Time for a FM 3-24: Counterinsurgency Update

[JMA]

OK, but in what sense? Certainly "victories" as military force achieved the political objective set for it. As to cost, the British Army lost <750 men across all four campaigns.
Other "human costs" may have been much higher.

The thousands of (all) lives lost in the respective struggles... and Britain lost the colonies (on a take it we're out of here basis).

... now I wonder why you did not include the suppression of the Boer insurgency in your list? Some skeletons in that cupboard on that one? ... and in the Sudan?

[Bill Moore]

Two of Wilf's posts tend to ring true to me:

Not true. Cambodia in the 70's, Soviet Russia, Nazi Germany, Saddam's Iraq, A'stan under the Taliban, Saudi-Arabia, Syria, North Korea etc etc etc.
This "power from the people" is not a reality in the real world, unless they do a lot of killing to get it, and unless they are prepared to keep killing, they can loose it.

The political problem may continue, BUT you use violence (military AND Police) to ensure it remains a political problem that the rebels will not seek to resolve by force. The ONLY thing armed force does is stop the other guy (rebels) using armed force. That is the key thing FM3-24 doesn't get.

I read every page of FM 3-24 when it first came out, but have rarely looked at it since. The manual has much wisdom in it based on years of COIN experiences, but it also definitely has a slant to it that IMO is misleading by excessively focusing on the populace to the extent of almost ignoring the enemy. While I understand Bob's points about force being a temporary solution at best, I think Wilf trumps that point by stating until we get the enemy (in this case the insurgents) to stop using force, a political settlement will remain a pipe dream.

In Afghanistan the populace doesn't know who will win at this point, and again as Wilf stated in much of the real world "power from the people" without force doesn't exist. We won't have a Ghandi like peace movement in Afghanistan. For us to confuse less developed, non-democratic States with the U.S.'s mature democratic bureaucracy and associated social norms is a dangerous mistake on part, and will result in the development of ineffective policy. The Khmer Rouge and other thug groups didn't obtain power by waging a peaceful election based on new ideas, but rather by employing brute force. The Taliban post-Soviet era obtained power by employing brute force, and now they're attempting to do the same (although this time they're also applying a fair amount of political savvy). IMO you can't effectively counter brutality with a peace movement and economic development. I know others disagree, but again I ask for historical examples of where the counterinsurgent effectively offered an olive branch without first establishing tactical dominance?

At the tactical level do we really need more than a manual on how to "defeat" the insurgent militarily? We all recognize this is not a victory in the traditional sense, but it sets security conditions for a real political settlement. The key is to aggressively pursue and surgically kill the enemy without alienating the populace, and yes defending the populace remains a key line of effort. That means we need to kill the enemy, take and "hold" territory (not return to base camps), and protect the populace, and do so at a fast enough pace to overcome the enemy's ability to reconstitute.

This goes back to the tank issue, if the Marines want tanks, then give them tanks. They have a tactical mission to accomplish and they know what tools they need to do it. They're not the Soviets and any comparison with the Soviets is simply foolish and misleading. People questioning their request reminds of the experts in the rear who questioned the TF's request for armored vehicles in Somalia, and then the subsequent Black Hawk Down situation. Higher gives lower a mission based on policy, and then lower best determines how to accomplish it, which includes determining what tools they need. We don't need a snoty nosed State Department employee in his young 30's influencing that decision by stating sending tanks sends the wrong message. Put the kid back in his lane, the right message is ensuring our forces dominate the enemy militarily. That enables the diplomats to more effectively negotiate as required. Based on my relatively short experience in Afghanistan I can see several cases where tanks could be effectively employed and if I was in the Taliban I would be plently worried if the Marines brought in some M1's.

Where I disagree with Wilf is that there are many unique aspects of Small Wars that differ significantly from conventional combat, so a good Small Wars TTP manual and associated doctrine is required, but in the end the common military objective between conventional and small wars remains the same and that is to take away from the enemy the option of using force to obtain their goals. It is political and psychological warfare so there is more involved than just shooting, but on the other hand that doesn't mean the shooting war takes a back seat while we experiment with a broke IO program, civil military projects, and economic development. We sure has hell aren't going to deter the North Koreans with our civil-military projects and economic development (we tried). They understand the deterrence of might, and so do many hard core insurgents.

Back to Bob's excellent points, which ultimately are the right answer, but they're the right answer at the policy level, and while the lines between the military and policy wonks are admitedly gray, I think we would be better off if our military doctrine focused on defeating the enemy (the tactical fight), and then re-emphasizing (once again) the whole of government approach to achieving a a strategic political settlement. We seem to be out of balance with our current approach. I state the above with some apprehension, because I have little faith in the Department of State to develop effective in lieu of politically correct policy. DOS has some exceptional diplomats, but unfortunately that isn't the prevailing norm, and for one I hate to see our troops committed to a fight where they're trying to support a lame policy that feels good (democracy and economic development for everyone) instead of a policy that is achievable, so from my view it is understandable why the military has over stepped into this role.

In a more perfect world we would have realistic policies and an interagency doctrine based on realsim (not simly idealism) for these types of conflicts. Based on our political system, I realize that is a pipe dream, but I still think our doctrine for small wars manual should focus on how to defeat the insurgent at the tactical level. We would probably use 60% of what is in the current FM, but the slant would be different this time.

[Bob's World]

Bill,

Nice post. This is always the big question, of what to do first, and what to prioritize. The majority position in military circles is to establish security first. Some come to that because, like Tranquier, they see security as the entire issue. Some because they see the populace as the prize, but rationalize that they can't get at them effectively to bring them under control until they have a reasonable degree of security in place. Like a sinking boat with a large hole in it: does one bail or plug the hole?? There may be too much water to get at the hole, or the water may be threatening to swamp the boat. But the bailing may not be able to keep up with the amount coming in the hole, or perhaps is only marginally faster, so the process is guaranteed to be long and tiring, but water never tires... Security first is bailing the boat. Balance and prioritize.

I ran into a similar circumstance when I left the regular army to go to law school. Wanting to stay in the military in some capacity I joined the Guard. Going from an ODA Commander in 5th SFG to being the new guy in a Guard Light Infantry Brigade was a bit of a culture shock. Lesson one was that the AC is a training readiness focused organization, while the Guard is a personnel readiness focused organization. Success of Commanders, Budget decisions, what states get what units and what equipment, etc are all made based upon the ability to produce units with a high percentage of available MOS qualified personnel. Period. How well they could perform was not a factor. This led to the great debate: should one train to unit capability, or should one focus on recruiting and individual capability? The standard Guard position was that a unit could not train until it was well manned, so focus on recruiting and individual training. The problem was they never got there, so they never trained. Also, as units spent so much time at the armory doing boring individual tasks, or events and parties intended to attract recruits, most really good soldiers would give up after a few years, and the organization in a Darwinian way became predominated by guys who saw it more as a social club than a military organization (with notable exceptions of course).

Ever the iconoclast, myself and another young major took the position of "train to retain"; and pushed for aggressive collective training and maximization of drill weekends. We soon build a cult following of young soldiers and junior leaders who really wanted to soldier. Social soldiers went to other units or got out, and soldiers who wanted to really soldier were drawn to the units that made training a priority. I never saw a unit that focused on hard, realistic training suffer for long for low numbers. The key was in determining the decisive point.

For Guard recruiting and retention I determined that the decisive point was when the soldier returned home following a drill weekend, and when he went to work. It was how he answered the question of "how was your weekend" by a spouse whose sister's wedding she had attended alone that weekend, or by a child who had a big ball game, or by a co-worker who had gone on a big hunting or skiing trip. If his answer was "I had to go to drill and we hung out at the armory" I knew the follow-on question would be fatal "so why do you do it?" Recruit the soldier, but retain the wife. If he had great war stories to tell with fire in his eye about how hard it was the wife and kids would support him and his buddies would want to join. By focusing on the decisive point the "recruit or train" question was easy to answer.

But what is the decisive point for COIN?

But what if the populace is not the "prize" and the insurgent is not the "cause"??? Perhaps we are all focused on the wrong problem. I just read the great French piece on Galula to Petraeus http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/201...d-galula-to-p/ and it lays out the key points of Tranquier, Galula, Kilcullen and Petraeus. Tranquier is great for those doing CT; but is not COIN. The other three are all in the beaten zone for COIN, but in my opinion miss two critical points:

1. All saw/see the intervening power as the "counterinsurgent." In the current globalized environment I believe this is even more of a fatal mistake than it has been historically. But in the colonial era the role of the intervening power was to sustain in power a government that answered to them first, and then to the populace. Today this just is not the case, and is a habit we must break. This is the flaw of all colonial COIN, be it French, British, or USMC Small Wars Manual. The intervening power today does NOT want "control" over the Government or the Populace either one. To do so, to even create the Perception of Control is to:
A. Render the Host Nation Government Illegitimate in the eyes of the populaces, thereby stoking the flames of insurgency, and
B. Make the intervening power the target of terrorist attack, at home as well as in the host nation.

2. All fail to identify the government as the principal factor of causation. Tranquier placed all blame on external UW actors. The rest place blame on a populace that yes, questions legitimacy, but more importantly does so due to the effects of insurgent ideology and lack of effective government services.

So, I think this causes us to mis-identify the decisive point, and therefore make poor decisions as what to prioritize and how to balance our efforts. I say make fixing the government the priority, balance that with information operations that admit to past failures of government, agree with and co-opt vast swaths of the insurgent's message, and proclaim hard internal fixes being made to address all of the above. Only third after this comes security efforts focused on key elements of governmental outreach and key nodes of the insurgency itself.

A long post, I realize, but these two points of the intervener not being the counterinsurgent and the repair of governance as the decisive point largely missed in mainstream COIN doctrine and theory is critical. More so than ever in today's information age of empowered populaces.

[Dayuhan]

The intervening power today does NOT want "control" over the Government or the Populace either one.

One hopes this is so. At the same time, though, it raises the question of what the intervening power DOES want. Nobody intervenes for the sake of the country being intervened in: if somebody's intervening they are doing so because they have very significant interests at stake. The intervention is generally shaped by these perceived interests, not by the interests of the government, populace, or insurgents of the country being intervened in.

I say make fixing the government the priority, balance that with information operations that admit to past failures of government, agree with and co-opt vast swaths of the insurgent's message, and proclaim hard internal fixes being made to address all of the above.

That raises other questions...

What brief have we to run about fixing other people's governments? What if the government doesn't want to be fixed, or the populace doesn't want us involved, or both? How do we go about inserting ourselves into another country and declaring that we propose to fix anything, let alone the government...

Given that we are not the government, how do we admit to the past failures of government? Are you suggesting that we force or influence the government to admit to what we believe to be its failures, or that we just go ahead and admit to someone else's failures, which amounts to an accusation. What if the government doesn't share our perception of failure?

If the primary message of the insurgent is "get the @#$%& furriners out", how do we co-opt that?

Do we proclaim "hard internal fixes", or do we actually produce them? Isn't producing a hard internal fix a governance function? How do we do this without actually taking over governance?

Overall, I think this overlooks the difficulty - and potential undesirability - of trying to control the government of another country. I know you said we don't or shouldn't want control, but how do you fix a government without control?

I suspect that much of the difficulty we have in applying our traditional COIN discourse to Iraq and Afghanistan traces back to the reality that our traditional COIN discourse tends to be based on the premise that we are intervening to support an allied government threatened by insurgency. What we're doing in Iraq and Afghanistan is quite different, and might better be described as "phase 3 regime change".

Assume regime change has 3 broad phases:

1. Remove previous government (generally fairly easy)

2. Install new government (easy to do badly, hard to do well)

3. Suppress armed resistance to new government and support it until is able to govern (very hard, especially if phase 2 was done badly).

There are significant commonalities between traditional COIN and phase 3 regime change, but also very real differences, particularly in the perceived and actual relationship between the intervening power and the Government of the host country. Pretending that they are the same thing is self deception, and while the lessons of one may at times apply to the other, it's important to maintain awareness of the differences.

[Bob's World]

When and where the U.S. engages in such governmental-populace disputes is every bit as important as how.

This is why the assessment of national interests based on the current and emerging geopolitical dynamics is so critical. Too often we are driven by 60 year-old Cold War positions; or for the GWOT by flawed concepts of AQ and their role and relationship with insurgent populaces, coupled with an Intelligence-driven perspective that builds an ever growing threat picture that is then painted as being our critical interest to defeat.

The troubled regions where we have the greatest true national interests are, ironically, the locations where we are actually the least likely to engage directly as we have long relations with those "friendly" governments, preferring to engage in locations where we have few interests, and weak or strained relations with the government.

This brings us to another aspect of Decisive Points: We have made AFPAK our focal point for the GWOT, yet if one focus on the heart of the causation of GWOT, rather than merely the current location the current manifestations of this causation are operating out of; the decisive point shifts, IMO, to Saudi Arabia.

Now, this is not a call to send our military to remove a government, or to help a government control its populace. Nor is it a call to conduct a massive program of helping upgrade government effectiveness. Clearly such approaches seem as ridiculous when considered for a modern, friendly state as they seem obvious for a more primitive, or less friendly state; but are quite possibly equally inappropriate for both. The issues that must be addressed at the decisive point are those in the nature of the relationship between the Saudi government and their populace; and those in the relationship between the US Government and the Saudi Government. Both are wildly dysfunctional and are the burning core of causation for the GWOT that must be extinguished to rein this problem in.

[slapout9]

This brings us to another aspect of Decisive Points: We have made AFPAK our focal point for the GWOT, yet if one focus on the heart of the causation of GWOT, rather than merely the current location the current manifestations of this causation are operating out of; the decisive point shifts, IMO, to Saudi Arabia.

Thats right from an LE perspective they were,are,and will be the primary suspect, except they aren't even suspects IMO they are flat out guilty. First thing we should do is send them a bill for about 25 Trillion dollars!!!

[Bill Moore]

Bob's World,

I think you're so focused on trying to convince that the audience that the decisive point in COIN is the government that you tend to hijack threads in the SWJ council that are not focused on strategy and policy to change the topic to one of strategy and policy issues. This is actually, though unintentionally I suspect, a little on the rude side. Many of us have our pet issues and we argue them in the "appropriate" threads. I think you may some valid points, but the discussion in this thread is FM 3-24, which is COIN doctrine for the military (which does mean warfare). It isn't the military's role to reform host nation governments (though we all too frequently get sucked into that role due to the ineptness and capacity short falls within the State Department).

It doesn't matter whether you embrace DIME, DIMEFIL or some other method to explain the whole of government approach, a FM focuses on the M, the military's role, which is defeating the insurgent using military force, or at a minimum deterring the insurgent from using force to compel the HN government to its will.

The policy debates for Afghanistan, Pakistan and the WOT continue to spin in the muck of political correctness (Islam is a religion of peace, we need to have more patience with Pakistan, Saudi Arabia is an ally on the WOT, etc.), and in the meantime our fighting force is fighting at the tactical level trying to construct something meaningful from the bottom up. I agree that ideally there shouldn't be a tactical level fight without first identifying the national policy and supporting strategy, but that isn't the world we live in, and that isn't what the FM should be about.

As to your other points the fight in Afghanistan is very much about external influences, and even if we could "fix" the Afghanistan government it wouldn't bring the insurgency to a close. Your recommendation to co-opt part of the insurgent's narrative could be effective if none skillfully, but it won't work if the HN government does it from a position of military weakness. The facts are if they are perceived to be losing the fight militarily and they co-opt part of the insurgent narrative it will be seen as a weakness and further reinforce the perception that the government won't win. That usually doesn't equate for a mass movement in support of the government.

I agree with Dayuhan's tone that we need to be very careful with the attitude that we're here to fix your government as a matter of policy (even worse if expressed in one our FMs). We deploy forces in a FID role to "assist" the HN government, not "undermine" their government by attacking their legitimacy. What you're proposing seems to be a combination an odd combination of FID and UW (FID we're here to help, UW we're here to conduct subversion and sabotage to bring your government down), and again maybe if this approach was executed skillfully it would work, but most likely it is an approach that would simply collapse on itself, because we're not sophisticated enough to pull it off, and we have too many divisive points within our government that would work at odds against one another instead of collaboratively towards a common purpose. We can only work together at the tactical level (where the real heroes are, the people that actually give a crap about the their peers and the people they interact with daily). Understanding the limitations of our government will help us define a more realistic strategy in my opinion.

[Dayuhan]

As I have pointed out before, FM 3-24 takes a fork in the road in the very first sentence of the first paragraph of the first Chapter: "Insurgency and Counterinsurgency (COIN) are complex subsets of warfare." At that point we have committed ourselves to a military solution and just granted the Policy/Governance community a pass.

Possibly I'm channeling Wilf here, but the document in question is a military field manual and does not concern the policy/governance community. If the military is involved, the policy decision to use armed force has already been made. If the military is not involved, the manual is irrelevant. For the purposes of military involvement, presumably the purpose for which the manual was written, the definition is adequate.

Governance issues are of course critical to effective COIN, but they are beyond the scope of the military and do not need to be covered in a military manual. The military's only appropriate role is the military aspect of COIN; if we're asking the military to "do governance" we're putting ourselves in a corner form which no manual can effectively extricate us.

When and where the U.S. engages in such governmental-populace disputes is every bit as important as how.

Certainly, but you omit "why", probably more important than any of them.

I think the points I made above are not being adequately addressed. You wrote:

I say make fixing the government the priority, balance that with information operations that admit to past failures of government, agree with and co-opt vast swaths of the insurgent's message, and proclaim hard internal fixes being made to address all of the above.

and subsequently:

The issues that must be addressed at the decisive point are those in the nature of the relationship between the Saudi government and their populace; and those in the relationship between the US Government and the Saudi Government. Both are wildly dysfunctional and are the burning core of causation for the GWOT that must be extinguished to rein this problem in.

Put those together and the problems come into focus. We cannot "fix" the Saudi government. We can't even substantially influence the Saudi government: they are not a dependency or protectorate. We cannot "admit to past failures of governance" or compel or persuade the Saudis to do so. We can make accusations, but we can't "admit" to someone else's failings. Agreeing with the supposed "insurgent" message won't help us much, because the message of the would-be "insurgent" was never really adopted by the populace: they have their own concerns, but AQ does not represent them. Neither do we, and neither can we. We can neither proclaim nor implement "hard fixes" to Saudi problems: it's not our country.

On the one hand you tell us to renounce control, on the other you propose a program that cannot be implemented unless we have control.

The relationship between the Saudi government and its populace may be dysfunctional, but it's none of our business and nobody, least of all the Saudi populace, wants us meddling in it.

Our relationship with the Saudi government is within our control, but proposed revisions must be based on the reality that we are dealing with a sovereign state that is not under our control, and that our influence over that State is slim to nonexistent. Realistically, the Saudis have more leverage over us at this point then we have over them... so how do you propose to go about fixing their government, admitting their failures, or proclaiming "hard internal fixes" to their problems?

[Bob's World]

Possibly I'm channeling Wilf here, but the document in question is a military field manual and does not concern the policy/governance community. If the military is involved, the policy decision to use armed force has already been made. If the military is not involved, the manual is irrelevant. For the purposes of military involvement, presumably the purpose for which the manual was written, the definition is adequate.

Governance issues are of course critical to effective COIN, but they are beyond the scope of the military and do not need to be covered in a military manual. The military's only appropriate role is the military aspect of COIN; if we're asking the military to "do governance" we're putting ourselves in a corner form which no manual can effectively extricate us.



Certainly, but you omit "why", probably more important than any of them.

I think the points I made above are not being adequately addressed. You wrote:



and subsequently:



Put those together and the problems come into focus. We cannot "fix" the Saudi government. We can't even substantially influence the Saudi government: they are not a dependency or protectorate. We cannot "admit to past failures of governance" or compel or persuade the Saudis to do so. We can make accusations, but we can't "admit" to someone else's failings. Agreeing with the supposed "insurgent" message won't help us much, because the message of the would-be "insurgent" was never really adopted by the populace: they have their own concerns, but AQ does not represent them. Neither do we, and neither can we. We can neither proclaim nor implement "hard fixes" to Saudi problems: it's not our country.

On the one hand you tell us to renounce control, on the other you propose a program that cannot be implemented unless we have control.

The relationship between the Saudi government and its populace may be dysfunctional, but it's none of our business and nobody, least of all the Saudi populace, wants us meddling in it.

Our relationship with the Saudi government is within our control, but proposed revisions must be based on the reality that we are dealing with a sovereign state that is not under our control, and that our influence over that State is slim to nonexistent. Realistically, the Saudis have more leverage over us at this point then we have over them... so how do you propose to go about fixing their government, admitting their failures, or proclaiming "hard internal fixes" to their problems?

What I have always stood for is that we must change ourselves, not work so hard to change others to suit us. When I say the US must change the nature of its relationship with the Saudis I mean we must change our end of it. As to the relationship between the Saudi government and their own populace, that is a conversation for the President to have with his counterpart in private. But the primary reason he does not have it is because the military has kidnapped COIN as warfare and their domain.

To claim that military can simply declare some aspect of governance as warfare, write a manual about it and thereby convert it to warfare is absurd. Stable governments with solid relationships with their populaces are conducting COIN every single day and we don't call that warfare when they are doing it effectively. It is only when the civil leaders lose control of the populace to such a degree that violent challengers emerge and calls upon the military to help defeat the products of their failures that we recognize the condition as insurgency, declare it to be warfare and pass the lead off to the military. That clean break and conversion from governance to warfare is a fiction. Manuals such as 3-24 contribute to that fiction.

What is next? Will the military publish a manual that declares that support to natural disasters, or smaller civil emergencies such as the LA riots are warfare as well? When insurgency goes violent it is indeed often warfare by the populace against the state; but it is the rare situation that I would recommend to a government conducting COIN as warfare against their own populace.

But this gets us back to the role of an intervening power and what their mission is in that intervention. The intervening power is supporting the COIN force (the Host Nation), even when they have decimated that host nation government as we did in Iraq. Simply because the Host Nation government ceases to exist it does not suddenly make the intervening government the host nation. They have the mission, but not the status. To assume the status is create impossible conditions of illegitimacy that will feed the insurgent movement.

So long as we continue to look at COIN in the context of warfare and a mission that an intervening government has the status to implement we will struggle with this mission. Similarly, until we hold our allies to task for their responsibility in creating conditions of insurgency within their states; and hold ourselves responsible for the role US foreign policy over the past 100+ years has played in contributing to the conditions leading to current illegal violence directed at the US we will struggle with the GWOT as well. I really don't see a down side in demanding greater accountability in civil government.

[Ken White]

Strategy is good. So is Policy. Hopefully the two cross reference each other but mixing them up in a stew is inadvisable. Similarly, Executive Chefs and Chefs de Partie are both important but each has to do his or her job, mix 'em up and poor chow results.

I have to agree with Bill Moore and Dayuhan -- when you try to change the first sentence in the first paragraph of the first chapter of a Field Manual -- no matter how poor it is -- to reflect what is and should be a civilian policy decision you are going to lose and you just get yourself consigned to the 'Disregard all before Huh' pile. Governance is a civilian, foreign policy concern. It is not and should not be a US Army -- to include SF -- concern. If the Armed Forces are committed, then in our nation a civilian ordered that and the Army's job is to conduct combat operations suitable to the mission.

As several of us keep saying, you have the right idea but keep shooting at the wrong target.

Same thing is true of going after the Saudis. It plays well to the populists here and there but it's not going to happen and we all -- including the populists -- know a half dozen or more good reasons why. So what purpose is served by beating it into the ground? To show that you are an independent thinker? We know that.

As someone far wiser than I (lot of them about... ) once said, there's a fine line between admirable persistence and deplorable bullheadedness. You aren't there yet -- but I really don't think going there will do your cause one bit of good...

[William F. Owen]

Where I disagree with Wilf is that there are many unique aspects of Small Wars that differ significantly from conventional combat, so a good Small Wars TTP manual and associated doctrine is required, but in the end the common military objective between conventional and small wars remains the same and that is to take away from the enemy the option of using force to obtain their goals.

Agree a 100%. I cannot see where we disagree. Suppressing armed rebellions requires some unique TTPs - and those tend to be theatre specific.