COIN – Now we see that it failed. But that was obvious before we started (when will we learn?)
12.06.2011 at 01:07pm
COIN – Now we see that it failed. But that was obvious before we started (when will we learn?)
by Fabius Maximus
Summary: Now that the enthusiasm has passed for COIN as the tool by which foreign armies can defeat local insurgencies, we can look back for lessons. They key insight is not that COIN failed to live up to the claims of its advocates. It’s that the claims were obviously false when made, disproved by both history and logic.
Contents
- Introduction: the rise of COIN
- The Fall of COIN
- Reason #1: COIN seldom works when used by foreign armies against local insurgents
- Reason #2: the intellectual foundation of COIN is largely bogus
- Other posts about COIN
This article contains the following sentence.
“As the US military retreats from COIN, returning to its traditional (since WWI) reliance on massive firepower, we can look back and learn from its second rise and fall (Vietnam was their first love affair with COIN).”
If you were going to parody the belief that the only useful tool in the box was a hammer, this is the kind of sentence you would write. Unfortunately, the world will require us to fight small wars in the future and small wars by definition are ones in which massive firepower can’t be used. It will be much harder to get small wars right if we stamp our feet and refuse to think about them anymore. Better to keep thinking about it now than having the low ranking people have to do it by themselves on the fly because the high ranking people haven’t been thinking about anything but how to swing that hammer.
Carl:
I agree with you that it is important to think about small wars. What I have been saying in all of this is that when we are thinking about small wars in the present and the future we need to do it with the understanding that the way the US has fought these wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, operationally, has failed. If we treat them as successes then we are learning the wrong things from them. It would be like the British after the disastorous and failed Galipoli campaign in 1915 afterward claiming that they were succussful and that there was a trove a strategic lessons to be gotten from it.
gian
My thanks to the editors for posting this link, and for the comments by Carl and Colonel Gentile.
(1) As for its intent, Col Gentile’s comment is a perfect summary (which has been added to the introduction). The questions discussed (of which this post is one chapter in a long series) are:
(a) When we should directly fight local insurgencies (strategy), and
(b) When we must, how should we do so (doctrine)?
Given the record, this series of posts suggest the answers are:
(a) Only when necessary (IMO neither Af or Iraq were necessary after their governments were overthrown).
(b) Unknown. The number of successes by foreign armies against local insurgencies is too few to draw firm conclusions.
(2) Carl raises the same vital point in a different way:
(a) “Unfortunately, the world will require us to fight small wars in the future … It will be much harder to get small wars right if we stamp our feet and refuse to think about them anymore.”
I agree. Which is the point of my posts about COIN.
(b) “The problem with articles like FM’s is that they come across as advocating not thinking about small wars at all; and we shouldn’t think about them because they can’t be won.”
IMO we refuse to look at the historical record and so repeat past mistakes. As the old Alcoholics Annonymous saying goes, insanity is repeating the same actions but expecting a different result.
I believe we have not yet found a useful doctrine for foreign armies to fight local insurgencies. That does not mean that it is impossible, but does suggest that repeating failed doctrines (Vietnam, Iraq, Af-Pak) will not work. I would like to see Colonel Gentile’s view.
(3) About firepower: “small wars by definition are ones in which massive firepower can’t be used.”
What is massive firepower depends on the local situation. Massive firepower in Iraq or Afghanistan differs from that in 1944 Germany. For examples of massive firepower using artillery in Iraq, see these:
(a) “Bloggers’s Roundtable” with Colonel Jon Lehr, Commander of the 4th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, 23 May 2008
http://www.defense.gov/dodcmsshare/BloggerAssets/2008-05/05230813522120080523_ColLehr_transcript.pdf
(b) “The Warrior King“, Abu Muqawama, 28 May 2008 — which provides a book review by “tintin”, an Ivy League ROTC cadet.
http://www.cnas.org/blogs/abumuqawama/2008/05/warrior-king.html
Esp note Col Gentile’s comment (on the original AM website; not carried over to the the CNAS website).
“Excellent review; lots to chew on especially in light of the AM thread last week on current use of arty and lots of us firepower in diyala. Is there any real difference from how Sassman used firepower in Diyala in 03/04 to how it is being used by the SBCT there today? Or is the real and only difference that one is part of the Surge and the other is not? Just some questions to provoke, more to follow later.”
Please email me if you would like additional information on these things.
The trend seems to be that if enough people say Afghanistan and Iraq would have been better off without a prolonged allied presence after major combat operations finished…it must be true. Yet it is completely unsubstantiated and historically unproveable.
Even Vietnam may have actually resulted in the Domino effect that was its reason in the first place. The Chinese and Russians found it was not so easy to spread communism with a pesky democracy standing in its way. We also learned a lot about helicopter warfare and special operations in Vietnam…and that search and destroy does little but destroy American lives.
An argument could be made that WWII accomplished what WWI failed to finish. OIF finished what Desert Storm left undone. Current occasional efforts in Somalia and to counter piracy are the legacy of our prior failure to stick it out. Israel is stuck with unfinished business because they left Lebanon thinking it would fix itself. Instead, Hezbollah has used many of the same COIN techniques claimed not to work to create a secure home adjacent to the Lebanese Army…just as the Pakistani Army turns a blind eye to the Haqqani network, Quetta Taliban, and Lashkar e Taiba.
Seems like the Chamberlains of today are quick to reject the wars of the future that actually will occur in hopes that the wars of yesteryear and the sea wars that have not occurred since WWII, will once again return to restore earlier warfare glory.
The lack of planning for stability operations following OIF was an obvious failure. Yet some would argue it wasn’t a gross oversight because we simply should have walked away declaring victory as President Bush appeared to do until reality reared its ugly head. We left Desert Storm thinking the job was done and Hussein would fall. Future wars will similarly be incomplete should we choose to cut and run leaving chaos.
The lessons from both current wars are plentiful and enduring. They include coalition-building, host nation security force training, COPs/HESCO, armored trucks and Stryker, use of heavy armor in COIN urban operations, body armor, aerostats, sensor towers, UAS, sufficient ground force for wide area security, aerial resupply and airdrop, airlift of armor, attack helicopter and CAS primacy…and treating the conquered the same way we would want to be treated if we were the vanquished. We didn’t beat up on Japan or Germany after the war. Nor did we hurry home to leave them floundering. It is astonishing to see so many claim that such a strategy would work in the future.
I think the question is less whether “Afghanistan and Iraq would have been better off without a prolonged allied presence” than whether we would have been better off without an extended presence.
To me the lesson to be taken away from these episodes is simply that anyone contemplating regime change must assume from the start that they will face an extended and intractable insurgency and that installing a functioning government that enjoys any perception of legitimacy among the governed is sure to be very difficult and time-consuming and may not be possible.
In Iraq in particular I think we suffered from massively distorted expectations about the post-regime change environment. That’s not something we need to repeat.
I very much enjoyed reading this piece. In a community where information is presented in either slides or essays, it is nice to read a hybrid that complements a structured writing style like that of Fabius Maximus in this piece. However, in recent months, our arguments advocating or attacking COIN have led with some hard-hitting and sweeping title choices (I too plead guilty: “COIN is Alive”). This piece is an example where the title endeavors to be inclusive, but is not inclusive of the audience.
My position remains that COIN is neither dead, nor ruled a failure merely because it hasn’t worked from a perspective of U.S. strategy. When seen from above the fray of recent U.S. contingency operations, I remain convinced there remains the requirement to develop strategy and doctrine for irregular warfare, and I believe COIN is the most successful, albeit incomplete, U.S. effort to date.
Rather than jettisoning COIN, I believe those who have mulled upon the phenomena of war should endeavor to understand how and when COIN, Insurgency, and Regular warfare is best applied.
In that light, perhaps COIN should be seen neither as a failure, nor as dead. Rather we could view it as the first or second most understudied quadrant of war (the other being insurgency) that will not dissolve away merely because we chose not to engage in these adventures. Rival groups know this, which should serve as a caution to not discard the developing doctrine. Let us adapt too! You can bet this body of knowledge will be needed again when traditional methods fall short. After all, you can’t tighten all screws with flat tip drivers, no matter how many you have in your box.
Perhaps we should not throw the baby out with the bathwater. I do think we should consider adding a general principle that COIN is best fought by those threatened with the insurgency (and not pay lip service to service a principle). We need to know how to advise and assist friends, partners, and allies when they are threatened with lawlessness, subversion, insurgency, and terrorism (when it is determined in our national interests and when we have a balanced and coherent strategy). If we think we have to intervene in an insurgency and think we should lead such a fight then we must understand that we risk being a de facto if not actual occupying power with all the baggage that comes with that action. We may believe we have to conduct stability operations to buy time for the legitimate government to develop the capability to defend itself against the above threats but for us to conduct COIN directly for that government may in fact be counterproductive in the long term.
The bottom line is that we need to have balance and coherency among ends, ways, and means in order to do what our country needs us to do from a national security perspective.
Believe it is critical to continue moving forward rather than observing backwards. Simply being proficient at historical infantry blocking and tackling is no guarantee of future relevance. Kursk and Desert Storm armor battles are not less relevant today because of any assumption that we could not perform them capably tomorrow. Rather, it is because enemy’s realize that attempting that with their current armor quantity/quality on a modern open battlefield would be suicidal due to our air power and long range fires. Plus, our tanks no longer are limited to 1500 meter shots.
It is only when you get into complex and urban terrain that the enemy has a shot in large wars and small. Even there, heavy and medium armor can prevail as illustrated by the battle of Sadr City in 2008. Where it cannot prevail is on a battlefield where fuel costs $400 a gallon, has thousands of miles to travel, and is consumed in 500 gallon gulps every eight hours. Less heavy armor, task-organized with light infantry and Stryker elements, can still be highly effective while limiting fuel consumption and deployment challenges in an A2/AD environment.
Every war differs. But you don’t get much more identical than the Soviets in Afghanistan vs our coalition in Afghanistan. The difference was they had more armor and shorter supply lines so you would expect them to fare better than they did. In contrast, with a less hostile attitude to the population, and a greater focus on protecting them rather than succumbing to pressure to seek out the enemy on complex/urban terrain they grew up on and can blend into…our heroes have suffered 1/10th the level of combat deaths. Vietnam would have been similarly less bloodly with a greater Vietnamization and COIN strategy from the get go, coupled with lighter modern body armor (many would have survived bouncing betties, indirect fire, and small arms) and more survivable helicopters. COIN is on the right tract if we start out with sufficient well-dispersed forces, and a division of failed states (when possible) along ethnic lines to preclude civil war.
I note that AOL Defense has published the new Joint Operational Access Concept that describes “Cross-Domain Synergy” on air, sea, land, space, and cyber domains. The Army can learn lesson from both Afghanistan and Iraq on use of HESCO and COPs to provide defensible areas for distributed operations on smaller land masses that require far fewer supplies than larger FOBs and AA, and less exposure than large ships.
The joint capability to move by multiple air and sea avenues of approach via smaller air/sea transport means…and to accept that there will be some casualties…assures us access to any shore (perhaps an adjacent ally in some cases) regardless of A2/AD attempts. That access alone precludes casualties and area denial attempts from being sunk en route over intertheater distances. US forward presence whether in small wars for stability operations and peacekeeping, or larger war deterrence, has a capability to move elsewhere intratheater distances. Couple that with rapid reinforcement by tailored heavy-light task forces over intertheater air distances will stand us in good stead in preventing or reducing the impact of future “politics by other means,” attempts to thwart energy and commerce transport, and the spread of WMD.
Mike,
I disagree with you on FID. It provides a foundation for a strategy for helping to deal with the problem in a specific country. We should not confuse FID with Security Force Assistance. FID looks at the whole problem and it is not merely focused on training military forces.
From the Joint Pub:
“Foreign Internal Defense (FID) is participation by civilian and military agencies of a government or in any of the action programs taken by another government or other designated organization, to free and protect is society from subversion, lawlessness, insurgency, terrorism, and other threats to their security. The focus of US FID efforts is to support the host nation’s (HN’s) internal defense and development (IDAD), which can be described as the full range of measures taken by a nation to promote its growth and protect itself from the security threats described above.”
Department of Defense, Joint Publication 3-22, Foreign Internal Defense (US Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 12 July 2010), p, ix.
I believe it is. There is the civilian and military aspects of it with the US supporting the Colombian government’s efforts to implement programs (defense and development) to defend itself against lawless, subversion, insurgency, and terrorism. Colombia is conducting its own IDAD with US support.
But the bigger issue is that we really should not be worrying about what something is called. It doesn’t matter if it is FID or anything else. FID doctrine helps us get at a strategy.
But when look at mission statements we need to chose between:
XXX organization conducts FID to do XXX
XXX organization assists the Government of Colombia’s internal defense and development programs to defeat the drug cartels and the FARC.
I say the former is not something we should be writing because among us we cannot even agree on what FID (or COIN or CT or IW) means, so using those terms would seem to be unhelpful when talking with the host nation and Congress and the general public – all of whom really need to understand the balanced and coherent strategy we are trying to execute. Let’s use use our doctrine for training, education, and understanding within the professional military and civilian organization that have to conduct operations to support strategies but when it comes to discussing the strategies let’s forgo the jargon and describe in plain language what we are trying to accomplish.
Mike,
Why does Plan Colombia have to be called FID by State or the CRS? No one has to call it FID to make it FID. The mission fits in the doctrinal construct of FID. If not, then what do you think it might be otherwise?
But you make my point. We do not need to worry about what the mission is called. A large majority of the military planners on Plan Colombia were SOF. They were informed by doctrine in their planning effort, but there is no need to have State call the mission FID. Plan Colombia is just fine (and one of the most important things about the Plan as noted in the title of the plan that it is about Colombia and not about the US as the main effort – a tenet of FID).
But to reiterate let’s worry less about naming something by doctrine and instead allow the doctrine to inform operations, planning, and training and the develop strategy and supporting campaign plans using plain language that is commonly understood.
Mike,
For decades FID has not been a SOF exclusive mission but the myth continues to perpetuate that not only is FID a SOF exclusive mission but all that FID entails is training host nation forces. I would recommend to anyone to just read the executive summary of Joint Publication 3-22, Foreign Internal Defense 12 July 2010 and then ask them explain how it does not provide the foundation for development of a holistic whole of government strategy for helping a friend, partner or ally by assisting in its internal defense and development programs to defend itself against lawlessness, subversion, insurgency, and terrorism.
As the Russians and Germans have long said the problem with the US is that we have doctrine that we do not read or follow. And as we have always said before you can deviate from doctrine you have to know it. We do not pay attention to our own doctrine.
Instead of looking at our doctrine and applying and adapting it to each unique situation we spend more time trying to come up with new names and terminology. Sound doctrine exists if only people would look at it rather than go for the ARCOM for investing a fancy new buzzword.
MikeF,
How do you justify categorizing FID as bottom up and COIN as top down? Every mission related to FID is very top down driven (as it should be). We are given very specific left and right limits, objectives, etc. Like any operation, the how to execute the what they were told to do is largely determined by those doing it (or should be).
It is way past time we move past the discussion of population centric COIN. Focusing on the population does not counter an insurgency (an active violent one), and it never has. A government to be effective needs to focus on its population whether at peace, conflict or war to remain legitimate, but again we confuse good governance as a “way” to “counter” insurgency. Too late, the insurgents are not going to lay down their arms because the government is changing its behavior. There is a completely different behavior dynamic driving the insurgency, than the condition that may have led to it starting.
We have a lot of do gooders in our society, and while I applaud their humanitarian efforts to build schools, help them with agricultural methods, etc. lets not confuse this as COIN.
As for defining FID to a conventional force, I had GPF personnel augment us in our efforts in W. Africa and they had no problem understanding we were conducting FID (for those missions it was largely train and equip). They knew we had no authorities, nor did the U.S. have any desire to get involved in “their” fight. The concept is actually quite simple. The hard part is developing a workable strategy.
Mike,
That is certainly an interesting method of analysis though not one I would have considered for describing top down versus bottom up. I do not think there has ever been a general officer in country in command of the military forces in Plan Colombia and there was a 1 star for the first 6 months of OEF-P in the Philippines but other than that those two missions have not had in country general officer leadership.
But the FID doctrine is instructive. Here is an excerpt from JP 3-22:
“The National Security Council (NSC) will generally provide the initial guidance and translation of national- level decisions pertaining to FID. The Department of State (DOS) is generally the lead government agency and assists the NSC in building and carrying out national FID policies and priorities. The United States Agency for International Development carries out nonmilitary assistance programs designed to assist certain less developed nations to increase their productive capacities and improve their quality of life. The Director of National Intelligence and the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency support the FID mission in both a national-level advisory capacity and at the regional and country levels through direct support of FID activities.
The Department of Defense national-level organizations involved in FID management include the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) and the Joint Staff. OSD acts as a policy-making organization in most FID matters. The Under Secretary of Defense for Policy exercises overall direction, authority, and control concerning SA for OSD through the various assistant secretaries of defense. The Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) is the principal DOD organization through which SecDef carries out responsibilities for SA, conducting international logistics and sales negotiations and serving as the DOD focal point for liaison with US industry regarding SA. Finally, DSCA develops and promulgates SA procedures, maintains the database for the programs, and makes determinations with respect to the allocation of foreign military sales administrative funds.
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (CJCS) plays an important role in providing strategic guidance to the combatant commanders for the conduct of military operations to support FID. This guidance is provided primarily through the National Military Strategy (NMS) and the Joint Strategic Capabilities Plan (JSCP), the key components of the Joint Strategic Planning System (JSPS).
United States Coast Guard, within the Department of Homeland Security is specifically authorized to assist other federal agencies in the performance of any activity for which especially qualified, including SA activities for DOS and DOD.
Geographic combatant commanders (GCCs) are responsible for planning and executing military operations in support of FID within their area of responsibility (AOR). Other combatant commanders play a supporting role by providing resources to conduct operations as directed by the President or SecDef. All staff elements contribute to the overall support of the FID operation. For example, the plans directorate incorporates military support to FID into theater strategy and plans; the operations directorate monitors the execution of military operations in support of FID; and the intelligence directorate produces intelligence that often supplements estimates produced by the national intelligence agencies. Other staff functions may be given primary responsibilityfor specific military technical support missions and will usually focus on the direct support (not involving combat operations) category of military support to FID.
When authorized by SecDef through the CJCS, commanders of unified commands may establish subordinate unified commands (also called subunified commands), either geographic or functional, to conduct operations on a continuing basis in accordance with the criteria set forth for unified commands. Theater special operations commands are of particular importance because of the significant role of special operations forces (SOF) in FID operations. Coordination between the joint force special operations component commander and the other component commanders within the combatant command is essential for effective management of military operations in support of FID, including joint and multinational exercises, mobile training teams, integration of SOF with conventional forces, and other operations.
The President gives the chief of the diplomatic mission, normally an ambassador, full responsibility for the direction, coordination, and supervision of all USG executive branch employees in-country. Close coordination with each chief of mission (COM) and country team is essential in order to conduct effective, country-specific FID operations that support the HN’s IDAD program and US regional goals and objectives. The principal military member of the country team is the senior defense official/defense attaché (SDO/DATT), who functions as the COM’s principal military advisor on defense and national security issues, the senior diplomatically accredited DOD military officer assigned to a US diplomatic mission, and the single point of contact for all DOD matters involving the embassy or DOD elements assigned to or working from the embassy. Additionally, in the majority of countries, the functions of a security cooperation organization (SCO) are carried out under the direction of the SDO/DATT. The SCO is the most important FID-related military activity under the supervision of the ambassador. The specific title of the SCO may vary; however, these differences reflect nothing more than the political climate within the HN. As examples, an SCO may be referred to as a military assistance advisory group, military advisory group, office of military cooperation, or office of defense cooperation.”
Lastly I would like to point out what it says in the doctrine because despite me writing it here so often most do not take my word for it:
e. Although FID is a core task of US Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) and special operations forces (SOF) maintain the capability to conduct such operations, conventional forces (CF) also possess capabilities to conduct FID. FID is not a military- only operation; rather, it includes an interagency approach to assisting an HN. The joint force commander (JFC) supporting a FID effort may employ capabilities provided by both CF and SOF. A robust FID operation may be conducted through the command and control (C2) structure of a joint task force (JTF) or a joint special operations task force (JSOTF). When CF and SOF are integrated, appropriate C2 or liaison elements should be exchanged or provided to the appropriate components of a joint force.”
We need to ignore recent bastardizations of the definition of FID intended to help make it better fit within equally bastardized definitions of COIN, or newly born (continuing this line) bastard operations such as SFA.
COIN only applies to insurgency. I take a unique position on COIN, in that I recognize that our current definitions and doctrine are heavily based in the extremely biased strategies of Colonialism and Containment. Both of those strategies are largely obsolete today, equally so are those definitions of COIN. Time for a major refresh there. Personally, I recommend that that refresh should consider COIN as a purely domestic operation, and that foreign assistance to COIN is best fitted under the umbrella of FID.
FID, however, is much broader than assistance to COIN. FID is a great, and much maligned, construct. Much of what the conventional force today sells as COIN and SFA are actually subsets of FID. This is much more than SOF vs. Conventional; or a matter of geeky doctrinal semantics. This goes to the very essence of establishing proper strategic frameworks from the very start of an operation, and thereby creating the opportunity for success. We owe our soldiers, marines, airmen, sailors and allies that opportunity. Current constructs of COIN and SFA deny the opportunity for success. This is no small thing. Heads should roll, and contracts should end. We owe our operators and our taxpayers better.
MikeF,
There is a big difference between being micro-managed and bottom up FID. Policy, strategy, and objectives come from the top. It doesn’t matter if an E7 is running it, or three general officers are tripping over one another to run operations at the ground level. FID must be line with our diplomatic policy for that country, so to think anyone in uniform at the execution level will just do what they want with no left and right limits from higher is misguided. The part of the mission that the tactical unit/individual executes seems to be what you’re referring to. If you’re given a mission to train a particular unit in Country X on skill sets 1 & 2 you are generally given considerable lattitude on working out “how” that training that will be executed with your HN counterparts. You also (depending on your chain of command and Country Team receptiveness to input) can inform higher and make recommended changes to the guidance given.
All too often bottom up is less desirable, and is usually the default when there is no strategy. What was Sun Tzu saying? Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat. I don’t hear too many SF Soldiers asking how to do something, but they usually want clarification on what is to be done and why. At this level is it is simple MDMP.
To that point I agree, see comments on your other blog post. Looks like we’re posting past one another. I agree that there is too much C2, and incompetent C2 on top of that. I just don’t qualify that as top down compared to bottom up. There is a role for top down strategy and bottom up execution, I don’t think we have top down strategy, and in lieu of strategy there is too much time to focus on B.S. instead. Thus the sad state of our FOBs.
To me a single point made in this article is central to the problem with COIN; “It will not work, as the social sciences are as yet immature. Its practitioners cannot wield their theories as can chemists and physicists. Twentieth century history is largely a series of failed attempts at social engineering.”
Whether it is possible for a foreign nation to effectively implement COIN is questionable but until the social theory is straight it is too early to say that is not possible, particularly with the number of times a successful insurgency has relied on outside interests.
A minor comment on the top down and competence issues, an anecdote:
Then BG Hank Schweiter, serving as Director of Special Operations at DA, gave a briefing to COMUSMACV about one of the projects in 1966. He started his briefing by noting that the MACV Staff was then larger than the combined Staffs of Eisenhower and MacArthur at the end of World War II. General Westmoreland and the Staff Generals and Colonels were not amused but General Schweiter had a serious and telling point. Bigger is not only not better, it can be an impediment — as events proved.
As we see routinely today..