Quote Originally Posted by wmthomson View Post
The origins of FM 3-24’s shortcomings are its bases in the analysis of both nationalist post-colonial insurgencies and Cold War era ideological insurgencies, specifically the French experience in Algeria, the British experience in Malaya and US experiences in Vietnam, the Philippines and Nicaragua. This set of cases manifests itself in the doctrine as a failure to recognize the diversity of conflict causes, the aforementioned cases being all conflicts with ideological and nationalist origins. As is suggested by Samuel Huntington though, in his seminal work The Clash of Civilization, wars of identity are ever present in the Post-Cold War era.
I am reading FM 3-24 right now (doing my thesis also) and its interesting because its explains much of what I saw in theatre, in terms of behaviors of US military personnel, especially US Army HQ elements. But I don't think its shortcomings are its analysis of insurgency: its a great intro document and contains all you really need to read before deploying -- however understanding the words in it is another thing.

For instance

"3-55. Once they have mapped the social structure and understand the culture, staffs must determine how power is apportioned and used within a society. Power is the probability that one actor within a social rela- tionship will be in a position to carry out his or her own will despite resistance. Understanding power is the key to manipulating the interests of groups within a society."

I actually LOL'ed at this... not because its incorrect, but because "mapping the social structure" takes a LOT LONGER than the time it takes to plan an operation... and I routinely saw military planners use any o'l information just because they had to because 'the job had to be done'.

I think the shortcomings to 3-55 is not its content, but rather that the average US military person cannot adjust his/her thinking patterns to truly question everything, whereas military culture is about DON'T ASK ANY ####ING QUESTIONS JUST DO IT DO IT DO IT which is completely understandable given the nature of combat operations, but when applied to areas like intelligence and operation planning, this mindset hinders.