Impacts on Finland/EU/NATO of renewed IW/COIN focus of US military

[jmm99]

I expect you have run into this study, NDU's 2008 Civilian Surge: Key to Complex Operations, which is summed here with full text here.

A key point has been the relative degradation of the civilian capacities to assist host nations; which in turn has led to the military being tasked with many of those assistance functions - thus, military operations other than war. The civilian capabilities degradation is well summed in the study:

Capabilities Lost

Four decades ago in Vietnam, the U.S. military had a strong civilian partner to work with in what was then called pacification. Programs of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) were important components of the Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS) program. CORDS operations were relatively successful against the Viet Cong, but were trumped in the end by North Vietnamese regular forces in a massive, conventional invasion. In the wake of the fall of South Vietnam, U.S. military and civilian components let this important capacity to conduct complex operations lapse.
....
Rather than develop the capacity to fulfill this role, civilian departments and agencies, in the face of a strong cost-cutting mood in Congress, saw their skills and resources decline. USAID was compelled to reduce its Foreign Service and Civil Service staff from about 12,000 personnel during the Vietnam War to about 2,000 today. The United States Information Agency (USIA), which had more than 8,000 personnel worldwide in 1996, was decimated and forced to merge with the State Department. The State Department itself was underresourced and understaffed, sometimes having to forego any new intake of Foreign Service Officers. Other civilian departments of government had few incentives to contribute workers to national security missions.

In response to this problem, we have 2005 Department of Defense Directive 3000.05, which established the following policy (only part quoted here):

4.1. Stability operations are a core U.S. military mission that the Department of Defense shall be prepared to conduct and support. They shall be given priority comparable to combat operations and be explicitly addressed and integrated across all DoD activities including doctrine, organizations, training, education, exercises, materiel, leadership, personnel, facilities, and planning.

4.2. Stability operations are conducted to help establish order that advances U.S. interests and values. The immediate goal often is to provide the local populace with security, restore essential services, and meet humanitarian needs. The long-term goal is to help develop indigenous capacity for securing essential services, a viable market economy, rule of law, democratic institutions, and a robust civil society.

4.3. Many stability operations tasks are best performed by indigenous, foreign, or U.S. civilian professionals. Nonetheless, U.S. military forces shall be prepared to perform all tasks necessary to establish or maintain order when civilians cannot do so. Successfully performing such tasks can help secure a lasting peace and facilitate the timely withdrawal of U.S. and foreign forces. Stability operations tasks include ... [long laundry list]

I expect that this policy did not and does not sit well with many in the military - e.g., "priority comparable to combat operations"; but also because the military is well aware of its own limitations in "non-war" areas.

Briefly, we can consider an area in which I can offer some expertise - restoring and institutionalizing the "Rule of Law" (let's leave aside whose law and institutions for another thread). The military has both military lawyers and military police - so what's wrong with tasking them with "Rule of Law" issues. Nothing; if that is the only available capability (which is presently the situation).

However, military lawyers and military police are specialized creatures - and naturally are oriented to the military side of the coin (see, I also couldn't resist ). Ideally, the folks tasked for "rule of law" and restoration of the HN's justice system (worst case is there is none) would be civilians: lawyers and cops, with an international and comparative law and law enforcement bent, and with some knowledge of the "small wars" arena.

Now, setting loose JMM and Slap (he's the cop from Alabama with all kinds of ideas) on any HN would probably be tantamount to chaos; but that is the general idea (civilians, not chaos ). The same for civilian-type input in the nuts and bolts of physical reconstruction - the need for competent engineers and technicians (on which our Surfing Beetle could wax).

The problem is that such folks in government service do not exist in adequate numbers - thus, the military has to fill the gap. So, DoD Dir 3000.05.

Ken can wax better on FID and SFA (his fields); but a brief comment. In their "pure form" (e.g., absent our involvement in an "armed conflict" as a party belligerent), those are operations where legally the civilian side has the lead - and Congress has set up civilian agency and military funding to reflect that. See FM 3-07.1, Appendix A for the funding quagmire.

All of that is pretty clear to those who have stuck their noses into it (by experience, study or both). So, for example. we have all the joint pubs heading the list here.

Terminology (what you are used to and what we are used to) requires "dual-language training" - Crisis Management is doctrinally defined (FM 3-07, Glossary) as:

crisis management

Measure to resolve a hostile situation and investigate and prepare a criminal case for prosecution under federal law. Crisis management will include a response to an incident involving a weapon of mass destruction, special improvised explosive device, or a hostage crisis that is beyond the capability of the lead federal agency. (JP 3-07.6)

and is just one example.

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Hyvää päivää - and what am I doing up this early on a day off. Weather here is in about 50F (into the 40s last nite), but no snow. How is Helsinki ?