Adapt Or Die

[SWJED]

Adapt Or Die - Greg Grant, Government Executive commentary.

Soldiers need a new set of skills and qualities to succeed at counterinsurgency.

"Forget everything you've been taught about this place, because it's either wrong or it's useless. Your education begins now," Army Sgt. James Jennings told a group of soldiers new to Baghdad in 2005. The grizzled veteran tried to teach his charges the complexities of counterinsurgency, where the battle is decided less by overwhelming firepower than by winning over hearts and minds.

He spoke with authority, having spent nearly a year patrolling restive western Baghdad. Jennings told the soldiers the Army was waging an entirely new type of war in which the traditional skills of fire and maneuver were less important than softer skills, such as cultural awareness and building trust and confidence among the Iraqi people.

Even though the Army has been fighting the shadowy insurgency for four years in Iraq, it has been slow to change its conventional approach: massing firepower on an enemy's formations.

The United States invaded Iraq with the world's most technologically advanced army and soon found itself losing to a nimble, adaptive enemy whose most effective weapons are the cell phone and Internet. The speed with which insurgents in Iraq adapt has confounded American military leaders. Army officers say they change tactics almost weekly because it takes insurgent cells just days to adjust to new techniques.

Thinking and adaptive. That's how Army officers almost universally describe the insurgents. They don't follow the predictable patterns of computer simulations, especially when facing death. Their adaptability stems in part from jihadi Web sites filled with lessons learned, dissections of successful and unsuccessful attacks on American troops, and insight about new tactics and weapons.

The Army remains too laden with tradition, too conservative, too hierarchical and rule-bound to cope effectively with its new enemy. Counterinsurgency is small-unit warfare, so leadership and command must devolve to lower levels. The most important field commanders are sergeants, lieutenants and captains - their decisions have strategic implications. But the Army remains focused on making brigades stronger and empowering generals. The Army must change. Its focus must shift to platoons and empowering junior officers - captains like Ike Sallee, for instance...

[Dominique R. Poirier]

Very good paper and pertinent thoughts and questions, but of little avail to anyone is looking for promotion, maybe.

[davidbfpo]

COIN does not sit easily with counter-terrorism in the police / law enforcement environment, even in the U.K. where we have decades of experience in Northern Ireland. Two years after the London 7/7 bombings there is little sign of adaptation, lots of money being spent and more people. Getting information from the community remains in the "too difficult to do" basket.

I would not advoacte sending UK police managers / leaders to Iraq, but this article, like others, shows there is much to learn from a high intensity operational 'art'.

Meantime back to my "armchair" and thanks again to this site. What agree with a Frenchman? Whatever next!

davidbfpo

[Dominique R. Poirier]

Meantime back to my "armchair" and thanks again to this site. What agree with a Frenchman? Whatever next!

davidbfpo

David,
Your way of writing in English leaves room for ambiguity, somehow. However, I assume that the end of your comment was aimed at French in general and at me in particular.

Well, I agree with you about French people, as I made it clear, previously. I’ll let you know that I do not consider myself as French even though I am, from an administrative standpoint. I’m considered as a target in this country and, everyday, since years, some people in here strive to put me into trouble.

So, no offense!

By the way, may I assume that you express similar sentiments toward the country in which you reside since you joined the council of the SWJ (and, are you blacklisted too)?

Sincerly,

[T. Jefferson]

Seems to me that the same preference for top down structure that has served us well in the past is also part of the problem in helping to catalyze a workable political structure in Iraq.

Clearly the elected central government is a government in name only, there seems to be very little real substance there. I find myself thinking that our efforts should center on helping the Iraqis to create effective local governments. In other words a grass roots structure.

[Tom Odom]

Even though the Army has been fighting the shadowy insurgency for four years in Iraq, it has been slow to change its conventional approach: massing firepower on an enemy's formations.

This is dillettante tripe wrapped in quasi-intellectual babble.

The article presumes that no one in the Army aside from the small unit leaders in the field "gets it."

That is not true--we got it years ago. And in this fight we have been getting it from day one. I can assure you that from the very first, we have at JRTC seen this as a small unit fight--buttressed by observation from theater.

The real issue is those who do not get it and who resist, delay, or block adaptation. There I would look to senior leadership and especially senior leadership via the proponent system.

As for trotting out the Israeli model for training--give me a break. The assumption that the IDF paras are on a higher plain of learning is --here you go, Ken White--more bovine excreta

Tom

[Mark O'Neill]

Hmmm,

Nicely written article - but, for mine, 100% ignorant.

You can 'lose' a COIN fight at each level of war - Tac, Op and Strat. But you can only win it at one level - the Strategic.

Yes, it is an imperative that you have tac forces that act in the correct manner. Yes, you need a comprehensive OP level Campaign plan where COIN agencies are properly synchronised - and yes, it all comes to nought if the Strategic level is 'wrong'.

An insurgency reflects an 'ill' in a society or a state that causes people to become insurgent. The historical record tells us that many have tried to do well in COIN by being tactically or operationallly 'proficient' but have ultimately failed. I tender the Rhodesians or the Apartheid era South Africans as examples. Great at tactical and operational levels , dud strategic concepts.

Here is the crunch. The Military do not 'own' the strategic level in COIN. That belongs firmly in a 'western' liberal democacy to the Politicians (what I tend to think of partially as 'Huntington's curse' , but that is another rant....)and what we in Australia call the 'WOG" ('Whole of Government') or , in the USA 'The Interagency'.

ANYONE WHO BELIEVES THE MILITARY ALONE CAN 'WIN' THE COIN FIGHT IS A FOOL. IT TAKES A NATION.


Read that Blog offering with that idea in mind and then see if you agree with the author. end rant, climb off soapbox .....

[Steve Blair]

This is dillettante tripe wrapped in quasi-intellectual babble.

The article presumes that no one in the Army aside from the small unit leaders in the field "gets it."

That is not true--we got it years ago. And in this fight we have been getting it from day one. I can assure you that from the very first, we have at JRTC seen this as a small unit fight--buttressed by observation from theater.

The real issue is those who do not get it and who resist, delay, or block adaptation. There I would look to senior leadership and especially senior leadership via the proponent system.

As for trotting out the Israeli model for training--give me a break. The assumption that the IDF paras are on a higher plain of learning is --here you go, Ken White--more bovine excreta

Tom

Agreed. Anyone who bothers to actually crack open a book (as opposed to the History Channel condensed version) and READ about this stuff would be amazed at just how quickly the Army has learned in Iraq as compared to Vietnam (for one example). There are certain "system" reflexes that remain more or less untouched (mostly personnel and promotion areas), but on the operational side the learning has taken place at a much faster pace than we've seen before.

The patterns of obstruction to learning are, I would argue, the same as they were in Vietnam: senior leadership that either doesn't get it or DOESN'T want to get it. To me there's a difference. There are people who just can't understand COIN and what's needed to survive and possibly thrive in such an environment. Then there are others who understand it, but either cling to old systems out of habit or to secure their own positions. The same level of blocking, incorrect evaluation metrics, and plain obstructionism took place in Vietnam, aided by a system that didn't want to learn and what was in essence a disposable Army created to do the fighting.

Things are different now. An all-volunteer force is an investment, and with that comes a mindset that encourages protecting that investment. It may not always be obvious, but when you're protecting that investment (and trying to maintain it), you'll be looking for ways to do things better. That includes learning how to fight an enemy that you might not have trained to face before.

Sorry for the ramble...it's Friday after all.