Small Wars Journal

The Long War? Or the Wrong War?

Sun, 10/14/2007 - 11:25am
General Creighton Abrams fought in several long wars. As a result of his last, he directed a reorganization of the U.S. Army, an effort some called the Abrams Doctrine. This doctrine was subsequently converted into the Weinberger Doctrine and / or Powell Doctrine. All were subtle attempts to avoid the evils and problems of counterinsurgency (COIN) by influencing political masters in national government.

All failed as world events overtook best of intentions. We are now told we are in a long war. Possibly, but we must insure we are not, yet again, preparing for the wrong war. It is fairly obvious that for the next decade or so that commitments, if any, may -- note that, may -- be focused on nation building and COIN or similar missions. To focus on these missions by adding a large and dedicated foreign advisory training capability would create a large, rank heavy and most certainly unwieldy bureaucracy -- in other words -- a capability searching for a mission.

The Army went into Iraq "conventionally" on 20 March 2003. A month later, major combat operations ceased and the question was what next? On 11 May 2003 an answer was provided -- an occupation by an Army and Nation that had trained and oriented toward the wrong war.

That said, the Army deserves credit for turning around the debacle that might have occurred in Iraq but did not due to a major course adjustment. The Army also deserves credit for current efforts to reform from within -- this includes doctrine, training and organizational changes -- as there are many ongoing programs at multiple levels that are not clearly visible to the casual observer and they all bode well.

We unquestionably have to be a "full spectrum" force. And we must acknowledge that we long neglected the lower end of the spectrum -- to include COIN. While the Army has made some needed changes, it also needs to ensure that additional changes do not push Army core capabilities too far toward the low end of the spectrum.

Officers and non-commissioned officers trained in both advisory roles in foreign area specialties are needed -- no question about that.

Both categories, area specialists and advisors, are required. They would also be valuable specialties in Military Assistance and Advisory Groups. Just as the politicians shortsightedly destroyed USAID and the USIA, we destroyed the MAAGs. They worked and should be brought back.

The Army has for many years spent millions training foreign area specialists -- and has then pretty much ignored their advice concerning their specialty. That must change and in fairness appears to be changing. Foreign Area Specialists are important and we need more.

Creating a dedicated advisory training and support element of about 5,000 Area Specialists and Advisory Specialists -- some minimally language trained—to prep and assist General Purpose Forces (GPF) as required is a necessary approach that would minimally impact force structure, officer and senior NCO spaces or end strength while employing GPF units that are capable of doing considerably more than their essentially simple basic missions still unfortunately predicated on a industrial age land war in northern Europe. Both Advisors and Foreign Area Specialists would be melded to mission specific task organized cells for deployed units that would be attached and adopted by operating that unit for an entire deployment. Both would rotate through MAAG and DAO for area, cultural and language refresher.

General Purpose Forces are the Army. They must be flexible and balanced and capable of doing the entire gamut of missions looking us in the face. They can do them easily with only a slightly better training regimen. We train better now than we ever have. We can still do better. If we produce more capable people -- and thus more capable units, the job gets a little harder for everyone but the flip side is that as capability and competence increase, so do job satisfaction -- and retention. A large pool of underemployed and fairly senior advisors looking for work will not have either benefit.