COIN Is a Proven Failure by LTC Daniel L. Davis, The American Conservative
In late October MSNBC’s Ronan Farrow asked retired Army Lt. Col. John Nagl to give viewers a deeper understanding of the fight between the Islamic State (ISIS) and Kurdish fighters around Kobane. Widely credited with “writing the book” on successful counterinsurgency (COIN) operations, Mr. Nagl said, “we’ve got 1,500 guys on the ground, but they’re not as far forward as they need to be to make a real, immediate impact on the battlefield.” He and a number of COIN experts argue that along with 15,000 U.S. ground troops, Iraqi, Kurdish, and Syrian rebel soldiers can defeat ISIS. Before making any decisions, American leaders should first consider this: despite what is often claimed by a host of advocates, the COIN theories upon which these recommendations are based were in fact demonstrable failures in both Afghanistan and Iraq. We must not sacrifice any more American lives and harm American interests any further by acting on theories that are likely to fail again…
Comments
Okay, two things.
1) Your points are, ultimately, irrelevant. My original point stands: the Army's anti-COIN culture, combined with strategic illiteracy on the part of both elected officials and flag/general officers, has prevented the comprehensive implementation of proven COIN TTPs and the corresponding consolidation of tactical and operational level COIN successes into a strategic victory. Not only do you neglect to substantiate any of your counter-arguments with anything other than your own opinion, but the points you raise don't actually address the ones I've raised or substantiate your case that COIN is a failure. As I noted before, the current situation in Iraq <I>validates</I> established COIN TTPs, rather than undermining them.
2) I'm getting pretty tired, and I suspect I'm not the only one, of you trying to derail every conversation in order to talk about Ukraine. When we're discussing COIN, Afghanistan, or Iraq, Ukraine is of minimal relevance. I suggest that if you're really that fixated on Ukraine, you might do better to actually write and submit an article expounding upon your views. In the mean time, please stay on topic.
AND so what?---we left an entire Army and security forces trained in our image and our own TTPs complete with a copy of our long rear foot, and we achieved what with the force of over 300K?
HAD we simply focused on hardcore FID--we would have probably had the same results and or maybe not with half of the KIAs and WIAs.
What you are totally forgetting is the simple fact---one cannot train into any force loyalty to a flag and nation---that has to come from within and in Iraq there is no loyalty to the flag outside of corruption.
AS an opposite example---take the Ukraine with a rag tag army and volunteers they are dying for their nationality and flag, Facebook is driving military purchases/donations, kids and mothers are weaving camouflage netting, and grandmothers are cooking food for the front fighters.
They have in just over seven months gone from a totally rag tag force to holding their own against the "famed Russian SF" where this week they killed over 35 in direct fighting--AND by the way the airport where they are virtually surrounded except for a small land corridor they have held under shellings and direct attacks for now over 185 days--Stalingrad was just 155 days.
Think about it--what then worked in the Ukraine and "failed" in Iraq?
AND all of this without US trainers, US weapons, and US bombers.
So if we take your concept of COIN THEN the Ukrainians have been rather successful vs the Iraqi/US form of COIN which as the IS has shown us "failed"---do you not think?
Even the Iraqi's just released an estimate of over 50,000 yes 50K in "black soldiers" meaning they existed only on paper.
So who collected their salaries?---that was not answered by the Iraqi government.
If the entire population does not totally "buy in" then you can stand on your head and still not be "successful".
Think it through---
Your memory, and your understanding of COIN theory, are either short or selective, sir. Tried and tested COIN theory would have retained a slowly dwindling residual force in Iraq to maintain political leverage, as well as force-multiplying capabilities to support Iraq's fledgling security forces. That contingency was recommended by military advisors, but the White House ultimately decided on a different course of action, and the current situation in Iraq reflects that decision moreso than any failing of COIN. If anything, the result of that precipitous withdrawal, and the fact that Iraq held together for more than two years despite the timing and proximity of the worst of the Arab Spring, reinforces COIN's effectiveness rather than undermining it. So, I'll stick with my "juvenile" assessment for the time being.
Big Expeditionary COIN based on historical misunderstandings of a few small colonial examples didn't work in Afghanistan or Iraq, they don't even represent the entirety of what really happened on the ground.
COIN includes anything, ANYTHING, that counters an insurgency, and, anyway, you were dealing with a complicated proxy conflict mixed in with a localized insurgency in Afghanistan. Or are the Taliban magically making bullets?
It pains me that we're still having this discussion, so many years later, and about a topic for which the answer is so painfully obvious. The statement that "COIN is a proven failure" is juvenile to the point of barbarism.
Are there examples of successful COIN at the tactical level? Yes, there are plenty, many of which can be attributed to American units since 9/11. Are there examples of successful tactical level COIN successes translating into successful COIN at the operational level? Yes, but they're fewer, although many can still be attributed to American units since 9/11. Are there examples of successful operational level COIN successes translating into successful COIN at the strategic level? Yes, but they're still fewer, and one would be hard pressed to point to an American COIN operation that resulted in a strategic victory.
However, that's not an indictment against COIN itself; rather, it's an indictment against how America, but more specifically the U.S. Army, has traditionally approached the COIN problem set. The units with the best COIN records, both before and since 9/11, have been the Marine Corps and SOF units, specifically Army Special Forces (when the latter haven't been overwhelmed with direct action assignments). The tactical and operational successes ultimately fail to be consolidated into strategic victories because doing so lies outside the U.S. Army's combined arms maneuver comfort zone. Big Army has repeatedly resisted COIN, even from 2004 to 2006 when it was clear that the approach they were using in Iraq (and later Afghanistan, though there were other factors involved there) wasn't working. Big Army failed to implement proven COIN doctrine, and focused its scholarship on lessons from failed COIN campaigns in Algeria and Vietnam, virtually ignoring successful COIN campaigns in other theaters like Malaya, Dhofar, and Central and South America. As we discussed a couple of weeks ago, Big Army is in the process of <A HREF="http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/the-counterinsurgency-paradigm-shift">… that resistance</A> with the ultimate goal of preventing policy-makers from putting the Army in a position to fight another large scale COIN operation in the future. Even when an Army officer isn't commanding a particular campaign, the Army still exerts disproportionate influence relative to the other services because it provides the preponderance of forces, meaning that the campaigns in which it's involved suffer from the Army's institutional and doctrinal preference for combined arms maneuver. The DoD's COIN doctrine is essentially sound, but the Army essentially ignores it, tries to throw more combined arms maneuver and technology at the problem, and undermines those tactical and operational successes.
We can talk about mismanagement by Generals Sanchez, Casey, McChrystal, or others; or the fateful decisions in the White House to entrust Afghanistan to NATO in 2003, or to follow through with a precipitous troop withdrawal from Iraq in 2011. We can talk about the scope and duration of commitment involved with COIN operations (some successful examples of which I've listed), or with regime changes and the establishment of Western-style democracy (Germany, Japan, Korea, and India are notable examples). We can discuss elected officials and, unfortunately, flag/general officers' atrophying understanding of grand strategy; or the federal government's seemingly chronic incompetence at getting commensurate returns on its military and development investments; or the American public's attention deficit and unrealistic/non-contextual expectations with respect to foreign affairs. Bill C. touches on some of these challenges, but oversimplifies them. These are conversations worth having, but they do not prove that COIN is a failure. Claiming that they do is a distraction that prevents us from addressing those challenges to ensure that we sacrifice less blood and treasure the next time around. To quote a much greater expert on such matters than any of us:
<BLOCKQUOTE>"The domain of strategic effect, purposeful or otherwise, is not confined to 'civilized', as contrasted with 'savage', warfare. There are two principal errors to avoid. The first is to regard the realm of real war and 'real soldiering' as coterminous with symmetrical conflict, at least as roughly identical to the experience of regular forces fighting regular forces. This error can promote the idea that 'small wars', in Callwell's meaning, are irrelevant, perhaps dangerously irrelevant, diversions from the mainstream requirement to prepare for real war (i.e. grande guerre). Armed forces that decline to take small wars seriously as a military art form with their own tactical, operational, and political - though not strategic - rules invite defeat."
- Colin S. Gray, Modern Strategy, 1999, pp. 279</BLOCKQUOTE>
We will find ourselves dragged into COIN operations again, likely in my lifetime. The Army may resist it kicking and screaming, and by the time it comes it may have mothballed its entire library of COIN lessons from Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere. As for me, I will continue stockpiling those lessons and acknowledging COIN's necessary status in the domain of strategic effect, in the hope that doing so may save blood and treasure on the next go-'round.
It appears to be a not so subtle shift in the Russian UW strategy ongoing right now.
1.first it was the armed locals taking over admin buildings in eastern Ukraine
2. then "Russian mercenaries" streamed in to "help" the locals against the mean Nazi's from Kyiv
3. then Russian troops arrived on "vacation" to help the mercenaries who were getting beaten badly
NOW it appears that the "locals" and the mercenary leaders are being either killed, and or sent back to Moscow and the Russian army is taking full control over them and their actions and those in Moscow responsible for the "local uprisings" have lost their jobs in the last three days.
NEXT step will be full Russian army control over eastern Ukraine.
FINAL step full annexation of eastern Ukraine by Putin.
So who says the Russian UW strategy is not working?
There are though three single points of failure in their strategy and two are already in play.
Will be interesting to see if Russia picks up on them and recognizes the third one is coming into play over the next few days and how they will adjust then their UW strategy. Or not adjust
That is just how fast this so called "hybrid warfare" can change and if there is no strategy in place all we can do is watch from a distance.
Just as we at least are finally learning to admit that COIN was just one big failure and that a large number of defense contracting companies and some leading military officers and one former advisor made a ton of money on the concept--it failed because one never fully understood both the insurgency we were facing and we never admitted we did not fully understand just how we were to counter it.
COIN was provided to the public as the military's answer to explain the large number of losses and the spending of over several tillion in tax payer monies and face it --it sounded at least "scientific" and as we "understood" the problem and we "knew" what we were doing".
NOW we seem to be reinventing the same wheel again with the new BUZZ word "hybrid warfare". Everyone is jumping on the band wagon again.
One hears it over and over and over and we hear at the same time --hey we have answers for it and they are great answers.
AND again we are committing the same basic failure as we did with COIN--we simply do not fully understand the new Russian UW strategic/tactical UW concept and we "fully" do not want to even come close to understanding "political warfare in the 21st century".
Why because we are in a "developing neo isolationism" phase and to fully understand we must then turn to a degree back to "hard power" which the current leadership is extremely reluctant to do.
This problem extends well to the new Chinese military doctrine and it really extends to IS.
We talk a great game but where are the clearly defined strategies, where are the key decisions necessary to go to "hard power" if need be?
If we would have paid more attention to the daily events in the Ukraine we would be discussing here at SWJ exactly what are the "weaknesses" being currently seen in the Ukraine that point to potential single points of failure in the Russian UW strategy and there are currently three that would allow the US/EU/NATO to craft counter measures for---the same goes as well for the IS.
Instead we seem to love debates, buzz words, and unending discussions all of which do not provide either strategies and or solutions.
One single point of failure that Russian has vastly under estimated when they started their UW campaign against the Ukraine.
As of Dec 2 #Russian army losses in war w #Ukraine is 4672 KIA, 970 WIA, 2560 MIA.
http://oyblogg.blogspot.se/2014/11/22.html
pic.twitter.com/PYgC4Otl8C
Since the early Sept 2014 Russia has lost more troops than we the US did in all of the time spent in Iraq---sound like a super win for their UW strategy---and nearly half of those lost in the AFG eight year war--again a win or loss--sounds to me as if their UW strategy has a weak point.
But again no discussion on just why the high loses.
Yesterday they lost another approximate 30 SF killed attempting to take an airport that has been under attack for over 180 days---sound like a military strategy win?
So while everyone runs around bemoaning that hybrid warfare is the next greatest thing since sliced bread we need to stop and to fully understand just what we are in fact "seeing" and be able to call a spade a spade.
Which by the way we have never been good at--especially at the mid and senior military leadership levels and at the White House.
It sounds strange but just maybe the Ukrainian Army is showing us the way forward with countering hybrid warfare--we just need to fully understand just what we are seeing.
Counterinsurgency -- as we understand it today -- was/is based on the post-Cold war belief that populations, liberated from their oppressive regimes, would -- quickly, easily and mostly own their own -- throw off their old ways of life and old ways of governance and, in the place of these, readily adopt modern western political, economic and social ways.
This suggesting that the military aspects of our regime change/ counterinsurgency operations would be short, sweet and cheap as, after regime change, (1) the populations would be "with us" and, thus, (2) our military would only be needed to deal with a few "losers"/"dead-enders."
It was based on this (false) premise, I suggest, that we unleashed the dogs of war.
Problem: We read these populations wrong. Liberated from their oppressive regimes, these folks did not wish to order, organize and orient their lives more along modern western political, economic and social lines. Rather, they wished to order, organize and orient their lives in numerous other, different and/or contrary ways.
In such an environment (the population is against you and your initiative), then:
a. Regime change tends only to open Pandora's Box. And
b. COIN (which is based on a more-limited use of military forces and capabilities?) cannot save you or your initiative.
Thus, finding oneself in such an unenviable position requires that one either:
a. Ramp up one's efforts considerably, employ the "hard hand" to this effect and stay for 50 our more years to achieve your objective. Or
b. Find a way to "get of of Dodge."
Bottom Line: Neither COIN -- nor Mr. Nagl's more-forward deployment of 1,500 additional military personnel in Iraq -- can adequately solve the problem at hand, to wit: that the population is against us and our "be like us" initiative. These people having other ideas as to how they wish to organize, order and orient their lives.