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

[Rob Thornton]

Let me draw out one, specific, SFA example, by way of bringing the talk back to Rob's original post. In FM 3-07-1, there is a really brilliant observation that says:

Quote:
2-1. ....Soldiers conducting SFA must also understand that legitimacy is vital. The relevant population (itlaics added by Rob) must perceive FSF as legitimate for long-term success.

What, and this is not a rhetorical question, is going to be done if the FSF is perceived by the local populace as illegitimate or as a "necessary evil"? This is why I have been harping on the Grand Strategic level stuff, since how those principles are constructed will impact on how an SFA mission deals with problems of FSF legitimacy.

Not to be cheeky - but the open door was the use of the word relevant. The cold answer wrt to legitmacy and how it affects sustainability may be one of having the will or means to resist. This is also why our intial defintion of SFA was broad, but specifically said it was done in support of a legitmate authority (it did not say whose criteria of legitmacy - however since its the application of U.S. forces and resources - we should assume that we've at least partially accepted their legitimacy - or can tolerate it until conditions change through process)

Now - not everyone wants our help, or in some cases to be known that we are helping them. This may require an approach where we support the development of capabilities or capacities in others who are tolerable and are themselves willing to help if they where able. Since most authorities don't have allot of excess capacity their willingness is often tied to their ability. There are a couple of things to consider here as well- first, the increased capacity to help others needs to be considered against the partner's ability to sustain it - second, an increase in capability and capacity may upset the regional dynamics (back to the Athenian) that must be addressed as part of a regional strategy. I think all of these things require a broader strategic outlook both in terms of the range of USG policy tools, and in terms of geographic and temporal perspective. BTW - never forget our tendency to act in the moment of political interest on the domestic political front.

Having said all of the above - it should be done with consideration of how it supports U.S. interests. This is not a band-aid application to fix the world, but to advance our interests - particularly where our interests and those of others overlap.

Hope that at least partially opens the door for further discussion on your question - it would also be the first few slides I sent you last night.

Best, Rob

[slapout9]

Well sh..t,where do I start. Bob's World, What causes the cause? A person, and a person always has a motive. Until you understand that you can not prepare a Strategy to succeed. Not only that but you must have a good counter-motive to gain support for your side of things. So your objective should be to de-motivate the insurgency population(focus on their leadership). From there you can look for opportunities and select your methods. And Security Force Operations would have to play a big part in that in order to allow some type of civilized transition.

Rob, all your SFA stuff is sound, my concern is a good tool will get all bent up and stuff if it is not applied inside a proper Strategic setting. The US often gets absorbed with a new tool and wants to use it all the time and everywhere and ignores the initial hard questions that need to be asked and answered. Why are they fighting us? and why should we be fighting them?
I will shut up now

PS. I didn't get any slides last night

[Rob Thornton]

regardless of the tool
Slap observed:

.. my concern is a good tool will get all bent up and stuff if it is not applied inside a proper Strategic setting. The US often gets absorbed with a new tool and wants to use it all the time and everywhere and ignores the initial hard questions that need to be asked and answered. Why are they fighting us? and why should we be fighting them?

I agree 100%. No policy tool should be a panacea for what ails ya! I think design, if done with the overarching policy OBJ in mind will shake that out. SFA as a force employment concept to support an end must be done in the strategic and operational context. What I've tried to convey here (and Slap I'll ask Bill and Dave to see if we can iether post the slides here on the thread, or a hyper link to somewhere they can post them - even the PDF is too big) is that if your overall operational design to achieve the policy objective requires you to support the development of sustainable capability and capacity in a FSF, then using design to help lay out your SFA LOE is a good way to go because it generally occurs over a broader period of time, its has consequences beyond the immediate, it probably requires a whole of government approach (authorities, support, contingent development, etc.) and it allows the operational commander to forecast requirements over a broad period of time which support force development and generation - thus keeping us flexible, adaptive and more in balance.

I'd go back to Celeste Ward's piece that was put up on the SWJ Blog about COIN - the means and ways must be feasible, appropriate and suitable to the objective. As conditions and objectives change then so may the requirments, the approach required and the capabilities to enable it. Unfortunately our nature is to look for templates and organizational solutions that are programable (and I'd argue risk aversive) vs. doing the leader development and education that would make us adaptive as institutions. Human nature would seem to be prone to ossification of position (the inevitable Kung-Fu stance in the rice bowl).

One of the reasons I've made it clear I believe SFA is fundamentally a developmental activity (develop sustainable capacity and capability) is to highlight its not to be taken as lightly. Developmental work is hard, and requires a significant commitment of means and will that is subject to the conditions.

In some cases such as Afghanistan, SFA has been identified (by CENTCOM) as one LOE which supports the overarching policy OBJ. Now in light of that comment, and the other commitments we are currently either undertaking or considering undertaking, this equates to some significant capability and capacity to organize, train, equip, rebuild/build and advise to develop the Afghan secuirty forces ability to generate, employ and sustain itself to a point that it supports denial of safehavens to transnational extremists. This is not just about their ability to physically deny terrain to those extremists, but about the things that the denial of terrain (in all its forms) facillitates.

I'd submit that this is operational theory - with some factual precedence - that must be proven or disproven in the current set of conditions (which is something design supports). It is also the regional CDR's approach, and as such the supporting instituions should fully support it as much as possible - this does not preclude them from identifying institutional risk (I don't think they should get a vote on operational risk - not their job) which jeapordizes their Title 10 responsibilties (note - I did not say their authorities)

Wrt AfPak (and Iraq) - it would seem this is going to be around for awhile (unless we abandon the objective, or decide to accept the risk of a different approach - all approaches have risks). In all cases I don't think its the job of the services (or the functional COCOMs) to tell the operational commanders what their requirements are - although it would seem that there are those who disagree, or that it sometimes winds up being the case because the requirements are poorly articualted, because of politics or fears (both legitimate and not), or because a desired capability was simply not on the menu - "cheeburger, cheeburger, cheeburger - no Pepsi - Coke!"

We've got to get better at fully meeting the operational commander's requirements withthe desired capabilities. The right road to efficiency is through becoming more effective in our policies, programs and planning - not through adhoc processes and waiting for Godot.

Slap - I'll also send via email the slides - keep in mind they are a "functional design" only. The full up would be built around much greater context wrt the broader operational design and the knowledge which supports it.

Best, Rob

[Rob Thornton]

Marc - good points!

I think that one of the more relevant examples is the 13 colonies and the use of foreign SFA (the Hessians) against the Colonials during their (your ) insurgency against the globally recognized, legitimate government.

I would not characterize the use of the Hessians during the RW as SFA. The employment of a FSF is a differnet matter (although it must eb considered). If GB had gone over to support the development of the Hessians by organizing, training, equipping, rebuilding or advising in order to create sustainable capability and capacity, that would be SFA. But the moment the they were then employed as a military force it soudl no longer be SFA. The exception might be if Britich advisors remained throughout for the continued purpose of increasing capability in the Hessian war fighting functions. Does that make sense?

The actual use of the Hessians would fall into the use of a foreign force to augment your own capabilities and capacities.

I think what I am really getting at with these points is that SFA is both a "military" mission and, at the same time, a "political" mission. The military may be given broad political guidance (and constraints), but the planning for that mission - its design - must include the political component as, in some ways, co-equal with the training component. BTW, I am using am using "political" in the sense of "lived reality vs rhetoric" rather than any formal political system

I agree with you, but would point out that as the prussion would say, there is always a political component to the use of military means (even in the way you are using it - good thing about Von C is his intellecutal branches provide allot of shade). However, I'd say that it is emphasized here for many of the reasons you illuminate. This idea is something we should emphasize when contemplating leader development and education - and training. Politics are ultimately are the real interaction of people subject to desires and conditions.

Red Teaming is good - makes us smart.

Best, Rob

[Bob's World]

Well sh..t,where do I start. Bob's World, What causes the cause? A person, and a person always has a motive. Until you understand that you can not prepare a Strategy to succeed. Not only that but you must have a good counter-motive to gain support for your side of things. So your objective should be to de-motivate the insurgency population(focus on their leadership). From there you can look for opportunities and select your methods. And Security Force Operations would have to play a big part in that in order to allow some type of civilized transition.

Ok, what do I mean by that? I think one good example lies within the American Revolution. Arguably one could state that "The Cause" was independence from England.

But what caused this diverse collection of colonies to unite to this common and dangerous end? Certainly there were motivating factors, such as the works of Thomas Paine, or the events in the Massachusetts Colony. But before that, what factors of causation were at work that allowed such words and actions to move a collection of individual people, and individual colonies to move as a body to throw off British rule?

I believe there are many sources of causation. One major one in this case was the simple fact that British citizens who lived in England looked down upon British citizens who lived in the colonies as somehow inferior. From what I have read this was taken as (if anyone would have even thought to ask) "of course they are inferior!" in England. But in the colonies, be it a man of means, education, and accomplishment like George Washington, denied admission to the British Regular Army due to his "status"; or a simple farmer, owning and working a plot of land that may well have qualified him for some minor title back in England; saw this as an outrage. And upon such festering sores of causation fell the cold slaps of motivation. And an insurgency is born. First of words, and then of works.

England did not need to send the most powerful Navy and Army in the world to solve this problem. A simple letter of apology and recognition of full righths of citizenship from the King would have nipped it in the bud.

But then, Kings don't do that, do they. Wouldn't be proper.

[slapout9]

Cable outage but am back now. BW this may be a chicken or the egg question. I am sure you think you proved your point.....but I think you proved mine and hear is why. If you trace it back to the beginning, as you did, you get a person with a motive. The King and his desire for power. The reason I push this is I think this fits in with your Population Centric Based Solution.

Example a bad or unjust law caused the rebellion....who created the law!!! You have to deal with that or as you point out the revolution will just smolder and eventually resurface when another cause (triggering method)appears because the motivated person is still there and may want revenge. Where their is a will there is a way. So the objective has to be to somehow de-motivate the person(s) hopefully through nonviolent methods but might not turn out that way.

Again I think this is critacal because as you pointed out( maybe on this or another thread) is why insurgencies take to long and costs to much......which is one of my pet rocks,

[Rob Thornton]

I'd made mention of these earlier. Here is the link to the UNCLASS functional design guide that came out of our support to OSD PA&E. Keep in mind this was done outside the context of the larger campaign design in the interests of illustrating a methodology for functional design. Ideally, the design would be informed by the assessment methodology (organizational/Operational Environment/Institutional) which would tell you what the required capabilities were in light of the conditions and objectives.

Note- the terms BSC (Build Security Capacity) was one used by PA&E. It is not a doctrinal term - but was useful in terms of its function.

Anyway after sending them to Marc and Slap, I thought it worthwhile to bring them up. The first few slides get after identifying the correct problem, and in establishing a design framework to postulate a theory.

Best, Rob

[marct]

Hi Folks,

Sorry for the delay in responding, but the past couple od days have been nuts!

Rob, I think you're right that the Hessians where not SFA per se, although if I remember correctly (the book I got this from years ago isn't available), they were involved in some training or, at least, cadre activities for Loyalist militia units.

Bob's World made an interesting point:

England did not need to send the most powerful Navy and Army in the world to solve this problem. A simple letter of apology and recognition of full righths of citizenship from the King would have nipped it in the bud.

Just as a matter of historical fact, the King couldn't do this.... at least in practice; this was a matter for Parliament. On the issue of 2nd (or 3rd!) class citizens, you are pretty much correct, but I'm not sure how important that actually was. A ket emotional motivator, surely, but a primary cause? Hmmm, I don't think so. BTW, the reason why I say that is that there is the rather complex example of Quebec not revolting during that time.

Where I think there are immediate lessons we can pick up is in the structures of governance; they also become crucial when we look at Upper and Lower Canada in the 19th century and, also, latter on in the other colonies that become Dominions. The evolution of socio-political thinking around governance in the 19th century, at least in Britain and the Empire, is truly fascinating - a model that really fits the currently trendy phrase of "Think Globally, Act Locally".

Part of the reason why I like to go back to the American Revolution / War of Independance is that it is one of the earliest and, in some ways, a prototype for, later revolutionary movements. We can see, at least in seed form, many of the later developments that, strangely enough, we are still struggling with: mass produced, local media (aka cheap printing presses), guerilla warfare, terrorist tactics (on all sides), and perhaps most importantly, the key to winning the conflict - it's centre of gravity - lying outside the theatre of operations (London and, to a lesser extent, Paris - shades of the Cold War!).

So, let me toss out a question.... In terms of SFA/FID operations, how would people classify (or conceive of) the French activities in that war?

[Bob's World]

Hi Folks,

Sorry for the delay in responding, but the past couple od days have been nuts!

Rob, I think you're right that the Hessians where not SFA per se, although if I remember correctly (the book I got this from years ago isn't available), they were involved in some training or, at least, cadre activities for Loyalist militia units.

Bob's World made an interesting point:


Just as a matter of historical fact, the King couldn't do this.... at least in practice; this was a matter for Parliament. On the issue of 2nd (or 3rd!) class citizens, you are pretty much correct, but I'm not sure how important that actually was. A ket emotional motivator, surely, but a primary cause? Hmmm, I don't think so. BTW, the reason why I say that is that there is the rather complex example of Quebec not revolting during that time.

Where I think there are immediate lessons we can pick up is in the structures of governance; they also become crucial when we look at Upper and Lower Canada in the 19th century and, also, latter on in the other colonies that become Dominions. The evolution of socio-political thinking around governance in the 19th century, at least in Britain and the Empire, is truly fascinating - a model that really fits the currently trendy phrase of "Think Globally, Act Locally".

Part of the reason why I like to go back to the American Revolution / War of Independance is that it is one of the earliest and, in some ways, a prototype for, later revolutionary movements. We can see, at least in seed form, many of the later developments that, strangely enough, we are still struggling with: mass produced, local media (aka cheap printing presses), guerilla warfare, terrorist tactics (on all sides), and perhaps most importantly, the key to winning the conflict - it's centre of gravity - lying outside the theatre of operations (London and, to a lesser extent, Paris - shades of the Cold War!).

So, let me toss out a question.... In terms of SFA/FID operations, how would people classify (or conceive of) the French activities in that war?

Marc we have a similar understanding, but coming from different perspectives draw different conclusions.

As to the French and British, clearly the American Revolution was a side show, an opportunity for the French to seek an advantage in their long competition with England. If London or Paris were a COG, it would only have been so for France or England, certainly not for the Colonists. Important in that, as I say, soldiers do not start or end wars, merely fight them. Is the peace process then a COG? No, not a source of all strength and power. More a critical requirement. You need that treaty to "end" the conflict, but not a COG.

As to the French role. Neither FID nor SFA. If anything it was UW. The American populace broke into two camps: Loyalists and Rebels. He who is the current legitimate government and works with the loyalist populace is conducting FID/SFA. He who is the outsider seeking to influence the revolution to support his own selfish ends is conducting UW. France conducted UW. England conducted FID/SFA.

[marct]

Hey Rob,

Not to be cheeky - but the open door was the use of the word relevant. The cold answer wrt to legitmacy and how it affects sustainability may be one of having the will or means to resist. This is also why our intial defintion of SFA was broad, but specifically said it was done in support of a legitmate authority (it did not say whose criteria of legitmacy - however since its the application of U.S. forces and resources - we should assume that we've at least partially accepted their legitimacy - or can tolerate it until conditions change through process)

I think you know that I don't disagree with your assessment . Let me tease out a few points that, I believe, are relevant though...

Legitimacy re: "will to resist". Quite true but, and I'm noting this using an historical stance, in most cases that tends to backfire down the road unless the US is willing to incorporate the area into its body politic. Political deals may well be ramable down another state (or groups) throat, but there has to be some appearance of "hope" for a better world down the line. A couple of examples of where this has "worked" are the Confederacy, Hawaii, Japan and Germany, but the lessons of the Italian War (1st century bc) really need to be kept in mind. And, BTW, that is assuming that we are talking about the USG operating in the national interest rather than in the interests of, say, an American oil company (or Dole for that manner - think the Banana Wars...).

On legitimacy re: the USG, that can get a touch problematic as well if the "State" recognized by the USG is not recognized by the people living within its borders. I think that one of the more relevant examples is the 13 colonies and the use of foreign SFA (the Hessians) against the Colonials during their (your ) insurgency against the globally recognized, legitimate government.

I think what I am really getting at with these points is that SFA is both a "military" mission and, at the same time, a "political" mission. The military may be given broad political guidance (and constraints), but the planning for that mission - its design - must include the political component as, in some ways, co-equal with the training component. BTW, I am using am using "political" in the sense of "lived reality vs rhetoric" rather than any formal political system (a "population-centric" usage, Gian ).

Hope that at least partially opens the door for further discussion on your question - it would also be the first few slides I sent you last night.

Yup, it does. I hope you realize that I am Red Teaming your stuff ! And thanks for the slides. I didn't have a chance to get to them last night, but I've blocked out some time this evening to go over them.