The Fallacy of HIC vs COIN

[reed11b]

I can't quibble with the picture you paint, but I feel there is corner missing from the canvas.

I don't see the Nagl versus Gentile argument as being constructive or even accurate, but...

However, there are a number of positions and ideas promoted and advocated by the Post modern COIN Avant garde, that have to be challenged.

Some are merely eccentric opinions, but others are just plain stupid. It is extremely doubtful that anything written on COIN, since 2003, is original or even useful, other than to re-state insights that already existed. You can make the US army a much better army, without ever mentioning the words HIC or COIN, and that is the approach that I favour, should anyone ask.

I think we may be arguing past each other Wilf. I agree with what you say, I just wanted to address why the debate exists in the first place and what aspects of military culture and doctrine have lead to the belief that COIN and HIC and any other form of warfare are not interchangeable. My conclusion is that certain failings in how we conduct all levels of combat have a greater recognizable effect on our ability to conduct COIN and other LICs then they appear have on our HIC ability, though I suspect this is false as well. Have I completely confused you yet?
Reed

[Ken White]

I just wanted to address why the debate exists in the first place and what aspects of military culture and doctrine have lead to the belief that COIN and HIC and any other form of warfare are not interchangeable.

Nor am I real sure many disagree with you on that. Certainly both Gian and Nagl have said we must be capable in operations during both forms of warfare.

My conclusion is that certain failings in how we conduct all levels of combat have a greater recognizable effect on our ability to conduct COIN and other LICs then they appear have on our HIC ability...

I agree with that -- and with your comments on micromanagement. Both things are due, I think, partly to a reluctance to change but I think even more so are attributable to a pathological reluctance to admit making a mistake.

I once worked for a Three Star who was a pretty good guy. However, he had hired an aide who was truly dangerous. Said General quickly realized this -- but he would not fire the Aide and admit he'd made a mistake. That guy was an embarrassment fo over a year. The aide, not the LTG...

Appropos of that is the ongoing saga of the M4 carbine and it's excessive maintenenance requirements and its pathetic little cartridge. Unit I was in ran the troop test on the then AR-15 back in 1963. We ended up recommending keeping the M14 for worldwide service. Everyone knows the rest of the story but here we are 45 years later with a marginally effective combat weapon that the Army over engineered and that a couple of fast talking GOs hung their hats on...

Then I ran across this story; LINK. I recalled a number of us who objected to the HMMWV when it was a gleam in TACOMs eye trying to tell them that it was a compromise on too many counts and the Army would be better off buying several different vehicles -- but Lesley J. McNair lives on and the US Army is always trying to buy one GP widget that will do the job of ten. Dumb. The HMMWV was and is dumb vehicle -- I know some say they love it but like the kids (and others...) that say the M4 is good to go, they've never used much of anything else. There's a reason the Pros don't agree with that.

Point on the M4 and the HMMWV is that the Army bought (well, McNamara forced the Army on the M16. The HMMWV is another story) 'em and they aren't going to admit an error so will hang on to both to the bitter end. As I said, I'm not sure you're attacking the right problem...

'Course, if it was me, I'd say the Army has a whole lot of good people who sometimes don't do as well as they could or should and that those errors in technique you allude to -- indeed, most of the Army's flaws -- are attributable to poor training over the last 25-40 years...

[reed11b]

The individual replacement system is at the heart of much of the Army’s readiness and capabilities problems. For me, this is the key reason why false arguments like HIC vs COIN even get press time. This is the key as to why training is not at the quality it needs to be, this why the Army has to work harder to do less. An example, the National Guard trains one weekend a month, two weeks a year, and maybe a flood or a forest fire deployment. This equals 36 training days to the Active Army’s aprox 256 training days. Yet studies have shown that National Guard units are close to Active Units in effectiveness after a 30 day train up, and some units surpass Active unit standards without a train up! Why is this? I have spent 5 years in the Guard after 4 in the Active Army and they don’t get better recruits, and prior service troops, while they help, they still lose skill sets without training as well. The reason is that the National Guard units maintain unit cohesiveness over years, not months. This means that training stays with the unit and only needs refreshers, allowing for new skills training, and effective use of training time. In active duty, a soldier comes from often subpar basic and AIT training to a unit. In this unit a certain percentage of his leadership will have been in the unit for less then three months. This soldier will immediately start working on basic drills. Eventually the team and squad will get comfortable working together and will be ready to learn new skills. At this time they are likely to receive whole new leadership and some squad shake-up. New leader needs to see if soldiers know the basic skills so unit starts to do drills. New members of the team means that it takes time to get back into the routine. Once this happens, there is good chance that soldiers will again be PCSed, shifted around in the unit and/or new leadership enters the fray. Repeat this process ad infinitum. Now if a soldier does well, he may qualify for special schools. Soldier leaves for months to learn new skill set and returns too….yep new soldiers and leaders. The individual manning system is based on the WWI concept of industrial mass production and the need to mobilize a large number of soldiers for a major combat theatre. This does not apply to a volunteer Army. Officer training is similar leads to knowledge being individual based and not unit based. If the commander has never been to school “X” but the S2 has, does this equal the commander having access to the training set from school “X”? This further complicated by the Army’s false presence of being “always ready, always manned” which really means never ready, never fully manned. A Unit manning and training cycle would allow units to perfect the basics and leave time for continually improving skills and learning new ones. It should also help prevent situations like this…. LINK>>>>
Another thread that I feel relates to this is here……
LINK>>>>
This may be something the Army needs to learn as well.
I could go on forever on this topic, and I may return to it, but for now I will give everyone a little break.
Reed

[reed11b]

Ken, as usual you are probably correct, but I find that by pursuing this thread I increase my own knowledge base quite a bit, and hopefully it provides some benefit others as well. One thing I have learned is that my concept of STABO operations from when it was a minor "buzzword" in the mid 90's is completely different then what it is in FM 3-07. This changes my concept from inability to perform STABO ops to "inability to effectively transfer from combat operations to security operations". For all the good things in FM 3-07, in my mind it is loaded with mission creep and addressed to the wrong echelon, but more on that tomorrow.
Reed

[Gian P Gentile]

Reed:

I agree that the coin/hic debate is a false one, at least simplistically in terms of how that label is used as an either or. It is not a zero sum discussion over whether the army should do ONLY coin, or ONLY Hic. As Ken White points out correctly neither John Nagl nor I have ever taken such stark positions. Nagl has consistently said that the Army must maintain its capability to fight large conflicts at the higher end of the spectrum, similarly as I have always maintained that the Army must have a coin/stabo capability and moreover must institutionalize the coin lessons from the last 7 years.

But let us play with a hypothetical here. Let us imagine that by next year the American Army is completely out of Iraq and the mission in Afghanistan has been greatly reduced to mostly SF with just a couple of combat brigades on the ground. In short the Army has some breathing space to get back into what General Casey calls "balance." So in that hypothetical scenario if you were king for a day what kind of general guidance would you give to the Army in terms of resources and training (having in mind your conception of the future security environment)? In overly simplistic terms, but useful I think, what would be the aggregate percentage dedicated to coin vs Hic? Would it be to focus 70% of our resources and training to coin and the rest hic, or vice versa?

The problem here is that in principle we all agree that we need balance, but when you get down into the details then things becomes much murkier and where debate and discussion over these issues I think is relevant and needed.

gian

[reed11b]

Sir:

Reed:

In overly simplistic terms, but useful I think, what would be the aggregate percentage dedicated to coin vs Hic? Would it be to focus 70% of our resources and training to coin and the rest hic, or vice versa?

The problem here is that in principle we all agree that we need balance, but when you get down into the details then things becomes much murkier and where debate and discussion over these issues I think is relevant and needed.

gian

That is my point; proper training, unit structure and doctrine is effective across a wide range conflicts, from HIC to IW. I feel that the reason we fail to be effective across broad spectrums is 1) An officer culture (training and promotion system as well)that leads to micromanagement 2) The widespread negative effects of the individual replacement system and 3) a failure to train on how to end combat operations after the enemy surrenders or retreats beyond our AO. Of course the simple answer and the big picture is (as Ken loves to say repeatedly, whether anyone wants to hear it or not) proper training.
The unique aspects to COIN call for better abilities and cooperation w/ USD and USAID, not USD and USAID like skills in the Army.

A couple points on the Individual Replacement System (What is the correct term for this?) that I need to cover. I failed to mention that the COHORT test showed improvement in the skills and retention of the soldiers involved. Yet the Army “waited it out” and never implemented it further. Another effect of the Individual replacement system is that initial training is poor for a professional volunteer Army. I have spent some time in a medical support company and I have noticed that non-combat jobs seem to have a better ability to perform there core duties when they arrive at the unit then combat soldiers. A quick look at AIT lengths will also show a disparity between combat and non-combat MOS’s training time. This is backwards. Our Infantry, artillery and combat vehicle crewmen are the core of the Army and the ones facing the greatest risk. They should be trained to a level were they can be expected to perform there duties with competence and confidence upon arriving at there unit. Confidence is a big part of being able to perform independent action and may help reduce some of the tendency to micromanage in the Army.
I also want to make clear that I am not advocating for a simple regimental system or that soldiers can’t move duty stations. Let’s face it, many young men join the Army to get away from home and look forward to the possibility of travel and adventure. There will always be soldiers that will be willing to travel to get promotions or serve with a better unit. I advocate for slowing it down and not making a move every “X” years mandatory. I also like the concept of rotational readiness, but I know that is a tough sell.
Reed

[tankersteve]

Reed,

Have enjoyed your post so far and appreciate your position. I did 5 1/2 years active, then spent a stint in the NG, before coming back on active duty.

The Army had the solution to the personnel turnover problem. It was being implemented when OIF became more than a single 6-month deployment for us all. The Unit Manning process would have locked personnel into a brigade for 3 years. No moves out, and people were going to be encouraged to do a second 3-year stint if the timing was right. This meant that for 3 years, a brigade would have the same people on board. After 6-9 months of a deliberate train-up, culminating in a CTC rotation, the brigade was ready for deployment.

A brigade, once it had completed training and certified for deployment, was now ready to focus on advanced skills. For a heavy brigade, I can imagine this would have included more advanced fieldcraft, maneuver operations at the battalion and brigade level, large-scale combined arms breaching, MOUT under more realistic conditions, advanced live fire training, etc.

Not every brigade would be ready as during the early part of the 6-9 months of standing up, a lot of fire team, squad and platoon training would have to be conducted. However, in the aggregate, we would have more units ready. For instance, 4 brigades in a division, spread over 4 different start points, would end up this way: The 'senior' unit, in its 33d month of activity, would, in the event of a major incident, forego standing down. It is ready for deployment right now. The middle unit, at the 24 month mark, is also ready and can deploy immediately, having been conducting advanced training for quite a while. The next brigade, having been together for 15 months, should have just finished its certification training 4-6 months ago. It is also ready. Finally, the 4th brigade, having just started its training 6 months ago, will probably not be ready for at least 30-60 days. This shows a single division's 4 brigades, with 9 months staggered resets. Even with a brigade that just stood down, 3 brigades are ready to go and the 4th must start training with new soldiers/leadership immediately, with a condensed training cycle to get them in the fight in 4 months or so.

ARFORGEN and OIF killed this. When a brigade is spending 12 months in Iraq, then 12 months at home, before going back again, typical command timelines for BDE and BN commanders became 2 years. This is part of the out-of-sync feeling the Army has right now.

I will not say this will solve all the Army's woes - an interest in quality training versus lots of watered-down iterations is something the Army hasn't grasped yet. And a lot of the support units won't fall into this cycle. But I think it was going to be a really good start.

Hopefully the power holders at HRC didn't kill the unit manning concept. Once our optempo slows, we have to get this back. 3ID and 101st did do this briefly before the war kicked in on second tours for them. I love the idea of having Soldiers who are studs and know it, confident in their abilities and the hard, advanced training they have experienced. As an OC at the NTC, I have often (only 1/2 jokingly) referred to the NTC as the National PLATOON Training Center, based on the level of training some units arrived there at. We are starting to get beyond that now as dwell time increases.

Tankersteve

[William F. Owen]

In overly simplistic terms, but useful I think, what would be the aggregate percentage dedicated to coin vs Hic? Would it be to focus 70% of our resources and training to coin and the rest hic, or vice versa?

I think, there are fairly simple ways to address this. It may just be raising the bar, when it comes to things you have in the toolbox, but I actually think it's about subjecting some fairly common assumptions about COIN and HIC to some fairly serious rigour - and that is something, based on the output of most US professional journals, that most are failing to do. For example, I fear the idea of "Hybrid" enemies is actually set to send people down the wrong route in the same way Manoeuvre Warfare did.

I think we may be arguing past each other Wilf. I agree with what you say, I just wanted to address why the debate exists in the first place and what aspects of military culture and doctrine have lead to the belief that COIN and HIC and any other form of warfare are not interchangeable. My conclusion is that certain failings in how we conduct all levels of combat have a greater recognizable effect on our ability to conduct COIN and other LICs then they appear have on our HIC ability, though I suspect this is false as well. Have I completely confused you yet?
Reed

Well I strongly disagree that we are even arguing .... - Ah! I kill me.

I hear you brother Reed. There are good armies who can do both and less good armies who can do one or the other.