A Modest Proposal to Adjust the Principles of War

[wm]

Norfolk:

This is an important point to make and i think it is spot-on. The last couple of sentences are especially relevant to the American Army today. I would add a dimension to your points that there has been sort of a cottage industry made around Coin by some serving officers who had written about it prior to 9/11 but had been banished to the sidelines by the "conventional minded" army. But once Afghanistan and Iraq presented themselves with the need for counterinsurgency operations these invididuals dusted of their wares and said here we are; we are your new experts, embrace us and we shall show you the way. This personalized/professional hyper-interest in Coin has reinforced the point you make above about the American army and its fetish to sometimes overthink things and make things more complicated than they actually are.

While no names are mentioned, are some of those experts also advocates of 4GW theory? The following is my rather jaded take on some imaginary COIN guru's thought processes. Any resemblance to thinking by any real person, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

"Since our current struggle is an example of 4GW and 4GW is a higher number than what we used to do (3GW), it must be more advanced and, therefore, harder. Besides, if it isn't harder to do than what we've done in the past, we can't justify asking for a a bigger hunk of resources to do it, can we?"

[John T. Fishel]

of 4GW. It always struck me as a false analogy for understanding the history of warfare. At the same time, I wonder about the apparent vehemence that some on this thread have expressed about COIN theory and theorists. The history of American military thought is that Small Wars, including COIN, gets short shrift over the long term and every time we run into a small war we have to reinvent the wheel.

I have no argument with those who say we cannot ignore the various threats that come from states in a more or less conventional form. I won't even argue the point that we are possibly ignoring those threats at present in our current involvement with COIN. But I don't believe that is the long term danger. My sense is that once iraq and Afghanistan are behind us (and they will be, sooner rather than later) the Army will tend to put FM 3-24 on the shelf as a historical reference and will go back to preparing for the "big" war.

I hope I'm wrong and that Small Wars can assume its balanced place within the teaching of military schools as the most likely, if not the most dangerous, of all contingencies for which the military must prepare.

Cheers

JohnT

[slapout9]

if not the most dangerous, of all contingencies for which the military must prepare.

Cheers

JohnT

Well said John,this is a part that is often overlooked at our peril.I don't agree that we afford to loose a COIN war but not a conventional one. Loosing a COIN war promotes copy cats who are willing to take on Big nations because it provides a blueprint on how to defeat us.

[Ron Humphrey]

It is quite apparent that there is great concern about large war capability being lost in the small war focus we find our selves in. And considering the history of many who espouse this concern one can only believe theres reality to what they say. Given that is it really as likely that we be caught (offguard) so to speak as it is we be surprised by small wars in various arenas.

Would there really be an ability of an enemy of state proportions who would be able to bring the battle so quickly that there would not be at least a reasonable amount of time within which to prepare and react.

This may be a sign of my youth and inexperience but to me one of the most notable differences between large and small scale wars is that in large scale one tends to react more than be proactive( at least from a western perspective), small wars almost always require the opposite in order to be brought to any reasonable conclusion.

[Norfolk]

It is quite apparent that there is great concern about large war capability being lost in the small war focus we find our selves in. And considering the history of many who espouse this concern one can only believe theres reality to what they say. Given that is it really as likely that we be caught (offguard) so to speak as it is we be surprised by small wars in various arenas.

Would there really be an ability of an enemy of state proportions who would be able to bring the battle so quickly that there would not be at least a reasonable amount of time within which to prepare and react.

This may be a sign of my youth and inexperience but to me one of the most notable differences between large and small scale wars is that in large scale one tends to react more than be proactive( at least from a western perspective), small wars almost always require the opposite in order to be brought to any reasonable conclusion.

Ron, the time it takes just to get sufficient Heavy forces into an area will probably eat up any warning time that you might, or might not have. My Company Commander (and one or two other guys from my Coy as well) was attached to 1st Marine Div in GW1, and the six months that the Coalition forces had to build-up in almost perfect security and relying in part on in-theatre purpose-built bases and pre-positioned stocks of supplies and equipment may mislead poeple as how how long it may really take in practice. The US Army has (or at least had,) a concept in which an entire Army Corps can be sent into a major conventional war within 75 days. Not likely.

And in the meantime you have to bring everyone in your Units and Formations up to a level of training and proficiency that can allow for little in the way or error. You can bring a Unit (but not a Formation) up to scratch for COIN in as little as 90 days prior to deployment - but I would not recommend that - 6 months would be better. At least double those figures for conventional war. Unless you are dealing with a hopelessly incompetent enemy, a 3-month beat-up to a conventional war is a plan for filling a lot of your own body-bags. Even 6 months will be the absolute minimum once you have included Formation-level training - and a year would be best. Time is against you in High-Intensity warfare in a way that it is not in COIN.

Take for example, GW1 again. VII Corps was unable to accomplish its mission of cutting off and detroying the Republican Guard, inpart because it had never practiced a passage-of-lines at night (and this led to the loss of the better part of a day immediately after 1st Infantry Div made the breech in the Iraqi front-lie defences), and because the Corps was inexperienced and unsure of how to manouevre an entire Corps for offensive operations. The entire Corps stopped its advance (on the Second Day if I remember correctly) for the better part of a day, again, in order to get all the Armoured Divisions on-line. Admittedly, VII Corps was given the order to attack few days ahead of schedule, but the better part of two lost days for ther attack allowed not only the majority of the Republic Guard to escape, but also a substantial proportion of the Iraqi Army in Kuwait as well.

There was another problem that occurred while while the Armoured Divs were being formed up on-line; when they did so, a gap straight through to the Corps' logistics trains and LOCs opened up for a day or so, as 3ACR was screening to the north and east of the Corps at the time. A bold and competent enemy commander could have drove an armoured brigade into that gap and temporarily dislocated the VII Corps' attack. Had this been tried against the Soviets in the 1980's, an entire Unified Army Corps/Operational Manoeuvre Group might have found its way into such a gap. Big trouble.

Had something like this occurred in GW1, the theatre reserve, the 1st Cav Div would have had to have been diverted from its strategic deception operation in the Wadi al-Batin to counterattack to the north-west to eliminate the threat and cover the gap. Despite popular opinion, the US Army, much less many other NATO countries, was not as prepared for conventional war as one might think, even after spending years preparing for it.

The problem is this: most of your COIN capability comes from thorough proficiency in basic individual skills and minor-unit operations. And that is the very same basic matter that is required for high-intensity warfare. There is no conflict between the two there. Once your individual and minor-unit level training is completed in your Unit's training cycle, most of its COIN training is already completed, and you're ready to start working on high-intensity combined arms ops. If you do not have thorough proficiency in those areas, simply adopting COIN Doctrine at Unit and Formationa level will not completely make up for those lack of basic competencies.

As far as low-intensity and COIN training at Unit and Formation level, that is necessary to have and to maintain, but it does not take anything like the time that the high-intensity stuff does. Not more than 25% of Unit and Formation-level training should go to Low-Intensity conflict. Do not confuse LIC for HIC; LIC is basic, HIC is advanced, and most of LIC is covered in the same basic training that is required for HIC at the individual and minor-unit level anyway.

That said, you cannot wage COIN the same way you do HIC. That is where COIN Doctrine really comes into its own, at the Operational and Strategic levels. But it is nothing like a hard to manage as HIC; it just requires a thorough grasp of the basics and a different mindset - a slower, somewhat more relaxed mindset. As Gian said, don't over-intellectualize it.

But you cannot afford to lose a major conventional war in most cases, and it takes a long, long time to be ready for one. And even then you may not be ready. Take a look at the Allies in WWII, especially in the Atlantic Theatre: North Africa, Italy, North-West Europe. Not the best showing despite having a couple years to prepare.

[Ron Humphrey]

I'm going to chew on that for a bit.

[Norfolk]

I'm going to chew on that for a bit.

Ron, I've just been informed by a very credible source that at least part of the reason for the VII Corps delay was logistical; the fighting units simply out-ran their supply lines. This is a critical factor, obviously, and must be accorded very great weight in considering the course of the VII Corps attack in GW1.

[Gian P Gentile]

While no names are mentioned, are some of those experts also advocates of 4GW theory?

wm:

I don’t know; as you point our there are some obvious links from Coin to 4GW. Some Coin experts who are friends of mine, from knowing their work and writings no I don’t think they fall into the reductionist 4GW camp. Many Coin experts have written some quality stuff and played an important role in bringing fresh ideas to our Army especially when we needed them in 2003/4. The two that come to mind is my old Cav Squadron XO Bob Cassidy and a former colleague in the history department at West Point, Kalev Sep. Con Crane at the War College too has written some top-flight stuff; Steve Metz of course along with many others.

My point all along to respond to others in this thread is not that we don’t need Coin doctrine, capability, and thinkers because we do. My point is that we have become so focused on it due to current operational demands that that is all that we can do now and all we can think about. Moreover, because we are so dominated by Coin operations and thinking I do believe that it has caused us to become dogmatic and non-creative to the point where we read events--past and present--through a Coin prism which then determines future action. For example, Coin experts tell us that in any Coin operation the people must be the center of gravity. But in theory, the enemy certainly can and there are plenty of historical cases to back this theory up. So as we look to the future and where we as a nation might commit to next, the dominance of Coin and the perception that we can make it work almost anywhere because we have this great doctrine compels us to charge right in there and, naturally, protect the people. This is what appears to be happening in Afghanistan now. The notion that we have been doing it wrong but now with the new doctrine and experience in Iraq hey we can do Iraq 2 in Afghanistan and succeed; in my mind problematic at best.

gian

[Ron Humphrey]

In reference to the center-of-gravity for any given environment. What is the difference between the Military COG and Civilian Strategic COG.
I could definately agree to both, not the same, or somtimes same.sometimes not.

In Iraq as stated by Gen McCaffrey and by several posters on this an other threads - National Government

Is it really the COG for the military or for the mission as a whole.
If a military becomes the overarching builder/trainer/gov rep to a populace it would it seems lose some of it's outside the representative government scope.

Now I'm sure the demands placed on us through combinations of circumstances/ Gaps in civilian capabilities, etc. have required us to fill this role and one would think this is probably what really concerns many of those in the pol sector. (the old once it tastes blood deal).

But if security and defense are to be the focus of a defense force than their efforts(COG-sortof) must be focused on those who need securing. The whole idea of securing the government takes my brain for a spin in trying to relate to how a military really has any part other than advisory there. That probably is too much to ask of a service that it be able to play both sides of all tables at the same time.

Therein is the importance in quickly growing our civilian capabilities to the point where they can do their job and the soldiers focus on theirs. One of the largest and heaviest duties of a government is to make the calls of what is best for those they represent. If we place our forces in a position of continually doing that as well as just doing their jobs how long before you end up with some who lean towards taking it the next step, some who can't take it , or some who simply begin to look elsewhere for employment.

No wonder theres so much concern at Echelons above reality

[Ron Humphrey]

A quick conversation I had with an instructor brought a question to mind reference Doctrine in and of itself.

If Doctrine is taken as the base point( or premise) for any deliberation concerning decision making in a given study or environment. Does the following make sense and if not why not?

You start out with a problem and a set of guidlines from which to work your way through it. Through reseach, collaboration, discussion, etc the group will work their way around the problem starting from those guidelines and would in all intention by seeng and discussing both sides of any come back to the median and thus have not only a solution but of course validation of said decision making process.

If we were to draw a line and consider it the baseline then this would seemingly make sense as the variation above and below it ( ref discussion,questions) would generally come back to around the same horizontal place as the baseline.

But what if instead it were a timeline type design where any movement through discussion were left and right along verticle axis. Now in this case wouldn't where you plase the baseline(y axis) actually determine how much deviation there actually might be from the original premise. If you start out from the uper end then after your left and right adjustments you still end up on the upper half, the same going for any where else on the line.

Here's the overall gist of my question. If a principle or doctrine is the right one it shouldn't where you start from you always end up somewhere close to the same after deliberations. If it doesn't necessarily apply in any given instance you should end up somewhere completely different.

I got to thinking about the proven principles I was taught in my youth and thought: Knowing not to eat yellow snow is great but probably not anything thats going to help if I'm in a place that never snows

[William F. Owen]

Doctrine

Sorry to harp on about this, but Doctrine is what is taught. That's it. That is what the word means and how it should be applied.

The problem with most military "Doctrine" is that it is not supported by evidence, or valid principles, and its often vastly too complex, wordy, and the product of opinion. The acid test should always be "is this useful in making me better at my job."

[selil]

I respectfully disagree. Doctrine is the common body of knowledge (aka CBK) (knowledge, skills, and abilities). Often with the military doctrine becomes dogma but that is a political discussion. Doctrine (CBK) is what you build curriculum from. Doctrine informs the requirements of what you teach through curriculum. For example contrary to what you "think" in basic infantry training you do not teach pupils (soldiers) to shoot the enemy. You teach them to shoot a target (unless you have a few terrorists running around you want to let recruits poke holes in). As instructors we rely on cognition and near-transference of the expertise found in shooting the target to inform shooting the enemy.

It might be easy to dismiss this slight triviality in the concept of instruction and semantic nonsense, but when you look at training there are certain "leaps" that we make without explanation. Those leaps occur all the time and are a drag on high performance education and more important reasoning and understanding. Finding those "leaps" where we teach one thing and expect another is also important when we look at military acumen in any subject. This concept of transference also lends a certain gap in credibility for what we think we are teaching and what we are actually teaching leading to criticism such as "is this useful for my job". It is useful you just haven't had the AH HA! moment yet.

It is very likely that a certain task or function found on a syllabus may have no relation to the job on the surface but have severe and substantial import under the bonnet so to speak. These are some of the basic principles of outcome based learning objectives (which I'm told the military is absolutely in love with). The concept of transference is informed by successful modeling of one activity that a recruit/trainee/pupil is aware of and then expanding that activity to something new.

[William F. Owen]

I respectfully disagree. Doctrine is the common body of knowledge (aka CBK) (knowledge, skills, and abilities).

...and I can respect that, but a common body of knowledge is not doctrine. The OED, is quite unequival on this, unless we are all happy about military theory butchering the English language and all it's inherent prescision and usefulness.

Even the 1990 DOD JCS definition is "Fundemental principles by which military forces, or elements thereof, guide their actions in support of national objectives." -or close enough. These principles need to be imparted and explained, thus taught.

The body of knowledge you refer to is, in the UK and NATO, called "Military Knowledge."

I cannot see how skills forms any part of doctrine, other than to define the reason as to why certain meaures of performance should be used. EG - The reason why weapons qualification is done at XXX meters.

...but if the membership of this board collectively believe that Doctrine is a common body of knowledge I will adapt my conduct on this board to that condition.

[MattC86]

In reference to the center-of-gravity for any given environment. What is the difference between the Military COG and Civilian Strategic COG.
I could definately agree to both, not the same, or somtimes same.sometimes not.

In Iraq as stated by Gen McCaffrey and by several posters on this an other threads - National Government

Is it really the COG for the military or for the mission as a whole.
If a military becomes the overarching builder/trainer/gov rep to a populace it would it seems lose some of it's outside the representative government scope.

I actually was wondering this same thing just a couple days ago after reading Gen. McCaffrey's AAR, and after filtering out some of the screwed up stuff that passes for deep thought in my head, I've tried to come up with a distinction between a military and, as you call it, civilian/strategic COG.

The civilian/strategic COG is the lynchpin, as it were, for the attainment of a particular policy goal. For Iraq, that is unquestionably the stability, legitimacy, and functionality of the national Iraqi government, and perhaps a governmental hierarchy (local/tribal, provincial, national) as a whole.

The military COG is the key to meeting the objective of the use of armed force in pursuit of the larger policy goal - Clausewitz and all that good stuff. (Me trying to parse a thousand years of strategic thought. . .) The COG may be different because the political goal is not and should not be the same as the military goal (what my IR professors would call the link between politics and force, and one calls "the diplomacy of violence"). Even in a conventional war, the broad political goal is not going to be the same as the military objective, though in a WWII or something of that nature, the COG for the two objectives would be the same (enemy's forces and war-making capacities).

I think an inherent issue for COIN is that the civilian/strategic COG, that is, the key to attaining the broader policy goal, is different from the military COG. The military can influence the security situation; it cannot force the Iraqi government to legislate reforms. If the COGs are different, unity of purpose and strategy, especially between disparate agencies and governmental capabilities becomes extraordinarily difficult. But you probably knew all that.

Now I'm sure the demands placed on us through combinations of circumstances/ Gaps in civilian capabilities, etc. have required us to fill this role and one would think this is probably what really concerns many of those in the pol sector. (the old once it tastes blood deal).

But if security and defense are to be the focus of a defense force than their efforts(COG-sortof) must be focused on those who need securing. The whole idea of securing the government takes my brain for a spin in trying to relate to how a military really has any part other than advisory there. That probably is too much to ask of a service that it be able to play both sides of all tables at the same time.

Your brain is spinning on that because you already got it right - there is little the military can do to directly affect the political process at a national level. Their role is the security and stability ops at low level (which have a profound impact on local government if done right, as we're seeing with "bottom-up reconciliation.")

Therein is the importance in quickly growing our civilian capabilities to the point where they can do their job and the soldiers focus on theirs. One of the largest and heaviest duties of a government is to make the calls of what is best for those they represent. If we place our forces in a position of continually doing that as well as just doing their jobs how long before you end up with some who lean towards taking it the next step, some who can't take it , or some who simply begin to look elsewhere for employment.

No wonder theres so much concern at Echelons above reality

To me, this is the single most important thing the US still needs to work on to pursue a COIN campaign effectively. No one person or group of individuals (soldiers, Marines, or civilian agency personnel) has the knowledge and expertise for the full spectrum of social, political, economic, and military operations in a COIN environment. With the chronic shortage of DoS personnel, the military absorbs some of those roles, but it does not - through no fault of its own; it cannot - do them as well.

Matt

[TheCurmudgeon]

I actually was wondering this same thing just a couple days ago after reading Gen. McCaffrey's AAR, ... The civilian/strategic COG is the lynchpin, as it were, for the attainment of a particular policy goal. For Iraq, that is unquestionably the stability, legitimacy, and functionality of the national Iraqi government, and perhaps a governmental hierarchy (local/tribal, provincial, national) as a whole.

I think an inherent issue for COIN is that the civilian/strategic COG, that is, the key to attaining the broader policy goal, is different from the military COG. The military can influence the security situation; it cannot force the Iraqi government to legislate reforms. If the COGs are different, unity of purpose and strategy, especially between disparate agencies and governmental capabilities becomes extraordinarily difficult. But you probably knew all that.

We recently did a review of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. It became clear that the Soviet Army was doing the same thing there that we are doing in Iraq: The Army saw the COG as the Mujahideen, the Mujahideen (even though they may not have realized it) was fighting a political COG. It didn't matter how well the Soviets fought the Mujahideen, they could never win.

We may have realized that the COG is the government of Iraq, but the Military does not have the tools to affect that directly.

To me, this is the single most important thing the US still needs to work on to pursue a COIN campaign effectively. No one person or group of individuals (soldiers, Marines, or civilian agency personnel) has the knowledge and expertise for the full spectrum of social, political, economic, and military operations in a COIN environment. With the chronic shortage of DoS personnel, the military absorbs some of those roles, but it does not - through no fault of its own; it cannot - do them as well.

Matt

I would disagree. I would argue that the world has changed and that it is imperative that we create a force capable of doing exactly that. Whether that is a specially organized subset of the Army (like SOF), or a separate branch all together, it has to be done. It is only a matter of time till we realize it and act.

[MattC86]

We recently did a review of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. It became clear that the Soviet Army was doing the same thing there that we are doing in Iraq: The Army saw the COG as the Mujahideen, the Mujahideen (even though they may not have realized it) was fighting a political COG. It didn't matter how well the Soviets fought the Mujahideen, they could never win.

We may have realized that the COG is the government of Iraq, but the Military does not have the tools to affect that directly.

True enough, sir, though I think that US operations are focusing on the population as a COG rather than al-Qai'da in Iraq or even the insurgency as a whole. The military's role is to influence the government and political situation through the provision of security, right? That means the security of the population is the military's objective, the population vs. insurgent support dynamic is the military COG, and all that is subordinated to the political objective of a stable, free, and friendly government in Iraq - and the subsequent strategic/political COG for that objective is the reform and strengthening of the national government.

Plus, I would contend the military has the power to directly influence lower level government systems, which in the long run will have a major impact on the national governance system.

I would disagree. I would argue that the world has changed and that it is imperative that we create a force capable of doing exactly that. Whether that is a specially organized subset of the Army (like SOF), or a separate branch all together, it has to be done. It is only a matter of time till we realize it and act.

I agree with you on the need for such a force, but it would be a bureaucratic nightmare. Not just the turf protectionism and jealousy among the serves (for years the Marines fought joining SOCOM because they wanted to keep Marines under Marine command) but including dozens of government agencies and experts in every field necessary for COIN? And who would command such a group? You'd have a lot of people very much against a military commander, given the 80% political 20% military maxim.

Unless I misread you and you meant something different. . .

Matt

[TheCurmudgeon]

True enough, sir, though I think that US operations are focusing on the population as a COG rather than al-Qai'da in Iraq or even the insurgency as a whole. The military's role is to influence the government and political situation through the provision of security, right? That means the security of the population is the military's objective, the population vs. insurgent support dynamic is the military COG, and all that is subordinated to the political objective of a stable, free, and friendly government in Iraq - and the subsequent strategic/political COG for that objective is the reform and strengthening of the national government.

Plus, I would contend the military has the power to directly influence lower level government systems, which in the long run will have a major impact on the national governance system.

I would agree with you what the COG and main effort should be, the people and the government. My point is that the military does not have the tools nor the training they really need to accomplish that.

I agree with you on the need for such a force, but it would be a bureaucratic nightmare. Not just the turf protectionism and jealousy among the serves (for years the Marines fought joining SOCOM because they wanted to keep Marines under Marine command) but including dozens of government agencies and experts in every field necessary for COIN? And who would command such a group? You'd have a lot of people very much against a military commander, given the 80% political 20% military maxim.

Unless I misread you and you meant something different. . .

Matt

No, you got me straight. It is only hard because we make it so. How about this, we augment Civil Affairs directly with the experts they need rather than relying on any particular civilian agency. Put them in uniform. We include these experts down to the brigade level. If you want, you can build specific division headquarters staffed to do COIN/S&R.

I don't see this any different than the military having doctors. Doctors take an oath that is in direct contravention to what the Army is tasked to do, but we have determined that they are absolutely necessary to accomplish our mission. Why do we have such a problem brining in economists, sociologists, political experts and others needed to really bring a stabile government on line? Of course, this is once we have determined that we are going to take the lead on at least the initial aspects of stability operations: those things that have to be done in the first few years to get the new government off on the right foot.


I am not saying any of this is easy and there is at least some risk in "group think" by recruiting experts willing to put on a uniform and deploy with military forces from the beginning, but I think it is worth a try. And we will never find out if it can work or hos it could be adjusted to make it better if we never try.