Warrior Ethos

[Ken White]

are idealists, mostly. Regrettably the world is not an ideal place. Yet most of us develop our views of what's right and tend to try to do that and barring the proverbial epiphany we'll keep right on doing that. Some have had an epiphany, some have not, some think they might have...

.. is “armed social work” and where you do “need to respect the culture or protect noncombatants to win," despite what Mr. Owen argues.

That's true and one sometimes has to do that; what concerns many is that the attitude to do that sort of thing can remove a combat edge and such removal is not good when you may be confronted with more -- and especially, more intense -- combat.

There's also the fact that Wilf comes from the British tradition where the civilian side of the FID effort used to be very much in charge and that system worked well for them. Thus he wants the Army to do Army things. CPT Foley is an SF Officer ergo he's into FID; different backgrounds lead to different approaches. Our system has always reversed the Briotish process and the Armed forces have always had the lead. I think current British practice shows they've lost their civilian edge to an extent -- and that our history shows that our system is not particularly effective -- or desirable. My solution to that problem is develop the civilian structure and get the military out of the lead for such efforts Even better, diligently avoid such efforts unless there is a really good reason to get involved.

That, of course, means educating politicians -- and good luck with that...

As to full spectrum; fortunately, I'm old and have watched several good units make the switch between armed social work, a little casual door kicking, a few fairly stiff fire fights over a few days and the losses of weeks on end of continuous grinding combat. The switch isn't as hard as some believe; most people -- not all -- can do it fairly well.I've seen units switch back and forth and do so readily and easily.

So my main question, I guess, is why doesn’t the military think it can train its troops for all three? Do we not think troops are able to adapt? We had never been trained in the differences, yet when placed in those environments, my company—through fits and starts and mistakes—was able to adapt. Why is there this conflict between people like William F. Owen and CPT Foley? The ideas aren’t mutually exclusive. There's a time and a place for both mentalities.

In order of your questions and comments:

Because we adopted a pathetically bad training process in the 1970s that tries to drill down to basic tasks and thus imputes that the troops being trained (ALL ranks) are incapable of absorbing more complexity. This in the face of an Army that did it all in WW II and Korea (less well educated and largely draftees as opposed to today's well educated professional force) and one that managed to train for full spectrum warfare all through the early 1960s. Quite simply, the Army lost its way in the aftermath of Viet Nam.

There are some today who do not think the troops can adapt -- they're terribly wrong -- and there are others that see the greater degree of work and effort required to do it right -- they also are terribly wrong (in a different sense). There are still others who say 'we cannot afford that.' That's just untrue and is IMO, a cover for the other two rationales or lack thereof...

The Troops will always adapt and pull the senior leaders fat out of the fire -- that's a pretty poor way to habitually operate but that has been the 'system' since the mid-60s. The big problem is, as you know, that having to learn by doing is time and effort consuming, subject to much error and can create other problems. Not too smart when there are massive bodies of work explaining all the things needed for every step on the spectrum of conflict. We owe the Troops and the Nation a better way of doing business.

The conflicts you cite are between those who do not really disagree on the desired end result; just on the route to arrive at that nirvana. The issue is really not tactics and techniques but what, philosophically, your force should do. There are those who think Armies break things; there are those who think Armies should fix things (to pick two polar views and, as you know, there are thousands of other views between those two). The problem, as a cursory reading of history shows, is that Armies have to be able to do both so the philosophies are something to argue about but reality -- and Politicians -- dictate what Armies actually do and the answer is "all of the above." As you note. As I noted, people are mostly idealists; they want what they think should be the focus to be that focus. Reality again is that systems make focal decisions and the idealist in us doesn't like that...

Yep, time and place for both -- and you never know which will be required. Or where...

Awful wordy but discussion boards aren't the best comm medium and I'd rather put too much in and let you discard what you don't need (or want, probably don't need any of it) than leave out something that might, barely, make sense...

We need to be full spectrum and globally capable. Period.

[slapout9]

We need to be full spectrum and globally capable. Period.

That should be a SWC quote of the day,week,month or however that is done.

[CPT Foley]

Some awesome comments. We absolutely need to be committed to Full Spectrum Operations.

However, the characterization of the French failure in Algeria having anything to do with Galula's strategy or theories is misplaced.

He was a CPT during the conflict and had little influence over the French war strategy. However, it should be noted that CPT Galula was very successful in pacifying his AO, and it's hard to imagine that the French wouldn't have fared better had they adopted his approaches in a broader manner.

[Schmedlap]

The term "armed social work" is in danger of becoming the next "hearts and minds." By that, I mean that people will assume the common usage of the words and draw meaning of the term from there. What do we mean by "armed social work"?

Here is a definition of social work from the International Federation of Social Workers (I'm guessing they're fairly authoritative on the subject?)...

The social work profession promotes social change, problem solving in human relationships and the empowerment and liberation of people to enhance well-being. Utilising theories of human behaviour and social systems, social work intervenes at the points where people interact with their environments. Principles of human rights and social justice are fundamental to social work. - source

Perhaps a more accurate term would be "armed community organizer." (I recognize that term might bring with it baggage from politics, particularly the last prez campaign, but it sounds more accurate.)

[Surferbeetle]

The term "armed social work" is in danger of becoming the next "hearts and minds." By that, I mean that people will assume the common usage of the words and draw meaning of the term from there. What do we mean by "armed social work"?

Here is a definition of social work from the International Federation of Social Workers (I'm guessing they're fairly authoritative on the subject?)...
Perhaps a more accurate term would be "armed community organizer." (I recognize that term might bring with it baggage from politics, particularly the last prez campaign, but it sounds more accurate.)

Schmedlap

You are killing me with this...this..community organizer??!!!! Armed social work is bad enough.

Civil Affairs or Civil Military Operations.

Steve

[Schmedlap]

You are killing me with this...this..community organizer??!!!! Armed social work is bad enough.

Civil Affairs or Civil Military Operations.

To be fair, those definitions don't seem to match what our forces are called on to do. Our forces needed to organize some kind of civil order or governance (preferably the latter), not just cooperation between locals and the US military. CA and CMO seem to be geared towards synchronizing existing civil governance with the military, rather than creating or organizing civil institutions in the first place. It seems to assume that some kind of governing framework is already in place and can be leveraged. Well, what if there isn't?

The definitions from the links that you provided above (with my commentary in brackets)...

Civil Affairs - Civil Affairs units help military commanders by working with civil authorities and civilian populations in the commander’s area of operations to lessen the impact of military operations on them during peace, contingency operations and declared war. [Lessen the impact? That is not what has been needed, lately. What has been needed is the creation/organization of some kind of governance so as to prevent a situation from arising in which lots of people organize themselves into gangs, militias, and kill one another due to fear and competition for resources and power. That is not lessening an impact. That is preventing a new threat from emerging out of a vacuum.]
CA units act as a liaison between the civilian inhabitants of a warzone or disaster area and the military presence, both informing the local commander of the status of the civilian populace as well as effecting assistance to locals by either coordinating military operations with non-governmental organizations (NGOs)and IGO's or distributing directly aid and supplies. [Again, this does not meet the need that we have had lately. What was needed was to stand up some kind of indigenous civilian authority to mediate disputes and prevent the society from devolving into Hobbes' "state of nature"]

...operators provide critical expertise to host-nation governments and are also able to assess need for critical infrastructure projects such as roads, clinics, schools, power plants, water treatment facilities, etc. Once a project has been decided on, a contract is put out at a civil-military operations center for local contractors to come and bid. CA teams will periodically check up on the status of the project to make sure the money is being well-spent. [Nice things to have, but you need some kind of governance. Otherwise, these projects do not have the intended effects. Does CA establish governance?]

CA provides the commander with cultural expertise, assesses the needs of the civilian populace, handles civilians on the battlefield, refugee operations, keeps the commander informed of protected targets such as schools, churches, hospitals, etc., and interfaces with local and international NGOs and private volunteer organizations, which provides the commander with a unique battlefield overlay of all civilian activity, ongoing infrastructure projects, and the presence and mission of NGOs in the area. [situational awareness and intelligence collection - but nothing about organizing the people into some means of governance]

Civil Military Operations - The activities of a commander that establish, maintain, influence, or exploit relations between military forces, governmental and nongovernmental civilian organizations and authorities, and the civilian populace in a friendly, neutral, or hostile operational area in order to facilitate military operations, to consolidate and achieve operational US objectives. Civil-military operations may include performance by military forces of activities and functions normally the responsibility of the local, regional, or national government. These activities may occur prior to, during, or subsequent to other military actions. They may also occur, if directed, in the absence of other military operations. Civil-military operations may be performed by designated civil affairs, by other military forces, or by a combination of civil affairs and other forces."The part is in bold could be a solution in Iraq or Afghanistan, if there are enough troops to do it. But there are not and were not. So those troops, instead, need to organize the locals to do it themselves. But that is not what the definition is describing.

What was needed, so far as I can tell, is not defined in some existing term, so armed social work enters the vocabulary. It sounds, to me, like armed community organizing. Perhaps that is not the best term, either. Maybe armed social work is better. Maybe both are wrong. Fine. But it's beyond the scope of CA or CMO, imo.

This is funny to me because of an incident on the "rhino" that runs between the GZ and VBC. I was on the bus in full gear, no convoy was running there when I needed to be there and couldn't catch air, so it was the rhino I had to ride.

I always enjoyed my visits to the FOBs. My favorite moments were when NCOs or Officers would point out to me or my Soldiers that our uniforms were filthy - as if we had neglected to bring them to the cleaners or something. 99% of people had the common sense to realize that we did not live on the FOB or, if we did, that we clearly just returned from a patrol. There were always a few less gifted ones who pointed out the obvious because they were oblivious.

[Brandon Friedman]

The part is in bold could be a solution in Iraq or Afghanistan, if there are enough troops to do it. But there are not and were not. So those troops, instead, need to organize the locals to do it themselves. But that is not what the definition is describing.

What was needed, so far as I can tell, is not defined in some existing term, so armed social work enters the vocabulary. It sounds, to me, like armed community organizing. Perhaps that is not the best term, either. Maybe armed social work is better. Maybe both are wrong. Fine. But it's beyond the scope of CA or CMO, imo.

When we were dealing with this in Iraq, it wasn't that CA couldn't do it or that we couldn't handle CMO ourselves, but, like you said, there just weren't enough of them (or us). However, I understand that now most combat arms Army officers being involuntarily mobilized out of the IRR are being re-classed as CA officers. I don't know how they're being utilized down range, but it would seem to me that we should be embedding CA teams at the company level (if not lower). Anyone know if we're doing that now? When I was deployed, we had something like a four-man CA team attached to the battalion. Sometimes.

And then there's also the option of creating a civilian international development expeditionary force through State, but there's a lot of political resistance to that.

[Schmedlap]

When we were dealing with this in Iraq, it wasn't that CA couldn't do it or that we couldn't handle CMO ourselves, but, like you said, there just weren't enough of them (or us).

Agree. I was just pointing out that what we were attempting to do was not, by definition, CA or CMO. It was something else that we're searching for a description for: armed social work, armed community organizing, applying band-aids to amputations, something else...

However, I understand that now most combat arms Army officers being involuntarily mobilized out of the IRR are being re-classed as CA officers.

Yikes. I'm afraid to ask how that's working out.

I don't know how they're being utilized down range, but it would seem to me that we should be embedding CA teams at the company level (if not lower). Anyone know if we're doing that now? When I was deployed, we had something like a four-man CA team attached to the battalion. Sometimes.

In OIF I, we had a CA team at Bn level. My last deployment with a CF unit ended in Jan 06. We had one CA team for the BDE. It worked about as well as you would expect.

[slapout9]

The term "armed social work" is in danger of becoming the next "hearts and minds." By that, I mean that people will assume the common usage of the words and draw meaning of the term from there. What do we mean by "armed social work"?

Here is a definition of social work from the International Federation of Social Workers (I'm guessing they're fairly authoritative on the subject?)...
Perhaps a more accurate term would be "armed community organizer." (I recognize that term might bring with it baggage from politics, particularly the last prez campaign, but it sounds more accurate.)

During the 60's the Black Panthers actually ran day care and food centers in poor neighborhoods and provided security against the oppressive US Guvmint as part of the community organizing political process, didn't work out to well

[William F. Owen]

The term "armed social work" is in danger of becoming the next "hearts and minds." By that, I mean that people will assume the common usage of the words and draw meaning of the term from there. What do we mean by "armed social work"?

Thank you! Hearts and minds was a silly think to say and Templer came to regret saying it. "Armed Social Work" is equally silly.

COIN is a form of warfare. It differs from other forms only in ways and means.
Based on his writing Moa-Tse-Tung read far more Clausewtiz than he did Sun-Tzu!

a.) Some in the US look at Iraq after an invasion and says "ahh... COIN," and confuses the acts associated with getting a society functioning, post war, with those acts exemplified by COIN best practice.

b.) What you see in "New COIN" is the US applying Iraq to COIN thinking and not COIN thinking applied to Iraq. - which is why A'Stan is far from over, and still may slip away.

c.) Securing the population, and addressing their physical needs - NOT SOCIAL - like, security, fuel, food, electricity etc, should only be done where the populations support/well being, bears on the political and military outcome, in that they support you, not the insurgent. Getting them to support you, to the extent that they provide you with intelligence, and deny the insurgents any support - so essentially give you target data, and deny the bad guys logistics - is aimed at doing the insurgents harm. Harm as in killing and capturing. This generally applies to all forms of warfare! - which is why the Nazis ended up with 100,000 strong "partisan" groups behind their lines in Russia.

To characterise the above as "armed social work" or "gaining the human terrain," is dumbing down solid, well understood and enduring military best practice.

[selil]

We need to be full spectrum and globally capable. Period.

This is exactly what I've been saying about cyber. Cyber is one chunk of the spectrum of conflict. It isn't high intensity conflict it isn't thermonuclear war and it may be in many ways like guerilla warfare. But, it isn't guerilla warfare. It is just one part of the spectrum of conflict.

COIN is not wrong or missing anything. It is part of the spectrum. It isn't going to replace high intensity conflict, armor operations, or anything else. it is another part of that spectrum. Counter to the USAF propaganda carpet bombing isn't the be-all it is just one part of the spectrum.

COIN has it's place within the spectrum. War is not a thing with walls it is a plateau with a horizon. All along that broad plateau the spectrum of war can be fought grabbing chess pieces of conflict. It is the intellectual minimalist that defines something as broad as war in a narrow space. What skill, strategy, process, tool, weapon, ideology, system, or person will bring about the desired result within the realm of conflict? Certain tools are the brushfires of destruction while others move through without disturbing a blade of grass. These tools are picked by the generals. The correct ones are picked by the good generals.

[Brandon Friedman]

My solution to that problem is develop the civilian structure and get the military out of the lead for such efforts Even better, diligently avoid such efforts unless there is a really good reason to get involved.

That, of course, means educating politicians -- and good luck with that...

Ha. Tell me about it, Ken. That frustrating struggle has been part of my day job for the past two years. As you've implied, politicians are, in most cases, more loyal to both their constituents and their own intuition than to someone else is telling them what's right or wrong. So you can only accomplish so much through lobbying. The bottom line is that if you really want to affect policy change, you have to work to get your own people elected to office--and that means people with military experience.

[Schmedlap]

Ha. Tell me about it, Ken. That frustrating struggle has been part of my day job for the past two years. As you've implied, politicians are, in most cases, more loyal to both their constituents and their own intuition than to someone else is telling them what's right or wrong. So you can only accomplish so much through lobbying. The bottom line is that if you really want to affect policy change, you have to work to get your own people elected to office--and that means people with military experience.

I agree with the frustration, with one caveat. I don't think most are loyal to their constituents. They are loyal to whatever will induce their constituents to vote for them. That can be something diametrically opposed to the welfare of their constituents. It is self-interest - re-election to enjoy the junkets and mingle at the Georgetown cocktail parties; re-election to set themselves up for a future lobbying gig, influence-peddling enterprise, and/or high-paying speaking fees.

Disagree with the solution. An ethical individual will do the right thing, whether that person has military experience or not. We don't need to elect people with military experience (though that's not a problem if they have it). We need to elect people who are ethical. Good luck with that.

[Ken White]

when it first came out, CPT Foley. Ipicked up an early copy at the SWC Bookstore on Smoke Bomb Hill in '64. First Edition. Read it a couple of more times later. Gave it to my son; he can use it, I'm long retired.

I had before and after the book the opportunity to try his techniques and / or see them attempted. He doesn't have any more answers than anyone else does. All wars are different and if you get wedded to a technique or series of them, you will fail. People, culture, terrain -- all those things differ.

The problem with Galula and all the COIN experts is one of resources. There is no question that what they want to do works, I totally agree with the philosophies of FID and COIN.

The issue is that to do what's prescribed is simply unaffordable.

You will never get enough trained soldiers, not SF, with language and cultural skills to do what Galula and the others recommend. That's reality. The French could not do it in Viet Nam or Algeria and later in Viet Nam, with over 1.5M Allied troops in a nation with half the population of Iraq in one-fourth the area, we could not do that -- and good techniques were tried early on (too few people) and later (too few trained and competent people). Afghanistan is larger, has more people and far more difficult terrain. You cannot use good COIN practices without enough people with the skills to do the job required and you will not ever have enough adequately skilled. To do so would require significant devotion of a great many national assets to one small nation and a cessatio0n of short tours; stay until the job's finished. The cost benefit ratio will never support such an effort. Nor should it.

Plus you have to cope with the one third rule and the two year rule and you can finesse those just so long...

If State and SF don't stop potential FID efforts before they build, you're going to have to call in the grundy old Big Army and unless it's an Andorra sized nation, there won't be enough folks and they are unlikely to do it right -- it is not their job, not really. They'll give it their best shot but it's unlikely to ever be more than barely adequate. That, too is reality.

Said Boot:"I know its off topic, but you reminded me of something I had forgotten about until I read you post." So too did you too. Had to hitch a ride on a C-130 once upon a time; Crew Chief or Loadmaster said "you can't get on this plane with those Hand Grenades." So without a word, I pulled them off my harness and tossed 'em to him. The AF has no sense of humor...

Brandon

"The bottom line is that if you really want to affect policy change, you have to work to get your own people elected to office--and that means people with military experience."

I think you'll find that's a decidedly mixed bag; we've had a large former military / veteran presence in Congress, the WH and throughout Government before. Politics corrupts. They didn't do much better than the non-veterans have done. In fact, the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations did a really poor job on most things and they were loaded with WW II veterans. Johnson was far and away the worst President I've seen (even if he did give me a cigarette lighter).

Schmedlap has it right. Ethical and reasonably honest. Good luck with that indeed...

[Brandon Friedman]

I agree with the frustration, with one caveat. I don't think most are loyal to their constituents. They are loyal to whatever will induce their constituents to vote for them. That can be something diametrically opposed to the welfare of their constituents.

Absolutely. That’s what I meant when I said it. Should've been clearer.

Disagree with the solution. An ethical individual will do the right thing, whether that person has military experience or not. We don't need to elect people with military experience (though that's not a problem if they have it). We need to elect people who are ethical. Good luck with that.

It’s not just about ethics. It’s about ethics and expertise when you’re trying to decide whether or not to go to war. I’ve met ethical politicians who simply don’t have the requisite experience or information to even know who to listen to. And with competing lobbying organizations, think tanks, and other political pressures, it becomes a problem. Both the House and Senate are filled with committee members whose only qualifications are that their district or state elected them to office. Others have a very narrow breadth of professional expertise. It’s not unusual to find one’s self horrified at the lack of knowledge and awareness on the part of some members of the House and Senate Armed Services and Veterans Affairs Committees (like when you have to explain to a sitting member of Congress what “dwell time” is and why it’s important in terms of effectively managing a long war).

And when you’re fighting in two or more conflicts at the same time, this type of knowledge becomes important. So it helps when members have military experience. However, if you’re willing to forgo that by not competing for representation, then the SEIU, the Club for Growth, George Soros, and Rush Limbaugh—people whose first, second, and third priority is not defense policy--will be more than happy to assist other candidates in taking your potential candidate’s place.

And when you allow that to happen, you get a Congress that gets jerked around by guys like Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney. (Apologies if anyone here is a big fan of those two.)

You might say it’s not important to have people with military experience in office, but I will argue that it’s absolutely crucial that members of one co-equal branch of government be able to go head-to-head with a member from the other branch. Take Rumsfeld and Cheney for instance. Those guys, whether you support them or not, pushed Congress around in the lead-up to the Iraq invasion. They said that not only is invading Iraq an awesome idea, but we can do it with like 90,000 troops. And it’ll be easy.

And there was no one in Congress with enough of a following or enough political capital (like, say, a Jim Webb) to stand up and say, no, actually, that’s a really bad idea the way you’re presenting it. That's why it's important. I'm sure there were plenty of ethical politicians in 2003 who believed Wolfowitz over Shinseki.

(I should also add, I'm not suggesting that prior military experience makes a politician ethical. I could probably name half a dozen unethical, former military members of Congress off the top of my head.)