"A Sherman can give you a very nice... edge."- Oddball, 
Me too; do stop by when you visit here. Perhaps we can have lunch together.Originally Posted by Cavguy
gg
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!
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 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.
I strongly disagree here. I also argue with your use of "directly", which is pejorative.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.
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.
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.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.
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.
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.In fact, Niel, as much as you do not want to hear it, your essay fits perfectly in with the Surge Triumph narrative.
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.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?
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!
Last edited by Cavguy; 11-07-2008 at 05:27 AM.
Me too; do stop by when you visit here. Perhaps we can have lunch together.
gg
just a couple of more comments
Cavguy said:
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?
The word "directly" was not used in a pejorative sense (sorry if you took it that way) but in an argumentative way to make a point. So I use the word again, your essay (as I read it) does use the "lessons" from Vietnam as highlighted by Krepinevic (K) and "directly" applied them to Iraq in your second tour there. K says that the US failed in Vietnam because it didn’t focus on classic coin and population security, you say in Iraq the first three or so years (mostly) the US failed (or at a minimum performed very poorly) in Iraq because it did not do classic coin and did not focus on population security. How is that not applying the lessons directly?
How would it seem if some brigade or division commander right after the march up to Baghdad said that before the assault he had re-read his Jomini, realized that it had been overlooked in the American Army for the past 20 years, applied its Principles in the assault, and as a result of applying those principles the march up to Baghdad in Spring 2003 was a great success?
Qualitatively and with assuming a reasonable amount of context, how is this example of "using" history any different than yours?
Again, it is a different philosophy of history that you and I have. To quote one of your words, you see history as something that can be "used." I see the "using" of history as dangerous because it produces a mindset of the templating of the past into lessons and principles to be plucked at will for "use" in the present. But in so doing this you end becoming a-historical in the sense that by detaching these lessons from their historical moorings and plotting them in the present you remove them from their context. What is it about this period of history of the Vietnam War and counterinsurgency that we privilege it over other periods? As a matter of abstracted historical philosophy, why do we privilege the writings of Galula for lessons learned in Iraq say over the British imperial officer CE Callwell? The conventional answer to this question as given to me by one of the primary authors of FM 3-24 is that Galula's world of the early 1960s is simply closer to ours than Callwell's. Well back into the reality of the present, I don’t buy such arguments. But those that do have thus detached the early 1960s counterinsurgency theory and practice and have plotted in the present as a template and have elevated it to the absolute oracle of historical truth because they align in analog fashion to current experience in Iraq and say in a reductive, simplistic way that here are the lessons from Vietnam, we have learned them, have applied them in Iraq and because we have learned and adapted we are winning.
That is what, in barest form, is happening here.
Not that I'm anywhere close to grounded in enough historical theory to get in this bun-fight, but I fail to see how taking the "jist" of one historical situation and applying those elements you think apply to another.
On one hand, it's entirely possible to be completely technically accurate, while still being substantially incorrect.
It's also possible to be technically inaccurate and substantially correct.
Both probably happen more often than you'd think....
I think that a better way of describing the lament in Niel’s AFJ article is that he felt, after his visit to the library, that the US Army had failed to progress.
We might review the bidding here and see that we have two disparate views on the value of the study of history. Some may view history as a review of and reporting on the deeds done by other agents in times past. The value in studying it is to save us from "reinventing wheels" by not redoing what has already been done before. Others (I suspect this includes Gian) submit that history falls within the realm of the “human” sciences. We study it to learn more about ourselves, who and what we are. We do this through a process of reenactment (to use a term from R. G. Collingwood) of the processes others have used to work through their problems in order to reach a resolution to them.
Regardless of which view we take, we need to remember that problems faced by people in the past were their problems, not our problems. Our problems may find analogues in the problems of past agents, but each pair of analogues also has relevant points of dissimilarity that we must keep in the front of our minds. Otherwise we will be seduced into repeating the past, which may be better described as failing to progress.
What Niel seemed to be espousing is what we find in George Santayana’s book, The Life of Reason. An apropos quotation, which puts Santayana’s most quoted (and misquoted) line into its context, follows:
Sanatayana’s insistence on retentiveness as a condition of progress is really of little value. It simply is a precondition for us to be able to say that we have made progress. Progeress judgments work like this: We have to be able to make a comparison between the way things were and the way things currently are. We than make a normative judgment about the state of affairs today compared to that of the original reference point. If we do not “remember the past,” then we cannot say we have improved on the past because we have no basis for measurement. It is only in this sense that we are “condemned to repeat” the past: we are at a point without reference. We are “unstuck in time” as Kurt Vonnegut poignantly described Billy Pilgrim in Slaughterhouse Five.Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is
set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. In the first stage of life the mind is frivolous and easily distracted; it misses progress by failing in consecutiveness and persistence. This is the condition of children and barbarians, in whom instinct has learned nothing from experience. In a second stage men are docile to events, plastic to new habits and suggestions, yet able to graft them on original instincts, which they thus bring to fuller satisfaction. This is the plane of manhood and true progress. Last comes a stage when retentiveness is exhausted and all that happens is at once forgotten; a vain, because unpractical, repetition of the past takes the place of plasticity and fertile
readaptation. In a moving world readaptation is the price of longevity.
The hard shell, far from protecting the vital principle, condemns it to die down slowly and be gradually chilled; immortality in such a case must have been secured earlier, by giving birth to a generation plastic to the contemporary world and able to retain its lessons. Thus old age is as forgetful as youth, and more incorrigible; it displays the same inattentiveness to conditions; its memory becomes self-repeating and degenerates into an instinctive reaction, like a bird's chirp.
Not all readaptation, however, is progress, for ideal identity must not be lost. The Latin language did not progress when it passed into Italian. It died. Its amiable heirs may console us for its departure, but do not remove the fact that their parent is extinct. So every individual, nation, and religion has its limit of adaptation; so long as the increment it receives is digestible, so long as the organisation already attained is extended and elaborated without being surrendered, growth goes on; but when the foundation itself shifts, when what is gained at the periphery is lost at the centre, the flux appears again and progress is not real. Thus a succession of generations or languages
or religions constitutes no progress unless some ideal present at the beginning is transmitted to the end and reaches a better expression there; without this stability at the core no common standard exists and all comparison of value with value must be external and arbitrary. Retentiveness, we must repeat, is the condition of progress.
Vir prudens non contra ventum mingit
The greatest educational dogma is also its greatest fallacy: the belief that what must be learned can necessarily be taught. — Sydney J. Harris
Krepinevich was right in points, and Summers was right in points. Neither of them has a corner on the whole truth, because they are in essence looking at different aspects of the same war. But this whole discussion does point out the flaws of an "either/or" approach to history. I'm not sure what level of blunt force trauma it will take to knock people out of this mindset, but I'm certainly willing to run some tests...
Disagreeing with Krepinevich's conclusions does nothing to blunt the impact that the book can have on a person's learning and thought process, which (to me) is what Neil was writing about. If we're going to start dredging out historical periods to consult, I'd argue that neither Galula nor Callwell are good choices: given the mix of tribal politics and media reactions we meet I'd say that our own Indian Wars might repay more study. But given the American need to validate ideas through foreign confirmation, it's much more likely that we'll stick with outside sources.
I do believe that history can be used to inform future courses of action. Context is important, but it can be used to understand (or at least illuminate) why certain things happened (or did not happen) and what impact certain actions might have on a similar situation. It's not an exact thing, and given that human reactions are involved I don't think it ever will be. But to dismiss the value of history is foolish in the extreme. You shouldn't necessarily template from it, but ignoring it is equally dangerous.
Ken: History is just as imperfect as the memory of the participants it often draws upon. Good history draws in a variety of perspectives and then attempts to make some sense of the whole. Vietnam threw much of that off track because too many people who lacked training in that synthesis process (I'd single out reporters, but there are others as well) starting writing what they called history when it fact it was little more than a series of political polemics. I've seen just as many "first person accounts" that contained wild errors as I have "solid historical studies," so I take either with a large grain of salt. True history is a synthesis...it's not an "either/or" proposition in most cases. Everyone brings their biases to the table (the researcher, the oral history interviewee, the author of documents being consulted, the reporter who covered the event, and so on).
"On the plains and mountains of the American West, the United States Army had once learned everything there was to learn about hit-and-run tactics and guerrilla warfare."
T.R. Fehrenbach This Kind of War
You're right
on this and I totally agree. Agree with all the rest, as well. This part is particularly true:Krepinevich was right in points, and Summers was right in points. Neither of them has a corner on the whole truth, because they are in essence looking at different aspects of the same war. But this whole discussion does point out the flaws of an "either/or" approach to history. I'm not sure what level of blunt force trauma it will take to knock people out of this mindset, but I'm certainly willing to run some tests...Amen -- I'd only add that many contributors will skew things to protect not themselves but others -- or an idea....Ken: History is just as imperfect as the memory of the participants it often draws upon. Good history draws in a variety of perspectives and then attempts to make some sense of the whole. Vietnam threw much of that off track because too many people who lacked training in that synthesis process (I'd single out reporters, but there are others as well) starting writing what they called history when it fact it was little more than a series of political polemics. I've seen just as many "first person accounts" that contained wild errors as I have "solid historical studies," so I take either with a large grain of salt. (emphasis added / kw)All too true and I'd add that those who elect to cite 'history' or some recollections sometimes cherry pick to support their biases or positions. I certainly do -- but I'm willing to admit it...True history is a synthesis...it's not an "either/or" proposition in most cases. Everyone brings their biases to the table (the researcher, the oral history interviewee, the author of documents being consulted, the reporter who covered the event, and so on).
Col. Gentile,
I can certainly see the danger you point out, but what is the alternative? It seems to me you are not hostile to learning from history - perhaps you see the "use" of history by Cavguy and others as insufficiently rigorous?To quote one of your words, you see history as something that can be "used." I see the "using" of history as dangerous because it produces a mindset of the templating of the past into lessons and principles to be plucked at will for "use" in the present. But in so doing this you end becoming a-historical in the sense that by detaching these lessons from their historical moorings and plotting them in the present you remove them from their context.
So I guess your comment begs bigger questions - what is the proper way learn from history? When and how should lessons from the past inform operations in the present?
Congrats Cavguy ... and a few comments
Niel, an excellent article.
Something worth reading: Richard Neustadt and Ernest May, THINKING IN TIME: THE USES OF HISTORY FOR DECISIONMAKERS. Richard Neustadt, a political scientist - like me, was a staffer for President Truman and is best known for his book, PRESIDENTIAL POWER. Ernest May is a historian. Their point, briefly summarized, is that we all reason by historical analogy, Wheile there is no avoiding this, thinking rigorously can help us avoid historical interpretations that are too facile.
As a political scientist, I usaully have to take my disciplinary colleagues to task for their utter disregard of history. One cannot do good political analysis without knowing the history of the country, organization, or events that are the subject of research. That said, many of my historian colleagues are so convinced that every situation is unique and, therefore, no generalization is possible. For what it's worth, a plaque on both extremes!
Cheers
JohnT
COL G said:That is a consideration worth thinking about. One I think we might kill some brain cells over if we consider how it shakes out.I see the "using" of history as dangerous because it produces a mindset of the templating of the past into lessons and principles to be plucked at will for "use" in the present. But in so doing this you end becoming a-historical in the sense that by detaching these lessons from their historical moorings and plotting them in the present you remove them from their context.
If I understand your concern its that the affect of Niel attributing his success to the application of what "N" "learned" from reading "K" is that others may also reach first for "K" (or "G" for Galula) or by extension the writings of those who attribute some of or all of their success to K or G exclusively to the lessons available from others, and that the danger in so doing is that they will see every problem as one being one in which a K, G or N solution will work without consideration of context.How would it seem if some brigade or division commander right after the march up to Baghdad said that before the assault he had re-read his Jomini, realized that it had been overlooked in the American Army for the past 20 years, applied its Principles in the assault, and as a result of applying those principles the march up to Baghdad in Spring 2003 was a great success?
What makes this more difficult is Niel's lamentation and frustration that there was no body of knowledge in his PME to that point that introduced him to the theory of COIN, and he was left to find it himself, and build one piecemeal. Part of Niel's argument is that the actions taken by leaders that allowed COIN education and training to be omitted from his PME to that point left him only partially prepared to do the mission(s) he was given. His highlighting of "K"s work is less an endorsement of its answer to all the challenges Niel faced as much as it is an indictment of a Institutional deficit of knowledge that he required in order to frame his thoughts and guide some of his actions during his mission.
It is a strong indictment from Niel's (and from mine) perspective given that many of the leaders who'd determined our DOTMLPF path between the years and the omission of a COIN body of knowledge had also been in Vietnam, were aware of other insurgencies before and after Vietnam and would seem to be in a better position to identify the gaps. This in my view means there were deliberate choices made, and for whatever reasons, they left a hole where that knowledge should have been.
As such our military leaders made a decision, that seems to me based not only on priorities associated with the enemy of the time, but with the enemy of choice. Where there was an opportunity to consider our involvement in Vietnam from a number of angles and build that knowledge into our understanding of how we might be called on to employ military force and national power together for an end, we chose otherwise. We left a couple of empty slots on our PME bookshelf, and Niel filled it the best way he could.
The lesson I take from Niel's very good essay is that when enough of the leadership is willing to believe the truth as they think it should be, the institution has a way of facilitating their delusion and then strengthening it to the point it is near unassailable. The result is that when reality proves the preferred truth is a fallacy, it makes adapting to reality harder than it has to be, we place more risk to the political objective, and Niel has to go find "K" with dust all over him on the library shelf, not knowing if "K" is really applicable or not because as far as the institution is concerned, he is an unknown value. When Niel finds out that "K" worked out OK for him, he has an obligation in my view to let others know and fill the hole until our institution catches up and fills the slots. Leaving the hole is just as wrong now as it was then.
I'm finding this to be true as well when people say we are "highly" unlikely to fight our way into our out of a place in large scale MCO situations. How do they know that? Do the think its always up to them? Where can I get their crystal ball, and will those folks be around to own up when reality calls them on their prognosis? That is the thing about war an politics, it never seems to go exactly like you thought it would, and there seems to be an awful lot of unanticipated requirements. I understand risk, but education is an area that we can at least give ourselves a leg up in. Choosing an alternate reality is a good way to come up short at the wrong time.
I'd say read as much History as you can get your hands on, and think critically about how the experience of others applies to your requirements. COL G is correct about the danger of "templating" but that danger extends beyond the history written by others - ground truth changes with time and geography and what worked well last month in one place, may not be so good next month in another place as moods and people change things. We see this right now as we consider Iraq as it relates to Afghanistan. However, we also believe that somethings are more common, and as such lend them to imperatives.
In hunting, most game animals need water, food and habitat. People have requirements as well and our understanding of those requirements as they relate to the context of the conditions can help us do our job as long as we acknowledge what is different and continue to look for what changes. I never got much of that in my PME or training before 2004. JRTC provided a taste of it, but even then the enemy was free to take actions that he did not really have to live with - if he got shot he just went back to Geronimo land, and at the end of the rotation we were all buds - hell he might even wind up in my unit. Our own society did not reflect it very well either, because even though there is some violence, some issues of security and some tension, it is relatively small and regulated in most of America. The DOTMLPF systems we'd designed to prepare us for the war we preferred to consider created a culture that could almost exclusively see only those things and largely insulated us from the one we had to go fight. Niel's article bears witness to that in my view.
We should not have an educational approach in our PME which espouses a selected reading of war, because then we get a selected understanding and institutional inbreeding. Instead, we need to cover the full range and cycle of war from the causes of conflict, the requirements of war, the politics during war, and the reasons for which temporary and lasting peaces occur - and then why they go bad. This way we will be better able to understand where we are at a given time and make better decisions about how to get to where we'd rather be, and because this is the reality we are faced with when we get called to go do our jobs.
Best, Rob
Last edited by Rob Thornton; 11-07-2008 at 11:08 PM.
I appreciate the very thoughtful remarks on this thread by the SWC members.
As I stated up front Niel has written a fine piece, one to be proud of, as my old buddy Mr Hack said, it was mercifully short meaning that he made his point clearly then ended. Frugality in writing is always a good thing. Niel is a fine officer and committed to making the army better and I respect him greatly for that. I hope to meet him soon one day and have a beer with him.
Many good points made so far. A few comments on some of them.
John T: you are correct that we all often reason through historical analogy. But reasoning through historical analogy is different from analog thinking about the past. And it is analog thinking that I fear. That is when one finds a data point in the past because it looks somewhat like the present, then detaches that data point from its historical context renames it a lesson or principle and then plots it in the present for a template for action. John T, you may not see this in much of the army's professional writing today but I certainly do (admittedly I may be wrong). It has become almost like a form that one comes back from a deployment, dusts off a old book of history, plucks a few points out from it, then says that we did essentially the same thing by following said lessons or principles. This is not reasoning through historical analogy but simplistic, reductionism and a-historical thinking. It is what Clausewitz warned against; it is, in a sense Jomini.
Rob Thornton: I agree with much of what you say. I would just add that another thing that troubles me is the underlying premise--a counterfactual or "what-if" if you will that stipulates that things would, WOULD, have turned out differently in Iraq IF, IF, we had not jettisoned the "lessons" from Vietnam. That notion is nothing less than suspect in my mind; in fact as many on the SWC council know I have often argued that even if the Army had embraced and dedicated resources to Coin in the 90s, Iraq still turns out like it does based on the amount of resources committed and the blunders made at the strategy and policy levels early on.
WM: I appreciate your well stated point about the contingent nature of historical conditions and the danger of detaching them from their moorings.
Entropy: Your question is simple and to the point. What do we do with history? Can we learn from it? Well if I said no to this the spirit of Clausewitz would strike me down as I write. Of course we should learn from history; I do everyday in my readings and teachings of different historical subjects. But it is different to learn from history, to gain wisdom so to speak, than from reducing history to principles and lessons and applying them in the present and using them also for projection for the future.
It is like the 19th century Prussian Obe Won said, history should INFORM, but not ACCOMPANY.
Again, an indicator of a thoughtful article is its ability draw out debate. I am not being critical of Niel, but drawing on his fine article to apply criticism and thought to problems that I see in the US Army.
If anyone takes anything away from this thread,
it should be this:as amplified by this:He's obviously not alone: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....Because those are truths; they are not just a theory, they are a statement of fact and many of us know it all too well. We cannot know that had the failure not occurred, Iraq would have been different -- but we can speculate and I submit the possibility that it might have been only 10% better would have saved several hundred lives. It's not a Greek Tragedy -- it's an American tragedy. One that must not be repeated.
There is also this:True on the first part.On the latter portion, no one can object to that and your opinions have merit and weight. However, I too can apply criticism after much extremely long and hard thought to problems that I see in the US Army today; there are three that are IMO quite critical:
Too many seniors are reluctant to trust their subordinates; This either causes or is caused by risk aversion -- I'm still trying to determine which but I do know inadequate training is at the root of it. Those are the first two items. Lastly but most importantly -- and in the vein of this thread -- I see a very worrisome and strong trend on the part of some senior people to return as quickly as possible to business as usual...
That is not a good idea.
COL G said:Sir, I think it is wise to admit the possibility exists that your argument is valid in part or in whole. I also think its wise to not easily dismiss the potential that had we considered our Vietnam experience for its relevance to our strategic culture and our policy goals, and as such incorporated it into out DOTMLPF processes better, it may have informed the CIV/MIL discussion over time in a way that led to better strategic decisions and policy. Hard to say for sure given the attraction to the object, but I do believe the body as a whole would have been better prepared, and as such adapted better.in fact as many on the SWC council know I have often argued that even if the Army had embraced and dedicated resources to Coin in the 90s, Iraq still turns out like it does based on the amount of resources committed and the blunders made at the strategy and policy levels early on.
It may also have informed the requirements for decisions on civilian appointments, promotions and major commands. It may even have lent greater credibility to dissenting voices who raised doubts, or provided contradictory advice to the accepted and preferred views at critical times.
Strategy may be centralized in its initial conception, but it is often informed, altered and refined from the various points in between the top and the bottom because that is where conditions occur that provide feedback on effectiveness, sustainability and feasibility. In other words, what we value as relevant is to some degree determined by what we have learned to value and that happens over time. Our actions are indicative of what we value as an institution.
My biggest fear is that we get too comfortable with any one perspective on war and by extension allow our elected civilian leaders and ourselves to believe that war is linear; to believe that both the nature of war and the character and requirements for war are exactly the same regardless of conditions, policy objective and the attraction to it; and to believe that war is a formulaic undertaking to be used easily and with little consequence to the user. Nothing could be further from the truth I think. It will be interesting to see what lessons are "available" and which ones are "learned" from our current wars over the next 10 to 20 years.
Best, Rob
Last edited by Rob Thornton; 11-08-2008 at 02:10 AM.
Methodology
My first (and still-current) impression of MAJ Smith's article was that it was an incisive small case study in the methodology of finding and applying a prior relevant and material precedent.
My only critique of the methodology initially employed was the absence of cross-checking the precedent backwards and forwards. MAJ Smith corrected that when he decompressed after returning from Iraq:
My impression and critique were formed by my own professional experience. The methodology described by MAJ Smith has been employed by UK & US lawyers and judges for the last 700 years since Bracton initiated professional legal literature.from MAJ Smith's article
Since returning from Iraq, I have studied other writers on counterinsurgency, such as Galula, Trinquier, Kilcullen, Kitson, McCuen and Thompson ....
To a lawyer or judge, finding and applying precedents includes substantive precedents (Constitution, statutes, treaties & regulations, and judicial opinions); but also procedural precedents (which teach methods and techniques), often requiring reference to the pleadings and trial transcripts. The latter use, in fact, was Bracton's main focus.
I was therefore surprised that anyone would question the general validity of the methodology which MAJ Smith employed. COL Gentile has well-pleaded the general issue, very succinctly:
Let us be clear that "to learn from history, to gain wisdom so to speak" is not at issue. For example, study resulting in a greater appreciation of legal history (e.g., Plucknett and Maitland), or of history in general (e.g., Will Durant), is admirable.from COL Gentile
Of course we should learn from history; I do everyday in my readings and teachings of different historical subjects. But it is different to learn from history, to gain wisdom so to speak, than from reducing history to principles and lessons and applying them in the present and using them also for projection for the future.
The issue joined is COL Gentile's argument, in effect, that an invalid methodology consists of "reducing history to principles and lessons and applying them in the present and using them also for projection for the future." Which is exactly what UK & US lawyers and judges do.
If the quote is intended to be a statement of general application, it obviously calls into question the validity of the legal methodology I have briefly described. That would seem to be a heavy brief to carry - in light of 700 years of history.
I assume arguendo that the reference is therefore aimed at invalidating that methodology as applied to finding and applying precedents in the military area from its history. I am hard-pressed to understand why that would be so - and what precedents support that distinction.
Like JMM,
Gian, I was struck by your statement about principles and lessons learned. While I would not use JMM's legal examples, I was bothered enough because my understanding of the word, principle, is less rigid than either yours or his. So I looked it up on dictionary.com and found a whole bunch (around 10) of definitions some of which accorded with both your understandings and some of which accorded with mine.
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.
Since I think that you both are using relatively comparable definitions of principle I'll leave it to you to sort out the implications of your definition. But, I think, as well, that the way I use the term principle is somewhat different - a general rule that may be applied (must be applied) differently to the unique circumstances of an event (my operational definition). An example is the Principle of War called Economy of Force. I believe, therefore, that one can and should derive principles of this kind from the study of historical cases and rigorously adapt them (subject to constant revision like any plan) to circumstances that appear to be analogous - again after rigorous analysis and comparison. (This BTW is how I understand Neustadt and May's argument.) This is also my sense of how CSI sees the use of history in its studies of contemporary conflict and GWOT occasional papers series. But, then, I'm not sure how the academic historians would see this effort - as real history or something else entirely. From my poly sci vantage point, it makes good sense.
Cheers
JohnT
more comments
Ken:
In my last post in no way did I mean to suggest that "I" have the lock on criticism within the Army that precludes the voice of others on important matters; specifically in no way did I mean to suggest that your voice is not important on these matters since they most certainly are and I always read them carefully (although I have to tell you I often disagree with your interpretation of Vietnam and history, but naturally, this is OK)
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. It gets to the point John T made earlier when he questioned if I had a problem with generalization of history, which I don’t. Problem with Niel's "crosschecking" is that it is still locked into this specific historical period and in that sense if we are really going to generalize about coin one needs to go farther back from the 1960s and farther forward too. For example, the American Army in El Salvador in the 1980s did their very best to apply a classic coin approach (population centric) from the lessons derived from Vietnam. Yet for a bunch of reasons that approach and the ends it was trying to achieve did not work as planned. So if one is looking to history to inform, and one only looks at it narrowly, and then generalizes into the realm of principles and lessons from that narrow view, then we have problems. Would Niel have changed his view of the value of Krepinevich's argument about Vietnam and the lessons from it as they apply to the present with a thorough understanding of the fact that the American Army tried to do classic coin in El Salvador (by using the El Salvadoran army and government as its proxy) and it did not work in the ways planned.
John T: I have no problems as a practical matter with coming up with principles and lessons (although purely as a historian with a view toward a philosophy and theory of history, I think that the notion of principles and lessons are problematic at best) for a field army at war. 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.
gian
Cautionary historical notes & a disagreement
Gian--
I agree with you that one should be very cautious about applying lessons from Iraq to operations in Afghanistan. Particularly, one needs to consider issues of small COPs in light of other historical experience there, such as the Brits in Kabul twice in the 19th century. That doen't mean that my friend John Nagl is necessarily wrong in his assessment but rather that it is both more complex and requires more in depth analysis before we decide on a strategy and operational plans and tactics. One fallacy is that we have a tendency to focus on a singular historical experience without comparing it to other similar and contrasting experiences. Another of our errors is that we prefer not to remember our own history at all (or rather remember it very selectively). I am thinking here of 300 years of American (both colonial and national) military experience fighting Indians and later the Philippine Insurrection that we did not wish to recall in the 30 years between the end of Vietnam and 9/11. Again, from my poly sci (and old soldier) perspective, the essence of using history to garner principles and lessons is to look for multiple cases that shed light on the subject.
In that context, I must disagree with your interpretation of the war in El Salvador. Our allies won! They won, largely because they learned from the lessons taught by the MILGP and 3 superb Ambassadors and their own pragmatism. I watched that fight up close and personal as the XO of the Combined ESAF Assessment Team in 87 and 88 and later at SSI and as a civilian prof at Leavenworth as the fight wound down and ended with the peace accords of 1992. Obviously, there is significant disagreement as to how much the Fall of the Wall in 89, the ending of Soviet aid to Cuba, and the fall of the USSR in 1991 contributed to the GOES victory. I believe it was important but not decisive although I am sure that many would disagree. But, my real point is that MILGP commanders like John Waghelstein and Ambassadors like Ed Corr and CINC's like Jack Galvin and Fred Woerner brought a much broader view of historical experience than merely that of COIN in Vietnam to the table.
Cheers
JohnT
Sodium Chloride to the rescue...
Of course it is. I will again point out though that I don't so much disagree with your interpretation of what you read as I do with those sources and their reliance on the 'record.' I have a great deal of experience over many years with that record and know that it is often deliberately skewed to cover mistakes, blunders, accidents and bad decisions and to protect or embellish reputations; bureaucracies tend to do that...
As Steve Blair said earlier, both the written and oral histories need to be taken with quantities of NaCl...
We do agree that training and effort for MCO are imperatives and must take precedence over COIN issues; we only disagree on what else must -- and can -- be done.
Oh, re: Veet Nam. I'll also point out that thisselective use of history by you is not perhaps refuted by this:JMM: ... the fact that the American Army tried to do classic coin in El Salvador (by using the El Salvadoran army and government as its proxy) and it did not work in the ways planned.
...From John T. -- ""In that context, I must disagree with your interpretation of the war in El Salvador. Our allies won! They won, largely because they learned from the lessons taught by the MILGP and 3 superb Ambassadors and their own pragmatism. I watched that fight up close and personal as the XO of the Combined ESAF Assessment Team in 87 and 88..."
However, that rebuttal certainly does raise the question of the accuracy of observations of people on the ground at the time versus the 'record' written by others who were not there and who may or may not have a bias...
Ken, it's even more complicated
since some of those who were there - including Waghelstein, whom I greatly respect and who is a good friend - have written that we didn't win...
Obviously, being on the ground, studying the situation academically, or a combination of both will not automatically produce Truth. Reasonable people can, and will, disagree. But discussions like this can help to clarify all our views of reality.
Cheers
JohnT
May I paraphrase and wholeheartedly agree...
Since some of those who were there - including a few whom I greatly respect and who are or were good friends - have written things that differ from my view...
(Albeit only slightly, he said, shyly...)
Don't even have to paraphrase this one.Well said, as always, John.Obviously, being on the ground, studying the situation academically, or a combination of both will not automatically produce Truth. Reasonable people can, and will, disagree. But discussions like this can help to clarify all our views of reality.
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