... An effective police force is an essential pre-requisite for stabilising a society affected by insurgency. The proper use of police by counterinsurgents offers security to the population, develops intelligence, and reinforces the appearance of normalcy that is crucial to emphasising the rule of law. Such an effect will be highly complementary to the Australian military effort in Oruzgan Province.
While working for the Counterinsurgency Center for Excellence in Iraq during 2007-2008, members of my team in Ramadi saw the impact a viable police force can have in counterinsurgency. The US Army and Marines stabilised what had previously been an insurgent stronghold. The work of the Marines was noteworthy in mentoring and developing the Iraqi Police into an effective force - a significant factor in the success of their efforts was the embedding of troops throughout the city's police stations and the delivery of training at those sites.
Unlike our American allies, Australia need not rely on its military to train indigenous police forces. The investment made in the development of the Australian Federal Police's International Deployment Group (IDG) over the last half decade has given Australia a unique capability among its principal allies with respect to deployable police...
More at The Interpreter.
Lieutenant Colonel Mark O'Neill was the Lowy Institute's inaugural Chief of Army Fellow. Mark is the author of 'Confronting the Hydra: Big problems with small wars', a Lowy Institute paper on counterinsurgency strategy. The Interpreter is the blog of the Lowy Institute for International Policy, an independent international policy think tank.
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Very interesting article. I agree with LTC O'Neill. We would do well to develop and maintain a group of trained (& deployable) police advisors within the military and in other governmental agencies (DoJ).
I believe the 162d IN BDE is attempting to develop such a capability as our Army tries to capitalize on the experiences of the MTT/ ETT teams that have deployed over the last several years. I certainly could have used such training. I deployed as an ETT for the Afghan army and later took over a police mentor team. I had no clue how to be a cop but made regular use of my Dyncorps police mentors. Good thing I also remembered stuff I saw on "Hill Street Blues".
I think it would help if, after developing this capability, we augmented the training of our police advisors by allowing them to spend some time (30-45 days?) with foreign police forces or paramilitary police forces (like the Italian Carabineri). The Aussie International Deployment Group is a great idea that we need to become more familiar with and perhaps even emulate.
Morgan,
There is a funny aligment with the Ramadi situation with your anecdote about trying to recall episodes of 'Hill Street Blues'.
Knowing that the Marines were Infantry and not police trained (it was 2-8 Marines from memory, and later 1-9 Marines), one of my E-6's asked one of the Company Commanders how they had derived the training program. He replied by acknowledging that at the time they knew little or nothing about policing, so they had sat around a white board and 'brainstormed' all the things they had seen 'police' do on TV shows like Hill Street, CHiPs, CSI etc... and then turned that list into training competencies.
A great example of improvisation to meet mission requirements when the circumstances you face are unforeseen and one that obviously worked.
Following on from the development of the curricula, and showing real cultural awareness in post Baathist Iraq, the Marines put a dodgy photo copier they had acquired to use printing up certificates of competency / achievement that were awarded to individual IP as they succesfully completed each training module. These were an instant 'hit' with the IP and by all accounts became a matter of some pride. My E-6 has a great photo of several beaming IP's standing in front of a special 'brag' wall in their police station where their certificates were hung with pride.
Regards,
Mark
Those certificates remind me of a comment attributed to Napoleon, that a bolt of ribbon can inspire many soldiers to excel. In other words, a little recognition goes a long way.
Maybe as the "Civilian Reserve Corps" is organized, DoS will recruit State & local police officers to form a cadre of expeditionary police trainers. The skill sets of Federal law enforcement agents are valuable in training police officers, but the local officers bring additional skill sets that will definitely be needed. I agree that it would be prudent to provide our expeditionary trainers with the opportunity to train with officers from other nations prior to deployment.
By the way, don't forget to add "COPS" and "Real Stories of the Highway Patrol" to the curriculum! Seriously, there are lessons to be learned even from the TV shows, but some of those lessons are in "what not to do." Those were good examples of improvising & adapting. Police tactics, like infantry tactics, are a matter of applying common sense to situations that the average person rarely has occasion to think about. The key is to think about these contingencies before they arise, because you don't really have time to develop a solution from scratch when Condition Yellow suddenly changes to Condition Brown.