Patton of the Counter Insurgency
The Kagans at Weekly Standard and other counter-insurgency thot:
Great commanders often come in pairs: Eisenhower and Patton, Grant and Sherman, Napoleon and Davout, Marlborough and Eugene, Caesar and Labienus. Generals David Petraeus and Raymond Odierno can now be added to the list.
It’s natural to assume that successful pairs of commanders complement each other’s personalities (the diplomatic Eisenhower and the hard-charging Patton, for example) or that the junior partner is merely executing the vision of the other (Sherman seen as acting on Grant’s orders). In reality, the task of planning and conducting large-scale military operations is too great for any single commander, no matter how talented his staff. The subordinate in every successful command pair has played a key role in designing and implementing the campaign plan.
History does not always justly appreciate such contributions. The role that Davout played in shaping operational plans for Napoleon is a matter for specialists. General Odierno deserves better. He played an absolutely essential role in designing and executing the successful counterinsurgency operations in Iraq. His contributions to securing Iraq offer many important lessons for fighting the larger war on terror. As he and his team return to Fort Hood, Texas, it is important not only to commemorate their achievement, but also to understand it.
Meanwhile, at Small Wars Journal, LTC Gian Gentile, Not So Big a Tent:
The notion as presented in the article by Cullen Nutt “Petraeus’s Big Tent” that the construction and writing of the American Army’s new counterinsurgency doctrine FM 3-24 was based on wide-ranging debate within the American Army is fallacious.
The outcome of the manual was predetermined by a few key individuals like General Petraeus, General Mattis, retired Army Colonel Conrad Crane, active Army Lieutenant Colonel John Nagl, and neo-conservative analyst Fred Kagan, to name a few. The fact that a conference was held at Fort Leavenworth in February 2006 to “discuss” this pre-determined doctrine and even acknowledging that at this conference there was wide inclusiveness with civilian academics and analysts does not change the fact that the doctrinal outcome of the manual with its narrow use of historical lessons learned, theories, and principles of counterinsurgency warfare was predetermined.
This is not to say that there was not good reason for the outcome of the manual to be pre-determined. The American Army and Marine Corps was at war and needed a revised counterinsurgency doctrine immediately. It did not have the luxury to debate the doctrine extensively over the course of many years.
But to claim that FM 3-24 was built on wide-ranging debate within our institution is fallacious and does not square with the facts.
The ”Big Tent” article by Cullen Nutt here:
The Front Page, a popular Washington, D.C., bistro, was an unlikely place for the genesis of a radical new war strategy for Iraq. But on Nov. 7, 2005, over gourmet burgers and beer, an equally unlikely group of military men and Ivy League eggheads sketched out a plan for a new Army and Marine Corps counterinsurgency manual — on a cocktail napkin.
Some backstory on the Nutt article at Abu Muqawama.
Topics: Iraq, deep thot, military
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:18 am on Wednesday, March 5, 2008
4 Responses to “Patton of the Counter Insurgency”
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March 5th, 2008 at 12:18 pm
My guess is that they rejected LTC Gentile’s comments.
March 5th, 2008 at 2:39 pm
It is amazing how many folk want to believe that this COIN is all brand spanking new stuff.
Every war ever fought since the advent of nation states has had elements of Counter Insurgency involved in it’s conduct. There is a massive history of examples of what worked and what didn’t and why for both.
The US military has fought Counter Insurgency operations of various intensities at more than a few points in our history. The baseline concepts are common sense and very very well understood at all levels.
All this new COIN manual is about is updating for new advances in C3I (Command, Control, Communications and Intel) technology and adjusting to the reality that the media at home is overtly and aggressively hostile in its willingness to broadcast any enemy propaganda spin, regardless of how much suspension of disbelief is required.
Much of the update is in how commanders need to operate in order to protect themselves and their men from the asinine, insane, idiotic and dumb-ass on the home-front.
But then, what’s to be expected of a population that believes US military history started and stopped with Vietnam and that Vietnam is only to be judged by the narrative of the radical left produced to turn the mindlessly moronic against their own national interests.
March 5th, 2008 at 7:53 pm
True enough, Grimmy, but COIN was not a subject taught much at most military schools. In fact, I don’t recall hearing about COIN at all during my time in the reserves, even while I was attending OAC and Command & General Staff College.
My lack of knowledge is not conclusive, of course. On the other hand, my personal and professional experience with “rear area battle” was fairly extensive; this doctrine was quite important (this is what protects the logistical lines), was woefully understated pre-9/11, and was usually ignored by the line dogs in their operational planning. I won’t go into the examples of that; I’ll just note that I saw several examples of “rear area battle” problems crop up during the run into Baghdad, and during my own time in the sandbox in 2005.
All of which means that unit commanders (brigade to company) executing the theater plans did not include COIN into their own operational plans. They were fighting as they were trained, to attack organized enemy formations….which did not exist.
The few times that the terrorists veered away from their kill & run tactics, and tried organized attacks, those terrorists had their clocks cleaned but good.
We, on the other hand, were trying different ideas with varying results. There was not a unified effort, and that was essential. Putting that manual on the street in short order, even if it “merely” repeated old news, put everyone on the same track.
And it was no mean task, when you consider that, as recently as 2003, some lower Army commanders (company and battalion, IIRC) were openly complaining that tanks weren’t being used in Afghanistan. They were miffed that the Marines had limited armor capability there.
Tanks, tanks for God’s sakes, tanks in Afghanistan?!?!?!?!!? Clearly, the lessons taught by the mujahadin to the Soviets were lost on some people. That was the sort of mindset prevalent after we toppled Hussein in 2003.
Nope, that manual was a gift to the troops, no doubt about it.
March 6th, 2008 at 3:25 pm
TRJ:
It may just be a service specific thing, but as a USMC grunt in the early ’80s, we trained heavily in Counter Insurgency. As well as training in maneuver (large unit) warfare and the more hybrid forms of guerrilla war that included various doses of both.
One thing that is often, if not constantly, miscomprehended is that there is nothing magical or “other than usual” in COIN that isn’t automatically part of any other form of modern warfighting.
Taking care to limit war’s impact on civilians local to a fight is so deeply embedded into our war ethos that it could not be separated and set aside.
Taking care and providing effort to keep the local citizenry content enough to, at the very least, keep them from joining up with partisan activities, is also just how war is done by western forces.
What you saw and experienced in your time is unfortunate. It’s not all together unexpected either. The US military is a huge organization and is not, contrary to the belief of many in academia or the media, a hive minded organism where every person is just an automaton synced to the will and desire of the overmind in the general’s chair. Local commanders will make every attempt to apply fixes appropriate to what they see as problems. This wont’ always work well. But it is the most flexible approach to chaos management that mankind is, so far, able to implement on a large scale.
I don’t know that much about the US Army. Sounds like y’all were stuck with some of those who rose up under the concepts most conducive to facing off against the Sovs on the plains of europe. There is also the reality that plagues each of our services. Too many of those who achieve rank and position during times of peace do so because of their ability to get reports in on time, say the right things at social gatherings, don’t rock the boat, don’t ever draw negative attention. By the time it gets to “fight’s on!” conditions, some, many.. who knows the real density, of those in middle management are more emotionally, psychologically and conceptually fit to serve as office managers or minor VP in a corporate setting.
I will still believe it proper to fight tooth and nail against the latest meme that everything done prior to the surge was wrong or wasted time. Iraq was/is a hybrid fight and also not a uniformly distributed intensity problem. There are times when the only option available is to hunker down and beat the crap out of the hostiles until the hostiles break.
If it is done properly, as it was so obviously well done in Iraq, the hostiles will break right about the exact same moment that the locals will decide they’ve had enough of the hostiles.
The Awakening did not occur in a vacuum. And prior to such an event as the Awakening, a surge would have amounted to not much more than further strain on the logistics and personnel pushed up the line.
Now, the locals know whos’ side they are on in this fight and where their hope for a future lays. It is not with the AQI, the Sunni, or the Shia, or whom ever else the islamist propagandists have been selling them for the last handful of years. It’s with the Ameriki tribe. If the Ameriki tribe says there’s going to be an independent and successful Iraq, then by all that’s holy, then there will be such.