My reaction to Gen. Petraeus's dissertation...

[yamiyugikun]

Hi everyone,

I think this would be the right place to post a thread regarding history, since this is my reaction to reading Gen. Petraeus's dissertation so far, which explores the use of military force in the Vietnam war. I'm only on the first part of it, which explores how the Korean war influenced the thinking of senior military leaders in the Vietnam war.

First off, it is insightful and refreshing to read a scholarly work that is outside the typical liberalism of academia. I've been learning how traumatic isolated land conflicts were to the esteem of American forces caught up in them. The trauma then becomes a part of the collective memory the armed forces, internalized even by those who did not experience them directly, according to Petraeus. Not just the military, but other institutions have memories that define them.

The literature I have read for school talks about how museums, libraries and archives have insituitional memory as well. But never in my entire academic career have I heard the words "military" and "institutional" memory together in the same sentence. Yes, a lot of the anti-war protesters had trauma in their lives during the 60s, and many, no doubt, became the liberal professors in universities today, but through Gen. Petraeus's work, I have learned there is another side to the story. That is the trauma internalized by the senior military leaders who became cautious, if not indecisive, unless they were fighting conflicts they were positive they could win.

I think the reason why senior military leaders were hesitant to use counter-insurgency/unconventional war back when the invasion of Iraq first began, was due to painful memories still left over from Vietnam. Gen. Petraeus describes the inclination of "an all or nothing victory" in warfare as a reaction to avoiding another Vietnam. That might be why the US first went in with the heavy artillery and tanks back in 2003/4.

I am still studying the effects of Vietnam on US culture and Iraq today in this series on global conflict. I do not know as much as someone who lived through Vietnam, because I was not even born then. I am trying to understand the perspective of my professors, as well as my parents' generation as a whole. To me, it is 9/11 that holds real significance. Gen. Petraeus said that if an individual experiences a traumatic event in their formative years, then it impacts their psyche deeply throughout life.

I was studying at the University of Hawaii when 9/11 happened. I saw my fellow students cry at a candlelight vigil held in the dorms that day, when they discovered some of their loved ones had died in the World Trade Center. Even now, as they shed their tears, reciting the Lord's Prayer, their pain as fellow students of my generation is burned into my memory. I felt helplessness, pain and anger at those who attacked America. I saw that Waikiki was completely empty and tourists were stranded in Hawaii. Commerce in Hawaii was completely dead. No airplanes flew after 9/11 hitting Hawaii hard, as it is an island. Those were the firsthand effects of terrorism I experienced in my formative years, in Hawaii.

I can only imagine that is what my parents' generation experienced in Vietnam. About 1 month ago, when I mentioned being an Army civilian at a local coffee shop where I live, this man in his 60s got so angry at me, when he heard the word "army," and nearly yelled at me, I was guessing because it was anger at the Vietnam war. He didn't understand 9/11 is to my generation, what Vietnam was to his. I could mention many reactions I had while reading Gen. Petraeus's dissertation, but I thought I would share what I felt.

Naomi

[Schmedlap]

I think the reason why senior military leaders were hesitant to use counter-insurgency/unconventional war back when the invasion of Iraq first began, was due to painful memories still left over from Vietnam. Gen. Petraeus describes the inclination of "an all or nothing victory" in warfare as a reaction to avoiding another Vietnam. That might be why the US first went in with the heavy artillery and tanks back in 2003/4.

I think it was more likely due to an assumption that an insurgency would not arise and a recognition among political leaders that 90% approval ratings don't last forever and if we were going to implement the long-standing policy of regime change in Iraq, then there was a narrow window of opportunity to leverage public support and get our foot in the door. Like any other government program, a large war is easier to start than to end.

About 1 month ago, when I mentioned being an Army civilian at a local coffee shop where I live, this man in his 60s got so angry at me, when he heard the word "army," and nearly yelled at me, I was guessing because it was anger at the Vietnam war.

I'm not being a wiseguy when I suggest this, but some people are just jerks. I know a lot of people who served during Vietnam - my father, friends of his, uncles, et cetera. ALL were draftees. I've never heard one word out of them regarding anything bad from Vietnam. They did their time and then got out. It is not that they're repressing anything. They simply have the same attitudes that we associate with WWII vets - they did their job, went home, and got on with their lives. They weren't raised with a victim mentality. Some people were. Those people generally grow up to be jerks.

[pakphile]

I thought I would respond at length to this thoughtful post. You see, I was an 25th Infantry (Hawaii's own) platoon sergeant during the 1968 Tet Offense that came in the middle of the first 'long war'. Later I went to college and went back to Asia with USAID and the UN. I have lived in Asia (and some in Africa) ever since I left the East West Center in Honolulu in 1981. I just finished 3 years with the UN in Afghanistan and am now in Pakistan. I guess Petreaus is right, trauma early in life stays with you. ;-)

Institutions are not libraries, but are understood formally as complex configurations of formal and informal rules, beliefs and attitudes that evolve over time to influence human behavior. A review of the literature of New Institutional Economics (Douglass North is the godfather of the doctrine) and complexity science (see Mitchell Waldrop's early (1992) history of this scientific discipline) are both fundamental to understanding the distinction between institutions as the rules of the game and organizations (like the Senate, Army, and libraries) as the players. However, institutions (as social incentive structures) are conservative forces that support the status quo and change slowly (see North's work for about 8,000 years of evidence). Understanding institutions as socio-cognitive incentive structures is critical to understanding how societies, organizations and individuals learn.

The Army is an organization with an internal set of incentives, deeply embedded in the larger American institutional context, that have a tremendous influence on soldiers. No one wants to die or to be labeled a loser for not following a winning approach. Before Vietnam, America had NEVER lost so the lessons learned were easy to track and deemed to be universally applicable. Today's Army has a modern knowledge management system that effectively translates lessons learned into doctrine. The lesson in the failure of Gen McKiernan to adapt to the new COIN doctrine in Afghanistan is less a failing of an old soldier who couldn't learn than a recognition of the time it takes for social incentive structures to change in any organization so that doctrine can be consistently translated into strategy and tactics (human behavior).

On a higher level, contrasting the impact of Vietnam and 9/11 on American institutions provides an interesting case. Not all trauma are alike, certainly not in their long-term effects. Vietnam dominated life in America for 10 years, but its lasting impact has been far different from that of 9/11 (but somewhat similar to that of Iraq). The Vietnam experience undermined long-standing institutions and led to the decine in public confidence in the government and the Army. Vietnam pitted Americans against Americans more intensely than anytime since the Civil War. In contrast, 9/11 was a cathartic experience, more akin to Pearl Harbor, that actually served, for a time, to bring most Americans together, but it also galvanized a form of neocon patriotism that strengthened government control over the lives of citizens.

Now, if you have read this far, please tell me how I can get a copy of Petreaus's dissertation.

Aloha,

Paul

[Steve Blair]

I'm not being a wiseguy when I suggest this, but some people are just jerks. I know a lot of people who served during Vietnam - my father, friends of his, uncles, et cetera. ALL were draftees. I've never heard one word out of them regarding anything bad from Vietnam. They did their time and then got out. It is not that they're repressing anything. They simply have the same attitudes that we associate with WWII vets - they did their job, went home, and got on with their lives. They weren't raised with a victim mentality. Some people were. Those people generally grow up to be jerks.

Quite so. And it's important to understand that every conflict (of any size...not just the "big ones" or the "long ones") produces folks who adjust well afterwards, some who view their time in the conflict as an excuse to act like jerks afterwards, and others who have difficulty adjusting afterwards. It's not unique to Vietnam (even though there is a significant minority on both sides who might wish us to believe that it is).

[John T. Fishel]

that the "jerk" you talked to was a Vietnam vet (not that you did but Schmedlap thought you did). He certainly was traumatized by something about the Army and Vietnam. That said, Schmedlap is right that most Vietnam vets went about their business without a lot of trauma (as did most of the protesters of the war).

While Vietnam did shape American attitudes and the attitudes of a generation of military officers it was not the cause of the preference for conventional warfare; it merely reinforced that peference. Rmember that the American military has spent most of its history fighting small wars. From the American Revolution on, we have fought only 9 predominantly conventional wars by my count - less by some others. And those all had significant small wars going on inside the big wars. Interestingly, a big war seems to come along once in every generation which allows the military as an institution to justify its determination to prpare for those wars and ignore the small wars that we always have to fight.

The most articulate current spokesman for the big war point of view is COL Gian Gentile who writes here a lot - mostly debating John Nagl (and many of the rest of us.)

Cheers

JohnT

[IntelTrooper]

In contrast, 9/11 was a cathartic experience, more akin to Pearl Harbor, that actually served, for a time, to bring most Americans together, but it also galvanized a form of neocon patriotism that strengthened government control over the lives of citizens.

I suppose very similar to how an economic crisis allowed a "progressive" administration to strengthen government control over the lives of its citizens.

Now, if you have read this far, please tell me how I can get a copy of Petreaus's dissertation.

I can get it through ProQuest, but you probably don't have access to that. It's a 20MB file, otherwise I would send it to you.
http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/20673428

[pakphile]

[QUOTE=IntelTrooper;74643]I suppose very similar to how an economic crisis allowed a "progressive" administration to strengthen government control over the lives of its citizens.QUOTE]

You are correct, but, actually, that is exactly what 'progressive' administrations have been wanting to do since 1789. Check out the platforms of the formal Progressive Parties of TR, LaFollette, Wallace, McCarthy. Progressive has often been used as a way to sound like you are taking the moral high road while avoiding the 'socialist' label. Obama, like FDR, walked into such a mess that he was immediately convinced that his worst suspicions about capitalism were all correct. I think we are fortunate that Obama came on the scene so soon after the full extent of the debacle was evident. Had he come to power after 4 years of dithering, like FDR, his approach would have been even stronger.

Thanks for the tip. After a brief search, I found the full Petreaus dissertation (for free) through a blind 'PhD dissertation' link on the History News Network site.

Paul

[IntelTrooper]

Thanks for the tip. After a brief search, I found the full Petreaus dissertation (for free) through a blind 'PhD dissertation' link on the History News Network site.

Awesome, enjoy the reading!

[yamiyugikun]

Hi,

Very interesting I didn't realize there was such a difference between Vietnam and 9/11, that Vietnam caused such conflict between fellow Americans, whereas 9/11 was cathartic. Anyway, thank you for sharing with me the history of the military, its incentive based aspects as an organization, and how different types of people adjust to civilian life after conflict. One of you said that a lot of the protestors during the Vietnam war went back to their regular lives, but a lot of them never gave up protesting. They seem to have become the liberal professors today in academia.

This "jerk" that I met, whether he was a Vietnam veteran or not, had the same reaction as a few professors I've had when hearing about the military. From that I assumed he was a veteran. I asked a friend of mine why some liberal professors get mad when you advocate points of view that differ from theirs. He explained to me that some professors would rather create "carbon copies" of themselves through their students, instead of teaching their students to think critically and objectively.

One of the reasons I'm reading Petraeus's dissertation, is to try to understand the intense anger towards the military that some of my professors still hold. From my observations, a few professors of mine who were avid protestors during Vietnam, never quite left Vietnam mentally and see the military today the same way they did during the 60's. A type of mental time warp, they spiral around in and never really leave.

From a generation X (under 30?) viewpoint, speaking for myself, the army strikes me as a very modern, technologically advanced, "progressive" organization that tries to be in touch with the world around it. To someone my age raised on the Internet and technology, that is appealing. To someone who was a Vietnam protestor, the military is probably represents the social ills and conflicts from that era. I've observed people over 50 react a lot different to the military, often more negatively or strongly, than say, gen X.

Naomi

[SWJED]

Here's a link to The American Military and the Lessons of Vietnam: A study of military influence and the use of force in the post-Vietnam era.

[John T. Fishel]

who came of age in the Vietnam era - and as an Army officer - our genertation has all kinds. it has been said that the last refuge for Marxists is the campus of American Universities and that is true - but only partly. Ask yourself how David Petraeus successfully wrote that dissertation at Princeton with all thos war protesting professors. Or LIBERAL Harvard's Kennedy School of Government with its regular complement of military war college fellows and Stanford where Condi Rice was the Provost.

All generalizations, including this one, are wrong.

Cheers

JohnT

[William F. Owen]

The lesson in the failure of Gen McKiernan to adapt to the new COIN doctrine in Afghanistan is less a failing of an old soldier who couldn't learn than a recognition of the time it takes for social incentive structures to change in any organization so that doctrine can be consistently translated into strategy and tactics (human behavior).

So is that a failure to adapt to doctrine or a failure of those concerned to develop effective and useful doctrine? Teaching that works is rarely, if ever, rejected if it is seen to work. I fully agree that the community has got to gain the required level of confidence, but that is never going to happen if the evidence does not appear or remains elusive. Writing a COIN manual does not a COIN doctrine make.

[Ken White]

I am sure that his statement is correct. "...the time it takes for social incentive structures to change in any organization so that doctrine can be consistently translated into strategy and tactics (human behavior)." is always a problem -- and that really amounts to "failure to adapt to a doctrine." In this particular case it is because the 'doctrine' has to overcome more than 30 years of inertia, fight a bureaucracy that is inimical to that doctrine, force change to deeply embedded training and education practices and is not accepted as totally correct by many in the institution to whom the doctrine nominally belongs.

In other words, there are a lot of people fighting the problem instead of the supposed enemy...

We need to get over the myth that COIN and allied efforts are exotic efforts requiring special training, education, practices or people. It is simply a part of the job. A part we elected to ignore for years because it's dirty work; more importantly to that neglect, it's also tedious work and does not provide instant feedback (bad ju-ju for impatient Americans who like quick results...). Effective training will produce people competent -- and willing -- to do what the job requires.

[Steve Blair]

We need to get over the myth that COIN and allied efforts are exotic efforts requiring special training, education, practices or people. It is simply a part of the job. A part we elected to ignore for years because it's dirty work; more importantly to that neglect, it's also tedious work and does not provide instant feedback (bad ju-ju for impatient Americans who like quick results...). Effective training will produce people competent -- and willing -- to do what the job requires.

I actually don't mind parts of the myth IF it actually spurs changes in the way we train and (more importantly, IMO) retain the results of that training. From what I've seen of the American military historically, I remain (sadly) very skeptical of their ability to do that without major changes in a number of areas (starting with the personnel system). I also (sadly) don't see those changes coming from within.

Vietnam is only the most recent example of the Army shedding knowledge and experience as soon as they were done. If the 'myth of COIN' forces them to retain knowledge, improve training, and fix a personnel system that hasn't worked properly for at least 50 years (and I'm being generous there), it's worth it in my view.

[pakphile]

So is that a failure to adapt to doctrine or a failure of those concerned to develop effective and useful doctrine? ... Writing a COIN manual does not a COIN doctrine make.

COIN is fully embedded within the 'Full Spectrum' concept which is now the US Army capstone doctrine. If the Sec DoD and CentCom are pushing the COIN (population centric vs. enemy centric) angle then it seems to me that it is more than 'a manual', but there are many layers of implementers for that doctrine to filter through, so there are many opportunities for outcomes to be different from what the designers intended. (That also leaves room for feedback, innovations and improvements, which is what (IMHO) 3.24 and 3.24.2 are to 3.0)

With public policy (which I understand better) you always have a number of possible implementation outcomes. Although the policy may come out as a single message, implementers who receive the guidance may:
understand and implement correctly (and even innovate)
misunderstand and implement incorrectly
understand, but, for many reasons, not fully implement

The less than satisfactory outcomes are often brushed aside, in civilian life, as 'unintended consequences'.

However, it is the right incentives, not 'effective training', that will get people 'to do what the job requires' (Ken White). I am sure some of you watched The Wire on HBO. This was essentially a 5 year TV study in the power of incentives to undermine doctrine. Each social group in the show became increasingly disfunctional as its members were influenced by the wrong incentives created by the wrong metrics: cops counted arrest stats, not public satisfaction; the heroin dealers counted corners not profits; the politicians counted contributions not progress; the educators ‘taught to the test’ not the pupil and the journalist leadership pursued Pulitzers rather than the truth.

The Vietnam-era penchant for body counts is one of the best examples of the wrong metric creating the wrong incentives that ultimately led to a colossal failure. What are the right metrics for COIN to improve its outcomes? That is probably the subject of some other thread on in the SWC.

[William F. Owen]

COIN is fully embedded within the 'Full Spectrum' concept which is now the US Army capstone doctrine. If the Sec DoD and CentCom are pushing the COIN (population centric vs. enemy centric) angle then it seems to me that it is more than 'a manual', but there are many layers of implementers for that doctrine to filter through, so there are many opportunities for outcomes to be different from what the designers intended. (That also leaves room for feedback, innovations and improvements, which is what (IMHO) 3.24 and 3.24.2 are to 3.0)

While that may be the intention, I'd dispute this as being the fact. I think their is something poorly defined as "COIN" that the US Army has arbitrarily bolted on to what could be an essentially sound process. JFCOM talks about security and combat operations, as well as regular and irregular threats. These are essentially historically and doctrinally sound.

.... then out of nowhere you have "COIN doctrine." So you now have created a box, containing the "solution to the problem" which is pretty indicative of a "paint by numbers" approach.

[Schmedlap]

COIN vs conventional. It's a lot like woodland versus urban terrain. The same principles apply, the same tactics, etc. What changes is only at the level of technique and procedure. But I guess that I would never be able to sell any books or write any lengthy papers with a thought that is so simple.

[pakphile]

[QUOTE=yamiyugikun; I asked a friend of mine why some liberal professors get mad when you advocate points of view that differ from theirs.
[/QUOTE]

Naomi,

It sounds like a study of the institutional incentive structure of academia might be in order. You’ll have to think about what incentives are your liberal profs responding to. BTW, they were as inane in the 70s as they are now.

You are correct that the visceral reaction to the military still hinges on one's view of the Vietnam experience. For many, the Vietnam War besmirched the image of America as Camelot, the shining ‘city on a hill’, and the military was blamed for the failure, whether one’s perspective was a failure to win or a failure to avoid foreign entanglements. To help counter the argument that the military was responsible for the Vietnam debacle, you should read “Why Vietnam Matters” by Rufus Phillips. Philips was CIA (under Lansdale) in Vietnam in the 50s and 60s. He has just published his memoirs and he comes down hardest on the politicians and their advisors (who were mostly former liberal academicians) who controlled the military. A 3-part youtube interview on Vietnamese TV can be found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVaMi...eature=related . The book has a website http://www.whyvietnammatters.com/. Of course, the classic, and contemporaneous, piece is David Halberstam’s 1972, “The Best and the Brightest”.

One other factor you need to take into consideration when comparing the civilian/military nexus, then and now, is The Draft. The modern US draft formally began in 1940 and ran until 1973. (Eighteen year old boys still need to register, but no one has been called up in over a generation.) There were always illegal draft evaders, but the Vietnam era spawned a process of legal evasion that was heavily biased towards the rich, particularly through college deferments. After the shock of Tet, the shift in middle class opinion away from support for the war was strongly influenced by the view that the sons of the less well off were dying for the mistakes of the upper class decision makers.

Your views are quite similar to those of a woman exactly your age who worked for me in Kabul (I just left, she is still there). She easily liaises with ISAF, DoD, as well as Norwegian, Canadian, Czech, and US PRTs.

Paul

[William F. Owen]

COIN vs conventional. It's a lot like woodland versus urban terrain. The same principles apply, the same tactics, etc. What changes is only at the level of technique and procedure. But I guess that I would never be able to sell any books or write any lengthy papers with a thought that is so simple.

Ah... but... you see ... um... actually I don't think there is COIN v Conventional.

There are combat and security operations against regular and irregular threats and you might have to conduct combat and security operations against regular and irregular threats at the same time. Counter-insurgency could be an entirely false construct, and a misleading one as well.

[Ken White]

However, it is the right incentives, not 'effective training', that will get people 'to do what the job requires' (Ken White).

You can have the best incentives in town and poor training will not allow the most-highly-incentivized persons in the world to succeed in combat. Conversely, if your training is halfway decent, you can overcome poor or no incentives -- the US Army proves that on an almost daily basis. The British and Canadian armies do even better (due to better training than ours) on even more poor 'incentives.' Both are important, in an ideal world both would be right. Unfortunately, we do not live in an ideal world.

...educators ‘taught to the test’ not the pupil and the journalist leadership pursued Pulitzers rather than the truth.

Disincentives both. Lot of that about. Those two in particular are responsible for a great many ills in the world. In fact, I'd say the educators are at fault for more poor incentives than almost any other trade or profession; the probability is that if they did their job correctly, proper incentives would be provided...

I know, Sam, I know...

The Vietnam-era penchant for body counts is one of the best examples of the wrong metric creating the wrong incentives that ultimately led to a colossal failure.

Actually, while it was a totally bad idea, it had little to do with the failure -- and most decent units in Viet Nam did not fall prey to that foolishness. At least not in the 62-68 time frame, can't speak to after that.

What are the right metrics for COIN to improve its outcomes? That is probably the subject of some other thread on in the SWC.

It's been argued before; should be able to use search and find the thread. Then you'll see my statement that attempts to apply metrics to war are just dumb. Engineering and other professions need metrics. Science needs metrics. War is not engineering (though engineering is used in war) and it is not a science (though science is used); it is an art and all metrics will do is delude you. Those threads will show some that agreed with me and some that did not.