SFA as part of a campaign design: supporting operational requirements (part 1)

[Rob Thornton]

Bob's World wrote:

My opinion? No. Because it is just one more approach designed to address the symptoms of insurgency.

Here we do agree. Building sustainable capabilities and capacities of foreign security forces that do not represent a legitimate authority by may buy you some time, but probably will not in itself resolve internal political problems.

Context Matters -

Although that may not have been your objective - I say may not because your objective may have nothing to do with defeating an insurgency - but may be in fact to offset a regional actor, disrupt transnational LOCs, create additional capacity in a partner. Once you increase sustainable capability and capacity it may get used in a number of ways, some you probably did not anticipate -here again design may help you look at the range of possible outcomes and even if the policy course is set, at least you will have a better idea of what might be on the horizon.

WRT to the design guide here - this case this was mostly a functional design, meaning that while it did lay out some elements of an operational approach, the details of what to do and why have to come from the hard work of doing a full blown operational design (this is where you inject context) complete with all the relevant LOEs.

Part of the reason I thought a focus on identifying the functional requirements was useful is because it helps you consider the organizational, environmental, and institutional requirements of the FSF to generate, employ and sustain. It seems we often get caught up in a "generate enough for us to employ" loop since it suits our immediate objectives while not looking at the long term requirements.

One of the things that does come to light using operational design for any LOE is the issue of contingent objectives - e.g. you get to points where its unlikely the next thing you want to accomplish in one LOE can occur until there is progress in another LOE -could be economics, could be politics or governance. Doing this ahead of time in an operational design would seem to support unity of effort across the USG and multinational partners.

This may be one of the reasons (there are others) we seem to be having a hard time meeting operational requirements in Iraq and Afghanistan where we are doing this on a large scale and by extension one where our internal political clock has such an impact. I'm not sure we fully understand this issue of contingent development in its operational context. In smaller operations where the footprint is small and largely flys under the domestic political radar (meaning its not threatening anyone's re-election), and where normal USG support has not been subject to the type of contingency where it is truncated or diminished to the point where we now feel compelled to act immediately - the issue of contingent development has more time to surface and be addressed. When it is a matter of the converse, such a misstep can result in a major set back that makes further development more difficult as both internal pressures compounded by enemy activity, and regional politics as well as our own domestic politics compound the issues.

Best, Rob

[jmm99]

The Indians were:

1. not the largest system - lots of land over the mountains; but not that many Indians, and those divided into many bands - not even Pontiac and Tecumseh could put Humpty together for long.

2. not numerous at all east of the mountains, since the Chimoukimaanig ("long knives") had pretty much killed or driven most of them out.

3. mercurial as all get out - the French-Canadian Marines found them inconsistent allies, even if led by the officiers and sous-officiers who were part Indian.

Since the RW became widespread, I suppose you could consider large parts of the Earth as the larger surrounding circle.

But, I don't see where that addresses BW's comments:

So, how could this tool of SFA helped England in successfully resolving the Separatist Movement in the American Colonies?? Would building the capacity and capability of the loyalist security forces have made a significant difference in the outcome of this whole affair?

My opinion? No. Because it is just one more approach designed to address the symptoms of insurgency.

And, my gosh (and I'm sober) - I agree with COL Jones:

A successful approach would have had to address the express concerns of the Colonists; granting them not only full rights of citizenship, but also recognizing that due to their distance from the throne that they would not only require representation in Parliment from each colony; but that they having tasted freedom would require some degree of governmental autonomy separate from the King and parliment to decide over a body of laws that covered their day to day lives.

But, if that happened (and merging the commerces on an equal basis), what would have happened once the colonies developed as they did (plus having Canada) ? Move the capital to New York, I suppose.

There is a alternative history on the RW, except its foundation is a Burgoyne victory at Saratoga. Robert Sobel, For Want of a Nail - complete with extensive footnotes (as fictional as the story). Very imaginative.

Sgt. York is on - guess I'll watch it for the umpteenth time.

[slapout9]

I am watching SWATjmm99 The largest system is the geographic area and the people together. What did Ghandi fear and why did he support the UK in WW2....Hitler. Insurgency does not work against a ruthless op pent who will kill anybody and destroy anything to win. So if the King supported the Indians against the White Boy invaders he stood a good chance of winning. Not a guarantee but a good chance. The Indians if supported and advised had no qualms about killing anybody not wearing a Red coat and Burning anything not flying the Union Jack.

[Bob's World]

Rob - "Bingo" that knowing what ones intended ends are is critical when determining what ways one will apply to achieve them. (Easy to say, much more difficult to actually do properly).

JMM - Just take a deep breath, it'll be ok. (Though agreeing with such an observation is the first step to entering Bob's World...really no going back once that happens!)

As to the Indians, gotta agree with JMM. Too few, to different. Their perspective on warfare was as different from ours as their perspective on land ownership was. The Brits worked that line of operation pretty hard, and it just didn't work. Certainly 1777 ("year of the bloody 7s") was a very difficult time for the hardy few who had crossed the mountains; but the draw of cheap land and opportunity was about to draw a mob of settlers that even the very real dangers of Indian attacks could not slow.

No, that war was started and lost in London. JMM is right too about his speculation about moving the Capital to NY. That, in fact, is probably the only COA that would have kept the new world under a British flag. Macciavelli would approve! One of his recommended COAs for how to hold a new principality is for the Prince to move to there.

[slapout9]

BW, I always got in trouble for coloring outside the lines in school and I told them the crayons were to big for coloring those little bitty pictures they gave me.

When Rob sent me his PPT he told me it was functional so I thought the problem was to choose the best available force in the AO and then do the DLOPthing as SFA, which I still believe was the Indians.

The fighting style of the Indians was a plus in my mind not a minus so the numbers were not going to matter as much.

Step one at least in the Grand Strategy System would have been to answer the question of who is the most committed? England was not and really couldn't be. The war was more about economics and money(we developed our own Continental Script,currency) then anything. That was where any negotiated settlement would have had to have happened IMO.

[jmm99]

populace-centric counter-insurgency ...

from Slap
Insurgency does not work against a ruthless op pent who will kill anybody and destroy anything to win. So if the King supported the Indians against the White Boy invaders he stood a good chance of winning. Not a guarantee but a good chance. The Indians if supported and advised had no qualms about killing anybody not wearing a Red coat and Burning anything not flying the Union Jack.

extermination - which is indeed a tried and true method.

Assuming all those Indians (we should check out the actual numbers) were united vs the "white boys", virtually all of the latter (Rebels, Neutralists and Loyalists) would probably have united against the Indians. At best, the King would have gained a wasteland - and a bunch of united Indians who would say: we can beat these guys ! Insurgency No 2 ! Hey, UBL said something like that after HE beat the SovComs.

The Brits did try to employ another group - the African-Americans, with varying results. That is another story - about the promises of the Declaration of Independence (believed by many whites to apply to blacks) being left by the wayside once the threat was over.

--------------------
Why Bob,

What a nice invitation to enter your world. I'll bring my wife and we will never think of leaving and going back.

[slapout9]

Posted by jmm99

extermination - which is indeed a tried and true method.

Assuming all those Indians (we should check out the actual numbers) were united vs the "white boys", virtually all of the latter (Rebels, Neutralists and Loyalists) would probably have united against the Indians. At best, the King would have gained a wasteland - and a bunch of united Indians who would say: we can beat these guys ! Insurgency No 2 ! Hey, UBL said something like that after HE beat the SovComs.

The Brits did try to employ another group - the African-Americans, with varying results. That is another story - about the promises of the Declaration of Independence (believed by many whites to apply to blacks) being left by the wayside once the threat was over.


You very well could be right but, I thought it was the best SFA type option.

[Rob Thornton]

Slap - probably worth me addressing the use of functional:

When Rob sent me his PPT he told me it was functional so I thought the problem was to choose the best available force in the AO and then do the DLOPthing as SFA, which I still believe was the Indians.

In this case functional only meant addressing the functional capabilities required to support the development of sustainable capability and capacity of a particular FSF to generate, employ and sustain given conditions and objectives. I tried to identify what key capabilities would be required such as the various types of teams while keeping their composition relative to their intended function.

What we often do is look to our existing menu first, then plug the available capabilities into the holes - the problem is we often have not done the work to determine the shape, size or depth of the hole and we wind up with a bad fit - hence the idea of "filling" a requirement vs. "fully meeting" requirement.

This functional design does not mean you that you will be able to fully meet the requirement - it would be nice, but those capabilities may be committed elsewhere, not resident in sufficient capacity in your force(s), or simply not an option. However the functional requirement does not go away, and knowing where you have or have not fully met the requirement allows you to know where you are accepting risk, and put measures in place to either mitigate or watch it more closely so if need be you can reallocate resources.

It is also useful I think in looking further out and beginning a conversation with those who generate capabilities to identify when and how much of a discreet capability you may require so it can be developed in a holistic way and accounted for across the DOTMLPF and policy. In an era of thousands of individual replacements in theater doing a myriad of tasks that were not anticipated in a manner that allowed them to be generated as capabilities matched to functional requirements, I think a functional breakdown of the capabilities required to enable a chosen operational approach could help us both reduce the risk to the policy objective and retain balance in our capability generator.

So the function is not really in terms of you picking the right potential FSF to achieve your objective (in the case of the functional design .ppt), but in terms of matching the required capabilities on your end to develop sustainable capability and capacity in the partner FSF. Now - in an operational design if your end were to prevent the American colonies from gaining an independent state you might have a LOE where you were looking for a partner FSF - and in this case you might rest upon (some of) the indigenous tribes of North America and support the development of capability and capacity in their FSF. But... back to the law of unintended consequences - you better have your ends firmly in mind because as stated, once you develop those sustainable capabilities and capacities they may be used in ways you did not anticipate to ends which run counter to your own.

This is I think one of the values in an operational design in that it helps identify a range of possible outcomes, and where interests converge and diverge. From my read of history neither side was ever really interested in getting past the generate and employ functions wrt the indigenous N. American tribes to be used to support their own ends. To do so would not have supported their own ends - this is something I think many indigenous leaders figured out in due time and as such only bought into the bargain as far it supported some of their own immediate ends.

This brings us back to one of Marc's issues with the lack of a grand strategy - I think you have to balance your desire for an immediate solution to your problem with the needs of your partner's in order to create a broader overlap of what is tolerable and why. What you are looking for ultimately is something more sustainable with less costs so that it goes back under the domestic political radar. Unfortunately, this means often going slower or making a better investment up front so that you don't have to go back and re-do something you did inadequately or poorly under pressure to get things moving (or pressure to reduce risk in other areas). This goes back to one of my original comments that the road to efficiency is through being effective.

Where functional design supports this is by identifying what right and "right sized" capabilities are needed to meet operational requirements based on conditions and objectives. Unfortunately, we tend to gravitate toward addressing the pressures we perceive as the immediate ones and "satisfice" with sub-optimal capabilities without fully understanding what risks that creates to the policy objective, or to the capability generator as a result of indefinitely having to source ad hock capabilities until either we exhaust ourselves (again Thucydides provides a great example where the Athenians melted down their reserve in Athena's armor to coin talents), or lose our will - or wait for the situation to resolve itself.

Time to go get a run in - Best regards, Rob

[marct]

Leave you guys alone for a bit and you run with it !

Honestly, I've often though the American Revolution should be used as a standard test case for pretty much any theory / model of insurgency used by the US. Partly, as Rob noted, 'cause you don't get too much of the Canadian side south of the border. But, more importantly, because it is a really nasty and really complex conflict that crosses so many of the neat little terminological boxes in use.

I think one of the key observations Rob made was

Building sustainable capabilities and capacities of foreign security forces that do not represent a legitimate authority by may buy you some time, but probably will not in itself resolve internal political problems.

But what, as JMM noted, was the source of legitimacy (hence the characterization as a civil war)? The RW was, for its time, as confusing, twisty, and complex as Iraq or Afghanistan is today. As for JMM's comment about hiring Pastun genealogists, it's already done !

Cheers,

Marc

ps. Rob, Laura Secord has also been appropriated by a really decent chocolate company!