Lost Lessons of Counterinsurgency

[Cavguy]

Your first sentence contains a contradicition which is basically my whole point. What you call not "slavishly" adhering to a "cookie cutter approach" is essentially what you end up doing in the first clause of the sentence: "to learn from the past, and adapt the principles to the present." Niel, how does one actually "learn" from the past? And your essay itself actually betrays the "cookie cutter" approach that you deny using. In the first couple of paragraphs you explicitly say when reading Krepinevich you got so mad becuase everytime you saw the word Vietnam in it you could have replaced it with the word "Iraq." How is that not cookie cutting?

Okay, I'll plead guilty to the lesser charge of taking Krepinevich's Vietnam cookie cutter and applying it's general principles to my personal AO. And you know what - it worked! When I tried it subsequently in other parts of my AO - guess what - it worked! We took some of that down to Ramadi and had to adapt it again some (very different AO's) but the principles remained the same (protect the population) and guess what - it worked!

I am sorry buddy, but your essay essentially argues that Vietnam was just like Iraq, only this time since we have the lessons and principles provided to us in books like "The Army and Vietnam" we are on the road to success because we have learned and applied those lessons.

Disagree on the first. I don't say Vietnam was like Iraq. I say that Vietnam had a COIN component, and the tactical principles that showed promise there also worked in Iraq. In the later half of the essay, I briefly allude that those are the same principles articulated by nearly every COIN author in the past half century.

I submit that history doesnt work that way; that the idea that one can derive principles and lessons from history and apply them directly in the present is chimera.

I strongly disagree here. I also argue with your use of "directly", which is pejorative.

Why study history if we can't learn from it and use it to inform the present? We of course have to consider how conditions have changed when applying principles, but are you seriously suggesting we can't improve our current performance by looking back at similar periods? I have learned a great deal by studying history and drawing upon what characteristcs made past commander's successful. Why bother if what you say is true? I should just go back to my Clive Cussler novels and put down the 600-page tome I'm reading on Stillwell in China, or the 1000 page monstrosity I just read on Jutland.

What you have done, though, is elevated his book to the oracle truth of Vietnam and justified its correctness with your story of learning and success in Iraq.

Sir, I think this is you reading too much into this given your surge hearburn. I make no statements as to the veracity of his Vietnam history - I have no great basis in Vietnam study for that. There is great use in the principles of "clear hold build" he outlined, which have proven successful in many locations. The essay was on the book that most changed my career, not the one I think makes the best historical argument or even articulates COIN the best. Reading Dr. K's book profoundly changed my personal approach in Iraq, which had direct and corresponding results. I would argue that there are better and more complete COIN works I perhaps should have randomly picked up in the Friedberg library (the selection wasn't big), but his was the one that opened my eyes to the idea that we had faced challenges like this before, and had found some things that did work.

The army didn't see fit to provide any formal education in COIN for me or my BCT until Taji in January 2006, when it was too late to significantly adjust the training of my unit. In my opinion that reflects professional malpractice on the part of the Army educational base, because in my opinion the 'great amnesia' of 1973-2003 prolonged our stay in Iraq and thus cost soldiers' lives.

Things are better today, but the institution still hasn't really adapted. COIN remains an ILE elective. There are no TLO's/ELO's for COIN. There is no COIN proponent. There is no COIN training strategy. No one has articulated what Army officers should look like in the future, or how to balance the need for proficient 'full spectrum' officers that FM 3-0 calls for. TRADOC's sole COIN organization has a military staff of four, a $1m budget, and no authority.

The operational force is COIN focused, because we are 100% committed. As soon as we get breathing space, we will head back to maneuver training. Next door to the COIN seminar we are running at Leavenworth this week is a BCTP conference designing the return of conventional operations to our training centers. I fully agree we need that skillset back in appropriate amounts. I am also saddened that the Army hasn't really made an effort to integrate COIN principles into OES/NCOES. Nor do I see any indication it will. (Clarification: I don't consider IED-D, E2S, C-Sniper, C-IED, Attack the Network, etc. as "COIN", I am talking the tactical and operational principles of defeating insurgent groups, which are not TTP's and counterguerilla tactics the aforementioned programs contain) What that means is that we will likely lose this competency that was bled for unless action is taken.

In fact, Niel, as much as you do not want to hear it, your essay fits perfectly in with the Surge Triumph narrative.

Not my fault you disagree with the surge narrative. I am telling the story from my foxhole. If others see it in context of the surge that is fine - except it happened a year before the surge.

That Triumph Narrative is based on the trope of Vietnam. That the American Army in Iraq didnt get it, but finally got around to learning through study of books like Krepenivich, and now because of that learning and adapting, we have success, if not victory in Iraq. Tell me how the basic narrative arc within your essay is in contradcition to this?

It's not a contradiction, and not my problem that it does fit in the surge narrative. I made a case on this board back a few months ago that I didn't think the "surge" had anything to do with Tal Afar and Ramadi success.

You say that as if it's a bad thing. We DID learn. We DID adapt. That is a GOOD thing. I actually don't think it was because we started reading Galula, Trinquier, and Kitson en masse, or suddenly read FM 3-24 . At the time of my story FM 3-24 hadn't been published. It wasn't published until two months prior to me leaving Iraq. We acted differently for a host of reasons, much of which was that those of us on second tours realized what we did on the first often didn't work. So we tried different things, and took those things that worked, shared them, and tried them. Then FM 3-24 and such comes out and basically validates our experiential learning.

The Greek tragedy in all this is that the "learning" was mostly "re-learning" what was sitting on the shelves of our library. Men died because we failed to train or appreciate the lessons of past counterinsurgency warfare. A few hours of instruction on the basics of counterinsurgency warfare in OBC, a day in CCC, and a COIN module in SAMS and CGSC would have probably saved hundreds of lives lost. I can't prove it, but that's my theory. And why many such as myself are bitter about it.

And if the principles of COIN don't work, how do we explain that the first three major BCT sized successes (Tal Afar, Al Qaim, Ramadi) all involved commanders acting in contradiction to the MNF-I commander's stated guidance to withdraw to FOBs and handover to ISF as soon as possible? And that those BCT's actions were much closer to classic COIN principles, and they had success? All timing and luck? I think not.

As always, I enjoy the challenge to my thoughts, as they help me reconsider and solidify them. I had a brief flash in the pan the other day when we agreed on something on another forum. Maybe lightning will strike twice!