The new 2014 FM 3-24 Insurgencies and Countering Insurgencies

[Newguy]

Moderator's Note

This thread was called 'FM 3-24 Revision: "Insurgency and Countering Insurgency' until 27th May, it has now become 'The new 2014 FM 3-24 Insurgencies and Countering Insurgencies' and two other threads were merged in (ends).

Hello. I am new here, but thought this might be the place to come to ask some thoughts. I have the new initial draft of the new FM 3-24, now titled "Insurgency and Countering Insurgencies". I was wondering if anyone on here had a copy and had some thoughts.

[slapout9]

Hello. I am new here, but thought this might be the place to come to ask some thoughts. I have the new initial draft of the new FM 3-24, now titled "Insurgency and Countering Insurgencies". I was wondering if anyone on here had a copy and had some thoughts.

Can you post a link to a PDF copy?

[Newguy]

Can you post a link to a PDF copy?

No. I haven't seen it on the net yet. I always make it a habit of not uploading stuff that hasn't been officially released. It's not FOUO or anything, so I am sure someone will. But not me. I just wanted to see what others thought who have seen it.

[John T. Fishel]

is reminiscent of the operational category of Support to Insurgencies and Counterinsurgencies in FM 100-20, Military Operations in Low Intensity Conflict (1990).

Cheers and Happy 4th!

JohnT

[Newguy]

is reminiscent of the operational category of Support to Insurgencies and Counterinsurgencies in FM 100-20, Military Operations in Low Intensity Conflict (1990).

Cheers and Happy 4th!

JohnT

Happy 4th!

What did you think of the strategic context 1st Chapter?

(Sorry. Misread. The title is actually, "Insurgencies and Countering Insurgencies".)

[Newguy]

Not sure if anyone has seen it, but I just saw the final draft of FM 3-24 was staffed. Anyone seen it or the first draft? Thoughts?

[RTK]

Not sure if anyone has seen it, but I just saw the final draft of FM 3-24 was staffed. Anyone seen it or the first draft? Thoughts?

I'm a doctrine writer and haven't seen it.

[Newguy]

I'm a doctrine writer and haven't seen it.

The only thing I could find that talks about the staffed document that was released by the army is this:http://usacac.army.mil/cac2/AIWFC/re...er%20JUL13.pdf


I figured someone here would have seen it and be able to debate it. However, if no one has it, there is little debate. Will be back whenever it is published.

[Newguy]

If you are interested, it was just posted.

http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/new_pub...operations.htm

[TheCurmudgeon]

Well, they hosed up political legitimacy again.

Under the title "Principles of Governance":

Supporting indigenous governance is often an important COIN tool to counter insurgent efforts to seize, nullify, or challenge governing authorities. Governance consists of the rules, processes, and behavior by which interests are articulated, resources are managed, and power is exercised in a society. These rules and processes must be seen as predictable and tolerable in the eyes of the population to be deemed legitimate. They are manifested in three core functions: representation, security, and welfare.

By identifying representation as a core function of government (and in fact, the first core function), they have dictated that only electoral democracies can be a valid form of government. This means that this document is a manual for Democratization. A valid national security goal, but not one that should be confused with Counterinsurgency.

[Bob's World]

This is the problem when one writes a guide for Marine and Army Regiments/Brigades and Battalions- one tends to cast very fundamental and universal concepts into the context of the nature and the mission of those US Military forces, rather than in the context of human nature the timeless dynamic of friction between those who govern and those who are governed.

For the manual to have meaningful application it must ultimately get to what these units do and how they can apply what they do to assist in dealing with an insurgency, be that insurgency foreign or domestic, and regardless of what types of tactics any of the operational insurgent groups / individuals decide to employ. But this cannot be the foundation, this must be the structure. The problem with so much of what we do in terms of military doctrine, plans and policies is that we build them upon a foundation of who we are and what we do, rather than a foundation of what the actual problem is.

A recent poster child for this is "irregular warfare." I was scanning an article on "low-intensity conflict" the other day that was written in about 1991 as I recall. "LIC" was one of the many rejected concepts employed for bundling and describing military operations that don't meet the classic Napoleonic/Clauswitzian frameworks of "real" wars, like WWI and WWII. I admit that I have never liked the IW construct; not just for its misuse of both the words "irregular" and "warfare” - but even more importantly to me for how it bundles a wide range of very different types of conflict, requiring equally distinct families of solution, under a single, broad, confusing banner headline. I believe that it is very important that what one calls a problem suggests a family of solution appropriate for that problem. This provides a start point for understanding the particulars of such a conflict when it emerges that we can then tailor our responses based upon the myriad facts that uniquely shape every conflict.

At least LIC was framed by aspects of the conflict itself. IW is more framed by our response to the conflict. Personally I think we probably find more effective large bundling tools if we go with "State-based conflicts" and "populace-based conflicts" as our point of entry for beginning to key out what type of problem we face. In simple terms, the first is "extra" and the second is "entra."

In state-based conflicts two or more Clauswitzian systems of Government-Army-People compete violently for some degree of coercion or dominion over the others. Classic warfare to which Clausewitz applies very well.

In populace-based conflicts there is illegal (and often violent) competition internal to a single Clauswitzian system of Government-Army-People. This creates very unique dynamics due to the nature of the relationship between the contestants. Clausewitz does not apply very well, just as the rules for putting down a riot do not apply very well for dealing with domestic violence inside a household.

Many of our greatest frustrations in our efforts in dealing with populace-based conflicts come from our struggle to modify state-based conflict principles, doctrine and TTPS to somehow fit.

Legitimacy, in particular, political legitimacy, is indeed a crucial concept to any discussion on insurgency or how to deal with an insurgency. But we absolutely mangle the concept beyond repair when we apply convoluted definitions based far more in the context of what we think the solution is than in the context of what we understand the problem to actually be. We think that representative government, governmental security, and effective welfare programs will make the people happy. We also have organizations that we send out to conduct COIN that do those things (DOS, DOD, USAID), so our definition is logical in the context of what we do. But it completely misses the fundamental nature of political legitimacy. Often the system of government we want to sustain in power or elevate into power has very little political legitimacy. This is very inconvenient, so we focus of legal legitimacy instead. After all, we can bestow (or deny) legal legitimacy by fiat from afar in places like the UN floor or the Oval office. But political legitimacy cannot be created or destroyed by governmental mandate.

After a great deal of thought and work on this topic I believe that political legitimacy is simply the recognition by people affected by some system of governance (foreign or domestic, formal or informal) to affect their lives. This is a perception that can be nurtured or undermined from afar, but ultimately has to be earned on the ground among the population group(s) in question. "Hearts and Minds" is a poetic term for political legitimacy. It cannot be "won," it must be earned. Equally important, it cannot be earned by a surrogate and then transferred. Foreign troops cannot create perceptions that the host nation governance is legitimate. Foreign troops can, however, through carefully designed operations, help empower host nation governance to earn this vital perception. This is fundamental to the US approach in both Colombia and the Philippines. The US approach in Afghanistan and Iraq, and frankly everywhere we have pursued AQ across the AFRICOM and CENTCOM AORs over the past dozen years have worked against the development of perceptions of political legitimacy for all of our partners. This is a main reason why there has been such a growth of revolutionary insurgency across the region, and why AQ has proven so hard to squash through our aggressive CT efforts.

In fact, our efforts undermine our own political legitimacy as a foreign power in those same places. We take far too much comfort in the legality of our operations. Increasingly in the emerging strategic environment, where the balance of power will continue to shift from governments towards the people and non-state organizations, legality will not be enough to validate a COA for effectiveness. Increasingly governments must focus upon appropriateness of action over legality of action. Our actions still must be legal, but legal actions deemed as inappropriate pour gasoline on the causation of transnational terrorism against these inappropriate actors. We can see the US government attempting to bring our operations into a more appropriate context in some cases, but I suspect it is far too little and far too late if we attempt to do this on a case by case basis, and then only when some situation blows up in our faces. We need to adopt the prioritization of perceived appropriateness as policy across the board. We generally have a wide range of tactical options available to us, and we have become lazy in defaulting to those approaches that pose the least risk and offer the greatest effectiveness, even though these same options are widely perceives as also being the most inappropriate.

And all of this is related to this fundamental concept of political legitimacy. We can't afford to keep getting this wrong, and FM 3-24 definitely gets it wrong, but no worse than we do in general across our many aspects of US governance that affects the lives of people who live in foreign lands.

[Bob's World]

Typo: I meant "intra" not "entra" for populace-based conflicts. Nothing like one good spelling error to take the steam out of a good idea!

[Max Kelly]

Well, they hosed up political legitimacy again.

Under the title "Principles of Governance":



By identifying representation as a core function of government (and in fact, the first core function), they have dictated that only electoral democracies can be a valid form of government. This means that this document is a manual for Democratization. A valid national security goal, but not one that should be confused with Counterinsurgency.

Curmudgeon - the writing team actually agreed with your concern about assuming democracy is the silver bullet solution to political legitimacy. We emphasized the importance of local expectations and perceptions throughout the document, and on page VIII-1 we explicitly wrote that,

(1) Representation includes political participation, decision-making procedures, responsiveness to the needs of the population, and accountability for decisions and their implementation. The effectiveness and legitimacy of representation depend on their appropriateness in the local context. For example, participatory governance does not necessarily equate to Western-style democratic institutions; it could consist of local shuras— informal gatherings of village or tribal leaders common in some countries in the Middle East and Central Asia.

And on page VIII-4 we reiterated that,

(2) Reconcile Local Expectations with USG Goals. In a COIN environment, what is and is not seen as effective and legitimate governance by the population will depend on the local context. A careful analysis is needed to determine what the local population considers appropriate and to what extent a failure to meet these expectations is contributing to the insurgency. The results will have to be reconciled with the USG’s strategic goals being pursued via the COIN operation. If democratic governance is part of the broader USG strategy, COIN efforts focused on locally appropriate governance to undermine the insurgent narrative will have to be reconciled with this more long-term agenda, which may generate challenges in terms of PA, IO, and interagency coordination. Generally, counterinsurgents seek to ensure that governance arrangements are inclusive instead of reinforcing societal divisions. The USG, and at times the joint force, may be able to assist by channeling assistance in ways that force cooperation across those divisions while also countering the insurgent narrative.

Have a look at Chapter VIII on Building Indigenous Governance to Support Counterinsurgency and let us know whether you think we hit the mark.

Bob - strongly agree with your points about the difference between legal legitimacy and political legitimacy. Will be very interested to hear whether you think that difference is adequately reflected in the document.

Cheers,
Max

[jmm99]

is replete throughout the document. The term "political legitimacy" is used twice; the term "legal legitimacy" is not used. The term "rule of law" is used often; the term "rule by law" (which is quite a different concept) is not used.

So, to me, the document is not very clear.

Regards

Mike

[Bob's World]

They all mean the same thing, right?

(I'm with you Mike, your previous discussions on rule by vs. rule off have a lot of merit.)

We won't get better until we shift the focus from the insurgent groups that form to physically act out to challenge government, to a focus on the fundamental political purpose of insurgency; as well as the fundamental dynamics of human nature between those who govern and those who are governed around which all insurgencies turn.

At the end of the day, insurgency is not somthing to be "countered" so much as it is a condition of governance to be understood and ultimately "resolved." Not cured, as every system is infected with a certain amount of insurgency. The goal must be to keep governance and governed in as balanced of a state of cooperation as possible. Which reminds me of a great quote from James Madison that I believe is on point:

"In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself."
JAMES MADISON, Federalist No. 51, Feb. 6, 1788

[Newguy]

I did a web search to try to find the status on the new FM.

One, it appears that the Army Irregular Warfare Center will be having a DCO session on 13 March. ( http://usacac.army.mil/cac2/AIWFC/Re...C_20140128.pdf ) Second, it looks like it will be out in March or April. ( http://defensenewsstand.com/index.ph...9pZCwyNDU4OTY0 )

[BrentWilliams]

The document is published. It is available now at
https://armypubs.us.army.mil/doctrine/index.html . That is an internal
site, but it will populate to the external site
http://armypubs.army.mil/doctrine/Active_FM.html tomorrow morning.

[BrentWilliams]

The document is published. It is available now at
https://armypubs.us.army.mil/doctrine/index.html . That is an internal
site, but it will populate to the external site
http://armypubs.army.mil/doctrine/Active_FM.html tomorrow morning.

You can now access it with the public link. Everyone should be able to get to it by clicking the second link and finding it on the list.

[BrentWilliams]

I saw this article and thought it was pretty interesting because I think it picks up what is the strength of the new FM 3-24.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/article...s_field_manual

The new manual takes the critique seriously and makes points once understated more explicit. It notes that "counterinsurgency is not a substitute for strategy." Rather, "[t]he strategy to counter an insurgency is determined by the ends the U.S. wishes to achieve, the ways it wishes to achieve those ends, and the resources or means it uses to enable those ways."

There is a saying attributed to the Greek poet Archilochus, "The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing." The drafters of the new manual have embraced the fox. And this is perhaps the most important lesson of the new manual. The hedgehog's mindset is indifferent to context, misses the diversity of tools we have at our disposal, and is insensitive to evidence of (in)effectiveness. When countering insurgencies or making foreign policy more generally, a smart strategy requires foxes.

What the United States should do to counter an insurgency is the dependent on the nature of the insurgency. Counterinsurgency is not the cookie-cutter application of tactics. An insurgency where one needs to enable a host nation in stopping influence of another state will be different from an insurgency that is regionally based with no outside support. Those will be different from other insurgencies. The context of involvement and the strategic approach matter in what tactical units are doing in an insurgency.

It isn't about "nation building". It is about matching tactical tasks to the mission given and the tactical tasks one performs will be dependent on the context of the involvement. While that may be true for any type of operation, that is especially true when policy makers decide it is in our interest to counter an insurgency.

[davidbfpo]

David Ucko (SWJ author and academic) has a short article on the Swiss ISN website 'Best Practice or Best Strategy: Can New Counterinsurgency Doctrine Win Future Wars':http://www.isn.ethz.ch/Digital-Libra...g=en&id=180195

He starts with:

Two weeks ago, the United States Army and the Marine Corps updated their counterinsurgency doctrine, last published in November 2006 before the ‘surge’ in Iraq. The publication of the new doctrine has raised fresh questions about the role of counterinsurgency in campaign planning and strategy. Was the 2006 field manual in some way responsible for the subsequent stabilization of Iraq? If counterinsurgency succeeded there, why did it not meet expectations (some might say ‘fail’) in Afghanistan? And will the doctrine published last week allow for better results in campaigns to come?

These questions suggest two fundamental points. First, as the most recent counterinsurgency manual states, ‘counterinsurgency is not a substitute for strategy’. Counterinsurgency theory offers a collection of insights collected from past operations, which, if adapted to local context, can help in the design and execution of a campaign plan....the second point: if counterinsurgency doctrine fails to defeat insurgencies, what good is it?

(He ends with) In learning to answer these questions, there must be fewer assumptions about the nature of insurgency. Rather than accepting slogans like ‘winning hearts and minds’ or ‘population control’, future counterinsurgencies must craft strategies based on the local context, grievances and politics – and their exploitation by specific groups. The indispensable starting point is a strategic assessment of the situation: where does the insurgent organization gains its strength, how does it operate, and why will it win? Only through such an assessment and through a clearer understanding of our own interests and objectives will the fortunes of future campaigns improve