Time for a FM 3-24: Counterinsurgency Update

[William F. Owen]

At the beginning of his comments to the attendees (SWJ/Quantico sponsored event 60 - 80 folks were there) he stated the FM needs to be re-written and is out of date (he also stated that it was out of date from day one because things are always changing and we are always learning).

I used to have great respect for Dave, back in the day, but I think he's wrong these days, unless I am not understanding what I keep reading.
a.) FM3-24 was not out of date. It was wrong and bad.
b.) We keep learning? Sorry, what crushes a rebellion hasn't really changed. What has changed is the constraints place by policy.
NOW, - I admit, my ideas have changed. I have learnt. I have publicly viewable record of my though in the 3,000+ posts here, BUT my ideas now all conform to what got taught back in the old days and was written down a long time ago. The problem with the COIN-fusion is that is simply ignored history to pursue either the avant-garde or reputations.

He also stated that yes part of counter insurgency is killing bad guys...that didn't come across in the FM because everyone was thinking the military already knew how to do that.

....yet clearly that was the source of the problem because they weren't killing the right people and only the right people.

[Infanteer]

As simple as that? Now I am begining to understand where it is all going wrong out there...

Well, in 7 months of COIN I did three things:

1. Employed Basic Infantry Doctrine;

2. Tried, as much as possible, to know my backyard; and

3. Respected/Observed Afghan culture.

To me, nothing here requires a new manual. If I'm missing anything, please enlighten me.

only correct IF you got trained right in the first place.

Well, that is sort of implied. If I send a poorly trained person to do something, I'm probably not going to get the results I want.

b.) We keep learning? Sorry, what crushes a rebellion hasn't really changed. What has changed is the constraints place by policy.

Agreed - anyone can be defeated, we just aren't willing to acknowledge or accept much of that threshold these days (Jim Storr said that in a conversation we had). I think today's junk-COIN is an effort by the military to find something around that. Unfortunately, in my opinion, it's just farting around with no real solution (because you aren't approaching that threshold).

[JMA]

Well, in 7 months of COIN I did three things:

1. Employed Basic Infantry Doctrine;

2. Tried, as much as possible, to know my backyard; and

3. Respected/Observed Afghan culture.

To me, nothing here requires a new manual. If I'm missing anything, please enlighten me.

I'm told by the smart guys that no matter how good the tactics are if the strategy is bad then the whole exercise is pointless. How did your efforts measure against this?

[Compost]

I just returned the questionnaire inviting outside comments on the revision of FM 3-24. I thought the writing committee's decision to open the process to a wider range of civilians deserved a response. I look forward to learning the results and also the findings of Colonel Gentile's current study of counterinsurgency and generalship.

Interesting comment posted by DavidPB4 on 23 November 2011 at SW Journal on COIN is Dead: US Army must Put Strategy over Tactics.


Electrical copies of JP 3-24 and FM 3-24 each dated 5 Oct 2009 seem to be the prime publicly available references on American COIN doctrine. Until now I had assumed that those and other manuals were revised on a frequent basis to incorporate feedback from current operations and then securely distributed to military users. However, the above quote and the content of this thread suggest that update of doctrine and re-issue of manuals is ad-hoc and infrequent.

The work done by armed forces benefits from having an agreed current goal and plan of action usually guided by general instructions on what is to be done, and to some extent how it is to be done. Even when that general instruction or doctrine is erroneously referred to as COIN it must assuredly provide some mix of useful and less useful - or even uselessly out-of-area/context - guidance.

All problem-solving doctrine needs to be adaptive and to some extent it may also be anticipatory. To continue stuck at some time in the past can delay improvement and achievement. Medieval monks were comforted by the belief that what they dealt with was immutable and omnipotent. They laboriously completed, copied and distributed manuscripts in a leisurely manner. They also used colour to illuminate manuscripts and support superstition.

In this modern era it is possible to revise and widely distribute soft-copy doctrine in relatively quick time. Also colour can be readily used to highlight changes in text and to assist understanding and assimilation by showing both the ‘prior’ and ‘revised’ versions.

If the above comments are valid then it is past time to improve feedback and reissue of doctrine that is in heavy current use. That is feedback from any unit, signed off by and forwarded by the commander of that unit. It should be practicable for central staff with recent field experience to evaluate all such feedback and to revise, gain approval and re-issue doctrine on a regular and fairly frequent basis, say at four or six monthly intervals.