Missing From Our Two Wars: Clear Goals, Joint Forces
10.02.2012 at 01:45am
Missing From Our Two Wars: Clear Goals, Joint Forces by Lieutenant General David Deptula (USAF Ret.) at AOL Defense.
… After the early employment of force in both Iraq and Afghanistan to achieve critical national security objectives, mission-creep — and the "group think" of counter-insurgency (COIN) doctrine — captured Pentagon leadership (and the Joint Staff "Decade of War" report). This led to committing resources to what had then become contingencies of choice rather than of necessity. Our nation's leadership would be much better served in the future if the Pentagon created a culture and environment that encourages innovative thinking instead of rewarding conformity and support toward the warfighting paradigm of the day…
Among the many criticisms from LtGen (Ret) Deptula here is an important one from my parochial perspective:
We know how to do COIN: it’s called foreign internal defense. Long a core mission for Special Operations Forces, FID provides partner nation training and advisory assistance in combating insurgent challenges and growing popular legitimacy. It’s not our job to win hearts and minds; it’s the partner nation’s.
I keep saying one of the most serious mistakes we are making in this Long War or what ever we are calling now is to think that the Air Force does not understand or cannot do COIN/UW. They can and they can do it better in many cases but that just dosen’t jibe with the Guerrilla Warfare Ph.D’s so it tends to be overlooked….much to our Nations peril.