Sassaman Interview

[datroy]

Sorry for the late reply - work and power outages prevented me from answering sooner.

RTK - I defer to you on Sassaman's character. As I mentioned, I have no basis for assessment. However, you said:

Sassaman's character, displayed during a time of duress, allows me to discredit or take with skepticism anything he says. Perhaps your moral compass allows you differently, but when someone proves to me they are ethically bankrupt, it tends to contaminate all future interactions.

Despite your continued questioning of my moral compass (and though I appreciate your concern, you don't need to worry about my sense of morality - I'll take care of that on my own), history (including American history) is full of unsavory characters who have nevertheless contributed tremendously to our understanding of certain issues. You may argue that Sassaman is saying nothing new, which is fine, but what he writes about here is not discredited b/c of any character issues he might have - at least not in my book.

But as for your argument that it's nothing new, maybe not - yet we continue to waste our time and resources playing around with terminology thinking that it's all of a sudden going to matter in winning over non-extremist Muslims to our side compared to our efforts on the ground. And Ken White - regarding your questions on the use of indigenous forces (I hope a long post doesn't get me in trouble again):

Does this mean that you believe indigenous forces are not necessary?

Not at all - there is no doubt that using indigenous forces can be hugely advantageous in counterinsurgency. In our successful counterinsurgencies, for example Philippines, we used local forces to our benefit. The key difference, however, was that we didn’t dedicate huge amounts of resources to organize and train the force we wanted in the long term in order to handle the short-term fight. Instead, we used the indigenous forces that were available to use, such as the Macabebe and Ilocano scouts, and we built up sophisticated intelligence networks using money and other incentives based on the thinking (correctly, I believe) that the local populations would prefer security and essential services more than a warm, fuzzy feeling from having their own forces fighting (even if they were unable to provide that security). The value of efficacy really should not be underestimated. Our previous counterinsurgency strategy focused heavily on training LSF to fight the insurgents ("as the Iraqis stand up, we'll stand down"), and for all the good of the new doctrine, I would argue that it continues to place too much emphasis on fighting the insurgency through LSF.

In FM 3-24, there is an entire chapter dedicated to organizing and training LSF. Section 6-1 argues, “Success in counterinsurgency operations requires establishing a legitimate government supported by the people and able to address the fundamental causes that insurgents use to gain support. Achieving these goals requires the host nation to defeat insurgents or render them irrelevant, uphold the rule of law and provide a basic level of essential services and security for the populace. Key to all these tasks is developing an effective host-nation security force.”

Later, it goes on to say: “U.S. combat operations are secondary to enabling the host nation’s ability to provide for its own security.” Nowhere in the chapter on training host nation forces does it explain the rationale behind these statements. Of course, this is doctrine, so it's about action, not theoretical navel-gazing, but before we dedicate a large number of the best and brightest of our counterinsurgents (“Commanders must assign the best qualified Soldiers and Marines to training and advisory missions.”) to training LSF and take their focus, even if just partially, off of defeating or rendering insurgents irrelevant, more focus paid to the "why" wouldn’t hurt.

The field manual argues that three things have to be done to achieve success at counterinsurgency: defeat insurgents or render them irrelevant, uphold the rule of law, and provide a basic level of essential services and security for the populace. No explanation is given, however, as to how a recently trained force is supposed to take on more and more of these responsibilities over time….and succeed. In the meantime, the US is devoting such a large number of valuable resources to create these forces out of nothing because it supposedly brings “legitimacy.” As the American military has proven in the past, providing the people with security, services and a fair legal system – and taking carefully thought out actions to show that we had no imperial designs on their land - brings a great deal of its own legitimacy. Meanwhile, an indigenous government – even one democratically elected – that is, at least in part, corrupt, ineffective and made up of groups trying to kill each other, will likely squander any legitimacy it might have received simply from being indigenous. (This reminds me of the assumption made during the post WWI and post World War II decolonization eras that indigenous rule automatically meant democratic or legitimate rule.)

I also think when you dedicate the resources (both in quality and quantity) that are devoted to training LSF, you leave these forces somewhat more open to attack by the insurgency than if they had been out in constant patrols, living in the towns they were protecting, gaining intelligence, gauging insurgent activity and readying themselves for fighting. (Assigning them to train and advise missions, additionally, takes away from the number of troops actively focused exclusively on the insurgency). As a result, it is at least somewhat easier for insurgents to carry out the attacks that are so spectacular, that in the era of 24-hour news, a low casualty rate, in the end, is irrelevant. Regardless of what the reality is, these attacks give the impression that the US is losing. This makes the American public all the more opposed to our continued presence, and the issue gets thrown into the political arena. Even the politicians that had previously supported the war begin to turn, be it out of principle or political expediency. The historical record suggests that withdrawal of forces will soon follow. The result, historically, has been to declare the LSF adequately trained, and turn over control of the counterinsurgency, no matter what the reality may be. This course of events has always ended poorly – both for the host nation and for the US, which more often than not would, before long, find itself back in the country. Section 6-59 of FM 3-24 states that the US should train to standards, not to time. Unfortunately, given the political reality that usually arises at home, the historical record suggests that this might be easier said than done.

[datroy]

At the risk of getting into trouble for posting too much again, for anyone interested, below is just an example I wrote elsewhere of my argument of how training LSF has usually played out for the US. (I should add, my argument does not apply to cases where we are simply advising a legitimate government and its military - ie, Colombia, present-day Philippines, El Salvador, etc - but cases where there is no government or government security force, either because we overthrew the regime, or because it collapsed. In other words, different types of COIN warrant very different responses)

But take the example of the Dominican Republic 1916-1924. The initial strategy of the marines was insurgent-focused rather than population focused, and as such, by 1921, the marines had hit an impasse and become demoralized. They would raid the houses of suspected insurgents, only to find the insurgents never existed. They had little presence among the population, giving the insurgents control of the countryside, villages and towns, and, by extension, control of much of the trade and treasuries within those towns. The marines also patrolled only during the day, giving the insurgents free reign over the terrain at night. In other words, the marines were losing.

Only in late 1921 did the marines change tactics. They created roving and fixed-site patrols, and began operating at night in as many villages as possible. They included a Spanish-speaking marine in each patrol. They also instituted a cordoning approach, whereby large areas were closed off to prevent insurgents from slipping back into the crowd following an attack. Then, in 1922 they began building intelligence networks within each of the towns so they could get inside knowledge of their respective AORs. (Additionally, the military offered a general amnesty which would probably be politically impossible today - perhaps a unintended byproduct of 24/7 news coverage.)

Meanwhile, very little the US did on the political/government side - or in training LSF - seemed to help. If anything, it made things worse. The US had been desperate to find a local politician that it could install as President to avoid having to govern the country itself. When it couldn't find anyone, it very reluctantly established a military government. The Dominican people, including the insurgents, therefore understood that the United States had no interest in governing the country, and was looking to turn control over to an elected Dominican government as quickly as possible. The record of the military government supported the “deep reluctance” with which the United States implemented a military government. It had very few clearly stated goals for the country and little in the way of thought-out policies or programs. Any services provided to the people came from those marines protecting their towns. The State Department, which interestingly enough had de facto control over the military government, told the government not “to effect any alterations of the law of the Dominican Republic other than are immediately necessary for the best interests of that country.” None of the Americans ever even received any king of guidance on what the government was trying to accomplish. While I suppose this was better than having a corrupt and ineffective indigenous government, this situation did nothing to help the American mission. If anything this reluctance, along with the declining political will to stay in the country following continued attacks on the marines that came from not paying more attention to training LSF rather than the insurgency prior to 1921, gave the insurgents further motivation to attack in the hopes of driving out the Americans.

Nor did training LSF do much to help - and it actually wound up hurting the US in the long term. Although an early goal of the military government had been to organize and train the Guardia, and although it had assigned the best in its ranks to train these forces, the value of the Guardia “as a military force was nil,” and it “played a marginal role in the occupation, supplementing marine efforts in what officials believed were the least critical tasks.” This was not because the marines or the Guardia forces were incompetent, but because it was simply too much to expect the Guardia forces to be organized, trained, and successfully defeat the insurgents in such a short period of time. Think of the difficulty the marines - steeped in counterinsurgency experience at the time - had themselves in fighting successive counterinsurgency campaigns, or of the difficulty the British - again, with massive counterinsurgency experience - have had over the last century. It is wishful thinking to expect the newly constituted and trained LSF to be able to defeat the insurgency when the British and/or Americans can't - even if they did have local knowledge of the terrain and people. Even then, the military had access to this information on the terrain and people through its intelligence network - the LSF were actually not terribly helpful in this regard. In the Dominican Republic, while the forces weren't able enough to take on the insurgency, they did eventually turn out to be able enough to overthrow the government and install their leader in power for the next three decades.

In other words, not only did the LSF not help the US in the Dominican Republic, they actually turned out to create a whole new set of headaches for the US a generation later. Of course, Iraq and Afghanistan in 2008 are not the Dominican Republic in 1920. But the entire history of American experience in COIN suggests that when the US immediately creates and trains LSF to take on more and more of the fight, they become, at best, not terribly helpful but relatively benign and, at worst, they serve as a distraction for the US and/or create a whole new set of problems down the road.

[Old Eagle]

What exactly are you proposing as an alternative to helping local forces secure themselves?

[Cavguy]

Datroy,

Good summation of training "LSF" as you call it. I have lived in, in OIF 1 and OIF 05-07. Over the four year span I watched a massive evolution in competency (zilch in OIF 1, to "good" by OIF 05-07).

You seem to argue the most competent force (ours) should do COIN instead of focusing on training HN. However, this doesn't give you an "exit" down the road. So like Old Eagle, what do you propose - permanent occupation? And are we really as good as we think we are?

I think there's a mid-ground to your argument. Developing HN capacity takes time, in which the occupier must provide security. Over time one replaces the other. I agree, standing up forces rapidly and handing off without sufficent preparation invites disaster (witness ICDC performance in 2004 Fallujah I and Sadr rebellion), but contrast that with ISF performance in Tal Afar (2005-present), Ramadi, Baghdad, Basra, and most recently Sadr City. We've come a long way.

BTW, no post gets you "in trouble" as long as you can base your assertions with logical argument. RTK wasn't trying to shoot you down as much as point out that LTC Sassman's motives, character, and points must be taken into account before drawing too many lessons from his experience. Besides, tactics in 2003 Iraq has about as much relevance to 2008 Iraq as WWII. And his whining that if only he had been able to use MORE force is simply silly.