Eaton fires broadside at Cheney

[John T. Fishel]

Hi Mike--

Some of the argument about how to fight COIN - enemy v population centric - is simply nonsense. You can't win a COIN without defeating the insurgent whether he is the Continental Army and Congress (yes Marc, it was an insurgency), Sendero Luminoso, the FMLN, the Taliban, or AQ. That point was well made by Sir Robert Thompson reflecting on Malaya. COIN is, after all, war and war is messy, as Gian Gentile keeps on reminding us - correctly, I might add. Wingate, therefore was absolutely right, for both insurgents and counterinsurgents. The critical tactics of the ESAF fight against the FMLN were the GOE (Special Operations Group) intelligence driven raids against specific FMLN targets. Those raids were high pay off actions compared to the equally necessary 24/7 patrols of the Immediate Reaction Battalions, and the fixed site defenses of the regular brigades. What makes COIN different is that the purpose of all these actions is to provide room and time to develop legitimate governance in an environment that is secure for the population. In other words, you can't conduct a population centric COIN without waging an enemy centric fight. It isn't a question of either/or but of how you integrate both.

Cheers

JohnT

[Ken White]

strategic raids for those nations like Afghanistan and Somalia where the disadvantages to intervention in the conventional sense and / or a COIN effort outweigh the advantages. That per your earlier comment:

But if there is no real govt - Somalia and Afghanistan in 2001 - then you are playing by different rules. Deterrance is a real policy when there is a govt - it is indeed an option for say Iran. But deterrance is not an option for an Afghanistan or a Somalia.

Thus he, I believe, is referring to raids in lieu of, as opposed to an adjunct in, COIN efforts

[jmm99]

Not necessarily "raids in lieu of, as opposed to an adjunct in, COIN efforts", since one portion of a larger country may be more suitable for raiding and another may not - the latter perhaps more suitable to "best practices COIN". I'll attempt to explain.

The overriding concept is that "best practices COIN" requires an emphasis on the political effort (the DIE effort, if you want an acronym); and that effort must be mounted by indigenous civilian forces (call them civic action teams, if you want). Those teams need a secure area in which to operate. That security preferably would be provided by indigenous military forces; but could be provided by external forces (so long as they can integrate their efforts with the political efforts, as JTF correctly concludes; e.g., ES).

Please bear with this little dialogue piece between two French officers during the First Indochina War, after their unit (6th Spahis) had spent much of a week clearing a village and adjacent area of Viet Minh (well, not quite completely, as the dialogue suggests). It makes a point as the two officers discuss a five person civic action team, all Vietnamese, who had just joined them and who now had to "hold and build". The conversation is from Bernard Fall, Street Without Joy, pp.154-155):

MAJ Derrieu: Funny, they just never seem to succeed in striking the right note with the population. Either they come in and try to apologize for the mess we've just made with our planes and tanks; or they swagger and threaten the farmers as if they were enemy nationals which - let's face it - they are in many cases.

LT Dujardin: That may be so, but I wouldn't care to be in his shoes tonight when we pull out. He's going to stay right here in the house which the Commie commander still occupied yesterday, all by himself with the four other guys of his administrative team, with the nearest [military] post 300 metres away. Hell, I'll bet he won't even sleep here but sleep in the post anyway.

MAJ: He probably will, and he'll immediately lose face with the population and become useless.

LT: And if he doesn't, he'll probably be dead by tomorrow, and just as useless. In any case, there goes the whole psychological effect of the operation and we can start the whole thing all over again three months from now. What a hopeless mess.

The bottom line is that the civilian political effort requires a secure area, or at the least a semi-secured (semi-denied) area - where its success is far from insured. The Indochina episode was from Operation Camargue (1953), which had no lasting effect.

So, the civilian political effort does require military support and the military capabilities to force the guerrilla forces from their requisite offensive tactics into a defensive mode. The answers on how to do that (e.g., disrupt the snipers, prevent the ambushes and IEDs) are military matters beyond my ken (non-capitalized ).

As to raids, my logic suggests their primary utility is in denied areas. That may be a nation or a region, where national governance (and local governance, except by the guerrilla-connected "shadow government) are FUBAR or near-FUBAR. Somalia and parts of Astan are good examples (noted by both Ken and JTF). Of course, raids and patrols (the two constructs tend to merge at the small unit level) can also be offensive tools in a semi-secured (semi-denied) area.

In short, raids and a limited "COIN" effort by us (a limited FID effort by us, as in El Salvador, appeals to me more) are alternatives to full "nation building". In Astan, "full nation building" is beyond our capabilities (and a sci-fi jump for the Astan national government). In fact, for a limited "COIN" effort to have a decent probability of resulting in an "acceptable" outcome, the 60-80K force enhancement is probably realistic.

My own position is currently of the "We are there, dammit" school (applies to both Iraq and Astan), which requires an answer to whether political and military cababilities exist to reach an "acceptable" outcome and then withdraw. If the answer is negative to either the political or military cababilities, then withdrawal should be ASAP.

My position in general - that is, do we intervene in a country at all - is of the "Never Again, but" school, where raids (and limited FID) are often more acceptable options - than intervention via large military GPFs. Neither of my positions was popular during the Vietnam War, and I took flak from both sides of the coin (couldn't resist ). So be it.

Since John mentioned Robert Thompson, a brief aside (but relevant). I usually read non-fiction books by looking at the ToC and then jumping to chapters that look interesting. If the book is good, I then read it through. Anyway, a few weeks ago, I happened to read Thompson's Preface to Defeating Communist Insurgency. There I found his reading list started with:

1. Jim Corbett's The Man-Eating Leopards of Rudraprayag (1947) and Man-Eaters of Kumaan (1944). I read both from the library eons ago - and quite a few others about man-eating animals (which intrigue me for some reason). Anyway, the bottom line there consists of "raids and patrols", but also common-sense self-defense measures by the locals.

2. Philip Woodruff's The Men Who Ruled India (2v. 1953 & 1954). I haven't read that, but Thompson finds it corresponds to his concept that the administrative and other non-military efforts outweigh the military efforts, even though military efforts are often first addressed and attain a primacy in many "COIN" efforts. Of course, you have to have an administrative structure for that to even begin to work.

A long explanation, but that is where I am coming from.

PS: JTF - my assigned homework project re: flag officers and the Appointment Clause is coming along. In due course, as they say.