French & US COIN and Galula (merged thread)

[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.