Lost Lessons & Fresh Thinking: a challenge for SWC

[Bill Moore]

For the group at large, many have commented that here we go again, we're going to forget all the lessons learnt about Small Wars just like we did after Vietnam. What lessons do you feel are critical that we allegedly learned since 9/11 that we are at risk of losing?

This is an important question, because so far no one has really addressed it.

I'll challenge some comments I find to be illogical that are offered up by small wars advocates:

1. DOD pushed the "Rebalance to the Asia-Pacific" so they could focus on big wars and ignore small wars. This is wrong on all accounts. The rebalance to the Asia-Pacific was directed by our National Leadership (not DOD) for very sound strategic reasons. It just so happens that there are a number of potential scenarios in the region that could result in a state on state conflict of significant severity. DOD is focused on preventing those, if that fails we have to be ready to fight. The number of U.S. service members that would be killed in a conventional conflict would most likely be significantly higher than those killed in Small Wars. Bottom line we have to be ready for the unlikely, because the unlikely is more important to our national interests than the very often exaggerated threat from small wars to our interests. Second, there are more small wars in the PACOM area of responsibility than any other. There are over 20 separatist, insurgencies and terrorist movements in India along, and the number rapidly increases as you start moving east through Bangladesh, Nepal, Burma, Thailand, etc. The PACOM conducts FID in a number of countries (at different levels), so no one is exactly running away from Small Wars, but at the same time our leaders have an appreciation of the full spectrum of threats and what ones pose significant risk to us, and which ones simply counter some of our interest.

2. There are more small wars than larger state on state wars. That is very true, and lets hope that remains the case. However, in and of itself that is not a strong argument for the U.S. military to focus on Small Wars, because the vast majority of them we have little or nothing to do with. On the other hand, it is important to note that sometimes it is very much in our interests to engage in Small Wars for strategic reasons (not just because there are more of them).

3. We lost our Small Wars knowledge after Vietnam? What small wars skills did we gain during Vietnam that we lost? I admit many in the conventional army and Marines (especially LTCs and below in the 90s couldn't spell insurgency) may have ignored them, but Special Forces and some elements of general purpose forces were constantly engaged in small wars around the globe since the end of the Vietnam until 9/11. I came in during the late 70s and most of my career was focused on so called small wars and irregular warfare.

4. At the tactical and operational level what did we learn since 9/11 that we need to maintain that we're at risk of losing? I don't want to touch policy an and strategy, because we apparently didn't learn much in that regard. I can think of a few things, but want to hear your comments first.

The point of this effort is to move beyond the empty rhetoric of here we go again repeating history and tossing the baby out with the bath water and identify specific skills and knowledge we're at risk of losing. Once identified we can develop recommended ways to preserve these skills/knowledge.

I'm not convinced our military was as ate up as some of you seem to think. Our guys were doing back to back rotations in Bosnia and Kosovo prior to going into Afghanistan and Iraq, and that was certainly a messy small war by definition. 3d Special Forces Group (many of them) deployed to Afghanistan shortly after redeploying from Africa where they were supporting Peace Operations (small wars in this case), we had a long history of conducting counter narcotics missions globally (small wars sort of), and the list goes on. Go back to the 80s the list gets much more extensive. We seemed to do pretty well initially in Afghanistan with a few extraordinary men, local partners, and bombers. It got stupid when the policy got stupid. We did well in Iraq, to include the SF units working with Kurds who played a significant role in the decisive operations to oust Saddam. It was our politicians who denied we faced an insurgency that delayed the military's adaption to the threat. Not saying big Army was prepared for what came, but it wasn't as simple as some here seem to imply it was.

[Bob's World]

We have learned how to do the wrong things better, but at the same time have somehow convinced ourselves that any strategic failures in the face of that tactical prowess are the fault of others - the host, the congress, the unwillingness to fully commit to a Clausewitzian or Galulaian solution either one, etc.


I for one hope that the primary lesson learned is that we still are not very good at this and that our "new" approaches are no better than our old ones at actually helping some place become more naturally stable; and that forced conditions of artificial stability by our hands are harder to create and less durable to sustain in the emerging environment. They also will remain hotbeds for follow-on insurgencies and recruiting grounds for acts of transnational terrorism.

In the words of Huey Lewis, we "need a new drug."