The Army We Need

[SWJED]

The Army We Need by Dr. John Nagl, Small Wars Journal

The Army We Need (Full PDF Article)

It is a huge pleasure for me to be back at Fort Benning. My last visit here was more than 20 years ago, during the hot summer of 1986, when Sergeant Airborne pinned silver wings to my bony chest with a vigor that would today result in a court martial. Something has been lost and something gained since the demise of that particular custom, which was perhaps more important in a peacetime army than it is in one that is at war, as ours is today.

You know that better than do I. Most of you have two tours in Operations Iraqi Freedom and/or Operation Enduring Freedom, as do your instructors. Your story is the story of the United States Army over the past seven years. You have had to adapt units that were designed for a different kind of war to conduct counterinsurgency operations. You succeeded—but, as Secretary of Defense Robert Gates noted in a speech at NDU three months ago that I was privileged to attend, your job was harder than it had to be...

[William F. Owen]

Your nation needs you to be a diplomat as well as a warrior, because we can’t kill or capture our way to success in this fight; victory comes from building local institutions that can stand on their own. But your nation also needs you to tell us what you need to fight your fight better, to build an Army that is truly a learning institution able to defeat adaptive insurgent enemies.

Soldiers are not diplomats. Soldiers do fight and kill their way to operational success and/or gain that success by being capable or threatening to do so.

Soldiers can make the field safe for real diplomats/doctors/builders/etc to operate. In extremis, they may have to pick up the ball, but that should never be the default setting. The test is saving life, not building Schools.

Victory does not from building local institutions. If it did, show me a majority of successes against Insurgents that came from that. Victory comes from breaking the will of the insurgency by subjecting it to military force. Non-military force may also required, but that is done by non-military agencies.

If someone wants the US Army to become a learning institution, then why not start with precisely understanding the utility and limit of the military instrument. Other wise the the US will become "School builders with guns" and cease being any good as an army.

[Bill Moore]

Soldiers are not diplomats. Soldiers do fight and kill their way to operational success and/or gain that success by being capable or threatening to do so.

In Special Forces we strive to full fill the role of Warrior, diplomat and teacher as required to accomplish the mission. Part of the reason we did so poorly in Iraq initially is because many in the conventional Army failed to grasp that were in a diplomatic role where they had to negotiate with local leaders to gain situational awareness and to co-opt support.

Soldiers on point in this type of irregular warfare environment cannot define their role as strictly being a warrior unless we want to lose this fight. There is no one else to perform that role outside the capital. That American Soldier may be the only American that a local sees in a remote village, and the dialouge between them is as important as the shooting war in IW.

Victory does not from building local institutions.

One of the criticisms directed at the U.S. military is that we confuse combat with strategy. Our entire Network Warfare concept is based on seeing first and acting first, which is great for combat, but it doesn't come close to looking like a strategy to win the war. We defeated both the Taliban/AQ and Saddam's conventional like forces in battle, but we're still far from a strategic victory. If a strategic victory is obtainable, it is going to be obtained through building viable host nation institutions, not institutions that parallel the American Government structure, but whatever works in the area we're fighting in.

William, I think you're doubling back on your previous argument where you stated we don't need irregular warfare doctrine, we just need to learn to fight wars better (loosely paraphrased). I agreed to some extent, but your argument in my opinion proves why we do an IW doctrine/concept whatever to provide some sort of organizing structure for winning these conflicts. Unlike many who swallow the indirect approach and peace corps with rifle b.s. to the extreme, I agree ultimately we have to kill/capture or co-opt the insurgents, but to that we have to engage the local population and win their support to some extent to find them.

[William F. Owen]

William, I think you're doubling back on your previous argument where you stated we don't need irregular warfare doctrine, we just need to learn to fight wars better (loosely paraphrased).

My actual point is you need better doctrine that does not make the error of looking at "IW" as something distinct and difficult, when it is the common currency of military operations.

Unlike many who swallow the indirect approach and peace corps with rifle b.s. to the extreme, I agree ultimately we have to kill/capture or co-opt the insurgents, but to that we have to engage the local population and win their support to some extent to find them.

Concur, and engaging the local population and wining their support is a normal military skill. It is not necessarily unique to COIN and it is not diplomacy! It's bog standard G2 bread and better. Calling it diplomacy is inaccurate, misleading, and unhelpful.

[John T. Fishel]

Wilf, as Churchill said. You and Bill and John (and me) are not all that far apart. Part of the problem is semantic - we mean different things when we use the same words. Some of that is driven by culture and historical experience - American, British, Israeli, etc. But there are structural differences as well. The US military is bigger and more instituionally diverse than any other military engaged in the wars we are fighting. The American military is not now as large as the Soviet military was when it was engged in Afghanistan but the US Army alone brings far more diverse elements to the Afghanistan fight than the Soviets ever did. It also brings far more diverse capabilities to that fight than any of its allies. This is not to say we are better - often they are - but we can do things that they can't. And, often, we must do them because no other institution in the American government can. The ongoing effort to increase STate Dept capacity that Secstate designate Clinton hope sto ramp up will help but it won't replace the capabilities of the US military in both its active and reserve components, eg Civil Affairs. Bottom line is that much of what John said was specifically targeted at an audience of junior American officers with all the baggage they carry. As some wag put it, "Context is everything."

Cheers

JohnT

[Gian P Gentile]

Wilf’s post was spot-on. He sensed the essence of Nagl's speech which was--regardless of if he was talking to captains or generals--a call to transform the American army into a nation-building force. It can not be read in any other way.

Those of us who have commanded combat outfits in coin understand Wilf's statement that soldiers are not diplomats. Coin experts may retch when this is said but basically, fundamentally it is a statement of fact. Combat soldiers stand posts, they shoot, they pull security, they do raids, they patrol, they secure infrastructure projects, etc. The notion that they are diplomats is self-serving fiction. It briefs well but beyond that it is pure nonsense.

And what is one of those young infantry or armor captains to do with Nagl's call for them to be diplomats when they are infantry, cavalry, or tank company commanders and it comes to making choices about training time and resources? Does part of it go to diplomacy training?

If Nagl gets his way the increase of 30K soldiers into the Army will essentially be spent on a nation-building advisory corps for Iraq and Afghanistan. Those 30K could have instead gone toward building 5-6 more combat brigades. See potentially the tack that the American Army is on?

Is this really what we want?

gg