Counterinsurgency: A New Doctrine’s Fading Allure
Bing West argues that COIN as nation-building should not be a military mission at World Politics Review.
The manual’s Rousseauian outlook had its roots more in political theory than actual experience. Because 40 years had passed since the American infantry had last engaged in serious firefights in Vietnam, the generals who commanded in Iraq and Afghanistan had no combat experience at the grunt level. By Sept. 11, 2001, they had already risen to the rank of colonel or above.
So when faced with guerrilla wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, they hastily read a few history books and searched their memories for scraps of knowledge faintly recalled from long-ago lectures. They distilled these lessons learned into operational orders and field manuals to be implemented on the platoon level.
The new counterinsurgency theory was based on the mission of winning hearts and minds, so that the local population would reject the insurgents and support the government. Since the people were the center of gravity, to use an overworked military expression, our tactics were conceived so as to cause them no harm.
The emphasis reflects the vast changes in contemporary U.S. culture and ideology, compared to 1941 or even 1961.
Mr. West’s summation:
I totally agree and our recent history certainly supports the contention.
I do have quibbles with two points. The ‘mission’ isn’t “too overwhelming,” it simply is inappropriate for an armed military force. Wrongful application of a tool insures poor results. Since we don’t have a Colonial Political Service or a large Paramilitary Police Force available to deploy, we should probably avoid the idea of nation building totally.
I’m also unsure that “ the imposition of our democratic processes and values…” is in keeping with our alleged values, that “imposition” bit doesn’t sound too democratic to me…
So according to my friend Bing West:
Coin FM 3-24 style has not worked in Iraq and Afghanistan,
FM 3-24 was a flawed military doctrine from the start,
And we have not achieved any apprciable strategic and policy gains in Iraq and seemingly in Afghanistan.
What do the founding fathers and mothers (and promoters) of Coin like Dave Kilcullen, David Ucko, John Nagl, Janine Davidson, Tom Ricks, Paula Broadwell, Andrew Exum, Linda Robinson and many others have to say about that? I dont even know why I ask because their answers will assuredly be some form of Clinton-esque triangulation that makes it seem like they were never fully behind it at the start, were skeptical of it when it was all the rage, and now have become its most strident critics.
Beyond that, I ask the question that Bing seems to poke at: Did we lose the war in Iraq?
gian
I feel as though I am alone in a time warp. Extremely knowledgeable people as old as I am seem to be willing to discuss COIN as though it was a recent invention which has been demonstrated to be either bankrupt or our forces are incapable of implementing it. Since I pretty much agree with most everything Bing West writes, this leaves me even more disoriented. I have to assume that Mr. West read the same books that I did prior to deploying to RVN(1965.) Those books used the word counterinsurgency. The books created for AID used the words development and counterinsurgency. So it is difficult for me to view COIN as something new or as a concept proven to be invalid. The sad thing is that the authors of new manuals and books seemed to introduce them as being something new and suddenly insightful. so what did David Galula and Bernard Fall write about? What did Sir Robert Thompson describe in his book? What did Sir Robert discuss with me while sitting on a curbside in Pearl Harbor? It was COIN.
And, Sir Robert told me that our efforts were destined to fail for at least two reasons. The same reasons why we will fail in Afghanistan regardless of the strategy we employ. The first reason is that no counterinsurgency or counter-guerrilla war has ever been won where a neighboring country gave sanctuary to the insurgents, supplied them, allowed them to train, and freely transit a porous border. The clearest example would be when Tito closed the Yugoslav border to Greek Communists. The second reason we have failed and will again is that success has never been achieved in a country where there is a corrupt and ineffectual government.
These conditions can readily be contrasted with the relatively ideal COIN environment for the Malaysian Emergency. Why aren’t these two conditions blatantly obvious to anyone responsible for our continuing presence in Afghanistan? Also, I am unaware of any relevant training be given to conventional officers going to Afghanistan. At least for Vietnam we had the MATA Course for advisors which gave everybody a common frame of reference.
Lastly, Bing West spent time alongside what may have been the ideal ANA advisory team. It was a team of advisors and enablers. The advisors were an SF Team. They were augmented by Marine Combat Engineers and an AF CCT. It appeared to work very well. But, it just doesn’t matter when we have the porous Pakistan border and the Karzai government.
It is hard to believe that even our well-insulated general and flag officers don’t know this. And if they do know this; then they are morally challenged.
The recent article in the NY Times concerning a switch to SF advisory teams still won’t remove the two liabilities discussed above. And, as a SEAL friend of this old SF soldier keeps telling me; since we do not have adequate numbers of appropriate SF personnel; the Services will lower their standards to achieve the necessary manning levels.
Should we simply say that in the case of both COIN and conventional operations we made serious mistakes deciding how we would do things based on our (erroneous) beliefs re: the universal and overwelming appeal of democracy and the market economy (to wit: our way of life)? This such thinking causing us to:
a. “Go in light” re: our conventional operations (no follow-up was thought would be necessary due to the offer/appeal of our way of life). And
b. Choose “nation building” (democracy/market-economy promotion) as our mode of operation re: COIN.
Is this line-of-thinking (to wit: that the universal appeal of democracy/the market economy will overcome all obstacles); is this still the central central flaw residing in our foreign policy and defense planning concepts today?