The Col. Gentile collection and debate

**Entropy** · 12-04-2008

This is a drum Col. Gentile beats often, and it's one I agree completely with. From the article:

Many army officers and Department of Defense thinkers seem to be able to think only about how to apply the perceived counterinsurgency lessons from Iraq to Afghanistan. A recent group of colonels asked the question "how should the army execute a surge in Afghanistan," instead of the more important questions of whether the army should use the surge counterinsurgency program there. A professor from a major Department of Defense university has gone so far as to call for the surge and its counterinsurgency techniques as the model for American strategy and policy throughout the entire Middle East.

He's right to be skeptical of what sounds like the simplistic importation of the Iraqi "surge" into Afghanistan. One of many problems is there seems to be no accepted definition of what exactly the surge in Iraq consisted of. Another serious problem are clarity issues at the policy level with respect to Afghanistan. Until those get worked out, it seems premature to declare that a surge in Afghanistan is either useful or necessary. And even if he's wrong, Col. Gentile is performing a valuable service by questioning and challenging the conventional wisdom.

**datroy** · 12-04-2008

Bob, I would disagree with you ever so slightly. The increase in troops sure enough was a resourcing requirement. "Surge," however, was a terrible name to apply to what we did. It was not just increasing troops. It was taking a COIN approach that had worked in various locations and applying it to the entire country. So the new COIN tactics, assisted by more troops, created the security that allowed the Awakenings (which had started before the "surge," but again only because of COIN operations at the local level that led to improved ability to protect the population) to spread. But then we went and called it the "surge" so it will probably forever be reported and explained as the "surge" or the "surge in troops" that turned Iraq around.

**Eden** · 12-04-2008

The Gentile article is not his best - I can't help but notice that when our best thinkers begin writing op-ed pieces for the mainstream press their IQ seems to drop a few notches.

Anyway, I think the problem is that we are fixated on our operational approach to Afghanistan before we have clearly articulated what our strategic goals are. Will more troops in Afghanistan help us do more of what we are doing now, only better? Yes. Is what we are doing now the right thing? How can we tell without a clearly defined objective?

I would argue that Afghanistan has been a continuous sad example of mission creep since 2001. There has never been a clear end state besides the standard (and useless) boilerplate of "strong and stable democracy capable of providing for its own defense yadayadayada..." that we foisted onto NATO and Europe some years ago while we fought our own unilateral counter-terrorist campaign.

I just got back from a talk where a two-star admiringly said of Petraeus that he never wanted to hear the words "success" or "victory", only "progress". Yikes!

As the philosopher said, "Any road is fine if you don't know where you're going." If we don't know what constitutes success, how do we know we are progressing in the right direction?

**Entropy** · 12-04-2008

Great comment Eden.

**Ron Humphrey** · 12-04-2008

In regards to this:

Originally Posted by Eden

I just got back from a talk where a two-star admiringly said of Petraeus that he never wanted to hear the words "success" or "victory", only "progress". Yikes!

As the philosopher said, "Any road is fine if you don't know where you're going." If we don't know what constitutes success, how do we know we are progressing in the right direction?

As you seem to have pointed out, its kinda important to know where your going, and the fact that in order to adequately plan from there ,one really needs to know where they are at not to mention what avenues are available would definately lead one to looking for a map

That said also realizing that your trips success is likely to be affected by those whom you may encounter it is also good to know who they are, where they are (NOTE: also requires a map

) and what exactly they might be doing

Until somebody finds the "marauders map" it looks like getting all that together fast enough to please everyone might just be a little difficult.

So until then perhaps the only option open besides sitting waiting for it is to get a basic direction and keep heading towards it.

**Entropy** · 01-20-2009

I'm sure a lot of people here are regular readers at Abu Muqawama's site - I know I am. I found this exchange between Col. Gentile and an anonymous (but well-informed) poster very fascinating and informative. Scroll down and look for the exchange between "Looking Glass" and Col. Gentile. Great stuff:

Gentlemen, I am not a battlespace owner. I never will be. I am a guy who operated with his boots in the dust on a continuous basis and saw (and still sees) the spotty application of the tools that others have proven will work; not exactly in each case but adaptively to particular situations. While you discuss such lofty things as future procurement budgets, I'm telling you that we are at war now and the horses are still being machinegunned from under their riders as we write. Young company grade officers are still being blocked from doing what they know to be best in their AOR's. COIN is still something that has not reached the strategic Corporal. He can't be strategic; the strategic Captain can't even be strategic. While Colonels dicker about the new tank, the Captains are still horse-bound. The Army has still not bought the weapon of choice for the war in which primers are being dented daily. COIN is still a subject of acceptance. This was touched on in the "some units were doing good COIN while others weren't" discussions on this thread.

Would we have accepted such random achievement in a conventional conflict fought under AirLand?

Not just "no," but "hell no."

Read the whole thing. I think he was able to poke more holes in Col. Gentile's arguments than anyone else I've read, and I consider myself more a "Gentilist" than not.

**Piranha** · 01-20-2009

Great stuff indeed, food for thought ...
I'll add Abu Muqawama's site to my list, thanks for the hint.

**SWJED** · 01-20-2009

Yes, Ex and crew do a great job at AM.

**Ken White** · 01-20-2009

Originally Posted by Entropy

I'm sure a lot of people here are regular readers at Abu Muqawama's site - I know I am. I found this exchange between Col. Gentile and an anonymous (but well-informed) poster very fascinating and informative. Scroll down and look for the exchange between "Looking Glass" and Col. Gentile. Great stuff:

Read the whole thing. I think he was able to poke more holes in Col. Gentile's arguments than anyone else I've read, and I consider myself more a "Gentilist" than not.

What the articulate Looking Glass says in even more words than I would use is that:

- We blew the well done fighting entry into Iraq because we had no doctrine for, had not trained for and did not plan for Phase 4 / occupation -- and the likely ensuing activity. True. Most all of that simply due to a lack of training; we wiped it out of syllabii and no one knew what to do.

- We're not really practicing COIN operations in many ways because we're still in a pre-2001 NTC mindset. True -- but hopefully he realizes that's because all the Generals and Colonels are products of that period and are reverting, as we all do, to the way they were trained *...

- We can probably produce a force that can do both MCO and LIC if simply train correctly. True.

- Our training is pathetic. True.

So, yeah, he's got it pretty well right and he's trying to educate Gian...

* Equally hopefully, Gian realizes that he is correct on the need to emphasize conventional warfare but that if we simply change the way we train as ol' Looking glass, I and others have been advocating, then the problem seen by Gian on the one hand and the COIN advocates on the other will no longer exist.

[ Count the number of times the word 'train' or its derivatives appear in this post.

]

**Fuchs** · 01-20-2009

I'm always a bit perplexed that the 'COIN and/or HIC discussion' is usually (pretty much always) discussed from the lens of order-receiving military personnel.
Even generals aren't at the top of the food chain; politicians are.
It needs a political analysis to decide the matter, and politicians need to think about much more/different things than troops.

Most importantly, they decide whether warfare is advantageous or not (at least they should).
The effort / benefit ratio of COIN in distant, even non-allied countries is about as good as if you wanted to fight lung cancer by throwing chewing gums (substitute to cigarettes) from a plane.
It sucks.
Tell me a single COIN war in a distant country that justified the effort (fiscal effort and damage to society & individuals).
There's a reason why we know so few bright, shining exemplary COIN wars; they suck as a category.

It's in my opinion absolutely intolerable to prepare an army for small wars in the future because that's simply wrong planning; it's planning for moving intentionally into terrible situations. It's stupid. (Yes, I believe that Gates is a terrible SecDef, one who makes others feel good and who knows how to look as if he makes good decisions, but he's terrible.)

Preparations for more small wars in the future?
Prepare some special forces, military intelligence and the military police for COIN, that will suffice.
Downsize the rest to what's necessary to keep the alliance safe (no-one who doesn't promise to stand by us in advance deserves to be protected by us, so let's just care about allies) - and determine this size by taking into account all allied forces/powers (which means: The new size would be small and truly affordable).

**Ken White** · 01-21-2009

Originally Posted by Fuchs

I'm always a bit perplexed

Not to worry, give it some thought...

that the 'COIN and/or HIC discussion' is usually (pretty much always) discussed from the lens of order-receiving military personnel.

Some give orders too; over here they're asked for their opinion -- sometimes they're listened to, sometimes not but here everyone has a right to state their opinion and most of us will.

Even generals aren't at the top of the food chain; politicians are.
It needs a political analysis to decide the matter, and politicians need to think about much more/different things than troops.

You're living in a dream world; most western politicians today have stayed as far away from the armed forces as they possibly could.

Most importantly, they decide whether warfare is advantageous or not (at least they should).

Agree they should, shame they don't -- or when they do, don't do a better job of it...

The effort / benefit ratio of COIN in distant, even non-allied countries is about as good as if you wanted to fight lung cancer by throwing chewing gums (substitute to cigarettes) from a plane.
It sucks.

Yep. Makes no difference. Those politicians you talked about earlier will keep sending soldiers off to do work that sucks...

Tell me a single COIN war in a distant country that justified the effort (fiscal effort and damage to society & individuals).There's a reason why we know so few bright, shining exemplary COIN wars; they suck as a category.

Greece. Philippines -- didn't we do this before? Why bother; what's past is irrelvant; politicians not only can't spell Army, few of them know much history.

It's in my opinion absolutely intolerable to prepare an army for small wars in the future because that's simply wrong planning; it's planning for moving intentionally into terrible situations. It's stupid. (Yes, I believe that Gates is a terrible SecDef, one who makes others feel good and who knows how to look as if he makes good decisions, but he's terrible.)

I'll forward your recommendation to the White House; you'll hear from them soon, I'm sure.

Preparations for more small wars in the future? Prepare some special forces, military intelligence and the military police for COIN, that will suffice. Downsize the rest to what's necessary to keep the alliance safe (no-one who doesn't promise to stand by us in advance deserves to be protected by us, so let's just care about allies) - and determine this size by taking into account all allied forces/powers (which means: The new size would be small and truly affordable).

There you go, being logical -- you don't need to tell us all that -- tell the politicians.

**Schmedlap** · 01-21-2009

I don't know who Looking Glass is, but I like the cut of his jib.

Just look at the MITT/ETT program... the treatment and support of these teams when they operate in another's battlespace tells most of all how much our Army "gets" COIN.

Gentlemen, while you address this matter in such scholarly fashion, men are in crude places poorly supported and repeatedly countermanded by senior officers, your brethren, who just plain don't "get it." As long as that is a consistent narrative, any discussion of, "has our Army gone too far with this COIN thing?" is pointless.

EXACTLY! This never-ending debate is like the kid who checks under the bed and checks the closet every night, afraid that the bogeyman is there. He's not. But the kid keeps worrying. Gone too far with COIN? The doctrinal publications are very nice. They have neat illustrations and interesting concepts. The cover designs are swell. But back in the real world, the SSG, 1LT, and CPT don't even have a decent interpreter. The MITT needs to bum batteries off of a line unit's supply sergeant. Commanders deploy overconfident that they're the next Robert Thompson and within a month revert back to what they are comfortable with: raids, ambushes, cordons & searches, OPs, "presence patrols", and the like. The average infantryman still exudes the attitude that, "these people should show some fricken gratitude - we liberated their damn country." And back home, over half of the pre-deployment training is the same old weapons qual, reflexive fire, squad/section evaluations, and Table 8/Table 12. Procurement is still churning out big heavy vehicles, boats, and aircraft. And Officers are still learning how to draw big sweeping arrows (though now in PowerPoint format, projected on a 42" plasma screen).

Gentile (Is he a LTC, LTC(P), or COL?) responds:

Your quip about our discussions here of being "scholarly" has a whiff of condescension and implies a muddy-boots view of the ivory tower... this blog has many participants some with experience, but most with lots of knowledge and interest in these important matters.

It's a damned good muddy-boots view of the ivory tower, in my opinion. The discussions are purely academic, in spite of the operational experience of the participants. The debate has become a past-time among military buffs that is occasionally perceived by outsiders as something mirroring reality. It's more of a hobby for the participants and a free online broken-record seminar for onlookers. Anyone who thinks that we've gone too far with COIN, or are in danger of doing so, significantly overestimates how far we've actually gone. While some leaders "get it" they are still unable to implement it. And, not to worry - most don't "get it" anyway.

**SWJ Blog** · 06-22-2011

Ten Whats With… Col. Gian Gentile

Entry Excerpt:

Ten Whats With… Col. Gian Gentile by Micah Zenko, Council on Foreign Relations. On COIN and IW: "I think with the current fad and fetish of counterinsurgency, irregular wars, often times caricatured as “wars amongst the people” fought to win the allegiance of local populations and to suppress so called “irregular threats,” we may be losing the bubble on the fact that states still exist, and potentially in the future we may one day have to face a hostile state again."

--------
Read the full post and make any comments at the SWJ Blog.
This forum is a feed only and is closed to user comments.

**SWJ Blog** · 09-16-2013

COL Gian Gentile Twofer

Entry Excerpt:

--------
Read the full post and make any comments at the SWJ Blog.
This forum is a feed only and is closed to user comments.