What have we learned (2000-2010)?

[Chris Otero]

I think one thing that we have learned is that there is a greater understanding of how to train foreign forces both an a micro level and at an industrial level. Prior to GWOT, the knowledge on how to train foreign forces in an applicable culturally acceptable manner primarily resided with Special Forces. Given the size and scope of the effort required to train ISF and ASF, the conventional force has had to learn the skill-set and apply it. One observation I have had over the past decade is that there has been an moving away from the foreign trainer role by SF except in certain special cases as they have been more DA focused and the lions share of the task has fallen on to the conventional force. This is less of a criticism and more of an observation given the scales required meant that only the conventional side could undertake it.

Anyrate, my primary statement is that we have built a body of knowledge and large cadre of Officers and NCOs that know how to train foreign forces. It is necessary that the conventional force realizes this and embraces it early on if we ever decide to engage in a moderate to large scale open-ended COIN fight ever again.

[MikeF]

Schmedlap/Ron- I'm not sure why that's something we didn't know previously.

Chris- Very good points on GPF picking up advisor skills.

I suppose that many of these lessons will be individual to each person/units experience, but I think that we should start asking these questions in order for us to determine, "what should we have learned?" Those answers will drive the Army after next.

[Fuchs]

Don't wage wars of choice.
They hurt more than peace.

[slapout9]

Maybe it is time to rethink Boyds highest trinity, the....Moral....Mental....and Physical levels of War.


For your listening pleasure and moral enhancement.....Jewel and "Who Will Save Your Soul"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rG602tjDzGs

[Joske]

What about the transition between the more high-tech aproach to war before the "gwot" and the current focus on population-centric coin.

Or the fact that maybe military invasion/force might not be such a succesfull tool in some cases, and looking at the local circumstances a more effective aproach to countering irregular enemies can be found in a range of social, economic, informational, diplomatic ...etc aproaches. and off course if the circumstances favor a violence only aproach then winning "hearts and minds" is most likely a waste off time.

[jcustis]

I think we learned that we need to organzie our efforts better along a variety of Lines of Operation, as opposed to thinking in terms of simple kinetics.

[Global Scout]

I'll be the naysayer and argue most of what we learned since 2010 needs to be unlearned quickly.

Bad ideas that won't go away:

So called effects based operations continues to pollute our staff modus operandi resulting in multi slide briefs that have little to do with achieving our military or strategic objectives. There has never been a military operation conducted throughout history that didn't intend to achieve desired effects. Now we're foolishly trying to measure the results of our operations, while missing the large collective picture. The commander that relies on his intuition will defeat the commander who relies on his daily stats brief.

Lines of operation, effort, etc. are also a farce that have done more to enhance disunity of effort than any other CONOP. They are a very poor substitute for a real operational/strategic strategy and appropriate objectives. Yet again they look very pretty on a powerpoint slide and create the false perception that we actually know what we're doing.

Good governance and economic development first, then focus on defeating the enemy by offering ice cream and other nice incentives, while ignoring a credible coercive element. We have wasted billions of tax payers dollars in failed economic development projects, largely because we attempted to substitute economic development for fighting. We embrace these ideas with great faith despite the facts pointing to opposing conclusions.

While technology has always played a role in war, and sometimes a decisive role, it does not eliminate the human element of war. One lesson we claimed to learned is we now do a better job of understanding the populace, but I think the reality is quite different. Despite the hoards of social scientists now roaming the battlefield, we still don't seem to understand how to influence the local populace as effectively as our foes. Learning about the local culture is not a new idea, and I would argue we probably did a better job of it prior to 9/11.

Excessive use of contractors and private businesses has resulted in a corrupt wartime/conflict economy where there is now financial incentive to continue the conflict. How many millionaires/billionaires were created since 9/11 based on providing services and equipment to the war effort? How much of them really contributed something worthwhile to the fight.

I hope we learned that half stepping doesn't work, and it still isn't clear to me why we had to wait for several years to implement a surge in Iraq? I remember, our economic development efforts were supposed to take the wind out of the insurgent's sails.

The military was not wrong to focus on winning the big wars, but they were wrong for largely ignoring the unique characteristics of irregular warfare. However, it can be argued that they're learning the wrong lessons now based on political correctness versus what actually works.

As for conventional forces getting involved in training local forces, I think the results speak largely for themselves. Our conventional force training efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan were largely a failure (we generated large numbers of troops that couldn't and / or wouldn't fight). Just recently we started making the advisor positions command select positions (a lesson learned that good people are required to do this).

The list could go on for two pages, but since we're overly focused on force protection (JIEDDO), we have focused a good portion of our efforts/investment in developing a force that is IED proof, and less effort in actually defeating the enemy.

I would be very careful in identifying which lessons we learned since 2000 that are worth keeping.