Boots, boots, boots… by Jan K. Gleiman, The Strategist
Sometimes the words of our leaders can have a telling impact on strategic outcomes—interpretations limit strategic and operational adaptability and effectiveness. That may prove to be the case with words from the US president’s most recent speech outlining a four-point coalition strategy to defeat ISIL (otherwise known at ISIS or Islamic State). Specifically, the words, ‘combat mission’ may constrain coalition leaders at all levels from taking certain actions that could mean the difference between the success and failure of the campaign. The first argument over those words is likely to be about whether or not coalition advisers will be allowed to accompany their indigenous units on combat missions.
In previous speeches about assisting Syrian rebels, the president has emphasised that he wouldn’t put ‘boots on the ground’. Retired General Anthony Zinni has openly criticised the president for that and other statements. Leaders of other coalition countries have used similar language. Though the president avoided the phrase ‘boots on the ground’ in his most recent speech, he stated that the troops deploying to Iraq will ‘not have a combat mission’. Unfortunately, leaders of other coalition countries are also likely to use the same language in order to bolster domestic support—critical, of course, to the success of any campaign…
Comments
Someone far better educated than me suggests that perhaps we are being goaded in the context of ISIS--or whatever I am supposed to call them today:
I wrote earlier on in the thread: <em>For instance, I observe the violence of IS via media (or, at least, people discussing it. I won't click links of more violent material.) I infer that we Americans are being baited.</em>
"Dr. Quiggle,
Thanks for adducing my article--although I am profoundly ambivalent about being, now, "a leading scholar of Islamic beheadings." Better than a victim thereof, at least.
I think that another register of ISIS decapitations--especially of Christians--which you might consider is that of "hotwiring the apocalypse:" ISIS's leadership clearly, according to its many issue of "Dabiq," interprets the relevant hadiths to mean that they, as champions of Islam, will win the great apocalyptic battle over the "Romans/Byzantines/Crusaders/Americans," and I thnk think that they are trying quite hard to goad us into sending in ground troops for just that reason.
See my blogpost on topic here: http://www.mahdiwatch.org/2015.02.01_arch.html#1424046201770
Also: in several "Dabiq" issues, they cut-and-paste photos from the "Lord of the Rings" movies; and as per your references to "Skryim" and the like, anyone who has seen those films knows that beheadings--or Orcs and Men--are quite prevalent.
Tim Furnish"
(A comment under the "ISIS Beheading Narrative" article....)
I hope I am getting that right.
From Justin Raimondo's twitter feed:
Fair.org
Top 10 bogus ISIS stories:
<blockquote>ISIS's violent bona fides are not in doubt to anyone paying attention. They've targeted religious minorities, beheaded aid workers, sold women into sex slavery and have been all-around devastating for those under their rule. But as America debates the possibility of a full-scale ground invasion of ISIS-controlled territory, it's important to note that much of the ISIS threat — namely that which targets the West — has been habitually overstated by an uncritical media.</blockquote>
http://fair.org/blog/2015/02/20/top-10-bogus-isis-stories/
I remember digging through their archives to look at some of the propaganda about supporting the Mujahideen in Afghanistan in the 80s.
RantCorp said some of it was bogus but it's hard to know. Who in the West was really on the ground? A lot of information that we take for granted turned out to be wrong.
Hey, I've learned over the years to be careful when the hysteria starts.
PS: It's not just an uncritical media. There is a lot of, uh, information shaping going on by various, uh, people.
One of these days, one of you (who is you? that's the question) geniuses is going to cause something catastrophic. Big time catastrophe.
Even bigger than already, I mean.
PPS: If it important to put some boots on the ground (Which boots? Whose? Where? How? To do what? Working with....? And so on) then this kind of misinformation is very unhelpful, I think.
Why are people like this?
<blockquote>Islamic State is still receiving significant financial support from Arab sympathisers outside Iraq and Syria, enabling it to expand its war effort, says a senior Kurdish official.
The US has being trying to stop such private donors in the Gulf oil states sending to Islamic State (Isis) funds that help pay the salaries of fighters who may number well over 100,000.</blockquote>
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/isis-has-made-many-…
So, I'm a liar when I said I wouldn't comment again, because, obviously I am. Pathetic. No discipline.
But I am not a liar when I say (but how would you know) that I look at Twitter only here and again, and one thing I remember seeing was Thomas Heghammer asking "what evidence do we really have that Saudi Arabia" or whatever is funding this group? Well, I don't remember the exact wording.
He has a book about the Saudis coming out? Where he got permission to look at some of their records?
What the heck is really going on out there?
I posted this under a different article and will repost here. I am trying to educate myself, I really don't know. The better commentators, those I have come to trust over the years, are saying different things about what we should to in Iraq, and, well, my trust level isn't so great these days. I am wary:
For instance, I observe the violence of IS via media (or, at least, people discussing it. I won't click links of more violent material.) I infer that we Americans are being baited.
But others might make a different inference, come to a different conclusion (I am just teaching myself. I really am this dim and badly educated):
<blockquote>Significantly, then, far from being desperate or over-extended, Islamist strategic thinking reveals a rigorous design from first principles that discerns the weaknesses in Western society (beginning with the attachment to life), and the manner in which to exploit them to achieve long-term goals. The salutary fact is that these theorists have thought about how to manage the escalation process, thereby controlling the strategy of savagery: doubtlessly, and probably accurately, concluding that the West lacks the collective will to counter-escalate in any coherent way.</blockquote>
http://warontherocks.com/2015/02/the-strategy-of-savagery-explaining-th…
Yet, counter-escalate can mean a million different things, just as counterinsurgency can mean a million different things. Will can be defined as the will to engage, or the will to avoid engagement? What does will and counter-escalation mean? Forget about regime change in Syria? Pretend to talk about it get people off your back while you focus on working with others in the region?
And what, exactly, does "the West" mean? Especially in hard power terms?
No, really, I must ask, what is this mythical "West" that is used here, there, and everywhere? In terms of hard power, I mean.
What of Turkey? Nato this, Nato that.
What of Syria and Assad?
What of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf countries? What of their funding? What of the funding of various private citizens in those countries toward various groups in the region?
What of the connections of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf countries to the US and our NATO allies?
What of Iran?
Patrick Cockburn often writes that people are willing to discuss local imams (in the British setting) and radicalism but that there is a hesitancy to mention state sources of conflict in terms of fanning sectarian flames or having other regional agendas.
Very interesting piece at WoTR. They do a good job, don't mind my comments on Ukraine, I am well, I am difficult.
For instance, one writer working for the Lugar Institute wrote a piece on NATO or Ukraine or something like that? Lugar something, anyway. EU funding of said institute, which is interesting. Nothing wrong with that necessarily but it is something to note.
Logistics, logistics, logistics....
Politics, politics, politics....
Sometimes reality itself constrains strategic options, although there seems to be no room for that in the strange world of the Washington Consensus with its honest and dishonest denizens, and its strange divorced from reality military propagandists, policy shills, honest but confused partisans, and plain old ideologues.
The world of military affairs is the perfect world for a fantasist, it seems. Presidents, retired generals, think tankers, and the like.
In what strategic context do we see the ISIS problem or, if you prefer, the Malaki problem (of which ISIS is seen as simply the result)?
Is the strategic context within which we see the ISIS/Malaki problem today as relates to threatening/undermining our ability to expand our political, economic and social order throughout the region and the world? (Regional/world peace, prosperity, etc. thereby to be achieved?)
Or do we see the ISIS/Malaki problem in more of a Cold War/"contain the enemy's political, economic and social expansion" strategic context?
Thus, is Roosevelt's World War II expansionist thinking still our model?
Or, now, has the Cold War "containment" model once again become our guide?
Do we believe that General Zinni -- either during or after the the Cold War -- bought into those horrible "end of history"/universal values" ideas; concepts which caused our national leaders to believe that something less than (1) a whole-scale national and international commitment, (2) the use of overwelming and extremely destructive force and (3) ungodly numbers of "boots, boots, boots" on the ground (before, during and well after the conflict) could possibly achieve World War II-like results -- in the Middle East -- or elsewhere?
(With the end of the Cold War and the advent of "end of history"/"universal values" concepts before them, our national leaders thought that -- to achieve the desired expansion of western ideas and institutions -- they need only liberate the populations from their oppressive regimes. This requiring [before, during and after the "conflict"] very few troops indeed.)
Now, however, with "end of history" and "universal values' thinking having largely been discredited, we seem to be back to a period much like the Cold War; wherein, one considers using one's "instruments of power" in more-limited, more-wise and/or more-subtle way?
Herein, the "use of force" not being employed today so much to transform states and societies more along modern western lines. But rather, and as in the Cold War, to preclude states and societies from becoming transformed more along "enemy" political, economic and social lines (then: communist lines; today: Islamist lines)?
Or, should we simply agree and admit that "expansion" is still driving our strategic train?
(Questions regarding "boots, boots, boots" to be determined once we decide whether "expansion," "containment," or some other ordering concept is, in fact, the "conductor" of our strategic locomotive.)
Come on Bill C. Your quote that included the "Jeffersonian democracy and free market economy" was reference WWII and General Zinni said it was an aberration in the part of the quote you left out.
As frequently mentioned, there was little doubt who had won WWII. After the nukes and firebombing in Japan and wholesale destruction of German cities from two different directions, there was no fight left in either culture. There was no potential for internal civil war that hampered Iraq and Afghanistan. No jihadist motivation existed in either WWII instance. No sanctuary or external support existed to help any WWII insurgency. We had overwhelming force <strong>on the ground</strong> as well.
You also might note that General Zinni was CENTCOM commander from August 1997 to September 2000 until his retirement under President Clinton who may indeed have had a greater emphasis on pushing democracy abroad...sans the monetary and people resources to do it as General Zinni's next quote from your same link points out.
<blockquote>If you go on the battlefield of Iraq and Afghanistan how many people are experts in rebuilding governance systems, economic systems and social programs on the ground? You don’t see too many. As a matter of fact you see the military doing this business. We in the military are not experts in this either. It’s appalling when the military runs everything from recreational pools to agricultural, social programs and governance systems. We don’t have a real whole of government approach. Where is the State Department? USAID? Department of Agriculture? Where are all the others that are needed? They don’t have the resources and they are not prepared culturally in terms of planning to handle this.</blockquote>
<blockquote>SWJ: General Mike Flynn recently emphasized that “nation states around the world are being challenged. We are in this period of prolonged societal conflict, where we see a failure of governance and stability is only temporary without good governance.” How prepared are civilian agencies to engage all-in approaches in violent environments?
General Zinni: They are not prepared. They don’t have the people, the resources, they don’t have the ability to operate at scale. USAID can do wonderful work in a village, but it cannot rebuild a nation in a large society. Ultimately they don’t have the culture. The military does all this planning, has deployable forces ready to go around the world. The civilian part doesn’t have the logistic, administrative and planning capability to do that sort of things. If you look at this mighty military machine, it doesn’t have the counterparts that can deal with the governance, diplomatic, informational, economic and social issues that are part of the kind of conflicts that we might find ourselves in the future. That’s been missing. There is no will in Congress to provide for that. I would even say institutions like the State Department has no motivation to do that. Look at what happened when State was trying to man-up the CPA in Iraq. They were bringing people with no experience in the region, pull them from bureaus around the world - , they did not have the expertise, they did not have a plan, they certainly didn’t understand the region. The concept of whole of government approach is good, but it can’t be a pick-up ad-hoc organization.</blockquote>
I might also point out that General Zinni supported 380,000 troops to secure and stabilize Iraq in his own OPLANs never required to be implemented, he supported the troop surge in Iraq, and General McChrystal's request for a 40,000 man troop surge in Afghanistan.
"Boots, boots, boots" on the ground to achieve what strategic end?
General Zinni notes, in a recent SWJ interview, that the common strategic end of American "boots, boots, boots" -- in certain wars involving lesser states and societies (his examples: Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam) -- was/is to "rebuild nations and remodel governance systems, social programs and economic systems."
http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/reflections-on-the-modern-battlefi…
Likewise in this interview General Zinni suggests that the strategic end of American "boots, boots, boots" -- re: our great power wars (his example: WWII) -- was/is essentially the same, to wit: " ... unconditional surrender, total defeat of the enemy, reach down and pick-up the enemy and plant Jeffersonian democracy and free market economy."
Given this common/consistent strategic end (to defeat the enemy so as to rebuild these nations and remodel their political, economic and social systems along modern western lines) -- a strategic end/goal which appears as consistent/common to certain of our small wars and large wars -- could President Obama's decision NOT to use "boots, boots, boots" re: ISIS (at least in the numbers seen in WWII and/or Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam) mean that he (our president and his advisors) no longer sees "boots, boots, boots" as a viable ways/means of achieving our long-standing, and enduring, state and societal "westernization" strategic goal?
America's military forces therefore, today and in the future, to be used in a much more limited way/fashion -- and to achieve much less ambitious goals/ends?
An old SF saying---you are the advisor until that first bullet goes cracking by your head and then you are the commander regardless how large and or small the unit is.
Your advised unit in a second will look at you and judge in a nanosecond just how you will respond---be slow and the unit will lose the commitment for the fight--immediately engage and your advised unit will go with you anywhere you want to go and not ask a single time---why.
That is the first rule of a non boots on the ground small unit advisor.
Regardless of what the NCA says the strategic direction is--remember DC and Congress and DoD is usually a very long way away from your non boots on the ground.
For something of this scale and probable duration I agree, but there is an issue with our ability to man these C2 elements with people who are actually capable of campaign planning and execution. We have global requirements, and other operations will also require long duration campaign plans, but they don't require a separate HQs/JTF to manage them in most cases. If anything, I think we need to find a way to downsize all our HQs/JTF requirements to something that is manageable and value added. That means using mission command more, and finding and eliminating the number of BS tasks JTF HQs are asked to do which in turn drives the requirement for large staffs. A lot of those requirements are responding to RFIs from the GCCs who are responding to the JCS and Congress. We all need to take an appetite suppressant and focus on what is essential, and minimize the non-essential.
ISIS/ISIL is a large scale mission, even if we're pretending it isn't, but in most cases around the world where it is wise and in our interest to intervene the GCCs and TSOCs should be able to C2 our FID efforts with limited C2 structure downrange beyond that provided by the tactical level operators. We send a lot more folks downrange than needed to suck up needed bandwidth just to push PowerPoint sliders around that they can generate from home station. Why can't we just develop a coherent strategy, then a coherent campaign plan, and then empower the tactical level to execute it? We really need to start asking ourselves some tough questions and honestly answering them.
Ken (Jan) Gleiman is giving many of his SF brothers flashbacks to SERE (survival evasion, resistance, escape) and that recording of "boots, boots, boots" we would hear in the RTL (resistance training laboratory).
More importantly he articulates what I did not do well in my previous message about "Obama Rejected Best Military Advice." Obama is also rejecting Ken's best military advice here as well:
QUOTE So, when advisers accompany their indigenous units, does it qualify as a combat mission? Certainly the advisers—who are exposed to enemy fire—will think so. Domestic opponents of the leaders of coalition countries will probably also think so and accuse the leaders of breaking their ‘no combat mission’ promise. That’s the problem with the words as chosen. Yet, the US President also elaborated on the spirit behind those words when he said, ‘we will not get dragged into another ground war in Iraq’. Clearly what he’s trying to avoid is having large formations of foreign land forces operating in Iraq as cohesive combat elements doing for Iraq what it must do for itself. Allowing advisers to accompany their indigenous partners might technically go against the letter of what the president and other leaders are saying, but it would be consistent with the spirit, and could mean the difference between success and failure. END QUOTE
The mission in Iraq today is not the same as the train and equip missions we have seen executed in the past. There are going to be more similarities to what SF did with its coalition support teams in the First Gulf War working wth the Saudis, Egyptians and even the Syrian military (I am sure many have forgotten that) as they crossed into Iraq and Kuwait. This mission requires combat advisers with the right units to integrate US fire support as well as advise and assist units as they maneuver. SF teams know (or knew) how to do this. This also provides rationale why we need a campaign capable SOF HQ on the ground to orchestrate SOF operations in Iraq and Syria (especially the unconventional warfare aspect of the campaign. I am not talking about O6 command level CJSOTFs which are not campaign headquarters or ad hoc CFSOCCs but a real campaign level SOF headquarters built around an existing organization. If we are not going to commit US ground combat forces to destroy ISIL as the president said (a mismatch between ends and ways) then we need to maximize our SOF capabilities to be most effective in influencing the Iraqi and Kurdish forces so that they can destroy ISIL with the support of US and coalition air power. But instead the administration is going to hamstring our SOF (who will later take the blame for the failure).
I have read the commentary made by Gen Zinny (I made a commentary about his commentary) and I agree with SWJ Editors about that not being clear about this topic is a clear misunderstanding of the actual president about how to face such a threat.
The shadow of Vietnam still pervades our leaders, meaning that during the time that had ran since then has not left nothing in their minds. When are we beginning to learn that fails are a good way to learn and not repeat the same errors. Are we still in Kinder level? Congrats about your good work of disseminating all the material that let us make such commentaries (I am learning too)