Spec Ops Leaders Want Return to Fundamentals

[Bill Moore]

I agree with Kilcullen's statement (in one of his slides) when he wrote that the the U.S. is by far the best in the world now at conducting COIN by a "wide" margin. I also agree with Steve Metz where he basically wrote we need to learn quicker, because the American people will only give us two to three years to show results (unless we can maintain efforts with a small footprint that doesn't interest the media, thus there is no catalyst to mobilize our population against the effort). We have the best direct and indirect capabilities in the world. Yet we still come up short too many times when you look at our comparitive advantage, why?

Possible reasons:

1. We're too arrogant, so we assume that due to our comparitive advantage it will be easy, and it is never is (Haiti, Philippines, Afghanistan, El Salvador, Somalia, Bosnia, etc.). Doable yes, easy no.

2. We use the phrase Small Wars, LIC, Stability Operations etc., as terms to describe something "less than" a Major War (or real war), yet the reality is due to our compartive advantage in Major War scenarios, we may be able to achieve a decisive victory quicker in a Major War (depending on what we want to accomplish, e.g. Desert Storm, OIF phase 3?) than in a Small War.

The take away is that both are hard, and the same level of effort should be given to each endeavor (Small and Major Wars), which means detailed interagency planning, significant investment (better to overestimate the problem than underestimate it and not be prepared), robust information campaigns to garner and maintain international and national support, etc.

3. Small wars that follow big wars (OIF, Philippines after Spanish American War, etc.) should be planned for before and during the major war to avoid future "catastrophic success" scenarios again. Realistic end states developed and supported by interagency/international plans (that are resourced), where every agency knows what they are responsible for, the military would have a clear vision of what conditions it needs to set for decisive political settlements, someone would be designated the Grand Puba to synergize/harmonize the interagency, etc. The reality is we have a very challenging interational system, and the fact that it works at all speaks volumes about the skills of our diplomats, and our interagency process, well need I say more?

We're the best at the tactical level. War is organized chaos, so we still make mistakes, but we won't loose this fight or any other projected fights due to a few small mistakes at the tactical level. The issues we need to address are at a higher level.