Some recent odds and ends in the MSM related to counterinsurgency...
Crane Predicted Iraq Problems – Alex Roarty, Carlisle Sentinel
An architect of current U.S. military policy in Iraq says that despite recent success by U.S. forces the country still has many challenges to overcome before becoming stable.
Conrad Crane, a historian and author of the recently published U.S. Army manual “Counterinsurgency,” told a crowd of Dickinson College students and professors Wednesday that Iraq has shown progress in several regions.
“But does that mean we’ve gotten over the hump?” said Crane, a retired Army lieutenant colonel. “No.”
Crane, who is also the director of the Military History Institute at the U.S. Army War College and an adjunct professor at Dickinson, spoke at the 26th annual Pflaum Lecture in front of a packed room of nearly 150 people.
Whether the recent steps toward stability can be maintained after an inevitable troop reduction, probably starting early next year, remains to be seen, Crane said.
But he cautioned that if U.S. forces withdraw from Iraq and leave a vacuum of power, the military might have to return in several years. Because of its vast oil reserves, he said, what happens in Iraq will affect the United States even after it withdraws troops from the country.
“This isn’t Vietnam,” Crane said. “If something happens in Iraq, it will affect us.” …
New Rules of War – Jacksonville Times-Union
Fighting the Iraq war has more to do with civilians than the military.
Second, it means that the military cannot win the war simply by killing insurgents. The main priority must be securing the civilian population.
Those are some of the admittedly radical conclusions of the new Counterinsurgency Field Manual, the textbook for the current surge in the Iraq war.
The manual has been influential in changing U.S. strategy in the war.
There has been so much interest that there were over 2 million downloads in the first two months it was available on the Internet.
Available in book form from the University of Chicago Press, it opens with several blunt and controversial passages:
Not prepared: The U.S. military was not prepared for the insurgency in Iraq because it failed to internalize the lessons in Vietnam and concentrated, instead, on fighting a conventional war. The problem is, American enemies decided not to participate in conventional battles they were sure to lose.
Limiting firepower: America's overwhelming firepower can be turned against itself by luring the military to overreact, thus creating multiple insurgents for every one killed…
No Consensus on Iraqi Counterinsurgency - Oxford Analytica via Forbes
Since the Iraq war began, there have been significant military concerns about the capacity of U.S. forces to respond resourcefully to the challenges of counterinsurgency warfare. Within the uniformed U.S. military, a fissure may have opened up between mid-ranking and senior officers over the best tactical and strategic responses.
Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld rebuffed U.S. Army leaders in 2002, when they expressed concern that an insufficient number of troops were being allocated for the occupation of Iraq. The generals' failure to gain adequate forces was just one aspect of a broadening debate over how well the U.S. military responds to challenges, both foreseen and unforeseen:
--Hindrance of innovation? The armed forces' hierarchical organization, with its embedded career structures and promotional patterns, may not encourage innovative approaches--particularly from officers with senior ranking. Each conflict presents new strategic and tactical challenges, which require novel approaches.
--Generational divide. Generational differences manifest across the current middle and senior officer ranks. Many high-ranking military officers served either at the tail end of the Vietnam War or not at all, while many mid-ranking officers have now served several tours of duty in Iraq. This has led to a situation in which many company and field-grade officers have more direct combat experience than their commanders.
The U.S. armed forces have historically encountered problems driving change within the officer corps, which may offer lessons pertinent to the present situation. One of the most wrenching internal changes adopted by the military was racial integration. The U.S. armed forces are now cited as a superior model of integration, relative to the private sector. However, this positive transformation took more than 30 years to fully realize…
America Should Hire al-Qaeda’s PR Agent - Matt Armstrong, Good Magazine
Iraq has become a stage on which terrorists, insurgents, and Coalition forces compete for a global audience. YouTube, blogs, and all other forms of citizen media ensure that every GI Joe and Jihadi has at least a bit part in the theater of public opinion. The result is a new public diplomacy that insurgents understand, and the U.S. State Department doesn’t.
Today, bullets and bombs often have a much smaller impact than the propaganda opportunities they create--opportunities to influence public opinion and build public support. For the insurgents, the most common weapon of strategic influence is the improvised explosive device. Tactically, IEDs force the military to be more defensive and less accessible to the Iraqi population. The actual death of Coalition Forces from IEDs is secondary to their utility as propaganda. IEDs simply cannot kill enough personnel to reduce or eliminate American operational capabilities. Instead, they give the world the perception that Iraq is explosive. They are also used in insurgent recruiting all over the Middle East. An Islamic version of the story of David and Goliath, IED videos posted on YouTube and elsewhere are the new “war porn.” Whereas Americans are addicted to grainy green images of high-tech bombs raining down on the enemy, insurgent supporters prefer images of grassroots combat that sticks it to the Man...
Analysis: Troops Cuts Won't Change Role – Robert Burns, Associated Press
If as expected President Bush cuts the number of U.S. combat brigades in Iraq by 25 percent by next summer, that will not necessarily mean less fighting for the troops who remain.
Their numbers may shrink, but their role will not.
The Americans are likely to perform the same mission — leading the fight against the insurgency — at least through next year, in part because Iraq's army is nowhere near being ready to take over that job.
And although parts of the insurgency took a beating this summer in parts of Baghdad where extra U.S. troops began operating, the militants have shown they are too much for the Iraqis to handle on their own…
Army is doing the Thinking – George Will, Cincinnati Post
Officers studying at the Army War College walk the ground at nearby Gettysburg where Pickett's men walked across an open field under fire. They wonder, how did Confederate officers get men to do that? The lesson: Men can be led to places they cannot be sent.
Today's officers lead an Army that was sent into Iraq in 2003 and by 2004 the operation became, as an officer here says, "a deployment in search of a mission." Since then, missions have multiplied. Today's is to make possible an exit strategy. Gen. David Petraeus' Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual says counterinsurgency's primary objective is to secure the civilian population rather than destroy the enemy. This inevitably involves the military in organizing civil society, a task that demands skill sets that are scarce throughout the government and have not hitherto been, and perhaps should not be, central to military training and doctrine. Nevertheless, the War College is coming to grips with the fact that what soldiers call "nonkinetic" - meaning nonviolent - facets of their profession are, in Iraq, perhaps 80 percent of their profession…
America's New Weapons are Anthropologists – David Rhode, New York Times / Sydney Morning Herald
In an isolated Taliban stronghold in the Shabak Valley in eastern Afghanistan, American paratroopers are fielding what they regard as a crucial new weapon in counter-insurgency operations here: a civilian anthropologist named Tracy.
Tracy, who asked that her surname not be used, is a member of the first Human Terrain Team, an experimental Pentagon program that assigns anthropologists to US combat units in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The architect of the strategy is the Australian David Kilcullen, a former US State Department adviser now working for the commander of US forces in Iraq, General David Petraeus. Kilcullen calls Tracy's job "armed social work".
The ability of her team to understand subtle aspects of tribal relations - in one case spotting a land dispute that allowed the Taliban to bully sections of a major tribe - is winning the praise of officers on the ground.
Colonel Martin Schweitzer, the commander of the 82nd Airborne Division unit in Afghanistan, said its combat operations had been reduced by 60 per cent since the social scientists arrived in February, and soldiers were now able to focus more on improving security, health care and education for the population.
"We're looking at this from a human perspective," he said. "We're not focused on the enemy. We're focused on bringing governance down to the people." …
Efforts to Aid US Roil Anthropology - Bryan Bender, Boston Globe
A new project in which university anthropologists study tribal customs in Iraq and Afghanistan for the US military has prompted a fierce backlash among academics, some of whom accuse their colleagues of engaging in a wartime effort that violates their professional ethics.
The handful of anthropologists working with so-called human terrain teams designed to help commanders navigate the cultural thickets of both countries are being accused of "prostituting science" and presiding over the "militarization of anthropology," the study of the social practices and cultural origins of humans.
Internet blogs oppose the project, urging "anthropologists of the world, unite!" Academic journal articles with titles such as "Anthropologists as Spies" criticize the efforts. And some of the scientists under attack fear they could be blackballed by their profession.
Felix Moos, who has been an anthropology professor at the University of Kansas for 47 years, is helping train the human terrain teams at nearby Fort Leavenworth. Colleagues who oppose his actions have called him a "killer for hire." …
Military Anthropology - Emmarie Huetteman, The Michigan Daily
Step aside, ROTC. Anthropologists are the military's newest recruits, and we don't even have to wake up early for calisthenics.
Last month, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates expanded a military program that assigns social scientists to combat units in Afghanistan and Iraq for the sake of helping them to better understand the population. The $40-million boost was a vote of confidence in the program, which has illuminated problems and solutions in the Middle East since its creation in late 2003. Since the expansion, there are now six total teams of anthropologists and social scientists in Baghdad - as opposed to the one team that was there before.
It's about time.
From the moment we realized that the war in Iraq wasn't going our way, the desire for diplomacy has increasingly permeated the American psyche. Just saying we're there for the sake of "winning the hearts and minds" of the people obviously doesn't mean much to Iraqis or Arabs when we look more like an armed occupying force. However, with the assignment of these anthropological teams to Iraq, America almost looks like it has finally figured out how to handle foreign affairs intelligently…
Mercenaries vs. Counterinsurgency – Mario Loyola, National Review
Last week’s incident involving the Blackwater security firm received a lot of attention — and not as much as it deserves. Security contractors perform many vital functions, but in Iraq they are also undertaking roles of military significance outside the military chain of command. And that is asking for big trouble.
Security contractors invariably argue that they provide only defensive services, and do not undertake offensive operations. In a counterinsurgency battlespace, this is a distinction without a difference. In Iraq, driving down the street in an armed truck is an offensive operation. This is especially true because, as the Washington Post recently reported, the contractors are operating under rules of engagement that specifically acknowledge their right to take the actions necessary to defend themselves. And what does that mean? It means whatever the contractors reasonably think it means.
The problem is not that military rules don’t apply to the contractors, as the Post article claims, but rather that military strategy doesn’t apply to them.
Actions taken in self-defense are normally justified when necessary and proportional. It may well be that Blackwater satisfied that narrow rule. But these contractors are not simply going about their daily lives. They are careening loudly down the streets of Iraq at top speed, switching lanes into oncoming traffic at will, waving everything and everyone out of their way, pointing heavy machine guns at Iraqi cars heavily laden with women and children, with no regard for anything except to protect themselves and their charges. That is their job.
Hence, even if the facts of the most recent Blackwater shooting incident are in fact as Blackwater claims they are, there is still a big problem. The modus operandi of these contractors squarely contradicts some of the most essential elements of the current military strategy — the strategy that has produced all the good news we’ve heard out of Iraq this year…
Analysis: USAF's Counterinsurgency Plan – Shaun Waterman, United Press International
The new U.S. Air Force doctrine on insurgency and irregular warfare was fast-tracked to completion so the service could get a seat at the table for discussions about an overarching policy on the topic for the U.S. military as a whole. But critics say the new Air Force approach takes insufficient account of the need to win hearts and minds in such fighting.
A senior Air Force official said last week that planning had begun over the summer for the so-called joint doctrine on insurgency -- policy for all three services and the Marine Corps.
“In order to have a voice at that table,” Maj. Gen Allen Peck told the Air Force Association conference in Washington, “We had to have doctrine written down … so we fast-tracked (it).”
The Air Force wants a voice because the way the joint doctrine is written “appears likely to affect service budgets, programs, and more,” observed Robert Dudney, editor in chief of the association’s magazine.
The new Air Force policy document was published in August. Peck, who runs the Air Force Doctrine Center at Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala., said it aimed to leverage the “asymmetric advantages” that U.S. airpower produced.
Insurgents have “dedicated and experienced ground forces,” but “they don’t have our access to air and space,” he said.
U.S. air dominance gave its forces strategic advantages that were “almost like cheating,” he said.
The doctrine defines irregular warfare as “a violent struggle among state and non-state actors for legitimacy and influence over the relevant populations.” …
On Fighting Irregular War – Robert Dudney, Air Force Magazine
"Airpower is usually the last thing that most military professionals think of when the topic of counterinsurgency is raised.” So states an important new Air Force doctrine paper, quoting the words of a recent RAND report.
The RAND study said planners have “undervalued” USAF’s potential contribution in low-grade irregular wars, of which Iraq and Afghanistan are examples. The capability has been “downplayed, taken for granted, or simply ignored,” said RAND.
This doesn’t necessarily mean planners see no use for airpower, just that different capabilities—infantry and special operations forces, mostly—are accorded much higher priority.
If the United States continues to indulge this habit, we will steadily lose ground in the Global War on Terror…
NATO Staggers in Afghanistan as Some Can't Fight On - James Neuger, Bloomberg
NATO's campaign in Afghanistan is under threat from member countries on the front lines clamoring to get out and others on the sidelines refusing to go in.
With military casualties on the increase this year, the Netherlands and Canada are weighing full or partial pullouts within the next 18 months. Meanwhile, leaders in Germany, France, Spain and Italy, mindful of polls showing a majority of Europeans oppose the conflict, are resisting calls to send troops to relieve them.
The European reluctance to fight is making it harder for the 41,000-strong force to consolidate gains against the Taliban, which is battling on in the rugged terrain of southern Afghanistan six years after the U.S. drove it from power in response to the Sept. 11 attacks. It is also endangering the unity of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, raising the stakes for a meeting of defense ministers later this month…
Ethiopia: Advocate Says Ogaden Crisis Strikingly Similar to Darfur - Brian Kennedy, East African Standard
A human rights advocate has told the United States Congress that the current situation in the Ogaden region of eastern Ethiopia has striking similarities to Darfur in the run-up to the humanitarian crisis in 2003 and 2004.
"The Ogaden is not Darfur," Saman Zia Zarifi, the Washington advocate for Human Rights Watch, told the House of Representatives Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health at a Tuesday hearing on the state of Ethiopia's democracy.
"But the situation in Ogaden follows a frighteningly familiar pattern - a brutal counterinsurgency operation with ethnic overtones in which government forces deliberately attack civilians and displace large populations, coupled with severe restrictions on humanitarian assistance."
The long-simmering conflict in the Ogaden region of Ethiopia's Somali state has escalated in recent months. In April, the rebel Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) attacked a Chinese oil installation, resulting in the death of 77 people, including nine Chinese oil workers. In response to this attack, the Ethiopian government launched a counterinsurgency campaign.
Zarifi accused the Ethiopian military of "trigging a looming humanitarian crisis." He reported that Human Rights Watch has learned that the Ethiopian military has killed hundreds of civilians in their counterinsurgency campaign…
COIN Links:
Counterinsurgency – US Army Field Manual 3-24 / Marine Corps Warfighting Publication 33.3.5
SWJ Insurgency / Counterinsurgency Page - Small Wars Journal
