Services Have Learned Irregular Warfare, Leaders Say
By Lisa Daniel
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, Nov. 3, 2011 – The military has institutionalized lessons learned from the past decade of nonconventional warfare and will work to maintain doctrine and skills that allow the services to balance readiness for traditional defenses as well as irregular fighting, service leaders told a congressional committee today.
“In 2002, the nation effectively went to war with two armies,” Maj. Gen. Peter Bayer, the Army’s director of strategy, plans and policy, told the House Armed Services Committee. “One, comprised of general-purpose forces, was prepared to excel against traditional adversaries in direct combat. The second, comprised largely of special operations forces, was prepared to prevail in an irregular environment.
“The Army quickly learned that success on the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq required adaptation in both general-purpose and special operations forces,” Bayer said. The Army has adapted since then by institutionalizing irregular warfare capabilities and capacity across the force, he said.
Bayer was joined by Rear Adm. Sinclair M. Harris, director of the Navy irregular warfare office; Brig. Gen. Daniel O’Donohue, director of the Marine Corps’ capabilities development directorate; and Brig. Gen. Jerry P. Martinez, director for joint integration in the Air Force’s directorate of operational capability requirements. All four said readiness for irregular warfare is critical to future operations, and they described how each of the services has blended conventional and irregular warfighting doctrine and skills.
The Navy has leveraged its Navy Expeditionary Combat Command and established maritime partnership stations and maritime headquarters with maritime operations centers to meet demands, Harris said. “The evolution of intelligence and strike capabilities has enabled the Navy to meet urgent combatant commander requirements for counterterrorism and counterinsurgency operations,” he said.
The Navy Irregular Warfare Office, created in 2008, has led the institutionalization of irregular capabilities, Harris said.
The Marine Corps has designed a readiness force for post-Afghanistan operations – beyond 2014 – “that mitigates this hybrid threat, creates options and provides decision space for senior leadership” that considers joint, interagency and allied responses, O’Donohue said.
That force will be fundamentally different from the current or pre-9/11 force, O’Donohue said. “It draws on a rich history of innovations in irregular warfare, but is recast as a scalable crisis response force ready to counter complex irregular, conventional and hybrid threats – and the gray areas in between,” he said.
“Above all,” O’Donohue added, “we prepare to operate in and adapt to unpredictable, uncertain, complex environments at a moment’s notice.” He noted that irregular warfare is not new, and had the same definition in the Marines’ Small Wars Manual of 1940 as it does today.
As for the Air Force, Martinez said, the service is part of a larger, joint, coalition effort, and that works to supplement or improve host-nation and regional capabilities. “Air power directly contributes by establishing a secure environment in which the partner nation can flourish, ultimately without direct assistance,” he said.
By assessing, training, advising and equipping a troubled partner air force, airmen can contribute to that nation’s sovereignty and legitimacy while creating opportunities for economic growth, political development and stability, he added.
Like his counterparts at the hearing, Martinez said the Air Force’s challenge going forward will be how to balance the requirements for irregular warfare with those of traditional fighting, although he added that an increase in capabilities in one area usually helps the other.
The most important thing the Army can do to advance the institutionalization of irregular warfare is to continue educating its leaders, Bayer said.
“By developing adaptive and creative leaders, the Army ensures its ability to respond to a wide range of future tasks,” he said. “Maintaining a highly professional education system is crucial to institutionalizing the lessons of the past decade and ensuring that we do not repeat the mistakes of post-Vietnam by thinking that these kinds of operations are behind us.”
Future battlefields will be populated with hybrid threats, Bayer said, with combinations of regular and irregular tactics against enemies that include terrorists and criminal groups. The Army must remain flexible to operate against “whatever the threat” and in all types of settings, he said.
“As pressures for cuts in defense spending and force structures increase, the Army must assess which capabilities to emphasize, how many of each, and at what level,” he said. “Finding the right mix will be a challenge.”
The key to advancing the Army’s ability to respond to irregular threats will be to ensure the necessary force structure to support a versatile mix of capabilities in an uncertain future, he said.
The Army demonstrated flexibility in Iraq and Afghanistan with modular brigades that included a host of irregular warfare specialties, including information operations, public affairs and civil affairs, Bayer said.
All of the officers said foreign language and cultural training will grow as a requirement for service members.
Comments
From the article above by Lisa Daniel:
"In 2002, the nation effectively went to war with two armies ... One, comprised of the general purpose force, was prepared to excel against traditional adversaries in direct combat. The second, comprised largely of the special forces, was prepared to prevail in an irregular warfare environment."
IMPORTANT NOTE HERE: It would appear that neither the general purpose force nor the special forces, prior to 2002, were required -- and therefore were prepared -- to "nation-build," "modernize" or, more accurately, "Westernize" the opposing state and society as part of their overall duties and responsibilities; nor were they required to subordinate their primary job function (war fighting/war winning) to this new purpose [nation-building, modernization, Westernization.)
"The Army quickly learned that success on the battlefield of Afghanistan and Iraq required the adaptation of both the general purpose force and the special forces ... The Army has adapted since then to institutionalize irregular warfare capabilities and capacity across the force."
ANOTHER IMPORTANT DISTINCTION: Once the powers-that-be changed the definition of "success on the battlefield" to a nation-built, modernized and Westernized, THIS, I would suggest -- rather than the uniqueness of Afghanistan or Iraq -- is what caused (1) the general purpose force and the special forces to have be adapted and (2) these new requirements to need to become institutionalized.
THUS THE QUESTION: Minus this new requirement to "modernize"/Westernize" the opposing state and society as part of our primary duties and responsibilities -- and the new definition of "success on the battlefield" as the modernization/Westernization of outlier states and societies -- then would the general purpose force, the special forces and/or Army doctrine have needed modification?
Thus, it may not be that the conflicts that we are in today are so different from those we have been involved with in the past. Rather what may be different today is how we intend to use our military forces to achieve our national security and foreign policy goals (outlier state and societal transformation). This, it would seem, is what has mandated the changes noted above.
The central underlying problem with our COIN concept may be that it is not primarily designed to defeat the insurgency; because that (defeating the insurgency) may not be our primary goal and objective.
Rather the design and purpose of our campaign, commensurate with our primary goal and objective, may be to (1) use the opening -- the opportunity -- presented by the insurgency (and/or other state/societal difficulty for that matter) to (2) breach sovereignty, so that we might (3) transform the subject state, society and region, so that these might (4) come to cause us fewer problems and offer us, instead, greater usefulness in the future.
This, likewise, seems to be the design and purpose of R2P.
Thus, our efforts to defeat the insurgency (and/or to "protect the population," for that matter, under either the COIN or the R2P concepts); these seem to have been made to be subordinate to -- made to take a back seat to -- our desire to (a) "Westernize" these non/less-Western states, societies and regions and to (b) better incorporate them into our "Western" system.
This, in a nutshell, may be the crux of our problem? To wit:
a. That we are more concerned with Westernizing and incorporating into our Western system various outlier states, societies and regions, than we are concerned with "protecting the population."
b. We may, in fact, be willing to endanger and/or sacrifice the population so that we might achieve our state and societal transformation goals???????
c. And everyone -- except maybe us -- seem to think or know this -- and/or be subject to this perception?
Thus, the question: If COIN were to be shed of its state and societal transformation requirement, could the insurgency be defeated -- and/or an accommodation be reached -- with much less expenditure of time, blood and treasure by all concerned?
Likewise, would the population be less likely to be endangered (or, if you prefer, be better protected) if our COIN and/or R2P concepts were to be shed of their requirement to Westernize these outlier states, societies and regions?
Dave,
Few people read the fine print, and personally I think if you tell a person how to think you are in effect telling them what to think. Pardon my over simplistic example, but you tell a person the answer is four, our explain how to get to four by adding three plus one, you are still guiding them to the same result. The bottom line if we tell a person how to think it limits their creativity. Usually, and I know this from a lot of different experiences planning both crisis and more deliberate operations, planners look for previous efforts and use those slides as a template and not surprisingly the mission analysis, the objectives and operational design looks striking similiar to the doctrine and previous planned efforts. I agree it shouldn't be that way, but it seems to be human nature, or perhaps just DOD culture.
I would also argue we didn't, and still don't have all the desired capabilities, or in some cases capacity, for some skills and equipment for IW, such as biometrics, language skills, authorities, a whole range of intelligence related capabilities, non-lethal weapons, analytical software, rotary wing and non-standard air platforms to support distributed operations, and so forth. Most of these and many other potential shortfalls were addressed in discussions leading up to the publication of the IW JOC, and some were addressed in the QDR.
I also think you would be challenged to make a case that we have taken lessons unlearned to a new level based on the new joint pubs 3.0 and 5.0 and others that have more thoroughly the addressed the full scale of conflict to include what we're calling IW. I do share your concern that if given the chance a couple of services (the Air Force and Navy) would disregard IW entirely if given the choice, but both Army and Marine leadership (based on 10 years of hard experience) get it, and it is doubtful they will flush it down the toilet like they did post Vietnam in hopes we won't get involved in dirty wars in the future.
One final point, IW was never supposed to be limited to COIN, it also includes FID, CT, UW, and Stability Operations, and with the exception of CT the others are only discussed by relatively small interest groups. That is fine for UW, but FID and Stability Operations are also areas that the USG needs to improve in, and we have years of peace operations (a subset of stabiity operations) with numerous lessons that are applicable for Afghanistan that are ignored because everyone has their heads in the COIN manual that is describing for them how to think.
We both are passionate about this, but our views are not necessarily in synch.
Related, and I think important, is my view that there is not really that much of a problem with our concepts and doctrine - with some caveats. First up is to actually read and accept the short blurb that is usually contained in the introduction or preface - that this doctrine / concept is merely a guide (a framework for thinking about a particular problem set - “how to think, not what to think”) and not a checklist for success. Every COIN publication, for example, goes to a decent length to lay out that no two insurgencies and no two counterinsurgency campaigns are the same and this (fill in the blank) pub is a starting point for reference and consideration to be ADAPTED. Go figure.
Moreover, two things need to be present when conducting such operations - capability and desirability. We most certainly have the capability - more so if we recognize the type of fight we are in early on (we normally start playing the real game in the third or fourth quarter). Desirability is another matter and always trumps capability and when present almost always is a day late and a dollar short. We, as a nation, do not really desire such fights and seem to be genuinely surprised as we find ourselves armpit deep in such “dirty little wars”. So the bottom line is yes, we should not be doing these things because as a matter of national policy we intervene fairly conventionally and resist the unconventional until it's pretty much too late to matter. But that does not mean the future holds “no more Vietnams, Iraqs, Afghanistans, or Somalias"; we have short memories and have taken lessons unlearned to a new form of art not seen previously.
Dave D.
Bill C.
Assuming you're correct about our desire to re-orient/re-configure certain states (and I suspect you are for both Iraq and Afghanistan), then neither FID nor COIN addresses that approach. What did the communists call it when they did this (overthrow a government and install an entirely new government and economic process)?
I think Bob made some great points, but still think we did adapt at the tactical level, even if it was for the wrong reason.
The political nature and purpose of the conflict would seem to be:
a. Our desire to re-oriented, re-configured and/or re-organize certain states and societies (TO FUNDAMENTALLY CHANGE THEM) such that these might come to cause the modern world fewer problems and offer the modern world, instead, greater access, greater utility and greater usefulness.
And
b. The desire of our opponents NOT TO CHANGE their beliefs, their ways of life and their ways of governance so as to better accommodate the wants, needs and desires of certain foreign states and societies (those that constitute the so-called "modern world").
Thus, the explanation offered above -- as suggested -- neither addresses the size and the degree of violence offered, nor does it address the type and/or mix of forces to be utilized. Likewise, this explanation does not suggest how, when and where the various efforts (made in the behalf of these conflicting purposes) might be employed (by either side).
The nature of the conflict portrayed by this explanation does, however, suggest a contest wherein an imperial power -- and its opponents -- both believe that they must resort to armed conflict in order to provide for and protect their (distinctly different) ways of life.
I suspect that we exaggerate both the need for "IW" as a construct and our ability to conduct "IW."
The fact that we have landed on a definition of colonial warfare, laced with the lessons learned of centuries of European colonial experience, and 40 years of American colonial experiences as the final answer should cause an alarm bell to start ringing in the back of one's mind...
Wars are not best defined by their SIZE or the degree of VIOLENCE employed. Similarly the mixture of "regular" vs. "irregular" forces or tactics are poor distinctions as well. The best definitions are rooted in the political nature and purpose of the conflict, and no single type is any more regular or irregular than the next.
If the generals are asserting that the US military is now well prepared to establish and defend illegitimate governments over the populaces of those who have the misfortune of living where we have determined US intersts to be at risk, then I would offer in return that they are 100 years too late and out of date with their answer.
We're still asking the wrong questions, so we will continue to provide the wrong answers.
The article isn't that bad, the services to varying degrees have adapted at the tactical level, but strategically we're not doing well, which I suspect is due as much to policy issues as military competence or incompetence.
To claim that the Navy and Air Force have adapted is a bit of a stretch. A few very small scale programs don't equate to the capacity needed. The fact is many senior leaders in the Navy and Air Force haven't adapted, nor see the need to adapt. As it stated in the article, we'll continue to be challenged by hybrid threats, and the greatest threats to our national security continue to be conventional in nature, so maintaining conventional capabilities is critical. The CIA, Department of Justice, and State Department can wield a lot of capability to deal with most IW threats (we created the large scale IW threats in Afghanistan and Iraq due to our approach), but no other agency can conduct large scale conventional war outside of DOD, so obviously senior leaders are obligated to maintain that core competency. Emerging non-traditional threats such as cyber are probably a greater threat to our interests than irregulars, so I would be more concerned about shortfalls there.
Not a chance! The very fact that IW is "irregular" should be an indication to the brass that IW is a "moving, time-sensitive target". If the services really “get” IW, we would not have the sound of the old major conventional warfare priorities screaming out from the impending cuts in personnel and resources.
It is clear that the services want to be better at IW. The services have made some gains. However, their insistence on protecting the top dollar new mega machines as budget priorities does not reflect an understanding of the nature of, and preparation for, IW. IW preparation and execution is a constant priority for any nation’s defense forces, this century and beyond.
Many successful IW interdictions are carried out by small highly agile and innovative groups. These groups are in and out of uniform. They are capable of self-synchronizing with updated intelligence and objectives, adapting to changing circumstances in real-time. They do not need to abort a mission or program to restart from the beginning. Their primary critical requirement is a constant flow of reliable and actionable intelligence that is adequately analyzed to meet their intended objectives. These may be short duration activities or long duration shaping and influencing activities both kinetic and non-kinetic in nature. The analysis of that information is derived from contemporary collection and historical analysis of similar threats or practices with a good dose of creative and critical thinking to apply the analysis to novel challenges. In short, they need modern tradecraft and permission to use it (obviously with the legal confines applicable to their mission). Their tools of the trade may be the traditional weapons of war or the information, influence and human systems technologies of today and tomorrow.
We are not preparing leaders for the IW world we live in today. We did not prepare leaders to lead in the IW world of the past. Service academies create only marginal preparation for IW if any. We are certainly not preparing the agile and innovative leaders of tomorrow’s forces for the future of conflict at all levels. If we need managers for IW well, were are good at turning out the petty bureaucrats to foul things up. There is a huge difference in leading and managing; I give you the early Iraq experience when leaders were ignored and managers prolonged the conflict by five years.
If ready for IW means the services are ready to continue to slap tactical bandages on strategic problems after they have occurred then OK, the services are ready (no, sorry, not the AF, they can't wait until the annoying IW emphasis goes away with the current Chief of Staff, the only AF CoS to ever have considered IW). IW like all warfare evolves based on both intra-national and inter-national developments in all spheres of life, economic, political, educational and social. Until we, the US defense establishment accept the fact we will always be looked on to do the State department’s job…because congress won't fund them to do it themselves...we will eternally play catch up on the next evolution of IW be it in the flesh on ground, or bytes in cyberspace.
I hit new comment vice reply so maybe I will have this in the right place in the right order now as my intention was to reply to Chris.
Chris,
But SOCOM was not testifying, only the services were. And as Dave D has pointed out with the deactivation of JFCOM there is no longer a Joint HQ with responsibility for oversight of the the joint capabilities of the services (although theoretically the Joint Staff has (re-)assumed that role). And regarding SOCOM when you look at the 5 IW mission areas (UW. FID, CT, COIN, and Stability Operations) those are part of the core competencies of SOF. But again, SOCOM was not testifying (or at least according to the article).
"To wage "warfare" against such a dynamic is a futile task that civil leaders should not be asking of their armed forces. Mitigate the inherent dangers? Definitely. But to go out and force populaces to submit to an unnatural stasis of governance? That is how empires and governments fall."
Great paragraph that at the strategic level justifies your argument that we should toss the IW joint concept in the dustbin of useless concepts. Unfortunately, that view doesn't nest with our intervention policy, and since the military will continue to be directed to intervene in fights best left ignored we need to improve our approach.
I worked on IW JOC 2.0 as a GCC representative, and unfortunately the process was constrained from the beginning by alleged guidance from SEC Gates, which stated we couldn't propose re-writing the definition and re-start from scratch, which some of us wanted to do. It was based on the CNAS Koolaid that IW as described in the JOC was the way of the future and DOD needed to conform to this line of thinking. In my view this limited the re-write to minor changes, so the special interests you pointed to were protected. None the less the JOC did capture some good ideas and identified some significant capability gaps, so not all was lost.
Bob and I disagree that all attacks on governments from elements of their populace are due to poor governance, and thus have popular support. In some cases these attacks are conducted by a minority that doesn't represent what the majority wants, which is frequently the case with those who are limited to using terrorism to pursue their ends. There is no one size that fits all that should determine if we "should" intervene/assist, nor is there one doctrine on "how" we should respond.
On a related note, the real lessons for IW as described in the JOC, is our current approaches have failed, yet now we're trying to capture them in a way that will institutionalize them. Buyer beware.
The major portions of JFCOM's Joint Irregular Warfare Center were not salvaged nor were their tasks and responsibilities transferred to other organizations, the COS is an exception and I'm not sure if he is directly working Joint IW issues now, I'll have to ask him. The JIWC was gutted almost overnight and I know this from 1st hand experience as I worked for the JIWC until they were disestablished.
It is my understanding that a major portion of the Joint IW shop from JFCOM was preserved. I know the former Chief of Staff is currently in J7 at the Pentagon.
As an addendum to Dave's comment though, I think it is important to recognize that while yes, the services will always be the primary force provider for all types of DOD activities; the Services also will always look to programs and concepts such as IW as vehicles to justify force structure that they frankly, would prefer to employ on anything OTHER than IW. In other words they are biased in their perspectives, and by their very nature competing with the other services in self-serving ways.
SOCOM is "service-like" so is also a biased, self-serving organization in this regard as they too compete with the services for relevance and market-share in an era of massive cutbacks and declining budgets.
In this "no-trust" environment, who then is the honest broker to establish understanding and definitions for such concepts as IW?
Personally I toss IW into the same dustbin of relatively useless concepts generated in recent years, where it finds good (bad?) company alongside "SFA" and "complexity." Our environment is changing, our perspectives are outdated and inappropriate for the emerging environment, and we grasp at doctrinal straws for concepts that either excuse our poor performance (complexity); that provide a promise of dumping tasks we are not performing well onto others (SFA), or that create a new type of warfare (IW), that once we train, organize and equip for will quickly master.
I am not sure why it is so hard to grasp that simple concept that populaces are evolving faster than their own governments either want them to, or can keep up with. This is creating "sovereignty gaps" that lead populaces to pressure governments for changes, while at the same time most governments respond by ramping up the security necessary to allow them to stay the same. The same is true at the foreign policy level for major powers such as the US that also prefers a stability of sustaining a status quo that is increasingly unacceptable by others who seek a better (or at least more self-determined) future. This is not "irregular", this is very natural. Governments need to evolve to keep up with the needs, dreams and goals of their respective populaces. Social contracts need to be renegotiated and made more flexible to keep up with the rate of change in this information fueled environment.
To wage "warfare" against such a dynamic is a futile task that civil leaders should not be asking of their armed forces. Mitigate the inherent dangers? Definitely. But to go out and force populaces to submit to an unnatural stasis of governance? That is how empires and governments fall.
Dave - I'd say SOCOM has a pretty good handle on the joint side of things. I was surprised the author didn't even mention the IW JOC: http://www.defensestudies.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/IW-JOC-v2-0.pdf
My concern, and let's say for argument's sake that the Services "get" IW, is that the vast majority of IW related activities are not the purview nor will they be fought by a single Service (and for that matter not by the DoD alone). Who's looking after the Joint aspects of IW now? Who is responsible for ensuring that a Combatant Commander or a JTF gets a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts? - Dave D.
With all due respect to the generals and admiral testifying, every time I read something like this I do have to wonder what we are thinking. Sure, throw a little Civil Affairs around and make people learn a language and know a little culture and now you know "Irregular Warfare."
Example: are information operations, public affairs, and civil affairs part of a host of irregular warfare "specialties?" Or are they military specialties that apply to regular and irregular warfare?
Brig Gen O'Donohue does recognize that IW is not new though if IW is defined the same as in the 1940 USMC Small Wars Manual why did we spend so much time in the last 10 years arguing about a definition of IW? Why did we not just use the Small Wars definition. As I have shared before but I think worth repeating, a friend and colleague said this about the new (re-)discovery of Irregular Warfare: "It is like Columbus landing in the "New World" and the indigenous people scratching their heads wondering what is so new about it." It is not new and has always been there. We just have to recognize and deal with it.
But instead of trying to solely focus on Irregular or Regular Warfare (it is not an either or construct) I think Brig Gen O'Donohue has it right with this quote:
“Above all,” O’Donohue added, “we prepare to operate in and adapt to unpredictable, uncertain, complex environments at a moment’s notice.” He noted that irregular warfare is not new, and had the same definition in the Marines’ Small Wars Manual of 1940 as it does today.