The Paradoxical Impact of Force and Resource Constraints
This is a post that I never would have written while practicing the art in Iraq. On the ground level, every commander wants more forces. In fact, one of the unstated prerequisites for command is that you must conduct at least one daily bitching session where you emphatically describe how much more effective you could be if you were given another platoon, company, battalion, etc...
- More forces equal more villages and more neighborhoods you can clear and occupy.
- More forces equal more visible power and control.
- More resources equal more money to bribe your enemies.
But, sometimes more is actually less:
- More forces mean that you can act unilaterally and just ignore the impotent host nation security forces.
- More forces mean that you can coerce and bully the corrupt political leaders.
- More resources mean that you may waste money building elaborate schools and medical clinics and digging canals rather than repairing the existing suitable structures.
Sometimes with more, we merely attack the symptoms creating short-term visible gains rather than attacking the root problems. Doctrinally, we would call this creating maneuver space on the human and physical terrain.
On the other hand, one of the strangest phenomena studying foreign intervention in small wars is to examine what happens when the intervention force is constrained by force size and resources. In this case, the commanders are forced to adapt, and the result is often a period of deep-reflection, ingenuity, and creativity.
The most notable modern successes are El Salvador, Colombia, and the Philippines. In these cases, Special Forces were forced to adopt a "by, with, and through" mentality. They had to work with the security forces and political leaders. They could not bypass. As some of the evidence in both Iraq and Afghanistan would suggest, left unconstrained, Special Forces would prefer to act unilaterally choosing direct action over advising; however, in these case studies, they were forced by the US Congress and the State Department to act indirectly.
In the long run, less appears to offer more. Are these lessons to be considered for Iraq and Afghanistan as we face drawdowns? Perhaps. I'll let y'all decide.
Comments
Whatever it is, IW, COIN, FID, Stability Ops doctrine, etc. is not sufficient.
https://litigation-essentials.lexisnexis.com/webcd/app?action=DocumentD…
""To achieve this purpose, Article 43 of the Hague Convention, 4 which codified the doctrine, states that an occupying interim administration shall respect the laws of the occupied territory as they existed prior to an invasion "unless absolutely prevented" from doing so. 5 Yet, considering the nature of modern international occupation, occupation law no longer achieves this balance because the nineteenth century social and political institutions that drove the doctrine's development are not applicable to twenty-first century society. In modern occupations, often the sole motivation for invasion is to transform the whole of a society.""
<i>I think Pete's point about "ownership" is really key to this discussion. Based on our values, we wanted Iraq and Afghanistan to run with the ball as soon as possible, thus the herculean effort to rapidly have elections and form HN governments.</i>
I agree that "ownership" is critical. Where I think we've consistently gone wrong is in the apparent assumption that because we have installed and recognized a government, that government has then become "the HN government", rather than "the American government of the HN". That easily leads us into a position where we perceive our role as assistance to an allied government while much of the populace perceives us as an occupying power supporting a puppet government that is merely an extension of our presence.
An installed government may eventually start to govern on its own and become "the government", but that takes time and it doesn't become so just because we say it's so. Less may well be more in an FID situation, but an occupation doesn't cease to be an occupation and become FID just because we choose to call it that.
My recommended one-word occupation doctrine: "don't".
Dayuhan,
I agree strongly with the last paragraph of your last post. You also correctly point out that the response must always be based on our objectives, the situation, and the overall context of the situation. There should never be a cookie cutter approach (doctrine without reason applied). Your comment about lessons from the past being a double edged knife that can cut both ways (please excuse my artistic license):-) is also appropriate.
However, getting at Mike's point, "is less is more," I think it "often" can be, especially in cases where we are conducting FID as Pete pointed out. The debate in Afghanistan really seems to center on whether or not we can effectively transition to FID, or more appropriately can the Afghan government actually conduct its own IDAD program.
I think Pete's point about "ownership" is really key to this discussion. Based on our values, we wanted Iraq and Afghanistan to run with the ball as soon as possible, thus the herculean effort to rapidly have elections and form HN governments. While not discounting the hard and good work put into those efforts, I wonder if we moved too fast in transferring authority to the host nation? In our rush facilitating the establishment of non-functional governments did we in turn undermine our efforts to achieve a desired transition/endstate based on our COIN doctrine?
I think this gets back to Dayuhan's point about lumping all these doctrines in one basket, I think we need an occupation doctrine (for the modern world) that helps us establish and maintain a coalition led military government until the host nation is "ready" to form a government. I realize there is considerable risk with this, but on the other hand we have seen the risks associated with not doing this. We only influence a HN government that is "democratically" elected to certain point, regardless of how corrupt and ineffective it is.
In my opinion we made the monster that undermines our ability to achieve our objectives in Afghanistan. Not sure that occupation doctrine is the way to go, but I think it needs to be seriously considered should we have to do something similiar again the future. To keep it politically feasible it will probably require a UN blessing, so it doesn't come across as the old style colonial governments, because that clearly isn't the intent. The intent is to form an effective transitional government until the host nation is ready to assume control.
<i>A couple of years ago, the common trend among thinkers was that intervention in the early stages of Phase One was the perfect sweet spot. That does not seem to always work.</i>
I'm not sure there's ever going to ba a consistent or broadly applicable "sweet spot" for intervention, nor do I think we should be looking for one. I also don't think we should be looking at insurgency as something that needs to be reflexively "countered" or that reflexive intervention is required to deal with insurgency.
Obviously we don't want to re-invent the wheel each time around, but we need to accept that every situation is unique, and there will be no consistent "recipe": over-reliance on the "lessons" of cases past can be as dangerous as ignoring them, especially when the comparisons are strained from the start.
As I've said before (very repetitively, I know), I'm not at all comfortable with the idea of tossing post-regime change insurgency/COIN/FID into the same lesson basket as assistance to a foreign ally threatened by insurgency.
Dayuhan,
Quite honestly, I don't know. I don't think that your thoughts are incorrect, but I'm just trying to explore the topic. A couple of years ago, the common trend among thinkers was that intervention in the early stages of Phase One was the perfect sweet spot. That does not seem to always work.
Hi John,
I'm actually an Armor officer, and this thought piece is intended to transcend both Big Army and SF. While I used one interpretation of an SF truth, I'm merely exploring the economic side of intervention. In Big Army terms, examine areas where units were in an economy of force situation. Diyala Province in Iraq is probably one of the best from the last several years.
As far as SF in Iraq, they actually have some real success stories that we should examine.
Since it is Friday, I'll share a thought from an FA buddy of mine that puts it in terms that many of us can easier understand- "Ass whooping on the cheap, quite a novel idea!"
Certainly French assistance to the American Revolution could be seen as an example, and as an interesting early effort at UW. There's still a world of difference between assisting (and opportunistically exploiting) an existing revolution and a post-regime change scenario.
All I'm saying is that the "less is more" hypothesis, like the "we succeed when diplomats are in charge" hypothesis, has to be looked at in the context of when we use less, and when we put diplomats in charge. We deploy small forces under diplomatic leadership when the HN has an established government with significant existing capacity. Lately we've deployed large forces under military leadership in regime change scenarios where we're less assisting a state than trying to construct one in our image. These are very, very different circumstances.
I'm not surfe we can conclude that post-regime change stability would be best managed by small forces. In order to work "by, through, and with" there has to be something in place to work "by, through, and with". If we've taken it on ourselves to create that something, it's going to be difficult to accomplish that task using tools appropriate to work in a scenario with a pre-existing government/military apparatus.
Possibly the lesson we need to extract is not that small forces work better, but that installing and preserving a government in a post-regime change environment is a whole lot more difficult than some expected it to be. I still suspect, as well, that the lessons learned from ID/COIN in support of established governments with existing capacity are not universally applicable to a post-regime change scenario.
John,
Welcome to SWJ. Seems like you just discovered this site since we are hearing so much from you. You might want to take a day or a week and observe the discourse here. We value your comments and insights but you might recognize that this is not like the usual blogs out there. Again your aggressiveness is good and respected but you might want to think a little bit about your comments and make sure they are relevant to the subject of the paper or the previous comments in that section. Again, welcome to SWJ. Just wanted to pass on some friendly advice so that you can be a productive contributor.
Pete,
You are correct. The very first thing we should do is define our goals... From the beginning thru the end. We must own these goals. We must add or get rid of strategies as needed. We also have got to stop thinking Blitkrig style. To defeat insurgencies we are going to have to go all out. Like North Vietnam did. And we don't need to spend near the treasure to do it.
Do we not require our leaders/Commanders to first define exactly the king of conflict or endevor that we are about to engage? A primary issue that must be resolved is that of ownership. I submit that when we conduct FID, in its various forms, ownership should always remain with the host nation (HN). Are we not supporting the HN's IDAD progrem? In FID the litmus test for receiving US assistance is for the HN to have a legitimate requirement and the ability to utilize the support provided. This test sets the tone for the relationship that must be established between the US and the HN. It defines the success criteria (the end state), which in-turn identifies the measures of effectiveness (MOE)(preventing mission creep), and finally the lines of efforts (LOE). The type of assistance provided to the HN is based on these LOEs. El Salvadore is an example of effective assistance while ensuring that ownership for resolving the conflict remained with the HN. In this situation, the HN, aware that US assistance could depart the country at any time, made the necessary political and military reforms required to achieve lasting stability. In this case, LESS was better! What about Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan? These are cases in which the US took over the responsibility of ownership away from the HN. The results was predictable. The HN kept defering this responsibility to the US. There was no motivation to take ownership of the problem by addressing the root causes of the problem and adopting the required political and military reforms. They knew that the US government would not allow the conflict to be lost thus they did the minimum required to continue receiving US assistance. The conflict in each case became protracted lasting over 6 years. The US had no exit strategy - we could not afford to "lose" - this in turn would show weakness and damage our credibility to the world and US citizenry. In responce, we continued to throw more men and resources at solving the problem in the belief that more was better. The irony is that in the three cases, aster the US realized that more was not better, the decision was eventualy made to return ownership to the HN. In Vietnam we initiated the Vietnamization program as the basis for our exit strategy. This half hearted effort at returning ownership to the Vietnam government was a failure as seen by the results. In both Iraq and Afghanistan the jury is still out - the outcome is still uncertain. In Afghanistan corruption is rampant and the required reforms have not been adopted. Were did the $19 billion go? In the majority, our center of gravity (COG)the American people, are not in favor of continued assistance with the President announcing a gradual withdrawal. In Iraq, the outlook seems to be more favorable. Iraq is beginning to recover from the decisions, made by the US government, of de-Bathification of the Iraqi government and elimination of the military. Creating a vacuum in governance which became the impetus for the insurgency.
ALCON,
I just read that Big Army can't do something. And yes I like and respect SF. But in Iraq I don't see SF units conducting FID. No that isn't a sexy deal so somhow they have fiosted it on Big Army which has made Advise and Assist Bdes. Yep thats right Big Army doing the SF job for them so they can go after hunt the bad guys. 99% of which could be handled by infantry units. But instead we have our premier foreign unit trainers going after the baddies and our Infantry training foreign units. Yes the SF guys are awesome at DA and they should be. But Big Army has to pick up the peices. They were and are not designed to do it, but they get it done. Bottom line: Big Army is going to have to start trusting the NCO's just like the Generals. When we get to that point well will be unbeatable.
27yanks- often I just get the "dude, you went into the wrong service. You know, the few, the proud... "
Dave Maxwell said about a year ago that "we can only hope to be lifelong students of warfare." This thought has stuck with me. Indeed, wars both big and small are bigger than any of us. But, through civil discourse, sharing experiences, and healthily debating ideas we can become better leaders of our men, better planners for our commanders, and better advisers to both the policy makers and American people when asked. Thats one of the reasons why we all come to SWJ- As iron sharpens iron and so forth.
Bill M- No history revision intended. I was describing how I felt as a young cadet being exposed for the first time to an environment outside of the United States. An environment that was severely foreign to the comfortable suburbs that I grew up in. Indeed, an environment that I could not understand at the time.
Going back to El Sal, Id summarize our discussion so far as remembering to consider all external actors, the factors of time, and the burden of the peoples history. We should also remember to include the role of the Catholic church as a prominent external actor and internal stakeholder. From a Poly-Sci perspective, Id examine the last hundred years in El Sal as a measure along the arc of state development. For some states, we could go back as far as 1648 and Westphalia. Along this arc, the history ebbs and flows with periods of violent tensions, economic disparity and cultural divides.
Please continue to discuss. I learn much more than I have contributed.
"Few says less is more." As a friend says, you can't make that kind of thing up.
More seriously, the time is now: sad that the political filter will be the first to parse the upcoming announcement rather than a sober reading of how it will all affect warfighting capabilities. (See my blog on this topic http://www.economonitor.com/moran/2011/06/21/soft-landing-or-going-soft…
That said, in spite of the fact neither dominant tendency in Congress right now is focused on the actual battle (as opposed to the virtual political one), the instinct to downsize is correct for both military and fiscal reasons.
Mike, Gian,
Lots of ways to try to evaluate success for failure in El Salvador. One unique way to analyze it may be to look at the result over the long term. In the 1970's-80's the El Sal government, with US assistance, was countering the FMLN insurgent threat and by some definitions defeated it. But what happened in the long term? The FMLN later reorganized and then came to power not through violence but through the political process. So was that success or failure as the insurgents (the enemy we were helping the government defend against) eventually came to power? Or was it a success since despite the enemy "winning" they came to power in a legitimate election? Did the operations in the 1970's and 80's drive the FMLN from a Maoist Phase II Guerrilla Warfare stage back to a Phase I Latent or Incipient stage? Did the FMLN go back to political organizing and mobilization but instead of moving back to violence instead developed sufficient political strength to "win" via legitimate elections? So is it a failure because the "enemy" eventually came to power or a success because the democratic process functioned and there was self determination by the people?
I ask these questions rhetorically because I do not know the answer but from an evaluation of the US strategy I think success or failure evolves over time or may only be able to be evaluated as a snap shot in time. Most will agree there was "success" by the end of the 80's because the insurgency seemed defeated. But 20 years later is it still a success or now a failure? Where you stand depends on where you sit!!
Mike,
I think one could reasonably comment that the Mayan peasant issue is another artifact of a failed colonial empire (Spain's in this case). It's popular to forget that they were the dominant power in this hemisphere for many years, and when their empire collapsed it left a vacuum that is only equaled by that found in Africa. In establishing their colonial empire they crushed two major local empires without setting up even a pretense of "native rule" which would later become something of a hallmark of the British colonial system.
Although I'm not an area expert, I'd also suspect that the perceived communist threat in the region was usually combined with more local and nationalist aims on the part of the states (or elements of states) concerned. After all, not all of the borders in Central America were logical or agreed upon (again something like Africa) and might in some instances be considered either the remnants of the Spanish colonial administration or the Papal dividing line that led to Brazil speaking Portuguese and following something of a different developmental route (falling as they did under the externally-mandated Portuguese sphere of influence).
There's a huge amount of history in Central and South America, and sometimes it seems like we forget or overlook that.
MikeF,
I realize historians constantly reinterpret history, but the communist threat (world wide revolution) was real. Furthermore, there was some truth to the domino theory in Central America (due to the poor government), and I think there was genuine reason to be concerned about the growing threat to the south of our border. Cuba supported the insurgency in El Sal as did Nicaragua.
I still agree with most of your comments, El Sal is hardly a model nation, but we did achieve our limited objective of enabling the government of El Sal to defeat the communist insurgency.
Gian,
The first small war that I was immersed into was Guatemala. In 1998, I was given a weeklong tour by one of the leading generals while on a Christmas vacation. His son was my roommate at school. Years later, after my own war experiences, I began to fully understand what he had taught me about the level of violence and pacification required in order to quell an insurgency militarily.
Contrastingly, I remember thinking that if it wasnt for bananas and the Cold War, then we probably would have sided with the guerrillas whom were literally fighting for civil rights. But, at the time, we were absorbed with the theory that Communism was an existential threat and if one country fell, then they would all fall.
As for the Central American civil wars, I think were just getting to the point in history where we can fully study them particularly as the generals and insurgents are getting older and willing to talk honestly to tell their story. Additionally, Im waiting patiently for Jill Hazelton to finish her dissertation on El Sal, Oman, and Vietnam. Its a good one.
Heres some brief notes to compare/contrast:
Positives:
1. The El Salvadorian government did not fall.
2. The coffee continued to flow.
3. Because of our limited involvement, American soldiers were not in the villages conducting COIN so they did not have to participate directly in the pacification bordering on atrocities in many villages. In sum, the blood is not directly on our hands. I know many will disagree with this statement and thats okay.
Negatives:
1. The plight of the Mayan peasant throughout Mexico, Central America, and South America is still unresolved. They are still second-class citizens to many degrees. Id classify this as a transnational civil rights issue.
2. The drug war and rise of Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) bleeding into the United States which overlaps and is interconnected with the civil rights issue.
El Sal is a thoroughly wicked question and problem with many similarities to Afghanistan. The causal question will probably be "did US intervention in the latter stages of the conflict minimize or extend the violence?" The ultimate question that our government must consider is "what is the United States role in these affairs?"
Good discussion all. This short post was meant to spur critical thinking. As many have notified me today, we should also examine non-US cases to see what works and what doesn't work.
Less is often more is not meant to be a law.
Dayuhan, as a quick counterpoint, one could consider the effects of French military advisers assisting the American rebels in places like West Point and Valley Forge to help promote a non-existing or fledgling government.
With that, please continue the discussion.
The observation that smaller forces are associated with more successful operations does seem valid, but I'm not sure we're drawing the right conclusion from that observation. It seems to me the the factor influencing success is less the size of our deployment than the state of the government that we are supporting. We typically deploy smaller forces and adopt a more "by, with, and through" approach when the host nation has a functioning government and a functioning military with significant existing capacity, and I suspect that it is this, not the size of our force, that is the key variable.
The governments and military forces of Colombia, the Philippines, and El Salvador have numerous problems, but they exist, they existed before we chose to assist them, and they have significant capacity of their own. It's hard to compare support for these governments with our efforts to construct governments and military forces, essentially from nothing, in Afghanistan and Iraq.
I think the lesson is not that small forces are more effective than large ones, but that supporting existing governments with existing capacity is much easier than trying to install governments. Smaller forces succeed not because they are inherently superior, but because the conditions under which we deploy them are far more conducive to success.
I'm not convinced that it's possible to draw relevant comparisons between FID in support of a pre-existing government with pre-existing capacity and stability operations in a post regime change environment. Not even apples and oranges, more like apples and hamburgers.
Mike Few,
Thanks for posting this think piece. I have argued frequently that less is more, and we need to pull back quicker to force the host nation to assume more responsibility. Less isn't always more, so it shouldn't be accepted as some new law, but in my view in irregular warfare it seems to apply more often than not. See my recent post on FM 3-24 that compares going big with going small. When we go big we are the ones interfacing the local populace, which undermines the government. If we go small and focus on the advisor role, we keep the government front and center with its people. The implications of this are huge in too many ways to address in this short post. We already addressed in other areas how going big perverts the local economy and feeds corruption. Still going big or small is a way to an end. The key is to correctly define the problem(s), then develop appropriate policy objectives and strategy, and then determine the ways and means IMO.
Mike,
I agree, and would be so bold as to extend your argument to - Sometimes More Is Less.
My experiences in Afghanistan introduced me to several issues where: we attempted to do too much, often too fast; ignored correcting something because we were too big; didn't do something because it was too small; accepted too many inconsistencies because we were too big to coordinate and collaborate; accepted inefficiencies because they didn't seem important; did too many things because we could versus whether we should; ignored others and other things because we were too busy being big, etc.
Small works for me for all the valid reasons you state in a similar vein to, slow is fast. This mission requires significant effort over the long term, therefore; small, deliberate, well thought out actions can produce incredible leverage over that longer timeframe. Large, rushed and poorly planned actions can produce effects way out of proportion to the intended effects they were applied to in the first place. Many have postulated that the majority of problems we face today are the secondary and tertiary effects of our intial actions.
I reject the arguments put forward that sometimes the decisions made were too important and too urgent to move slowly, deliberately and small.
Mike,
I definitely agree with you on the money aspect which tied together with the human desire for brick and morter projects and the American desire to do good causes probably more harm than good.
In the 1980s Central American conflicts that you mentioned, it seems that the force caps - I think 55 Green Berets in El Salvador - was a pretty good return on investment given what eventually happened in El Salvador.
Taking somewhat of a tangent, many start-up entrepreneurs learn how they can really stretch their preciously few dollars and utilize whatever free services they can find. It provides a totally different mentality.
For example, growing up in the Army from 2005-2010, I've always felt that money was never a show-stopper issue for any of the units I have been in, even when I was in Korea and I'm sure the 8th Army wasn't high on priority for funding with two wars going on. I think that created a certain mentality within myself and others.
Before my deployment to Afghanistan, I went to an entrepreneurship class and started my own company with some classmates with $2,000. Boy, we had to stretch that initial investment a lot and we were very careful about how we spent it.
When I went to Afghanistan, I took my new-learned frugality to stabilization and development. Yet what I found out was that there was close to $1B of CERP funding available (for both Iraq and Afghanistan, mostly for the latter) and there were some folks within the US Govt who were adamant about spending it before the end of the Fiscal Year.
While I certainly appreciated having funds available to go to special training events and getting whatever I needed before my deployment, I think that there is a cost to that as well.
Having some austerity forces innovation and change and I'm sure other SWJ participants have stories about this in the public as well as private sector.
<b>Anonymous at 1212:</b>
True. Big Army cannot do hand holding nor should it, not their job -- it can however do DA which sorta is their forte. The question is indeed the balance between the two and it's more than possible that well trained hand holders are misapplied in the other role...
Of course, kicking in doors is always a lot more fun than eating bad goat while picking lice. I did that for a while, wasn't very good at it but could do the door bit with verve and aplomb. Amazing what one can do when one applies skills properly. Also amazing how critical skills (and capabilities) are lost if other things intrude, by direction or otherwise...
To return to the thread of the Article one could make the case that our bureaucratic inflexibility is a direct result of too much money on the wrong expenditures, too many people -- not all doing the right thing or the thing they're best at doing -- thus it is possible that less can be more by simply giving more thought to who does what and how they do it (Memo to self: Fix the Personnel system. Fix training. Encourage rather than stifle initiative).
We, Big Army and SF, have lost our way. Barring a major war, perhaps the only way to get real again and pare down hugeaceous staffs (among many other things...) is to take some whopping funding cuts...
Mike,
My apologies. I used the term "cowboys" - you did not. However, I used it because many (not you) often describe DA operations by SF as executed by a bunch of cowboys running around the battalespace going after HVTs.
And yes, I think that operations in the Philippines, El, and Colombia are relevant beyond SF and SOF writ large.
Again, I concur with your thesis, Less is often more. My apologies for adding something that was not your intent.
Dave,
Perhaps, I constructed some of the language poorly. My intent is not to label SF as "cowboys." My personal feeling is that derogatory term is used by those who do not understand. Rather, my intent is to attempt to describe why less is more to a broader audience outside of the SF community.
If we want to do these things better, then we must have better understanding of where we've been, where we want to go, and how we get there. Your point about SF vision and planning in both Iraq and A'stan is accurate. I am not trying to dismiss it or suggest otherwise, but there is a difference between the various groups today that is driven by their operational experiences. But, that is an in-house matter for y'all not the purpose of this blog entry.
As regular Army, Marines, State, and others read this entry, they will ask, "So what? Are the case studies of the Philippines, El Sal, and Colombia relevant today?" For whatever reason, we dismiss SF efforts as outliers. In my opinion, this limits our own effectiveness. This entry is for them to look at the problem set from another perspective.
Mike
Mike,
Some good points. Nut let me quibble with one:
You say: "In these cases, Special Forces were forced to adopt a "by, with, and through" mentality."
SF was not "forced" - "though and with" (we should drop the unncessary and grammatically incorrect "by") is an inherent SF method of operation. There was nothing "forced" about it.It was the correct way to operate in those environments.
Second, regarding direct action and SF. Yes, there are some that want to conduct direct action vice employing indirect methods, but I think a close scrutiny of the plans and orders in Iraq and Afghanistan will reveal that direct action operations were "directed" by the joint force commanders and not thought up and executed by SF guys on their own as a bunch of cowboys. You will find all kinds of evidence in both Iraq and Afghanistan, going back to 2003 and 2002 respectively, of SF attempting and recommend various "through and with" programs and operations but unfortunately they did not always fit in with the vision of joint force commanders at the time.
But minor quibbles that do not take away from your important points. Less is often more.