Studying a Wrist Watch: the U.S. Military and COIN

[Tom Odom]

Although some may say that reviewing an already widely acclaimed book is a waste of time, I decided to do just that. Lieutenant Colonel John Nagl's book Learning to Eat Soup With a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam is a work of inspiration and despair. The inspiration is easiest to accept and digest because it seeps through this work at many levels. Nagl as a serving officer and a scholar is inspiring because this book pulls no punches. His examination of the British experience in Malaya inspires simply because he shows a military can indeed learn and adapt to meet and defeat an equally adaptive threat if its leaders allow it to do so.

So why do I offer despair as a companion to Nagl's inspiration? Well to begin with I lived the Army that came out Vietnam; my leaders in rebuilding that Army all were Vietnam veterans. I remember well General DePuy's role as commander of Training and Doctrine Command; a comrade of mine, Paul Herbert, wrote a great monograph on that subject . I also vividly recall a parody of a debate between Colonel (ret) Harry Summers and Major Andrew Krepinevich over what happened in Vietnam, what could have happened in Vietnam, and what should have happened in Vietnam. As a stage hog, Harry Summers won by overwhelming Andy Krepinevich's scholarly delivery with bluster and bravado. Neither Summers nor Summers' admirers did cared a whit about the message Krepinevich offered; they cared about preserving the Army's capacity to wage Jomini's battle of annihilation. They were seemingly validated in 1991 and again in March 2003. The big battalion Army marched on.

It did so with blinders worn proudly. But some in the Army of the 80s and the 90s lived in another world. I was one of those as a Foreign Area Officer for the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa. I served in Turkey, Sudan, Lebanon, Israel, Egypt, Zaire, and Rwanda. Those experiences put me on the ground in two wars and a genocide. But as a staff college classmate in 1988 remarked to me, I as a FAO "was not in the real Army." The same classmate also stated that he could not imagine the U.S. ever getting involved in another counter insurgency war like Vietnam. When I asked him what he thought we were doing at that very moment in central America, he looked at me like the proverbial pig studying a wrist watch. Seven years later, I greeted him in Goma, Zaire with the rebuttal of "welcome to my world," meaning the mega-Death of the Rwandan Civil War. He was still mesmerized by the wristwatch.

And there is where John Nagl prompts despair. Reading his chapters on Vietnam provides a stark backdrop to Lieutenant Colonel Paul Yingling's recent article on generalship. Nagl is especially brilliant in allowing the key leaders of the Vietnam era to demonstrate their own incapacity to see anything but what they wanted to see. Our efforts to date in OIF and OEF suggest we still have the same problem. Yingling seemingly confirms it.

My hope in writing this somewhat redundant review of John Nagl's book is to inspire, prod, and push those of you who have not read it to do so. If you have read FM 3-24 Counter Insurgency but have not read Nagl's book, you have not truly read FM 3-24.

Best

Tom

[John T. Fishel]

Hi Tom and Marct and John Nagl (if you are following this) and anyone else who is interested--

John's book is not only about COIN but also about organizational learning. He pays his respects there to the work of Rich Downie, Learning From Conflict, Praeger. Part of Rich's argument was that the army is a learning organization, an argument I tended to agree with until OIF. But it was not always so, any more than it really is now. In my article, "Little Wars, Small Wars, LIC, OOTW, 'The Gap,' and Things That Go Bump in the Night," LIC&LE 1995, I offered what I thought was part of an explanation for why we go about reinventing the COIN wheel every time we run into an insurgency. My explanation clearly was not adequate.

So, I'm posing the question here: What do all you guys think is the reason we not merely ignore our very good doctrine but actively disparage it? Is there any way we can convince current and future generations of leaders to actually learn the lessons and to institutionalize them in our governmental and military organizations?

With that, I'll go cook dinner.

Cheers

John

[MASON]

Dear Mr Odom and Fischel

I do not have the back ground you gentlemen do but the point of organizational adaptiveness and learning is painfully evident with in my own subspeacialty both in theatre and OCONUS.

Reviewing historical experience as far as WWI to present my group is on an 8 yr republish cycle of the same mistakes/"new situations" The internet is helping but essentially we read everything as though it is new when it is far from it.

I have a question I would appreciate your input on. What is your assessment of the impact of high rotation rates of personel during protracted conflicts? (with particular focus on overall campaign success)

Mason

[marct]

Hi John,

So, I'm posing the question here: What do all you guys think is the reason we not merely ignore our very good doctrine but actively disparage it? Is there any way we can convince current and future generations of leaders to actually learn the lessons and to institutionalize them in our governmental and military organizations?

I think I can come up with an explanation of why it has happened, but I'm not sure of how to change it. So, having said that, let me lay out what ight be the start of an explanatory model. BTW, I'm trying to work this into a paper / monograph, so comments, criticism, etc. are mos welcome .

Let me start with some definitions.

I tend to define the term "institution" following Malinowski's Theory of Culture (a short form available here). Unlike Malinowski, I tend to view institutions as primarily symbolic and inter-subjective entities that operate in hierarchical semantic taxonomies. So, the "military" would include the USMC and help to define the social and cultural "meaning" of the USMC. Essentially, I consider institutions to be the symbolic and inter-subjective components that bind certain types of organizations together.

Organizations, on the other hand, I view as part of the "potential" inherent within an institution, made "real". The mental analogy I use comes from quantum mechanical theory via Mark Peterson's work on organizational cultures where the institution is the "potential" and the organization is the "actual".

As with Andrew Abbott, I view organizations (and institutions) to be centered around particular "tasks" (Malinowski's needs responses). These tasks, in turn, generate their own operational logics depending on a whole host of factors such as the operating environment, types of technology, other task groups (aka "professions"), etc.

For Abbott, there is a constant "negotiation" over social control of tasks and the social "right" (read "legitimacy") for a particular group to perform them. A military example of this would be the rapid shifting over the past 40 years or so of mercenaries (including "contractors").

The goal of all of this professional maneuvering is to gain a monopoly within a society over performing particular tasks. But, in order to do this, the "right" of a particular group to hat monopoly has to be "sold" to the general society, and this gets us back to your original question about COIN.

Think of it in terms of home front sales - it is much easier to "sell" a conventional war than a COIN war. Indeed, COIN has been a stink in the nostrils of the US public for quite a while, especially since it goes against all of the popular mythos of what a "war" is.

Anyway, just some rough thoughts for now.

Marc

[Old Eagle]

John --

I know that you, I and several others lived through the "transition" after Vietnam. I am not an expert on organizational behavior, so I can't really say why the Army as an organization disparaged its COIN doctrine coming out of the war.

However, I would submit that the wholesale move from any semblance of a balanced doctrine to heavy forces Airland battle was the result of the confluence of a number of only loosely related factors. I have focused on the human factor because I don't particularly believe that organizations or governments can act.
(I also have a conspiracy theory about the 11th ACR Black Horse Association taking over the mental faculties of the senior Army leadership, but that's another story )

1. There were many senior officers and their trusted advisors who just never "got" the COIN fight. They yearned for the return to what they felt comfortable with.

2. The Army as a whole wanted to move from the pain and agony associated with "losing the war". We embraced the "no more Vietnams" slogan with almost as much gusto as the liberals who coined it.

3. I am convinced that the post-war RIFs wiped out some of our true COIN experts and advocates. Yes, they were "only" captains, but I knew many COIN wizards who would have served us well.

4. The other Services were NOT going to press for an extension of the COIN experience. Frankly, I think that the Army itself hoped that the USMC would just absorb the entire mission.

5. Big weapons systems, like those for ALB were politically popular. Light, culturally adept Infantry have no constituancy.

No single factor could have driven the Army so far away from COIN, but taken together, they proved to be an insurmountable force.

Many years later I actually heard of a think tank proposal to "give" the 82d and 101st to USMC for use in "small wars", then ramp up the remaining Army to armor/mech in order to "fight and win" the nation's (real?) wars. Hmmm.

All that said, the Army that DePuy/Starry and others built was a great organization and a fun place to be. We could focus on a fairly well defined set of METL tasks and get really, really good at them. Especially when coupled with Max Thurman's "all recruited" force.

$0.02

[slapout9]

Tom, Jeffery Record made some type of proposal to convert the 82nd to the 1st Marine Airborne Force or something like that. There are papers online to that effect some where. I worked heavily with them (USMC) 72-75 in the annual joint operations known as "Exotic Dancer" I was on 3,4,5 if remember right.

[Mark O'Neill]

Hi John,



Unlike Malinowski, I tend to view institutions as primarily symbolic and inter-subjective entities that operate in hierarchical semantic taxonomies.
Marc

Hi Marc,

Is the English language no longer used in your University? Orwell would roll in his grave...


Cheers

Mark

[John T. Fishel]

Hi Mason--

I think that the general rule Marct wrote in his SWJ article for anthropological field work is a good start for troops in COIN. It takes about 9 months of living in a culture to know it reasonably well. So, any rotation less than 9 months is handicapped. The rule of thumb among Vietnam veterans was that the first 6 months of a tour were spent learning the ropes, the next 3 months doing the job, and the last 3 trying to stay alive to get home. Tours that are too long or multiple rotations with too brief an interval of relief have a tendency to harden attitudes in ways that are counterproductive. Finally, the Foreign Service used to plan for 2 years in a foreign post and 2 years in Washington. My guess is that is about right for COIN but on this one my guess is as good as yours.

Cheers

John

[John T. Fishel]

Hi Old Eagle--

Your conspiracy theory made me Google my old boss at Leavenworth, Don Holder. I breathed a sigh of relief when I found that it was the 2nd ACR he commanded in DS/DS.

I think your comments about the post-Vietnam army are spot on. I worked with a guy at the AWC at Carlisle who would not have been averse to giving the whole light mission to the USMC - he was an engineer and a bright guy.

The only problem with your theory - as a general explanation - is that the phenomenon predates Vietnam by about 350 years. It all started in Jamestown VA in 1607 when CPT John Smith's militia began fighting Powhatan's warriors in the first of America's many small wars. By the French and Indian War militia officers like G. Washington were seeking glory in the big battles. The point is that from the beginning, the American officer corps wanted to fight conventional wars even though it spent most of its time fighting small wars. But every generation got its big war - Revolution, 1812, Mexico, Civil War, Spanish-Am, WWI, WWII, Korea ... and forgot about its small wars experience. The Marines, at least wrote it down as doctrine but they wrote the Small Wars Manual at the same time they were gearing up for amphibious ops in WWII, so its effect was marginal. The other positive thing is that we did appear to learn something and effectively applied our COIN doctrine in El Salvador and then wrote its lessons into the doctrine in FM 100-20 of 1990. Those lessons were effectively transferred into Joint Pub 3-07. So, I was encouraged that, perhaps, we had internalized the lessons of the past. Then came OIF,"transformation," and the revision of SASO doctrine necessitating and interim COIN manual that evolved into FM 3-24. In other words, we reinvented the wheel once again!

My theory was somewhat like yours but with a longer historical perspective. My problem is that I don't think that our explanations get at as much of the reason for this process of ignoring our past and, moreover, rejecting it as I previously thought. Hence, my - what Marct calls - dissertation question.

Cheers (I think)

John

[marct]

Hi Mark,

Hi Marc,

Is the English language no longer used in your University? Orwell would roll in his grave...
Cheers

Mark

It's he pernicious influence of all those German and Polish theoreticians . 'sides that, how often do you hear academics talking in plain English anyway .

Marc

[Mark O'Neill]

Hi Mark,



It's he pernicious influence of all those German and Polish theoreticians . 'sides that, how often do you hear academics talking in plain English anyway .

Marc

Not all that often ...my mob all speak Australian ... struth, blown whatever chance I had at credibility now...

That said, I think that although 'service' writing has its limitations, we should resist, wherever possible, throwing out the clarity most of us have been trained to employ in written communication for the sake of being bitten by the post modern academic writing bug. One of the reasons (amongst many) that John's book has done so well, is that the prose is simple , clear and elegant. This in turn makes it accessible and 'easy' - even for Infantrymen....

I am going to stop now , for fear of hijacking this thread any further,

Cheers

Mark

PS Sarah's Intro to the hardcopy FM, combined with the $ to the worthy service charity, makes it a great buy. As we say over here in the land of the neverending long weekend - do yourself a favour, buy one.

[John Nagl]

Tom,

Thanks for your posting. I'm quite humbled by your description of "Soup" as "a work of inspiration and despair"; I would like to think that there is some hope in the book as well. I've certainly found some in the work of leaders like Generals Petraeus and Mattis and Colonels like H.R. McMaster and Sean MacFarland, who have demonstrated that soldiers who understand counterinsurgency can make a real difference on the ground when given the resources they need to do the job.

I am honored by your statement that "If you have read FM 3-24 Counter Insurgency but have not read Nagl's book, you have not truly read FM 3-24." Frankly, my concern is that not enough people have read the Field Manual, partly because it hasn't been readily available in hard copy. The University of Chicago has done the nation a service by producing a print version that will ship in the next few weeks. The Chicago edition includes a spectacular introduction by Sarah Sewall of the Carr Center for Human Rights at Harvard University. I would argue that if you haven't read her introduction, you haven't truly read FM 3-24.

The manual is available at http://www.amazon.com/Marine-Corps-C...608935&sr=1-23 for only ten bucks, and Chicago donates some of the proceeds to the Fisher House charities, which provide free lodging near military hospitals for the families of wounded soldiers.

[Tom Odom]

John,

My pleasure was in reading your book. I kept getting to the next point and saying, "damn that sounds familiar," In resonating that way it offered hope. By that I mean that if someone reads it with an open mind they can start to see where we get so locked into dogmatic phrases that the phrases lose all meaning, Rather those phrases become the intellectual box that we always say we need to be able to think beyond.

As for the FM, well we read it and teach it here. My hope --there is that word again--is that enough will be exposed to it that when they become senior officers they remember it. And I fully recognize there are a number of officers like McMasters and Petraeus who do think and do listen. I have always found that the greatest clue to someone with a brain is that they can ask a question and then listen to the answer before speaking. But as you know there are those who see this "COIN business" as a diversion from the "real mission." Our real mission is whatever comes to face us and the mssion does not come with an ala carte menu; we get what is served.

In any case, thanks for posting and please continue when you have the time. And I look forward to your next book.

Best regards,

Tom

[Ski]

1) How do you ensure you promote from talent outside of a narrow Branch definition of what equals "promote me" in order to ensure you get the most capable leaders in positions where they can make a difference? let me include that you have to prepare them for the technical requirements of whatever job you line them up for if outside of their basic understanding. Keep in mind rice bowls and panic.

To be a bit cycnical, it doesn't matter because at the JO level everyone is getting promoted. To be a bit more idealistic - the BCT Commander should have the authority to promote officers from 2LT to 1LT and from 1LT to CPT. This gives him the flexibility to assign his personnel the way he wants to instead of relying on HRC to keep the flow and ebb consistent. And the only way to do this is to institue a Regimental system where officers grow up to the rank of Major. The opposing view will state that a bad BCT commander might make poor choices in assigning personnel, but in reality, can it be any worse than what HRC/PERSCOM already does?

2) Second, it may be a matter of increasing the pool of talent (retention, recruitment). When was the last time you heard a SEC or Big 10 star saying, you know what I really want to do is play "Arena" football.

I'd say the first issue is identifying the talent, identify what their motivations are, and then reward them with jobs with more responsibility or additional schools, etc...but at the end of the day, a lot (if not most) people are going to be ragged out after a 3rd or 4th tour, especially if they are married. What if you have a company commander who is a flat out stud, but he's on his third tour in four years, and his request is go teach ROTC for two years back in CONUS someplace? Is that the right thing to do for retention purposes, or is it giving him a second command somewhere in order to maximize his immediate talents? A BCT Commander might be able to make that choice as he would have a relationship with him, but dealing with an assignments officer that you know by voice only wouldn't be able to make that distinction.