Anglo-US friction over ops in Iraq

[Schmedlap]

“If it isn’t on the PowerPoint slide, then it doesn’t happen.”

My impression was that if it made it to the PowerPoint slide, then everybody just assumed that it would magically occur.

[davidbfpo]

The "leaked" series of documents from a 'Lessons Learned' process within the UK military is oddly timed to coincide with the inquiry into the Gulf War, known as the Chilcot Inquiry: http://www.iraqinquiry.org.uk/ . Given that these documents refer to a low period in Anglo-US military relations gives me pause to think why now have they appeared?

Somewhere in my reading pile is an article on how close Anglo-US military relations are today, which I will locate tomorrow.

There is undoubtedly tension for some in the relationship, however 'Special', that after years of the UK military (Army) boasting of COIN prowess - that the "bubble" was painfully burst in Basra and IMHO in Helmand Province. As others have commented (such as: http://defenceoftherealm.blogspot.com/ ) the UK failure is more than political, resources and more it includes our military leadership.

Some in UK Army realise - having seen them at firsthand in Helmand - that the USMC have rapidly learnt COIN and are now better than we are.

[Red Rat]

I think part of the issue also lies in the very confused chain of command which existed between the UK in Basra and the US in Baghdad. While technically under Baghdad control, IMHO the UK played its cards as though MND(SE) was under direct UK control and not part of an overall Coalition. Link to this the lack of clear direction from the UK and the situation is set for all sorts of horrors!

From a UK perspective: Confused Chain of Command, lack of resources, strategic drift instead of direction (the only direction appeared to be 'don't rock the boat' and 'don't incur casualties') and (IMHO) an overwhelming sense at the time that 'we must be great at COIN after 25 years in N Ireland - so we needn't apply ourselves to this spot of bother'... and the scene is set!

[Steve the Planner]

A DoS Reprimand.

Heck, I got one of those from a FSO PRT Leader for suggesting that his PRT needed to realign its mission and practices.

Same guy that, when we were working with MND-North to reopen bridges at Bayji (between Salah ad Din and Kirkuk/Tamim) wrote me an e-mail to say that "even of it is good for the provinces" inter-provincial activities are contrary to the Office of Provincial Affairs' strategy.

I was in Baghdad when I got that, and MNF-I's Strateffects 2 star was reading it over my shoulder. (Didn't sit well, but typical).

I was planning to frame the two together.

Easy to understand how missions go awry and implementation fails due to bureacratic and inter-agency snafus.

I still believe that the biggest reason why we can't use all the bright people and abundant resources to any positive end has to do with interagency.

One of my favorite books posits the Theory of the Complexity Joint Action as: if there are 100 dependent steps required for successful implementation, and a 99% chance that each step will be successful, then there is a 100% probability of failure.

What was the problem in Afghanistan? More cooks than Iraq by a factor of 5 or 10.

Steve

[John T. Fishel]

Steve--

Although there is no way to achieve perfect unity of effort in an interagency an coalition environment, there are ways of greatly improving its quality.
1. To the maximum extent possible put one person in charge - that achieves unity of command. It works most of the time in a normal US Embassy - everybody answers to the Ambassador and those who don't get sent home. (An Ambassador friend told me how he sent his Station chief home and that action stood him in good stead in future assignments.)
2. Make sure that the objective is clear andunderstood by all parties in the same terms. This it, in fact, a prerequisite to successful unity of effort.
3. Constant, open comms among the players.
4. Be willing to understand where your partners are coming from and accept that they might well have better ideas than you do about how to achieve the objective.
Even with all that, there will be failures but our failures should be fewer thanthos of our adversaries and eneemies.

Cheers

JohnT

[Pete]

Q: Do you have advice on operating with Coalition Forces?

A: I realise now that I am a European, not an American. We managed to get on better militarily and administratively with our European partners and indeed at times with the Arabs than with the Americans. Europeans chat to each other whereas dialogue is alien to the US military.

They need to reintroduce dialogue as a tool of command because, although it is easy to speak to Americans face-to-face and understand each other completely, dealing with them corporately is akin to dealing with a group of Martians. If it isn't on the PowerPoint slide, it doesn't happen.

The statement above by a British officer is from one of the links posted by Fuchs to stories in the Daily Telegraph in November 2009. One of my pet peeves about the U.S. military is its overuse of acronyms and jargon when speaking or writing in the King's English would make things much more clear to everyone involved; there ought to be dialogue until everyone understands what is to be done. One of the things that impressed me about a Marine Corps ANGLICO Team during an exercise in 1982 was the way its officers and NCOs spoke to their people in plain English. Communicating clearly is probably even more important during coalition operations.

[Cliff]

The statement above by a British officer is from one of the links posted by Fuchs to stories in the Daily Telegraph in November 2009. One of my pet peeves about the U.S. military is its overuse of acronyms and jargon when speaking or writing in the King's English would make things much more clear to everyone involved; there ought to be dialogue until everyone understands what is to be done. One of the things that impressed me about a Marine Corps ANGLICO Team during an exercise in 1982 was the way its officers and NCOs spoke to their people in plain English. Communicating clearly is probably even more important during coalition operations.

Pete-

One of my big frustrations at ILE is that the Army folks don't think about translating things for us sister service folks. I think this is partially because the Army is so big and partially because the Army doesn't have to work as often in the joint environment at the tactical level. Since USAF units (especially the Combat Air Forces or shooters) often train with Navy and Marine Corps air, as well as coalition partners, we are forced to learn to communicate with folks who don't speak our language. Institutionalizing this by making 50% of Red Flags coalition flags has helped too. Also helps that Top Gun and USAF Weapons School have a robust relationship, and all the doctrine is coordinated by the 561st Joint Tactics Squadron.

The other amusing thing as an outsider is how each branch has it's own language within the Army - and other branches don't know their lingo either. Sustainers seem to particularly love acronyms that no one else really understands.

Which raises an interesting question... do you think the impending drawdown of the Army will lead to more attempts to train with coalition partners? How often are the UK, Canada, Australia, etc land forces invited to NTC rotations or other exercises? It seems like us going it alone will be increasingly less likely in the future...

V/R,

Cliff