Page 1 of 2 12 LastLast
Results 1 to 20 of 36

Thread: Counterinsurgency Education Request

  1. #1
    Small Wars Journal SWJED's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2005
    Location
    Largo, Florida
    Posts
    3,989

    Default Counterinsurgency Education Request

    Would appreciate any thoughts on the following RFI from a Marine:

    ... I've done a good deal of COIN study and a little practical application in Iraq. As I was thinking through how to design a regimental HQ's PME program for an upcoming deployment, it became clear to me that I have no idea how to teach COIN.

    I can teach TTP's (VCP, counter IED, etc.), but HQ's personnel above the company don't really do TTP's except as personal protective measures while traveling about. We can also train COC battle drills, but using MERC Chat to pass word of a TIC or downed aircraft isn't COIN either. We need to do these types of events, but what I am aiming at for this project is education rather than training.

    Power point classes that I've seen are also only marginally useful. Because each situation is so different, there are few enduring principles that always apply. Slides with LOO's and pillars are so abstract that I don't think Marines internalize much from them.

    I think reading is the key, but that reading needs to be reinforced by action to generate vicarious experience. Therefore I want to explore some sort of case study method which allows us to analyze situations in their historical context and then use that experience to reach some group synthesis about how to do COIN at the Regt. Level. My hope was that there were some ready made games out there that could be used as a training tool to facilitate this. For instance, read a book about Algeria. Play a game about Algeria. Something along those lines. I am open to any ideas that anyone may have.
    Thanks in advance...

  2. #2
    i pwnd ur ooda loop selil's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2006
    Location
    Belly of the beast
    Posts
    2,112

    Default

    Sounds like y'all need a little tools called education modeling theory. Use of a model (scenario, concept, idea, strategy, tactic) to create knowledge (big K) using game theory and such for the mechanism. I know that isn't "exactly" what he was asking, but as he was tossing away mechanisms (power point, loo(?), and such) I'm reading a need for deriving knowledge. Like most people he thinks education is transmission/communication tools, and not the learning/modeling tools. Remove the TLA's from the post and I'd make some real swings if needed.
    Sam Liles
    Selil Blog
    Don't forget to duck Secret Squirrel
    The scholarship of teaching and learning results in equal hatred from latte leftists and cappuccino conservatives.
    All opinions are mine and may or may not reflect those of my employer depending on the chance it might affect funding, politics, or the setting of the sun. As such these are my opinions you can get your own.

  3. #3
    Council Member slapout9's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2005
    Posts
    4,818

    Default

    Ok Dave I give up.... what is the Catapultam......stuff on your signature line?

  4. #4
    i pwnd ur ooda loop selil's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2006
    Location
    Belly of the beast
    Posts
    2,112

    Default

    Something about flinging stones at you?
    Sam Liles
    Selil Blog
    Don't forget to duck Secret Squirrel
    The scholarship of teaching and learning results in equal hatred from latte leftists and cappuccino conservatives.
    All opinions are mine and may or may not reflect those of my employer depending on the chance it might affect funding, politics, or the setting of the sun. As such these are my opinions you can get your own.

  5. #5
    Registered User USA&USMC_COIN_Center's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2008
    Location
    Fort Leavenworth, KS
    Posts
    7

    Default

    Come on over to COIN.ARMY.MIL. Go to the knowledge center (Sharepoint or AKO) and download the COIN Leader Workshop. It details lots about performing in the COIN environment independant of OIF or OEF, and may meet your needs, along with many other tools.

    PM or email coin@conus.army.mil with questions.

    MAJ Niel Smith
    USA & USMC Counterinsurgency Center
    Combined Arms Center
    Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

  6. #6
    Council Member SteveMetz's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2007
    Location
    Carlisle, PA
    Posts
    1,488

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by USA&USMC_COIN_Center View Post
    Come on over to COIN.ARMY.MIL. Go to the knowledge center (Sharepoint or AKO) and download the COIN Leader Workshop. It details lots about performing in the COIN environment independant of OIF or OEF, and may meet your needs, along with many other tools.

    PM or email coin@conus.army.mil with questions.

    MAJ Niel Smith
    USA & USMC Counterinsurgency Center
    Combined Arms Center
    Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
    I have a somewhat out of the box suggestion. I'm currently reading Jeremey Weinstein, Inside Rebellion: The Politics of Insurgent Violence . This is based on very detailed field research on three insurgencies: Uganda, Mozambique, and Peru. It has almost nothing to do with counterinsurgency, but offers great insights into the insurgement movements. You might draw the case studies and out and pose the question of how your peeps might have organized a counterinsurgency campaign had they been called on to do so.

    Here's the downside: it's a very academic work, so can be tough reading, especially the conceptual parts. But you don't really need those, just the case studies.

  7. #7
    Council Member marct's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2006
    Location
    Ottawa, Canada
    Posts
    3,682

    Default Carrying on Steve's idea

    you can take the case study methodology a step further by breaking people into teams, creating scenarios, and then having them game against each other. I've used that to good effect in teaching globalization / anti-globalization material.
    Sic Bisquitus Disintegrat...
    Marc W.D. Tyrrell, Ph.D.
    Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies,
    Senior Research Fellow,
    The Canadian Centre for Intelligence and Security Studies, NPSIA
    Carleton University
    http://marctyrrell.com/

  8. #8
    Council Member Surferbeetle's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2007
    Posts
    1,111

    Default Navy: Let's Play "Sim Iraq"

    From Wired

    The Navy, it turns out, has a "Sim Iraq" in mind, too. A literal one. The service has issued a call for a developers to build "a highly interactive, PC-based Human, Social and Culture Behavioral Modeling (HSCB) simulation tool to support training for military planners for handling insurgencies, small wars, and/or emergent conflicts."
    Sapere Aude

  9. #9
    Council Member
    Join Date
    Sep 2006
    Posts
    47

    Default COIN education

    Having taken two COIN electives at CGSC, I recommend reading several books. We always use Galula's Counterinsurgency Theory and Practice combined with O'Neill's Insurgency and Terrorism to understand COIN theory. For a detailed look at the application of COIN principles, I'd recommend Galula's Pacification in Algeria 1956-1958. By examining Galula's four prerequisites for insurgency and O'Neill's types of insurgency, a person can already start applying COIN theory to a specific situation. Ensuing discussion involving Galula's application of COIN principles can help facilitate discussions regarding the efficacy of theory and practice in any given AOR.

    As for the "gaming" element, I again return to how we do it during a short course at CGSC. Once you have the theory and principles down, encourage those involved to break down a given insurgency using the theory. One side can play the blue team and the other red, and introduce insurgent/counterinsurgent actions and how they affect the status of the fight.

    Galula's Theory and Practice is a quick, digestible read and a person can pick and choose what to read from O'Neill's work if brevity is important.
    One last thing, Trinquier's Modern Warfare is also a quick read that emphasizes the operational level of COIN theory and might prove useful. I hope some of this helps.

  10. #10
    Council Member SteveMetz's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2007
    Location
    Carlisle, PA
    Posts
    1,488

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Menning View Post
    Having taken two COIN electives at CGSC, I recommend reading several books. We always use Galula's Counterinsurgency Theory and Practice combined with O'Neill's Insurgency and Terrorism to understand COIN theory. For a detailed look at the application of COIN principles, I'd recommend Galula's Pacification in Algeria 1956-1958. By examining Galula's four prerequisites for insurgency and O'Neill's types of insurgency, a person can already start applying COIN theory to a specific situation. Ensuing discussion involving Galula's application of COIN principles can help facilitate discussions regarding the efficacy of theory and practice in any given AOR.

    As for the "gaming" element, I again return to how we do it during a short course at CGSC. Once you have the theory and principles down, encourage those involved to break down a given insurgency using the theory. One side can play the blue team and the other red, and introduce insurgent/counterinsurgent actions and how they affect the status of the fight.

    Galula's Theory and Practice is a quick, digestible read and a person can pick and choose what to read from O'Neill's work if brevity is important.
    One last thing, Trinquier's Modern Warfare is also a quick read that emphasizes the operational level of COIN theory and might prove useful. I hope some of this helps.
    I'm on a one man crusade to try and transcend the Cold War classics. It's would be like assigning books on American politics from the 1960s to a bunch of student who were going to go out and manage political campaigns.

  11. #11
    Council Member Cavguy's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2007
    Location
    Honolulu, Hawaii
    Posts
    1,127

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by SteveMetz View Post
    I'm on a one man crusade to try and transcend the Cold War classics. It's would be like assigning books on American politics from the 1960s to a bunch of student who were going to go out and manage political campaigns.
    Not necessairly disagreeing with you, but what short books matching the above themes (and simplicity) would you recommend instead?

    Galula and Trinquier are oft mentioned because they are short, practical, and still mostly relevant.

    I can think of a few insightful more recent articles, but no books with a digestable tactical/operational summary of approaching COIN.
    "A Sherman can give you a very nice... edge."- Oddball, Kelly's Heroes
    Who is Cavguy?

  12. #12
    Council Member
    Join Date
    Aug 2007
    Location
    Montreal
    Posts
    1,602

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Cavguy View Post
    I can think of a few insightful more recent articles, but no books with a digestable tactical/operational summary of approaching COIN.
    If so (and I suspect you're right), this may be the post profound, worrisome, and alarming statement I've seen posted on SWC. Sheesh.

    (And I agree with Steve that I find much that is dated or otherwise problematic in Galula and Trinquier.)

  13. #13
    Council Member Mark O'Neill's Avatar
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Canberra, Australia
    Posts
    307

    Default On the 'evil' of simplicity and other soapbox issues...

    Quote Originally Posted by Cavguy View Post
    Not necessairly disagreeing with you, but what short books matching the above themes (and simplicity) would you recommend instead?

    Galula and Trinquier are oft mentioned because they are short, practical, and still mostly relevant.

    I can think of a few insightful more recent articles, but no books with a digestable tactical/operational summary of approaching COIN.
    Niel,

    I am wondering why the need or fascination we all seem to have for 'short' and 'simplicity'. There is simply no correlation between the fact that these attributes make a text more digestable to 'average' folks and the utility, accuracy, validity and worth of the thoughts that the texts contain.

    Someone shared an excellent powerpoint presentation with me yesterday that contained a prescient quote from LTGEN (UK) Graeme Lamb whilst in Baghdad in the middle of last year:

    “The reality is that what we about here in Iraq is multidimensional, and it cannot be simplified if none of it fits easily into in nice neat terms. Any search for the neat and tidy allows those who don’t really understand it, even in the simplest terms, to get us into dangerous situations ”

    To my mind this precisely highlights the problem with 'short and simple'. These problems are anything but 'short and simple' and reductionism to make them such is a flawed idea. You end up with the perception of understanding, but actually have something quite different, which is dangerous. No one has ever promised that COIN is intellectually egalitarian. Nor that it can be 'dumbed down' to suit the Army training system's resolute belief that it could even train monkeys to write Shakespeare if only given enough typewriters and time...

    I share some of Steve's concerns with many of the so called 'cold war' texts, but not because of their age. After all, Callwell and Gwynne are far older, but still have considerable utility in aiding understanding in many areas.

    My concern, and with Galula in particular, is that simple advice is taken way out of the context it was derived and them slavishly applied at levels and in places where it clearly has little or no practical utility.

    Time and time again I have seen people take simple blandishments, derived from observations of a finite tactical level problem over one year in a specific AO (with unique culture, terrain, political history etc), and try and extrapolate meaning at the high operational and low strategic end of the present conflict spectrum. It is ludicrous and it simply does not work. Yes, Galula can offer some pointers to a company commander owning a piece of dirt at the tactical level. But I believe he has very little of practical use beyond motherhood statements after that.

    In order to address our current set of problems (particulalry within the ITO), I believe that is well past time for people to look beyond the deification of Saint Robert. It is time to seek wider readings from people who have actually engaged in dealing with issues akin to our current problem set. And this must mean at levels other than the tactical. As an example Robert Kromer is one who springs to mind off the top of my head. (NB, I am not sanctioning / endorsing everything that Kromer wrote, merely pointing out that he worked at a level of the Vietnam war more akin to where most of our current problems lie).

    The fact is that we can lose this war at the tactical, operational and strategic levels, but we can only 'win' it at the strategic (think back to the apocryphal story with the Vietnamese General cited by Summers). I do not have any sense that we are in danger of 'losing' the tactical fight anytime soon- particularly given the learning and improvement over the last three years. From what I have seen and learnt in theatre Galula's utility starts to wane considerably as we move up to where we must win - the high operational and strategic. Time then to start looking at other people, perhaps like Liddell-Hart and Beaufre as starters (and even Chainsaw Bob on how to get CMO happening at high levels..).

    Regarding contemporary writings, I tend to agree with the posts previously. I have not yet seen the new edited work by Daniel Marston and Carter Malkasian , I have one on order and have some hope that it might be step in the right direction. Steve Metz's SSI monograph last year also springs to mind- I thought it was a good contribution.

    I am increasingly thinking that many are sitting around waiting for someone else to 'do something'. I put myself somewhat in this category at the moment. The situation will only change when one of us finds the time (and courage perhaps) to go out there and try and write a book.

    In the mean time we can all continue to amuse ourselves with journal articles and anodyne powerpoint presentations at conferences replete with dubious analogies....

    regards,

    Mark
    Last edited by Mark O'Neill; 04-18-2008 at 08:14 AM. Reason: spelling

  14. #14
    Council Member Cavguy's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2007
    Location
    Honolulu, Hawaii
    Posts
    1,127

    Default Good post - but ...

    Quote Originally Posted by Mark O'Neill View Post
    I am wondering why the need or fascination we all seem to have for 'short' and 'simplicity'. There is simply no correlation between the fact that these attributes make a text more digestible to 'average' folks and the utility, accuracy, validity and worth of the thoughts that the texts contain.
    First, excellent and detailed post, I don't have a lot of time to respond right now. I don't disagree, I'd love everyone to read lots of detailed texts with complex background.

    Not everyone's a scholar or a reader.



    “The reality is that what we about here in Iraq is multidimensional, and it cannot be simplified if none of it fits easily into in nice neat terms. Any search for the neat and tidy allows those who don’t really understand it, even in the simplest terms, to get us into dangerous situations ”
    Completely agree - consider this I read last night from H.R. McMaster -

    Quote Originally Posted by McMaster
    Colonel McMaster sat in his makeshift office and said, “It is so damn complex. If you ever think you have the solution to this, you’re wrong, and you’re dangerous. You have to keep listening and thinking and being critical and self-critical. Remember General Nivelle, in the First World War, at Verdun? He said he had the solution, and then destroyed the French Army until it mutinied.”


    To my mind this precisely highlights the problem with 'short and simple'. These problems are anything but 'short and simple' and reductionism to make them such is a flawed idea. You end up with the perception of understanding, but actually have something quite different, which is dangerous.
    Yes, but .... is someone with a limited knowledge truly more dangerous than someone with a deep knowledge?

    I share some of Steve's concerns with many of the so called 'cold war' texts, but not because of their age. After all, Callwell and Gwynne are far older, but still have considerable utility in aiding understanding in many areas.
    Good point, we still read Saint Carl, Sun Tzu, Lawrence, etc. - they are all dated but have good points. I'm not saying either of the discussed works are to that level - but I pulled relevant and tactical points from them, and contextualized them within my experience.

    My concern, and with Galula in particular, is that simple advice is taken way out of the context it was derived and them slavishly applied at levels and in places where it clearly has little or no practical utility.
    This is really a risk with almost any "how to" work, and not an argument for not reading them.

    Time and time again I have seen people take simple blandishments, derived from observations of a finite tactical level problem over one year in a specific AO (with unique culture, terrain, political history etc), and try and extrapolate meaning at the high operational and low strategic end of the present conflict spectrum. It is ludicrous and it simply does not work. Yes, Galula can offer some pointers to a company commander owning a piece of dirt at the tactical level. But I believe he has very little of practical use beyond motherhood statements after that.
    Agreed. Going back to the OT - the poster was wanting to instruct COIN at the small unit level - not shape MNC-I policy.

    In order to address our current set of problems (particularly within the ITO), I believe that is well past time for people to look beyond the deification of Saint Robert. It is time to seek wider readings from people who have actually engaged in dealing with issues akin to our current problem set. And this must mean at levels other than the tactical. As an example Robert Kromer is one who springs to mind off the top of my head. (NB, I am not sanctioning / endorsing everything that Kromer wrote, merely pointing out that he worked at a level of the Vietnam war more akin to where most of our current problems lie).
    Same problems Steve noted with Kormer. Great stuff - but hardly current.

    Even FM 3-24 doesn't really address that. People like Galula and Trinquier because they do that - tell you "how to" at the tactical and even operational level, even if dated and written for a specific time and place. The wisdom to sort the wheat from chaff seems to be most of the complaint.

    Regarding contemporary writings, I tend to agree with the posts previously. I have not yet seen the new edited work by Daniel Marston and Carter Malkasian , I have one on order and have some hope that it might be step in the right direction. Steve Metz's SSI monograph last year also springs to mind- I thought it was a good contribution.
    No dig on Steve's Monograph, but these works aren't on the same plane. They are not not a manual on "how to" or principles for tactical execution of COIN in a modern environment based on learning or distillation of knowledge. Most officers and soldiers have neither the time nor inclination to read long and detailed works on a subject, and time is also a constraint for those in the deployment cycle. People want short because they can use short, and I think some knowledge applied imperfectly is better than detailed knowledge unapplied. I know it was for me as a commander.

    I would love it if everyone loved long books, deep thoughts, and analysis, and as professionals (esp officers) we should. But wishing won't make it so. I think being armed with a little knowledge is better than none - largely because it also works as a gateway to more learning.

    I never read Galula or Trinquier before my last deployment, but I have since (and wish I had before), and realized that I did most of what they advocated, adjusted for Iraq and where I was. The little I had read specifically on COIN before deploying the second time took me a long way when pared with my experience.

    I am increasingly thinking that many are sitting around waiting for someone else to 'do something'. I put myself somewhat in this category at the moment. The situation will only change when one of us finds the time (and courage perhaps) to go out there and try and write a book.
    Agreed, unfortunately these things tend to come out after the conflict. I don't think many academics could write the update to Galula or Trinquier - they don't have the tactical cred or experience. Galula and Trinquier had extensive tactical and operational execution experience in Vietnam and Algeria, which both increased the quality of their works and more importantly the credibility of them with the audience.

    So I agree we have to do it, but few of us currently have the time. (Rob Thornton seems to have lots of time to type - )

    In the mean time we can all continue to amuse ourselves with journal articles and anodyne powerpoint presentations at conferences replete with dubious analogies....
    I may resemble that remark. But .... those articles and powerpoints started me on a path to more complexity - Kilcullen's 28 Articles was extremely important when it came out to me - framed much of what I had learned, and gave me some new things to think about that sparked further research and reading.
    Last edited by Cavguy; 04-18-2008 at 11:55 AM.
    "A Sherman can give you a very nice... edge."- Oddball, Kelly's Heroes
    Who is Cavguy?

  15. #15
    Council Member Mark O'Neill's Avatar
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Canberra, Australia
    Posts
    307

    Default Errata

    Guys, re: my typing dyslexia in the previous post, please read '"Kormer" for "Kromer"

    Mark

  16. #16
    Council Member
    Join Date
    Oct 2005
    Posts
    3,169

    Default Fair request

    can teach TTP's (VCP, counter IED, etc.), but HQ's personnel above the company don't really do TTP's except as personal protective measures while traveling about. We can also train COC battle drills, but using MERC Chat to pass word of a TIC or downed aircraft isn't COIN either. We need to do these types of events, but what I am aiming at for this project is education rather than training.
    Heck it is Friday morning, so I'll kick the hornets nest once again. I can't speak for the person who made the request, but it seems he/she is getting at that gray area between education and training. Sort of like how do you implement strategy at the tactical level. Education being stragetic and training being tactical. The staff is in the middle, they have to know how to fuse both. Our operational level doctrine is outstanding for conventional warfighting, but one could make an argument that our staffs are not ideally task organized or trained to command and control COIN. We're great at responding to a troops in contact, medevac, pushing supplies out, etc., but I think we still fall short in the area of translating COIN strategic ideas into operational level plans that effect tactical operations.

    The simple fix, but big Army will do Cheetah flips is to put Special Forces in charge, with big Army in support. SF can form an irregular or unconventional Joint/Interagency/Combined Task Force, and provide operational guidance to the supporting units. This will allow big Army to focus primarily on conventional warfighting skills, but still make significant contributions to the COIN fight without changing their staff structure significantly.

    We can also train COC battle drills, but using MERC Chat to pass word of a TIC or downed aircraft isn't COIN either.
    This statement is key and he is correct. These drills are common to all operations and must be trained, but what about COIN? May I propose SF?

  17. #17
    Council Member Randy Brown's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2008
    Location
    Iowa
    Posts
    53

    Default What Joe Wants to Read

    Earlier comments about "education is strategic, training is tactical" are on point, but only, if you'll forgive me, to a point. We've got Strategic SSGs and LTs out there, fighting the COIN fight.

    I'm wondering if there's some sweet spot, somewhere in the middle, between education/training and strategic/tactical.

    As a lessons-learned guy, I'm continually asked by our deploying soldiers about where to find TTPs, SOPs, etc. That's training stuff--I get that. At the same time, however, there's a real hunger for educational stuff that's a little meatier, without being too hard to digest. These soldiers want to know how to think, not what to think--but they also don't want to get a PhD in the process.

    As an example of the type of thing they want, a few deploying/deployed Embedded Training Team (ETT) members have pointed out Lester Grau's "Bear Went Over the Mountain" and "The Other Side of the Mountain." These are collections of case studies of Soviet and Mujahideen tactics. Soldiers seem to like the multiple-vignette, easy-to-pick-up-and-put-down format. (One even called them "good latrine books"--apparently the true test of whether something is digestible.) They want to know whether there's similar, more contemporary material, applicable to OIF and/or OEF.

    Earlier comments in this thread regarding learning-through-gaming make me wonder whether there's any existing or potential collection of vignettes, aimed at the COIN practioner level. I'm even reminded of the "Choose Your Own Adventure" books popular in the 1980s, or the "Encyclopedia Brown" (no relation) mysteries of a generation earlier. These were children's books, yes--but they forced a different kinds of interactions with the materials. Anyone seen anything like this in a COIN context?
    L2I is "Lessons-Learned Integration."
    -- A lesson is knowledge gained through experience.
    -- A lesson is not "learned" until it results in organizational or behavioral change.
    -- A lesson-learned is not "integrated" until shared successfully with others.

  18. #18
    Council Member Mark O'Neill's Avatar
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Canberra, Australia
    Posts
    307

    Red face errata regarding the errata...

    Quote Originally Posted by Mark O'Neill View Post
    Guys, re: my typing dyslexia in the previous post, please read '"Kormer" for "Kromer"

    Mark
    OK, I give up, one of those days I guess.. lets try 'Komer'....

  19. #19
    Council Member Ken White's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2007
    Location
    Florida
    Posts
    8,060

    Default I've been pondering this for a couple of hours

    and that's usually dangerous...

    Quote Originally Posted by Bill Moore View Post
    Heck it is Friday morning, so I'll kick the hornets nest once again. I can't speak for the person who made the request, but it seems he/she is getting at that gray area between education and training. Sort of like how do you implement strategy at the tactical level. Education being stragetic and training being tactical. The staff is in the middle, they have to know how to fuse both. Our operational level doctrine is outstanding for conventional warfighting, but one could make an argument that our staffs are not ideally task organized or trained to command and control COIN. We're great at responding to a troops in contact, medevac, pushing supplies out, etc., but I think we still fall short in the area of translating COIN strategic ideas into operational level plans that effect tactical operations.
    Is that not a function of the facts that COIN IS the Operational level when and where implemented and, far more importantly and less arguably -- the fact that we doctrinally, educationally and training wise virtually ignored COIN and ID for almost 30 years?

    Did not that neglect extend at least in part to SF who looked at, er, uh, other missions, while admittedly keeping a finger or two in the COIN / ID water?

    The simple fix, but big Army will do Cheetah flips is to put Special Forces in charge, with big Army in support. SF can form an irregular or unconventional Joint/Interagency/Combined Task Force, and provide operational guidance to the supporting units. This will allow big Army to focus primarily on conventional warfighting skills, but still make significant contributions to the COIN fight without changing their staff structure significantly.
    Aside from the rather enjoyable contemplation of seeing portly Generals doing cheetah flips, I may see some practical problems.

    Philosophy impeded practice. I've been retired retired for 13 years; a lot can change. However, from 1960 until 1995, there was a constant tension within SF and at the Center between proponents of emphasis on DA vs. UW vs. ID. My belief is that SOCOM has exacerbated those tensions. If that is true, then it is a potentially disruptive effect your recommendation confronts.

    Size. Not everyone is equipped to be SF, only so many will have the requisite psychological profile and be able to adapt to alien cultures and languages. As currently constituted, SF could capably deal with the SEA missions as they are structured and with Afghanistan -- that is true as is OR using your approach. I submit SF isn't large enough to do those and add Iraq, or, really, to do Iraq on it's own. Obviously that's tour length and a few other things dependent but on balance, I don't think there's enough SF to do what you suggest in the current circumstances.

    Increasing the size. You could do that. Having been there a long time ago in a galaxy far away when that happened, I wouldn't recommend it. Not at all...

    Focus. One of the strengths of SF is the regional or area focus and specialization. More than one anecdote would seem to indicate that SF elements operating in an unfamiliar environment are just as prone to errors as are conventional units. If regional orientation is a strength, that further limits the ability to provide an adequate sized force for the C2 effort required.

    C2 capability. SF is unique and has great capabilities in its designed area of expertise but the nuts and bolts of war at the operational level -- which I very strongly contend is precisely what COIN is in the country involved -- on stuff like "...responding to a troops in contact, medevac, pushing supplies out, etc." they'd be a bit out of their element and thus, the big army force they were trying to provide elegant and informed C2 for would, by default own the tempo.

    At the risk of drawing ire and fire from you, UBoat, ODB and others, I have to point out that a conventional Infantry Battalion can be trained to do much -- not all -- of what SF can and would do in a COIN fight. Conversely, I do not believe SF can expand without significant loss of quality to do what a slew of those Infantry Battalions can do. I'd also ask while this grand COIN fight is going on, who would be working the missions that SF has that those Infantry Battalions cannot or should not be trained to do...

    All that said, there's a valid case for integration of SF Officers and NCOs on the staffs of COIN or ID involved units -- and vice versa...

  20. #20
    Council Member Randy Brown's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2008
    Location
    Iowa
    Posts
    53

    Default Getting the Drift ... Again

    After writing/thinking out loud in my last post in this conversation, I began to remember a short text from my Officer's Basic Course. It took me a couple of hours, but I finally came up with the example of E.D. Swinton's The Defence of Duffer's Drift. Seven tactical scenarios with lessons delivered in the form of seven dreams by "LT Backsight Forethought," written after Swinton served in the Second Boer War (1899-1902).

    Here it is on the Internet:
    http://regimentalrogue.tripod.com/du...fers_Drift.htm

    Has anyone seen anything like this--short on words, big on concepts, and that encourages readers to engage the material in an atypical manner--applied to the COIN context?
    L2I is "Lessons-Learned Integration."
    -- A lesson is knowledge gained through experience.
    -- A lesson is not "learned" until it results in organizational or behavioral change.
    -- A lesson-learned is not "integrated" until shared successfully with others.

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •