French & US COIN and Galula (merged thread)

[Ken White]

"Galula has his place. So does history. Neither are the answer in their own right, but can be part of a sound problem solving approach to the issue of countering insurgency. Overstating Galula's acknowledged influence (on either the FM or current operational thinking) does not do much to clarify or raise understanding of current activities."

Goodonya...

[Cavguy]

I defer to my work collegue "Hacksaw" here - for all the worry about our junior officers and NCO's only conceptualizing COIN - you can't have it both ways.

They were adaptable enough to shed MCO and learn COIN.

They are adapable enough to do the reverse, or even better, both, if we figured out how to balance our training base.

Their experience is not nested in FM's it's in practical experience. The reason why FM 3-24 gained wide acceptance is because it bore out the experiences and learnings of those who were "boots on the gound" from 2003 onward. Kilcullen's "28 Articles" was influential to me not so much because it taught me much that I didn't know - it was the first time in my career I had seen all my various education and experience to that point combined in a logical document that made sense.

There is a balance. We can't forget how to go toe to toe, and I don't think anyone's stated otherwise. But we also don't need a force that has to do 2003-2005 all over again, re-learning lessons from previous insurgencies as if they are something new.

Additionally, while the operational force may be COIN centric currently, our Leader development and education is almost the reverse. Consider that five years into two insurgencies we:

a) ....have no COIN proponent in the US Army (Well, the CAC commander is, by default), it hasn't been assigned.

b) have no TRADOC or CAC mandated COIN instruction in our centers and schools. There is absolutely ZERO COIN specific training tasks mandated in our current Professional Military education system. It is not required to be taught at all. Many schools have included it on their own, but it has not been directed for inclusion by the TRADOC commander.

c) have no defined plan to do either.

And I would say the momentum to do so is drying up as well as senior leaders grow more concerned about the loss of MCO capability. The Army has not taken action to make COIN knowledge a critical competency for the Army's future leaders in its eductional and training base. Once the war quits, we continue teaching Fulda. The experience rots, and 20 years later my son walks into a COIN scenario and learns the hard way everything the institution forgot.

Most educational and training base sites DO train COIN, but it's not a mandate from TRADOC. Which tells me when the current conflicts subside, that training will disappear unless action is taken.

Note also the insight from this current CGSC student here - it's true. CGSC removed its only mandatory COIN course a few years ago.

[Gian P Gentile]

...But we also don't need a force that has to do 2003-2005 all over again, re-learning lessons from previous insurgencies as if they are something new.(

Just curious as to your periodization and end point at 2005 when the Army finally got it and stopped relearning as you say lessons from previous insurgencies? Why not 2004? Why not 2006? What is your logic for ending in 2005?

Twenty years from now when histories are written about the Iraq war for tactics and operations they will show that by early to mid 2004 up through and to the end of the Surge threre was no substantial difference. Here is an example, Doug Olivant wrote about his experiences in 1st Cav in 04 to early 05 and at least as he states in a posting on this thread when he got back and read Galula it represented to him what he and his commander were thinking, and doing, when they were on the ground in Iraq in 2004/05.

There were some bumps along the way but early in the war and by early to mid 04 we had pretty much figured out how to do coin across the board in the force. Steve Metz says 2005 but i think it happened much earlier.

[Ken White]

have a kid who was there and who is very much convinced -- as is most everyone else I've talked to -- that it varied a great deal from unit to unit (or Commander to Commander, sometimes but not always synonymous with the unit) in the '03 to about '05 period. He was there fall of '03, spring '04.

I think most are using 05 because that appears to be about the time the whole Army got it. I suspect it also has a little to do with the departure of Ricardo
Sanchez in Jun of '04 and about six months for Casey to make an imprint and with the rotation cycles, OIF 3 was the first rotation that had been 'COIN trained' prior to deployment if my memory serves (always a dicey proposition...) and it was the one that took 3d ID back in a different mode than had been their first trip.

[Gian P Gentile]

have a kid who was there and who is very much convinced -- as is most everyone else I've talked to -- that it varied a great deal from unit to unit (or Commander to Commander, sometimes but not always synonymous with the unit) in the '03 to about '05 period. He was there fall of '03, spring '04.

I think most are using 05 because that appears to be about the time the whole Army got it. I suspect it also has a little to do with the departure of Ricardo
Sanchez in Jun of '04 and about six months for Casey to make an imprint and with the rotation cycles, OIF 3 was the first rotation that had been 'COIN trained' prior to deployment if my memory serves (always a dicey proposition...) and it was the one that took 3d ID back in a different mode than had been their first trip.

Ken:

this analysis makes sense to me. Your point about the arrival of Casey and the coin academy is spot-on. I was a part of one of the first classes taught at the coin academy back when it was still being done by SF A Teams. As an aside i was fortunate to have an especially strong teacher there who is now i think at Leavenworth working coin issues, Major Mark Ulrich. I learned a lot at the coin academy, so too did my troop commanders.

However I do not think the differences are still that great even between 05 and 04. I was a BCT XO in Tikrit in 03 and the Brigade I was in "got it" pretty much as soon as we hit the ground. Concur especially early on in 03 that there were some units who were outside of the bubble. But I think the transition to effective coin ops across the board in the American Army happens by mid 04; it was by then that some of the early re-thinking on how to do coin ops from people like Con Crane and Steve Metz were starting to have an effect at least on senior leaders in the Army and the disaster at Abu Grahb had a catalyzing effect on us. 1st Cav's run in Baghdad (and their combat actions in Najaf) in 04 along with their first cut at turning Sadr city were impressive efforts. I had a good talk with a combat company commander yesterday who was in 1st Cav, fought his company in Najaf then pulled them back to Baghdad where they continued coin ops. Listening to him, he certainly got it that far back which is why i think the notion of "not getting it" well into the war is simply misplaced.

But to beat this drum again, higlighting the (mistaken) notion that we didnt "get it" until much later fits the narrative that the Surge and its methods (aside from the increased number of troops) really are different, which they are not.

gian

[John T. Fishel]

ring a bell? Perhaps, because we do this over and over again. At the end of the Vietnam war the CGSC curriculum was COIN heavy. By the late 70s all of small wars (not just COIN) had been compressed into a mere 8 hours according to John Waghelstein who was teaching there at the time. It wasn't much better in 1986 when Southcom convinced then BG Fred Franks to devote 2 full days (16 hours) to COIN based on the Southcom experience in Central America, Peru, and Colombia effectively doubling the COIN hours. Gordon Sullivan who succeeded Franks and Deputy Commandant kept up the program. When I was teaching there in the 90s, we had about 40 hours devoted to small wars issues. But TRADOC did not direct and was not very interested in a new Stability Operations and Support Ops (SASO) manual as its author retired LTC John Hunt couldn't interest anybody in getting the thing on the street.

As we see in this thread, not only the senior leadership of the Army is concerned that there is too much COIN but others, here represented articulately by Gian, express the same concerns. if i were a betting man, I would bet that when we finally leave Iraq and Afghanistan, the Army will reassert its focus on big wars relegating FM 3-24 to the shelves of CARL. I hope not but...

Cheers

JohnT

[Gian P Gentile]

As we see in this thread, not only the senior leadership of the Army is concerned that there is too much COIN but others, here represented articulately by Gian, express the same concerns. if i were a betting man, I would bet that when we finally leave Iraq and Afghanistan, the Army will reassert its focus on big wars relegating FM 3-24 to the shelves of CARL. I hope not but... JohnT

John:

I hope not either. And that is not at all what i have been advocating. There is a place for counterinsurgency thinking and training throughout the army and not just in a small and isolated cluster of small wars folks. But there needs to be a balance and an assessment of our strategic interests and how as an army we meet the nation's strategic needs. I do not think that "conventional" wars are things of the past and as others have posted on this blog if we do have to fight one and we do poorly the consequences in blood and treasure can be quite servere.

As for your concern about shelving coin after Iraq and Afghanistan like what happened after Vietnam well as you and I both know, at least in theory, history can not repeat itself. That said i think things are much different now, for one I imagine that the United States Army in some form or fashion will be in Iraq and Afghanistan for a long time and will not see and abrubt halt like we saw in Vietnam. In that sense simply because we are there will keep the imperative to not put coin on the backburner. The problem as i see it now is that we are out of balance and the only burner cooking is the coin one. In this sense we should be worried.

v/r
gian

[John T. Fishel]

your posts more than you intended. I certainly agree that we need to have balanced education, training and doctrine. I am not so concerned with a temporary imbalance if, when it rights itself, it does so without throwing out the baby with the bath water (to mix metaphors all over the place). My concern is that the Army has a historical tendency to overcorrect and has done so not once but many times. Still, I hope you are right but as General Sullivan put it, "Hope is Not a Method."

Cheers

JohnT

[Eden]

I always hesitate to weigh in on these Iraq-centric threads because all my operational experience was in Afghanistan, but I do have one observation on this thread and a question for those of you who served in our big small war.

First, the observation. The post-Vietnam army did forget about COIN, but not as a result of terminal absent-mindedness. The Army I joined, one faced with an actual existential threat from the Soviet Union, was still mired in the jungles of Indochina. The cavalry unit I joined -and this is in the early 80's-trained as if we were headed back to the jungle instead of the north German plain, and our leaders at the time made a conscious decision to wrench our focus back to conventional, high-intensity combat. I think this was a good thing, given the world we lived in at the time; the point is, we turned our face away from counterinsurgency on purpose.

My question relates to COIN at the operational level. I don't know when we got it right tactically in Iraq - that is, at the battalion/brigade level - but I assume our junior leaders and NCOs proved to be quick studies, as they always are. But, when did we, or have we yet, break the code at the operational level? That is, when did we learn to properly orchestrate our efforts across the entire theater in a coherent campaign? My observation in Afghanistan was that our operational concept was bankrupt; our tactical successes did not add up to operational success because they were bereft of any context. It was the Kaiserschlacht in a small war setting. Is the same true in Iraq?

[John T. Fishel]

Hi Eden--

I found your observation on the post-Vietnam Army particularly interesting especially the lag time between Dupuy's 1976 FM 100-5 doctrine and what troops in Germany were doing even into the 80s. From my perspective during that period - the schoolhouse and Southcom - we were solely focused on the Fulda Gap. COIN and all other small wars got short shrift. Sorta shows to go ya that where you stand really does depend on where you sit.

I won't even take a crack at your question - haven't been there. While I have my ideas about both places, I'll wait and see what the boots on the ground have to say.

Cheers

JohnT

[Cavguy]

My question relates to COIN at the operational level. I don't know when we got it right tactically in Iraq - that is, at the battalion/brigade level - but I assume our junior leaders and NCOs proved to be quick studies, as they always are. But, when did we, or have we yet, break the code at the operational level? That is, when did we learn to properly orchestrate our efforts across the entire theater in a coherent campaign? My observation in Afghanistan was that our operational concept was bankrupt; our tactical successes did not add up to operational success because they were bereft of any context. It was the Kaiserschlacht in a small war setting. Is the same true in Iraq?

A good question which may better frame the debate here. I would be willing to agree with LTC Gentile that at the tactical level a majority units were beginning to do COIN ops well by early 2004. Some better than others, but enough. They did have certain higher level restrictions, such as imposed ISF handoff (often too early), and consolidation on FOBs. As stated, jr. leaders learned fast, and drove change at their levels but often their successes weren't exploited into larger gain due to the operational framework not being geared to support.

Operationally, I would probably cite the "tipping" point for operational doctrine as being located somewhere between second Fallujah in Nov 2004 and August 2005 when 3ACR conducted operation Restoring Rights in Tal Afar. 3ACR's model certainly influenced 1/1 AD in Tal Afar and Ramadi, and application of the operational concepts facilitated the Awakening in Anbar. Operational design was key to both campaigns - weaving tactical, lethal and nonlethal actions together to create a breakthrough . I am sure some others can be cited, but It's not far off to suggest that we got operational together at the lower levels (BCT) in 2005. I would say we didn't get higher level operational together until early 2007, which I credit to Gen P implimenting a theater wide framework which syncronized what many BCT's were already doing to create greater effects, and expanding upon the opportunities the Awakening presented..

A first draft, and I'm quite open to challenge, just forming the thoughts as I type.

[Tom Odom]

A good question which may better frame the debate here. I would be willing to agree with LTC Gentile that at the tactical level a majority units were beginning to do COIN ops well by early 2004. Some better than others, but enough. They did have certain higher level restrictions, such as imposed ISF handoff (often too early), and consolidation on FOBs. As stated, jr. leaders learned fast, and drove change at their levels but often their successes weren't exploited into larger gain due to the operational framework not being geared to support.

Operationally, I would probably cite the "tipping" point for operational doctrine as being located somewhere between second Fallujah in Nov 2004 and August 2005 when 3ACR conducted operation Restoring Rights in Tal Afar. 3ACR's model certainly influenced 1/1 AD in Tal Afar and Ramadi, and application of the operational concepts facilitated the Awakening in Anbar. Operational design was key to both campaigns - weaving tactical, lethal and nonlethal actions together to create a breakthrough . I am sure some others can be cited, but It's not far off to suggest that we got operational together at the lower levels (BCT) in 2005. I would say we didn't get higher level operational together until early 2007, which I credit to Gen P implimenting a theater wide framework which syncronized what many BCT's were already doing to create greater effects, and expanding upon the opportunities the Awakening presented..

A first draft, and I'm quite open to challenge, just forming the thoughts as I type.

With my window on BCTs coming thropugh here I would say you are pretty close to my own sensing. You do bring up a critical point, that being uniformity of approach. The CTC program has done many great things for the Army; one that perhaps has been less positive is the institutionalization of great variance in BCT operations. While I would agree that some units "got it" when we started pushing "it" here in 2003 into 2004, some units did not. COIN was not even widely spoken of unitil the COIN Academy set up in Iraq. Much of what we did here used targeted effects and stability operations as the framing ideas--we were really doing (or at least teaching) COIN.

GEN P's promotion to 4 Star and posting to theater did much to push the ideas further--and there in provided what you say--a common standard.

Best

Tom

[SWJ Blog]

Reflections on the French School of Counter-Rebellion

Entry Excerpt:

Reflections on the French School of Counter-Rebellion:
An Interview with Etienne de Durand
by Octavian Manea

Download The Full Article: Reflections on the French School of Counter-Rebellion

How important were Charles Lacheroy and Roger Trinquier in shaping the French School of COIN compared to David Galula?

There was much debate and opposition within the French Army regarding the proper answers to guerre révolutionnaire, and no single school of thought ever prevailed. If there is such a thing as the French School of Counterinsurgency, its founding father undoubtedly is Charles Lacheroy, and with him the proponents of DGR (doctrine de guerre révolutionnaire or French Counterinsurgency Doctrine) to include Jacques Hogard. During the French Indochina and Algeria wars, they were extremely influential towards French policy and strategy leading conferences and lectures, contributing to doctrinal manuals, and advising on day-to-day operations. Lacheroy, for instance, had high-level contacts within the government and was able to implement his views in 1957, with the creation of 5e bureaux all over Algeria and the generalization of guerre psychologique (psychwar or psychological operations).

Roger Trinquier is at first more of a practitioner. He wrote on COIN at the end of the period and should therefore only in retrospect be included as a central, yet not foundational, figure of French COIN.

Contrastingly, David Galula was an intelligence officer and most of what he wrote was marginal in France. Nobody knew of him.

Download The Full Article: Reflections on the French School of Counter-Rebellion

Etienne de Durand is director of the Security Studies Center at the Institut Français des Relations Internationales (IFRI) in Paris. He is also professor at the Institut d’études politiques de Paris and at the Ecole de guerre. He is the author of the chapter dedicated to France in “Understanding Counterinsurgency-Doctrine, operations and challenges” (Routledge, 2010) edited by Thomas Rid and Thomas Keaney. He is contributor to the Ultima Ratio (http://ultimaratio-blog.org/) a blog focused on debating contemporary security and defense issues.



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[SWJ Blog]

Deconstructing Galula

Entry Excerpt:

Deconstructing Galula

Much ado surrounds the myths of T.E. Lawrence and David Galula. So much so that academics fawn, foreign policy is derived, and military manuals preach their stories as holy works. From the practice, beautiful theory was born that enlightened westerners can deploy into the hinterlands, win hearts, minds, and souls, and unilaterally transform societies through the spread of democracy and capitalism.



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[Ridler]

Dear SWJ,

Can anyone recommend a biography of David Galula, or a work that has significant biographical material about his experience? The closest I've found is Ann Marlowe's book:

http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute...cfm?pubID=1016

While helpful, I was looking for more of a biographical root for his ideas, based on his experiences and education. Am I wrong in assuming there remains no professional biography of his efforts?

JSR

[jmm99]

to prove your assumption wrong. Searching "David Galula" (Google Advanced Search; French only) yields only 6000+ hits; but then he was not that popular in France.

You might try the French sources; if nothing else, we find Un gourou pour Hervé Morin - La doctrine militaire de David Galula, officier français mort en 1968, est enfin reconnue… Grâce aux Américains.:



Ah, but my friend Lagrange will tell me that this obviously superior example of new weapons technology has been banned by the ICRC.

Regards

Mike

[Ridler]

But has there been a comprehensive bio of him dans l'anglaise?

[jmm99]

from Ridler
But has there been a comprehensive bio of him dans l'anglaise?

Your initial assumption and question:

from Ridler
... Am I wrong in assuming there remains no professional biography of his efforts?

My answer:

from jmm99
I don't know of anything .... to prove your assumption wrong.

Don't know of anything means don't know of anything.

Regards

Mike

[M-A Lagrange]

http://www.cdef.terre.defense.gouv.f...e_insurect.htm
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Galula
http://www.dissertationsgratuites.co...ula/27267.html
http://secretdefense.blogs.liberatio...rm%C3%A9e.html

The book you mention is the only one about Galula up to now.
You’ll find here some links, I believe you’ve already been consulting on article about Galula (all in French).

The first one and the last one are the most interesting I believe as they are from the ministry of defense for the first one and the last one from a high quality blog on military affairs.
In the first one you have the rediscover (or discover) of a French officer work by the French army and the last one reminds that Galula was first kicked out from the French army during WW2.

Greece being, with Algeria, his first source of inspiration, I would look in that direction. If you're lucky, you might find something.

Mike: As long as US do not ban Mac Donald, we have the right to defend ourselves...

[jmm99]

bonjour ou bonsoir - wherever in He££ you happen to be "lodging" today.

As to this:

from MAL
Mike: As long as US do not ban Mac Donald, we have the right to defend ourselves...

... touché - and you are the awardee of this fine weapons system:





which did prevail at the 1760 Battle of Sainte-Foy - Monument aux Braves, where d'Aiguebelle's Grenadiers were the tip of the bayonet at Dumont's Windmill.

-----------------------------------------
After that shameless promo for Québec tourism, we return to the subject at hand.

I also found your fourth link, Quand Galula était rayé des cadres de l'Armée ..., by Googling "David Galula" "biographie" "juif" (an example of a Gallic "mind" working ?). That article deals with the dicey problem faced by the young David Galula - that of being a Jew in Vichy France and Vichy Algeria. He survived - “Clausewitz de la contre-insurrection” (par Petraeus et Nagl) - that black period, Une page noire, jamais écrite, de l'histoire de l'armée.Quand vichy internait ses soldats juifs d'algerie.

An interesting question is to what extent (if any) did Galula's Jewish background influence his practice ? One answer is here, Deux grands stratèges juifs ont théorisé la guerre victorieuse de contre-insurrection.

Another question, for which I've seen no direct evidence, is whether Galula had close US links during WWII - such as the OSS ?

Regards

Mike