Conference: "To foster dialogue between ISAF members over tactical lessons from Afghanistan, particularly at the company level"—that was the purpose of a conference held at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) in London last December. The conference, organized by the British Army's Counterinsurgency (COIN) Centre, the US Army COIN Center, the USMC Irregular Warfare Center, and the ISAF COIN Advisory and Assistance Team, drew civilian and military academics and practitioners from Afghanistan, Belgium, the Netherlands, the US, and the UK. Speakers included the former commander of Regional Command-South; the US Army Command and General Staff College COIN Chair; a US Army brigade commander, the director of ISAF CAAT, the director of the Joint Center for International Security Force Assistance, and an official from the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office. You can download the conference report here.
COIN Qualification Standards: The COIN Qualification Standards are nine tasks and fifty-two sub-tasks submitted by Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander, International Security Assistance Force (COMISAF), and approved by Secretary of Defense (SecDef) Robert M. Gates (see here).
RFI: "We would like to hear your thoughts on the COIN Qualification Standards and how they might help your unit prepare for deployment."
Comments
I forgot to mention two thoughts on the conference notes:
1- Since 9/11 various groups within the government and military have advocated that we work together more, train together, etc. OGA and military, State and military, SOF and Conventional, etc. This conference took place during the 10th year of our efforts post that date. It must be a "bridge too far" because other than hearing every year we need to do it- I see no action or leadership on the issue. In fact, some leaders have said publicly that there is enough now- and explaining that the more interagency, etc. training done, the less time for "other activities" there is (time is finite). Leaders set priorities, and I would submit that our leaders haven't made interagency and other types of combined training opportunities a priority. Maybe instead of repeating we need it, we need to articulate what it should replace that we do now.
2- I am very surprised at how overt we are as to our "need" to sell the country and politicians on the "requirement" to continue "COIN". I knew it existed- but we are openly admitting to it more and more. Isn't that backwards? If we have no mandate to do what we think is necessary- what does that say about our efforts?
I fear this effort to sell we are undertaking is getting dangerously close to undercutting our public's trust in us. We may increasingly be pressured to support short-term metrics, "spin" messages, and not really tell the "whole" truth. I submit we should stop being advocates so much for COIN or continuing efforts- and just rely on explaining in an objective manner what we recommend and possible outcomes to different courses of action. At what point does "convincing politicians to continue to fund COIN" become the military driving the train as opposed to the political?
While I agree with the sentiment above, learning organisations on their own are not a solution - by definition they find their own path and without strong leadership and direction they can just as easily take to to the place you most don't want to be: where the micro-managers, bureaucrats and risk-averse prove to be the better and faster learners...
I would place more emphasis on 'the mission' and warfighting and less on bureaucratic compliance, and using learning organisation techniques to support that...
The last task- develop a learning organization- would arguably both cover all of the other tasks and be the most difficult to implement. Although the Army talks much about becoming a Learning Organization- or arguing that we ARE one already, I think most people are referring to learning in the abstract, as opposed to Peter Senge's characteristics of a "Learning Organization"- a term coined by Senge and his colleagues.
The "Learning Organization" is a concept with explicit characteristics: systems thinking, personal mastery, mental models, shared vision and team learning. The Army as a whole- and to a mixed extent at lower levels- fails attaining most, if not all, of Senge's "disciplines": the characteristics mentioned above, therefore we are perhaps as far from being a "Learning Organization"- as defined by the term's founder- as possible.
To do so in my opinion would require fundamental change in the US Army- not the least of which would be our personnel system. Currently we do not: require systems thinking education, reward (or even substantially encourage) personal mastery, instruct on mental models, attempt a shared vision (it is usually the commander's vision only), or ensure the development of team learning (very different concept than simply working on a team). I'd speculate that less than 1% of the Army have even heard of these characteristics, much less understand them.
While the US Army does many things very well- "facilitat[ing] the learning of its members and continuously transform[ing] itself" is not something I think we can honestly say we do- at least not in the way Senge envisioned: which was a business which had to constantly change and adapt IN ITS ENTIRETY to better anticipate changes in the marketplace... or die.
One way we might be able to encourage Learning Org characteristics is to encourage its development at the battalion level and somehow ensure that authority is pushed down to the lowest level possible- punishing micromanagers and risk-averse commanders. One of the major results of incorporating Learning Org disciplines into an organization is that eventually only one thing counts: "the mission"- and thus bureaucracy is sought out and destroyed. I fear this is the opposite direction much of the Army is currently going in.
By the way, I had some trouble finding the sub-tasks, does anyone have a link for them?
Grant Martin
MAJ, US Army
The comments above are the author's own and do not constitute the position of the DoD or US Army.
I'd suggest that the lack of a revision to, or rewrite of, FM 3-24 does not reflect an organizational unwillingness to embrace accumulated experience, knowledge, lessons, or that this reveals a "darker side" of our Army. Rather, it reflects that there is a certain saturation point at which the Army can absorb the doctrine it produces. As mentioned, there have been a number of doctrinal publications that have advanced some counterinsurgency thinking beyond what is contained in 3-24. Among these are the Joint Counterinsurgency manual, JP 3-24, FM 3-24.2, "Tactics in COIN", FM 3-07, "Stability Operations", FM 3-07.1, "Security Force Assistance", and the in-progress ATTP 3-07.5, "Stability Operations Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures" to name a few. The force's learning also has been enabled by in-theater COIN and Stability (as in Iraq today) academies that adapt to changes within their respective operating environments, supported by CALL, Asymmetric Warfare Group, and other organizations focused on getting specific TTP disseminated quickly.
Is FM 3-24 in need of revision? Yes it is.
Does it need to be revised within a context reframed to better account for operational environments and situations that are neither classic colonial or post-colonial interventions? Definitely.
Is the U.S. Army so consumed with the current operational framework of COIN that it is resisting change? One could argue that the Army's drive to rebalance its full-spectrum operations capabilities and reinvigorate its major combat operations capability has already diverted some focus from current COIN tendencies and challenges.
Is the benefit of a revised counterinsurgency manual worth the potential opportunity costs to the development and dissemination of other critical doctrinal efforts (such as Combined Arms Maneuver and Wide Area Security within the new FM 3-0, Operations)? Not so clear. And how rapidly would the goodness of a revised COIN manual influence the force on the ground? Unknown.
None of this is to suggest there is not a need to advance our thinking on counterinsurgency, or more broadly, on operations amongst the people against hybrid threats and irregular challenges in an environment heavily influenced by complex transnational dynamics. Absolutely there is (and we need to do so by better leveraging non-military disciplines as well as through improved collaboration with our civilian and multinational partners). But simply noting the shortfalls of one field manual and upon its flaws making a case that the Army's dark side reveals itself seems a bit much.
A final point I would offer is that no doctrine should be viewed as containing all the answers; it should however, be a useful starting point upon which to develop relevant and insightful questions. In this area, FM 3-24 seems still to be serving us fairly well.
R/
Dan
Changing the title to 'Force Generation Standards for OIF' would add a more appropriate context to these documents as opposed to the implication that they are generic COIN Qualification Standards (without wanting to peel the scab off the 'each insurgency is/is not unique' wound...)
On a rewrite/update of FM 3-24, it is probably well overdue, noting that both JP 3-24 and the even more recent NATO equivalent could be considered semi-updates. Before a rewrite, perhaps a retitling is more necessary to better set FM 3-24 as the gameplan for one insurgency (Iraq) and less as guidance for other insurgencies (caveat above still in effect)...
It is not that we have learned something new in the past 4 years that compels us to make changes to FM 3-24 Counterinsurgency. It is that FM 3-24 was never about "counterinsurgency" to begin with, and actually a collection of several hundred years of European and US Colonial Intervention (we'll call that little 'coin')experience.
This is a very different mission than COIN. (COIN is domestic, and is far more a matter of civil emergency than warfare) Also hindering the value of this manual is that it is based also most solely on a study of colonial intervention in locations where the locals are rising up in insurgency against their puppet regimes and in guerrilla warfare against the colonial power. So it is lacking a balance that comes from also studying the insurgent/guerrilla's side of the equation. I also lack the balance that comes from studying peaceful situations, or situations where non-violent tactics were employed to effect change.
This leaves us with a very biased, one dimensional look at a multi-dimensional problem.
Further complicating this is that the recent advances in information technology have made some of the standard tactics of such interventions (most notably, "separating the insurgent from the populace") impossible.
So, it is not that we need to add a couple years of lessons learned, we need to reframe the entire context of the manual.
Bob
Well Chet, now there was significant change and adaptation in the American Army after Vietnam. Of course the Coin crowd rails against that change and adaptation because it didnt embrace counterinsurgency. But that of course is a different story.
I think you can argue as Ken's post gets at that at least in high intensity war, the American army has a history of adaptation. It certainly did so in World War II and in Korea as well. And at least tactically and operationally one can find plenty of evidence to show learning and adapting within the American Army in Vietnam.
The problem of stagnation I agree started well before 3-24, actually in the 80s with airland battle when the Army sequestered itself into its comfort zone of tactics and operations.
Yet the coin movement has not changed this problem that we had back then at all, and when I said "darker side" I was in effect drawing a line to the 80s and 90s.
To be sure and especially during and since Vietnam the American Army has struggled to understand the totality of war, by secluding itself in a cloistered operational world. What is bothersome about the Coin movement of today is that it sees itself as moving past these problems, when in reality it is just continuing them. Same wine, as it were, albeit in different skins.
Ken, how ya been?
gian
Heh, I think he got you there, Gian...
Leopards don't do spot changes and Armies don't do adaptation well -- unless there's a major war on, then they learn and adapt quickly because they have to do so. Afterwards, they of course then rapdily unlearn all that stuff because it is (a) expensive and (b) hard work...
Until the next big war appears they just argue esoterica, screw with the uniforms and do their best to quo the various statuses (branchily specific, of course...). :(
gian,
"but I also think that this organizational unwillingness within our army to embrace accumulated experience, knowledge, lessons, etc over the past four-plus years since 3-24 was released shows the darker side of our army."
What about the 50 before that? Or the 175 before that?
A leopard can't change its spots.
Agree Mac;
but I also think that this organizational unwillingness within our army to embrace accumulated experience, knowledge, lessons, etc over the past four-plus years since 3-24 was released shows the darker side of our army. It is a darker side of intellectual rigidity, a resistance to change and adaptation, and a field army and its leaders that has become so consumed with its current operational framework of coin that it can't see its way out of this box toward change and alternatives that could be reflected in a revised FM.
All of this of course just drips with irony because one of the main themes in FM 3-24 is for the Army to be a "learning organization." I guess with Coin and FM 3-24 there is a double standard.
gian
Gian,
FM 3-24, as well as our whole approach to counterinsurgency, will be revised when we revisit our assumptions on the nature of social change... and who gets to impose, control and manage social change...
COIN is not about getting the other guy to take out the garbage... but getting the other guy to want to take out the garbage... (I credit the movie "The Break-Up" for the witticism).
Bottom line... not anytime soon.
r/
MAC
I read this report with interest, but came away with the moderately sarcastic thought of "so this is where the phrase 'self-licking ice cream cone' comes from."
Dan and his guys do good work, no problem with the profesionalism of product, it's just that we approach this far too much like a military organization (no surprise there). The boss sets right and left limits, and we have freedom to operate and think within those parameters. Personally I believe it is time to begin coloring outside the lines a bit more.
This a good summary though into what people are thinking in theater.