Counterinsurgency Education Request

[Mark O'Neill]

Not necessairly disagreeing with you, but what short books matching the above themes (and simplicity) would you recommend instead?

Galula and Trinquier are oft mentioned because they are short, practical, and still mostly relevant.

I can think of a few insightful more recent articles, but no books with a digestable tactical/operational summary of approaching COIN.

Niel,

I am wondering why the need or fascination we all seem to have for 'short' and 'simplicity'. There is simply no correlation between the fact that these attributes make a text more digestable to 'average' folks and the utility, accuracy, validity and worth of the thoughts that the texts contain.

Someone shared an excellent powerpoint presentation with me yesterday that contained a prescient quote from LTGEN (UK) Graeme Lamb whilst in Baghdad in the middle of last year:

“The reality is that what we about here in Iraq is multidimensional, and it cannot be simplified if none of it fits easily into in nice neat terms. Any search for the neat and tidy allows those who don’t really understand it, even in the simplest terms, to get us into dangerous situations ”

To my mind this precisely highlights the problem with 'short and simple'. These problems are anything but 'short and simple' and reductionism to make them such is a flawed idea. You end up with the perception of understanding, but actually have something quite different, which is dangerous. No one has ever promised that COIN is intellectually egalitarian. Nor that it can be 'dumbed down' to suit the Army training system's resolute belief that it could even train monkeys to write Shakespeare if only given enough typewriters and time...

I share some of Steve's concerns with many of the so called 'cold war' texts, but not because of their age. After all, Callwell and Gwynne are far older, but still have considerable utility in aiding understanding in many areas.

My concern, and with Galula in particular, is that simple advice is taken way out of the context it was derived and them slavishly applied at levels and in places where it clearly has little or no practical utility.

Time and time again I have seen people take simple blandishments, derived from observations of a finite tactical level problem over one year in a specific AO (with unique culture, terrain, political history etc), and try and extrapolate meaning at the high operational and low strategic end of the present conflict spectrum. It is ludicrous and it simply does not work. Yes, Galula can offer some pointers to a company commander owning a piece of dirt at the tactical level. But I believe he has very little of practical use beyond motherhood statements after that.

In order to address our current set of problems (particulalry within the ITO), I believe that is well past time for people to look beyond the deification of Saint Robert. It is time to seek wider readings from people who have actually engaged in dealing with issues akin to our current problem set. And this must mean at levels other than the tactical. As an example Robert Kromer is one who springs to mind off the top of my head. (NB, I am not sanctioning / endorsing everything that Kromer wrote, merely pointing out that he worked at a level of the Vietnam war more akin to where most of our current problems lie).

The fact is that we can lose this war at the tactical, operational and strategic levels, but we can only 'win' it at the strategic (think back to the apocryphal story with the Vietnamese General cited by Summers). I do not have any sense that we are in danger of 'losing' the tactical fight anytime soon- particularly given the learning and improvement over the last three years. From what I have seen and learnt in theatre Galula's utility starts to wane considerably as we move up to where we must win - the high operational and strategic. Time then to start looking at other people, perhaps like Liddell-Hart and Beaufre as starters (and even Chainsaw Bob on how to get CMO happening at high levels..).

Regarding contemporary writings, I tend to agree with the posts previously. I have not yet seen the new edited work by Daniel Marston and Carter Malkasian , I have one on order and have some hope that it might be step in the right direction. Steve Metz's SSI monograph last year also springs to mind- I thought it was a good contribution.

I am increasingly thinking that many are sitting around waiting for someone else to 'do something'. I put myself somewhat in this category at the moment. The situation will only change when one of us finds the time (and courage perhaps) to go out there and try and write a book.

In the mean time we can all continue to amuse ourselves with journal articles and anodyne powerpoint presentations at conferences replete with dubious analogies....

regards,

Mark