The David Kilcullen Collection (merged thread)

[Fabius Maximus]

As usual with the US military, deus ex machina saves the day!

... a “ruggedized” laptop computer, loaded with data from social-science research conducted in Iraq — such as, McFate said, “an analysis of the eighty-eight tribes and subtribes in a particular province.” Now the project is recruiting social scientists around the country to join five-person “human terrain” teams that would go to Iraq and Afghanistan with combat brigades and serve as cultural advisers on six-to-nine-month tours.

Since there are so few Arabic-speaking, Iraq-expert social scientists in the US (even fewer for Afghanistan), the data for these laptops’ will mostly come from the locals. That is, our maps of the social terrain will be that of various partisans in the Iraq civil war. (there are no neutrals in a civil war)

It's a high-tech way of making their enemies, our enemies.

Good idea, just the wrong time and place.

Also this illustrates our confusion between "data" and "knowledge." Even if the data is correct, most of our company commanders will lack the contextual understanding -- the wider view of Iraq/Afghanistan society -- needed to successfully apply it.

[slapout9]

Fabius, I take you don't believe much in Kilcullen? Who would you recommend?

[Fabius Maximus]

The usual suspects ... Lind, Richards, van Creveld ... and the other folks you see published on www.d-n-i.net

Unfortunately we are in the early stages of developing strategies effective in the age of 4GW. Early days yet. Yet the wealth of writing of the subject, from both in and outside the services, suggests that we'll have results eventually.

Implementing them might be a more difficult problem. I consider this the critical step, about which I've seen nothing of interest. Perhaps we must learn to wage 4GW on our own military institutions.

The sage who I believe has produced the first keys to winning 4GW is MAJ Don Vandergriff (The Path to Victory). In the end, our people are our greatest strength. Nothing is more important than getting the right system to attract, retain, and promote in the armed services.

Among my articles, the most operational is, I believe:

"Militia: the dominant defensive force in 21st Century 4GW?"
http://www.d-n-i.net/fcs/pdf/fabius_..._militia-1.pdf

[slapout9]

Fabius, that's some article. I am not sure about Militias for some of the reasons you mentioned. One thing I do agree with is the defense is vastly underestimated. One of the hardest things I had to learn as a Cop was how to make the criminal come to you! It sounds so odd but it is an enormous advantage when you set up sting operations,or undercover operations and they catch far more criminals then just riding around in a marked patrol car. I will have to pay more attention to the DNI page.

[Fabius Maximus]

The below link goes to a favorable mention of "Counterinsurgency Redux" by T. X. Hammes. Hammes is on the A-team of 4GW experts. His opinion deserves attention.

http://www.iiss.org/whats-new/iiss-i...-guerrilla-war

[slapout9]

Fabius, I like TX Hammes and try to read his articles, have not read his book yet, but I will. The last article I read of his was in Military Review (I think) about doing network analysis in order to make the enemy visible. Law Enforcement has been doing this for years since criminals don't walk around with a sign on their head that says Criminal. Glad he is on our side.

[carl]

I am a bit surprised at the sharp tone of FM's criticism. Most of Mr. Kilcullen's statements seem to be plain common sense well put. The crux of FM's complaint seems to be that something less than perfect is useless.

1.

In his little area, the Company Commander is indeed in a competition as stated by Mr. Kilcullen. And, as as been demonstrated in Vietnam, Malaya and Iraq, it is possible to win that competition in his small area of responsibility.

Of course, the government of Iraq will be the entity that ultimately wins the war in the country as a whole. The Captain "can only help, as a secondary player in this game." But that secondary role can be a vital one.

2.

The Captain might well never know the turf as well as the guy who was born and lives there. But FM seems to imply that because he will never equal that knowledge the advice is meritless; if perfection can't be achieved, why bother trying for good enough.

It seems to me that the advantages the Captain brings, around 100 well trained and organized soldiers, good communications, superior fighting power, good transport, reliable supply, money to spend (hopefully) can make what less than perfect knowledge he can, through hard work, acquire, good enough to win a local victory.

[Bill Moore]

Fabius I have to agree with Carl for the most part. I have yet to read all your posted links (except for the first post), but a Company of professional soldiers brings many things to their area of operations that probably didn't exist previously, such as a viable, non-bias security force. I have seen companies reenergize existing systems such as the local medical, sewage, education, banking, etc. If something isn't working, they go out and see what the problem is, and get the appropriate powers to be to fix the problem. We're generally there because the problem set was greater than the HN government could manage on its own, so to assume we bring no goodness is quite simply wrong. To state we're at a disadvantage because we're not on home turf is obviously a truism, but always has been, and it has not prevented us (and others) from winning in these types of conflicts previously.

As for Killcullen being a genius or a dreamer, I have to side closer to genius. You need to remember that he works for our Dept of State, so he can only go so far with his public statements. If you want to see if he understands where the differences between traditional COIN fits and modern 4GW I recommend reading the article titled "Knowing the Enemy" by George Packer in the NY Times. (See link below, note this was posted elsewhere in in the counsel, and surprisingly received little comment, it was the best articles I have read lately).

On the other hand I agree with you that a traditional COIN approach will not work in some cases, and OIF is one of them. More later, I need to read to your posts.

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/conten...061218fa_fact2

Bill

[Fabius Maximus]

(a quickly written note, apologize for typos)

From the perspective of company commanders, this is just another set of advice, to be skimmed for a few insights. "#1 Know your turf ... tell me something I don't already know."

It's banal in the sense of commonplace, almost trivial.

(side note: For every members of Al Qaeda there must be hundred+ manuals on how to fight him, many of which are hundreds of pages long ... Perhaps we should conduct counterinsurgency by smothering our enemies with manuals.)

From a larger perspective this -- boiling his work down to commonplaces -- misses the key to Kilcullen's views. He's a brilliant PhD anthropologist - Lt Col in the Aussie Army.

I'll bet that he means this stuff, in its full glory as I described above. As do the senior DoD and State folks -- uniformed and not -- who promote his work.

The "excesses" (my word, not yours) that you throw away ("be the world expert on your district") are his key insights. Delusional as they might be.

This illustrates some key larger points as to why we lose these wars. Hence deserves attention!

[jcustis]

FB,

I try to live by the adage that arguing over the Internet is like competing in the Special Olympics because even if you win, you're still retarded.

That said, I offer that you have misread the 28 Articles:

Kilcullen then gives 28 steps to victory. Let's start at the top.

As a former company commander who actually served in Iraq, my read of the work tells me it was not intended to be a presciption for victory, but rather a memory jogger so that the mobilized company commander could frame his thoughts, work, and shape his staff. He wants the guy on the ground to contribute to victory, not be the end all.

Kilcullen also wants the commander to avoid being part of the problem, like the hammer in search of a nail. If you think his work is only good for the insurgents, then I believe that you have misread and missed his point.

[azl]

its better to create assets within these tribes and social groups. that would better provide access and open coomunication lines with them. paving the way for a better understanding of their needs and helping in determining where and who the enemy actually is

[davidbfpo]

David Kilcullen has a new book out, so is on tour promoting it - with at least two London events. The book is 'Out of the Mountains: The Coming Age of the Urban Guerrilla', a Tweet via SWJ alerted me to some reviews on:http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...-the-mountains

More reviews on:http://www.amazon.com/Out-Mountains-...rban+Guerrilla

I plan to attend one London book launch, so may offer my own opinion.

[Red Rat]

I'd be interested in attending an event as well. perhaps there is scope for a Kitakidogo style SWJ gathering in London?

Dr Kilcullen's background in anthropology is for me what makes his work so interesting.

[davidbfpo]

David Kilcullen is speaking tomorrow to the Henry Jackson Society, in Portcullis House (Parliamentary office block) and on Friday, at RUSI in Whitehall: http://www.rusi.org/events/ref:E52148194AD534/

Neither is a public event.

[davidbfpo]

David Kilcullen, now bearded, gave an impressive explanation of his book and answered about ten questions today to a small group of interested persons - including Prince Harry.

Yes the book is aimed at a military audience, but he readily admitted he was not advocating intervention to solve emerging problems (population growth, urbanization, concentration in coastal areas and the connectivity provided by cell / mobile phones and web access).

The paradigms we have are wrong, they simply do not fit the data.

Water supply was one issue and he cited Syria as an example. Syria, with an expanding population for several years had issues over water supply, so much that water rationing applied in most cities. This was aggravated in 2010 with a drought in the south-east, which pushed more people into the cities and in 2011 two of those cities were where the protests began.

Anyway more after the book arrives and it is read fully.

For UK / European readers the book is available from the publishers; if you register with them you may get a 20% discount:http://www.hurstpublishers.com/book/...the-mountains/

[jmm99]

The Future of Warfare Will Be Urban, Coastal, and Irregular (NAF, 25 Sep 2013):

According to Dr. Kilcullen, there are four environmental “mega- trends” that will be critical in planning future operational strategies.

First, the continuing increase in the world’s population in the next generation will change the global landscape. Dr. Kilcullen noted that most studies that record this data predict that the world’s population will accelerate until it reaches around 9.5 billion around the year 2050, meaning that another 3 billion people will arrive before then.

Second, the urbanization of that population means that these people will not be evenly distributed over the globe. Based on his research, Dr. Kilcullen believes that around two-thirds of the world’s population will reside in cities, and notably, that population will be aggregated in the developing world.

Third, the littoralization (the movement of people from rural, inland areas to the coast) of those densely populated cities will be critical in terms of conflict patterns. Today, around 80 percent of the world’s population lives within 50 miles of the coast and Dr. Kilcullen predicts that this number will only increase.

Fourth, and perhaps most significant, the connectivity of the world’s population is rapidly changing, enabling greater access to information and a higher ability to organize among non-state groups.

This is definitely not my Atlantic-Pacific Littorals worldview, but it is definitely a littorals view.

So, one issue is how should US Armed Forces be organized to meet these megatrends. One answer is Jeong Lee, Why the United States Should Merge Its Ground Forces (24 Sep 2013), arguing (largely for "budgetary" reasons) a merger of the Army, the Marine Corps and the Special Operations Command (SOCOM).

I'd go an entirely different route (leaving "bean counting" aside in this post): turning SOCOM into a separate service branch; and classifying operations (and which service executes them) on a unit size basis -

1. Small unit operations: SOCOM, which it has been doing (IMO, doing well) for the past several decades.

2. Medium unit operations: Marines (MAGTFs of various sizes), which would get them back to their amphibious, littoral function - and, yes, expeditionary warfare and interventions (cf. The Small Wars Manual). Since everyone should know my views on military intervention outside of the Americas, I'll refrain from annexing a set of caveats on that.

3. Large unit operations: The Army (something of a Gian Gentile force), which would be assigned primarily to continental defense of the Americas; although, for interventionists holding a different worldview - land wars in continental Eurasia and Africa, that large unit Army could fill that role as well.

Trying to assign roles to armed services based on the "intensity" of conflict has never made sense to me; nor has trying to turn the armed services into "social engineers" (but that is another rant topic).

Regards

Mike

PS: Some of COL Gentile's ideas (with two flag officers) are in A Cheaper, Stronger Army (15 Aug 2013), e.g. (p.2):

The centerpiece of reorganization for the Army is the combat group, which is smaller than a division but larger than a current brigade. There are five main categories of combat groups: Light Recon Strike Group, Combat Maneuver Group (CMG), Strike, C4ISR, and Sustainment. At the institutional level, MTM achieves improvements through organizational reform, reducing overhead by flattening echelons of command and control, and placing greater emphasis on protected mobility and firepower in tactical formations than is currently the case.

By reorganizing the force from a brigade-centric formation to a combat group-centric one, the MTM would allow the Army to reduce its current size of approximately 551,000 troops to as low as 420,000 and yet in the end produce a force that has greater combat capability, costs less to operate, is more sustainable over the long term, and is more strategically and operationally responsive to joint-force operations. MTM readiness cycles ensure there would be at least thirty-five thousand troops in the ‘ready to deploy’ window. Thus, the President would always know how many and which units can react to a no-notice emergency. Those units would already be tied to specific air and sea transportation assets, and their deployment timelines—even when blindsided by an unexpected event—could be executed within days. The MTM thus provides both significant strategic and tactical improvements.

Theoretically, a MAGTF could be the Corps: 4 divisions, 4 air wings and all the support units; which we haven't seen since Iwo Jima. The MTM proposal (35,000 "ready to deploy" troops) would be akin to a MAGTF based on a Marine division ground component. Somewhere in or below that range would be the "dividing line" between medium and large size units.