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    Default COIN v. Conventional Capability Debate

    NPR has an interesting story about the debate between preparing the Army to fight counterinsurgency versus convention war. Many SWJ contributors were interviewed for the story. Here's the link: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...oryId=90200038

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    Council Member William F. Owen's Avatar
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    I think my incoherent ramblings on this matter are well known, but I'm happy to stick in flag in the sand, for us all to wrestle over.

    1. The idea of COIN versus Conventional is not helpful. It's a false dichotomy. There are not many types of conflict. There are two basic different types of opponents. Neither is new, and both are well understood.

    2. To be a proper army, you have to have to ability to defeat both Insurgents and Combined Arms Formations, in any terrain and amongst a population. That gives you the capability to do all else. Being good at one should enhance the other. Good is good.

    3. Just because it has caused problems in the past, does not mean it should not be addressed, and solved in pretty short order. - because it has been clearly demonstrated to be me, that the men and intellects capable of doing it, are present on this board.
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    - If we can double the ratio of kills per contact, we will soon put an end to the shooting in Malaya.
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    Council Member Ken White's Avatar
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    Default Well said, Wilf

    We are having an internal food fight about whether to buy bananas and strawberries or cinnamon buns or danish, not whether or what to eat for an early morning snack. You can cover that up by discussing nutrition but the reality is what the particular appetite craves.

    As Gian himself says, war is war...
    Last edited by Ken White; 05-06-2008 at 03:43 PM.

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    Council Member wm's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by William F. Owen View Post
    To be a proper army, you have to have to ability to defeat both Insurgents and Combined Arms Formations, in any terrain and amongst a population[Emphasis added by WM]. That gives you the capability to do all else. Being good at one should enhance the other. Good is good.
    Last time I looked at planning and executing this kind of stuff from a High or Mid intensity perspective, a significant part of any operational planning included civilian population control. Admittedly that planning primarily focussed on displaced persons/refugees, but it nonetheless had strong protection and law enforcement (AKA anti-looting) aspects applied to the non-combatants who might happen to be "inconvenienced" by one's planned mil ops. While that planning was set against a backdrop of Western Europe, is it really that much different from what we are trying to accomplishment in the current operating environments? I, for one, do not think so.
    Vir prudens non contra ventum mingit
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    Council Member MattC86's Avatar
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    To what extent, if any, are people making distinctions between two pairs of issues:

    (1) COIN as urban-warfare/kinetic ops rather than peacekeeping and policing

    (2) Ability of soldiers and Marines, given proper training, to conduct both missions vs. service doctrine, procurement, training, etc., becoming focused on COIN to the detriment of potential developing situations

    That is, for #1, I would certainly agree that troops are more than capable of conducting the kinetic side of COIN ops or engaging in high-intensity maneuver warfare, but you guys wouldn't agree that we've seen some issues in Iraq and Afghanistan with units having serious adjustments from kinetic combat ops to more policing-based stability ops?

    Additionally, the example of the IDF and Lebanon in 2006 is a bit of a frightening precedent.

    As for #2; the personnel themselves will be able to conduct themselves in either environment, but is there not a danger of gearing the Army's "tail" systems too exclusively for COIN?

    And yes, I certainly see the irony in suggesting that after years of ignoring the problem we may now be too exclusively prepared for COIN. . .

    Regards,

    Matt
    "Give a good leader very little and he will succeed. Give a mediocrity a great deal and he will fail." - General George C. Marshall

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    Quote Originally Posted by MattC86 View Post
    To what extent, if any, are people making distinctions between two pairs of issues:

    (1) COIN as urban-warfare/kinetic ops rather than peacekeeping and policing

    (2) Ability of soldiers and Marines, given proper training, to conduct both missions vs. service doctrine, procurement, training, etc., becoming focused on COIN to the detriment of potential developing situations

    That is, for #1, I would certainly agree that troops are more than capable of conducting the kinetic side of COIN ops or engaging in high-intensity maneuver warfare, but you guys wouldn't agree that we've seen some issues in Iraq and Afghanistan with units having serious adjustments from kinetic combat ops to more policing-based stability ops?

    Additionally, the example of the IDF and Lebanon in 2006 is a bit of a frightening precedent.

    As for #2; the personnel themselves will be able to conduct themselves in either environment, but is there not a danger of gearing the Army's "tail" systems too exclusively for COIN?

    And yes, I certainly see the irony in suggesting that after years of ignoring the problem we may now be too exclusively prepared for COIN. . .

    Regards,

    Matt
    Good post. Although from the little I've read on Lebanon in 2006, it looks like the Israelis had a host of leadership and organizational problems that can't simply be explained away as the result of decades of West Bank and Gaza service.

    Seems to me that procurement is the big elephant in the room. I saw General Sir Rupert Smith speak last year, and while it was a good talk, he repeatedly said "I'm not here to talk about equipment, it is how that equipment is used that has changed", which struck me as evasive. Ultimately, with a finite amount of money to spend (and maybe less and less, the financial shape we're in) choices need to be made. Not to turn this into another F-22 thread, but we can't invest in more light infantry, and spend a lot more on recruiting, retention, professional military education, etc., if we're buying tons of new fighter planes and destroyers at hundreds of millions of dollars a pop.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Granite_State View Post
    Seems to me that procurement is the big elephant in the room. I saw General Sir Rupert Smith speak last year, and while it was a good talk, he repeatedly said "I'm not here to talk about equipment, it is how that equipment is used that has changed", which struck me as evasive. Ultimately, with a finite amount of money to spend (and maybe less and less, the financial shape we're in) choices need to be made. Not to turn this into another F-22 thread, but we can't invest in more light infantry, and spend a lot more on recruiting, retention, professional military education, etc., if we're buying tons of new fighter planes and destroyers at hundreds of millions of dollars a pop.
    Procurement, especially WRT the long lead and development timelines for new equipment, is certainly an issue. But so is the AVF. Even if most procurement money was diverted into manpower, recruiting, etc., how much more manpower could be raised? So far it looks like the Army will have trouble meeting the modest end strength increases it's received. Is it even possible to recruit the manpower we'd like to have for Iraq and Afghanistan - perhaps double the force we have now?

    Furthermore, we must consider the scale of conflict. We need a COIN capability obviously, but how much do we need? Enough for another large Iraq-style operation or something smaller? Those kind of questions are what underpin the capability requirements in QDR's which determines where the money goes, etc. Personally, I see "small wars" being more the norm in the future, but I think it will be a generation or more before we do something like Iraq again which is a "small war" in name only.

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    Council Member William F. Owen's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Granite_State View Post

    @ Although from the little I've read on Lebanon in 2006, it looks like the Israelis had a host of leadership and organizational problems that can't simply be explained away as the result of decades of West Bank and Gaza service.

    @ Seems to me that procurement is the big elephant in the room. I saw General Sir Rupert Smith speak last year, and while it was a good talk, he repeatedly said "I'm not here to talk about equipment, it is how that equipment is used that has changed", which struck me as evasive.
    The more I study the operation in the Second Lebanon War, the more I become convinced that,

    a.) a lack of funding was the critical problem. The cheap options on training, deployments and equipment, all had disastrous effects. The same lack of funding stuffed the British Army in 1940.

    b.) there was a leadership failure, at the highest levels, to understand what would have been useful and how it should have been gained.

    I don't like Rupert Smiths book, because it is short on solutions and advice, but he makes some good points. He and I had a fairly sharp exchange of views when he spoke at the House of Commons, two years ago, as to where the blame for the current situation lies. However, he is right about equipment. Fighting insurgents does not generally require specialised equipment, that does not have some application fighting other threats. MRAPS could be worth their weight in gold, as concerns some of what they bring to the party.
    Last edited by William F. Owen; 05-07-2008 at 06:19 AM. Reason: can't spell Rupert
    Infinity Journal "I don't care if this works in practice. I want to see it work in theory!"

    - The job of the British Army out here is to kill or capture Communist Terrorists in Malaya.
    - If we can double the ratio of kills per contact, we will soon put an end to the shooting in Malaya.
    Sir Gerald Templer, foreword to the "Conduct of Anti-Terrorist Operations in Malaya," 1958 Edition

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    Council Member Hacksaw's Avatar
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    Default If only it was all that simple...

    All,

    I think we have all covered the philosophical aspects of this discussion in the past.

    As a tip of the hat to WILF… There are obviously commonalities between COIN/LIC and Conventional/HIC. No debate there, and given the time and resources to train… I am sure that today’s crop of Soldiers and leaders could maintain competency in those aspects that are common and train to those tactics that differ… but make no mistake TTPs do differ based on the conditions/context.

    Ken and wm … While the linked article highlights the larger philosophical debate regarding the Army's appropriate aim point on the spectrum of conflict. The impetus for the article was a white paper authored by three former BCT commanders that laments/warns of the crisis in the FA Branch in particular and several others in general. The gist of the white paper (sent to CSA, VCSA, and HQDA G3) was that the FA branch is broke from the perspective fire support competency. Also important to note that this was not a stone throwing event, rather that the cause of the problem is that FA units have spent so much time providing invaluable contributions to the current fight in anything but an FA role. War is NOT war in the sense that there is a very real difference in how you organize, train, and equip a force. As current events support, a good force balance for COIN does not equal a good force balance for HIC. A blinding flash of the obvious I know. I also acknowledge that the intensity of conflict at the individual/tactical level is directly proportional to your proximity to the fire fight. In that sense, war is war…. However, with respect to Title X type responsibilities – war is anything but war, and that is the level at which Gian has been beating his drum.

    My lament regarding Gian is that he gets so much attention as the wild-eyed prophet screaming in the desert about a COIN-centric force, rather than his more important message… OK in some sense – certainly as it pertains to FA, the focus on COIN-specific training is very detrimental. Not so much that they are training in a COIN contect, but that they are training no traditional skills as opposed to the core competency as field artillerymen. However, the larger point that Gian raises routinely, but that I have seen no senior leader echo is that we, as a Nation, have lost complete balance between strategic objectives and resources. This is where we have become most discombobulated.

    So that leaves us with three different options…

    1. Curb strategic objectives (regarding democracy in ME… etc) pull back deployed forces and retool, refit, and reset conventional forces within current resources to deal with most dangerous contingencies. This has obvious implications regarding diplomatic power, encouraging extremists blah blah blah

    2. Acknowledge strategic risk, remain engaged in ME and fight the war we have, and hope we’ll have the time and resources to retool, refit, and reset conventional forces before they are needed.

    3. Match resources to current strategic objectives. Problem is $$$. Just not sure there is the $$$ or people available to support current strategic objectives unless we mobilize the Nation. That seems unlikely in current paradigm

    No easy solutions
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    Council Member wm's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Hacksaw View Post
    Ken and wm … While the linked article highlights the larger philosophical debate regarding the Army's appropriate aim point on the spectrum of conflict. The impetus for the article was a white paper authored by three former BCT commanders that laments/warns of the crisis in the FA Branch in particular and several others in general. The gist of the white paper (sent to CSA, VCSA, and HQDA G3) was that the FA branch is broke from the perspective fire support competency. Also important to note that this was not a stone throwing event, rather that the cause of the problem is that FA units have spent so much time providing invaluable contributions to the current fight in anything but an FA role. War is NOT war in the sense that there is a very real difference in how you organize, train, and equip a force. As current events support, a good force balance for COIN does not equal a good force balance for HIC. A blinding flash of the obvious I know. I also acknowledge that the intensity of conflict at the individual/tactical level is directly proportional to your proximity to the fire fight. In that sense, war is war…. However, with respect to Title X type responsibilities – war is anything but war, and that is the level at which Gian has been beating his drum.

    My lament regarding Gian is that he gets so much attention as the wild-eyed prophet screaming in the desert about a COIN-centric force, rather than his more important message… OK in some sense – certainly as it pertains to FA, the focus on COIN-specific training is very detrimental. Not so much that they are training in a COIN contect, but that they are training no traditional skills as opposed to the core competency as field artillerymen. However, the larger point that Gian raises routinely, but that I have seen no senior leader echo is that we, as a Nation, have lost complete balance between strategic objectives and resources. This is where we have become most discombobulated.
    Hacksaw,
    I suspect we were actually trying to make the same point. I only let one shoe drop in my post, expecting that folks would understand that we have training failures/shortfalls that need to be remedied. (I really hate teaching folks to suck eggs.) FA operations is not the only place where that happens to be the case; I believe that non-combatant control, among others (like air defense ops and probably combat engineering), is another sucking training chest wound.

    You are correct about the inbalance between objectives and resources. The other drum. one that Ken beats routinely, that is being ignored is the need to resource training accounts (and that includes the personnel in training account) to reflect what really needs to happen to have a force trained and ready for the spectrum of missions it may be called upon to execute in at least the next 20-40 years. I use that time frame as one that covers a career and provides an overlap for the next two "generations" of military career holders.
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    Council Member ipopescu's Avatar
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    Default Budgetary aspect

    Quote Originally Posted by Hacksaw View Post
    3. Match resources to current strategic objectives. Problem is $$$. Just not sure there is the $$$ or people available to support current strategic objectives unless we mobilize the Nation. That seems unlikely in current paradigm

    No easy solutions
    I wrote about this on a previous thread, so sorry for repeating myself a bit, but one aspect that I think does not receive sufficient attention in general in this debate is the financial trade-off that absent some major unforeseen event will need to be made by the future administration.

    I agree with Wilf that it is largely a false dichotomy, but I suspect that the reason some people on the inside are seeing it as either/or is that, when it comes to resources, the budgetary requirements can be fairly divergent IMO - I would greatly welcome a good counter-arguments to this.

    But I am thinking that, while being proficient at one could help with fighting the other (the war is war argument) if we think in terms training or doctrine, when it comes to resources it's rather different. If we spend $200 bil on FCS, a program clearly designed for force-on-force combat, we would have a very different army 10 years from now than if we would spend the same amount of money on COIN oriented capabilities, which could simply mean more soldiers to make longer-term campaigns more sustainable.
    Ionut C. Popescu
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    Macgregor says. "if there is no legitimate government to begin with, your intervention is doomed to inevitable failure."

    To me this is the key point. We're using tactics designed for use against a single anti government insurgency, but we're fighting multiple factions, many of whom are part of the government.
    Quote Originally Posted by SteveMetz View Post
    Sometimes it takes someone without deep experience to think creatively.

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    Council Member Ken White's Avatar
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    Default There are rarely easy solutions to any problem.

    Which may be why they are called problems.

    Hacksaw, not to be simplistic or to ignore the many various complexities of this particular conundrum but many are of our own making and I believe it is important to acknowledge that before embarking on courses that create more problems -- a tendency at which the US Government excels...

    With respect to the White Paper, I believe most of us are aware of that and that most agree with the definition of the problem to a greater or lesser extent -- I don't think anyone with any sense is in denial about the problem; the discussion is on the degree of trauma it could invoke. While it is true that FA and Armor have been used (wrongly in my view) as everything from MPs to Infantry to god knows what, most have also been doing their nominal mission. The counterpoint to FA not getting to train to their primary mission is that those that do get to fire are shooting at good targets under combat conditions and that they are shooting Excaliburs and GMLRS which few would get to do in CONUS; the Armor counterpoint is that a whole lot of Tankers haver gained a far better appreciation for what the Infantry contends with than they would have normally had -- that can only enhance combined arms efforts in the near future. there are pluses and minuses to everything and every action has a cost.

    You say:
    ...However, with respect to Title X type responsibilities – war is anything but war, and that is the level at which Gian has been beating his drum.
    Arguable at best. My sensing is that the Army has the Title X responsibility to be the nations repository of land war fighting expertise and capability -- to my knowledge, there are no stipulations or caveats on to what sphere of land warfare that capability should be directed; it seems to me that full spectrum is implicit. Whose fault is it that the Army was not and is not prepared to do that within resource constraints -- which do not generally affect doctrine or training methodology?

    That has been the case for my lifetime and the Army has varied over those many years in its ability to meet the requirement. Some of those variance have been due to the exigencies of the time, as now. Most, though, have been due to the Army unilaterally deciding to restrict or change its focus. I submit that since at least the early 80s, many of us -- and many in high places -- warned the nation and / or the Army of what was coming and that the senior leadership of the Army diligently ignored those warnings. During the 80s, their desire to focus on major war in Europe was understandable (if short sighted...); post 1989, their continuing, mostly, to do so was borderline criminal IMO. We are where we are with respect to force structure and state of training because they resisted change -- and IMO a lot of that was influenced by (not due to) branch parochialism.

    You also say:
    "...However, the larger point that Gian raises routinely, but that I have seen no senior leader echo is that we, as a Nation, have lost complete balance between strategic objectives and resources. This is where we have become most discombobulated."
    True. We have, as Americans, many advantages and an almost too pleasant life style for most people. We have never really balanced those two things well unless it was in every sense of the word, vital. That discombobulation is the price those who serve pay for the reasonably pleasant life led most of time. I have often railed about it but on balance after many years, came to accept it as that price -- and I think it's worth it (and did think that long before I hung up my war suit). YMMV.

    On your three options, I think 1. would be a bad mistake for which we would pay later -- folks in the ME read such actions far differently than do we westerners. I also believe 3, as you seem to think, is not going to happen.

    That leaves number 2. I'm quite comfortable with that. I think I have more confidence in the people in the Army and Marines (as opposed to the senior leadership thereof) than some who post here seem to, possibly as a result of having seen the services bounce back from circumstances worse than we see today on several occasions. I'm firmly convinced that both the Army and Marines are capable of doing far more than many seem to credit them with, that the shift and refocus ability is phenomenal and little understood or appreciated and that the biggest problem in the way of that is a lack of confidence, to include self confidence, on the part of some senior people -- and I think a large part of that is engendered by the lack of trust in subordinates that our flawed training regimen provides.

    If commanders are not confident that subordinates can do the job, they will micromanage -- and fear failure. Today's commanders are products of a flawed system that has not trained the basics well to newly entering officers or EM so they expect poor performance. What kind of sense does that make?

    General Bruce Clarke's "An organization does well only those things the boss checks" became Army watchwords in the 60s. Very bad mentality, that. Those words and that philosophy totally screwed up command relationships and duties.

    You said, early in your comment:
    "I am sure that today’s crop of Soldiers and leaders could maintain competency in those aspects that are common and train to those tactics that differ… but make no mistake TTPs do differ based on the conditions/context."
    True but that emphasizes my point on training -- conditions do vary; they always will. The task may or may not be the same but if it is, the conditions can shotgun all over the place. Our adoption of task, condition and standards training from civilian industry in the 70s was a terribly bad idea as was the ARTEP. Yet if one were to train to achieve a desired outcome under varying conditions...

    Fort Jackson is doing some good things with CATC and outcome based training, hopefully it'll catch hold...

    Off topic, that; back to the point. No question that major combat is our imperative and COIN is a desirable ability. Unfortunately, the focus now, rightly or wrongly, is COIN. The Army has no choice but to emphasize that. A lot of senior people are correctly pointing out we're losing the imperative conventional capability, just as they did -- and we did -- during Viet Nam. My belief is that we'll have adequate warning and prep time to adjust training and focus. As for equipment, no US Army has ever gone to any war with all the right stuff in place at the onset; that, regrettably, is unlikely to change (See Congress, U.S.).

    In summary, I agree that a deterioration of mission capability on the part of some branches is a problem; that it needs to be addressed and that we are not doing that well. I also believe that much of the problem stems from flawed planning in the past and today in high places and that the extant problem is no where near crisis level at this time. I further think that much of the current discussion is at least partly engendered by branch parochialism -- and that is NOT to say anyone is dealing in bad faith, I simply mean we are all products of our experience and that branch loyalty within the Army is not unknown thus those two factors combine to give one a branch centric view of any problem. To me, that is perfectly understandable, natural and not wrong in any sense -- though I'd submit that it should be recognized as a factor.

    We can do better.

    Very long way of of acknowledging I hear what you're saying but disagree pretty strongly on the potential 'danger' at this time.
    Last edited by Ken White; 05-06-2008 at 07:41 PM. Reason: Typo

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