Learning for the Next War

The problem is that every military historian or other military analyst views lessons learned/observed from a parochial perspective. Yours is largely an SF perspective in a world where Captains command small squad-like NCO-heavy elements that can cover very little area versus 100+ men/women in a regular company with varying experience levels but much wider coverage. Contrast the area covered and protection provided by three platoon-sized COPs with E-7s controlling 30+ man platoons teaching a 2LT vs. an SF E-7/E-8 having experience all around him but highly vulnerable to enemy massing. Yet SF/SOF local successes with lots of overhead enabler priority lead to speculation that wider strategic, operational, and tactical successes using only SF/SOF could succeed while history, geographical mass, and armored or dismounted threat-size proves otherwise.

I recall a passage in the first "On Point" history of one of the Thunder Runs in which regular troops were fending off attacks from Hussein's forces in adjacent buildings and SF troops confidently entered one building in light garb and quickly exited all shot up. A small SEAL team was inadequate against massed insurgents in Operation Red Wing nor was an air-inserted SF team in Shok valley. Only 70+ attack and resupply air sorties saved a larger SF element at Sperwan Ghar in Maiwand. The recent Navy SEAL raid in Somalia proved inadequate as did SF and SOF Aviation elements earlier. Lowly UN Pakistani M113s finally saved the day. Larger threats require larger Army general purpose forces and combined arms...versus the individual branch efforts and more parochial lessons/desires/needs epitomized below:

* Armor tends to dwell on the past viewing wars like WWII, the Cold War in Europe, Desert Storm, and the first years of OIF as justification for extensive heavy armor. In a future without major modern armor threats, and where 3rd world environments impose massive bridging, logistics, and deployment difficulties, the need for substantial active Army armor is questionable, at least in terms of any need for equal numbers of tank and infantry companies in the combined arms battalion. Stryker units are a better model for how many tanks are essential. Add IEDs and top-attack threats that would make 70 ton tanks insufficient, and you end up with a 55-70 ton GCV that still isn't heavy enough for all threats. If we have accepted threats to vehicles and dismounts in these wars that were massive in comparison to spall threats inside armored vehicles, and still experienced a fraction of past casualties, why do we expect future armored and mechanized Soldiers to be invulnerable...when their fuel truck drivers and Army aviators are not?

* Cavalry and Infantry scouts live in a similar world where they realize the genuine need for future ground reconnaissance and security, yet think that is achievable with noisy large tracked vehicles, or massive trucks with sensors...all from only 10' above the ground. How far can you see from that altitude and how close can you get without being seen or heard if you reject hybrid drive? If dismounted, how fast can you infiltrate and retreat and what is your relevance when the mounted force bypasses your dismounted OP? In real conflicts, are commanders willing to risk two-man OPs or small lightly armored manned scout vehicles in no-man's land? What is wrong with telescoping sensor masts or small electrically-tethered UAS launching from the back of scout vehicles maintaining greater standoff?

* Infantry has the most strategic mobility and is easiest to employ in all weather on urban and complex terrain, but the artillery, machine gun, and IED/mine threat and lack of armor-killing capacity and mobility remains a limitation. The range of their weapons and observation also has limits. Capacity to carry body armor and supplies on the human body is constraining. However, the guerilla capabilities of dismounted infantry have great future relevance in wars involving rotorcraft-lift to numerous small islands, the retaking of larger islands, or boarding of civil shipping for offshore control and enforcement of blockades.

* Historically Artillery, like modern airpower based on land or sea employing large bombs, has the greatest capacity to inflict massive damage. Enemies know this and avoid massing in the open. Insurgents and threat armor/infantry learn to live in urban areas or share houses with civilians. They hide under cover and concealment and infiltrate from different directions. Collateral damage concerns drive the need for greater precision and cost, and less ability to mass unguided fires and bombs as in days of old.

* Manned rotorcraft and unmanned aviation of all services is a compromise offering far greater over-any-terrain mobility and elevated observation vs. dismounted or mounted movement, but offer less protection, limited all-weather time on station, and inadequate speed/range. Systems like Joint Multirole rotorcraft have the potential to exponentially alter that performance for all services. However, the Navy and Marines must be willing to allow more numerous Army and Air Force rotorcraft to share their maritime platforms and put Army infantry on systems like MV-22 in the interim. Capacity to island- and amphibious ship-hop over longer-ranges must become a new Army Aviation capability. An armed aerial scout that can team with unmanned aircraft is also a future requirement to overcome the 10' altitude of ground sensors that proved inadequate in high-altitude places like Wanat, Ganjgal, and COP Keating and the constrained field of view urban areas of Baghdad and other cities.

* Engineers and Air Defense are rife with lessons from both current conflicts, and future A2/AD and unmanned aircraft challenges. The success of T-walls and HESCO can translate in part to A2/AD challenges if greater overhead cover is available in terms of deployable bunkers offloaded from PLS and LHS trucks. Greater dispersion evidenced by numerous COPs of current wars that in the future could be set up under canopy would make long range missile targeting difficult and of reduced effectiveness given limited threat precision missile and ISR sources. Counterbattery radars and systems like C-RAM that are made more mobile would enable better survivability against threat precision artillery, mortars and rockets. Even systems like JLTV and Stryker could withstand most missile, rocket, and mortar attacks that are not direct hits.

* Marines dwell on Inchon and try translating modern humanitarian assistance into something requiring a manned amphibious tractor that in combat must necessarily launch from much farther at sea than in the past due to area denial weapons. Marines cannot fight effectively after riding a tractor for hours from 50 nm at sea. The Navy and Marines want it both ways citing massive A2/AD threats while simultaneously believing large aircraft carriers and amphibious ships can survive close enough to shores to get troops or bombs to shore and far inland. If the threat is that substantial why not link up Marines with slower armored unmanned amphibious tractors once troops are flown to shore? Also consider using concepts like palletized loading system on the unmanned tractor to offload the amphibious capability and substitute an armored compartment with greater interior room and protection?

* The odd man out is the nuclear weapon community which has virtually no historical precedent for drawing conclusions on what is necessary for the future. With such horrid capabilities, even the most deranged leaders of the past have avoided their use leaving think tank types alone to speculate on "MADdening" concepts like first and second strike with thousands of strategic and tactical weapons. In fact, A2/AD no doubt has a nuclear and conventional component to attacks missile and C2 targets that have little outward appearance differentiating between nuclear and conventional payloads and targeting mechanisms. The result is that proven conventional deterrents with vast employment histories must compete with theoretical and highly unlikely nuclear exchanges in the budget process. Yet the targets of even conventional long-range systems can lead to nuclear escalation by threatening the attacked nation's nuclear deterrent. In addition, costly systems like Long Range Strike-Bomber and a new nuclear submarine compete/win against funding of systems like stealthy intratheater airlifters, and ships/landing craft to get Army and Marine systems to land in shallow water ports or suitable shores.

However the human component of war should be one of the most evident of all lessons learned. Bomb all you want, an enduring enemy will not lose his will and continues the conflict via stealthier means. Sit well offshore on ships, and the insurgent or invader intermingled in urban areas with conquered civilians will not see or be affected by the surface ships, subs, or carriers.

COIN "build" arguments aside, the need for decisive action involving offense, defense and stability operations for "Clear" and "Hold" is an immutable reality. If no suitable host nation security force exists, one must be trained in large numbers. The difference between COIN and stability operations is not substantial, and even COIN has offensive and defensive components. Civilians whether USAID or State Department simply will not volunteer or be adequately protected in sufficient numbers to substitute for armed general purpose forces.

Achieving COIN or long-term stability operations from the air or sea is not easy because people live on land and protection of people requires Soldiers and Marines living nearby. Infantry-oriented units and mobility enablers like Army aviation, JLTV and M-ATV, unmanned systems, engineers and related barriers like HESCO and T-walls, civil affairs units, and military police are enduring capabilities for dealing with the human element.