Soldier, Warrior, and Teacher
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Soldiers are not diplomats. Soldiers do fight and kill their way to operational success and/or gain that success by being capable or threatening to do so.
In Special Forces we strive to full fill the role of Warrior, diplomat and teacher as required to accomplish the mission. Part of the reason we did so poorly in Iraq initially is because many in the conventional Army failed to grasp that were in a diplomatic role where they had to negotiate with local leaders to gain situational awareness and to co-opt support.
Soldiers on point in this type of irregular warfare environment cannot define their role as strictly being a warrior unless we want to lose this fight. There is no one else to perform that role outside the capital. That American Soldier may be the only American that a local sees in a remote village, and the dialouge between them is as important as the shooting war in IW.
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Victory does not from building local institutions.
One of the criticisms directed at the U.S. military is that we confuse combat with strategy. Our entire Network Warfare concept is based on seeing first and acting first, which is great for combat, but it doesn't come close to looking like a strategy to win the war. We defeated both the Taliban/AQ and Saddam's conventional like forces in battle, but we're still far from a strategic victory. If a strategic victory is obtainable, it is going to be obtained through building viable host nation institutions, not institutions that parallel the American Government structure, but whatever works in the area we're fighting in.
William, I think you're doubling back on your previous argument where you stated we don't need irregular warfare doctrine, we just need to learn to fight wars better (loosely paraphrased). I agreed to some extent, but your argument in my opinion proves why we do an IW doctrine/concept whatever to provide some sort of organizing structure for winning these conflicts. Unlike many who swallow the indirect approach and peace corps with rifle b.s. to the extreme, I agree ultimately we have to kill/capture or co-opt the insurgents, but to that we have to engage the local population and win their support to some extent to find them.
"One people divided by a common language."
Wilf, as Churchill said. You and Bill and John (and me) are not all that far apart. Part of the problem is semantic - we mean different things when we use the same words. Some of that is driven by culture and historical experience - American, British, Israeli, etc. But there are structural differences as well. The US military is bigger and more instituionally diverse than any other military engaged in the wars we are fighting. The American military is not now as large as the Soviet military was when it was engged in Afghanistan but the US Army alone brings far more diverse elements to the Afghanistan fight than the Soviets ever did. It also brings far more diverse capabilities to that fight than any of its allies. This is not to say we are better - often they are - but we can do things that they can't. And, often, we must do them because no other institution in the American government can. The ongoing effort to increase STate Dept capacity that Secstate designate Clinton hope sto ramp up will help but it won't replace the capabilities of the US military in both its active and reserve components, eg Civil Affairs. Bottom line is that much of what John said was specifically targeted at an audience of junior American officers with all the baggage they carry. As some wag put it, "Context is everything."
Cheers
JohnT
Soldiers -- and Soldiers and Teachers...
John T. Fishel makes well the point that the US and the UK differ mightily on their employment of 'diplomats' in wartime. The UK does that very well, we are not so fortunate -- that means the US Armed forces have to fill the gap. That works.
The question though is -- is that a good solution?
I suggest the answer is a resounding 'no.'
State and the rest of the US government need to be brought up to adequate capability and the Army, all of DoD, should fight hard to insure that occurs -- it will be to the detriment of the Defense establishment if it does not occur...
Gian comes in with a good post. I frequently agree with him but often chide him and suggest he lower the level of his expressed discontent just a bit. Not this time. He and Wilf are right -- so is Bill Moore -- SF can do the diplomat / teacher / soldier bit and can provide the necessary interface with local populations (if the powers that be will stop sending them to kick in doors...); The Multi Purpose Forces that are the bulk of the US Armed Services are not diplomats and should not train or spend too much thought time on that aspect of their total competency.
They can be adequately mentored and guided by SF elements and by a revamped and empowered Department of State. Shifting from combat to COIN is not that difficult, if it seems to hard, then the training is inadequate because numerous Armies do it, have done it, we have done it -- it just isn't that difficult. So let SF do their job and let the MPF do theirs -- to include assisting SF at a reasonable level of capability as supplementaries, not replacements.
Be careful how we train -- too much training time spent on building other peoples Armies or nations will lead to a US Army that is not competent at its own primary mission. None of the services train new entrants, officer or enlisted well enough today; to fragment their training on COIN / FID as opposed to basic MOSC and military competence will lessen their overall capability. We need to be able to do COIN adequately (as opposed to superbly); we do not need to let it drive the train...
Couldn't have said it better myself...
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Originally Posted by
John T. Fishel
...who will do what is required? Soldiers and Marines - as they always have. Again, that is why we have FAOs, SF, CA and other specialties.
Yep.
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Finally, I would note that some of our Greatest Captains - Eisenhower, Marshall, and MacArthur, among others spring to mind - were more than just soldiers; they were diplomats as well.
Totally true -- and with no special training back in the day but a lot of common sense, more talking than was probably comfortable for all three and sound military judgment applied when required ... ;)
Wilf correctly notes:
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My actual point is you need better doctrine that does not make the error of looking at "IW" as something distinct and difficult, when it is the common currency of military operations.
. . .
Concur, and engaging the local population and wining their support is a normal military skill. It is not necessarily unique to COIN and it is not diplomacy! It's bog standard G2 bread and better. Calling it diplomacy is inaccurate, misleading, and unhelpful.
My suspicion is that the three gentlemen John T. named would agree with that description. Then, as Bill Moore points out:
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It isn't that hard, even an officer can figure it out if he has a patient NCO that doesn't mind mentoring him. Nor do we have to be that good at it, but we sure as how have to understand the character of the fight we're in.
True and as Gian reinforced, all we gotta do is be careful about