I am currently stationed in Iraq where I am advising the Iraq Department of Border Enforcement. Among my peers we have had numerous discussions in regards to denial/interdiction operations. Obviously we want to stop the flow of foreign fighters and outside influences into the country. One of the questions we posed was what; is our current doctrine in regards denial/interdiction operations. After much time researching this topic very little doctrine exists; David Galula states in his book, Counterinsurgency and Doctrine,
“Every country is divided for administrative and military purposes into provinces, counties, districts, zones, etc. The border areas are a permanent source of weakness for the counterinsurgent whatever his administrative structures, and his advantage is usually exploited by the insurgent, especially in the initial violent stages of the insurgency. By moving from one side of the border to the other, the insurgent is often able to escape pressure or, at least, to complicate operations for his opponent.”
The only doctrine I have been able to find is FM 31-55 Border Security and Anti-Infiltration Operations written in 1968. It is currently out of print and I ordered it through Amazon.com. Since then new doctrine has been written. But very little has been written on border and anti-infiltration operations. In the early 1980 the Low Intensity Conflict FM came out, I am not sure of its number. In 1986 Counter-Guerrilla Operations FM 90-8 dedicated about four paragraphs to the topic of securing the borders. FM s 3-24 and 3-24.2 discuss very little about border operations. They state the obvious that securing the borders is important. FM 3-07 Stability Operations makes reference to securing borers, but does not provide a guide to developing a plan to secure the borders. So the point of my post is where is the doctrine and why have we allowed ourselves to become so far behind in this topic.