Op-Ed by Douglas Johnson, SSI
http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute...les/pub885.pdf
Excerpts:
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It is frequently asserted in our 0930 daily kaffe klatsch that as soon as the insurgency phenomenon in Iraq and Afghanistan is suppressed, the Army reflexively will return to its fixation on the kinetic approach to major combat. It is also popular to hold up the post-Vietnam era as a demonstration of that phenomenon with occasional references to similar reactions following the suppression of the Philippine Insurrection. These facile analyses are adduced to support the American Army’s distaste for counterinsurgency work. To be honest, standing professional armies do not like counterinsurgency work under the very best of conditions. Such undertakings are almost as much, if not more, political-social-economic activities than military, and, if ever there were a “clash of civilizations,” it would be here. But it all requires some deeper consideration.
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Some day the war in Iraq will end. If matters progress according to proper form, the “lessons” of this war will be captured. They may or may not be “learned.” They may or may not be taught because the next conflict will call for the attention of the profession far too often charged with attempting to “refight the last war.” The charge that the Army will automatically revert to the study of “tank armies on the plains of central somewhere” is too facile. The direction of professional study and leader development will have more to do with two simple things: the first will be shape of the next challenge—will it be another insurgency, a nuclear-rattling Russia aggressing against its southern former substates, a post-Olympics challenge to the United States over Taiwan? Second, and arguably most important, will be the promotion lists. The last list was touted as demonstrating the influence of the “Petreaus school.” If subsequent lists repeat that phenomenon, heavy maneuver advocates, while rightly reminding us that theirs is an essential skill for an Expeditionary Army whose destination and foe remain unidentified, will lose their previous dominance. Promotion lists have been the most effective tool available to establish and maintain professional direction in the past and will most certainly work in the future. Joint service was a meaningless waste of time, or worse, until that form of service was established as a pathway to professional advancement by instructions to promotion boards.
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It is easy to argue that nobody likes doing counterinsurgency because it is so messy. For the really cynical, counterinsurgencies produce few “heroic” figures in the news, although in truth they produce many quiet heroes at least as worthy of emulation as the Audie Murphys of conventional war. But it isn’t about what the profession “likes,” it is about what the threat requires and what senior professionals value.
What will really matter in the long run will be whether the services, the Army in particular, will be able to maintain momentum toward effective interagency work. The motivations in the civilian departments of government may or may not be sufficient to maintain the impetus to work together toward a common end and will inevitably react to budgetary competition. But this work will be necessary regardless of the dominant Army doctrinal school.
