not undermining the enemy's will to resist. Kill and capture is generally the best solution to the enemy.
Yep. Agreed. I'm sure you guys today do a better job than we did in Veet Nam -- a lot of Aid went to Chuck. Hard to tell who was who sometimes. Plus our 'Allies' sometimes cheated on us. Shameful behavior. :D.
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If the problem is as you state it, then state the problem, not a simplistic war is war aphorism as Wilf calls it, tautolgy as he so often uses it.
Stop with them ol big words, I ain't wrapped too taut. Nor very tightly either. ;)
On a more important note, you stay alert...