An Outsider's Perspective

[SWJED]

An Outsider's Perspective by Frank Hoffman at SWJ Blog.

I think the SWJ community will benefit from the attached essay by Dr. David Ucko, who recently completed his doctoral work at King’s College London. This well-crafted essay has just been published by Orbis, the policy journal of the Foreign Policy Research Institute. It’s an objective assessment of where the United States stands in our adaptation to counterinsurgency and irregular warfare, from an outsider’s perspective.

Dr. Ucko’s research is focused on how well the U.S. is absorbing the right lessons from today’s ongoing conflicts, and how well DOD is institutionalizing the necessary changes across the doctrine, structure, training and education and equipment pillars of combat development. A student of American military culture, he notes our history of adapting to counterinsurgency campaigns, but then quickly discarding the lessons learned at the close of the war to return to our preferred conventional mode.

Ucko challenges whether or not DOD has truly embraced irregular warfare. “With the eventual close of the Iraq campaign,” he asks “will counterinsurgency again be pushed off the table, leaving the military just as unprepared for these contingencies as it was when it invaded Iraq in 2003?” Thus, this essay fits into the context of the debate we have seen on these pages and in the Armed Forces Journal (Shawn Brimley and Vikram Singh’s “System Reboot”) about whether or not the American Way of War will adapt or revert to form...

[Rob Thornton]

The bigger question is, are we willing to substitute U.S. Government in most of the areas where Ucko filled in the question with “DoD” or “U.S. Military”. Ucko makes the case up front that our strategic culture produced a military which lived up to how it saw its role as a military, but that only apportions part of the responsibility – the part LTC Paul Yingling brought up in a “Failure in Generalship” – the part that requires military leaders to look out beyond our biases and sometimes parochial interests to the security threats that face the United States and challenge the civilian leaders who determine the political objectives.

I don’t think you can put the full responsibility on the U.S. military though, I think a significant part of the responsibility should and must rest upon past, current and future political leadership to determine what role it’s military will play in meeting security challenges as an instrument of policy. It is our elected leadership which determines what tools it will use to achieve its policy objectives, and how it addresses reason and passion – it was the former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld that said “You go to war with the military you have”. That is not a dig at the former secretary, his statement is accurate – when the decision is made to go to war, and the tools you have resourced and cultivated are the means by which you can determine ways to the end. That blame goes back further then Sec Rumsfeld's watch.

Colin Gray has an interesting chapter in War, Peace and International Relations: An Introduction to Strategic History. In Ch. 16 Gray explores the “Inter-War period” between the collapse of the Soviet Union (Cold War) and 9/11(GWOT/Long War). Gray spends the chapter thinking about lost strategic opportunities and failures to consider what would fill the vacuum during that decade, and the types of security challenges that would emerge. I think it is an important observation by Gray, because it cuts to the chase on Civ-Mil relations, and also raises the role of politics, parochialism and lobbyists in providing the most basic function to which government is charged, and held in legitimacy – the provision of security.

Given that we spent the second half of the century preparing for a war which never came, but one which if it would have could have been existential in the extreme, how did that affect our strategic outlook? How strategically important was Vietnam in comparison to our commitment to NATO (when it was really an alliance meant to preserve territorial integrity of Western Europe)? How did the combinations of politics and experiences that not only formed many of our pre 9/11 flag officers, but also many of those serving as senior political appointees then and today create and facilitate a failure to understand what changed and lead the adaptation of our government to meet those challenges?

Ucko examines the role of DoD in adapting to the current challenges, but as I said up front, I think you have to look beyond DoD, because we already know that given the nature of this threat, our competing FP objectives elsewhere and our U.S. strategic culture in terms of the ways which are acceptable to us, that the use military force has limitations. Military force has a role to play in providing security, but ultimately (and I’ll steal from Dave Kilcullen here) counter-insurgency might usefully be thought of as “counter-war” because sooner or later to make good on the gains improved security has bought, the effort must transition to establish the political and/or economic conditions which made the insurgency viable in the first place.

To do that I think the government and the people who elected it must be convinced of the nature of the threat, and must understand how it affects them – this does not mean it must be blown out of proportion, just that Americans must understand that its political leaders believe that the most pressing and legitimate threat we face is not the same thing it was prior to 9/11 and the consequences for ignoring that threat are such that the expenditure of U.S. blood and treasure are worth the price. This is a tall order because there are years of bias built up as to what a threat is and what role we should play unilaterally or multilaterally. Elected officials must either articulate or facilitate the articulation of causality in such a manner that it is credible, e.g. “we are investing in Columbia’s (or Iraq’s, or Africa’s, or Lebanon’s, etc.) security because….”.

Elected officials must know the risk associated with retooling our government (to include its military) to meet one set of security challenges, while not being optimized for others. This does not absolve elected officials from continuing to reassess risk, and forecasting change – e.g. if a near peer competitor shows indications of becoming a near peer threat, then our focus must change in time to first deter that threat, then accommodate the enduring existence or defeat of that threat. That is the role and responsibility of government; it should not be complacent and stagnant because it fears something ambiguous on the horizon while ignoring the present one that has defined itself. When there are multiple threats, the leadership must distinguish between most dangerous and most likely – that is what they get elected and paid to do, there is plenty of blame to go around.

Our military should not be seen independent of the context of the government to which it serves, to do so would negate the role political leadership should play in determining what its military is capable of doing as an instrument of national power. I’m not absolving military leadership, certainly it has a strong role to play in informing our civilian leadership of risk and capabilities, advantages and disadvantages, opportunities for us and for our enemies, but the decision to accept risk by large scale transformation, and the decision when and to what proportion military force will be used must be made by the elected leadership. That I think addresses the conceptual challenges associated with how our military responds to changes in the environment, but its also worth considering the challenges of large scale change when a decision has been made. I’m not sure right now if we could do much more then what is currently being done, or if doing some things for the sake of acknowledging a need for greater change is really in our best interest. Consider just how much of the overall ground force structure is engaged in Iraq and Afghanistan? Consider how much of the Air force and Navy are engaged in other areas around the world? How important is it to make choices about doing things fast vs. doing things right? These are all hard calls and sometimes the question is “How bad do you want it?”, and the corresponding answer is “If you want it real bad, that is how you’ll get it.”

Ucko’s article is worth reading, but I think the question is too important just to make it a military one? There are both some capabilities and capacities missing in the tool bag, and it is going to take awhile to develop them. It could be argued we should have been developing them based off the anticipation of what would happen when the Soviets collapsed, and then we could have implemented the change – a holistic national strategy for the post Cold War that redefined some priorities, and built capabilities and capacities where they would be needed vs. where they were needed. Instead, when the question presented itself we made a deal, and went for the easy money and it would appear we did not even seriously consider what was behind the doors. It was both politically and culturally amenable to do so; we called it a peace dividend and thought nobody would bother us as we moved about the world. As long as a state or a nation wishes to retain its freedoms and standards it must stay smartly engaged, we should not elect leaders to take breaks and tell us we’re great, we should not allow them to abdicate those responsibilities and authorities which define the position to which they were elected; we should elect them to retain our advantages, secure our blessings and if possible extend them.

Best, Rob

[John T. Fishel]

Clausewitz, Sun Tzu, Machiavelli, and Thucydides, not to say Morgenthau, Graham Allison, and Joe Nye along with many others in your post!

As Clausewitz continunously pointed out, war is a political phenomenon and is driven by policy. Sun Tzu and Machiavelli, along with Saint Carl, stress the importance of the people in the equation - the remarkable trinity. Thucydides emphasizes the role of fear and the volatility of democratic government. And Nye with his "soft power" notion focuses on the diplomatic and informational instruments of power. Morgenthau is the ultimate realist and sets up Allison who introduces both the role of bureaucracies and the importance of the individual leader - Clausewitz' idea of genius in new clothes.

The classics can give us insight into our problems but they can no more solve them for us than the non-method of hope (apologies, Gen, Sullivan). Rather, it is guys like you, John Nagl, Michele Flournoy, Steve Bucci, Steve Johnson, and Matt Vaccaro - to name a few of you youngsters , who will have to take the ball and run with it.

Cheers

JohnT

[Old Eagle]

Sometimes outsiders understand us better than we understand ourselves. Ucko's piece is scary good.

Rob -- get back to work!

[Eden]

Having read Rob's excellent post, I went back to Dr. Ucko's article and gave it another look. As I was reading, it struck me that much of his argument is based on an historical survey whose population is one.

Dr. Ucko, along with many, many others, have claimed that the US military has 'historically' turned away from counterinsurgency as soon as possible and returned to the study of conventional war. This, they argue, is a subject our generals are much more comfortable with - with the added benefit that conventional warfighting produces much bigger budgets, quicker promotions, more toys for the boys, etc. I believe this is a false premise based on bad history.

Firstly, with a few exceptions of relatively short duration, the regular military forces of the United States were organized, trained, and funded for employment in Small Wars until just before the Second World War. They were never - never - prepared to fight conventional wars until the baloon actually went up. In the 1920's and 1930's, it was the rebels and deep thinkers who argued we needed to buy bombers and tanks, to think about the impact of mechanization or to train for amphibious warfare. From 1783 to 1935 or so, peacetime armies were small, and employed largely in counterinsurgency, civil support, or stability operations. Training for 'conventional' war was the exception, not the rule, and rarely done above the regimental level.

After 1945 came Vietnam. We were ill-prepared for this counter-insurgency, but one should remember that it had been 60 years since the Army's last major counterinsurgency campaign, with three major conventional wars intervening. Moreover, most of the military's intellectual energy over the preceding decade had been spent on trying to envision what the nuclear battlefield would look like, a question that was arguably of greater import at the time. Finally, Vietnam was a very different war from the ones we had fought against the Indians, the Huks, or a variety of banana republics.

After Vietnam, the military institution did turn away from COIN as a subject of study; or, to be more accurate, we turned the problem over to a miltary ghetto known as the SF community while the rest of us got on with preparing for high-intensity, conventional warfare. However, there were 180 good reasons to do this, in the form of Soviet divisions poised from Potsdam to Omsk.

Now, it can be argued that after the Gulf War (v.1.0) we could have or should have turned our intellectual and material energies to preparing for the types of war most likely to occur in a world where we had no peer competitors. One can also convincingly argue that our leaders failed to anticipate or prepare for the specific course of events in Iraq and Afghanistan following their initial conventional phases. You can also criticize the institution for a slow adjustment to conditions on the ground. All of those positions are defensible and more or less true. But to say that consciously abandoning hard-won COIN lessons is some sort of American military tradition is a strawman based on a single case in our long history.

Two last comments. Firstly, The reason why we are not faced with the realistic prospect of a conventional war is because we are so well-prepared to fight one - a truism so self-evident many intellectuals have trouble grasping it.

Secondly, how likely is it that we will engage in another Iraq within the lifetime of our current crop of officers? How much sense does it make to remold our military institutions to fight counterinsurgencies when it may take another couple of decades to muster the political will to do so?

[Tom Odom]

Dr. Ucko, along with many, many others, have claimed that the US military has 'historically' turned away from counterinsurgency as soon as possible and returned to the study of conventional war. This, they argue, is a subject our generals are much more comfortable with - with the added benefit that conventional warfighting produces much bigger budgets, quicker promotions, more toys for the boys, etc. I believe this is a false premise based on bad history.

No it is accurate history when describing the choices made by the Army as an institution. Where the bad history comes into play was the leadership of the Army who made those decisions to turn away from COIN in favor of a European or industrial form of warfare. They chose to ignore that historically the Army has more time in small wars/irregular wars than it does in the big ones. Now their reasons were as is often the case both valid and invalid. Valid in my experience during the Cold War that the greatest threat was a major land war in Europe. Invalid that even as we ignored COIN/LIC/OOTW some of us were hip deep in COIN/LIC/OOTW.

I personally attest to this as can Ken White (more so than I as he is WAY older than me ) and Old Eagle who is merely somewhat more ancient than me.

Best

Tom

[Ken White]

You said:

After 1945 came Vietnam. We were ill-prepared for this counter-insurgency...

Not so. The units of the active Army, not in Europe, were actually pretty well up on counterinsurgency as a result of Kennedy's desired emphasis on it. The problem was that the Army's senior Generals and the Army in Europe were not up on it at all.

Moreover, most of the military's intellectual energy over the preceding decade had been spent on trying to envision what the nuclear battlefield would look like, a question that was arguably of greater import at the time.

Sort of. That nuclear battlefield envisioned small dispersed units and a lot of autonomy (as is true in counterinsurgency) -- most of the senior people did not like that concept one bit; control freaks don't do initiative or autonomy.

Finally, Vietnam was a very different war from the ones we had fought against the Indians, the Huks, or a variety of banana republics.

Mostly because Westmoreland tried to make it into a conventional war in Europe, a construct with which he was comfortable (he had not liked the Pentomic concept at all when he was the CG of the 101st Airborne Division ).

After Vietnam, the military institution did turn away from COIN as a subject of study; or, to be more accurate, we turned the problem over to a miltary ghetto known as the SF community while the rest of us got on with preparing for high-intensity, conventional warfare. However, there were 180 good reasons to do this, in the form of Soviet divisions poised from Potsdam to Omsk.

In reverse order, true and I'd suggest that reference to SF as a military ghetto is indicative of an attitude of parochiality that does no one any good.

Two last comments. Firstly, The reason why we are not faced with the realistic prospect of a conventional war is because we are so well-prepared to fight one - a truism so self-evident many intellectuals have trouble grasping it.

True but I'd posit that does not excuse not being prepared for the obviously highly probable lesser wars.

Secondly, how likely is it that we will engage in another Iraq within the lifetime of our current crop of officers? How much sense does it make to remold our military institutions to fight counterinsurgencies when it may take another couple of decades to muster the political will to do so?

Hard to say; you may be correct. How much sense does it make to not prepare for the eventuality you are not correct? In any event, remolding is not necessary, better training is all that's required -- that or the vision to forecast precisely what is required. Lacking that vision, I'd opt for training for full spectrum operations. It ain't that hard...

[John T. Fishel]

as usual.

One of my favorite historical anecdotes is the tale of BG Emory Upton and his trip to India. Upton was a protege of the Army Commander, uncle Billy Sherman. In 1877/8, in the wake of Custer's last stand, Sherman sent Upton to India to observe how the Brits were conducting COIN (read Imperial Policing) on the Northwest Frontier. Upton asked Sherman if he could return through Europe and take a look at what was going on there as well. Sherman said OK.

On his return, Upton wrote his trip report - published as The Armies of Europe and Asia. Note the order. He was so enamored of the German General Staff that he devoted much of the book to that subject rather than the topic that Sherman had sent him out to observe!

That, of course, is just one of the many examples of the attitude that Ucko and others comment on. In this connection, I should note my own article in Low Intensity Conflict & Law Enforcement from 1995 - "Little Wars, Small Wars, LIC, OOTW, The GAP, and Things That Go Bump in the Night" - where I published the anecdote along with a bunch of other things.

Cheers

JohnT

[Steve Blair]

But to say that consciously abandoning hard-won COIN lessons is some sort of American military tradition is a strawman based on a single case in our long history.

This is historically incorrect. I don't know that the decision has always been conscious, but there is a clear trend of this happening, and not just after Vietnam. There are many earlier examples.

The Army made little to no effort prior to 1876 (Custer's folly) to pass along or even meaningfully institutionalize the lessons learned from decades of Frontier conflict...and even then it took until the early 1880s for any meaningful developments (professional schooling beyond West Point, an emphasis on target practice, the beginnings of both field exercises and more involved training for enlisted personnel) to result. Instruction at West Point continued to center on engineering and linear, Napoleonic warfare. You'll find some privately-published books on Indian scouting, but the majority of professional discussion regarding the main activity of the Army took place in the pages of the Army and Navy Journal, with some later taking place in publications like The Cavalry Journal once they came into being. And before the Civil War there was no real emphasis on frontier conflict. Many officers were more concerned with reliving the Mexican War or even the War of 1812.

The attempt to really pass along COIN-type lessons peaked in the Philippines, and trailed out slowly until the build-up for World War I. After that it was gone, with the majority of such duties left to the Marines. World War II just cemented what had been a conflict orientation preference going back to the earliest days of the Army. As Ken hints, there was an institutional shift of sorts going on prior to 1965, but it was being driven by a president and resisted by many of his top military advisors and commanders.

To contend that the Army's reluctance to deal with COIN rests on Vietnam is to ignore the longer history of the Army. Strawman? Not really. Uncomfortable reality? More the case.

[J Wolfsberger]

In reverse order, true and I'd suggest that reference to SF as a military ghetto is indicative of an attitude of parochiality that does no one any good.

If you had phrased that in the past tense, I'd have said you hit the nail on the head. To reinforce with an anecdote, a friend of mine spent a tour in Viet Nam with 5 SFG, a tour commanding a rifle Co. in Korea, then volunteered for a second tour with 5 SFG in Viet Nam (commanding a Mike Force). He was then passed over for promotion to Major. One tour was considered punching the ticket. Two showed an attitude (or aptitude) the Army didn't need or want.

To the extent Ucko points to this as a dangerous institutional attitude, he's dead on. It's easy to list a half dozen locales where we would be highly likely to need this capability in the next 10 or 20 years. It's pretty tough to come up with an equivalent list for conventional forces.

At the same time, Gian points out that we have to be capable of fighting the high intensity conflicts when they do arise, and we won't have the luxury of calling time out while we retool and retrain.

The take away, I believe, is to remember that we have exactly one Army. It will have to execute to further national strategic goals in different scenarios and circumstances.

It often seems as though we are trying to address an either - or question. "Conventional or COIN?" "Gentile or Ucko?"

The answer, whether we like it or not, is "Both," and then some.

[Ron Humphrey]

Secondly, how likely is it that we will engage in another Iraq within the lifetime of our current crop of officers? How much sense does it make to remold our military institutions to fight counterinsurgencies when it may take another couple of decades to muster the political will to do so?

What are the skill sets required to perform stabilization and recovery operations in failing countries and more importantly what are the chances we don't end up performing those whether we like it or not?

[CR6]

Ucko’s article is worth reading, but I think the question is too important just to make it a military one? There are both some capabilities and capacities missing in the tool bag, and it is going to take awhile to develop them. It could be argued we should have been developing them based off the anticipation of what would happen when the Soviets collapsed, and then we could have implemented the change – a holistic national strategy for the post Cold War that redefined some priorities, and built capabilities and capacities where they would be needed vs. where they were needed.

Doctor Echevarria made the case that the United States consistently focuses too narrowly on the military component of national power and thus has difficulty in achieving favorable strategic outcomes in an interesting 2004 op-ed.

Your writing echoes those comments Rob. The challenge is to find the resources to grow the requisite capability across the inter-agency. Will DoD give up a share of its budget to grow capability at State or HLS?

[Ron Humphrey]

Your writing echoes those comments Rob. The challenge is to find the resources to grow the requisite capability across the inter-agency. Will DoD give up a share of its budget to grow capability at State or HLS?

Isn't that kinda backwards. Why would DOD have to penny up to pay for it when the way government is supposed to work is elected representatives(ER) provide monies for govt entities to provide for Civil, Social, and Defense requirements of the nation. As the needs grow you don't rob peter to pay paul, you pay paul and peter and janet and whoever else whatever they need to do exactly what their supposed to. Because as the ER's you determine what they "need" to do ultimately and thus it's your job to provide for it.

Where am I mistaken in this

[Rob Thornton]

Hi Ron,

I don't know that you are mistaken, but I do think the civilian leadership needs to make choices that reflect their political objectives. To me its a question of how and why $$$ are allocated. DoD has I believe recently helped fund some DoS activities. Even in Secretary Gate's KU speech, while he put in a strong pitch for funding soft power (maybe you could call that the output of statecraft?), he also said he'd be back asking for more money for defense - our "to do list" has not shrunk, nor will it any time soon - if anything its grown .

It will take some time to build up other capability and capacity in the "whole of govt.", and it will take some money. In the meantime, those gaps will have to be covered by DoD because within the inter-agency, we're the only ones who have capacity.

Key to shortening that interim period will be the mutual understanding between the Executive and Legislative branches, and the American People about what we need to do and why. It will be painful and it will seem expensive to grow capabilities and capacity in our FP tool bag, but in the long run I believe it will be cheaper, and it will allow govt. to live up to the expectations of those who elected it.
Best, Rob

[CR6]

the way government is supposed to work is elected representatives(ER) provide monies for govt entities to provide for Civil, Social, and Defense requirements of the nation.

Where am I mistaken in this

Don't think you're mistaken at all.

What I don't know is whether OMB reviews and contrasts government department budget proposals for redundancy prior to including them in the President's budget request to Congress. Are competing priorities considered, or does OMB just rubber stamp them? I was pondering (in an inelegant manner) if 20% of a given FY's budget is going towards "defense" and defense is considered in a holistic manner would that 20% be reapportioned across the interagency in budget request. Ron, your point that elected reps fund validated requirements leads me to consider resourcing national security in broader terms.

[Ron Humphrey]

Hi Ron,

I don't know that you are mistaken, but I do think the civilian leadership needs to make choices that reflect their political objectives. To me its a question of how and why $$$ are allocated. DoD has I believe recently helped fund some DoS activities. Even in Secretary Gate's KU speech, while he put in a strong pitch for funding soft power (maybe you could call that the output of statecraft?), he also said he'd be back asking for more money for defense - our "to do list" has not shrunk, nor will it any time soon - if anything its grown .

It will take some time to build up other capability and capacity in the "whole of govt.", and it will take some money. In the meantime, those gaps will have to be covered by DoD because within the inter-agency, we're the only ones who have capacity.

Key to shortening that interim period will be the mutual understanding between the Executive and Legislative branches, and the American People about what we need to do and why. It will be painful and it will seem expensive to grow capabilities and capacity in our FP tool bag, but in the long run I believe it will be cheaper, and it will allow govt. to live up to the expectations of those who elected it.
Best, Rob

You point out exactly what I was thinking of. It was not only unprecedented (at least in my experience) but even more importantly awesome that a SECDEF would be pushing for more money for DOS. The question it brought to mind though was why should he be having too. Even more so than DOD, DOS is the legislatures real time action arm; at least in a political sense. That there should be a need for DOD to try and help DOS fulfill its obligations speaks volumes for the politics of money and some of the real legislative snafu's that need to be addressed.

Don't think you're mistaken at all.

What I don't know is whether OMB reviews and contrasts government department budget proposals for redundancy prior to including them in the President's budget request to Congress. Are competing priorities considered, or does OMB just rubber stamp them? I was pondering (in an inelegant manner) if 20% of a given FY's budget is going towards "defense" and defense is considered in a holistic manner would that 20% be reapportioned across the interagency in budget request. Ron, your point that elected reps fund validated requirements leads me to consider resourcing national security in broader terms.

I think that may be exactly the problem in a large sense. If you can't even get any bill passed without some freaky extra money tied to it for something or another, just imagine what kinda finagling happens with existing budgets.
Although I like to focus on the defense side it would seem that recent events have shown us just how much we depend on honest brokering of responsibilities and equitable funding for such. And how often some of that is determined by those who don't even seem interested in truly understanding what that balance should be.

[Umar Al-Mokhtār]

What I don't know is whether OMB reviews and contrasts government department budget proposals for redundancy prior to including them in the President's budget request to Congress. Are competing priorities considered, or does OMB just rubber stamp them?

I would venture to say probably not. The Service POMs are pretty extensively scrubbed for redundancies, overlaps, and gaps; usually in the search for savings and offsets to pay bills while not exceeding TOA. That's why the second P of PPBE is important. OSD tends to ignore it in their budget submission; it's more of submit the previous year's budget adjusted for inflation. I’ve found there is little comprehensive programmatic scrubbing of OSD PEs. The COCOMS are also not necessarily held to the same level of scrutiny by being compared across the board with the other COCOMs. So I'm pretty confident that OMB doesn't have a "murder board" that cross-matches DoD with other Government entities to optimize national security capabilities across the enterprise.

Ron, your point that elected reps fund validated requirements leads me to consider resourcing national security in broader terms.

That is so true it's not even funny. It's part of the reason our present budgeting system is broken. We feed the beast and make it fatter yet rarely make attempts to trim it down through a comprehensive look at enterprise wide redundancies, overlaps, and gaps.