Thoughts on the article...
Bacevich is a guy that I have incredible respect for. He, more than anyone, has reason to study and understand this era of conflict; not only because of his profession, but also his personal loss. I reference him a lot in my grad school work and was relatively impressed with this article. He left me a little wanting for solutions, but maybe that was his point.
...and CPTs and LTsThe military remains a hierarchical organization in which orders come from the top down. Yet as the officer corps grapples with its experience in Iraq, fresh ideas are coming from the bottom up. In today’s Army, the most-creative thinkers are not generals but mid-career officers—lieutenant colonels and colonels.
Hey, all right!Nonetheless, the Great Debate is unfolding in plain view in publications outside the Pentagon’s purview, among them print magazines such as Armed Forces Journal, the Web-based Small Wars Journal, and the counterinsurgency blog Abu Muqawama.
Where do we start?First, why, after its promising start, did Operation Iraqi Freedom go so badly wrong?
He called us Crusaders. I can live with that.The protagonists fall into two camps: Crusaders and Conservatives.
AmenTypical of this generation is Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, once the top U.S. commander in Baghdad, who in late 2003 was still describing the brewing insurgency as “strategically and operationally insignificant,” when the lowliest buck sergeant knew otherwise.
The think tank is CNAS, who offer a "Bacevich Fellowship", established in memory of the author's son.After serving in Iraq as a battalion operations officer, Nagl helped rewrite the Army’s counterinsurgency manual and commanded the unit that prepares U.S. soldiers to train Iraqi security forces. (Earlier this year, he left the Army to accept a position with a Washington think tank.)
Not to insinuate that the Army doesn't need Warriors...just ones that are independent thinkers and decision makers, requiring a whole host of abilities. We aren't there yet, but we are getting better.It also implies changing the culture of the officer corps. An Army that since Vietnam has self-consciously cultivated a battle-oriented warrior ethos will instead emphasize, in Nagl’s words, “the intellectual tools necessary to foster host-nation political and economic development.”
Leading to the discussion of the criticality (or not) of diminishing "combat skills" for many in the Army. Particularly guys like me, who have all but forgotten the basics of our jobs; like how to compute manual Artillery safety. Partly my fault, but an epidemic, nonetheless.According to the emerging Petrae*us Doctrine, the Army (like it or not) is entering an era in which armed conflict will be protracted, ambiguous, and continuous—with the application of force becoming a lesser part of the soldier’s repertoire.
I don't know if "constabulary" is the right word. Maybe semantics, but how do we define the role of "constabulary" in COIN. When I think of Constabulary Force, I can only think of post WWII Germany. Iraq and AFG are totally different; kinetic fights exist, we have an actual enemy there, etc. The only similarity would be population control/basic policing, right?All of this forms a backdrop to Gentile’s core concern: that an infatuation with stability operations will lead the Army to reinvent itself as “a constabulary,” adept perhaps at nation-building but shorn of adequate capacity for conventional war-fighting.
But this is the fight right now. If NTC maintained a Force on Force only approach, the Army would be remiss in not training its' units for their missions. It would only make sense this is going on.The concern is not idle. A recent article in Army magazine notes that the Army’s National Training Center in Fort Irwin, California, long “renowned for its force-on-force conventional warfare maneuver training,” has now “switched gears,” focusing exclusively on counter*insurgency warfare. Rather than practicing how to attack the hill, its trainees now learn about “spending money instead of blood, and negotiating the cultural labyrinth through rapport and rapprochement.”
Note what I said previously. The FA is pursuing other routes to "stay relevant", but it's not easy. I see we've picked up the "EWO" mission for our warrants. Innovations like Excalibur will help us in our fight to stay relevant, as well. I'm an opposer of any advocate of the FA picking up the FID or MTT mission solely. I don't think that would ever happen. Although right now, I'd argue the Army is leaning on the FA pretty heavily to fill Transition Teams. In regards to the COIN fight, I don't think we are as "dead" as other branches, namely the ADA and CHEM Corps. I would argue the point "FA plays a limited role"...maybe from the Schoolhouse view, but FA Soldiers are totally engaged, doing a plethora of jobs, some they are trained for, some not.The officer corps itself recognizes that conventional-warfare capabilities are already eroding. In a widely circulated white paper, three former brigade commanders declare that the Army’s field-artillery branch—which plays a limited role in stability operations, but is crucial when there is serious fighting to be done—may soon be all but incapable of providing accurate and timely fire support. Field artillery, the authors write, has become a “dead branch walking.”
Can't we do both?Observers differ on whether the Long War’s underlying purpose is democratic transformation or imperial domination: Did the Bush administration invade Iraq to liberate that country or to control it?
So is mine. It's a fine line. Remember that this is an all volunteer force. If a jingoistic FP becomes the standard, we might not have as many volunteers.When Gentile charges Nagl with believing that there are “no limits to what American military power … can accomplish,” his real gripe is with the likes of Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz.
I think there are not only viable solutions to this quandary, but literal comprimises that we can make. What about organizing conventional "war-fighting" divisions or brigades and organize others as COIN units? Why wouldn't this be a legitimate option? Of course, if we are in a long and protracted COIN war, the "conventional" units won't have to deploy, in theory. In a conventional fight, do the COIN units stay home? That is the first red flag I can think of.The effect of Nagl’s military reforms, Gentile believes, will be to reduce or preclude that possibility, allowing questions of the second order (How should we organize our Army?) to crowd out those of the first (What should be our Army’s purpose?).
Kudos to Bacevich for keeping this flame burning bright for all of us to debate.
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