SWC Discussion: The Best Trained, Most Professional Military… Just Lost Two Wars?
10.30.2012 at 07:23pm
Small Wars Council discussion: The Best Trained, Most Professional Military… Just Lost Two Wars? Register, and have at it, professionally of course.
Lets hope the thousands of US soldiers fighting in Afghanistan don’t get the news that the war is over and they lost. They might start to wonder why they are still there….
But for the sake of discussion lets talk about The United States Military’s inability to wage effective counterinsurgency. (I will try to leave out effects of political decisions. I will however, quickly note, that these political ramifications play out hugely on the battlefield)
Let me share some thoughts on our primary weapon, the rifle platoon. The average age is, was and will always be 19. A platoon leader will have less than 3 years experience. Only one member, the plt sgt, will have on average more than 8 or 9 years experience. Team leaders and squad leaders primary advantage is having done battle drill 1A enough times to know how to put their privates in the right order.
With the natural rotation of most soldiers cycling through their 3 year contracts, it is nearly impossible to train a rifle platoon beyond 3-21.8. Hopefully the PL and some of the NCO’s will have an understanding of SH 21-76. The senior NCO’s and Officers across the Company and Battalion should have an understanding of 3-24 and 3-24.2. Thats the best your can expect, and its what is generally deployed right now.
Counterinsurgency takes great skill, maturity, and training. The training required to operate proficiently at that level is beyond what you can give to a light infantry battalion with and average age of 19 and an average time in the army of less than 3 years.
We also can’t correctly define our enemy. Terrorist? Insurgent? Terrorism is a means to an end. It is a method, a tactic. Insurgents uses terrorism to further their political movement. Calling someone a terrorist is like calling them a flanking maneuver. And to have entire anti-terrorist units. How can you combat a tactic?!?!?!? We will never stop individuals or groups from using terrorism just as we won’t ever stop soldiers from laying down a base of machine gun fire prior to maneuvering. Its misdirected effort.
FM 3-24 is based largely on ideas generated from Galula. Today’s insurgents aren’t the same as those from the 1950’s. The classical Counterinsurgency method isn’t geared to face our current threats. The role that transnational militants play is larger that ever. We also have groups like Al-Qaeda, this threat is first of its kind. It is an Islamic insurgent movement without a nation, it is transnational. Al-Qaeda is a global insurgency.
We are fighting it everywhere, its successfully injected itself into virtually anywhere anywhere Muslims are poor, under-educated and under-represented in government. Its provides a compelling narrative which gains traction and then whatever populace they slithered into is now in the cross hairs of our GWOT. (Yemen, Niger, Somalia, etc.)
Ugh, I’ve digressed…
Define “losing.” Tell me what “losing” looks like.
For example: Little or no viable and sustainable progress made in (1) transforming the state and society along modern western lines and in (2) soundly defeating those who do not wish to see such a transformation take place?
Another “losing” example: Population as a whole — and hard-core conservatives/status quo anti types especially — have not been successfully coerced and/or convinced into believing that the transformation of their state and society (along modern western lines) is in their best interests.
Define “winning.” Tell me what “winning” looks like.
For example: Viable and sustainable progress made in transforming the state and society along modern western lines — and in defeating those who do not wish to see such a state and societal transformation take place?
Another “winning” example: Population as a whole — and even many hard-bitten conservatives/status quo anti types — have been successfully coerced and/or convinced into believing that the transformation of their state and society (along modern western lines) is in their best interests (and, if not in their best interests, then certainly something that they cannot hope to avoid or overcome).
Thus, what military force is needed to (a) avoid “losing” and (b) achieve “winning” along these lines?
Based on on the above criteria, have we “lost” — or “won” — these last two wars? Or is it too early to tell?
I think that the initial article (http://www.onviolence.com/?e=642 for anyone who might not have read it yet) is making an awfully strong initial claim by saying that the US “lost” its last two wars. I think it would be better to say that the US went into these wars not knowing how (or what it takes in order) to win them. The problem here is that opposing forces from nations the author mentions, especially WW2 Axis nations, had different kinds of antebellum periods than Afghanistan ca. 2001 and Iraq ca. 2003. As such, “victory” includes a very different set of goals than conflicts like WW2; obviously, “defeat the German Army” is going to be a very different goal than “defeat the Taliban,” in terms of what each of these victories would cost, what kind of operations they would require to achieve, what they would look like, and how the country would look after the conflict.
One thing our military *has* gotten extremely good at is SF missions. Whether in the case of the ST6 marksmen rescuing the pirate-held captain in 2010, or more recently the ST6 raid that eliminated Bin Laden, our special forces are very good at set piece operations that rely on discipline, training, and our resources of intelligence and technology. Using a soccer (football) metaphor: these are more like well-executed corner kicks, while a COIN is more like an entire season of contests – or more (think of the dramatic decline in fighting, yet not total absence of politically important efforts, during the Afghan winter/fighting season cycle, as an off-season for the EPL or any other top-tier league). These SF missions are violent, high-risk, and short term.
Counterinsurgency campaigns, however, are long-term efforts – Operation Enduring Freedom has been called our longest war – that require widespread political action and changes to take place, including efforts engaging local populations, etc. This conflict is even changing the way we understand wars altogether; for example, David Kilcullen’s _Counterinsurgency_ describes a historical and cultural setting that even defies our traditional understanding of a conflict between “good guys” and “bad guys.” In some ways, the fact that a family may support the ISAF one month and shift allegiances to support the Taliban a couple of months later is totally re-writing the understanding of the classic “hearts and minds” approach to COIN; in other ways, it’s so simple that it can’t possibly be so easy to wrap our heads around: the native population just wants to be safe – they’ll support whomever seems most able to keep them safe. Kilcullen calls this a “lethally uncertain environment.”
So instead of saying that we “lost” these wars, I think it’s more accurate to say that we learned a lot about how NOT to wage counterinsurgencies. There *is* a point to be made about what was actually taken away from Vietnam versus what should have been taken away from it; I think that the fact we’re even having discussions like this one and the others on this site show that folks stateside aren’t just talking about how hard it is to fight in the jungle, or how traditional military tactics need updating like they did after Vietnam – we’re learning lessons and making sure our sacrifices will not have been in vain.
Is it really accurate to say that we’ve lost two wars? In Iraq, we deposed the Hussein government and, after a lengthy fight, replaced it with one that works with us through a security cooperation office located in our embassy in Baghdad; in Afghanistan, we’re still fighting/ assisting/ mentoring and appear poised to establish an agreement to maintain a minimal military presence there to continue our assistance efforts post-2014 (though I admit there’s still time for us to “lose”).
A convincing argument can be made that we lost in Vietnam. After we left, we refused to help an ally when they were in need and then were kicked out of the country from the top of our own embassy. This has not happened in Iraq or A’stan. I contend that we have not lost either. Think positive.
Yes I think that to say we lost two more (or one and about to on the other) is accurate. (Afghanstan IS salvagable.)
What is winning? (my stab at it): 1. Decisively defeating the enemy, rendering him unable to continue to advance his goals or agendas, by force or threat thereoff.2. Ending the conflict with an end-state favorable to us.
Does any one think we really did that in Iraq or are going to in Afghanistan? (the stan could be salvaged)
What is Losing? (my stab at it): 1. Failing to defeat the enemy, leaving him available to continue to advance his goals or agendas, by force or threat thereoff. 2. Ending the conflict before we have acheived an end-state favorable to us.
Both Iraq and Afghanistan are breeding grounds for terrorists… We did not destroy the networks etc, therefore they can and will continue to advance their goals and agendas. This at least will continue regional instability. If not provide the sites where the next large attack on us will be trained for and pland and possibly launched from. Are we safer? I don’t know, but if I had to say no probably not. What did we get out of the deal? Not much in the way of economic gains, gaining a strong ally or anything of substance…
How and why does this keep happening? The lie. We continue to over estimate ourselves ie. “look at our new shiny planes and ships etc, etc” How could we lose? Leadership more interested in politics, than the winning wars.
I HATE losing… But I am afraid we have.
I agree that we toot our horn too much. While we have shown a great ability to deploy forces overseas and overthrow regimes/destroy conventional armies (those not equipped, trained, or supported as well as we are mind you…), I’m not sure we’ve shown much in the way of the thinking required for more complex endeavors and I’d even go so far as to say our strategic and operational capabilities are limited (if one must use those terms).
We seem to be stuck in our own preferred worldview of how wars are supposed to be prepared for and fought. Unfortunately (for us), much of the rest of the world is shifting away from conventional force-on-force operations and formal declarations of war (if they ever really went that way) as the rule and instead seeking other ways with which to attack a country’s interests (or it has always been that way- but today there is more capability in those ways/means to have an impact).
Maybe instead of preparing for the next war by arguing against a drawdown- a drawdown is exactly what we need- in order to break the current institution’s paradigms and allow a new one to be built largely from the ground up…?
In terms of “decisively defeating the enemy”- again, I think that kind of thinking does not serve us well when faced with non-state actors. We seem to want to force the WWII paradigm onto each and every incident we encounter. And that goes for “end states” as well- who would have thought in 1975 that we would be granting Vietnam the trade status we have now, retiring SF soldiers would be buying homes in Vietnam, and all of my shirts would be made there. Is that a bad “end-state”? Who’s to say if the end result of us pulling out of Afghanistan before the network is destroyed is good or bad- I’d argue it depends on what one’s definition of the end-state is and at what time do you declare it “the end”. I submit that with efforts that are problematic in clearly identifying exactly what is in our interest (do we bankrupt the nation to kill every last terrorist or do we attempt to strike a balance and accept some reasonable amount of risk?)- end-states don’t help us much.
If, for example, we want to leave with “allies” in place- maybe we need to listen to the people- who overwhelmingly want our troops out of the region. I’m not necessarily agreeing with that “end-state”, but pointing out that it is possible that what we want and what we are doing (and the conventional wisdom on what we should do) are in conflict with one another. This kind of paradox seems manifest in these more complex undertakings.
I used to joke with the Germans in Afghanistan that THEY won WWII- because here we were sitting in Afghanistan and their 25 year old police trainers were trusted enough to drink alcohol and our 47 year old colonels were not…
A few random thoughts:
1. The US is pretty good at winning wars; we are not so good at knowing what a war is. The “war” portions of operatoins in Iraq and Afghanistan went like clockwork. It was when we stayed and attempted to play puppet master, picking and protecting governments to secure our interests over those defeated countries, that we started to suck. We shouldn’t do that; and while often very violent, is not really a war.
2. The US is pretty good at COIN. COIN is a domestic operation, and I can’t think of many countries that could have made the decisions to recover from the Civil War as gracefully as we did, or that would have made the major compromises of government and law that we did to turn the tide of the Civil Rights movement. We should be proud of our COIN record, because the best COIN is pro-active. When a country waits for civil government to fail to the degree military warfare against their own populace is required, in most ways, they have already lost, even if the insurgent is ultimately suppressed.
3. We could be a lot more successful in these manipulative occupations if we would, well, manipulate and occupy a little less in the process. In other words, stop trying to “win” the “war” and start trying to succeed in assiting some nation get to a form and degree of governance that works for them and allows them to find some degree of natural stability.
In other words, we thing about these problems in the wrong way, and therefore bring inappropriate solutions. Predictably, that does not work very well. And when things begin to go bad, we double down. In most of these cases, less is more. But we always go for more and get less.
Bob
Cir. 2003, the United States embarked upon a new path — a new mission — this mission was to (1) use the opportunity presented by insurgency, terrorism, humanitian crisis, natural disaster, killing of one’s own people, etc., to (2) transform outlier states and societies along modern western lines.
I am not sure we can properly call this activity “war.”
Understanding the distinction here, would it be correct to say that we lost two “wars?”
Or would it be more correct to say that we may have failed at these two (Iraq and Afghanistan) state and societal transformation/westernization missions/projects?
From General Odierno’s recent comments at CSIS promoting a Land Force counter to Air-Sea Battle in response to a question about Defense Scenarios used to shape the forces we build:
Odierno replied, “I could come up with a scenario that makes us build a million-man army, or I could come up with a scenario that makes us build a 100,000-man army.” Scenarios are just “a guideline,” the general said. “It’s about having the right capabilities to [do] what I call ‘prevent, shape, and win.'”
First, I totally agree with the General regarding Defense Scenarios. They are silly criteria employed by the Defense Department and the Services to attempt to get the force they want in the face of the policies and budgets of a given era (ie, rather than the force we need).
But I do have to ask the General about “Prevent-Shape-Win” in regard to the types of conflicts and competition that challenge our nation in the post-Cold War era: How did large ground forces “prevent” 9/11, or Arab Spring, or any of a dozen other problems we are looking to put ground forces against? How have ground forces created a “win” in Iraq or Afghanistan? Certainly we have “shaped” the hell out of places and populaces all across the planet with ground forces, but does that “prevent and win,” or does it more aptly “provoke and conflate” instead?
This is not a shot at the General. Deep respect, and he has a hard job to be the top advocate for the Army in the current era. The historic reality is that the US does not need nor want large ground forces in times of peace. The more modern historic reality is that these forces neither prevent or win the types of problems we are throwing them against.
The Air Force and Navy exaggerate Air-Sea requirements too, but the fact is that for a nation like the US has been for the past couple of centuries, we need more of Air and Sea capacity in peace than we do Land capacity. The benefits of big oceans and friendly (much weaker) neighbors. For the last 80 years of the 19th century we grew to maturity under the protection of the Royal Navy. For the 20th Century we outgrew that capacity and had to expand our own Naval and Air capacity. Armies came and went with the conflicts they were built for.
Now is the time for Defense to defend our nation best by driving major cuts in spending and tailoring a smart force for the modern era. So far that force is not on the table for discussion. It should be.
An analogy:
Let’s say that someone is, without question, the greatest Formula One race car driver of the current era.
And let’s say that someone else was, without doubt, the greatest Formula One race car driver of another, much earlier period.
Would this be of no moment if:
The requirement today was for Formula One race car drivers to drive and to race — not Formula One race cars — but, instead, peddle cars (certainly still “racing” and/or “car racing”); or,
If the requirement today was for Formula One race car drivers to build shopping malls?
Herein, our military (greatest in the world and of all time or not), in the cases of Iraq and Afghanistan, likewise being asked to do something (opposed state and societal transformation) different from what they had otherwise been (1) trained to do and/or (2) were experienced at doing.
Thus, this new mission requiring (as would be the case of the Formula One race car drivers driving and racing peddle cars) a number of very different preparations, personnel recruitments, equipment purchases and refinements, various new calculations, and significant trial, error and learning periods; until initial — and later repeatable — success could hope to be achieved and/or replicated?
Bill C, Bill M., et al
The formula one analogy for COIN works: computational fluid dynamics modeling for aerodynamic gain, 3d printers for custom parts, and sublime mechanical engineering trickery vs the pedal car. Let’s see if I can riff off of this using two hypothetical scenarios.
The Toronto Maple Leafs have been called in to NYC in it’s time of need. Offense, defense, coaching staff, and support team are now in charge of all political, economic/financial, security, infrastructure, and humanitarian concerns. All members will wear team uniform (helmet, mouthguards, pads, skates and sticks + reflective belt) wherever they travel as this is the proper uniform to conduct business in; if nothing else they will be dressed for success and taken seriously in the disparate cultures of politics, economics/finance, security, infrastructure, and humanitarian work. Furthermore their ability to work as a team under high pressure and fast paced change will ensure their success in this critical endeavor, irrespective of their educational and experiential baselines. Finally, NYC is in desperate need of some Canadian culture…compare/contrast the Canadian experience during the financial meltdown with that of the US.
US Army Admin/Personnel forces have been called in to SOCOM during their time of need. Literal target fixation has reduced SOCOM abilities to delivering ‘one dimensional kinetic solutions’. Nevermind our nations need for precise, anytime, anywhere lethality, the Army’s 42 series is highly trained and motivated and as a result is the obvious choice to take on and resolve this particular conundrum…
Now…how successful would one realistically anticipate the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Army’s 42 series to be in these two hypothetical situations? Based upon the anticipated results would we then be correct in saying that running NYC and SOCOM is simply ‘too complex’ and can’t/shouldn’t be done?
Perhaps we could consider staffing, organizing, and educating our folks appropriately since the COIN mission (this end of the violence spectrum) is not going anywhere? A quick run through ‘COIN” history brings to mind the Spanish-American War, the USMC in Central America, continues on through WWI, WWII, and of course today…
“Winning” means achieving your policy objective: no other definition makes sense at all. The first steps toward winning are to assure that the policy objectives are clear, concrete, practical, and achievable and to pursue those objectives with the appropriate tools.
Nation-building, state transformation, and economic development are anything but clear, concrete, practical, and achievable goals. The army, particularly general purpose forces, is in no way an appropriate tool for pursuing those objectives. Yes, they screwed it up., Of course they screwed it up. The purely military end of it was managed reasonably effectively: by no means perfectly, but reasonably effectively. The larger political side, which was essential to winning, was and is a mess, because the objectives were never realistic and the tools chosen to pursue those objectives were not appropriate. Asking generals to build a nation is like asking an engineer to do surgery: it ain’t gonna work.
Much of what the military perceives as “complexity” or “wicked problems” comes, I suspect, from handing them problems that they are not trained or equipped to solve. Those problems are not necessarily more complex, they just seem so because they are outside the experience and competence of those assigned to solve them. Auto repair is not more complex than neurosurgery, but if you ask a brain surgeon to fix a car the results aren’t going to be good.
If the US really wants to go around building nations and transforming states, we need to develop a specialized capacity targeting those functions. Asking the military to do it clearly isn’t going to work. Setting people up for failure by handing them vague, nebulous, impractical objectives that are completely outside their competence and then blaming them for failure seems churlish at best.
We could have a good large force in all areas, land, sea, air, if we do one thing better: Prioritize Defense Spending. When 50 to 60% of our money is spent of future gizmos and we have to reduce the number of war fighter in order to afford those gizmos, then we need to look a WTH we are doing. As an light infantry guy I have only benifited slightly from this all this so called technogy as an advantage. I am still carrying 100lbs like my forefarthers in the Roman Legions did. The difference is that all of mine in high speed, light and water proof… But at the end of the day it still ways 100lbs.
The P-38 can opener still works better than any other I have found…
We have UAV out the whazoo and can’t find enough bad guys to make it worth flying half the missions we do.
We spend billions on unproven technology only to dump it. We have got to get away from the idea that we need to pick up the tab on all of this.
If we did so we could easily afford a good size force and the brass could stop fiddling with it.
As always, many interesting comments. Perhaps the conversation missed some key issues: unavoidable stability operations, general purpose force (GPF) wide area security strengths…and we are not losing two wars just because a blog says so. It may be correct that we could get away with less build and GPF diplomacy, but “clear” and “hold” remain relevant during stability operations that are virtually essential these days to cement any gains made.
First, we were not building or transforming Iraq other than removing Hussein (and minority Sunnis from power) and any perceived WMD threat by a proven user thereof. We were stabilizing Iraq afterwards…which SOF, the Navy, and Air Force could never have accomplished after the destructive phases finished. In fact, the latter two services and EBO and AirSea Battle concepts would guarantee instability and more infrastructure to rebuild. As in restorations of Japan and Europe, the Army and Marines restored Iraq’s existing infrastructure to include that related to one of the world’s largest oil producers. If not obvious, we could not be sanctioning Iranian oil shipments if Iraqi oil was also being sanctioned. It also should be noted that Sunni-Shia-Kurd conflicts drove much of the Iraq insurgencies hindering stability and restoration.
In Afghanistan, any coalition nation-building avoided appearances of an occupation, but also was hindered by different ethnicity struggles for power. Simply sending the Taliban and al Qaeda to Pakistan or incognito solved no long term discord of the multi-ethnic and multi-tribal nation with extensive criminality thrown in for good measure. The remote location of the terrorist training areas, lack of airspace access, and sanctuaries in nuclear Pakistan all continued to pose a long term terror problem that the satisfying destruction following 9/11 did not end.
If we had left in 2003, we would be relying on cruise missiles, bin Laden would be alive along with many other key al Qaeda and Taliban leaders who would still be training and planning unopposed attacks. AfPak has far less access to air and seapower than other coastal terror states and it is utopian to believe if we had left prematurely then, or withdraw entirely now without any lethal options that the terror problem originating from that area would end.
The ANSF would not have been prepared had we left prematurely and it is doubtful that SOF alone could have trained so many ANSF forces with relatively few SOF forces facing 28 million Afghans. Short SOF deployments are another issue since many often cite OEF as 11 separate one-year wars (many under-resourced due to Iraq). Add shorter SOF tours exclusively and what is the result? Are there 22 or more separate wars and commander agendas covering too large an area at too great a risk of massed insurgent attack or hidden insurgent sanctuary that too few SOF cannot cover?
If we wage wars on terror or other conflicts using both land component GPF and SOF, a synergy results, and we divert terrorist or rogue nation attention to an armed and protected coalition that kills many terrorists before they or their surrogates threaten unarmed loved ones in Europe and the US. The US combat losses in Afghanistan, while tragic, remain some of the lowest in history. Yet, it is ludicrous to see articles claim we are entering one of the “safest” eras of recent times. One only need look at Sandy’s damage to envision the radiation, fire damage, and far greater loss of life inherent in a terrorist nuclear attack. If we don’t wage war against terror, jihadists and rogue nations still may try to kill us because we never will turn our back on Israel, will always live a more modern and affluent lifestyle and exhibit different values than those espousing terror, jihad, suicide attacks, and Islamic extremism.
Recent SWJ articles on Chechnya should show that enemy-centric counterinsurgency solves nothing and incites greater Islamic extremism. There was never any question that both the Iraqis and Afghan Taliban were decisively defeated. Germans and Japanese were culturally united in defeat whereas in current conflicts, a large section of both populations felt they had been singled out in defeat. Casualties alone experienced by the USSR, Syria, and Russia in Afghanistan, Chechnya, and Syria illustrate that enemy-centric approaches or leveling a city like Grozny or Aleppo guarantees less success and degrades attitudes toward the counterinsurgent.
We aren’t that kind of counterinsurgent anyway. Even if we were, most insurgents would use such lethal overkill to influence the population and win them over or threaten collaborators from within. We have chosen the wiser path of supporting urban populations to force insurgents to come and fight coalition land forces near the protected population, rather than fruitlessly wasting ground assets searching outlying areas. Even the 2008 commander of forces at Wanat and the Pech Valley has espoused in a recent SWJ article that we must use the Golden Rule in our dealings with the population lest we encourage them to more fully side with the insurgent.
The Libya and Benghazi experiences show that you can bomb a nation into submission when they have nowhere to hide, a small population, and weak air defenses. The underlying problems and insurgency are not solved. Bombing does not ensure that the replacement governments will be to our liking, will not promote terror, or that elite forces like the CIA or SOF can defend themselves against massed insurgent attacks. Without ground forces, we cannot ensure stability and more radical elements may gain access to the despot’s advanced arms and WMD. We cannot cover Texas-sized nations with populations approaching that of California with a few SOF or CIA.
The lessons most despots have learned from the Arab Spring, Egypt, Libya, and Syria is hug and disperse your forces and WMD adjacent to populations, particularly your chemical weapons because it makes it hard to bomb and hard to seize/secure using a small SOF force. They see that they must use or lose their military even against their own people. Despots and terrorists have learned to go underground or hug and infiltrate the population to hide from airborne sensors and bombs. The despot knows that we fear the follow-on government gaining control of WMD and must avoid harming innocent civilians whenever possible. Extremists may not be deterred by MAD, and may believe they can launch Rant Corp’s WMD IED without massive retaliation against the supporting nation state providing the funding.
Finally, regardless of where we fight, some stability operation must occur afterwards and be planned and resourced in advance. Isn’t that a primary Iraq lesson? We may need to hang onto power longer and consider splitting problematic national historic boundaries into multiple nation-states to preclude the risk of civil war PRIOR to holding elections. Neither the state department nor USAID can build nations or exercise “soft power” unless security exists. State department and NGO security will include nothing but security contractors who lack the intelligence assets of the GPF and SOF. Is that a preferred solution to wide area security using the GPF, and SOF for nation-building and direct action?
Land forces and their equipment must be strategically positioned in areas providing more of a deterrent, shorter intratheater distances to multiple theater locations, and reduced likelihood of enemy long-range attack without bringing allies into the fight. Instead of retreating from A2/AD threats, ground forces are hardened and dispersed against them with a minimum of preparation and early warning. We should recognize that any attack on our bases located on Japan, South Korea, or Australia territory wakes a sleeping giant. Allied combat power (Japan’s Navy for instance) is often competitive with China BEFORE introducing reinforcing US GPF and Naval and Airpower.
GPF land forces do not automatically incur large peacetime costs or heavy casualties. Better nation-state infrastructure and close locations to coasts reduces logistics expenses. Battalion-sized US forces in the Sinai have suffered few casualties and avert major war between Egypt and Israel. Peacekeeping in the Balkans resulted in few casualties and averted genocide of Muslims…a fact unrewarded by 9/11 terrorists and other jihadists.
We have some SOF forces in Jordan, air defenders in Israel, GPF in Kuwait and nearby in Europe and could easily locate other rotating GPF battalions or SOF companies in Africa, Jordan, Turkey, other “stans,” and even Kurdish-controlled areas of Syria without much fear of attack (assuming current insurgents win). Even the northern alliance provinces of Afghanistan have experienced far fewer casualties and attacks on the coalition than those areas more likely to be populated by Pashtuns, the Taliban, or cross-border foreign fighters and madrassa students.
Rotating regionally-aligned ground forces in Australia, the Philippines, and Japan would offer additional deterrence with little peacetime risk and not unreasonable costs. Such forces demonstrate US commitment, build coalitions, and test regional forces deployment and logistics plans. Forward deployed forces in Korea solve one clear threat, however even that conflict would require a post conflict stability operation…most likely multinational in nature to include China and Russia in sectors other than those occupied by the South Koreans and the U.S.
Recent history is a good model for future conflict…if we recognize true GPF lessons instead of thinking it’s too hard and its all the ineptitude of GPF land forces instead of realizing that civil leaders must consider exploiting our victories to divide ethnicities so that self-rule is ensured and civil war averted as the stability and restoration operations ensue. Plans to surge GPF for post conflict wide area security should be integrated with planning lethal phases so that damage is minimized making security and rebuilding of infrastructure less problematic. Because regardless of the scenario, a combination of both hard and soft power supported through the air, on land, and by sea will be integral to every joint decisive action.
If “winning wars,” as Dayuhan suggests, means achieving one’s policy objectives,
And if our policy objectives can be summed up as transforming those lesser and remaining “outlier” states and societies along modern western lines; this, so as to provide that these entities might:
a. Come to cause the United States, the modern world and the global economy fewer problems and
b. Come to provide the United States, the modern world and the global economy with greater usefulness and utility instead,
Then could we honestly say that it is much too early to suggest that we have either “won” or “lost” this war/these wars?
Much as it would have been much too early to suggest that we had either won or lost the Cold War immediately after the Korean and/or Vietnam conflicts?
(Herein, I might note that our overall policy objective during the Cold War — and our overarching policy objective again today — would seem to be the same, to wit: the transformation of outlier states and societies along modern western lines. The difference being that, while yesterday our effort was directed primarily at transforming the deviant great powers [mission now largely accomplished], today our efforts are directed more toward transforming those lesser and remaining states and societies who are not organized, ordered, oriented and configured along modern western lines.)
Thus, can one loose some battles (for example: Vietnam) and still win the war (example: the Cold War)?
Lesson here for how to proceed?
Rather than a question of winning and losing in Afghanistan I believe it is more productive to consider the last 12 years as the end of the COIN phase and now is the beginning of the FID phase. The Big Army with all its hardware and officer corps has done the Conventional War job and now the ‘Small Army’ with its NCOs will do the Unconventional War job.
However I believe it is critical to appreciate that UW in the Third World is very different to the UW in the First World and as such the organisation/deployment needs to be different. In the Third World a mission must be 5 years – basically you are there working with the same people in the same place for five years with a month’s annual leave. In Afghanistan as in any Third World country it takes two years to ‘get it’. For the first two years as far as the locals are concerned you are an idiot. No matter how intelligent, dedicated, well trained, wealthy, culturally aware or fluent in the language you are still considered an idiot.
After two years there is a rapid transformation as to how you are perceived by the natives. Very quickly you find you are trusted as a person and your judgement is considered worth listening to. You then get two more years to establish something of value and in the final year of your mission you transition the mission over to the natives or the next FID team.
You get a year off to decide whether you want another five year mission. Do four missions and you retire a WO and a pension and not much else.
This will put a stop to the careerist with stars in his eyes having to make his mark in six to twelve months and driving everyone crazy. A few token Majors floating about the place probably won’t do any harm but a flattening of the chain of command will put an end to the micro-management problem as NCOs tend to know better than to ‘manage’ other NCOs (if they value their front teeth). Moreover the comms revolution which was always a major headache back in the day will boost the effort as fellow NCOs from everywhere can chew the fat in-country rather than wait to get back in some bar whilst on R&R.
As Dr D J Katz pointed out in his piece http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/approaches-to-effective-service-in-afghanistan – if after a year’s break you choose another mission in a different region or some other part of the country (say Kunar to Paktia) you go back to being an idiot for two years. The big difference will be you recognize that being an idiot is perfectly understandable but on the other hand your previous mission/s will have established a more effective response from the ‘Small Army’ support structure once you and your hosts get rolling.
Some folks may insist a five year mission in the Third World in the same place will stop the right type of person signing on. I believe the opposite will be the case. At the end of the day if you need more ‘intelligent’ or ‘qualified’ people to establish industry, health, governance etc there are plenty of civilians who can do this better than the military. However no matter how developed or peaceful the location may become – for at least 5 years – the ODA NCOs will be the final word when a foreigner is asked to make a decision.
Obviously many good people whom the military needs would not consider retiring as a WO with 25 years service as much of a career – that’s fine – join the GPF, the Navy or the Air Farce. Many commentators here say Western militaries can’t do counter-insurgency – I disagree it just needs the same people to stay put in the same place for longer than they currently do. The West & particularly the US need to get back to the pre-Vietnam Army attitude wherein when a NCO suggested a particular individual would make ‘good officer material’ – he wasn’t being complimentary.
Bombs Away,
RC
The funny thing about the military losing two wars is, these wars were in fact, law enforcement and intelligence based wars. When you are dealing with criminals/insurgents the best people to handle these situations are the police and intelligence agencies. The military does not have the experience with conducting penetration operations, running sources,(HUMINT/CRIMINT) into these criminal groups. The whole Counter IED thing should be handled like a narcotics investigation. The military does not have the expertise. The strategy is still the same deter, disrupt and dismantle.
Also, using a failed strategies such as static check points for the police. The police are the focal point of the counter insurgency, yet the military makes checkpoints on the road away from the people.
The role of the police is to protect the people, investigate crimes and criminals and arrest them. The police are not a fighting force and should not be used as one. It’s like this, the wolf= Taliban/insugents,
sheepdog = police,sheep = citizens.
The military has pulled the sheepdog away from the sheep, and placed the sheepdog in checkpoints on the road away from the sheep. Therefore, the wolf can devour the sheep and have their way with the sheep. The sheep
have no protection. If the military was smart, they would put the checkpoints near the villages. Then the police could conduct their community oriented policing,gather information about the enemy, and conduct their operations based upon that information.
The reason the police have a greater success at this is they conduct these type of operations all the time around the world. The police work off of human nature. This is a social science. The military says it’s due to cultural differences. If that’s the case then Sun Tzu and his book the Art of War written thousands of years ago wouldn’t apply to what’s going on today, when it comes to using spies. Also, the Bible written long before the Art of War used spies in the Old Testament to gather information and mount attacks. The game doesn’t change, only the players do.
The author is a former Metropolitan Police Department Washington DC Police officer with 16 years of experience. He was also former Police advisor/Mentor to the Afghan National Police for two years, assigned to Special Operations Task Force South. He was there to train, mentor and advise the Afghan National Police on Rule of Law, Criminal Intelligence,and tactics. The author is also a Masters candidate in a National Security Studies program.