Vintage COIN and Stability Doctrine - Links

[braun]

I am a strong believer in the concept of things moving in cycles. As an historical researcher, I delve into the past and often see parallels with modern goings-on, particularly when it comes to military operations.

I am not a participant in the GWOT or OIF so I am unable to contribute in any meaningful way to council discussions on current operations, but I am an interested observer and student of history with a bit of an idea of "on the ground" grunt and int. work. I wonder if some of the lessons of previous UW and COIN campaigns/ops have not been lost over time. Maybe those who have done similar things against a different adversary can offer some guidance to our policy makers and those on the sharp end.

I remember reading somewhere that OIF is kind of ike a weird mish-mash of Viet Nam and the US Occupation of Germany after WWII.

Below are some links to pdf downloads of vintage US Doctrine dealing with Stability and Support Operations, Civic Action, and COIN. I hope they are of some utility to the modern warfighter.

FM 31-16 Counterguerrilla Operations (182 pages) [25 July 1969]
Part 1: Part 2:
Part 3:
Part 4:

USMC Fleet Marine Force Manual 8-2 Counterinsurgency Operations (200 pages) [22 December 1967]
Part 1:
Part 2:
Part 3:
Part 4:

Phung Hoang Advisor Handbook (36 pages) [20 November 1970]
Download

FM 41-10 Civil Affairs Operations (183 pages) [03 August 1967]
Part 1:
Part 2:
Part 3:
Part 4:

FM 31-22: U.S. Army counterinsurgency forces, 1963
Download

FM 31-23 : Stability and support operations, 1972
Download

More to follow

[braun]

One more vintage FM that I just finished reading is FM 31-15 Operations Against Irregular Forces (1961)..

Having read both the UK Field Manual and the new Aussie Pams on COIN, which I regard as world's best practice in COIN, I find FM 31-15 to contain a lot of common sense. My understanding of COIN ops is that to be successful, they should be joint military and civil authority affairs. This fact is well documented in 31-15. Having been written in 1961, it really does seem to be far ahead of its time, or maybe we've had to relearn its lessons.

[John T. Fishel]

Welcome braun! Your point is well taken. One can, of course, go back even further to the USMC Small Wars Manual of 1940 or Colonel C. E. Callwell's Small Wars first published in 1896.

As my friend and colleague, Max Manwaring, and I argue in our most recent book, Uncomfortable Wars Revisited (U of Oklahoma Press 2006 - plug) and in other stuff we have published both individually and together, there is very little in COIN that is really new. Most of the right answers have been stated before as well as have critiques of wrong answers - many times.

The really interesting question is, to quote Bob Dylan, "When will they ever learn?" And why do they/we always foget what we know, or even worse, ignore it? I tried to come up with an answer in a 1995 article in the (now sadly defunct) journal, Low Intensity Conflict & Law Enforcement which I called, "Little Wars, Small Wars, LIC, OOTW, The GAP, and Things That Go Bump in the Dark." For the US, a part of that answer was that the army trainded for the war it wanted to fight, not the one it was then fighting or most likely to fight. But, I am left feeling that this is simply not adequate.

[braun]

I guess I have a half-formed theory floating around amongst the muddled contents of my skull that overall, human experience is a perishable commodity. Sure, things are put to paper and in a military sense, are made doctrine. As you state, military forces often train for the war they want to fight rather than the war they are likely to fight. A loss of training emphasis on the more unpleasant types of operations can only lead to a loss of effectiveness while permorming those types of operations.

No offence to any Viet Nam Veterans out there who may be serving, but it appears that now the VN generation is retiring, the institutional memory of the VN experience may be retiring with them. For instance, reading a book about the Phoenix (Phung Hoang) Program is one thing, but having someone who was involved in the execution and/or planning of Phoenix ops sit down with you and explain the lessons learned and reasons for successes and failures and how these concepts may be applied in an OIF context is priceless. Is this actually happening? Are we going to have to learn the lessons again the hard way? I hope not. The young men and women operating in IZ are taking a beating from weapons they cannot really fight back against. It would be nice if the head shed remembered the winning formula sooner rather than later.

[John T. Fishel]

You are dead on - no irony intended.

On the plus side, Petraeus and most of the folks around him have had the kinds of conversations with VN vets and other small wars vets that you are looking for. Petraeus had some of those conversations as formal interviews for his PhD dissertation.

[goesh]

Let's not forget the complications and problems that can be stirred up by bad translators either. Translating what is actually being said V what they think you want to hear V what they don't want you to hear are critical elements in any COIN operation. One bad translation can have major ramifications and this this problem goes back to day one of human conflict. A classic example that pops into my mind is when Crazy Horse brought in his band in the spring of 1877. When the premier war leader of the Lakota was approached to asssist against the Nez Perce, Lakota oral tradition, as directly heard from Crazy Horse by several Lakota present, relates the following: Crazy Horse said, " I will fight them ( the Nez Perce) until they are no more". The translator told the Officers present, " I will fight you until you are no more." This resulted in the attempted arrest of Crazy Horse and his death, which in turn prompted Sitting Bull to keep his band out until 1882 and some say it gave significant impetus for the Lakota to later take up the Ghost Dancing which in turn caused alot of problems.