The Kill Company

[William F. Owen]

I'm not following. Based on my read of your reasoning, either you're suggesting that the Palestinians and Israelis are not technically in a state of warfare, or you're saying one of the armed sides will ultimately have to overcome the other in combat for peace to occur.

What I said and am saying is,

Warfare is a struggle between two armed groups. One armed group is required to overcome the other. Killing the right people enables that. Killing the wrong people is almost always counter-productive. Until you reduce the enemy's ability to constrain your freedom of action, you can't do any of the so called hearts and minds stuff, which should be focussed on creating a hostile environment for the enemy! - not just a nice environment for the locals!

That is a commonly accepted definition of warfare with an added context relevant to countering insurgents.

What on earth has that got to do with Israel and the Palestinians?

[carl]

Tom Ricks posted a an Army report about COL Steele and how he dealt with his battalion commanders. This is the link to the particular page on Ricks' blog

http://ricks.foreignpolicy.com/?page=1

It is the first entry. The report is from Wikileaks. I don't know what the policy here is on those things are so forgive me if I made an error.

[Michael C]

So what percentage of support are we talking about, and is that willing consent or coerced consent? If the premise of FM3-24 is as you describe then it is deeply flawed and has not read deeply into the history of irregular warfare. The very fact they call it "COIN" should act as a warning

Warfare is a struggle between two armed groups. One armed group is required to overcome the other. Killing the right people enables that. Killing the wrong people is almost always counter-productive. Until you reduce the enemy's ability to constrain your freedom of action, you can't do any of the so called hearts and minds stuff, which should be focussed on creating a hostile environment for the enemy! - not just a nice environment for the locals!

I am new to this forum so if I speak brashly, I apologize for my inexperience. All my experience with irregular warfare or insurgency comes from one tour to Afghanistan as a platoon leader. In that tour, I definitely fought insurgents, but I also conducted humanitarian operations (the soft side or hearts and minds).

When reading the responses to my second comment, it seemed like the responders glossed over Mr. Owen's first thought: that insurgencies or irregular warfare DO NOT REQUIRE THE SUPPORT OF THE POPULATION. Mr. Owen then calls the US Army COIN manual deeply flawed. Many responders on this thread gave kudos to him for his definition of warfare while ignoring this comment. I have to ask the people reading this thread, how many people find the FM 3-24 flawed for its belief that insurgencies are supported by the population?

Second, Mr. Owens definition of warfare is a correct start, but leaves out the most important detail. Rank Amateur and Brandon were hinting at this specific deficiency. Warfare is a struggle between two armed groups using violence to achieve political ends. In warfare, the political motivation is everything; it is what separates warfare from criminality. Without politics, warfare would not exist.

Further, Mr. Owens provides the next point: "Killing the right people enables that." Killing is a method, but so is influencing them irregular forces to give up arms, convincing the leadership to join the government, or destroying their logistical support so that they cannot continue fighting. In Carl's link above, Thomas Ricks describes killing people as the least effective way to combat insurgents. I agree. You can kill insurgents or irregular forces, but that is only one method of overcoming an armed force. Convincing whole groups to quit fighting is much more effective and more beneficial in the long run.

Finally, saying "just kill the right people" is easy. On paper, that briefs really well. The hardest part is determining whom to kill. The answer is intelligence. Intelligence can be coerced, paid for or freely given. The question is, what is the most accurate? Coercion is rarely accurate and paid for intelligence is frequently misleading. Therefore, the best intelligence is that freely given. And, the best way to get that intelligence is to convince locals you care about the best outcome. The way to do that is to try and wins hearts and minds.

Unfortunately, for soldiers in the US Army and Marines in Iraq and Afghanistan, counter-insurgency is never the simple decision between killing the enemy or population-centric counter-insurgency. Soldiers conduct humanitarian operations, build the local government, train local security forces all while conducting counter-force operations (killing the enemy). What the Rakkasans--to bring this back to the article "Kill Company"--really failed to do was conduct full-spectrum counter-insurgency, and that is why they are a cautionary tale to modern soldiers.

Michael C. at www.onviolence.com

[Ken White]

that insurgencies or irregular warfare DO NOT REQUIRE THE SUPPORT OF THE POPULATION. Mr. Owen then calls the US Army COIN manual deeply flawed. Many responders on this thread gave kudos to him for his definition of warfare while ignoring this comment. I have to ask the people reading this thread, how many people find the FM 3-24 flawed for its belief that insurgencies are supported by the population?

The statement that they do not require the support of the population is correct. Having the support of the population makes the insurgents job easier but such support is NOT required. I have read FM 3-24 (and 3-24.2 which is a slightly better document) and it is an overwordy academic tome that is better than nothing but is flawed, IMO, on several levlels.

Writing a 'counterinsurgency' manual and relying on a number of 'experts' whose experience was in insurgencies during which they were part of the government forces and who wrote in a time of ideological turmoil resulted in a skewed effort that place excessive emphasis on population control -- governments can do that; intervenors like the US in other nations (Viet Nam, Afghanistan and Iraq to name three) cannot exercise such control -- and most 'host' governments are not likely to do so. The Roman, Mongol and even the British solutions are no longer practical. So you are NOT going to control the population.

If you aren't going to control it, the best you can hope for is to guide the population into not offering active support for the insurgency. You cannot prevent them from offering tacit support unless you're prepared to use the same techniques the opponent uses and scare them into it. If you aren't going to do that, your alternative is to make the opponent cease terrorizing the population to get tacit support. To do that, the best solution is to kill the opponents -- being very careful not to kill relatively innocent members of the population.

That requires telling the good guys from the bad guys. How do Americans do that in a culture the like of which most of them even after a couple of tours can barely comprehend? The answer is that with rare exceptions, who can and do 'go native,' you cannot. That means you have to have locals to tell who's on what side.

This in an area where Achmat, Elder in Sturm Walla will gleefully shop Abbas in the next valley because Abbas was toying with Achmat's cousin's third wife in 1976. So you need reliable locals, say a Political adviser and an Interpreter Walla (think a British RSM type) to keep all a Battalion's interpreters in line while the PolAd insure that he and the 'terps give the straight scoop. That can take three to five years to vet, build and staff. We're just getting around to something on that line and it'll work.Like the manual, better late than never.

Realize also that Afghanistan is not a COIN fight -- the Afghans may have some elements of one but we do not -- and that's not a semantic quibble, that's a critical difference. There are FID and SFA elements but for most troops, it's a war, pure but durn sure not simple...

...Without politics, warfare would not exist.

Do the Religious fanatics of the world, past and present know that? Loaded question, I know -- religion is political in many senses. However, while your statement is basically correct it has little to do with the reality on the ground. Side trips into Hamas et.al. do not change the fact that Wilf's comment was, as J Wolfsberger noted, a value neutral statement on warfare. It did not address the political aspects, nor is that an Army's job.

Finally, saying "just kill the right people" is easy. On paper, that briefs really well. The hardest part is determining whom to kill. The answer is intelligence. Intelligence can be coerced, paid for or freely given. The question is, what is the most accurate? Coercion is rarely accurate and paid for intelligence is frequently misleading. Therefore, the best intelligence is that freely given. And, the best way to get that intelligence is to convince locals you care about the best outcome. The way to do that is to try and wins hearts and minds.

Absolutely correct for openers, agree with you wholeheartedly until the last clause -- you are not ever going to win anyone's heart or mind. What you can do is convince most people that you do consider their interests and that you can clobber the bad guys anytime you can locate them and that you are trying to do this without being counter productive by killing the wrong people.

Realize that all most of the population in such a situation wants is for everyone to go away and leave them alone. If you or the bad guys offer any benefits, they'll take 'em. If you pose a threat, they'll do what you want them to -- as long as you're watching. If the bad guys do a better and more constant job of watching than you do (and they almost always will), then you need to destroy their ability to do that or negate it in some other way.

Since they really do not like being visited in the night by Afghan Talibs, Pakistani Talibs, AQ and allies, Smugglers, Opium Traders and other tribes with a grudge and the odd batch of just plain old border Banditti or Crooks (all called 'insurgents' for simplicity's sake... ) in various combinations and with unpleasant ramifications; if you can look like you're going to remove that unpleasantness, you will not win a single heart or mind but they will cease active if coerced support to the bad guys and as you reduce the number of said miscreants and the night visits decline in number and intensity, they will cease fear driven tacit support to them and give it to you -- not out of fear (or gratitude -- all our projects are seen as partial compensation for our presences, no more) but simply because you can reduce the fear quotient. You can remove the violence.

Thanks for the job you do and keep on keepin' on...

[IntelTrooper]

Absolutely correct for openers, agree with you wholeheartedly until the last clause -- you are not ever going to win anyone's heart or mind. What you can do is convince most people that you do consider their interests and that you can clobber the bad guys anytime you can locate them and that you are trying to do this without being counter productive by killing the wrong people.

To misquote Hawking misquoting Johst, "When I hear 'hearts and minds' I reach for my gun."

Seriously, though, this phrase needs to be eliminated from US military vocabulary. Yes, it is good to be polite, culturally sensitive, yadda yadda yadda. Yes, it is good to provide HA and projects and all that stuff. But it is not going to make everyone your friend, turn on the insurgents and win the day. Not on a mass scale, anyway. Not even on a village level. Probably not even on the family level.

Ken, as usual, is precisely correct. The ultimate purpose is for the government/counter-insurgent force to be able to effectively project a reasonable level power anywhere within its borders, or at least enough so that its residents have a belief that the government can protect them (presumably from insurgents and criminals). It should also be perceived as representing the interests of the residents, but that isn't necessarily absolute.

I see a lot of inexperienced, starry-eyed Americans get dumbfounded when they show up in a village, make a big show of meeting with the local malik and pass out a few bags of rice and blankets and then don't get the local Taliban just handed over to them. Anyone with an elementary grasp of human motivation and psychology (especially Maslow's hierarchy) should immediately sense what is going on -- Americans/Afghan government have no credibility, they show up, give out some cheap gifts, and leave. Then they expect the locals to put their lives in danger by cooperating with the government, a government that is absent 99% of the time and has no ability to provide even basic services or security.

No matter how good of "friends" you are, no matter if in their hearts and minds are tattooed Afghan and American flags, no one -- very few, anyway -- is dumb enough to switch sides based on some common courtesy and cheap HA. They will switch sides when they believe it is in their best interests to, and in the rural villages where people have a very long institutional memory, the Coalition and Afghan government is going to have to provide extraordinary proof that they are going to be around for the long haul.

/rant

[Ken White]

Well said all (except that part about me being correct, you misspelled unusual...). Agree with all but two things struck me in particular. One made me laugh, the other is sort of sad:

"...meeting with the local malik and pass out a few bags of rice and blankets and then don't get the local Taliban..."

My first thought was why on earth would we expect him to turn himself in.

Not funny really but it does happen that we unknowingly give gifts to the local Talib's or Smuggler's point men. What that does to our credibility is an interesting question...

"Then they expect the locals to put their lives in danger by cooperating with the government, a government that is absent 99% of the time and has no ability to provide even basic services or security."

True dat. Couple that fact with the problem that we, NATO, other Coalition members and the Afghans do not have the troop strength available to change that. Nor are we likely to. Thus you're confronted with the harsh fact that the only viable military option is to remove as many of the opposition as possible as rapidly and as efficiently as possible. Which, after all, is why the armed forces are there in the first place...

As a young troop in my son's airplane rifle platoon before his second deployment in 2003 told an inquiring Australian TV journalist who asked what he was going to do; "Shoot bad guys." She said "but isn't this about winning hearts and minds?" He said "Nah, I've talked to 'em, they ain't coming on that, besides the government's got other people to try to do that stuff -- we kill people." Gotta give the kid credit. He was a Specialist, a lowly SPC, an uneducated, far from powerful peon; Joe. Yet he understood the population's attitude and knew precisely what his job was.

And who was responsible for what.

And that was six damn years ago...

[J Wolfsberger]

As I follow this discussion, the thought strikes me (doesn't hurt much) that we've seen this before in the CIDG and Mike Forces in Viet Nam highlands. The A Teams went in and stayed. The activities were a blend of civic action, self defense training and equipment, and offensive operations.

There seems to be a tone of exclusive "either-or" to the discussion. Is that really the case?

[Uboat509]

This comment worries me a little. Please define coercion as it you believe it would apply in American police practice.

An example I was thinking of might take the form of, "If you don't tell me who shot the victim I will charge you as an accessory." That is not the physical type of coercion that I suspect that original poster had in mind but I believe that the principle is the same. You are attempting to gain information from a source by threat of an unpleasant consequence.

It would be nice if more people just did the right thing and freely provided information. It would be nicer still if life were like CSI and the suspect would just admit to everything once they were confronted with the evidence. Unfortunately, life is not like that, at least not in Iraq. We have to find other ways to get people provide information, whether that takes the form of paid informants or threats of greater charges or longer prison sentences, or whatever other means that they have within legal bounds.

SFC W

[William F. Owen]

I am new to this forum so if I speak brashly, I apologize for my inexperience. All my experience with irregular warfare or insurgency comes from one tour to Afghanistan as a platoon leader. In that tour, I definitely fought insurgents, but I also conducted humanitarian operations (the soft side or hearts and minds).

Mr. Owen's first thought: that insurgencies or irregular warfare DO NOT REQUIRE THE SUPPORT OF THE POPULATION. Mr. Owen then calls the US Army COIN manual deeply flawed.

It is historical fact that many insurgencies have not enjoyed total or even widespread support from the populations they are fighting amongst. Nor have many regimes. If 5% support them, does that count as "support of the population." What if it is 1%? What if they 90% in one village and then 1% in the next? To fixate on the popular support is simplistic. Insurgent use violence against the population to gain support

Warfare is a struggle between two armed groups using violence to achieve political ends. In warfare, the political motivation is everything; it is what separates warfare from criminality. Without politics, warfare would not exist.

Precisely my point. I am a Clausewitian. Reading some of my other posts would show this.

"Killing the right people enables that." Killing is a method, but so is influencing them irregular forces to give up arms, convincing the leadership to join the government, or destroying their logistical support so that they cannot continue fighting.

That is why I said "enables." As in any form of warfare, all the instruments of the state can be applied. Seeking to influence, killing the leadership and interdicting logistics are done in most forms warfare. You cannot do any of those things without demonstrating an ability to apply lethal force, better than they can.
Allowing the enemy leadership a place in government is usually surrendering to the insurgents, as that is what they want.

You can kill insurgents or irregular forces, but that is only one method of overcoming an armed force. Convincing whole groups to quit fighting is much more effective and more beneficial in the long run.

The Insurgents are using killing and violence to break your will. They are also employing all their instruments of power against you, just like any form or warfare. How do you get them to quit fighting without killing a few first? The basis of warfare is to kill enough to convince the majority to quit. Clausewitz and his student Mao-Tse-Tung wrote at some length on this

And, the best way to get that intelligence is to convince locals you care about the best outcome. The way to do that is to try and wins hearts and minds.

Well that's simplistic, and not always true. Gaining intelligence against an irregular force is done by developing and exploiting and all sources approach that allows civil and military agencies to basically work as one, and at a level of detail, most military intelligence cannot work at. Again, military history is quite clear on this. Some irregular warfare intelligence work is conducted in extremely hostile environments and with no aid from the local population, other than covertly developed sources. - sorry to bang on, but this is something I was involved in, in a past life.

A'Stan and Iraq and not the only insurgencies that ever occurred. Do not snap shot these and go "oh look! This is COIN!"
We've had irregular forms of warfare for 3,000 years. War isn't changing and all wars get won the same basic way.

[Ken White]

It is from a different perspective and is admittedly biased toward that perspective but it makes a point that merits some thought by a lot of people.

The Civil and the Military efforts in stability operations are two different things. In US practice for a variety of reasons, the Armed Forces have assumed primacy in such operations and we have thus mingled the two efforts in an unsatisfactory blend that does neither the Civil or the Military role as well as could be expected -- and as should have been expected...

One of those reasons, BTW, is not the oft quoted "The military folks have to do it due to the security situation." That can be true early on; it should not be allowed to continue past its 'sell-by' date.

So, biased, yes -- but it merits thought with respect to what is a military function and what is not: LINK.

[Schmedlap]

Tom Ricks posted a an Army report about COL Steele and how he dealt with his battalion commanders. This is the link to the particular page on Ricks' blog

What baffles me is that Steele's antics were well known for years. The guy was notorious throughout the Army for being a loud-mouthed, arrogant, arguably incompetent, and reckless leader. My NCOs had the displeasure of working with him in 3/75. Their assessment bore true in real life when I was deployed at the same time in Bosnia when he was there as a Bn Cdr - thankfully I did not have much interaction with him, but even then his antics got ample attention throughout the MND. And as noted earlier on this thread, I had the misfortune of doing RIP/TOA with his BDE when they arrived in theater. Within one week, tales of his antics were circulating and BDE policies that he put into effect left us all scratching our heads. The guy was a clown.

Steele has been a known quantity for years. Why was he put in command of a Brigade (let alone a BN before that)? I'm glad that some ADC finally took the initiative to look into this and officially record it, but it seems like too little, far too late. The damage has been done - to the mission, to innocent Iraqis, to the reputation of the Army and 187, to any decent subordinate who chose to ETS (to the detriment of the Army) after enduring his crap, and to any Soldiers who may have been misled by his disgraceful example and thought it right to emulate him.

[Steve Blair]

What baffles me is that Steele's antics were well known for years. The guy was notorious throughout the Army for being a loud-mouthed, arrogant, arguably incompetent, and reckless leader. My NCOs had the displeasure of working with him in 3/75. Their assessment bore true in real life when I was deployed at the same time in Bosnia when he was there as a Bn Cdr - thankfully I did not have much interaction with him, but even then his antics got ample attention throughout the MND. And as noted earlier on this thread, I had the misfortune of doing RIP/TOA with his BDE when they arrived in theater. Within one week, tales of his antics were circulating and BDE policies that he put into effect left us all scratching our heads. The guy was a clown.

Steele has been a known quantity for years. Why was he put in command of a Brigade (let alone a BN before that)? I'm glad that some ADC finally took the initiative to look into this and officially record it, but it seems like too little, far too late. The damage has been done - to the mission, to innocent Iraqis, to the reputation of the Army and 187, to any decent subordinate who chose to ETS (to the detriment of the Army) after enduring his crap, and to any Soldiers who may have been misled by his disgraceful example and thought it right to emulate him.

The sad thing is that some of this is very reminiscent of the conduct encouraged by the CG of the 9th ID in Vietnam during 1968-1969. Seems we never DO learn.....

[Ken White]

It has a lot going for it but it must be tempered -- and too few are willing to temper the "Kill 'em all and let god sort 'em out" mentality but are more than willing to stomp on any attempts at imaginative or innovative tactics or new ideas.

Hard to fire people in the Army other than those you can Chapter out (too easily IMO); thank, in Steele's and many others cases, AR 600-200, DOPMA and OPD 21 and the Congresses that dictated them in a well intentioned effort to be fair and prevent abuses. It's as difficult to fire people in the Armed forces as it is to fire Civil servants, all thanks to Congress. Plus the personnel system creates a lot of problems for itself. Can't say that COL X is a slug because LTG Y sat on his promotion board. We are reflective of a nation awash in political correctness; can't criticize others, can't embarrass the institution.

While it can embarrass itself with impunity, speaking truth to power -- or the prevailing wisdom -- just isn't done.

Fortunately, some of our friends aren't so encumbered. For example, it doesn't seem to have gotten to these two smart Strynes who have figured out that bogus COIN is not the way to go. LINK, LINK.

What is being called COIN is a dangerous road for anyone. If you're an outsider intervening in another Nations, it is doubly dangerous. If you're a generally disliked outsider, it becomes triply dangerous. If you have not been trained for the role, it is quadruply dangerous. You cannot expect a force told to do only high intensity conflict to adapt quickly to the stability ops environment without hiccups, big ones. Steele and the Rakkasans sort of showed that, the two linked articles sort of highlight it.

[Greyhawk]

In the interest of balance - in that the article itself isn't accessible, a couple brief quotes from it:

"During his deployment in Iraq, Steele saw eighteen of his soldiers killed in action—the same number as in Somalia. The brigades that preceded and replaced the Rakkasans each lost more than twice as many men."

and

"Quantifying the level of discipline in a unit as large as a brigade is not easy, but, according to Army data, the number of Rakkasan escalation-of-force incidents in 2006 was below the median for brigades in Iraq."

Meanwhile, elsewhere and more recently (while it could stand alone I think it has a place here)...
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/htm...anistan08.html

CAMP LEATHERNECK, Afghanistan — U.S. Marines trapped Taliban fighters in a residential compound and persuaded the insurgents to allow women and children to leave. The troops then moved in — only to discover that the militants had slipped out, dressed in burqas, the loose enveloping robes some Muslim women wear.

The fighters, who may owe their lives to the new U.S. commander's emphasis on limiting civilian casualties, were among hundreds of militants who have fled the offensive the Marines launched last week in southern Helmand province.

[Schmedlap]

"Quantifying the level of discipline in a unit as large as a brigade is not easy, but, according to Army data, the number of Rakkasan escalation-of-force incidents in 2006 was below the median for brigades in Iraq."

In regard only to that point, that is easily impacted by what EOF incidents are reportable. For example, my company in 2005 was in an AO that was more violent than adjacent AOs to our north, east, and west, and significantly more violent than the BN AOs surrounding our BN AO. Other battalions were required to report every warning shot. We only reported sustained engagements. The BDE experimented with having us report every gunshot. After three days, they reversed that policy because we flooded them with so many incidents (I think our company and the company to our south reported over 100 incidents in 3 days). I'd be curious to know what the 187 policy was for what type of incidents were reportable.

It is also worth noting that Salah ad Din province is not really comparable to most other BDE AOs. I don't think they inherited Baquba, so that would only leave Samarra and Beiji as the big hotspots and 187 barely even covered down on Samarra - only putting 1/3 the number of Soldiers of the previous unit there. Areas in and around Tikrit were pretty quiet. Even if Baquba was covered down on, in 2006 that was still not much of a comparison to, say, a BDE responsible for a sector of Baghdad, Mosul, or - at that time - a sector in Anbar.