Learning from Our Wrong Turn - “Why American counterinsurgency has proved to be unworkable.” Bing West interview with Gian Gentile, National Review.
The commonly used aphorism by counterinsurgency experts is that COIN is the “graduate level of war,” thus implying that it requires some special kind of skill set to be carried out correctly and that it should be led by enlightened savior generals such as David Petraeus and Stanley McChrystal. But the truth of the matter is that American counterinsurgency - armed nation building - at the tactical level of platoons, companies, battalions, and brigades is simply not that difficult. The difficulty of these wars, rather, rests at the levels of strategy and policy, and the American failure in Iraq and Afghanistan can best be explained from those angles. Unfortunately, the myth of the counterinsurgency narrative is that modern American counterinsurgency wars - Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan - could have been won if only the army had done counterinsurgency better under enlightened generals. Yet the truth about America’s failures in these wars has to do with weakness in other places.
Comments
Gian: "When American vital interests in the world are threatened and the application of military force is deemed appropriate, the idea should be to go in quickly with decisive military force, accomplish important objectives, and then leave."
1. Historically military force has been used for purposes other than defending a country's vital interests. For example: when a nation wishes to expand and/or when it wishes to "open up" and transform other states and societies for purposes such as trade or enhanced security. Thus, military force used not just for defensive actions but also for offense.
2. Such an approach as described by COL Gentile (go in quickly, do your thing, and then leave) is not likely to "produce a better state of peace." (Example: 1st Gulf War). Consider what would have happened if we had gone in quickly, did our thing, and then immediately left after World War II and the Korean War.
3. Going in with decisive military force or not, the enemy today is not expected to present himself in such a fashion as would allow us to go in quickly, accomplish important objectives and then leave.
Thus, should we suggest that COL Gentile's approach to the use of military force, when necessary, seems unrealistic in that it:
a. Does not provide us with the capability needed to achieve a state's common and often necessary expansionist/offensive goals and requirements,
b. Is more far likely to produce a worse rather than better peace and
c. Does not address the common and expected manner in which we expect to find the enemy today?
So, while one certainly might be able to expend much less blood and other treasure (in the short term) using COL Gentile's approach, it would seem unlikely that one would be able -- using his guidelines -- to (a) accomplish the nation's objectives, (b) decisively defeat the enemy or (c) achieve a better peace.
Thus, the price of thrift is impotence?
Gian implies in the interview that more emphasis should given to heavy combat brigades. But a heavy combat brigade has to be able to get to the fight and stay in it. That means there must be sufficient shipping to transport such a force and sustain it. Without that, the force is useless. Do we have the shipping?
We had such a force already in place in Europe all those years and in the Middle East, we had lots of time to build up because nobody contested the buildup, nor the sustainment. But if we were to fight Red China (there, I said it), I don't believe we would have the luxury of prepositioned equipment or men. And they sure as shootin' would not give us time for a buildup nor would they abstain from sinking everything they could. So if we fought our mostly likely peer competitor, I don't see how we would need more heavy brigades that we might not be able to deploy nor sustain.