Fundamentals of Company-level Counterinsurgency

[Jones_RE]

I think that within the field of maneuver warfare, the current generation of officers is not dogmatic and inflexible. When it comes to a mechanized shootout in a desert somewhere they're quick thinking, creative and downright devious. There is no other way to win those simulations, because if you follow some scripted playbook the "red team" will hand you your head. There's nothing like that for COIN, Stability Operations, Peace Enforcement, etc. So there's room to just settle in and turn off the brain - dogmatism requires a certain degree of complacency in order to thrive. You can't be complacent against a thinking, breathing opponent who wants to win, because that opponent will come up with a way to beat the pants off you. When that starts showing up in your fitness reports it starts impacting careers and that gets noticed.

[Martin]

I think that within the field of maneuver warfare, the current generation of officers is not dogmatic and inflexible. When it comes to a mechanized shootout in a desert somewhere they're quick thinking, creative and downright devious. There is no other way to win those simulations, because if you follow some scripted playbook the "red team" will hand you your head. There's nothing like that for COIN, Stability Operations, Peace Enforcement, etc. So there's room to just settle in and turn off the brain - dogmatism requires a certain degree of complacency in order to thrive. You can't be complacent against a thinking, breathing opponent who wants to win, because that opponent will come up with a way to beat the pants off you. When that starts showing up in your fitness reports it starts impacting careers and that gets noticed.

Interesting point to make... Do conventional forces have a good way of measuring and recording real world progress in COIN? How would you go about doing that?

Martin

[GorTex6]

If you have not studied counterinsurgency theory, here it is in a nutshell: this is a competition with the insurgent for the right and the ability to win the hearts, minds and acquiescence of the population. You are being sent in because the insurgents, at their strongest, can defeat anything weaker than you. But you have more combat power than you can or should use in most situations. Injudicious use of firepower creates blood feuds, homeless people and societal disruption that fuels and perpetuates the insurgency. The most beneficial actions are often local politics, civic action, and beat-cop behaviors.

Dumbasses need to realize this is counterinsurgency and not another Tom Clancy computer game You do not get cool points for firing at anything approaching your convoy nor firing .50 indescriminately at a village

8. Rank is nothing, talent is everything...

Talent isn't based on political position within the unit either.

[zenpundit]

A pity he was never seconded to Abizaid as an adviser. Sort of an Aussie Charles Murphy role.

[Tom Odom]

I think that within the field of maneuver warfare, the current generation of officers is not dogmatic and inflexible. When it comes to a mechanized shootout in a desert somewhere they're quick thinking, creative and downright devious. There is no other way to win those simulations, because if you follow some scripted playbook the "red team" will hand you your head. There's nothing like that for COIN, Stability Operations, Peace Enforcement, etc. So there's room to just settle in and turn off the brain - dogmatism requires a certain degree of complacency in order to thrive. You can't be complacent against a thinking, breathing opponent who wants to win, because that opponent will come up with a way to beat the pants off you. When that starts showing up in your fitness reports it starts impacting careers and that gets noticed.

that is exactly the role of the JRTC where COIN, stability ops, and peace enforcement along with CONOPs and other tasks have been and still are trained against a thinking breathing opponent

Tom

[jcustis]

A pity he was never seconded to Abizaid as an adviser. Sort of an Aussie Charles Murphy role

I disagree, as that is not the level where his influence needs to be felt.

I don't buy off on everything he has written, but good on him for organizing his thoughts and common sense in the best fashion I've seen in a long time. I read it and thought, this is like a memory jogger that I could see finding a home next to the AO/sector map in the CO CP!

Perhaps his services could be better employed, say, at the JRTC, or the Marine Corps Mojave Viper program. This is all good stuff, but it's only as good as its implementation. If a battalion commander directs all of his junior officers to read the text, that's a first step. The shortfall is that with a read of the material, one can only gain the knowledge. The desired endstate is "understanding", and that certainly takes more time, effort, and resources.

I've often held subtle disagreement with the training methodologies typically employed in the military. A case in point is the JRTC/NTC/CAX paradigm. Some units treat them as they are designed, as training events, while others use them as a "graduation exercise" of sorts, and "train to deploy and train". Our doctrine/training commands can be cumbersome at times, and with the issues that the LtCol so poignantly addresses, I don't think one (read: company staff/troops) could gain understanding from a day with him in the bleacher seating at a MOUT town, or an extract of his writing stuffed in the appendices of a period of instruction on COIN.

Perhaps we need a new paradigm, where units shift from sending an officer/SNCO to a formal school for 3-4 weeks, and send their best and brightest to week-long (or longer) seminars where they have the opportunity to sit and truly listen, question, and debate. Designed to deliver further training back to the unit, this training needs to follow something like a sensei-to-pupil model, not Billy Banks and Tae-Bo.

[Larry Dunbar]

I would think, possibly because I have no expertise in military tactics, that having the Iraqi army mirror the insurgency would be exactly what is needed. If the Iraqi army and the insurgency are facing (literally) each other and neither are in a full-out retreat, when the insurgency moves to the right the Iraqi army needs to mirror that movement by moving to its left.
When the Iraqi army moves to the left, in a move to mirror the enemy, before the insurgency does, that's called getting into your enemy's decision making loop and is an offensive movement. To expect the Iraqi Army to do more, without a robust Iraqi civilian/military support mechanisms, would seem to me to be to be unreasonable.
If I was leading a company into battle in Iraq, I would want the 28 articles tattooed inside my eye lids so I could read them every night (or day) before I went to sleep, but are they really complete? While reading the recommended literature should tie everyone reading the articles together, couldn't the articles summarize more about what they are really about, leading?

[Jones_RE]

I don't think it's a good idea to exactly mirror the insurgency, but I'm hard pressed to think of the counter insurgent movement that succeeded without adopting at least some of the tactics of its opponents. E.g. the US Cavalry picking up Indian scouts for help with tracking, lightening some combat loads, etc. in order to keep up with fast moving Indian opponents.

That said, the Iraqi Army has some advantages the insurgents never will, and they'd be fools to ignore them: funding to pay recruits, training in small arms and tactics from US soldiers, access to sophisticated electronic and aerial intelligence, a certain degree of air and armored support, etc.

What, specifically, should the Iraqi army (and perhaps the US army) attempt to copy from the insurgents? I'll throw out a few ideas, perhaps some people here can come up with others.

1) Camouflage. The insurgents virtually never reveal themselves until they strike. Select Iraqi soldiers should definitely be out and about in their patrol areas in plainclothes or unmarked civilian vehicles. Sufficient issue of concealed weapons would be a good idea. A better idea would be meticulous record keeping and debriefs to make sure these soldiers aren't sidelining as death squads or criminals. Perhaps digital cameras or GPS devices could be issued to provide some evidence of that.

2) The rumor mill. Iraqi society receives much of its information by word of mouth. Simply being aware of the latest urban legends could be a great asset, even if you don't debunk them or start your own.

3) Internet age communications. The insurgents make a big deal out of their websites and so forth. Individual units, officers and soldiers with their own blogs, sites and so forth could start to counteract the other side's dominance in the Information War.

[Larry Dunbar]

I don't think it's a good idea to exactly mirror the insurgency, but I'm hard pressed to think of the counter insurgent movement that succeeded without adopting at least some of the tactics of its opponents.
What, specifically, should the Iraqi army (and perhaps the US army) attempt to copy from the insurgents?

Mirroring is not copying your opponents tactics. Mirroring is a strategy. To accomplish this strategy takes information of the implicit nature of your enemy. Once you know your enemy, you can train in his tactics and counter them. If you are good enough, you can counter before your enemy acts, this is called offensive maneuvers.
I at first thought the Iraqi Army could, if anyone could, mirror the insurgency. This was because of the fact they know, implicitly, the insurgency. However, the problem with this idea, one of must be many, is that a mirroring strategy takes two players. The Iraqi Army may know the insurgency well enough to participate, however, they don't know themselves well enough. The Iraqi Army's implicit rules (what they feel inside) are too divided. I don't think it would be possible to mirror your enemy when part of what you feel belongs to the enemy.
So the statement in the 28 articles should be amended. It should read instead: the Iraqi Army should follow the explicit orders of the US military until such time that the Iraqi Army develops an identity of itself. It should be the strategy of the US military to promote an Iraqi Army's self-identity through training and support. While this creates a big Catch-22, I am sure this is something the US military is quite able to handle, given time.

[jcustis]

Mirroring one's enemy happened in a way during the Rhodesian conflict. A read of the texts describing pseudo-operations, conducted by the Selous Scouts, describes the path the Rhodesian Security Forces took to "turn" terrorists for the purpose of gaining tactical intelligence about the enemy. In several cases, "turned" terrorists were integrated into the Scouts' formations and employed in the field to allow them to get within hands-reach of the small terrorist gangs.

The tactics came at a price though, and allegations were laid against the Scouts that they used questionable tactics and torture to accomplish the mission. Media hype and Marxist rhetoric only inflamed matters, and the secretive unit could do little to defend itself in the open.

"Mirroring", if not employed in accordance with the precepts of the Law of War, poses significant risks. Could the Iraqi Security Forces become the death squads of the M.E.? Would their actions put a stink on the coalition forces that trained and outfitted them?

I agree that the ISF needs to understand all aspects of the insurgency, especially those quirks that an outsider would never understand, but employing those tactics could quickly blur the line between opponents, and only excacerbate the civil war tinderbox.

Just my $.02