Small Wars Journal

This Week at War: End of the COIN Era?

Thu, 06/23/2011 - 2:30pm
Obama's Afghan withdrawal speech may mark the end of the U.S. counterinsurgency experiment.

Here is the latest edition of my column at Foreign Policy:

Topics include:

1) By tossing the COIN to Afghanistan, Obama can now aim at Pakistan

2) Are the Pentagon's plans about to become obsolete?

By tossing the COIN to Afghanistan, Obama can now aim at Pakistan

President Barack Obama's prime-time speech on his plan for withdrawing from Afghanistan left no doubt that he intends to run for reelection as the leader who ended two painful wars. Most notable was his intention to extract 10,000 soldiers this year and 23,000 more by next summer, before the height of Afghanistan's traditional summer fighting season. For some analysts, this would seem to be a large military risk, taken for purely domestic political benefit.

Obama may have concluded that conventional U.S. ground forces in Afghanistan no longer provide much leverage over the military or political situation there. Obama realizes that the Taliban have established safe havens in both Afghanistan and Pakistan where they can wait as long as they need to. With those safe havens, he likely realizes that the coalition cannot obtain sufficient advantage over the Taliban to achieve a favorable negotiated settlement. Nor can anyone be sure how permanent the apparent progress in stabilizing southern Afghanistan really is.

The real permanent leverage over the Taliban comes in two forms. The first is Afghanistan's security forces, both the government's and local militias, which will presumably operate long after coalition soldiers have left the field. A favorable outcome ultimately rests not with U.S. combat patrols but with the long-term effectiveness of Afghan security forces, something which remains very much in doubt. For those officers responsible for U.S. military doctrine, Obama's speech would seem to bring to a close another unhappy encounter with counterinsurgency (COIN) theory. But true COIN -- winning over the population through security and better governance -- is not done by an outside intervening power like the United States, but by the host country itself. Although Afghanistan provides particularly poor raw material for U.S. COIN doctrine, U.S. military planners still need to solve the COIN puzzle for future contingencies, at a much lower cost than the United States paid in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Second, if Obama's drawdown decision implies giving up on leverage inside Afghanistan, it also provides him an opportunity to increase his leverage over Pakistan and by extension the Taliban and al Qaeda elements residing there. Obama specifically mentioned safe havens in Pakistan declaring, "that so long as I am president, the United States will never tolerate a safe haven for those who aim to kill us." This was a warning to Pakistan that if its leaders won't do something about the safe havens, he will. But Obama's leverage is minimal as long as he must supply a large coalition army in Afghanistan through Pakistan. Reducing the military presence in Afghanistan reduces dependence on Pakistan and increases Obama's leverage over Islamabad. Obama could then translate that leverage into more military strikes against Taliban and al Qaeda safe havens, actions which may do more for Afghan security than the coalition forces presently there.

The killing of Osama bin Laden provided Obama an opportunity to justify a quicker disengagement from Afghanistan. On this, it seems, he will get few arguments from either his prospective Republican challengers or the U.S. electorate. Pakistan by contrast will not welcome these changes as it loses its leverage over the United States and risks becoming even more of a target for U.S. raids. Finally, U.S. military planners will have to retreat to their offices to rethink their doctrines for stability operations. The American public and its political leaders did not have the patience for stabilization plans that required open-ended deployments of large armies. These planners will need to come up with a new approach.

Are the Pentagon's plans about to become obsolete?

In a recent column I discussed how the U.S. military -- masters of high-tech precision-strike warfare -- should prepare to taste that bitter medicine, which could be delivered by all manner of adversaries, who could soon possess their own precision weapons. U.S. military planners could soon come up against the same "revolution in military affairs" they created and that, during the struggles against low-tech insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan, has gone out of fashion among U.S. defense thinkers.

In March, the Rand Corp. released an even darker analysis of the future for U.S. military plans. "Looming Discontinuities in U.S. Military Strategy and Defense Planning" describes a disturbing convergence of several adverse trends that the authors believe could result in the sudden obsolescence of long-accepted U.S. military strategies, operating concepts, and forces.

The first of these trends is the imminent arrival of inexpensive yet sophisticated precision weapons in the hands of states and nonstate actors. Similar to the argument in my previous column, the proliferation of these weapons -- such as precision ground attack missiles, portable anti-aircraft missiles, cyber weapons, and anti-ship missiles and torpedoes -- will threaten the ability of the United States to do basic tasks it has long taken for granted such as flying troops from one forward base to another or shipping supplies into a war zone.

Next, Rand describes how access to cheap but effective missiles and other military technology is particularly threatening to long-established U.S. military doctrines and force structure. U.S. operating concepts emphasize both the deployment of forces at forward bases and the projection of military power into conflict areas. Over the decades, the Pentagon has spent trillions of dollars on warships, aircraft, soldiers, and other equipment to implement its power-projection war plans, many of which are designed to support diplomatic strategies and reassure allies. Yet the emerging weapons technologies described above will favor those defending against power projection and thus threaten the huge military investments made by the United States.

Meanwhile, as planners try to grapple with the implications of these challenges, ongoing counterinsurgency, stabilization, and counterterrorism missions will continue to occupy both the attention and resources of the government and will likely add to the confusion over how the Pentagon should plan for the future.

The Rand report lists some specific tasks U.S. military forces should be able to accomplish in order to prepare for this more challenging future, many of which are beyond current capabilities. Forward-deployed forces should be able to shoot down incoming guided missiles and mortar shells. By contrast, U.S. forces should be able to overcome enemy air and missile defenses. The United States should have long-range aircraft able to search for long periods over defended airspace and then strike targets of opportunity, such as mobile missile launchers or deeply buried bunkers. U.S. naval forces should be able to establish survivable operating bases at sea. And smaller, more efficient teams of U.S. ground forces should be able to dominate adversaries who are embedded within noncombatant populations.

Finally, the report discusses what may be the biggest threat to the Pentagon -- its institutional barriers to reform. Rand discusses "the innovator's dilemma," a common problem across private and public enterprises. It is institutionally difficult for long-established enterprises to heavily invest in technologies and doctrines that could threaten the existing order. There will always be a reluctance by established actors to transform until the need is plainly obvious. But with long lead times for new systems and doctrines, waiting so late could be disastrous. Meanwhile, upcoming rivals, perhaps lacking well-established players, are frequently more nimble and open to innovation.

Rand concluded with a plea for the Pentagon to develop a vigorous experimentation program. The U.S. Joint Forces Command, a center for experimentation, was recently closed in a cost-cutting move. Who in the Pentagon will now advocate for experimentation and innovation remains to be seen.

Comments

Ken White (not verified)

Fri, 06/24/2011 - 8:16pm

<b>Carl:</b>

The good Councilor can speak for himself and I suspect he'll respond. In the interim, let me offer a few thoughts.

You often write things similar to this:<blockquote>"What I object to is our pretending they don't and our giving them money that they use to kill our people. I don't like that at all..."</blockquote>I don't think anyone likes that aspect and you certainly are not the only one who's aware of the issues. The question is why do we do it with full knowledge that is occurring.

My sons first firefight in Afghanistan, 2002, was between his US Platoon and Pakistani Tribal Border Guards acting on their own. One of his best friends got badly wounded, another kid got a light one -- and a couple Pakistani Tribal Border Guards were killed. Here we are almost ten years later and little has changed; shots are still routinely traded across the border.

That kind of stuff happens when you intervene in places and try to fix things and people that don't want to be fixed. Anyone who espouses such intervention on humanitarian grounds -- as some rather powerful 'betters' inside the Beltway do -- is really asking for big trouble...

Those 'betters' would be they who have put us in this situation in order to do good. Your ire should be directed at them, not he folks who have to try to fix the mess they didn't want...<blockquote>"But why do we have to pretend their interests and ours are the same?"</blockquote>There's no pretense. <u>Some</u> of our more important interests <i>are</i> the same. The US government is concentrating on those while you are concentrating on others that differ -- of which said US government is totally aware and is willing to tolerate. You may disagree with that -- obviously do -- but it's a course that was elected long ago and is not easily changed.<blockquote>"We should tell the truth about this whole matter but we don't because if we did the American people would put a stop to it."</blockquote>You also keep saying that and I'm unsure why. Surely you don't believe that only you have figured that out? The basic truths are pretty well known, There is the normal diplomatic obfuscation and double speak but that is always present in every international relationship and my sensing is that most in the US are at least vaguely aware of the issues that you find so troublesome.<blockquote>"We can't have that because our betters inside the beltway have determined that giving money to people so they can use it to kill the sons of the American people is actually in the best interests of the American people. Of course they would be too stupid to understand that so we keep on pretending."</blockquote>That's just populist rabble rousing and lends nothing to a discussion. Reading through the totally unnecessary and unhelpful snark, the 'ITBW Betters' are doing the best they can with a bad hand. Instead of spewing at them for something not their fault but a situation they were placed in by poor decisions on the part of five Presidents over a span of 30 plus years, you should go back and address those five guys...

The folks doing things today are doing what they must because neither they nor you have come up with a better solution that accounts for all the parameters or that can undo earlier and potentially greater damage due as much or more to US domestic political errors over many years.

Your solutions would fix some things, they would likely worsen others. If we were dealing from a position of strength and with unity, your solutions could possibly be implemented. We are not so dealing due to mostly US domestic political concerns and issues over the past 70 plus years. As I mentioned on another thread, the difficulty 'fixing the Pakistan problem' so far as the US is concerned is not in Pakistan, it is in the capitals of the West -- we are not the only ones suffering the trials you cite -- where a consensus of what should be done is lacking. Not much is going to be changed until some sort of agreement is reached and that accord is unlikely. So we get to put another intervention in the "Cost too much, did little good " box.<blockquote>"...but we shouldn't lie for them and we shouldn't give them the bullets to shoot us with."</blockquote>I don't think anyone's lying for them, most of your complaints are pretty common knowledge here in the southeastern US and --based on the correspondence I have from here and there -- throughout pretty much the western world. As for the bullets, most big nations have done that for hundreds of years (the guy I mentioned above who got shot -- that was with a G3 Rifle, 7.62mm NATO cartridge. Note also we are now arming Afghans, some of whom desert simply because they can sell a tricked out M4 for a few thousand...); armed some guys who later turned hostile -- or who were blatantly hostile at the time. At least most of Pakistan isn't blatantly hostile -- yet.<blockquote>"Why do we have to always play the frog to their scorpion?"</blockquote>Great big Frog, small Scorpion. Because having the power to turn Pakistan into a parking lot places great constraints on us. You often complain about bullies; we cannot be one (well, not too blatantly, anyway, Pakistan hassling and not playing fair with us is not at all a one-way street...)-- we have been in the past and it's caught up with us, we had to quit and be a bit nicer. So, you wanta fix it; go back and undo history. Now we have to play the hand that's dealt using the cards we designed, printed and distributed.

carl (not verified)

Fri, 06/24/2011 - 6:50pm

Madhu:

Thank you for showing me that.

Robert C. Jones:

I agree that Pakistan as a whole is not a threat to the US. The Pak Army/ISI however is a mortal threat to any American serving in Afghanistan.

I am perfectly willing to accept that the interests of the Pak Army/ISI conflict with ours. There is no problem with that. What I object to is our pretending they don't and our giving them money that they use to kill our people. I don't like that at all. They can define their interests as they please. But why do we have to pretend their interests and ours are the same? We should tell the truth about this whole matter but we don't because if we did the American people would put a stop to it. We can't have that because our betters inside the beltway have determined that giving money to people so they can use it to kill the sons of the American people is actually in the best interests of the American people. Of course they would be too stupid to understand that so we keep on pretending.

The Pak Army/ISI can pursue their suicidal course if the want, but we shouldn't lie for them and we shouldn't give them the bullets to shoot us with. Why do we have to always play the frog to their scorpion?

Ken White (not verified)

Fri, 06/24/2011 - 5:28pm

Proving yet again that a Ph.D. in Chemical Physics equips one to be among the best and the brightest. No experience required...

Unfortunately...

Vitesse et Puissance

Fri, 06/24/2011 - 3:42pm

I never cease to be amazed at how the name "Paul Davis" shows up on a RAND report when there are significant policy issues in play. But excellence in identifying problems is not the same as the ability to create solutions. I'm a little puzzled at the fudge towards the very end between deterrence and warfighting (and, one would hope, also security/stabilization operations) - either we have the means to enable flexible response across the full spectrum, or we don't. The call for greater engagement with alliance partners is good - but the entire American nation needs to be read on to this, and buy in. And bad news does not get any better with age.

Ken White (not verified)

Fri, 06/24/2011 - 2:27pm

<b>Madhu:</b>

I answered this on your other posting of it, I won't regurgitate that here.

Don't need to do so, <b>Robert C. Jones</b> said it all well in fewer words... ;)

Bob's World

Fri, 06/24/2011 - 10:02am

Madhu,

I don't believe anyone is "afraid" of what you, Carl or anyone else says about any element of the Pakistan government.

I would offer that from my position Pakistan as a whole is not a threat to the U.S.; and that I am perfectly willing to accept that their interests as they define them are always going to be different than their interests as the US attempt to define them for them. In that equation who is out of line? The US for daring to presume, or Pakistan for being compelled to act covertly to continue to service interests that they must publicly denounce to stay in good graces with the US??

Madhu (not verified)

Fri, 06/24/2011 - 8:51am

@ carl - I posted the following in another thread but I wanted to make sure you saw it :)

It may explain some of the dynamic around here in comments:

"I was reading through this thread again and the emotion struck me.

And then, reading the NYT, I came across this comment:

<em>Careful; as a veteran special ops soldier, I've seen this kind of press build up to warfare in far flung regions again and again. ' Leaks' from 'officials' to the press lead to public outcry, which leads to another public sanctioned war. No good comes from these wars. Many people get killed. We never know the real reason. We in the field are told that 'we don't need a reason' [honestly, that's what we're told]. We need to wake up, drop the the emotion, and reject warfare as legitimate foreign policy.</em>

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/24/world/asia/24pakistan.html?src=tptw

Is this what some of you are afraid of when carl and I get on about the Pak Army/ISI?

Do you think this will lead to things getting out of hand?

It could, but I don't want any confrontation and I don't see any stomach for it from what I read. But you never know.

I want a controlled and responsible disengagement. And I want our public officials to start speaking the truth about the situation because it only causes more anger, not less. The location where OBL was found caused the anger, not these "leaks." I saw it immediately. Did you all not see it?

Most of the comments I see regarding American anger post Abbottabad have to do with leaving or cutting aid.

This all comes from democratic regimes working with illiberal regimes for a long time. Public officials, military and civilian alike, keep their cards close. The public gets confused.

If there is any "militarism" in this, it is the level of confusion that occurs when all the smoke and mirrors go up for the public at home."

@ SWJED - I promise I won't do this again but I think it is an important point :)

ArmyGreg

Fri, 06/24/2011 - 12:26am

Great article!

As always, we are fighting our last conflict. It seems that the question is not, "Does COIN (or FID or Stability Operations) work in a nation-building environment?" Instead, we are re-writing our doctrine to turn infantry platoons into city councils presuming that enough doctrine-tweaking, force-restructuring, and training is the answer to our current threat. Certainly, the way in which we crossed the LD had nothing to do with our challenges at hand!

I love the infantry... and they aren't city councilmen!

In that scope, the inability of the US Military to project large formations of combat power due to the proliferation of asymmetric threats may serve as a blessing in disguise. In both current conflicts, Unconventional Warfare was almost entirely neglected.

After all, war is politics and politics is a battle of ideas. If our ideas are superior, it will not take 155mm Howitzers, JDAMs, and naval gunfire to dominate the ungoverned areas of instability. Instead, it will take a long term engagement with an emphasis on influence and non-kinetic operations. Large military formations are not ideal for affecting this endstate.

So, the very threats that RAND addresses may serve as a forcing function to solve the problem of a national strategy. Divisions and Battle Groups are easy to target and they are almost certainly not the answer to long-term stability. A dozen-or-so men are extremely difficult to target and are ideally suited (for a litany of reasons) to address the current threat through UW.

Madhu (not verified)

Fri, 06/24/2011 - 12:15am

One final thing. Even during the time of the Pressler amendment and the break of links between the United States and Pakistan, there was never the mobilizing of international opinion in one way or another toward the Pakistani Army/ISI or the policy of non-state actors as a strategic deterrent. It was Western "tit-for-tat" nuclear arms control, India and Pakistan chastised for going outside international organizations and so forth.

Public opinion post 9-11, 7-7, Bali, Mumbai, Abbottabad and so forth is mobilized in a way - across nations - that it never was during previous times.

We are not leaving in terms of drones and CT and that sort of thing.

This has never been tried before. There is no precedent in sixty odd years for this. Never. We shall see.

Madhu (not verified)

Thu, 06/23/2011 - 11:56pm

Nice work, Mr. Haddick. I especially liked the part about innovation.

<strong>carl:</strong>

This time it's different. I think. I <em>propose</em>. At any rate, here are some thoughts to ponder:

<em>Strategy is about creating the rules of the game, not about playing the game.</em> - James Schneider, on Tom Ricks blog

<a href="http://ricks.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/06/22/and_another_thing_milit…;

<em>...3. The adversaries enjoy flexibility in their response: Pakistan seems to have forgotten that her adversaries are intelligent, adaptive and backed up enormous economic and military resources. India is fighting back by choosing not to fight. Without raising tensions, they have embarked on an arms build-up spree, developed a cold start strategy backed up by ballistic missile defense. This is aimed at eliciting arms build up by Pakistan and ultimately bankrupting Pakistan (one can notice parallels to Regans SDI approach).
.
The Americans are following an approach through technology and coercion. Pakistani declarations of its inability to fight in the tribal areas led to the Americans employing drones. Which has had a backlash inside Pakistan. Furthermore through the OBL raid, Americans have simultaneously struck at the credibility of the civilians and the myth of capability of the armed forces gavely injuring the deniability part of the strategy and demonstrating that Pakistani threat to shut down the NATO supply routes are hollow....
The same sub conventional warfare-deniability-deterrence approach was tried out in Kargil and failed spectacularly due to the same reasons of lack of endgame, asymmetric escalation by India and the flexibility of response that India enjoyed. Pakistan could not obtain a negotiated withdrawal (because that would imply that Pakistan would have accept responsibility for the intrusion) and counted on an Indian surrender (and were not prepared for their will to fight). Indian escalation could not be matched by Pakistani escalation, due to the danger of loss of deniability. Ultimately India prevailed through strength of arms through Artillery and Airforce and thoroughly discredited Pakistani denials by going on a diplomatic offensive***. Though the conflicts themselves were dissimilar, the current conflict is following the well-charted Kargil route. A bloody nose in the Kargil conflict**** led to a decade of military rule, erosion of Pakistans economic base, steeper economic divisions and radicalization. A bloody nose in the current conflict will prove to be much more costly and might very well be fatal to Pakistan.</em> - Majorly Profound blog

<a href="http://majorlyprofound.wordpress.com/2011/05/16/pakistans-security-post…;

<em>...10. How to translate these seeming hopes into durable reality? Will they concretise into reality or turn out to be another chimera? The answer to this question has to come from the jihadi belt of Pakistan. It has to come from the General Headquarters of the Pakistan Army. It has to come from the headquarters of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).....
11. Mr.Obama has taken care to discourage the illusions of the Pakistani leadership. He said in his address to his people: " Of course, our efforts must also address terrorist safe-havens in Pakistan. No country is more endangered by the presence of violent extremists, which is why we will continue to press Pakistan to expand its participation in securing a more peaceful future for this war-torn region. We will work with the Pakistani government to root out the cancer of violent extremism, and we will insist that it keep its commitments. For there should be no doubt that so long as I am President, the United States will never tolerate a safe-haven for those who aim to kill us: they cannot elude us, nor escape the justice they deserve." </em> - B. Raman's Strategic Analysis

<a href="http://ramanstrategicanalysis.blogspot.com/2011/06/pak-sulking-has-had-…;

We are attempting to change the long-standing rules-of-the-relationship between the two countries, and hence, obtain a strategoc advantage.

A theory, at any rate. Time will tell.

carl (not verified)

Thu, 06/23/2011 - 8:30pm

Mr. Haddick:

The part of the column dealing with Mr. Obama's new found ability to influence the Pak Army/ISI seems like hopeful speculation, filled with "likely"s, "could then"s and "may have"s. I hope you are right and we do something. But given our history over the last decade, I expect nothing beyond more frequent expressions of displeasure.

Ken White (not verified)

Thu, 06/23/2011 - 4:28pm

Good column, Robert. Two points:<blockquote>"Finally, the report discusses what may be the biggest threat to the Pentagon -- its institutional barriers to reform. Rand discusses "the innovator's dilemma," a common problem across private and public enterprises..."</blockquote>Very true and particularly so in the Five Sided Palace where parochialism, ably assisted and encouraged by our Congress, rules.<br>

Regrettably, this:<blockquote>"Who in the Pentagon will now advocate for experimentation and innovation remains to be seen."</blockquote> is an open question. Perhaps they will listen to RAND since the big money paid them vastly exceeds the cost of the in house Office of Net Assessment who have been saying all that's in this study for many years before RAND produced it.

Few seem to listen to Andy Marshall -- until things are OBE...

My first thought on the number was: Is that two or three FOBs? And my second was, how much can you slim of the organization by cutting out the dross in each chain of command, a good old fashioned culling.?

On the issue of next gen resistance, thats a very interesting point. Van Ripers sinking of a fleet. Missiles will become the new norm, as well as pure commandoraids like the ones in Pakistan on the naval base Nehra. And in 10 years they will have missile barrages warming up. The days of occupying a totaly hostile enviroment with armed forces more or less only seem over.

So then it becomes about force-protection and projection ratio, doesnt it? The whole FOB system needs a drastic revamp, from what I hear. Never been to one, but.

Lol, you should be able to cut out all the glowing-belt dispensers (and free the cargospace! And the buerocracy!) for one thing, and half the people protecting the Burger King people (by getting rid of Burger King!) by slimming each down. From what i hear from countless people who have been there across the webs. Should leave the pointy end, no?