Win Wars?

"... asking an Army to build a nation is outside the bounds of rationality ..."

"... if not, it is an extremely inappropriate tool for the job ..."

If the "job" was seen differently, then might the feasibility of the use of the Army be seen differently also?

For example: If the job is seen:

a. Not as "nation building" (only a means to an end)

b. But as "transforming societies" (as was done in the American Civil War -- and in the modernization of Japan in the latter 19th Century -- wherein, the role of the Army was to deal effectively with any and all resistance to the societal transformation process),

With the mission being seen in this way (to achieve societal transformation), then might we be better able to determine:

a. If the use of the Army is irrational or inappropriate and

b. Whether the task/mission is more or less complex/straightforward than that which the United States Army undertook in WWII?

What if the mission in the '40s had been "Disable, Disrupt, and Defeat the National Socialist German Workers Party in Europe to prevent the Nazis from using Germany as a base to attack the US."? Just asking. I think Carl is closer to the gist of the article than Gian.

Come on Carl, what about the lead in sentence where she says Ike's mission was "straightforward" and then goes on to compare his mission to the current day one in Afghanistan. Shoot how is it that General Petraeus's mission in Astan isnt straightforward too? Disable, Disrupt, Defeat AQI there to prevent AQI from using Afghanistan as a base to attack the US. Doesnt that sound pretty straightforward too?

It was clear to me from her quotes, combined with General Barno's and the overall flavor of the piece that Coin today in Iraq and Afghanistan should be seen as a higher order affair, and more difficult than the "straightforward" task of invading the continent of Europe with millions of men at arms which then leads her and the article to the conclusion, albeit implicitly, that the Coin wars of today are the graduate level of warfare. Her basic point is that the reason why we are struggling today with these wars is because according to her they are more difficult and complex--less straightforward than World War II. And her deeper point of course is typical of the Coin experts: try harder, put better generals in charge, spend lots of time and sooner or later the complexity will be mastered.

If you read it differently so be it, but I respectfully disagree with your reading of it and stand by my strident critique.

gian

Gian:

This is what was attributed to Dr. Schake in the article:

'"But, said Kori Schake, a Hoover Institution research fellow who has held senior policy positions at the National Security Council and at the Departments of State and Defense, Eisenhowers mission was far more straightforward.

"His orders were to invade Europe, conquer Germany," she said. "He was asked to defeat another uniformed, organized national army. In comparison, part of the reason we are struggling with the wars today is that military force cannot so easily achieve the complicated, sophisticated set of second-order effects we are asking it to achieve.""

She did not say Ike had it easier, nor did she say Gen. Petraeus has it harder. She said the task in the WWII was more straightforward. That seems to me to be a perfectly reasonable statement given the completely confused command arrangements in Afghanistan, a supply line going through a country that is fighting us via proxy and the lack of engagement by American civilian leadership relative to WWII. She said one of the problems is the military is being asked to do things it hasn't been asked to do before. That point is often made on this site and many others.

She didn't say beating the Germans and the Japanese was easy but perhaps suggesting it was a little more clear as to what the job was. Dayuhan made the same point. Sometimes you are maybe a little too touchy about these things.

There is no question that today's security environment is complex but as Dayuhan illustrates, it is a different sort of complexity. I do not fully agree that asking an Army to build a nation is outside the bounds of rationality but it certainly is using an extremely inappropriate tool for the job. That is an historical fact.

So inappropriate that failure is virtually insured. That also is historically factual.

Counterinsurgency is not the graduate level of war. Middle School perhaps with all the jealousies, intrigues, foolishness and pettiness that implies. Money waste on fripperies, too...

It is however an appropriate task for a military force until relative security is achieved. After that, the utility of the Armed Forces decline significantly in the process of foreign internal defense and development or nation building. Development is simply not a task for an armed force and attempting to use that force so inappropriately is an invitation to problem sets for which military education and training can never suitably equip the majority of persons.

Nor should military education and training be changed to do so. That is a Parkinson's Law invitation to put those 'skills' to work in such an effort. An effort in which Armed Forces are extremely unlikely to be successful. Those Forces exist to engage in armed conflict. That function is in itself quite complex and trying to add functions or tasks that are not germane to that role will adversely affect the ability of the Forces to do what is required by their reason d'etre.

As has been said elsewhere, we cannot afford to lose a major conflict while we can afford to lose these lesser, limited scraps. Simply because we can afford to lose them seems a poor reason to enter them...

No small portion of today's perceived problems as cited above are due to the inadvertent and mostly unintended primacy DoD has achieved in foreign affairs today. That added degree of complexity did not exist in World War II and its inclusion today colors many things and it contributes to making the selection of officers for promotion appear far more difficult than is necessary. Or than it need be...

Long winded way to say that primacy should disappear, that 'nation building' is itself generally an inappropriate endeavor and is certainly not an armed forces role that should be sought or encouraged in any way. Counterinsurgency has merit if properly and appropriately employed as a series of minor techniques in limited circumstances. However, it is <i>not</i> war fighting -- which is the real reason there are Armed Forces.

The other four Commenters above are spot on.

Dayuhan:

Correct and I didnt mean to imply with my angry post that the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan are easy and simple affairs for generals or even privates. But it is the Coin narrative that bothers me so much and its matrix like seduction with people who really should know better.

Some wars, regardless of whether they were hic or lic, conventional or small, coin or hybrid, whatever, are either simpler or more difficult than others. To be sure one could probably make arguments and find cases of coin or small wars in certain instances based on the criteria used to have been more difficult than others. But to make such an a priori statement that Ike had it easier at Normandy than General P in Afghanistan today is the height of sycophancy combined with hagiography.

I will even make it personal. I commanded a cavalry squadron in west baghdad in 2006. A hard bloody year for me personally and every other man and woman in my outfit. But if I had to compare my year to that of a rifle battalion commander in the 4th Division who hit the beach at Normandy, fought through the hedgerows and then received the further bloodying of the hell of the Hurtgen Forrest well, yes, that cats war was overall more difficult than mine. On the other hand personally if I compared my year in West Baghdad in 06 to a squadron commander in 3ACR in 1991 and the four day war then perhaps in this case mine was more difficult.

It is the arrogance of the Coin cool kids that I rail against in that they have come to believe--as Dr Schakes utterances make clear--that these small wars of nation building are as a matter of fact and without question more difficult than anything that has ever been experienced in the past.

MAJ K: Right, I have missed a lot of memos from the Coin cool kids over the years, maybe I am not on their distro list. Might you know how I can get onto it? Take care.

gian

Dr Schake are you seriously saying that General P or O or M in today's wars in Iraq or Afghanistan have it harder than Ike and the invasion of the European Continent in World War II? What chutzpah, what arrogance. That somehow the invasion of fortress Europe in World War II was a fairly easy and straightforward affair because the German Army looked and fought like us? That Afghanistan was more complicated in its third, fourth, ad infinitum effects than Dog 1 and beyond on 6 June 1944. Sorry but such utterances display a profound lack of understanding of what war in the past, present, and future was and is about.

I give up, the Coindinistas have won. They now have articles in the New York Times that convey their message that Iraq and Afghanistan has replaced World War II in complexity and difficulty.

The last paragraph:<blockquote>"A key difference from earlier times of command is the available amount of information and the demand on time that presents," Admiral Fallon said. "With this 24/7, 365 demand cycle, you lose the opportunity to sit back and think, to take stock of what is important and what is distracting -- and that is an incredible burden on a senior leader."</blockquote>It is a burden and we have all watched it at work...

The information overload came with more computer capability.

The demand cycle results not from the proliferation but the poor design of system output parameters for those computers.

Add to that the inability of Staffs to properly sort through that and spare the Boss involvement with minutia. Or, possibly, <b>the inability or willingness of the Boss to <i>avoid</i> involvement with minutia</b>.<br><br>Either way, that's a function of inadequate training and education coupled with a too rapid rotation cycle in a excessively competitive environment. All three of those things inhibit the building of trust -- and competence. They are also all designed to support a Personnel Management system that has become a law unto itself and demands to be supported rather than to support the force.

Failure to trust subordinates appears endemic. The system today cannot produce leaders like Marshall and Eisenhower because the system is in a hurry. It also tends to discard talent that does not conform. Nimitz woulds have been out of today's Navy as an Ensign -- and had another shot at a career ender as a Captain. Ridgway, USMA Class of 1917 missed WW I. He would not make Colonel now. Today's Army will ask Officers where they were during wars and affrays. One would think the Personnel gurus would know but apparently not.

What that article really says is that today's Army with an equal amount of potential senior but better educated talent compared to prior years cannot -- or does not -- properly identify and select that talent for promotion...

We need to take a hard, bottom up look at <b>everything</b> we're doing -- because we seem to be doing a lot wrong.

Many of which at one time we didn't seem to get quite as wrong...