COIN Center seeks input on FM 3-24 Rewrite

What’s missing from population centric COIN Doctrine?

Although FM 3-24 is supposed to be a population centric approach to COIN, it is actually a male centric approach to COIN. Recent focus on women in Afghanistan and the creation of female engagement teams represents an effort to include women in our COIN strategy. This emerging understanding needs to be captured in the FM 3-24 revision.

Our current COIN doctrine is written by men for men and about men. FM 3-24 was signed by two men; acknowledgements are given to three men and forty five men are listed in the annotated bibliography. Besides the administrative assistant who signed this document on the back cover the only other female name in FM 3-24 is that of anthropologist Dr. Montgomery McFate, who is listed in the bibliography. Many men proudly claim to be coauthors of this document but not one woman is ever credited with coauthoring FM 3-24. There is no female perspective in FM 3-24.
The term “women” is used exactly five times in this 282 page tome of over 138,000 words. “Women” is used four times in the same paragraph in appendix A-35 when the doctrine instructs readers that “women are hugely influential in forming the social networks that insurgents use for support.” “Women” is used one other time in paragraph 3-35 when the manual instructs the reader to consider social norms as related to women. Children get mentioned twice as often as women. Interestingly, the term “men” is only used a handful of times but the word insurgent is used prolifically throughout the document, and according to FM 3-24 “most insurgents are men”.

If, as Dr. David Kilcullen asserts, “co-opting neutral or friendly women, through targeted social and economic programs, builds networks of enlightened self-interest that eventually undermine the insurgents” is important than why is this not addressed anywhere in FM 3-24? He further posits that when you “win the women, …you own the family unit. Own the family and you take a big step forward in mobilizing the population.” General McChrystal clearly understands the importance of taking a gendered approach to COIN operations. He directed all units in Afghanistan to employ female engagement teams to reach out to Afghan women to “develop trust-based, enduring, and dynamic information-sharing relationships that assist GIRoA and the battle space owner in addressing the sources of instability in the area.”

Because women operate largely in private spaces vice the public their role in conflict receives little attention. Recent work by a few institutions and a new five part PBS documentary entitled “Women, War and Peace” reveal the powerful impact that women can have during and after conflict. Part II of the series entitled, “Pray the Devil Back to Hell”, chronicles the work of the women of Liberia. In 1998, women from all tribes, religions and ethnic groups united in their common quest to end the violence. They mobilized women across Liberia to force a negotiated settlement. Their tactics were many and varied. They staged public demonstrations, strikes and sit-ins that clogged arteries throughout the capitol. They travelled, at great risk to themselves throughout Liberia decommissioning young rebels. Their strikes and sit-ins during peace negotiations are credited with forcing parties to sign the Accra Peace Accord, which resulted in the exile of President Charles Taylor. After the peace accord was signed the women travelled throughout Liberia to support the disarmament process and when Liberia held peaceful democratic elections in 2005 the women helped elect President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Africa’s first female head of state. Today the work of these women continues and this year two of them were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The women of Liberia demonstrate the power of “networks of enlightened self-interest that eventually undermine insurgents”.

FM 3-24 is currently undergoing revision. The revision is being headed by a group of men at the Combined Arms Center. They have a web site where they solicit input. The team was referred to a female researcher at the National Defense University to discuss how or if gender should be addressed in the revision. The re-write team found it difficult to make time to visit her or the colleagues she assembled to meet with them. If the revised FM 3-24 fails to address the role of women in COIN operations then it will be an incomplete document.

References:
FM 3-24.Counterinsurgency. December 2006.
Kilcullen, David J. 2006. Twenty-Eight Articles: Fundamentals of Company-Level Counterinsurgency. Small Wars Journal.
McChrystal, Stanley A. General. Engagement with Afghan Females Directive. 31 May 2010. International Security Assistance Force/United States Forces-Afghanistan.
Riticker, Gini. (Director). (2008). Pray the Devil Back to Hell. [Documentary Film]. United States http://video.pbs.org/video/2155873888

Bob,
I think two of your points are at best half right. I agree the bulk of our efforts against insurgencies in the past, and hopefully in the future, will be through FID programs, but the U.S. can conduct COIN operations in a foreign country either unilaterally or as part of a FID effort in support of the host nation’s government.
An insurgency is a military and political struggle to weaken a legitimately established government or an occupying power. If we’re an occupying power and there is a resistance directed towards us in that role, we conduct COIN, withdraw, or quickly prop up a semi-legitimate government and try to call it FID in all too often lame attempts to give us more legitimacy. When we shift too quickly in establishing a HN government we’re likely to create the illegitimate monster that defeats our ultimate aims. None the less, as an occupying we can and have conducted COIN, and if we knew how to conduct COIN (outside of SF which always carried that torch) in 2003/2004 in Iraq, we may have prevented some or most of the chaos that followed.
We’ll move beyond the governing role of an occupying back to FID since it is less controversial to discuss U.S. forces conducting COIN in a FID program. The FID Joint Pub states, “In some cases, the Armed Forces of the US may be required to conduct COIN, CT, CD, or other sustained operations directly in the place of HN forces, particularly if HN security force capacity is still being developed. In other cases, the Armed Forces of the US may support HN forces conducting such operations by directly participating in combat operations.” Even our FID doctrine states U.S. forces may have to conduct COIN, and of course we know the reality on the ground in both Iraq and Afghanistan is our forces conducted COIN. I’m not making an argument on whether they should or shouldn’t, but simply to point they can conduct COIN and have done so. We need to move beyond these absolute statements that U.S. forces don’t conduct COIN, and accept that the answer is “it depends.”
Assuming we’re only conducting FID, but helping another nation counter an insurgency then those advisors still needs to have an understanding of insurgency and counterinsurgency, so COIN doctrine is still desired for our FID efforts, which that takes us to the second point. Is the current FM 3-24 the desired doctrinal manual or pretty close to it? I don’t think so, and I fear that failing to start from scratch means we’ll stick with the same general operational framework of clear, hold and build that in most scenarios is not going to work. The population is important, always has been, but the population centric COIN models have proven to be more of pop culture COIN than a true COIN strategy. The bottom line is combat operations, whether directed against regulars or irregulars generally rely on the same doctrinal principles/concepts, but how they’re implemented will vary based on terrain, technology, etc., while COIN principles/concepts will vary considerable based on a wide range of factors that shape the conflict. Tactical COIN TTPs are important, but strategy is decisive, and there is little discussion of strategy in the current FM.
I agree there is a lot of good stuff in the manual, but it needs to be re-written from scratch to change the overall context, and when we get that right we can reinsert the valuable information that is in the current manual. Mine is well worn, highlighted, with notes in the margins, so yes I’m very familiar with the manual and like much of it.

Starting from scratch is not necessary. This manual for all its faults has a great deal of important information in it; but as a collection and total message it does indeed get it very wrong. There are probably 6-10 points of nuance that if woven through the manual would make it an excellent product.

1. Insurgency and COIN are not war, but are best viewed as civil emergencies that occasionally rise to the point of warfare.

2. Call this a FID manual. The Western history of "COIN" is one of manipulating the governance of others for the purpose of some Western power; and the follow-on efforts to protect such illegitimate governments against challenges raised by the affected populaces. That is indeed insurgency, but the efforts of those foreign powers are not "COIN."
(note, when one conducts FID in a foreign country one does so in a manner that respects the sovereignty of that foreign governments and the lives of that foreign populace; when one conducts COIN both of those critical components are quickly tossed aside as inconvenient excess baggage.)

3. Make the primary purpose of such FID operations one of encouraging and assisting governments to get more in line with their populace (all of it, not just their base of support), and to ensure those populaces believe that trusted, legal, appropriate means to affect government are truly available to them.

a. Efforts to preserve a government as is while helping it to "control" the populace and drag them back to where that government wants them to be are doomed.

b. Efforts to force Western concepts onto a government that are perhaps even more out of synch with the affected populaces are even more doomed, and certainly less legitimate. (A major component of post Cold War US Grand Strategy/Foreign policy, btw)

Such approaches create "exploitable gaps," and rest certain that all manner of internal and external actors will step up to exploit, for any range of purpose, employing any manner of ideology that works to motivate their target populace.

4. Insurgency and COIN are a continuum, and are in the vast majority of times and places simply civil governments doing their jobs to some degree of competence, and populaces living their lives in some degree of satisfaction with how they are governed. As this condition degrades it may go violent or non-violent as a matter of tactical choice. Manage it as a continuum and never relieve civil government of their responsibility and duty no matter how violent it might become. Militaries tend to convert such matters to "war" and see them as starting when the violence begins, and ending when the violence stops. It's not all about the military, don't make it so.

5. Insurgency is internal, illegal and political. Categorize conflicts by the nature of their beginnings and roots, not the character of their tactics, ideologies or effects. Other forms of criminal and guerrilla warfare are often not insurgency, and are not well addressed with COIN.

These are a few off the top, but just adopting these few changes would make a world of difference.

MikeF,

Agreed, but Dave's point while relevant to Afghanistan, may not always be relevant, so to embrace it as a core principle that "always" applies could once again lead us into a quagmire where we continue to flounder to no end, but simultaneously boost about our endless tactical successes.

I agree with Gian's point about the COIN center setting conditions for the re-write that will prevent any creative input, when they start off with, quote:

"At the core of the manual are enduring principles and fundamentals based on history and lessons from contemporary operations. This revision will attempt to adapt applicable lessons from Afghanistan, Iraq, the Philippines and other counterinsurgency and irregular conflicts worldwide to inform the writing team and contributing agencies and stakeholders."

Just another opinion, but the insurgency in Iraq was not defeated, it was suppressed. The insurgency in the Philippines isn't close to being defeated, and we all realize the situation in Afghanistan remains uncertain. That doesn't mean there are no lessons to learn, there have been tactical and operational level successes and failures in each conflict. I guess my main concern is discerning exactly what the COIN center believes are the enduring principles of COIN? I believe there are core principles, but perhaps not the principles that the pop-centric COINdistas blindly embrace. Most insurgencies are not identical, and obviously the social-political context they incur in are generally different, sometimes considerably. The point is obvious, there can't be a standard approach, the right approach (unless we get lucky) requires a detailed understanding of the drivers of the conflict and what can realistically be achieved given the context, then focus on the ways which the COIN doctrine should help inform, but not dictate. Our COIN doctrine actually states this, but then goes on to list a very OIF centric set of principles that in themselves are questionable. Worse yet, the doctrine is embraced as law in practice by many, instead of a guide that requires a lot of intellectual rigor before applying. I was hoping to submit a paper to the COIN center, but they already set the tone that they don't intend to change the manual much. Sounds like they just want their manual to be reinforced with lessons from current conflicts. I'm sure they'll find plenty of COINdistas who will support the effort.

Well, however well or poorly the US waged counterinsurgency in Afghanistan and Iraq, there needs to be some new ideas on how to do it better and more cheaply. The reason being that the chances of irregular conflict that might threaten American interests fading away in the next twenty years are approximately zero. We will have more threats US leaders will not ignore.

If narco-insurgency in Mexico, to cite just one example, were to rapidly worsen, you could see massive influxes of refugees going into this country as well as into Central America and insurgency and an explosion of criminal disorder would come with it. A Shia-led "Arab Spring" in KSA would disrupt global energy markets as a geriatric Saudi royal family and Sunni extremists attempted a massive crackdown - if the Saudis asked for US intervention, would Washington refuse?

Agree that there needs to be complete re-think for alternatives to pop-centric COIN, disagree that the US can fold the tent on the subject and just focus on conventional warfare. If we intend to use blitzkrieg type combined arms response or heavy artillery and airpower against insurgents within the limits of the laws of war - we need to be upfront with ourselves. about the sort of "Operation Cast Lead" costs that approach entails. If we are going to rely on FID, local open-source counterinsurgent militias and airpower, that comes with lowered expectations as to policy Ends and control over operational Ways.

Perhaps a section can be added that explicitly states that trying to force moral ideas and obligations on the Host Nation is a recipe for failure and costs needless lives.

The post had this to say about FM 3-24

"At the core of the manual are enduring principles and fundamentals based on history and lessons from contemporary operations."

then it asked this about the manual

"How to improve it?"

And herein rests the problem with the Coin center at Fort Leavenworth based on this post: The so-called "enduring principles and fundamentals based on history" are fictional accounts in what has actually happened in past counterinsurgency wars. I imagine that the "enduring principles" are bromides like: "protect and secure the population," government legitimacy," "the people are the center of gravity," "seperate the insurgents from the people," and so on and so on. And to think that there are lessons to be gained from the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for population centric coin, I am hard pressed to see what they are since it is clear that coin simply has not worked in Afghanistan, and its effects in Iraq are dubious at best. So why does the Coin center look to these currents wars as a treasure trove of "lessons learned"? I don’t get it. Which "history" I wonder is informing the Coin center about so called "enduring principles"? If it is texts like Nagl's or Ucko's or Krepinevich's or Kilcullen's or Sorley's well then I would say they are drawing on deeply flawed works.

"How to improve it"? Nope, dont, start all over again from scratch. You are starting from the wrong point. How i ask does one improve something that is broken? By simply rebuilding and polishing up what was broken to begin with? By way of a tactical analogy it would be like reinforcing failure by sending the rest of the battalion through the mine field that has not been cleared and is still covered with fire only to get the rest of the battalion slaughtered.

Gosh as we move past these wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and try to figure where our army is headed, the Coin center seems to be trapped by an unusable and historically misinformed past.

gian