Intro to the Tactics and Technique of Small Wars

[SWJED]

I was saving this article for Volume VI of the Small Wars Journal - but thought there would be some interest here on the SWC in regards to opinions concerning the conduct of Small Wars by those who preceded us...

As always, we thank the Marine Corps Gazette for their permission to reprint these blasts from the past here.

An Introduction to the Tactics and Technique of Small Wars by Major Harold Utley, USMC. Marine Corps Gazette article, May 1931.

It is obvious that this subject is of prime importance to officers of the Marine Corps, and Naval officers since they may, either as commanders of squadrons and ships supporting such operations or as staff officers of such commanders, find it necessary to pass judgment upon plans for this type of operations, should likewise have more than a hazy knowledge of what has occurred in the past; and finally, it is believed that officers of the Army cannot afford to wholly disregard this subject even though it is fundamentally a function of the Marine Corps, although it is true that the landing of a single armed soldier on foreign soil constitutes an act of war, whereas sailors and marines can operate all over the same country and suffer a considerable number of casualties while the nation concerned and our own are still at peace.

This very fact-that no state of war exists-coupled with that mentioned before-that only a portion of the inhabitants are hostile-frequently gives to the operations a character differing radically from that where a formal state of war exists, they complicate the situation immeasurably.

Although each situation presents its own peculiar problems, they all have certain characteristics in common, and these can be studied and prepared for. The frequency with which they have occurred emphasizes the importance of making careful studies, of selecting most appropriate organization and equipment, and of undergoing adequate training, in order that we may be properly prepared when we encounter them.

This type of operations has been designated by many writers by the title "SMALL WARS," a term which has no connection whatsoever with the size of the force involved, the extent of the theater of operations, nor the length of time required to bring the operation to a close. In spite of its rather general use, the choice of the term does not appear to be a particularly happy one. Colonel C. E. Callwell, British Army, whose book, "Small Wars, Their Principles and Practices," has been a standard text on the subject for over a quarter of a century, says that the term is used "in default of a better one." In some cases it appears difficult to define precisely the line of demarkation between "Small Wars" and major conflicts, but generally speaking Small Wars are those operations in which a trained regular force is opposed by an irregular and comparatively untrained enemy. All of our campaigns against the Indians, the Boxer Rebellion, the Philippine Insurrection, the Punitive Expedition into Mexico in 1916, and the numerous campaigns and expeditions of the Marine Corps-except when serving with the Army in the Mexican and World Wars-fall under this category...

[slapout9]

Dave, change the date of the article to current and call it SWJ 5.5 warfare. My point is this, we are not being beat by the enemy we are beating ourselves. This is not a new kind of warfare they are just damn good at it, and we have forgotten how good we can be at it, if we choose to commit as a nation to winning it. As for quotes how about FDR when he decided to mobilize the entire nation to fight a war. "We have nothing to fear but fear itself!!"

[SWJED]

Dave, change the date of the article to current...

That's why I enjoy reading the "old stuff" from the 20's, 30's and 60's...

[Jedburgh]

Dave, change the date of the article to current and call it SWJ 5.5 warfare. My point is this, we are not being beat by the enemy we are beating ourselves. This is not a new kind of warfare they are just damn good at it, and we have forgotten how good we can be at it, if we choose to commit as a nation to winning it. As for quotes how about FDR when he decided to mobilize the entire nation to fight a war. "We have nothing to fear but fear itself!!"

That's why I enjoy reading the "old stuff" from the 20's, 30's and 60's...

I heartily concur with slapout; in fact, I think that this is a key point that is borne out by many of the discussions on this board.

I also really enjoy finding some of the "old stuff" in digits - even more when I can find an original hard copy to add to the library. (I recently picked up Campaigning in the Philippines, by Karl Irving Faust, published in 1899. Great detail on the shift from the conventional fight against the Spanish to dealing with the outbreak and the early part of the Philippine Revolt. For a book of that period, it includes a lot of photographs, as well as detailed OB breakdowns of the forces involved.)

As an aside, a significant difference between the "old stuff" and what is being published these days is that the older material was written in a straightforward manner that was easily digestible by all. Too many military authors today get wrapped up in "doctrinese" that is vague and open to differences in interpretation - and thus ends up being meaningless pseudo-intellectual babble that talks at the issue rather than being truly insightful.

[SWJED]

As an aside, a significant difference between the "old stuff" and what is being published these days is that the older material was written in a straightforward manner that was easily digestible by all. Too many military authors today get wrapped up in "doctrinese" that is vague and open to differences in interpretation - and thus ends up being meaningless pseudo-intellectual babble that talks at the issue rather than being truly insightful.

I could not agree more. I've been reading a lot of the older Marine Corps Gazette articles lately - especially those of post-WW I - pre-WW II and of the War in Vietnam. They most certainly are more straight-forward (and less PC) than some (if not many) of our current mumbo-jumbo concepts.

Of course there are exceptions (Military Review is but one example) and I detect a trend towards professional journals and official concept and doctrine writers "telling it like it is". Nothing like being in a fight of your life to get people thinking along a reality-based line.

[Jedburgh]

....Of course there are exceptions (Military Review is but one example) and I detect a trend towards professional journals and official concept and doctrine writers "telling it like it is". Nothing like being in a fight of your life to get people thinking along a reality-based line.

I think that is what is so frustrating to those of us in the small community that has been deeply immersed in the reality of small wars since long before OEF/OIF - that it takes this extreme of an event to trigger modes of thought in the conventional army that is focused on operational realities rather than ideals and preconceived notions.

...I have to confess feeling outright anger when reading some of these more recent articles - even those written clearly and concisely - when they are presenting fundamentals as if the author experienced an epiphany. Which, to be fair, may actually be happening - but only because they've never been presented the true fundamentals in a professional setting pre-war.

And, although we are fortunate that many are now "getting it" - especially at the tactical and operational levels - there are still too many at the key decision-making levels who do not....and who still focus on technological solutions to many problems. Or focus on quantitative as opposed to qualitative answers. On the other hand, I admire those who continually fight against the use of "statistics" to define ops and work to provide more meaningful assessments.

Of course, the same problems exist in national LE in their continuing struggle to define how they approach the GWOT. In my perception, they are far more heavily burdened with the evil of statistics that inhibit effective ops.

I guess I'm rambling a bit, and I'll stop here. In many ways this topic is very near to me, but I don't want to discuss views on current training and ops in too much detail on an open board.

[slapout9]

1-I feel your pain man. Yes stats run police departments because they are often tied to grant money, wrong stats no money.
2-I really appreciate many of the rand downloads you have found about the good old stuff and I agree with you about the writing style. They did it with such clarity and purpose and it shows.
3-As for LE/GWOT-Watch Meth-amphetamines. this is nothing but a terrorist super drug. I saw on TV during some clearing ops (Iraq) the bad guys had hyped up on pain killers and fought till the death and loved it. If they add Meth to their bag of tricks you have instant super soldier-no pain-alot of gain. And it is coming up from Mexico in never before seen quantities. Good news the DEA and border patrol are stopping it (some of it).
4-More LE/GWOT good news that is ok for open sources is the NYPD counter terror unit has for awhile taught the CARVER targeting technique as part of their CT program. They go for the most critical targets just like the terrorist with the understanding that they may have to take some small hits along the way but will not do any serious damage. It is now part of there academy and is being taught to other outside agencies. CARVER is very close to POP techniques so LE can understand the process and the mindset(culture)so they can stay ahead of them. And with all that it is now bedtime!!

[Bill Moore]

I’ll be the odd one out on this one. We did well in isolated banana wars that required relatively few resources (with the Philippines being an exception, but the Philippines remains a basket case politically and economically much like the other nations we had temporary success in) and they were not fought in the main stream media. Today’s battlefield is not yesterday’s battlefield. We didn’t do so well with small wars during the cold war because small wars became a global phenomenon and we didn’t have the resources to conduct legacy COIN strategies and nation building throughout S. America, SE Asia, and Africa. Let’s face it, we could only afford so many El Salvadors, while there may have been a cap on advisors there, we brought thousands of their troops to the U.S. to train, plus we conducted large supporting operations out of Honduras to choke off logistical support to the insurgents. We spent billions, and we committed a number of resources for an extended period of time. As most of you know there was a lot of umph behind the tip of the spear.

We would need that much umph in each area we’re fighting now to achieve “that type of victory” in the tens of countries where we are executing GWOT now, and where we will eventually being executing GWOT. It is a case of Voodo economics when someone says we can afford this. Nor can we spread the military any thinner. I think most of us agree we need to grow the size of our Army, but that takes time, and more $$$.

Iraq is not a small war, it is in some respects a world war as several nations are involved in supporting one side or the other, much like the conflict in the DROC. I have been there twice and I don’t share the happy assessments that some seem to have. Being realistic we may be able to head off a civil war there and we may be able to get it to the level the international community brought Lebanon to (prior to the current problem) some day down the road, but that isn’t much of an accomplishment when you consider what we invested.

That brings me to my point about our national security interests and small wars, and that is small wars are very expensive and resource extensive, and when played out in the mass media they are draining on our nation's psyche. Iraq is what it is, I don’t want to dwell on it, but when I look at it and other small wars we have been and are engaged in and the associated cost that usually only yields limited and temporary results (Haiti as an example), then I think we need to be very select in determining exactly what type of fight we want to engage in based on a number of variables. In many cases if we’re aware of a terrorist element that threatens our national interests, we may simply decide to go in and unilaterally attack that organization and not necessarily engage in the expense of nation building. If we were really worried about Saddam, we could have killed him without invading the country and then let the Iraqis sort it out. In Afghanistan we could have hammered the Al Qaeda and Taliban and left, turning the country back over the warlords, and revisit it as necessary. We can sustain the costs of these options and show effect to the audience. I’m not against COIN, just a little leery of thinking that COIN strategy is the answer to all of our security woes. It could be if we had unlimited resources, but we don’t. We need to pick our COIN fights carefully and commit for the long term win. For other threats we need to maintain an Army and Marine Corp that can get in quickly and decisively (even if temporarily) defeat the enemy. We still need a conventional expedintionary war fighting capability.

[Jedburgh]

I’ll be the odd one out on this one. We did well in isolated banana wars that required relatively few resources (with the Philippines being an exception, but the Philippines remains a basket case politically and economically much like the other nations we had temporary success in) and they were not fought in the main stream media. Today’s battlefield is not yesterday’s battlefield....

Bill, I don't believe anyone is stating that in the "old days" they executed better - or that we are mirror-imaging ideals of yore onto the COE. However, I still argue that much of those hard-learned lessons of our predecessors, learned at the expense of blood and national treasure, were ignored by the conventional Army until we reached a crisis point. Despite the differences between now and then, there are many insightful pieces dissecting the many mistakes made at the time that have only been brought into professional discussion after we are faced with near-disaster. The almost complete ignorance/dismissal for so long of such a large chunk of material in the professional development of soldiers and leaders was inexcusable. Particularly in the light of the nature of ops we were executing even before OEF/OIF. Thankfully, we are doing much better in that regard these days. Although I would also state that there are still great gaps between operational reality and TRADOC POIs in how we are training many critical MOSs.

We didn’t do so well with small wars during the cold war because small wars became a global phenomenon and we didn’t have the resources to conduct legacy COIN strategies and nation building throughout S. America, SE Asia, and Africa....

We also didn't do so well with small wars during the Cold War era because we often focused too much on the bipolar superpower conflict in each case and ignored the real underlying issues in the conflict. This permitted the warring parties to manipulate the superpower standoff to gain support of one or the other to their own ends, and the superpowers went along with their focus narrowed by blinders....

That brings me to my point about our national security interests and small wars, and that is small wars are very expensive and resource extensive, and when played out in the mass media they are draining on our nation's psyche. Iraq is what it is, I don’t want to dwell on it, but when I look at it and other small wars we have been and are engaged in and the associated cost that usually only yields limited and temporary results (Haiti as an example), then I think we need to be very select in determining exactly what type of fight we want to engage in based on a number of variables.

I agree with you wholeheartedly. Lack of proper planning and poor target selection achieves results commensurate with the effort. However, a massive chunk of that resides at the national political level and there is little the military can do except plan and execute to the best of its ability within the parameters that the political leaders provide.

[Merv Benson]

Small wars are basically wars where the enemy choses to use a raiding strategy rather than a combat persisting strategy. The US is very good at destroying enemies who use the combat persisting strategy. Until we are able to destroy enemies who use the raiding strategy, we will have more small wars. Finding a way to defeat that strategy has to be one of our highest priorities and it has to be a strategy that can be accomplish the mission in a time frame that political support permits.

History has shown that raiding strategies can be defeated if they are attacked with sufficient force to space ratios, and with sufficient political skills. Denying the military sufficient forces to implement the correct force to space ratio lenthens the time needed to win and increases the killing on both sides. The recent decrease in violence in Baghdad after additional US troops were brought in demonstrates how this approach works. What is not clear is why it has taken three years to implement it.

[Bill Moore]

I agree with both responses, and though not stated I think it was implied that our shortfalls in Iraq and elsewhere are largely due to poor political strategies or political decisions over the military. Our SECDEF by most accounts is the one who pushed for a small force in Iraq, and we're still suffering the consequences. With this small force we could have implemented a regime change, and secured any physical space we wanted to secure to secure/destroy the WMD. These were clear cut and achievable objectives that didn’t require a larger force structure. Our military isn't at fault if we can't achieve a stable and peaceful democracy in Iraq, since that is hardly a realistic goal considering the social dynamics of the country and the region and our failure to commit “substantial” resources to achieving this goal, or working for substantial international consensus and support to do the same.

I’m not forgiving the many military officers who have refused to learn the lessons of the past and apply them as they fit to the current fight. Our military has neglected a vast knowledge of existing small war doctrine, and we have paid the price for that ignorance strategically, operationally, and tactically. The silver lining is (if they stay in) we’re growing some smart junior officers.

Using Merv's definition of small wars, then Iraq is a small war, but my gut tells me otherwise. Small indicates limited scale, subsequently fewer resources required, it almost indicates easy. This leads politicians with no military experience to think they can do it on the cheap. The reality is that these are the toughest wars, because the military can only set conditions for others to achieve victory. Unfortunately securing a piece of key terrain or destroying an enemy force is not decisive. These wars require a substantial investment of resources and an intelligent and robust publicity effort on the home front to maintain the nation's will to stay in engaged. It is “essential” that we identify "realistic" (achievable) goals before going public. That means we have to listen to the real regional experts prior to making decisions, not the so called experts who tell the boss what he wants to hear. Everything happening Iraq today was predicted by the real experts in 2002.

I would argue we need to change the term small wars to another term that indicates accurately the commitment required to win. As several have pointed out, we need a Gram-Rudman type act to fix our interagency processes, and then develop appropriate interagency doctrine for conducting this type of war. We have a long way to go from evolving our lessons to lessons learned.

[Martin]

I would argue we need to change the term small wars to another term that indicates accurately the commitment required to win.

You will have to wait. It's impossible as smallwarsjournal.com is registered untill July 2008.

What's wrong with insurgency, UW, etc?

[Jedburgh]

...Small Wars...,...Partisan Warfare...,...Irregular Warfare...,...Guerrilla War...,...Unconventional Warfare...,...Insurgency/Counterinsurgency...,...Low Intensity Conflict...,...Military Operations Other Than War...,...Asymetric Warfare...,...Fourth Generation Warfare….

Next?

[slapout9]

How about "Undeclared Warfare" ?

[RTK]

How about "Undeclared Warfare" ?

Unleavened Warfare

[Martin]

Active unfriendliness.

[Bill Moore]

PLAYING WITH WAR
The western way of war in the 21st century is a pale shadow of the warfare it waged in the 20th. The reason is simple: for western societies war is no longer existential. Instead, it's increasingly about smoothing market flows and tertiary moral concerns/threats. As a result of this diminishment of motivation, western warfare is now afflicted with the following:
Operations of low lethality. Western militaries do not have the desire, nor the sanction, to conduct the high casualty operations typically associated with real wars. Technology has been leveraged to increase the precision of attacks to limit collateral damage and save the lives of soldiers. The corollary to this is that western militaries are also fiercely protective of the lives of their soldiers. Warfare, increasingly, is supposed to be costless. What this means is that we will not see Sherman's 'March to the Sea' or Hama in the near future - and - the loss of a hundred soldiers in southern Lebanon will be enough to stop the Israeli army.
Marginal placement within national priorities. Militaries are increasingly professional (with a trend towards the use of mercenaries) and conscription has become impossible. This drastically limits the number of soldiers that can be applied to any conflict. In addition, to retain competitive positioning on the global stage, states and their economies are operated as if war is not going on. To wit: military budgets are considered just another line item on a more complex national budget. Gone are the days of massive mobilization and economic restructuring for war.
Muddled objectives. Given the lack of the cohesive and singular reason for war -- the survival of the state and its people through the elimination of its enemies -- the reasons for warfare will drift. This translates into a constantly shifting landscape of military objectives, where current objectives recede in favor of replacements before they can be reached. The result is confusion, mission creep, and conflict escalation.

This was recent post on John Robb's Global Guerrilla site. The underlining and bold print are mine for emphasis.

Terminology is critical to facilitate clear thinking, and since several terms were thrown out at random to try to describe what we're dealing with in OIF and more important globally that indicates to me we don't have a clear understanding of what we're countering. Clausewitz fans know the importance of knowing the absolute importance of clarifying the nature of the war you’re about to enter, or in our case have already entered so you can develop a suitable strategy. I concur with Mr Robb's thought that the reason for the conflict will drift if we’re in a prolonged conflict. This phenomenon is compounded when the nature of the war changes concurrently with our objectives. I concur with our President when he said this will be a different type of war. I think the military has not evolved its doctrine sufficiently to deal with it. Using the past as prologue is useful only to a point.

[SWJED]

Here is a link to Robb's Global Guerrillas post - Playing with War.

Herschel Smith also addressed this subject matter on his The Captain's Journal blog in a post called Small Wars:

... Mr. Robb probably knows about one thousand times as much about the current subject as I do. So it is with all due respect that I say that I think that his characterization of the problem(s) is incomplete.

Having a son in the Marines, I study everything I can get my hands on pertaining to his training, the history of the Marines, the nature of the current conflict, and what he will likely be doing in several months.

One of the more interesting things that I have learned is the concept of “small wars.” I highly recommend reading the Small Wars Manual, and I especially recommend visiting the Marine Corps Small Wars web site and another site called Small Wars Journal. I make a daily visit to these sites (and sometimes more).

What Mr. Robb describes has already been described in detail in the Small Wars Manual. In fact, the Marines have known this not since the publication of the manual in the early ’40s, but essentially since the birthday of the Marines, 10 November 1775.

Since their birthday, the Marines have been engaged in small, low intensity conflicts at the behest of the President, oftentimes without the support of the public, without a declaration of war, and without clear goals or orders, while battling both regular forces and insurgencies and while also having to deal with more pedestrian issues such as electrical power and the restoration of government. Such engagements have often relied upon rapid, mobile and robust force projection.

The above paragraph is not an advertisement. The Small Wars Manual is as salient today as it was when it was first published. It is an admonition for the Army to consider its future. The Marines have had to adapt, modify, adjust and make-do based on the changing conditions of the over three hundred low intensity engagements in its history. The Army will do the same, or it will become irrelevant to the twenty first century.

If this type of warfare is not new, then what has changed? My contention is that politics has changed...

[Martin]

This was recent post on John Robb's Global Guerrilla site. The underlining and bold print are mine for emphasis.

Terminology is critical to facilitate clear thinking, and since several terms were thrown out at random to try to describe what we're dealing with in OIF and more important globally that indicates to me we don't have a clear understanding of what we're countering. Clausewitz fans know the importance of knowing the absolute importance of clarifying the nature of the war you’re about to enter, or in our case have already entered so you can develop a suitable strategy. I concur with Mr Robb's thought that the reason for the conflict will drift if we’re in a prolonged conflict. This phenomenon is compounded when the nature of the war changes concurrently with our objectives. I concur with our President when he said this will be a different type of war. I think the military has not evolved its doctrine sufficiently to deal with it. Using the past as prologue is useful only to a point.

Sorry, Sir, I'll turn serious again.

What do you think about Joint Publication 1-02?

The following two threads on the Professional Soldiers forum may interest you:
Some definitions
Insurgency-Civil War

[SWJED]

A large part of my day job involves all aspects of the Joint Urban Warrior program. A "take-away" from the JUW 05 War Game evolved from discussions and centered on a lack of common language or understanding of operational terms among the Services and multinational partners. This is exacerbated by the absence of many relevant terms in Joint Publication 1-02, and a common PME program amongst the Services.

To quote one participant:

We continue to struggle with creating a common language that all can understand in its relevant operational context. Multinational coalitions encounter problems with different terms or conflicting usage of similar terms. This problem is often exacerbated by inadequate pre-war planning, and by translating from one language to another. As examples, participants (JUW 05) struggled to delineate among Irregular Warfare, Asymmetric Warfare, Stability Operations, Stability and Support Operations, Other Expeditionary Operations, Low-Intensity Conflict, and Military Operations Other than War (MOOTW).

This particpant's recommendation was:

Since all will agree “words have meanings,” it is essential that Joint Publication 1-02 be revised to incorporate the following terms: Defeat, Irregular Warfare, Combined Operating Area, Critical Vulnerability, Critical Requirement, Rule of Law, Legitimacy, Credibility, Asymmetric Warfare, Influence Operations, Pattern Analysis, and Stability and Support Operations in order to remove operational and planning friction and allow Joint Force Commanders to more easily convey their intent to subordinate commanders/leaders.

The bottom line is we need to be on the same sheet of paper when it comes to operational terms and the best place to start is JP 1-02.