Counter-Narrative Important in Counter-Insurgency

Captain Robert A. Newson, a Navy SEAL, has published an article entitled "In Recent Battles, the U.S. Has Forgotten How to Tell Its Side of the Story. It must Remember" (December 3, 2014). It is posted on the Defense in Depth Blog of Janine Davidson (Council of Foreign Relations). Newson argues that ". . . the United States has effectively ceded the information domain without a fight." He states that "an effective information operations strategy will hinge on both long-term commitment and a willingness to expose audiences to the full complexity of political issues rather than resorting to misinformation and simplification." One of his observations is that the United States lost a significant information operations (IO) capability (is it now called inform and influence activities?) when it disestablished the United States Information Agency (USIA) in 1999. He states that the U.S. Army Special Operations Command is looking hard at this problem; citing the release of a white paper entitled Cognitive Joint Force Entry.

Read the article on the Defense in Depth Blog by Captain Newson:
". . . the U.S. Has Forgotten How to Tell Its Side of the Story. . ."

Read the white paper by the United States Army Special Operations Command (USASOC), 26 September 2014. Cognitive Joint Force Entry

Book - "Knife Fights"

John A. Nagl is getting a lot of reviews of his book "Knife Fights: A Memoir of Modern War in Theory and Practice". Read one more review by Rosa Brooks in The Washington Post.

Paper - Aviation and COIN in Afghanistan

The adapting of conventional aviation units to fight in a counterinsurgency environment is complex. Some aviation units are successful in this transition while others fail or do not contribute as much as they could have to the COIN effort. One aviation battalion that thinks it did it right is the Air Assault Battalion of the Third Infantry Division. In 2010 this battalion was ordered to deploy as part of the Third Combat Aviation Brigade (CAB) to Afghanistan. The unit conducted a re-organization of personnel and equipment to prepare for the deployment. Officially named Task Force (TF) Brawler, the unit adapted its mind-set from a conventional, lethal, offensive approach to one required by the counterinsurgency environment of Afghanistan. the task force deployed to Forward Operating Base (FOB) Shank in Regional Command East supporting the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team that operated in Logar and Wardak provinces. Read a paper describing the train-up and deployment of TF Brawler to Afghanistan by the battalion commander, Colonel Robert T. Ault, in "Adapting Army Aviation for Irregular Warfare: Developing Leadership and Trust in a COIN Fight", Small Wars Journal, November 25, 2014.

Counterinsurgency Paradigm Shift

The increased use of asymmetric, insurgent, and hybrid warfare by non-state actors requires that the United States military continue to retain the capability to conduct counterinsurgency. However, there are indications that the U.S. Army and the rest of the military may be moving away from that capability to concentrate on "the big fight". It would be a mistake to assume that our Special Forces Groups will concentrate special warfare and special operations and still be able to handle any and all counterinsurgency requirements in the future. Our conventional forces need to be able to conduct combined arms maneuver but also counterinsurgency. A graduate of West Point and veteran of the Afghan and Iraqi conflict provides us with his thoughts on the importance of counterinsurgency doctrine and training within the conventional forces and recommends how to attain / retain the coin capability within the conventional forces. Read "The Counterinsurgency Paradigm Shift", War on the Rocks, November 20, 2014.

Failure of COIN in South Vietnam and Afghanistan

Counterinsurgency (COIN) has gotten a black eye over the last few years. Some critics say that COIN doesn't work and we should stick to our traditional war fighting skills concentrating on a primary mission of defeating conventional armies on the battlefield. COIN advocates state that as long as insurgencies exist counterinsurgency forces will be needed. Many COIN advocates are looking hard at why COIN has not worked in Afghanistan.

A recent book review by Arnold R. Isaacs entitled "Why the US Needs to Learn the Counterinsurgency Lessons of the Vietnam War" (Business Insider, November 12, 2014) introduces us to a book that explores this topic. Isaacs reviews a new book out about the war in South Vietnam entitled Uphill Battle: Reflections on Viet Nam Counterinsurgency by Frank Scotton that will help in the examination of COIN in Afghanistan. The author of the book (Scotton) served in South Vietnam for over a decade and in his book he examines why the counterinsurgency effort failed. When one compares the South Vietnamese COIN effort with what is now happening in Afghanistan you find a lot of similarities. In the book review four main themes stood out for me:

1) Saigon Government. Scotton points out that the " . . . military-dominated Saigon government was never able to mobilize enough popular support or use its superior manpower and weapons effectively enough to meet the challenge of a far less well-armed but more disciplined, tenacious, and politically skilled enemy".

Popular Support. The Afghan government, like the South Vietnamese government, has not effectively mobilized popular support for its government to the extent necessary. The main source of discontent of the population with the government of Afghanistan is the corruption that exists from the district to national levels. There is a lack of competent government officials, professional police force, an Army that can provide security to all the people of Afghanistan (not just the major urban areas), district governmental offices that provide services, and signs of development in rural areas that show promise of a better life. Without good governance, development, security, and rule-of-law it is hard to generate popular support in the midst of an insurgency.

Superior Manpower and Weapons. Certainly the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF), like the South Vietnamese Army, has superior manpower numbers and an abundance of modern weapons. The combined police and army personnel of the ANSF reaches almost 350,000. The Afghan Air Force (AAF) has over 100 helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft. The Afghan National Army has D-30 122-mm Howitzers, mortars, armored personnel carriers, tanks, modern facilities for housing troops and police, and a robust support structure for its corps, brigades, and kandaks. A common refrain among ISAF generals is that when the ANSF (supported by fires and close air support) meet the Taliban on the battlefield they can "overmatch" the insurgents. Of course they can; but those types of battles are far and few between. Insurgents fight a guerrilla war where they don't have to face the armor, artillery, and air power of a more modern army.

The ANSF are opposed by small, mobile insurgent units whose numbers countrywide might number 30,000. The insurgents have no helicopters, fixed-wing aircraft, artillery, permanent structures, hospitals, tanks, or armored personnel carriers. While the ANSF is a robust force with lots of modern equipment it does not use its forces effectively. The ANSF is dismal at conducting small unit tactics necessary for an effective counterinsurgency campaign. For the counter-insurgent to win he must defeat the insurgent; for an insurgent to win he must survive. The Taliban have survived years of combat operations with ISAF and will likely survive for many more years in their fight against the ANSF.

2) Corruption of the Saigon Government and Military. Scotton says of South Vietnam that "there is a deadly correlation between corruption at high levels in an administrative system and the spread throughout the system of incompetence as higher-ups encourage and promote corrupt subordinates, and protect them from the consequences of poor performance of duty or direct disobedience of orders." Scotton continues with . . . the system doesn't only protect the corrupt but also "demoralizes and 'selects out' the able and the dedicated who do not play the game and thwarts any attempts at reform initiated at intermediate levels."

Afghan Corruption. A former commander of ISAF, General John Allen, once said that the biggest problem in Afghanistan is not the Taliban - it is corruption. The corruption in Afghanistan pervades all aspects of society. The Afghan police are notoriously corrupt. The judicial system is broke and the settlement of civil and criminal cases revolves around how much money passes to the judge. Provincial governors and district governors are political appointees of President Karzai who many times buy their positions so they in turn can manipulate the system for profit. Many of these provincial and district governors are incompetent and inept at administering within their provinces and districts. Many district governors do not live nor work in their districts due to a lack of security or lack of work ethic. For anything of consequence to happen (big or small) within some districts requires a bribe to the government official or servant. This huge problem of corruption impedes good governance, slows down or stops development, and diminishes security. This, in turn, sways members of the populace to non-support of the government security forces and in some cases to support of the insurgents.

3) U.S. Military. According to Scotton, the United States (even though it was a military powerhouse in the Vietnam era) ". . . never grasped the true nature of the war, consistently deluded itself about what it was accomplishing, and never found a way to remedy the host nation's (South Vietnam) fatal flaws".

Grasping the Nature of Afghan Conflict. The inability to grasp the nature of the conflict in Afghanistan is part of the problem of the United States involvement in Afghanistan. We continue to deploy leaders and advisors with a lack of understanding of Afghanistan's culture, politics, history of conflict, and no knowledge of the doctrine or concepts of counterinsurgency. Our selection and training process for the Security Force Assistance (SFA) advisor teams is hit or miss. For the most part the advisor selection isn't based on who is best for the advisor job but who is available. The U.S. military, except for SOF and a handful of conventional NCOs and officers, didn't really understand the counterinsurgency fight in Afghanistan from the lowest tactical level up to the highest echelons of leadership. To this day the U.S. military is concentrating on building a conventional Afghan National Army where "processes" and "systems" are developed and refined (see Functionally-based Security Force Assistance); instead of ensuring that infantry kandaks are proficient in small unit tactics and that Afghan army commanders are knowledgeable in how to conduct counterinsurgency operations against the Taliban.

4) Bottom Up Security. In the book review the writer says of Scotton: "During that time, Scotton made it his mission to inspire a more effective South Vietnamese war in the hamlets, the center of gravity in the contest between the US-backed government and its Communist enemy. His concept at the outset was to form and support local defense units on the model of the Communists 'armed propaganda teams.' They would not just fight the enemy but put into visible practice a political alternative to the Communists' revolutionary vision - avoiding corruption and mistreatment of civilians, and winning support for the government by demonstrating that it could rule fairly and justly".

Afghan Local Defense Forces (LDF). U.S. military was (and is) skittish about support to Local Defense Forces. Attempts by U.S. Army Special Forces, Marines, and others to establish local security forces such as the CBSS, ISCI, CIP, LDI, CDI, AP3, and AGF met great resistance from the higher level officers of the U.S. military conventional forces. The Afghan government (Karzai) did not want local defense forces that he could not control through his politically appointed cronies - he was less interested in establishing governance, security, and development in the remote areas of Afghanistan contested by the Taliban than ensuring that his political power base was strengthened and he gained wealth through his corrupt style of governing. It was only in the later years of the conflict that progress was made in the establishment of competent and effective local defense forces through the Afghan Local Police (ALP) and the Village Stability Operations (VSO) program. Unfortunately, for many areas of Afghanistan, it was too little too late; and ultimately handed over to the Afghan Ministry of Interior where it will likely languish due to lack of support.

The book review and the book are well worth reading to understand how it took so long to get to where we are today in Afghanistan and how far we have yet to go.

Nagl Interview - Drinking Beer Thru a Straw

John Nagl (West Point graduate, Rhodes Scholar, author, COIN expert, combat veteran, think tank president, Naval Academy professor, school headmaster, and co-author of FM 3-24) is interviewed about his new book Knife Fights: A Memoir of Modern War in Theory and Practice. Nagl is asked and answers "20 Questions". Some of his comments are:

COIN: "Counterinsurgency can't be dead as long as insurgency is alive and well - and it is, and is likely to be for some time".

Iraq: "Defeating the Islamic State in Iraq is actually not very difficult; we should dramatically increase the number of combat advisors we have supporting the Iraqi Army and allow them to embed inside Iraqi battalions". 

RAF or Advisor Corps: "Regionally Aligned Forces are a poor man's Advisor Corps, but they're better than nothing".

Afghanistan: "Saving Afghanistan is relatively easy. We need to station some 20,000 advisors there, supported by air power and intelligence and logistics assets, to put spine in the Afghan forces and help keep the Taliban at bay".

https://medium.com/@Doctrine_Man/learning-to-drink-beer-with-a-straw-93308b1649d6

A Slashing of "Knife Fights"

John Nagl, the author of How to Eat Soup with a Knife, has authored a new book entitled Knife Fights. Nagl, a counterinsurgency advocate (he was one of the authors of the 2006 FM 3-24), is a favorite target of the anti-COIN crowd. His latest book, Knife Fights, is slammed hard by a commentator in "Revenge of the COIN Doctrine", The American Conservative,  October 31, 2014.

Interview with John Nagl - Author "Knife Fights"

Dr. John Nagl was recently (October 28, 2014) interviewed about his new book "Knife Fights: A Memoir of Modern War in Theory and Practice". Nagl is a retired Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Army and a former president of The Center for a New American Century. The book is an education in 21st Century Warfare - both its theory and its practice. Nagl first came into the public eye with his book "Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife" - about counterinsurgency and how the United States had to understand an insurgency and be flexible in its response and able to adjust its strategy to deal with the threat. The interview, narrated by Peter Bergen (no slouch himself on warfare, insurgency and terrorism) was recorded by The Center for a New American Century, it is 1 hour and 23 minutes long and can be seen at the link below on YouTube.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6WLiErc2mw

ISAF Fails at COIN

Our counter-insurgency doctrine states that for COIN forces to win the insurgents have to be defeated; for the insurgents to win, they have to survive. It is quite evident, based on the high level of insurgent activity in the 2014 fighting season, that Hekmatyar's Hizbi-Islami, the Haqqani Network, and the Taliban have survived the long 13-year long counterinsurgency effort mounted by NATO / ISAF in Afghanistan. Some observers believe that NATO is more suited for strategic level interventions and a cold war environment than a counterinsurgency environment. They believe the NATO organization (ISAF) is not structured for and does not do counterinsurgency well. Read more in "In Afghanistan the west suffered from institutional failure. Let's learn from it", by Afzal Amin, The Guardian, October 28, 2014.

Paper - How Has COIN Changed?

The Small Wars Journal has posted another paper about counterinsurgency. "How Counterinsurgency Has Changed Across the 20th and Into the 21st Century?" (October 26, 2014) is penned by Wayne Tyrrell - a member of the Irish Defence Forces who has served in Liberia, Lebanon, and Chad. His paper on counterinsurgency is focused on ". . . the modern doctrine crafted in the wake of Iraq and Afghanistan, its foundational basis and its adequacy to cope with a new form of globally networked and ideologically based insurgency".

Paper - "COIN: A Forgotten U.S. Strategy"

Counterinsurgency is a way of fighting that the U.S. Army (and military as a whole) seems to have trouble getting right. It didn't do it well in Vietnam and was slow to apply lessons 'forgotten' from Vietnam to Iraq and Afghanistan. Certainly there will be many papers produced by military students from the various staff courses and colleges over the next decade addressing this issue. One recently published is entitled Counterinsurgency: A Forgotten U.S. Strategy, by LCDR Vicent S. King, USN, Joint Forces Staff College (Master's Thesis), Norfolk, Virginia, 13 June 2014.

Counterinsurgency Here to Stay

The U.S. Army is turning away from counterinsurgency and looking forward to more conventional operations in the Pacific (and Middle East). Unfortunately, as much as the U.S. would like to leave counterinsurgency behind (the U.S. Army just closed the Army Irregular Warfare Center) the "small wars" will continue to loom over the horizon. Read more in "More Small Wars: Counterinsurgency Is Here to Stay", by Max Boot in Foreign Affairs, November December 2014 issue.

Paper - Airpower and COIN in Afghanistan

Jason Lyall of Yale University has wrote a paper entitled Bombing to Lose? Airpower and the Dynamics of Violence in Counterinsurgency Wars (August 9, 2014). The use of close air support during an insurgency is vital if used properly. Lyall's paper is posted on the Social Science Research Network at the link below. An abstract of his paper follows:

"Are airstrikes an effective tool against insurgent organizations? Despite the question's historical and contemporary relevance, we have few dedicated studies, and even less consensus, about airpower's effectiveness in counterinsurgency wars. To answer this question, I draw on declassified United States Air Force records of nearly 23,000 airstrikes and non-lethal shows of force in Afghanistan (2006-11), satellite imagery, and a new SQL-enabled form of dynamic matching to estimate the causal effects of airstrikes on insurgent attacks over variable temporal and spatial windows. Evidence consistently indicates that airstrikes markedly increase insurgent attacks relative to non-bombed locations for at least 90 days after a strike. Civilian casualties play little role in explaining post-strike insurgent responses, however. Instead, these attacks appear driven by reputational concerns, as insurgent organizations step up their violence after air operations to maintain their reputations for resolve in the eyes of local populations."

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2422170

Paper - "How Do Insurgencies End?"

The Small Wars Journal  has posted (October 10, 2014) a journal article entitled "How Do Insurgencies End?" by Russell Croy. The author recently graduated with a M.A. in Political Science from Colorado State University and served in the Marines in the Al Anbar region of Iraq in early 2008. Croy explores the issue of why some insurgencies end quickly and others go on for decades. He notes that many scholars have provided papers on how to understand insurgencies they don't provide much info on how these insurgencies end. He then compares two insurgencies to illustrate his argument - that of Chechnya and in West Java. He draws a distinction in defeating an insurgency and ending an insurgency; and concludes that the ending of an insurgency should start not also from a position of military action but from the end goal of achieving a desirable and peaceful outcome.

Demise of COIN?

One of the frequent conversations among members of the military (and observers of the military and conflict in general) is the future of counterinsurgency within the armed forces. Another observer has weighed in on the conversation. The writer wonders, with the closing of the Army Irregular Warfare Center (AIWC) at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, who will pick up the functions of educating the force on COIN doctrine. While the draw down of forces capable of conducting COIN are probably necessary; there still needs to be an organization that picks up the responsibilities previously done by AIWC. This is especially true given that the U.S. military is more likely to engage in counterinsurgency type operations rather than general war in the near future. Read "Is COIN No Longer Relevant?", by Whitney Kassel in Cicero Magazine, September 22, 2014.

Afghan War Lessons Learned and How to Fight ISIS

The news programs, print media and Internet is just bursting with analysis and recommendations about how to "degrade, defeat, and destroy" the Islamic State (or ISIS, or ISIL, etc.). While many of these reports, tracts and observations are presented by well-meaning academics, scholars and members of 'think tanks" - very few have an experience mix of the big picture and 'boots on the ground". One observer that does is Michael G. Waltz. With his experience as a Special Forces officer with two tours in Afghanistan and as an advisor to VP Cheney on South Asia and Counterterrorism, Waltz has first-hand experience at the ground and policy level. He is the author of a forthcoming book entitled Warrior Diplomat: A Green Beret's Battles from Washington to Afghanistan available on Amazon.com. Together with Alyssa Kelly, a national security analyst at Askari Associates, Waltz provides some lessons learned from Afghanistan and hopes that the current administration and his national security advisors (as well as senior military commanders) remember 10 impediments to success when dealing with ISIS (and with our allies).

1. National Caveats
2. Interagency Coordination
3. Lesser Capability
4. Different Doctrinal Approaches
5. Incompatibility
6. Intelligence Sharing
7. The "Maintaining the Coalition" Mentality
8. Command and Control
9. Unmet Expectations
10. The D-word: Detainees

The full article with an explanation of the ten impediments can be read in "Ten Lessons From the Afghan War About How to fight ISIS", The South Asia Channel, Foreign Policy, September 23, 2014.

Book - COIN in Eastern Afghanistan (2004-2008)

A new book is out on counterinsurgency in Afghanistan. It covers the period of 2004-2008 in eastern Afghanistan. "The book looks at how, working with their Afghan counterparts, they engaged in a complex effort to rebuild security, development, and governance, all while fighting a low-intensity war." The book recounts the efforts of American military officers and civilians to help the local government officials and citizens. Robert Kemp was a U.S. State Department Foreign Service Officer who served in Afghanistan from 2004 to 2005 and from 2007 to 2008. He was the Deputy Director of the Pakistan Desk in Washington and also completed several short-term assignments in Pakistan. You can purchase the book on Amazon.com here:

Counterinsurgency in Eastern Afghanistan 2004-2008: A Civilian Perspective

Insurgencies Re-Examined

An Op-Ed by a Professor at the United States Army War College has been provided online that re-examines the role of counter-insurgents and the nature of present-day and future insurgencies. Dr. Robert J. Bunker works at the Strategic Studies Institute of the Army War College as a visiting professor. Read his Op-Ed in "Not Your Grandfather's Insurgency - Criminal, Spiritual, and Plutocratic", Strategic Studies Institute (SSI) published on February 20, 2014.

Report - Partner Capacity in COIN Campaigns

RAND Corporation has published a report that provides a quantitative and qualitative analysis on the likelihood of success of small-footprint approaches to counterinsurgency environments. The RAND team did a simple statistical analyses of 72 counterinsurgencies that have terminated since the end of World War II. In addition, it consulted with numerous reports, studies, and experts on counterinsurgency environments. You can read the results in "Partner Capacity in Counterinsurgency Campaigns" published February 2014 available at this link on RANDs website.

"Robber Barons Rising" - COIN in Ghazni

Stability Journal: The International Journal of Security & Development has published a new report about Ghazni, Afghanistan. The authors, Matthew P. Dearing and Cynthia Braden have wrote "Robber Barons Rising: The Potential for Resource Conflict in Ghazni, Afghanistan" dated February 18, 2014. The publication is available at this link "Robber Barons Rising". An abstract of the report is below in quotes:

"Security and governance in Ghazni Province, Afghanistan are threatened by resource conflict dynamics: groups focus on exploiting lootable resources in the short term while weak institutions and conflict persists. Elements within the Afghan government and insurgent organizations alike expand their power and influence in this manner. Understanding how criminal organizations operate within the regional political economy is essential to reducing the leverage these networks, associated criminal syndicates, and corrupt government officials have on the community. We proffer three hypothesis for development and stability practitioners to monitor as transition approaches in 2014, as well as recommendations for mitigating the onset of resource conflict in Ghazni as the province experiences a downgrade in foreign security forces. Adopting effective, anti-insurgency policies will be fundamental to mitigating the malicious effects on the population and providing incentives for peace, rather than continuing conflict".