What are the top 5 things we've learned from OIF

[Gian P Gentile]

Rob:

I like the thrust of this thread. But i have to ask you for some clarification and not to nit-pic but to know what you are trying to get at with this question.

Do you mean actually what we have "learned," or, what "lessons" we can draw so far from oif? I am not trying to quibble over semantics but when you say what we have "learned" it implies knowing how certain understandings or "lessons" from oif have been incorporated into our organizations. So the notion of "learning" might be a bit hard to know at this point in the war but "lessons" i think we can start to discern.

thanks

gian

[Rob Thornton]

Do you mean actually what we have "learned," or, what "lessons" we can draw so far from oif? I am not trying to quibble over semantics but when you say what we have "learned" it implies knowing how certain understandings or "lessons" from oif have been incorporated into our organizations. So the notion of "learning" might be a bit hard to know at this point in the war but "lessons" i think we can start to discern.

I should clarify. I don't think we should limit the discussion to those lessons that have been brought into our organizations - here is why.

I've come to believe more in the idea of "lessons available" - and I've kind of blended that into the idea of what lessons we think we've learned. I am concerned that in the future we might draw the wrong things from OIF - either because we wish them to fit the context of the moment, or because they will be divorced from the context of where they occurred. As such, I left the category very broad because we have such a diverse council who offer diverse views and experiences, and can scrutinize and postulate on what lessons are there to be learned, if they are the right lessons, etc.

Last night I wondered if we should also expand the thread and offer the opportunity for council members to debate "lessons" offered up by others - then I figured that it would happen anyway because we are an argumentative bunch (in a good way)as well as seeking to understand each other's ideas.

The idea has been bothering me since I began reading COBRA II - then went back and looked how OIF has changed over the past years and thought about what our potential enemies are learning about us, and how they are thinking and preparing to defeat us, deny us, thwart us, make it too costly, etc. in order to achieve their own ends - be it regime survival, expansion, creation of a caliphate, the obtainment of nuclear weapons, etc.

How has OIF (and to a lesser degree OEF) changed our thinking and focus in both positive and negative ways about the use of military force to achieve a political end? Steve Metz had mentioned Colin Gray and Martin Van Crevald as having differing thoughts on the future of state on state vs. state on non-state. I think the future of who will wage war and how it will be waged important to consider - and I think we often postulate about the future by drawing on the past - the problem is we compress, linearize, and pick over history.

For me I'm more in line with Gray - in that I think it wise never to say never or you'll find yourself surprised in the worst way in the worst moment with the worst consequences at hand. My belief stems from both the idea that because the enemy is not always going to conform to our own standards of rationality given their perspective and desire of the object in view, and because they are living, thinking, learning and adapting - they will avail themselves of their strengths and our disadvantages; and because given the friction and fog of war - #### happens - that will further compound things - be they mistakes or advantages. When I finally get around to writing down 5 things - at least one of them will deal with the idea of "hybrid wars" that Hoffman, Terry Terriff an others have been thinking of - the idea that a state will be involved in some way and at some point within a war, and because non-states seem to have "state-like" ambitions - that is where I lean toward Gray more then Van Crevald.

Best regards, Rob

[goesh]

1.) Significant and vocal elements on the home front will never support any war under any circumstances, hence an increase in PR energy and expenditures by the military aimed at the home front is not justified.
2.) Concerns over immediate financial expenditures trump any and all strategic considerations and drive all time tables. The need for quality war products that saves lives and expedites mission completion mandates radical restructuring in logistical management/allocation.
3.) ROE can only be defined by the culture and terrain encountered
4.) All civilians and non-indigenous contractors must answer to a higher military authority, except the Diplomatic Corps, during combat and pacification operations.
5.) All combat personnel and those slotted for in-country supportive roles must undergo extensive, intensive cross cultural training and those failing must be kept stateside or discharged.

[Tom Odom]

Rob,

As a historian and a lessons learned type I would echo Gian Gentile's concerns and go a bit further. We have opportunities now to look at insights but I seriously doubt that "we" have "learned" anything. I say that because no one on SWJ can really define who "we" is at this stage; that definition is citical to what is even considered worthy of learning. As examples, I would several key senior leaders who judging from their books or their pronouncements never learned a damn thing: Tenet, Wolfowitz, and Bremer are examples. Finally I would say that as you consider what insights are worthy you must always keep in mind that OIF is not over; the fat lady is still chowing down and has no intention to sing in the near future.

With those cautions in mind, I would offer a few:

Quantity has a certain quality all its own when it comes to post-war stability.

Intelligence is often a question of user intelligence

Speed in shifting forces means you uncover stabilized areas faster

The host people chose their insurgents

Cultural ignorance is stupidity


Best

tom

[Stu-6]

1. Ends and means should be clearly laid out at the start. Bumper sticker slogans like we fight for freedom are a poor substitute for real stagey.

2.War can be started unilaterally but it can only be ended multilaterally. It aint over till both sides say it’s over.

3.Low tech stealth (i.e. car bombs, pretending to be innocent civilians, etc) can defeat high-tech weapons.

4.Don’t assume they want the same thing as you.

5. Your enemies are under no obligation to fight your kind of war.

I stress "should" because we should have learned some of these from Vietnam (or other places). I think this is what Col. David Hackworth was thinking of when he use to talk about CRS disease (Can't Remember ####)

[RTK]

no one on SWJ can really define who "we" is at this stage;

Concur,

Perhaps you breakdown "we" further into subcategories. Though this is not an all-encompassing list (I came up with this after five minutes of scribbling and mind dumping onto a piece of paper) I think each of the following groups has learned something different:

- Military (Tactical level)
- Maneuver, Fires and Effects
- CSS
- Intelligence
- Civil Affairs
- Psychological Operations
- SOF
- Medical
- Aviation (fixed and rotary)
- Military (Operational level)
- Maneuver, Fires and Effects
- CSS
- Intelligence
- Civil Affairs
- Psychological Operations
- SOF
- Medical
- Aviation (fixed and rotary)
- Military (Strategic level)
- Maneuver, Fires and Effects
- CSS
- Intelligence
- Civil Affairs
- Psychological Operations
- SOF
- Medical
- Aviation (fixed and rotary)
- Political Appointees
- Political Electees
- Department of Defense
- Department of State
- Law Enforcement
- PRTs
- MiTTs/SPiTTs/BiTTs
- Logisticians
- Merchant Marine Transport
- Strategic Air Transport
- Procurment
- Acquisition
- FAO specialties
- Research Development
- Doctrine Development
- Linguists
- Academics
- Anthropologists
- Historians
- Economists
- Citizens

[Steve Blair]

I would also hazard a guess that the learning has occurred relatively quickly at some levels and not at all in others. The higher one goes, the less that really seems to be "learned," and also the further one gets into areas that do not have vested interests in the outcome in Iraq the less that is learned or retained.

I guess that's where it ends up for me: how much of what we gather will actually be retained? We learned a great deal in Vietnam (the hard way), and much of it was dumped as soon as the shooting stopped (if not before). I agree with Tom in that the singing hasn't even started yet (in fact the ol' cow ain't even warming up yet). Goesh has a nice summary of many good points, and I could add more. But I still worry about how much of it will be retained.

[kehenry1]

From my perspective, looking over the battles in most third world nations, either the ones that we've been involved in to the ones that we just watched unfold, ethnic or sectarian tension or conflict seems inevitable. From the first Gulf War, where it was the Shia that rose up against Saddam, to the Balkans, to Rwanda, Somalia, etc, etc, etc, particularly wherever political repression and economic depression exist.

We seemed to be blissfully unaware of or simply ignored the possibility or probability. Maybe it is "hindsight", but we should have anticipated both the Shia death squads and the Sunni insurgents. When one ethnicity or sect has been oppressed by the other, they are going to want "justice" or "revenge". If that isn't forth coming immediately by either the invading force or by the constituted "representative government", one side will take matters into their own hands and it likely will not be as controlled or limited as a government might be and the needs to reduce the possibility of all out civil war.

In some regards, though I understood the need for the Iraq government (now Shia dominated) to appear "just" as a new kind of government, different from the old, and our own desire to collect intelligence, it might have been more prudent to move along trials of the top offenders and get that out of the way.

At the time, we were operating under the assumption that the appearance of "justice" would stem the tide of the insurgency. In all honesty, it didn't. Instead, the length of the trials allowed such malcontents to use it as an excuse to take revenge and fueled the Sunni insurgency. Accepting, of course, that part of the problem was the Al Qaida presence and attacks being loosely associated with some Sunni local insurgents.

Still, "justice" should have been done much sooner. This was not post WWII Germany where the population had been bombarded into glazed eyed acceptance of the end and could not mobilize to protest the long trials or the occupation.

Had the Iraqis moved forward quickly with trials, even under a very imperfect system and with summary decisions of guilt (as if there was going to be any other...another complaint heard among Iraqis) and execution, the Shia may even have been mollified enough to allow the system to work, even a little more slowly on the rest. It might also had the Shia less concerned about high ranking Ba'athists coming back and allowed the rest of the reconciliation problem to move forward.

As they say in the west, "No justice, no peace."

Accepting that third world nations are likely to have such tensions or conflict, we should be much more cognizant of the layers of society and prepared to deal with them. Somehow, the idea that Iraqis were "educated" and had lived together for years without conflict, made us forget that the Ba'athist organization was largely Sunni and had oppressed the Shia violently, thus the probability of conflict.

Further, that, most of the Sunni not being unutterable destroyed or decimated in battle, meant that they were less likely to see themselves as "totally defeated" and thus ready to accept the new paradigm of a Shia dominated government. It's the sociological idea that the abuser actually fears the return abuse that they may receive when they no longer have power.

We should be looking for the divides and not pretend they don't exist. We should prepare for that divide and the desire for revenge.

That is a good reason to have anthropologists and other cultural experts on board before we decide to go. And, we should be more willing to listen to them. Does it stop war? No. But it may keep a four year insurgency from occurring.