Can the Anbar model work in Afghanistan?
Insurgency and Counterinsurgency Franchisees
So how about that proposal/idea that’s occasionally floated for those American-supported Tribal Lashkars in Afghanistan? [Lashkar = local tribal “defense” militia] Can the American-dominated counterinsurgency effort and the insurgents whose grievances are mostly non-ideological come to an Al Anbar-style agreement (usually cited as an idea for Eastern Afghanistan)? Unfortunately, it would require an intense level of micro-managing and an excellent knowledge of local politics that just doesn’t exist. It would also require some co-optable local authority figures whose influence extends past their own little valleys. Furthermore, the exact percentage of those insurgents who would fall into the economic-and-local-power-politics-grievances category is not known with any certainty. There are other factors too that make Eastern Afghanistan not as conducive to this strategy as al Anbar in Iraq was. For many in Eastern Afghanistan an American paycheck would be as good as a death certificate. For those locals who aren’t too xenophopic, the security dilemmas (esp. for many in the East) are just too great for most to consider joining any sort of American supported “Awakening.”
The strategy required to defeat the Taliban is not going to be found in some “silver bullet,” but rather in a comprehensive overhaul of how this campaign is run. That’s not a very original assertion. But this won’t stop the continuing appearance of often independently sourced quick fix proposals that have been given fuel by the ostensible (short-term) success of the al Anbar strategy.
The one thing that concerns me
About taking this direction would be that it would have to be done in very large part by the ANA/Afghan Govt, if not there is a very good chance it might workfor us but Not sure the Govt would ever be able to offer the same level of services in order to assume it later. Remember biiiiig dif in GDP and freedom of movement.Originally Posted by Entropy
Any man can destroy that which is around him, The rare man is he who can find beauty even in the darkest hours
Cogitationis poenam nemo patitur
What is the Anbar model? It doesn't exist.
To give the USMC credit for the Anbar Awakening and the social change that went with it is laughable. The changes associated with the Awakening were an amalgamation of many, many factors, including the bungling of activities with which the USMC and US Army tried to influence things. They influenced things, alright, but not in the ways they think they did.
I have tried to read some of the after-action reporting but I just couldn't stomach it. It reflects the same blind arrogance as the AARs from the 15th and 26th MEUs from OEF in 2001. The most the US military can take credit for is 1) motivating Sunni leadership to take matters into their own hands by being inconsistent: oscillating between being overly heavy-handed and then completely lacking credibility as a military force, and 2) attempting to make al-Qaeda in Iraq's social exchange costs so high that they couldn't recruit any more members or placate resource providers on the fringes of their networks. We did the former much more effectively than the latter, even though much more deliberate, precise effort was used to implement strategies toward the latter.
So, if that is the "Anbar Model" then, no, the model will not work in Afghanistan. One of the major historical factors that is absent in Afghanistan that is fundamental to understanding tribes in Iraq is the re-tribalization of Iraq by Saddam (his implementation of Social Balance Theory -- the enemy of my enemy is my friend...). He never actually controlled Anbar, he just balanced the important actors against each other to tip it in his favor. Afghani tribes have always been suspect to each other. The further you go away in terms of degrees of separation, the more the distrust plays a role in the relationship. Even in war, there has never been a balance other than having a common enemy. Arguably, there is so much division in the Afghani tribal quilt that uniting them (in any direction) is too expensive an undertaking in time and resources. The term open-market applies here as there are very few external restrictions on tribal behavior. So, to successfully engage in an open-market, we have to behave like it. But, nope, we behave like we own the market. While I hate this quotation, we are indeed “the biggest tribe.” Once an educated person understands the essential aspects of that realization, many other factors and theoretical constructs can become apparent.
Another, more fundamental, problem is that the US military lacks fundamental understanding of insurgencies and social movements. Consequently, it also does not comprehend counterinsurgency, either. The new FM 3-24/MCWP 3-33.5 Counterinsurgency, Dec 2006 is completely inadequate as COIN doctrine for the following reasons: 1) it was written by the conventional military for the conventional military which means it was written without experience. All of the conventional military experience in COIN died with the retirement of Vietnam officer vets (assuming those vets had learned the right lessons, a la Krepinevich in his The Army in Vietnam). The new FM barely even scrapes the surface of the historical COIN publications (read the Military References section) and does not even reference any of the Unconventional Warfare (UW) doctrine, past or present. While many officers and military instructors will pay lip service to the expertise of Special Operations Forces – more specifically Army Special Forces – in conducting and combating insurgencies and other illicit power structures (IPSs), the mainstream officer corps cannot get past their legacy animosities to embrace that fact. Thus, the new “doctrine” is Iraq-centric and lacks theoretical depth. See below.
2) FM 3-24/MCWP3-33.5 is a counter-guerrilla manual, not a counterinsurgency manual. As such, it ignores fully one-third of the structure of an insurgency: the Underground. The Underground is the portion of an insurgency which provides direction, political influence and forms the intermediate- and macro-scale networks connecting to other actors in the social movement industry (endogenous and exogenous to the state enduring the insurgency) and to resources otherwise not available to the Guerrillas or the Auxiliary. Do not read this as there is/was one Underground uniting the guerrilla groups in Iraq. At the macro level, the Kurds have two which are not so “underground” as they used to be and at least one that is still underground and actively supports the PKK; the Shia have at least three which we know something about; and the Sunnis have at least one or two in Anbar (the structural form of the “Anbar Awakening”) and apparently at least two more – one in Diyala and one in Mosul. Those are the result of some anecdotal chunking of groups, but any more detail requires a lot more space.
Chapter 2 talks about state-centric organizations and NGOs, but completely ignores the non-state actors guaranteed to be present and useful in situations such as this: counter-movements. This is the nemesis of the insurgent movement. In Iraq terms, this could be portrayed as Moqtada’s Mehdi Army versus Sistani’s network of clerics versus Hakim’s SCIRI underground. And all these were balanced against the Sunni tribal and al-Qaeda in Iraq movements. In turn, again, the Kurds had their own movements balanced against the others, as well as against each other internally. These kinds of actors will oftentimes be of more use than any of the actors listed on page 2-4. Again, I refer to an outcome of the Anbar Awakening: the Sons of Iraq. This the very archetype of a countermovement and we are using it as much as we can to aid our fight against AQI and other Sunni resistance groups. We didn't create this, but we could have much earlier, if we knew what we were doing.
The “Framework for Counterinsurgency” explained in the US Army’s COIN Campaign Plan also reflects this systemic flaw. It follows, however, since it was written to reflect 3-24. It is more than just a reflection of the COIN manual -- this flaw is being institutionalized in the future COIN publications: the COIN Handbook, the Interagency COIN initiative, FM 3-24.2 (whatever that will be) and the NATO COIN and the future revisions of 3-24.
3) What social movement theories does the new 3-24 employ? What theoretical basis supports the Logical Lines of Operation in Figure 5-1? How are the LOOs influenced by each other? The military does not have the requisite knowledge to answer these questions. We must look to academia for those answers.
The fields of study of social movements/collective action, contentious politics, and wartime resistance offer huge advances in the last 30 years of research. The gift of academia to the profession of war is that they have the time to research, dialog and come to a gradual – developing – understanding of the dynamics of relationships, social structures, psychological framing, and the effects of broad socio-economic processes upon populations. We in the military are too busy to spend adequate time and energy to build the brain-trust necessary to reach into sufficient and necessary resources. That is what academics do.
4) The problem of problem solving is barely mentioned. The issue of problem design is glossed over in Chapter 4 of 3-24, but rather than introducing a generic framework, it further pushes the Iraq-centric agenda of LTG Petraeus’s working group. The issue of problem design ought not to be a prescribed set of factors as each insurgent situation is different. It also does not discuss sources of information. Chapter 2 uses a word I have longed to hear in military discourse: collaboration. But it stops short of elaborating methods of implementing a collaborative work style. I know of no other military publication that picks up on that theme.
Problem design comes from a fundamental understanding of the dynamics of uncontained, unstructured problems. Rittel and Webber’s “Wicked Problems” methodology is a great start for this, and the military has even published a manual which discusses it to great advantage (at least, for those who can open their minds and throw off the shackles of arrogance): TRADOC Pam 525-5-500 Commander’s Appreciation and Campaign Design. Understanding the nature of the unstructured problem – the structural and relational complexity of “people’s wars” – will be the very first step in understanding what the problems are and what the spectrum of solutions, and their implementation strategies, ought to be for each stakeholder according to each stakeholder. If we adopted this, we would drastically alter our first planning assumption (read that as first planning error): the assumption that the military force deployed to “solve” the problem has the requisite education to be able to diagnose the situation to gain true understanding of the problem and the requisite knowledge of the dynamics of the factors identified to be able to design a holistic, coherent family of implantation strategies utilizing the strengths of as many stakeholders as possible in concert to achieve the ever-changing attainable end state.
Last edited by GBNT73; 09-22-2008 at 05:02 AM.
GBNT73,
Interesting rant. On SWC we generally find it polite to post an intro here, so we have an idea of your background, experience, and what basis your opinions are formed from before calling me and many others on this board an amateur idiot.
As to the above qyote - horsesh*t. You lost me at the "SF has it all figured out and those idiot GPF'ers hate SF too much to listen to them".
As a GPF'er, some SF teams have been great at COIN and others not so much. Mileage varies as much in SF as in GPF units. Secondly, if SF has the experience, why weren't they sharing it with the GPF? JFK school was offered to help write FM 3-24, and as I understand turned it down because they didn't want to help the GPF get in their rice bowl. In fact, I've been told as much over beers by some current JFK School doctrine types.
And finally, I'll throw my experience against any SF'er of my approximate age any day. We may have had a rough start, but there's a number of us who have learned quick around here, and done quite well, and not always by accident.
We welcome your discussion, but keep the generalized attacks to a minimum.
In defense of GBNT73
Cavguy, I think you took GBNT73's comments too personally. I have a fair idea of what your background is, and you're definitely one of the heros in this fight, but the way I read GBNT73's post is as follows:
The COIN manual didn't utilize some concepts that SF captured in their doctrine in the 50's and 60's like the underground. For whatever reason that conceptual idea of insurgent struture was rejected by the developers of FM 3-24, and in my opinion seriously handicapped the FM.
It isn't that SF gets it and conventional forces don't. In all cases it depends on the man and the unit. We all have seen the good and bad in each, so there no need for a measuring contest, we would all probably be a little embarassed as the results were called out.However, there was a prevailing culture in the conventional army prior to OIF 3 that was reluctant to adapt to the reality of the situation we were involved in. I will call it COIN, but prefer CSIS"s phrase "Armed Nation Building".
I am not in complete agreement with this post. For one thing, the assumption that if it is written by conventional forces it must be inadequate is lame, yet I do agree the manual is inadequate. I also heard that the authors were not happy with it, but they wanted to get something out on the street ASAP due to high demand, then rely on input from the field to improve it. Sounds logical to me. I also heard the manual was submitted to SF and numerous academia experts for comment before being published, but SF's input, especially their input on the underground was rejected.The new FM 3-24/MCWP 3-33.5 Counterinsurgency, Dec 2006 is completely inadequate as COIN doctrine for the following reasons: 1) it was written by the conventional military for the conventional military which means it was written without experience.
I would ask GBNT73 who gets to determine which of the many conflicting academia reports we're going to follow? So many experts and so little agreement. I agree with this in general, and I think it is being done to a large extent already, but I don't think academia has the silver bullet either. They also tend to be more accurate with their historical assessments, than in their ability to predict the future.The gift of academia to the profession of war is that they have the time to research, dialog and come to a gradual – developing – understanding of the dynamics of relationships, social structures, psychological framing, and the effects of broad socio-economic processes upon populations.
I agree with this in general, as the military tends to default to a route step MDMP and in pursuit of mean nothing end states, yet we neglect the hard intellectual work of campaign design that informs and enables operational level planners.TRADOC Pam 525-5-500 Commander’s Appreciation and Campaign Design. Understanding the nature of the unstructured problem – the structural and relational complexity of “people’s wars” – will be the very first step in understanding what the problems are and what the spectrum of solutions, and their implementation strategies, ought to be for each stakeholder according to each stakeholder. If we adopted this, we would drastically alter our first planning assumption (read that as first planning error): the assumption that the military force deployed to “solve” the problem has the requisite education to be able to diagnose the situation to gain true understanding of the problem and the requisite knowledge of the dynamics of the factors identified to be able to design a holistic, coherent family of implantation strategies utilizing the strengths of as many stakeholders as possible in concert to achieve the ever-changing attainable end state.
I think GBNT73 has made some excellent points, and even admire his bluntness, even though he is wrong in a couple of areas. He may disagree with me, I think most of the great thinking on COIN and unconventional warfare by SF leadership was done in the 1950's and 1960's, I have seen little new since then of value, but there should be volumes of evolved doctrine on COIN and UW. I think part of this paralysis in UW/COIN doctrine evolution was due to SF being pushed by Big Army to support conventional warfighting in the 1980s to maintain relevance with the way the Big Army saw the world (to maintain our meager funding line from Big Army before SOCOM came on line), thus the focus on Direct Action and Special Reconnaise instead of capitalizing on our unique unconventional warfare skills. Those of us who lived through that period remain a little bitter with senior decision makers who appeared to be short sighted, but that grude is appropriately directed at the upper echelons of the bureaucratic order, and not the existing one, so it is water under the bridge. It doesn't shape my opinion of conventional forces on point, many are doing great work for our nation.
Last edited by Bill Moore; 09-22-2008 at 08:40 AM. Reason: Happy to glad
Niel, Mate, you are wrong....
It is not interesting. It is just a rant.
Bill,
Execuse the late night response - the attitude just pissed me off. I have more than my share of personal mistakes and bad calls, and have even written about one that got one of my guys killed. If he had stated it the way you stated it below - I wouldn't have had any issues. But there were enough generalized
Agree. I think the major fault of FM 3-24 is that lack - the lack of a real chapter on insurgencies and how insurgencies work, organize, and mobilize.The COIN manual didn't utilize some concepts that SF captured in their doctrine in the 50's and 60's like the underground. For whatever reason that conceptual idea of insurgent struture was rejected by the developers of FM 3-24, and in my opinion seriously handicapped the FM.
Agree, but that wasn't what GBNT was saying rather ineloquently.It isn't that SF gets it and conventional forces don't.
Exactly. That is why we will be convening a FM 3-24 re-write conference this year - to address the shortcomings of what was a rapidly produced, "good enough" manual. FM 3-24 is the worst COIN doctrine except for all the other COIN doctrine we had.I am not in complete agreement with this post. For one thing, the assumption that if it is written by conventional forces it must be inadequate is lame, yet I do agree the manual is inadequate. I also heard that the authors were not happy with it, but they wanted to get something out on the street ASAP due to high demand, then rely on input from the field to improve it. Sounds logical to me. I also heard the manual was submitted to SF and numerous academia experts for comment before being published, but SF's input, especially their input on the underground was rejected.
My boss is a former SF/doctrine writer guy and told me the same thing - that most SF COIN thinking hasn't evolved since the 60's. I've also heard a lot of old hand SF types talk along the line you mention above - that after 9/11 SF was told to stay away from GPF COIN efforts. It kind of feeds into the question of why they stood up an ad hoc advisor training center at Ft. Riley instead of say - JFK @ Ft. Bragg - manned by GPF and advised by SF - since it is, like, you know, their expertise. I have been told they wanted no part of it. So it galls me whenever SF types complain about GPF performance of advisor/COIN when they willingly shoved off helping GPF develop one of their core competencies.I think GBNT73 has made some excellent points, and even admire his bluntness, even though he is wrong in a couple of areas. He may disagree with me, I think most of the great thinking on COIN and unconventional warfare by SF leadership was done in the 1950's and 1960's, I have seen little new since then of value, but there should be volumes of evolved doctrine on COIN and UW. I think part of this paralysis in UW/COIN doctrine evolution was due to SF being pushed by Big Army to support conventional warfighting in the 1980s to maintain relevance with the way the Big Army saw the world (to maintain our meager funding line from Big Army before SOCOM came on line), thus the focus on Direct Action and Special Reconnaissance instead of capitalizing on our unique unconventional warfare skills. Those of us who lived through that period remain a little bitter with senior decision makers who appeared to be short sighted, but that grude is appropriately directed at the upper echelons of the bureaucratic order, and not the existing one, so it is water under the bridge. It doesn't shape my opinion of conventional forces on point, many are doing great work for our nation.
I don't mean to take this down a SOF/GPF integration rant. Lots, and I mean lots, of fault on both sides. But I do get defensive every time I get sneered at by someone SF for being a GPF'er and thus (implied) an amateur at this stuff. Yes, I took a generalized attack personally, and if it had been from you or someone else who had generated standing on this board I would have taken it differently than from someone with a postcount=1.
I don't know. Anybody who thinks social movement theory and collective action have made huge advances in the last 30 years doesn't pay attention to the quality of the literature. Just because the Tillys came along and beat everybody up with resource mobilization literally shutting down all other social movement research (like break down theory) does not mean anything advanced.
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.
Few points...
I agree, if for slightly different reasons. I'd also suggest you could've made your point without slamming people who probably did the best they could with what they had -- but that's just me.Even an uneducated person can understand that -- and avoid getting bogged down in esoteric theoretical constructs.While I hate this quotation, we are indeed “the biggest tribe.” Once an educated person understands the essential aspects of that realization, many other factors and theoretical constructs can become apparent.It was called the infrastructure back in my Beanie wearing days but whatever the term du jour is. The Manual and you also forgot Criminal enterprises -- which every insurgency since the 60s has involved in major ways; a problem that will likely worsen in the future....As such, it ignores fully one-third of the structure of an insurgency: the Underground.That will be interesting, I'm sure.What social movement theories does the new 3-24 employ? What theoretical basis supports the Logical Lines of Operation in Figure 5-1? How are the LOOs influenced by each other? The military does not have the requisite knowledge to answer these questions. We must look to academia for those answers.We can totally agree on that....The issue of problem design ought not to be a prescribed set of factors as each insurgent situation is different.Truly excellent advice.(at least, for those who can open their minds and throw off the shackles of arrogance)...I think that's a long way of saying our egos are too big. I can agree with that also.If we adopted this, we would drastically alter our first planning assumption (read that as first planning error): the assumption that the military force deployed to “solve” the problem has the requisite education to be able to diagnose the situation to gain true understanding of the problem and the requisite knowledge of the dynamics of the factors identified to be able to design a holistic, coherent family of implantation strategies utilizing the strengths of as many stakeholders as possible in concert to achieve the ever-changing attainable end state.
My philosophy: step back and be analytical
Cavguy -- the above post is not personal, nor is it an attack. Mr. O’Neill, nor is it a “rant.” Rants do not cite theoretical constructs or other sources of information. The above post is a minor culmination of years of observation and interaction combined with a four-year opportunity (whilst teaching and then returning to student-hood at grad school) to take a step back and collect and analyze what we are doing as a military. I do not speak these words lightly. Besides, ranting is pointless and inappropriate for this forum.
The military – and those who study it – are supposed to be able to call a spade for what it is. When it is a subject that touches upon a source of pride, people are sensitive. We are also supposed to be thick-skinned. My assumption is that we all fit that bill. Like I said, this is not personal – it is all business. Besides faith, the business of war is the most important and urgent discourse we as men can have, in my opinion.
FYI, I wrote up an entry about myself in the “about myself” thread.
As to a few of the points made in response to my larger entry above:
1. Yes, the Special Warfare Center feedback about FM 3-24 was indeed rejected wholesale. I was part of that aborted process when I was at SWCS. In it was a lot about the Underground, among other things. The same goes for USSOCOM’s Irregular Warfare Joint Operating Concept, but that is a different thread.
2. Yes, the Special Forces UW and COIN collective knowledge and skills did atrophy – greatly – for the reasons that Bill Moore stated. Our organizational memory, however, is preserved by our culture and the sheer number of gray beards we keep around Camp MacKall. That is part of our saving grace; another part is the fact that SF sends a larger percentage of our officers to get their advanced civil schooling at liberal institutions like Naval Postgraduate School, Stanford and GW.
3. Nope, I made no reference to the intelligence of anyone or any organization. You took it personally and you should not have. As to where I get the “animosity” factor – first, I was warned of it when I tried to reach out to the GPF in a peacetime situation. I got called a “cowboy” by the first O-6 I met before I even got to mention my purpose for being there. I was called “reckless” in Afghanistan when I tried to explain what my ODA was doing in native civilian clothing. I briefed two GPF GOs in Iraq about our “allies” making deals with al-Sadr and was told that it wasn’t true and “how dare I accuse the MNF of such behavior.” We were vindicated when MNFI Cdr kicked an allied commander out of country for “actions not in line with the current strategy for Iraq.” The irony of that statement was that there was no strategy for Iraq. A MNFI C2 also saw no reason to establish a J2X when the CJSOTF tried to help establish one. Two months later, the new C2 established a J2X. The O-6 who introduced my ILE class made no fewer than eleven SF-disparaging comments in his formal remarks at the opening ceremony. Why would he do that? The professional animosity is palpable.
The way this is supposed to work is that the people who know, study and teach something should be part of the constructive process for knowledge creation and dissemination. I wouldn’t go to SF to write doctrine for HBCT operations, and nor should the Army have excluded the only organization within the Army who still consistently teaches COIN (read SF) to write a COIN manual. I know because I taught it for a year, after teaching UW for two years. What about that doesn’t make sense? We even teach a generic, theoretical insurgent framework upon which to base our intervention strategies.
I’ll address the social movement stuff next post.
I for one
Would be very interested in that particular thread. Have had several conversations with both SOF and GPF folks about the disconnects there and it would be good to get a better feel for the larger picture
Any man can destroy that which is around him, The rare man is he who can find beauty even in the darkest hours
Cogitationis poenam nemo patitur
Social Movement and Collective Action research
Ken White: I tried to use a new catch-all term to include the criminal enterprises: Illicit Power Structures (IPS). It is a couple years old and comes from a Dept of State initiative to attempt to frame and analyze all forms of powerful organizations and groups that exist outside the rule of law or legitimate government.
Bill Moore: you asked who gets to decide which conflicting academia reports we’re going to follow? My answer follows:
Right now, no one gets to decide because no one knows what they are. But in the larger picture, the officers and warrants (180As) who are familiar with the field of theories get to take a look at the environment and see which one(s) fit best (or least worst) and use or modify them as applicable. Even if the theories prove inadequate in the net analysis, the process of that discovery will greatly assist us in developing our own theoretical constructs that do at least accurately explain what has happened and may be useful in giving us prescriptions for what to do and how to do it. Right now, we can’t even have that discussion because the existence of collective action as a field of study is nearly unknown to the Army.
As far as theories go, I think there will not be a “correct one.” Academia is more parochial than the military, so people take positions and state that they are right, exclusive of all other input. So, we have to be able to rise above all that and look holistically at the range of problems and theories before us. I would seek an inclusive approach to analysis and application of theories. Resource mobilization (McCarthy and Zald 1977), break-down theory (Useem 1998), political process and political opportunities (McAdam, 1982 and 1983; Kurzman 1996), religious economics (Iannaccone, Fink and Stark 1997; Introvigne and Stark 1998), mobilization theories (Hirsch 1990; Snow, Zurcher, Eklund-Olson 1980; Stark and Bainbridge 1980) and theories of cognitive framing processes (Snow, Rochford, Worden and Benford 1986; Snow and Byrd 2000) all play a role in developing something relevant and useful for us. There are tons of other research (Della Porta, Weinstein, and others I can’t think of right now) which would help us in this endeavor.
Other useful stuff includes the literature on Social Capital and Brokerage (Ron Burt 1992 and 2005; Granovetter 1973) and everything you can read about Social Network Theory and Analysis. Some sources are better than others, and to list them would be to start a new blog. A Google Scholar search would be just as helpful. I do not have a favorite, as I feel that a lot of them are complementary and at least some dynamics of them are at work simultaneously. It would not take a rocket surgeon to make them fit together, but that is where the parochialism of academia gets in the way. We military folks would have to be tolerant of competing theories -- what a great dialog that would be: getting well-informed Marine officers, Army officers, interagency folks and academics together to share experiences in the field and demonstrate which theories apply or get dumped or modified. That is my dream. Well, one of my work-related dreams. I won't share my other dreams with you.
Last edited by GBNT73; 09-23-2008 at 01:35 AM. Reason: added a line or two
I don't go much beyond break down theory, but then again I consider Bert Useem to be a really good friend. It also fits my ideas and experience working in law enforcement. The whole marxist class conflict model just makes my head hurt and the Tilly's just make me mad.
As to a place for dialog? Well gosh welcome.
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.
Apology accepted, even if I did co-write the most cited article on Anbar which you summarily dismissed ....
We are in the early stages of planning the launch-conference of the FM 3-24 NEXT, which will begin next year. FM 3-24 was never intended to be monolithic, but to be revised after initial application in the GPF. We believe that time is approaching. It may be the opportunity you seek to get heard. That's the idea of the conference, anyway, to hear all the critics, and use the input to guide the re-write team.
Link to SWJ FM 3-24 shortfall discussion here.
BTW, get your ideas published outside of BB's and you'll get a lot more influence, especially if you have something unique to contribute. Military Review is a good start.
"It would not take a rocket surgeon to make them fit together,"
He had me at that line. I think I'm going to like this guy, abrasiveness and all.
Question for all: David Galula, in his seminal work on Counterinsurgency, recommended that the military NOT take the lead when fighting counterinsurgents. I see a lot of truth in what the OP says about "big Army" not having the correct culture for collaborating and solving problems in anything but a military manner. Would a civilian entity taking the lead instead, more satisfactorily address some of the issues we're dealing with currently?
But, I liked your article.
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.
No but it still takes a scientist
Posted by GBNT73,As for parochialism, I have heard of the rants (and read their papers) from academia experts from the Naval Post Graduate School who basically claim that no one but them understands COIN and UW, so listen to my theory (it's really a law, but the rest of the world doesn't understand it yet), bla, bla. In all seriousness, some of their insights are brilliant, yet they are not brilliant enough to solve the problems we're faced with, nor do they apply to every situation. It takes a savvy person with a lot of muddy boots experience to adapt these theories to reality, so I still tend to think the military should remain in the lead, but obviously open the doors without prejudice to academia, so they can continue to inform us and provide a different perspective on the problem.It would not take a rocket surgeon to make them fit together, but that is where the parochialism of academia gets in the way. We military folks would have to be tolerant of competing theories -- what a great dialog that would be: getting well-informed Marine officers, Army officers, interagency folks and academics together to share experiences in the field and demonstrate which theories apply or get dumped or modified. That is my dream. Well, one of my work-related dreams. I won't share my other dreams with you.
A cursory knowledge of several theories will provide a broader context for understanding complex environments, so the list you provided is useful. As for opposing or competing theories, Dr. Barnett commented that a sign of intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in your mind at the same time. Now there's a brilliant insight. The world isn't simple, and while the military tries, out of necessity, to dumb it down to simple rules to enable men to make decisions under stress with less than perfect information (or situation awareness), that type of decision making in counterinsurgency can be very detrimental to mission success. In my opinion, this is where Soldiers who grew up in the tradional UW SF culture tend to be better suited for leading COIN efforts in my opinion, but those are few and far apart.
As for putting an other than military organization in charge of COIN, I would support it if a capable one existed. DoS has been understaffed and under budgeted for years, and as our nation has witnessed too many of these faithful servants do not want to serve in harms way, so the pool of capable of State Department personnel to lead nation building operations on the scale of Iraq and Afghanistan is insufficient. To avoid any misperceptions, there are several heroic and capable employees in the State Department, just not enough.
So in present day reality I believe the military is the only organization with the capacity to manage problems on the scale of Iraq and Afghanistan, even if they are not the idea organization to do so. The only other choice I see for major operations is the UN, and while they have many talented people, we have seen the poor results of too many UN missions, and there are numerous reasons for it that will always be present. For smaller scale contingencies the State Department is probably capable of being the lead agency, but I haven't seen much on State Department transformation? Are they task organizing and educating/training their personnel to manage these problems?
In our mind exists the idea of the way the world should be, and this idea can become a dangerous illusion if it interfers with our ability to deal with the world the way it really is.
Good post.
True in all aspects, not least this:Most do the best they can with the info available -- sometimes the senior folks get wrapped around the axle protecting the institution (or their portion of it...) rather than just doing the job but most, fortunately, don't go there...The world isn't simple, and while the military tries, out of necessity, to dumb it down to simple rules to enable men to make decisions under stress with less than perfect information (or situation awareness)...Also agree with that -- and think it's a shame that we don't share a little better...... that type of decision making in counterinsurgency can be very detrimental to mission success. In my opinion, this is where Soldiers who grew up in the tradional UW SF culture tend to be better suited for leading COIN efforts in my opinion, but those are few and far apart.
Parochialism from any source is inimical to sound military performance.
So true
Bill M: Yes, DofS is trying to correct their course. Initially in Iraq they sent a bunch of kids -- first-tour diplomats who didn't know anything. More recently, though, some more mature careerists have ponied up and are nw doing their jobs. As to the internal training and re-organization, I do not have much info. The only State people I'm really in with are the younger crowd who do not know what existed before.
I disagree, though, that is takes a scientist -- I like the term warrior-scholar. There is a quotation commonly attributed to Thyucidides, but I guess who actually said it is debateable: "Any nation that draws too great a distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards, and its fighting done by fools." I agree with this wholeheartedly. The Human Terrain System, the MITTs, and enlargement of military academia such as Naval Postgrad School (NPS), Air Force Institutue of Tech (AFIT) and the increase in civilian academics at the War Colleges are improving that condition, in my opinion, but the real results won't be visible for at least ten years. I say that because you can't really analyze anything with certainty while you're still in it. That's the value of being able to step back.
More to the point, the military has to value advanced education in the mainstream. I mean really value it -- like modify the reward, pay and promotion systems. We have yet to do that or even seriously consider that as a range of options as far as I know. Most of the Services do have some systems in place to improve their way of doing business; the USAF is the best, but the Marines, however, are the antithesis of warrior-scholar development. It is widely known in the USMC officer ranks that to leave the Corps for two years to get your advanced degree is death to an operational career. I was friends with four USMC FAOs and they were dead certain of it; yet they chose to go that route because 1) the country needs them to, and 2) their gifts (skills, learning capacity, and holistic problem-sovling nature) exceeded the capacity of the traditional USMC to utilize them. That's not me saying that; they said that. They are among the few Marines I hope I work with again.
As for an organization for COIN: what about a coalition Constabulary? One realization could be a civilian-led, military-managed civilian law enforcement force that possesses enough "umph" to deal with things up to but not including Fallujah I & II or Najaf. The bureaucratically separate military -- under the auspices of a federal national emergency could be seconded to the Constabulary only as much as they were absolutely needed. It would piss off the military, but oftentimes the desired "military" endstate goes a tad (or a lot) too far for manageable return to civilian control. A Constabulary would be able to exclude the bureaucratic difficutlies we have here in the USA with the gap in capabilities between the FBI and the Military to deal with issues like the Davidians and domestic terrorism. While those institutionalized difficulties here in the US may be appropriate given our history and culture, most other countries don't have those same inhibitions.
As for our COIN orgnaization, whoa-- that is a hotly debated topic on teh SOF side of the military house. Many of us firmly believe in an Irregular Warfare Command, for a variety of reasons. I don't know if there is a place in this webiste for that debate already, but I could go into it -- since that was a heavily considered sultio to our (SOF) bureaucratic ills.
Our part in the Constabulary would have to be perceived as light-handed not as conventional occupation. That rules out armored and armor-mechanized units. A tank will always represent full war or occupation. The degree of local buy-in would have to be higher, but that is the nature of COIN anyway. In this way, the linkages between the population and the state (civil society) would be jump-started and the dependencies could be more easily dumped on the municiple, provincial and federal governments from the bottom-up. The leap from "similiar-faced law enforcement" to grass-roots institutions is easier than from an "occupation military and their lackies."
I say this rather than the Middle East status quo for employment of military forces within the state's own boundaries because that is dysfunctional for legitimate civilian control and democratization in the very long term. A Constabulary with this power, however, must be ultra-transparent, ere it becomes the usual "secret police" we keep reading about in history.
Could the Sons of Iraq become a form of this state-run, publicly governed entity? I think so -- there is popular and elite buy-in from their portion of the society. Though, its plausible only if the the Shia can form something as wholly representative. The Kurds pretty much already have had something like this for a while, but it is not governed by the state and is certainly not transparent; that would run contrary to their long-term goals of independent Kurdistan.
Brother, all I can say is welcome to the last three years of the Small Wars Council. Check any ego at the door, and let's get to the business of building bridges, crossing capability gaps, and working through this mess.
And to be clear, I do give both the Army and Marines credit for trying "to get it", and not living at the end of kinetics forever. It is an amalgamation of factors for sure, which we did screw up often. We admit mistakes all the time, just maybe not at the doorstep of academia.
You've got a twenty-pound head, so let's stay in the fight and lick this together.
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"A Sherman can give you a very nice... edge."- Oddball,
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