The Col. Gentile collection and debate

[SteveMetz]

Eating Soup with a Spoon - Lieutenant Colonel Gian Gentile, Armed Forces Journal

I, of course, take issue with the basic premise of the article. I believe we treat counterinsurgency as a variant of war not because that is the most strategically effective approach, but because we have been unable to transcend Cold War thinking. We know how to fight wars. We're good at it. So we pretend that things not amenable to warfighting are, in fact, war. It's a classic example of the old adage "when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail." In fact, I think there is an inverse correlation between the extent to which we approach a counterinsurgency campaign as warfighting and the success we meet (e.g. Iraq, Afghanistan, El Salvador).

I'll be interested to see how the debate unfolds on the AFJ discussion board.

[goesh]

Mom and Pop back home don't want Sonny boy and Sissy schmoozing with the enemy, they want dead enemies first and foremost. The hard sell of COIN goes way beyond a cold war mindset. Financiers and carpetbaggers aren't about to educate the Public to the efficacy and need for COIN, that's for sure and the Military isn't capable at this juncture in our history to take on the task of educating the Public nor is it necessarily their role. For one thing, to enter the Public realm with its informal give and take and free-flow of information and critique with all its ignorance and insight requires latitude and flexibility the Military doesn't fully possess. There is a disconnect in the Public mind between killing and disabling enemies and probably always will be - if you ain't gonna' kill 'em, send in the Peace Corps type of thinking. The COIN learning curve and proving grounds Iraq is providing is being wasted IMO because of an ignorant Public, power hungry politicians and carpetbaggers, in that order. Ultimately, We The People are responsible for our woes and worries, not our Military and not our politicians.

[Rob Thornton]

I do not take issue with the fact that War is violent and that COIN is war – in my reading of 3-24, I don’t think it does either. Part of this is my preference to always view doctrine as descriptive and not prescriptive (Unit SOPs are generally prescriptive). I’d also say that I never saw guys on the ground contemplating if it was a good idea or a bad one to shoot a clearly identified AIF setting an IED, carrying an RPG, or PKC, or even setting up a mortar – nobody was confused about the best way of immediately securing the populace was to kill those AIF actively engaged in violent activity. If there was information on a cache or meeting of AIF conducting plans or related activity – a mission was generated as quickly as possible to capture or kill them. The Iraqis and CF I worked with understood that until physical security was established, the other LLOOs would be compromised – they also understood that you had to prepared to quickly transition from conducting a Community Engagement type activity to pouncing on the enemy if he showed the will to contest our control of an area.

At the level where dyed in the wool insurgents seek to impose their will on the population it is a duel & no amount of LLOOs is probably going to convince them to give up - this minority is going to have to be captured or killed by either HN or CF.

I don't think 3-24 advocates sacrificing Tactical success - it just acknowledges that you can't pursue purely lethal Tactical operations and expect that success at that level will translate to Operational and Strategic success in COIN, or for that matter any type of war. Do we want it - you bet - every time we meet that enemy we should relentlessly pursue him until he is captured, killed, denied any freedom of movement, expelled, etc. Tactical success is credibility, and it permits our (friendly forces) own freedom of movement to pursue the LLOOs that can be translated to Operational and Strategic success in a COIN environment.

Clausewitz’s duel where there are winners and losers is appropriate. Within a province or city where insurgents have the initiative and unrestricted freedom of movement then COIN forces (HN or CF) will not – it’s a zero sum game – you either have the initiative or you don’t at what ever level you are considering. The priority for COIN forces at that point goes to seizing and retaining the initiative. This begins with lethal operations at the Tactical & Operational levels, but does not end there. 3-24 recommends transitioning to a mix of security operations and other LLOOs to develop the PMSEII so that while those who will not re-enter society are captured or killed, the conditions which lend credibility to the insurgent message and attract people to the insurgent cause are changed.

Within the COIN environment there are ongoing operations that are going to feel more like the “Other then War” we once doctrinally used to describe those missions. The problem with that doctrinal description was that increasingly those environments proved that they could go to “War” on one side of a city, while on the other side of the city it remained a “Other then” environment. However, you can’t sacrifice the gains you’ve made that permitted a transition on one side of the river to a mix of lethal and LLOOs; and you can’t sacrifice the gains that permitted a larger transition at the provincial level – these are the operations that provide the long term gains because they address the conditions that made the insurgency possible.

At the lower tactical echelons the focus is going to be sharper by comparison with larger echelons. If a BCT has the bulk of a province, it may have two TFs focusing primarily on LLOOs because the conditions permit it. However, the other TF may be clearing insurgents for months – the enemy gets a vote, and may have decided that he is willing to fight and die within the battlespace assigned to that TF. However within the Battlespace assigned to that TF – the part of the city assigned to a specific Company or CO TM may have a local leader that has galvanized the community against the goals of the insurgents – the violence within that community might be limited to assassinations and car bombs targeting the community leadership from insurgents infiltrating that company AOR– but its still lethal. The higher the echelon in COIN, the greater the chance that it contains different types of threats, must pursue different types of LOOs and LLOOs.

I don’t think LTC Nagl or any other contributor to the 3-24 would take issue with that. On the Daily show – he made the remark – I have to paraphrase – “be prepared to kill”. Operrations on the ground would seem to reflect this – the number of AIF killed or captured, the number of caches seized and the limitations of AIF freedom of movement started with, or were generated from our ability to impose our will on the enemy through the use of violence. However, that tactical success was built upon with other LLOOs that engaged the communities and secured additional benefits that could not be attained otherwise. The NGO community and passive IOs can’t conduct COIN because they don’t have the capability to employ violence or contest the armed resistance employed by insurgents – we do. However, because COIN occurs in a Social setting, and is a contest for the will and support of the citizen – we must be able to follow up security by generating the foundations for stability.

No doctrine IMHO should be a prescription for a problem – this is Clausewitz’s recognition that there is a subjective nature to War. Every War is going to be unique in the subjective due to the political context which surrounds it. There are all kinds of political goals by the various enemies we find in Iraq – the subjective nature of War may be different in Baghdad, then Anbar – that’s just the way it is. If we conduct a COIN campaign in another part of the world, those conditions will change along with the subjective nature unique to that War. The Objective nature, that War is violent, it has winners and losers, it is rife with fog, friction and chance, and the more protracted it is- the more chance plays a role, it is a social activity, it makes no sense when divorced from its political context is valid in any War.

The problem with any doctrine that addresses the complexity of War is going to be its interpretation – I’m not sure you can have a doctrine that is going to change that while remaining broad enough in scope to acknowledge both the Objective and Subjective nature of War. Take what works and apply it to the War you (your element) are in, and save the rest when conditions change – that is the value in descriptive doctrine.
Best regards, Rob

[marct]

Hi Steve,

I, of course, take issue with the basic premise of the article. I believe we treat counterinsurgency as a variant of war not because that is the most strategically effective approach, but because we have been unable to transcend Cold War thinking. We know how to fight wars. We're good at it. So we pretend that things not amenable to warfighting are, in fact, war. It's a classic example of the old adage "when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail."

I'm not sure if I agree with your sketch of the causal logic, but I certainly agree with your "act as if" conclusion; at least for the institution qua institution. Still and all, I find Gentile's logic flawed. In particular, the following paragraph really bothers me.

Yet the paradoxes actually deceive by making overly simple the reality of counterinsurgency warfare and why it is so hard to conduct it at the ground level for the combat soldier. The eminent scholar and strategic thinker Eliot Cohen noted that counterinsurgency war is still war, and war in its essence is fighting. In trying to teach its readers to eat soup with a knife, the COIN manual discards the essence and reality of counterinsurgency warfare fighting, thereby manifesting its tragic flaw.

Let me pull this apart.

Yet the paradoxes actually deceive by making overly simple the reality of counterinsurgency warfare and why it is so hard to conduct it at the ground level for the combat soldier.

I would suggest that the use of paradoxes is a) quite normal in getting anyone to perceive a new viewpoint, b) inherently "simple" in presentation but complex in "unfolding", and c) only deceitful when they contradict already internalized paradoxes (e.g. "Peace through superior firepower", etc.). Anyone who has read any of the major works one Rites of Passage (or symbolism for that matter) knows that paradoxes are crucial in shifting a person from one role to another (the "why's" take much longer to explain, but are partly covered in a previous post of mine). That being said, this sentence is a strawman.

The eminent scholar and strategic thinker Eliot Cohen noted that counterinsurgency war is still war, and war in its essence is fighting.

A truly fascinating example of mixing a resort to "traditional authority (in the Weberian sense) with really poor logic. First, the appeal to "traditional authority" - imply that you are quoting, without quoting (or referencing), a scholar. The second point about poor logic is a touch trickier.

Gentile relies on an appeal to traditional authority to define "counterinsurgency war" as "war". The fact that they are perceived as somehow different, shown by the use of "counterinsurgency" as a modifier, appears to be irrelevant to Gentile who proceeds to assert an essence, in the philosophical sense, to "war" and, by a backwards chain of logic, assert the primacy of the same essence to "counterinsurgency war". This neatly avoids the annoying little point that "counterinsurgency war" is perceptually (and linguistically and doctrinally) defined as an intersection set of two classes: counterinsurgency and war. Where is the second "essence"? This brings us to

In trying to teach its readers to eat soup with a knife, the COIN manual discards the essence and reality of counterinsurgency warfare fighting, thereby manifesting its tragic flaw.

Given the strawman and illogical "logic" already used, this conclusion is both unavoidable and, at the same time, tragically flawed. What he has missed is that FM 3-24 is, in fact, attempting to define the "essence" if you will of "counterinsurgency", not "war" (i.e. his missed class), and to show the intersection with "war".

[Jedburgh]

In his attempt to tear down the "paradox" of tactical success guarantees nothing, he completely misses the meaning of tactical success itself.

In the article, he completely focuses his perception of tactical success on what it means to his soldiers: their morale and fighting spirit. He discounts the importance of non-kinetic operations and pushes the importance the fight. He doesn't bother to clarify how aggressive engagement is going to help stabilize Iraq or defeat the bad guys - he just states it will keep up the morale and fighting spirit of his troops. This is almost the absolute stereotype of the conventional Armor officer who can't stand anything other than HIC.

Don't misunderstand - I'm certainly not dismissing the importance of troop morale. The "cognitive dissonance" issue he mentions certainly does exist - but the essential concept of the three-block war and troops having to rapidly adapt and shift focus between killing and building has been around far longer than the term itself. Its just been ignored by many in the Big Army.

However, I feel that the major error he makes is of separating the two aspects - killing and rolling up bad guys in this fight is inextricably linked with the essential non-kinetic ops required to stabilize and secure the country. They have to be linked and coordinated, with solid intel driving both into a fused effort. He makes it sound like you have to focus on one or the other; it ain't so, Joe. You have to do both, and that's what makes COIN (especially the impure messy COIN, SASO, CT, LE blend we have in Iraq) so difficult.

...I don't think they play at all fairly, and they all quarrel so dreadfully one can't hear oneself speak--and they don't seem to have any rules in particular; at least, if there are, nobody attends to them--and you've no idea how confusing it is....

Alice

[wm]

I like MarcT's discussion of the illogic of the Gentile piece. Another way of understanding the problem is that Gentile has made a category mistake, sort of as follows:

'Counterinsurgency' (or 'COIN') names a category of things , or a set if you prefer. 'War' likewise names a category of things, or another set. In the passage quoted by MarcT, Gentile asserts, without any argument, that 'COIN' is a subcategory or subset of 'War.' (I suspect he also wants 'COIN' to be a proper subset of 'War,' but that point is not really relevant to this discussion, IMO.) He seems to presume that the set 'COIN' is wholely contained in the set 'War.' He has left out the possibility that the two sets may be completely disjoint (have no members in common) or only partially overlap/intersect (have some members in common). Either of these latter two options could put 'War' and 'COIN' at the same categorical level while Gentile's option makes 'War' a superset, a higher (or more fundamental and, therefore, more inclusive) category than 'COIN.'

Regarding the use of paradox, I submit that when one finds paradoxes in one's explanation that means that one's explanation is not as reflective of the truth (defined here as corresponding to reality) as one would like to believe. Additionally, paradoxes indicate that the truth of one's explanation (truth now defined as coherence, or the "hanging together" of the explanatory story one tells with other beliefs one holds) is not quite as likely as it could be.

Pointing out paradoxes in an explanation, in my experience, is most useful for rejecting that explanation's logical and practical efficacy. In other words, finding paradoxes in one's theory of how to counter an insurgency successfully would indicate that the theory might not be as good as one expects in achieving the desired results on a more universal scale.This is because as one expands the cases to be explained, more things come up that cause "disconnects" (or paradoxes) within one's explnatory schema.

I would suggest that the use of paradoxes is a) quite normal in getting anyone to perceive a new viewpoint, b) inherently "simple" in presentation but complex in "unfolding", and c) only deceitful when they contradict already internalized paradoxes (e.g. "Peace through superior firepower", etc.).
. . .
Gentile relies on an appeal to traditional authority to define "counterinsurgency war" as "war". The fact that they are perceived as somehow different, shown by the use of "counterinsurgency" as a modifier, appears to be irrelevant to Gentile who proceeds to assert an essence, in the philosophical sense, to "war" and, by a backwards chain of logic, assert the primacy of the same essence to "counterinsurgency war". This neatly avoids the annoying little point that "counterinsurgency war" is perceptually (and linguistically and doctrinally) defined as an intersection set of two classes: counterinsurgency and war. Where is the second "essence"?
. . .
Given the strawman and illogical "logic" already used, this conclusion is both unavoidable and, at the same time, tragically flawed. What he has missed is that FM 3-24 is, in fact, attempting to define the "essence" if you will of "counterinsurgency", not "war" (i.e. his missed class), and to show the intersection with "war".

[marct]

Hi WM,

Another way of understanding the problem is that Gentile has made a category mistake

Agreed. Personally, I prefer the use of fuzzy sets rather than crisp sets since they appear to be more reflective of human thought and characterization - "reality" if you will - but I believe that his argument is flawed in both.

Regarding the use of paradox, I submit that when one finds paradoxes in one's explanation that means that one's explanation is not as reflective of the truth (defined here as corresponding to reality) as one would like to believe. Additionally, paradoxes indicate that the truth of one's explanation (truth now defined as coherence, or the "hanging together" of the explanatory story one tells with other beliefs one holds) is not quite as likely as it could be.

I'm not sure I agree with you on this - it may be reflective of linguistic limitations pertaining to mapping reality. Still and all, that's a subject that probably needs a long discussion with lots of potables . On the other hand, I would note that there is a difference between using a paradox as an explanatory mechanism vs. using a paradox as an operational mechanism designed to shift perceptions so that a different mapping structure can be perceived (a point Gentile also misses IMO). The paradoxes in FM 3-24 are, to my mind, koans designed to induce a cognitive dissonance with "regular warfighting" perceptions. As such, I don't see them as explanatory paradoxes but, rather, as operational ones. I do agree with you that the use of paradoxes for internal explanation (coherence - your second definition of truth) is a danger sign.

Pointing out paradoxes in an explanation, in my experience, is most useful for rejecting that explanation's logical and practical efficacy. In other words, finding paradoxes in one's theory of how to counter an insurgency successfully would indicate that the theory might not be as good as one expects in achieving the desired results on a more universal scale.This is because as one expands the cases to be explained, more things come up that cause "disconnects" (or paradoxes) within one's explnatory schema.

Agreed. In fairness, though, all nomenological deductive theories are prone to this problem - it's an inherent attribute of mapping limitations. What is important, at the operational level or application level is whether or not the theory can "satisfice" in much the same manner as Newtonian physics works quite nicely below .3c. I think Ted's example of the "meaning" of tactical success is a good example of that.

[wm]

Hi WM,
I would note that there is a difference between using a paradox as an explanatory mechanism vs. using a paradox as an operational mechanism designed to shift perceptions so that a different mapping structure can be perceived (a point Gentile also misses IMO). The paradoxes in FM 3-24 are, to my mind, koans designed to induce a cognitive dissonance with "regular warfighting" perceptions. As such, I don't see them as explanatory paradoxes but, rather, as operational ones.

R. G. Collingwood described an interesting phenomenon in explanations that he called the Fallacy of Swapping Horses (as in "you can't swap horses in the middle of a stream.") I have no qualms about your distinction as long as we remember to keep astride of the same "horse of paradox" as that mounted by the author. The koan comparison is extremely apt IMO. I think we might also call out your use of paradox as a sub-category of cognitive dissonance. Your thoughts?

[Steve Blair]

I'd be curious to see what he has to say regarding what's been posted to date.

That said, I'm also curious as to why there is such a rush to both ignore the heritage of 3-24 and to attempt to have the Army repeat its past mistakes when it comes to COIN. 3-24 is in many ways a direct descendant of the USCM Small Wars Manual, and that clearly didn't damage the Marines' ability to conduct conventional operations. One the reasons 3-24 was needed was the rush to discard lessons learned in Vietnam (and elsewhere)...so in a certain sense the wheel needed to be invented again. I honestly don't think this is a "one or the other" proposition, and attempts to make it so (by either side) really damage the value of what's in 3-24.

[marct]

Hi WM,

R. G. Collingwood described an interesting phenomenon in explanations that he called the Fallacy of Swapping Horses (as in "you can't swap horses in the middle of a stream.") I have no qualms about your distinction as long as we remember to keep astride of the same "horse of paradox" as that mounted by the author. The koan comparison is extremely apt IMO. I think we might also call out your use of paradox as a sub-category of cognitive dissonance. Your thoughts?

Good point. I'm not sure I would call it a sub-category of CD; more of a technology designed to produce CD. Then again, I tend to view symbolic manipulation as a technology, at least in the sense used by Ellul.

One of the more interesting observations about the way paradox operates in religion, and I'm appalled to admit the reference has dropped out of my mind , is that paradoxes are crucial for religions but that the resolution of any paradox will shift the further that you work your way into the religion. I think that the same might apply in a COIN situation. Sorry, I'm looping back to the crisp vs. fuzzy distinction here. "War" has, at least on and off for the past 300 years or so, been a relatively crisp set - well defined rules, protocols, etc. Insurgency and Counter-insurgency, on the other hand, comprise a much more fuzzy set - sometimes "war", sometimes not. I would suspect that the "paradoxes" of "war" in the formal, crisp sense, are both well understood, mapped out and routinized within military institutions, while those of insurgency - counterinsurgency are not. This might explain the hysteresis effect on military institutions during peacetime.

Anyway, that's for another discussion sometime...

I'd be curious to see what he has to say regarding what's been posted to date.

I am too.

[Jedburgh]

I'd be curious to see what he has to say regarding what's been posted to date.....

Here's another view of Gentile's perspective on COIN:

....I went to this event at the Heritage Foundation this morning, titled "When Do You Know You're Winning? Combating Insurgencies - Past, Present, and Future." You can watch video or listen to the mp3 of it yourself if you want to - everything was on the record....

...the truly alarming thing was LTC Gian Gentile's presentation. LTC Gentile commanded a battalion in Baghdad up until a few weeks ago and is now a professor at West Point. He gave a rundown of the metrics he used. I'll list them in the order he presented them, which according to him is the order of importance:

Security:
- Body count (which he acknowledged as "backwards" but justified by referencing some Eliot Cohen article in 2006 that argued "counterinsurgency is still war, and war's essential element is fighting")
- Number of times he is attacked (he wants it to be as low as possible)
- Number of dead bodies found on the street
- Sectarian makeup of Iraqi units he's partnered with
- Number of local tips he gets
- Number of enemy captured

Governance:
- Opening shops on the main street
- Keeping useful local leaders alive
- "Normal" activity of people
- Willingness of Sunnis to travel across Baghdad
- Essential services, employment levels

These seem to be great metrics if your first priority is leaving Iraq with as many soldiers as possible, with little regard to the situation you are leaving to the guys relieving you. It is conducive to holing up in your Forward Operating Base and leaving only to react to events. There is no mention of the local political situation that the security situation is supposed to be oriented around. Furthermore he has as "metrics" things which aren't even nominally under his control, such as the makeup of Iraqi units and the willingness of Sunnis to travel in other commanders' Areas of Responsibility. His emphasis on body count as his primary metric was especially depressing - supposedly we had learned that was a poor metric back in Vietnam (and probably earlier).

LTC Gentile did say some useful things however - he pointed out that the situation can't be measured by quantifiable variables, and that gut feeling and judgment are the overriding variables, and that progress should be presented in a narrative form rather than through graphs, etc. However I was left with a fair amount of questions...

Bolded phrase reflects an aspect of the reported brief that is identical to the article currently under discussion.

[Gian P Gentile]

Clearly I have struck a nerve in many of the readers of this blog. I will say up front that at least I reply to criticisms made of what I have to say when others of more fame and fortune than I and of rock star status clearly see themselves above the fray of this blog.

Admittedly this piece was written in evocative and impressionistic form. That is to say I wrote this piece from the premise of how the coin’s paradoxes appeared to me when I read it at the end of my combat tour in command of a combat battalion in west-baghdad in 2006.

I must have missed the class as Dr Tyrell states and I never really did get Foucault or Derrida because for the life of me I don’t get what he is telling me. I guess I just must be slow. No matter, I will restate my impression of the coin manual’s paradoxes when I was in combat in Iraq and based on reflection upon my return: my impression was that the paradoxes removed the essence of war which is fighting. You might disagree with what I have to say but I think the logic is pretty clear.

Reference Dr Metz’s implication that I am stuck in the old “cold war mindset” I suggest that he along with so many other experts are the ones stuck in a box. He like so many others are a part of the great narrative that has been constructed on US involvement in iraq. It goes something like the army didn’t’ take coin seriously before the war and because of that the army has screwed up iraq. But happily with the help of experts and some enlightened thinkers within the active army we have now finally figured out how to do it; aka the surge. I argue that this entire construct is flawed. That by and large the American army has done pretty well in Iraq—even prior to the surge--with the strategic and political cards it was dealt. My article in fact threatens the intellectual base of the new coin doctrine because it calls its basic theoretical premises into question. Counterinsurgency war is not “armed social science” as Kilkullen has called it. Instead at its basic level is violence and death; this was my impression after a year in Baghdad.

As for Jedburg’s mean statement that I was hunkered down in a fob I point him to a recent oped piece that I had published in Army Times on that subject. He could also ask any number of 4 star generals on down to the lowest private in my squadron if I “got it” and new how to do coin. And finally, he might try asking other commanders who lost soldiers what their priorities were. I know what I said at that Heritage panel did not fit in with what the coin experts believe actual coin ops should be like, but again my impression of counterinsurgency warfare is that fighting is its basic element and so killing and not being killed were my top priorities. So go ahead Jedburg and ask people who knew of me and I trust you will not get the profile back that you have created on me.

I will pose a counterfactual again that I posted last week on this blog: If the army had read books like Nagl’s before the war and trained and taken seriously coin operations would things be any different in iraq than they are now? If the army had focused predominantly on coin prior to 2003 would the march to Baghdad gone the same way?

In my mind FM3-24 has become the army’s primary operational doctrine, and to its detriment. It has pushed us into doing things that make no sense to me: like arming the enemy of the government that we support; like dogmatically using the tactics of combat outposts in areas where other methods might be better but we do this because a French officer had success with them in the mountains of Algeria in 1958.

I think the coin doctrine has merit and can work under certain conditions; like French Algeria in the late 50s or El Salvador in the 1980s. But Civil War iraq in 2007? What we need is fresh thinking on how to operate there but the seduction of FM 3-24 in our army has pushed us into dogmatism.

One last point. A good friend of mine who was closely involved with the rebuilding of the army and its intellectual base after Vietnam told me recently that prior to its 1986 publication FM 100-5 had at least 110 articles written about it in the years leading up to its publication that fundamentally questioned its theoretical premises. How many articles written in Military Review, Parameters, etc have fundamentally questioned our new coin doctrine? Only a few.

If you want to read a quality piece written by another combat battalion commander read LTC Ross Brown’s recent article in Military Review on his experience in Iraq in 2005. Or ask some of our infantry leaders currently serving in Anbar if they are using FM 3-24 as their operational guide or the older FM 90-8 on counter guerilla operations.

To repeat, war is not “armed social science,” though many of you may want it to be.

[Gian P Gentile]

I am not in a rush to ignore FM3-24; in fact in my “Eating Soup…” piece I say up front that its middle chapters are relevant and useful to senior commanders in Iraq. My critique of the manual was directed at its paradoxes in the first chapter. I based my critique on my impression of the paradoxes after a year of combat as a tactical battalion in Iraq. My impression expressed in the form of a critique argued that the paradoxes removed the reality of war—which at its most basic level is fighting—from the manual.

Understandably with this critique I questioned the theoretical and underlying premises of the Coin doctrine. I also argued at the end of the piece that the influence of the new Coin doctrine has pushed the Army into dogmatism in its current operational approach in Iraq.

I believe that FM3-24 has become the defacto operational doctrine of the United States Army and it has not been questioned or seriously debated as such. I do believe that what we are seeing is unique with the American Army. This Coin doctrine has become so overriding that it now prescribes action. In short, it has moved beyond the accepted definition that doctrine is authoritative but requires judgment in action to the point where it determines future action. As I have already argued in a previous posting I believe that the Surge and many of its tactics and methods are an example of our dogmatism run wild. Ironically during the Cold War Soviet Officers used to quip that they didn’t need to understand American Army doctrine because the American Army never followed it anyway. Now, ironically, one can argue the opposite. Want to know what the Americans are going to do? Just read FM3-24.

As far as your comment of not wanting to have the army repeat “its past mistakes from Vietnam” I couldn’t agree with you more which is why I have been thinking and writing about this topic. But brace yourself here: it is not me who is repeating these past mistakes but you. The mistakes from Vietnam as you imply were that the American Army became so consumed with conventional warfighting that they ditched and refused to consider problems of unorthodox war. Well, inversely, as I see it that is what we are doing now with Coin and to our detriment. I know this idea does not go over well with many because so called Coin experts and practitioners after being pushed to the sidelines during the Cold War now are enjoying their place in the sun and anything that challenges and questions their dominance is attacked.

Onward social science warriors….

[slapout9]

Sir,(LTC. Gentile) What would you recomned as a COA for Iraq?

[Steve Blair]

As far as your comment of not wanting to have the army repeat “its past mistakes from Vietnam” I couldn’t agree with you more which is why I have been thinking and writing about this topic. But brace yourself here: it is not me who is repeating these past mistakes but you. The mistakes from Vietnam as you imply were that the American Army became so consumed with conventional warfighting that they ditched and refused to consider problems of unorthodox war. Well, inversely, as I see it that is what we are doing now with Coin and to our detriment. I know this idea does not go over well with many because so called Coin experts and practitioners after being pushed to the sidelines during the Cold War now are enjoying their place in the sun and anything that challenges and questions their dominance is attacked.

Onward social science warriors….

I still fail to see where you can find a precedent for COIN replacing the sort of warfare that the Army has always preferred to prepare for. Training was reoriented during Vietnam, as was a certain level of doctrine (the level depended on the branch in question), but all that was quickly phased out as soon as the conflict ended. If memory serves the real peak for such training came in 1968-69, and most lessons had faded by 1975 or so. I have seen little to convince me that the same thing will not happen again. After all, we were "surprised" by Somalis using RPGs against helicopters...

If the political objectives of the United States call for the Army to be involved in COIN frequently (which is very possible given the number of failed states and the looming creation of AFRICOM), then at least some percentage of war preparation should be directed to that end...and not just a token 10% or so. That's just responsible planning.