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Thread: Lost Lessons of Counterinsurgency

  1. #41
    Council Member MikeF's Avatar
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    Default A Brave New World

    Gentlemen,

    As we sort through and debate the merits of Niel’s work in academic terms of methodology, scope, and inference, I think y’all (wise old sages that you are in both word and deed) have missed the intent of Niel’s voice, his attempt to articulate his struggle on how to command his boys in a complex insurgency contrasted with his internal voices echoed from his first platoon sergeant in his tank company explaining how to beat the Krasnovians at NTC-combined arms, shock and awe, etc…

    Niel’s article speaks for my generation of officers muddling through what seemed like a “new” form of warfare to us. We did not grow up with the mentorship of Vietnam vets in our outfits. We studied the “real” battlefields of the Fulda Gap.

    In a sense, we were running backs focused on debating the merits of the “in and out” offense. Should we run directly up the middle or sweep outside? We measured success in terms of our yards per carry, perfecting the guard or tackle pull, and getting bigger, faster, and stronger. Creativity and innovation came with counters, options, and tight-end motions. In reality, executing a perfect tank gunnery or navigating through a successful NTC rotation was our Superbowl- how seemingly trivial in today's world. We busied ourselves with concern over uniform standards, minimizing DUI's, and carefully choreographing our USR scores.

    Dusting off a Krepenivich or Galula book was like discovering a passing game. You mean the quarterback can throw the ball??? WTF??? First, we were mad at ourselves for not thinking about it first. Second, we were immensely frustrated to find out that this passing game had been around for hundreds of years. Why didn’t our coach tell us about this???

    So now we’re discovering the passing game. From our perspective, some would prefer to transition to an all passing game while others would like to stick to an all ground game. I applaud COL Gentile, John Nagl, and Rob Thorton’s efforts at promoting a mixture of a ground and air game.

    I can’t speak for all my peers, but I simply want to play football.

    Personally, as I reflect on my time in Iraq in varying rank, leadership roles, and responsibilities, I’m comforted in reading about those that came before me and experienced similar highs and lows, horrific tragedies, and small measures of victory. In Bob Andrew’s Village Wars, I could literally see what was going to happen as I turned page after page b/c the tactics used by the Communist in Vietnam to control the rural landscape was hauntingly similar to what I observed the Islamic State of Iraq apply in the far outskirts of Diyala Province. In Donovan’s Once a Warrior King, I listen to a man purging his soul of his actions, and I know that I’m not the only one that dealt with circumstances where bad leaders caused good men to die or the frustrations and joy of advising a foreign army. In Lansdale, Galula, Behind the Burma Road, the 1962 COIN symposium, etc, I read countless tales of lessons I relearned forty, fifty, and sixty years later. In studying Plan Columbia or El Salvador, I take away other examples.

    From SWJ, I absorb the passionate intensity of soldiers and citizens that care and are 1. Trying to find ways to understand the complex problems facing today’s world and 2. Find creative and innovative solutions.

    What does all this mean? I dunno. I know that I have a lot to learn.

    Maybe we'll find a good mixture of run versus pass. Maybe we'll find answers. Maybe we'll gain something approaching wisdom.

    I just wanna play football. I can run and I can pass- just put me in the game coach.

    I just wish I was a more diligent student of history in my younger years.

    v/r
    Mike

  2. #42
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    Problem I have, John, is when those principles and lessons are operationalized for current and future action. For example, when Army planners and thinkers consider the problem in Astan there seems to be a common consensus that more troops are needed on the ground and applied in a way that pushes them out into small combat outposts in order to secure the population, to separate the insurgents from the people, and from the building the nation can begin. Coin expert John Nagl has recently said as much on a recent Frontline show on Astan. But this is my whole point and criticism of what happens when principles turn to hard and fast rules, to a fetish, to dogma, and directs current and future actions on the ground.
    As one who is much more knowledgeable on Afghanistan than Iraq, I share your fear. For example, there are places in Afghanistan where "protect the population" is not going to work (in my judgment), but, there are places it likely will work. FWIW, my view is that in Afghanistan there is no single principle or "truth" that will lead to success - the country is much more diverse than Iraq and much too diverse for any single strategy. My main worry is that we don't understand Afghanistan well enough to successfully discover and employ a winning strategy to begin with.

    I also agree about the danger of hard-and-fast rules and the blind importation of strategies from one theater or period of history to somewhere else. On the other hand, I don't think one should preclude such templating either as long as a proper and cogent analysis of the situation justifies it.

    I might therefore suggest the problem you identify is really a symptom of another problem - a failure to properly analyze and understand the operating environment compounded by a failure by the conventional forces, more generally, to prepare to operate in those environments. As Rob eloquently pointed out, Neil was placed in a position where he was forced to develop an ad hoc solution with little in the way of a PME and doctrinal foundation. Had that foundation existed, Neil's essay would likely be on something other than Krepenivich and the current debate of COIN would be quite different.

    So I think the point others have tried to make is that Neil (and so many others) should never have been put in the position of making ad hoc decisions with a significant (and preventable) educational deficit. It therefore seems prudent to me to provide officers with a diverse PME background that covers the full spectrum of conflict so they are prepared to better understand their operating environment and, by extension, better able to develop sound strategies and tactics for that environment. An additional effect of this approach is that officers will more easily recognize when and where a particular COIN (in this case) approach will work and where it will not. So the entire problem you identify is due in large part to effects of not properly preparing for COIN to begin with.

    If I understand your argument correctly, your fear is that ad hoc solutions implemented in Iraq are being elevated to the level of "truth" or sound principle without sound and rigorous analysis. I tend to agree (to a certain extent at least) and strongly believe that challenging these ideas is both necessary and beneficial. By continuing to challenge accepted wisdom you are continuing to perform a valuable service to the armed forces and nation in this regard.

  3. #43
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    Default Yes, Mike, we do get ...

    the larger thrust of MAJ Smith's article. I suppose I got it intellectually (Lat. scio - I know) after a couple of months of reading posts here (including most of Smith's). I've been getting it emotionally (Lat. credo - I believe) more recently. You sum it well here.

    from mikef
    Niel’s article speaks for my generation of officers muddling through what seemed like a “new” form of warfare to us. We did not grow up with the mentorship of Vietnam vets in our outfits. We studied the “real” battlefields of the Fulda Gap.

    In a sense, we were running backs focused on debating the merits of the “in and out” offense. Should we run directly up the middle or sweep outside? We measured success in terms of our yards per carry, perfecting the guard or tackle pull, and getting bigger, faster, and stronger. Creativity and innovation came with counters, options, and tight-end motions. In reality, executing a perfect tank gunnery or navigating through a successful NTC rotation was our Superbowl- how seemingly trivial in today's world. We busied ourselves with concern over uniform standards, minimizing DUI's, and carefully choreographing our USR scores.

    Dusting off a Krepenivich or Galula book was like discovering a passing game. You mean the quarterback can throw the ball??? WTF??? First, we were mad at ourselves for not thinking about it first. Second, we were immensely frustrated to find out that this passing game had been around for hundreds of years. Why didn’t our coach tell us about this???
    My reaction to the above (and this thread) was WTF happened within the Army to "Lessons Learned" after Vietnam ?

    Brief explanation: I managed to educate myself pretty well about Korea and Vietnam - the key events of my pre-Baby Boomer cohort (born ca. 1925-1945). After the last chopper left the roof, I still kept up with Vietnam as books came out; but my focus shifted to SW Asia (primarily the terrorists) and Afghanistan (payback for Nam). Saw Gulf I under Bush I; and Gulf II under Bush II - and what can you say about the initial stage in each (A+). I realized we had a serious problem in Iraq when the National Museum was looted. As to the Army's system of continuing military education, naive me assumed that the small war aspects of Vietnam, Afghanistan, etc. were being taught and implemented as a significant part of every officer's education and training. If I was reading this small wars stuff, I assumed the nabobs were also reading it - even if their primary commitment was to more conventional warfare. I guess not so.

    ------------------------------------
    Still it was hard for me to believe that the Army (as an institution) could be that stupid. But, when Smith (in a post a couple of months ago - not sure of exactly when) used the term "criminal negligence" causing deaths, I thought: "Pretty damn strong words, boyo." Words that would not be lightly used by a serving officer, unless he really believed them. And, others here agreed. Anyway, there is daylight in this swamp (JMM).

    Brief comment on "criminal negligence": Before writing this in draft on my wp, I did seriously search through MCM 2008 for all instances of negligence. The sole question was this - can I find a UCMJ provision under which I could mount a plausible prosecution (assuming arguendo that I could somehow determine which "someones" to prosecute). The answer is that there is not; not even under Art. 134. So, my unsolicited legal advice is to avoid charging "criminal negligence", at least publically. The rest of the facts should be powerful enough to carry your case - and, if not, hyperbole will not be of any help.

    PS: - we are getting our first snow of the year (just a few inches). So, tomorrow the hillside should be nice and white - a Grandma Moses view.

    I'll be back later with more blah-blah on learning methodology; where with some better definition of terms and explanations, we might actually end up with a synthesis. Mike's point seemed to deserve more primacy.

  4. #44
    Council Member slapout9's Avatar
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    I guess I am going to have to get in this. Go through the great classics Galua,Trinquier,Kitson and count how many times you see the word POLICE OPERATIONS. But few mention that, they call them COIN principles

    Just Like jmm when I saw the looting start any cop around could have told you that you better do something fast.

    Cavguy's link to his second article goes into great detail about how with a historic reference point he adapted and monitored for variances his operation as it was executed. Can't beet that. But it wasn't COIN or history that did it. It was his personal leadership more than anything! All the Way, Sir

    Gian is right about Astan it want be about protecting the people, it will be about which drug lord to take out and the consequences of that. It will give new meaning to the word "Drug War."

  5. #45
    Council Member Cavguy's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by jmm99 View Post

    Brief comment on "criminal negligence": Before writing this in draft on my wp, I did seriously search through MCM 2008 for all instances of negligence. The sole question was this - can I find a UCMJ provision under which I could mount a plausible prosecution (assuming arguendo that I could somehow determine which "someones" to prosecute). The answer is that there is not; not even under Art. 134. So, my unsolicited legal advice is to avoid charging "criminal negligence", at least publically. The rest of the facts should be powerful enough to carry your case - and, if not, hyperbole will not be of any help.
    I didn't use "criminal negligence", however, I did use "gross professional negligence" here.

    The full quote was:

    Quote Originally Posted by Me
    I think it was gross professional negligence that we entered Iraq 2003 with no institutional foundation in COIN. It will be gross professional negligence if we face another conflict (after these have subsided and there is a chance to retrain) and aren't prepared conventionally either.
    Your advice is appreciated and heeded. My words were not meant in a legal sense in any capacity, and perhaps I should have chosen with more care. I do consider it a form of malpractice - COIN is part of the spectrum of warfare, and we were largely ignorant of it, resulting in mistakes and errors that were avoidable, fueling an insurgency that cost lives before we re-learned that which was knowable. I think it would be inexcusable if we allowed it to happen again. However, I will try and restrain my inner voice a little better ....
    Last edited by Cavguy; 11-09-2008 at 02:30 AM.
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  6. #46
    Council Member Cavguy's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by MikeF View Post
    Maybe we'll find a good mixture of run versus pass. Maybe we'll find answers. Maybe we'll gain something approaching wisdom.

    I just wanna play football. I can run and I can pass- just put me in the game coach.

    I just wish I was a more diligent student of history in my younger years.
    Mike,

    Excellent, excellent, excellent.

    You should turn your football metaphor into an article for SWJ - about the need for a pass and running game. This crusaders vs. conservatives nonsense is wearing thin.

    All others - I am glad this thread is generating some excellent discussion - taking cue from Hacksaw reference brevity. I find it amusing my shortest article has engendered the most debate on the board.

    Fundamentally, I wrote it as a sort of love letter to the Army, asking it to institutionalize the lessons paid for in blood this time around. I have received unanimous positive feedback from my peers and below who have served in OIF/OEF. We were the ones who had to eulogize our soldiers, knew each personally, and realized that much of our loss was potentially avoidable. I look back every day and wonder if a few more people I knew would be alive if someone had simply explained to me or my superiors the very basics of COIN sometime in their PME. That frustration and guilt (at myself for not also being a better student) was expressed in the essay.

    I am considering my master's thesis as an autopsy on how much COIN was in senior level PME (CGSC, SAMS, War College) from 1980-2003. As I indicated, I find it somewhat disturbing that the army has a program called the School of Advanced Military Studies that didn't feature some sort of COIN education in its curriculum. Maybe it did, I would like to find out. I'm actually hoping not to find it, but not for the reasons you may think. If it was included it shifts the tactical/operational mistakes away from plain ignorance into something more disturbing.

    Thoughts from those who have been through senior level PME?
    "A Sherman can give you a very nice... edge."- Oddball, Kelly's Heroes
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  7. #47
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    Default When I taught at CGSC

    from Jun 92 thru Dec 97, we taught a significant amount of COIN (MOOTW and other names) in the core Joint curriculum. CSI (which was what the history dept was called then) also had a reasonable amount in their courses. SAMS, at the time, had hired a guy who specialized in Small Wars.

    In the 80s, however, there was very little. The Southcom Small Wars Operations Directorate (SWORD) pitched the then Deputy Commandant, Fred Franks, to have a 3 day symposium that addressed COIN. This increased the numbe of hours devoted to the subject from 8 to 24 (+8 = 32). the program lasted thru 89 but was reduced to 2 days - about 12 hours. But we expanded it to the USAF staff college.

    Cheers

    JohnT

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    Default MAJ Smith, I was dead wrong in misquoting you.

    Perhaps, that was my "inner voice" speaking.

    Based on the facts as I know them, I will call it "gross professional negligence" on an institutional level by more than one general officer. Nice not to be concerned about "conduct unbecoming" there

    Of course, it I hauled off with something like that involving SCOTUS, I guess I could get in trouble - assuming they would care (doubtful, too small a fishy).

    Usually, I'm better at "cross-checking" facts. A lesson learned again

  9. #49
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    Default Methodology - Defining Terms

    This sounds like a good start;

    john t fishel
    Now, we political (and other social) scientists have a solution for such semantic discrepancies. It is called "operational definition." Essentially, we define (or redefine) a word the way we want to use it and say to our interlocutors that if you want to talk to me about the subject of that word you had better be using my definition of it.
    except I would amend the last clause to read: "...if you want to talk to me about the subject of that word, we had better be using our definition of it." Mutuality, reciprocity, all that good stuff.

    Since this is a military site, you can propose as substitutes for anything below whatever military terms that are equivalent and which make sense.

    Literature Pecking Order

    Since we are discussing a literature search, I'll start with some classifying types from the more specific to the more general (using some military literature, rather than legal literature, as examples):

    1. Small case studies (how I characterized MAJ Smith's article, since its tactical events involved a limited area and timeframe in Iraq) - the Battle of Ap Bac.

    2. Large case studies - Krepinevich’s The Army & Summers' On Strategy

    3. Gigantic case studies (made that one up) - Asprey's War in the Shadows.

    Note there is a difference in the authority of these sources (those in ## 2 & 3 are secondary authorities, which are at least one step removed from the original event - e.g., the Battle of Ap Bac).

    While secondary authorities can be legal precedents, they are presumptively weaker than an original precedent - because of obvious factors, such as editorial bias, errors in reporting the original, etc. So, if we say Asprey has this to say about Ap Bac (but not much, pp. 1138-1139), one should ask "What is the rest of the story ?" - more on that below. Another note is that secondary authorities may include quotes from original sources; but you are always better to have the original source.

    Another factor enters into the equation, which is related to the primacy or non-primacy of authority; and that is - each case is unique. There is no such thing as a precedent that is directly on point with the current case. Of course, some precedents are very close to, others are further removed from, the current case. So, context, context, context.

    Precedents

    A precedent is a thing or event. A precedent is not a principle, not a doctrine and not a rule of decision - although all of those abstract concepts may be derived from a precedent, more often they are derived from a series of related precedents.

    Those who are familar with "War Crimes" know that a flock of habeas cases inhabit the DC courtrooms - most of which have filings citing Ex Parte Milligan as a precedent. We can go back to that opinion, look at its facts (context), and review its precedents - and so on, with each of them. We also could find some secondary authorities (e.g., Holmes Devise History of SCOTUS) which refer us to documents (media accounts, correspondence, etc.) outside of the purely judicial record (more context).

    Now, taking up Ap Bac, Nagl's Learning briefly covers it (pp.133-134). He cites Vann's 91-page after action report. Now, I can't put the Battle of Ap Bac into my backyard - wouldn't it be something to have a sci-fi device that would re-create any battle as it actually occured. Barring that, I would want Vann's report, all other reports, maps, etc. In short, as close as possible to the original record of that event (context again).

    Which is where we end going directly backwards in time - battles don't cite prior battles as precedents. However, military historians do something akin to that. So, we may be able to go further backwards by going forward to works which discuss Ap Bac. And, in any event, we can find what others opine as to that battle (e.g., Palmer's Summons, pt.1, ch.6).

    Shepardizing

    Shepardizing ("crosschecking" was a fudge term - although descriptive) is essential to the trial and appellate lawyer. Shepard’s® Citations Service has its sales pitch here.

    The original idea of Shepard's was to look forward in time from a case opinion and index every later case and secondary authority which cited that case. Given computer databasing, the service expanded to have some backwards in time capability, largely based on legal issue identification, keywords, etc.

    The bottom line is that a gigantic amount of legal information is available. The problem is the time available to analyze the information. There are a host of specialized databases that cover specific factual and legal situations, both editorially and linked to the original sources. So, put in the CD and hit the right keywords.

    Other Stuff

    The abstracts developed from precedents - whether called principles, doctrines, rules of decision, blackletter law - are tougher than the precedents.

    E.g., blackletter law (so called because it traditionally was the bolded heading to a section) is followed by a brief description of the major precedents supporting the blackletter - and then all of the exceptions to the blackletter. So, context, context, context.

    For you academics, you might have access to a old book, Charles A. Miller, The Supreme Court and the Uses of History (1969), written by an historian-political science guy, it offers a different (not necesarily better) approach than that taken by lawyers writing on the same topic. In his Intro, he makes some of the same points as John makes.

    Brief Note to COL Gentile

    from you
    JMM: My only comment to your excellent post is that what you say Niel's article lacked was a "crosschecking" which he corrected that problem later in his article by noting that when he returned from Iraq the second time he had read other classic coin authors like Galula, Thompson, Kitson, etc. That may satisfy your needs as a lawyer but not me for a historian trying to understand the past to help and inform me with the present.
    I believe my comments above begin to explain what satisfies me as a lawyer. If you want to see what satisfies and dissatisfies me in a particular context, please feel free to browse the "War Crimes" thread. For an example of how I approach research, visit the "Defending Hamdan" thread. All of those posts are kind of rough (scarcely MI Law Review standards), but the substance is there.

    Just to return to MAJ Smith for a moment. You know better than I that we have to deal with the situation in front of us, not the situation we would wish to have. Frankly, I do not know whether he took Krepinevich’s opinions (which is one thing), or took tactical examples described by Krepinevich (which is quite another thing), or both.

    If we lived in a perfect world, he could have "shepardized" both. He did not have the resources (and lacked the knowledge at that time) to do that. Perhaps, he is blessed with natural intuition - and that explains the subsequent successes. I don't know him, except for his posts and avatar. Can't comment on the relevance of geographical and timeframe distances to applicability of a prior military precedent to a current military situation. That is a matter between you two serving officers.
    Last edited by jmm99; 11-09-2008 at 04:57 AM.

  10. #50
    Council Member Ken White's Avatar
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    Default I think I'm the guilty one...

    Quote Originally Posted by Cavguy View Post
    I didn't use "criminal negligence", however, I did use "gross professional negligence"
    Quote Originally Posted by jmm99 View Post
    MAJ Smith, I was dead wrong in misquoting you...Perhaps, that was my "inner voice" speaking.
    I believe I have said on more than one occasion that the failure of the Army to embed the Doctrine, to organize train and equip for post attack occupation and for the possibility of FID or COIN operations was a major failure by the senior leadership of the Army for over 28 years, (1975-2003) and that that omission was borderline criminal malfeasance -- and I probably left out the 'borderline' on occasion. I have also said that concentration on the threat of the USSR from 1975 until 1990 was correct but need not have totally excluded 'small wars' (and, for part of the time, it was partially included) -- but failure to adapt to an obviously changed world from 1990 until 2003 was inexcusable IMO.

    I have also occasionally cited senior miscreants by name and have excoriated DoD and previous administrations for not pressing the issue. I wouldn't say all that were I still serving; I'm not so I have said it and will say it again.

    I believe it extremely important that the Army not forget and not repeat that error.

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